ghost of miles

Up in memory: Caravan: Martial Solal, The Early Years

Possibly already noted elsewhere, but there’s an interesting teaser for Ricky Riccardi’s upcoming young-Louis bio in the booklet for this Gennett set. In mentioning Armstrong’s legendary July 4, 1900 birthday and his supposedly correct birth date of August 4, 1901, Riccardi adds that “my evidence points to July 4, 1901.” So perhaps Louis was a July 4 baby after all—and let the debate begin as to whether or not 1901 marked the true first year of the 20th century. (I’ll just be on my way now.) Anyway, excited to read the book itself, which will be out the first week of February. Sounds as if he was able to draw on a lot of previously-untapped sources (like Lil Hardin Armstrong’s unfinished memoirs, which had not surfaced before, correct?) that will give us an expanded perspective of Armstrong in his youth. And Riccardi writes so well about Armstrong and his music in general.

Up for one more go-around after rebroadcast last week: ECM: Birth of a Label

So many good collections in the old Mosaic Select line:

Just starting this:

Much appreciation for this detailed write-up, and I also agree that the entire package is pretty much a must-have for anybody who's a fan of these recordings. Ricky Riccardi did a great job with the notes (really looking forward to his final Armstrong biography volume, which comes out in February and covers this period of Armstrong's life and career).

To my untrained ears it is an improvement over the Off The Record set, which itself was quite an improvement over previous issues. A relatively new board member has a much more detailed analysis here.

Burning Ambulance just posted this list to their Bluesky account. A good overview! 50 best jazz albums of 1974

Here’s a Bluesky jazz starter pack that I created: Birth of the Blue: Jazz on Bluesky V. 1

That's a fave of mine from the Atlantic period. Right now:

Co-sign, love that early Ellington set. Pulling it off the shelf for another visit. Playing now:

Thanks so much—I have that anthology and will dig it out. Seems as if perhaps Verve was testing the waters for a line of fusion-era releases? (Perhaps as a counterpart to the generally more-straightahead Take 2 series.)