ghost of miles

How is that one? It’s one of those 40s Bogarts I haven’t gotten around to watching yet, and the reunion of the Maltese Falcon gang certainly intrigues. I’ve seen it twice and was set to go again tonight, but our one remaining commercial theater remains closed due to the weather. I love it and it inspired me to finally pick up Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric (which is excellent so far). It works beautifully as a movie, and the historical liberties taken never took me out of the picture (with one possible exception); as Wald has said, it’s a “poetically accurate” telling. And the cast surpassed the hype for me—brilliant performances all around, including Chalamet, Norton and Barbaro’s live musical renditions. Plus the recreated look of the early-1960s Village (apparently filmed primarily in Jersey City and Hoboken) is well-done and evocative. The whole thing’s sent me off on one of my periodic Dylan binges.

Lucked out with the timing of Jazz Congress and managed to catch MoMA’s Robert Frank exhibition yesterday. It ends after today. Life Dances On: Robert Frank in Dialogue

Finally getting around to reading this after seeing A Complete Unknown.

... full disclosure that I wrote the liner notes for this one.

I stumbled across a used copy of it at Landlocked here in Bloomington and bought it on the basis of the players alone (in addition to my being a Helen Merrill fan in general). Very enjoyable record.

For both Night Lights and my weekday show I’ve also used versions by Emily Remler, Wes Montgomery, Ahmad Jamal, and Tony Bennett. Always on the hunt for other ones!

Thank you, TTK, and apologies for the delay in responding to your query. It’s Claude Thornhill himself, though not the original 1941 version, but a re-recording with the 1947 band, taken from one of Hep’s Thornhill CDs:

Disc 3:

Strongly agree with Niko about not requiring a subscription to post. I'm happy to commit to a $50/yr model and to set up an automatic annual deduction, but as Niko points out, it's already difficult enough getting any new blood here without adding a mandatory user fee for anybody who wishes to contribute to the discussion.

It’s always been popular in this admittedly Hoosier-partisan household. Prime JJ, and excellent notes by Loren Schoenberg as well.

We re-aired Have Yourself A Very Quiet Christmas this past week, and it remains archived for online listening. Season’s greetings to my fellow Organissimos. 🎅

Some early/mid-70s Stones records I’ve never listened to in their entirety before:

Black Boy (American Hunger) from this Library of America volume. About 100 pages in—harrowing and written in a riveting manner. His rendering of his childhood experiences is vivid and makes the weight of racism upon him and those around him disturbingly visceral.

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.