Pete C

Butch Trucks Duane Allman Duane Eddy

Charles Dickens Little Jimmy Dickens Hazel Dickens

This is inspired by some comments on another thread. Share your teacher tributes here. Nanette Natal was my singing teacher from about 1983-87. I think she was the best teacher I ever had, for anything. In fact, it was Nanette who inspired me to start teaching creative writing. After I started working on performance pieces with Elliott Sharp, I decided I wanted to write some songs, and sing them. But I had no singing background, and I didn't want to embarrass myself, so I looked in the Village Voice classifieds, and saw Nanette's name. I actually owned her first album, which I had bought after hearing her on WRVR, live from the Tin Palace. When I first met her she said, "I'm not a 'voice coach.' If you want to study with me I'm going to teach you to be a musician." But she also taught me techniques that were extensible to other areas of life, like ways to stretch yourself, get out of your comfort zone, take risks--but with an underpinning of the proper tools or techniques. I went multiple lessons with her where I almost didn't open my mouth at all--she had me working on internalizing rhythm, by practicing hand-clapping notated rhythms against a metronome. Or she gave me songs that were just totally things I'd never choose for myself: Sitting on Top of the World (the blues), Good Morning Heartache, Imagine. She would tape every lesson, review it, and then use it to figure out where to go next and to give feedback--she had no fixed direction, it was all based on the individual. She was expensive, and worth every cent.

Archibald Macleish Cary Grant Hugh Grant

Cat Ballou Dave Ballou Wally Ballou

I don't know. Maybe Pops, Bean, Prez, Monk, Mingus, Ellington and Coltrane can explain.

Ismail Merchant James Ivory Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Edgar Rice Burroughs Johnny Weissmuller Michael Weiss

Maybe the owners can move the shop to Iran.

Maybe someone could do a dissertation on the Wodehouse influence on Pinter's dialogue.

Joel, remember the thinly veiled racism of the old Starrett City ads: "Brooklyn like it used to be"?

I hear there's a big demand for flights from Paraguay to Gujarat.

T.S. Eliot T.S. Monk Tony Shaloub

Howard Schultz should put out the next Joel Fass album on the Starbucks label. He's from Canarsie. Went to school with a friend of mine. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/14/garden/coffee-talk-with-howard-schultz-way-canarsie-one-large-hot-cup-business-strategy.html

Except that probably at least 80% of the readers have never heard of Bird. They'd probably have to go with a current pop star.

People actually buy non-bootleg CDs & DVDs in Mexico City? I confess to buying a bunch of "clon" DVDs on streets, in parks and in markets.

?

Most of the personnel probably matches this gig: http://bigbandsonly.blogspot.com/2010/08/count-basie-his-orchestra-1981.html Jim, are you sure that's Butch Miles? I thought his hair was lighter.

Were you there same time as David Axelrod? I have two friends who went there ca. 1969-73.

I can't get YouTube at work, but if that's from a TV broadcast of an all-star concert I have it on DVD. http://www.amazon.com/Count-Basie-at-Carnegie-Hall/dp/B000094Q1L

He was apparently much loved by his students, at least according to a 60 Minutes (or maybe CBS Sunday Morning) profile I saw back when the book came out. Oh good. I was afraid you were trying to rub it in Mingus's wounds.

It was. I was not responding to how it was marketed, but to what it is. I'm not understanding the metaphor.

It's a novel, and not a good one, but also a document of great interest to jazz fans.

Hannibal Marvin Peterson Hannibal Hamlin Harry Hamlin

Having not read the book nor followed the controversy closely I have no answer to any question but the one I answered.