AAJ Forum R.I.P.

[gvopedz]

On ‎01‎/‎28‎/‎2017 at 2:07 AM, Big Beat Steve said:

it is not missed, except for that lady from the West Coast (Saundra Hummer) who had been around in the heyday of West Coast Jazz and had repeatedly been pleaded with by numerous forum members to write down her memoirs (her reminiscences often were priceless). And then - all of a sudden she had died. A real loss ...

I remember one story that Saundra Hummer wrote about – she said she was once walking down the street with a bag that had records she had just bought at a record store.  She walked past a group of men who stopped her to ask her what records she had bought, and it turned out that some of those men were musicians on the records she had just bought.  If I remember correctly, one of those men was Shorty Rogers.

[Hot Ptah]

On ‎1‎/‎28‎/‎2017 at 5:34 AM, Big Beat Steve said:

Maybe this was in her latter days (she passed away in early 2011).

https://auraladdict.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/rip-saundra-hummer/

The stories I read on the AAJ forum in the years immediately after 2006 all were very clear and down-to-earth and in fact to me they sounded like coming from a much younger person (until I realized these were personal eye/earwitness memories).

Saundra Hummer was always a very polite, cordial person on the AAJ board. She had many fascinating stories from the 1950s when she frequented the Los Angeles jazz clubs and personally knew Miles Davis and many of the other greats of that era. I never had any problems with her, or ever heard of anyone having any problems. She and I exchanged a few private messages and they were brief, focused and cordial.

On ‎1‎/‎28‎/‎2017 at 7:03 AM, Scott Dolan said:

The majority of the time she was telling me about her husband/boyfriend as though I knew him and she was catching me up on how he was andmwhat he was doing. Very odd encounter, but as I said, she seemed like a very nice person. Just a bit confused at that point. 

I'm thinking this was somewhere around 2008 or 2009? 

Saundra must have been ill at the time. My private messages with her through the AAJ board were nothing like that. Mine were from an earlier time, and were very short and pleasant, sticking to the jazz topic at hand.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

2 hours ago, Hot Ptah said:

Saundra Hummer was always a very polite, cordial person on the AAJ board. She had many fascinating stories from the 1950s when she frequented the Los Angeles jazz clubs and personally knew Miles Davis and many of the other greats of that era. I never had any problems with her, or ever heard of anyone having any problems. She and I exchanged a few private messages and they were brief, focused and cordial.

Saundra must have been ill at the time. My private messages with her through the AAJ board were nothing like that. Mine were from an earlier time, and were very short and pleasant, sticking to the jazz topic at hand.

I always liked reading Sandi's stories. Now that the All About Jazz forum is dead, are her little stories gone too? Did anyone ever back them up off of the forum?

[Scott Dolan]

Yeah, I'm assuming there was an illness involved. Very sad. 

[clifford_thornton]

I don't know if I was banned but after the NYC Jazz Record/AAJ split, where I stuck w/ the former, many of my articles had my byline removed and replaced with "staff." Then again, they were written so long ago that they may not even be up any longer and most of the html was broken due to their incessant, nonsensical updates. There are a couple of excellent writers still there, but I avoid the site at this point.

[JSngry]

That sucks that you lost your byline, I just did one review for them, in 2002, and it's still there, review and byline. I feel lucky?

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/vocal-blues-and-jazz-volume-four-1938-1949-various-artists-document-records-review-by-jim-sangrey.php

[Big Beat Steve]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

That sucks that you lost your byline, I just did one review for them, in 2002, and it's still there, review and byline. I feel lucky?

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/vocal-blues-and-jazz-volume-four-1938-1949-various-artists-document-records-review-by-jim-sangrey.php

Thanks for linking it, BTW. I have several of the Swinging The Blues and Jazzing The Blues CDs from Document so your review might make me spring for that one too.

[clifford_thornton]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

That sucks that you lost your byline, I just did one review for them, in 2002, and it's still there, review and byline. I feel lucky?

yeah, I understand it to be because the editors of each had a massive, massive falling out.

[jlhoots]

I left when Lon was banned. 

[Dan Gould]

2 hours ago, jlhoots said:

I left when Lon was banned. 

I was going to but I got banned first.

 

 

 

 

[page]

5 hours ago, Scott Dolan said:

Yeah, I'm assuming there was an illness involved. Very sad. 

Sandi died spring 2011. It all went very quickly. She told me she thought she had eaten something wrong like something not cooked well enough, barely a month later she died. It was lung cancer. Like I've said before she was one of the most compassioned people I've ever met. She had a good heart.

Edited January 30, 2017 by page

[Scott Dolan]

Oh my.  

At least she didn't suffer long. Poor lady.  

[clifford_thornton]

Sorry to hear that. I think I do remember her.

[Hot Ptah]

There was an effort by a few AAJ Forum members to create a special online folder or site containing Saundra's numerous detailed stories, contained in a great many of her AAJ Forum posts over the years, about how she hung out with the jazz stars of the 1950s. It was announced on the AAJ Forum as "The Saundra Hummer Project."

For some reason it did not succeed. I think it was hacked by malicious spammers and became unusable. When I tried to read it, that is what I saw, anyway. Why that could not be remedied, I do not know. I was not involved in the effort. It could be that the volunteer forum members lacked the technical knowledge to really set up a secure site, or maybe it became too much work, I do not know. I just know that in the end, there never was an organized place to go and read the Saundra Hummer stories.

If her stories on the AAJ Forum could be all accessed, and then organized by subject matter, they would be one of the better jazz books of all time. Saundra had a storytelling knack, and reported on the scene from a unique first hand perspective.

In the message posted by Mr. Ricci announcing the closing of the AAJ Forum, he mentioned that maybe an archive of the Forum would be made available at a later date. If so, the retrieval of the Saundra Hummer stories would be a priority.

[Big Beat Steve]

2 hours ago, Hot Ptah said:

If her stories on the AAJ Forum could be all accessed, and then organized by subject matter, they would be one of the better jazz books of all time. Saundra had a storytelling knack, and reported on the scene from a unique first hand perspective.

You very neatly summed up my impression of the stories she told (and no doubt I have read only a fairly small part of them).

Considering all the "oral histories" out there which all have their merits but often lack the sensitive yet necessary editing to bring the (sometimes rambling) reminiscences of the interviewees into a somewhat more coherent and readable form (without sacrificing the essence of the narrational styles), hers would have been a much more readable first-hand account right from the start.

Apart from the page I linked to earlier in this discussion, I remember reading somewhere else about her not feeling she was a writer. It's a pity she downplayed her own competences

[Dmitry]

Is that her?

https://www.facebook.com/sandi.hummer

[Big Beat Steve]

1 hour ago, Dmitry said:

Is that her?

https://www.facebook.com/sandi.hummer

Add (roughly) 40 to 50 years to the pictures on this site I linked to earlier

https://auraladdict.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/rip-saundra-hummer/

and compare ...

Going by the pic with the 2 cowboys on FB, it might well be so ...

Edited January 30, 2017 by Big Beat Steve

[Hot Ptah]

Big Beat Steve, that link refers to The Saundra Hummer Project of collecting all of her stories, and contains another link within it, which takes you to a site where the person who was working on it, Jeff, is mentioned. I have just emailed Jeff and asked if I could volunteer to help him finish The Saundra Hummer Project if he would like. We will see what happens.

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Edited January 30, 2017 by Hot Ptah

[sidewinder]

3 hours ago, clifford_thornton said:

Sorry to hear that. I think I do remember her.

I certainly remember her and her stories were quite amazing. Remember her mentioning about Miles Davis and Sonny Clark.

[CJ Shearn]

Saundra was quite a person, her stories were very interesting indeed.

[DIS]

I'm an easterner, but I was quite enraptured by West Coast jazz when I first became interested in jazz in the 1950's.  In effect, Sandra's stories reopened the Lighthouse doors for me and reacquainted me with my early musical influences.

[Big Beat Steve]

@Hot Ptah: I wish you luck and will keep my fingers crossed.

[page]

13 hours ago, Hot Ptah said:

For some reason it did not succeed. I think it was hacked by malicious spammers and became unusable. When I tried to read it, that is what I saw, anyway. Why that could not be remedied, I do not know. I was not involved in the effort. It could be that the volunteer forum members lacked the technical knowledge to really set up a secure site, or maybe it became too much work, I do not know. I just know that in the end, there never was an organized place to go and read the Saundra Hummer stories.

The project was never hacked. Instead of speculating and spreading rumours I suggest you'd contact Tenorman who was in charge and is available for questions about the forums anyway. I can tell you I've worked my butt off and still have the parts I was pointed out to secured savely as I'm sure the few others we were with will have too. All her stories have been on the board for years. All was still there after she had died in the different threads. Out of respect for her family the project was a private section on the board where we gathered and sorted the information, we didn't want to publish anything without permission which is the only way to go. I'm not sure who you are referring to by "Jeff", you should turn to the one in charge.

[page]

Sorry for getting upset, but Sandi was my friend. Reading about her makes me miss her so much again. For me the only way to do this was being sincere and thorough about it. It is what she would have wanted.
sincerely page

[Hot Ptah]

page, I had several very nice private message exchanges with Saundra Hummer. Maybe you were a closer friend but I also considered her a friend.

What was actually completed on The Saundra Hunner Project was not well publicized to the AAJ board as a whole. I certainly never knew about it. When I clicked on a thread about The Saundra Hummer Project on AAJ, I got posts which were ads for male reproductive products. That is fact, not speculation. I hated seeing that. It made me sick to think that her thread had been spammed--which did happen often generally on the AAJ board.

Big Beat Steve posted a link to a nice webpage about Saundra. I read it and there was another link within it. I clicked on that and a new webpage came up which someone named Jeff authored, and he mentions working on the Saundra Hummer Project.

i meant no harm or disrespect to Saundra, or to you. Much the contrary. I have only sincere positive feelings toward Saundra.

Edited January 31, 2017 by Hot Ptah