Posted in Jazz Notes on Jul 31st, 2007
The new Charles Mingus/Eric Dolphy release from Blue Note, Cornell 1964, arrived at the station last week. Along with the recent reissue of the little-known 1970 Complete America Session and last year’s ragged but vital At UCLA 1965 (aka Music Written for Monterey, 1965 Not Heard…played in its entirety), it’s been a good run lately for Mingus fans. The Monterey and America dates give us glimpses of Mingus from a period…
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Posted in Shows on Jul 30th, 2007
Louis Armstrong was a legendary innovative trumpeter, a vocalist who had a profound impact on jazz singing, and a dynamic entertainer–and he got a chance to showcase all these aspects of his talent in 28 full-length films and several short features in which he appeared between 1931 and 1969. We’ll celebrate Armstrong’s birthday with…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Jul 30th, 2007
This September Ken Burns’ new PBS series The War will be broadcast around the country, prompting the usual media firestorm of attention that accompanies any new Burns production. Such blockbuster programs tend to leave a kind of coffeetable-book closure effect in their wake, and that effect may be even more pronounced with this particular series, given that the generation which experienced World War II is rapidly passing away. I’ll be interested to see what Burns presents about the aftermath of the war on the American homefront–the mid-to-late years of the 1940s, which seem to have been filled…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Jul 29th, 2007
Several days ago I got a very nice e-mail from the person who runs All Things Emily, a fantastically-detailed site devoted to the late guitarist Emily Remler. She had happened upon the March 2007 Night Lights show “Emily Remler: a Musical Remembrance”, which included an interview with Remler friend and sometime musical associate Robert Jospe. Some clips…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Jul 29th, 2007
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I received word this morning from bassist Don Messina that pianist Sal Mosca passed away yesterday afternoon at the age of 80. Mosca, whose story as a musician is inevitably linked to teacher/mentor Lennie Tristano, was…
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Posted in Books on Jul 26th, 2007
The Library of America to publish The Road Novels. First Philip K. Dick, now JK… can Burroughs be far behind? I’ve always had mixed feelings about Kerouac (though The Subterraneans held up…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Jul 25th, 2007
Pretty swanky digs, eh? (Webmaster: Hate to hip you to this, but that’s the U.S. National archives.) Oh… well, we have high aspirations around this joint. In the meantime, we are still transferring Night Lights programs from the old site, which will…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Jul 24th, 2007
Jazz fans still commiserate online over the self-imposed suspension of Alan Lankin’s Jazzmatazz site, which provided an in-depth, wide-ranging rundown of forthcoming jazz releases. All About Jazz maintains a new-release page, as does Jazzitude; if readers are aware of any…
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