Robin D. G. Kelly's Thelonious Monk: The Life & Times of an American Original---to me one of the truly stellar jazz biogs.
Anything by David Hajdu; especially Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life and his biog on Nat Cole. (I've also corresponded w/him and he seems truly nice).
Frank Buchman-Moller's You Just Fight for Your Life---the Story of Lester Young. (All the Pres biogs are worth reading).
Art Pepper's autobiog (written with Laurie Pepper); and Miles (written with Quincy Troupe) are self-gratifying and hampered by loads of BS, but I've read them both numerous times. Pepper is a spellbinding raconteur, and his insight into other musicians' work is interesting to read (if his comments about his own 'genius' are slightly delusional). Miles talking about music has been great food for thought.
The Benson book was mentioned. One thing that cracked me up: some poetic justice. I knew Eddie Diehl for years, and he had a bug up his ass about Kenny Burrell. It had to do with a record date where he was sent home and replaced by Kenny b/c the company wanted a 'name'. He neither ever forgot nor stopped bad-mouthing Kenny's playing til it came out of your ears. I guess it's SOMEWHAT understandable. Eddie WAS one of the best, and a truly good-hearted guy underneath it all. We're all sensitive, and rejection---perceived or real---can really hurt.
Anyway, in George's book when he got the call to go with McDuff he was to replace Eddie. His comments---and they were respectful---were (paraphrasing): '(Eddie) was a formidable musician----not on the level of Kenny Burrell...., but he definitely could play'. Eddie was still alive when that came out. I hope he read it---it MAY have shut his mouth. I doubt it though---shutting Eddie's mouth about ANYTHING, especially guitar players he was jealous of (their stature in the biz, not their playing), was a tall order. But I had quite a chuckle over that one...
Undoubtedly? I’m sure they did that all time. You don’t hire someone like Ethel and get her to sing in a crap tessitura.
Actually they used to it in opera. Frowned on now, of course everyone has...
Gershwin was an excellent pianist so I imagine that version could be the urtext that served as the source of his later Girl Crazy arrangement. Incidentally, the tune was written with a slower tempo...
I mean the joke is none of the names correspond to the modes the Greeks were talking about anyway - it all got scrambled over the centuries.
A lot of musical development came from people trying to...
Bosco (great percussionist) had a thing about everything comes from polka. Though he was talking about Choro. But ragtime, jazz, country too.
The two beat alternating bass thing is pretty...
RJ VB:
"If you care enough about the contents of the cage you should probably treat it like a motorcycle helmet: replace after an accident."
Donnd:
"I just returned from Japan (aka guitar shopping...
That’s actually a point of contention among Princeton lovers. More than a few (sadly including Jazzkritter or whoever sold my ‘76 to him) stuffed 12s in theirs. Depending on the speaker, the...
Absolutely. On the fly adjustments are just like any other amp. If you need to roll back Bass for example, just grab the Bass knob and roll it back. Dead simple.
Yes, the physical knobs work just like any other amp. The editor is for fine tuning your amp (clean/crunch/lead/etc.), your effects and EQ to create tones for your various songs/genres. You can save...
Thinking "7b9b13 chord" gets me where I want to go and, if I change one note I don't need to travel to a different part of Ancient Greece to name it properly.
Waterloo WLAT uk sale £2500
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