Passing Notes

3/19/11

PN Archives - Other Saints

Reader's Notes - Dwayne McDuffie on Race in Comics

Here's a video of writer Dwayne McDuffie talking about the place of race in comics, and how readers' awareness of his own race made them -- there's no other word for it -- paranoid about their own perceptions of how McDuffie might change some of their favorite titles, among them Justice League and Teen Titans.

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3/17/11

Hardball, Zombies, and Mysteries of Suburbia

Slices of the PN pie for all. . .

Passing Notes is about at the halfway point for this "relaunch year," which, because of the academic calendar by which I live my civilian life, runs from August to August. In terms of traffic, we've moved well past 2000 views a month, which was an initial goal, and downloads on iTunes and listeners on WDNA have been rising steadily. If you do listen to Passing Notes on iTunes from time to time, do me a favor and leave a review -- good or bad!
In order to better serve the different groups of people that have responded to Passing Notes, I'm spinning off a few areas of content, with more mainstream books, film, food, comics, and a variety of musical interests being pursed as usual here at the Notes. Up until August of 2011, however, most content will be cross-posted to both Passing Notes and three new spots.

Barcalounge Skipper will be a new home (but an old name) for writing about baseball and other sports. During the baseball season, the plan is to write about at least one game a week -- eschewing Red Sox-Yankees nonsense as much as possible,
Mort-Vivant will be a new place to find writing about zombies -- movies, comics, books, and television shows about this particular species of undead. The single article I wrote about The Walking Dead comics has proved extremely popular, so it's zombies ahoy!
Mysteries of Suburbia will host short, random things -- some of which might be funny, most of which will be strange or stupid and in questionable taste.

Thanks for reading and listening.

Supporting Public Radio and WDNA

   As I write this morning, debate is happening in Congress as to the funding fate of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports, among other things, the independent community radio station, WDNA, which has given me so much great music over the years and which broadcasts these very Passing Notes each week.
   WDNA began its spring membership drive this week, and with the likelihood of almost half of its funding being cut off should the CPB disappear, the need for donations and new members to the station is more serious than ever. Because the station is not an NPR affiliate, nor is it affiliated with any other institution in South Florida (the school board or a university, for instance), WDNA exercises an uncommon degree of independence. The vast majority of its programming is locally produced. To help the station continue its distinctive mission and build for the the future, your support is needed more than ever. If you can donate to the station or become a new member, please do so.
   In the bigger picture, if you can take the time to write your member of Congress and voice your support of public broadcasting and your opposition to cuts and eliminations to such programs, here's a link to follow for taking that step.
   Thanks for reading, listening, and supporting the work of public media in all the ways you do!

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3/16/11

PN Video Jukebox - Sonny Rollins

Today we feature The Colossus himself, Sonny Rollins, in 13 clips from pretty much the full range of his career. If you didn't catch Stanley Crouch's 2005 profile of Rollins in The New Yorker, the first few hundred words alone are worth reading.

3/14/11

Playlist 3/13/2011

And here's the brief playlist from yesterday's substitute host job covering Ed Blanco's Jazz Cafe. I was feeling a little groggy from the daylight savings shift, so this is a conservative list of mostly standards and legends. Easy on the constitution, don't you know. . .

Song, Artist, Album

Take Me Out To The Ballgame, Joey DeFrancesco, Joey D!

Blue in Green, Kurt Elling, The Gate

For Spee's Sake, Freddie Hubbard, Hub-Tones

Calcutta Cutie, Horace Silver, Songs for My Father

Alfie's Theme, Sonny Rollins, Alfie

A Shine on Your Shoes, Jane Monheit, Home

From the Heart, Ray Charles, Genius + Soul = Jazz

Fried Pies, Wes Montgomery, Boss Guitar

Nefertiti, Miles Davis, Nefertiti

Green Chimneys, Thelonious Monk, Underground

C Jam Blues, Oscar Peterson Trio, Night Train

Freedom Jazz Dance, Eddie Harris, The In Sound

Anything Goes, Ella Fitzgerald, Sings the Cole Porter Songbook

Jelly Roll, Charles Mingus, Mingus Ah Um

I've Got You Under My Skin, Dinah Washington, Dinah Washington Sings Standards

Without You, Eddie Harris, Mean Greens

Playlist 3/5/2011

I'm doing a little housekeeping today, so first up here's a playlist from a couple of weekends ago when I covered Skip Lezama's Saturday morning show.

Song, Artist, Album

Caravan, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Inner Voyage

A Night in Tunisia, Arturo O'Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, 40 Acres and a Burro

Moanin', Winard Harper Sextet | Faith

Times Are Hard on the Boulevard, Jared Gold | Supersonic

Berda's Bounce, Terell Stafford | New Beginnings

Juju, Wayne Shorter, Juju

Oumu, Sam Yahel | Hometown

Worried Life Blues, Otis Spann, Otis Spann is the Blues

Farther Up The Road, Bobby Bland, Greatest Hits, Vol. 1

San-Ho-Zay, Luther Allison, Luther's Blues

I Can't Quit You Baby, Otis Rush | The Essential Otis Rushl

I Want a Tall Skinny Poppa, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, The Gospel of the Blues

Clarksdale Boogie, Charlie Musselwhite, Delta Hardware Company

Don't Bring No Weak Sauce, Stanton Moore, III

Mojo Hand, Lightnin' Hopkins, The Best of

Squeeze Me (But Don't Tease Me), Shirley Scott, Queen of the Organ

Stone Crazy, Buddy Guy, The Very Best of

Ron Carter, Bill Frisell, Blues Dream

52nd Street Theme, Andy Farber Orchestra, This Could Be The Start of Something Big

Fudgesickle Built for Four, Bill Evans, Loose Blues

Gazzeloni, Eric Dolphy, Out To Lunch

Calling All Units to Broccalino, Calibro 35, Rittonrno Quelli Di. . .

Ideofunk, The John Scofied Band, Uberjam

Blind Man Can See, James Brown, In The Jungle Groove

Where's the Music?, Medeski Martin and Wood, Let's Go Everywhere!

Maple Leaf Rag, Marcus Joberts, The Joy of Joplin

Chitlins Con Carne, Kenny Burrell, The Best of

Elation, Mulgrew Miller and Wingspan, The Sequel

Four, Miles Davis Quintet , Workin'

Society Red, Dexter Gordon, Doin' Alright

Cherokee, Joe Pass, Virtuoso

Music, Music, Music (Put Another Nickel In), Ahmad Jamal, But Not For Me (Live at the Pershing)

Soulville, Ben Webster | Soulville

Monk's Dream, Chick Corea | Solo Piano - Standards

3/12/11

Guest Host - Jazz Cafe

It's time once again for me to cover Ed Blanco's Jazz Cafe program on Sunday morning from 7-9 am, and as usual I'll be playing a mix of jazz, blues, and creative backbeats in the first hour, followed by some of the new music that's come to the Passing Notes home office somewhere in suburban South Florida. Also, after a little time away from the blog to devote a yeoman's effort to my civilian job, this week PN returns with a full slate of music reviews, a video jukebox, and whatever else happens to come along.
If I might also make a strong suggestion that you become a member and supporter of WDNA here in the South Florida market. With serious budget cuts coming for public radio on the federal, state, and local level, WDNA, Miami's community radio station, needs your pledges. Basic membership starts at $50 -- and it's tax deductible!

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3/4/11

Guest Host - 88 Jazz Place Weekend

This time it's for real: I'll be filling in for Skip Lezama on Saturday morning from 8 am to noon, playing the usual mix of jazz, blues, and creative backbeats. Now that I've finally figured out what to call that mixture of funk and progressive jazz and whatever else hits the two and four -- creative backbeats -- I'll feel much better about playing more of the stanky stuff. Tune in, listen, and if you want to chat, I'll even give you the number for the studio line. Reasonable requests appreciated.

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PN 128 (Rebroadcast) - I Was A Teenage Jazz Curmudgeon

I catch my breath this week while WDNA offers a rebroadcast of a piece from the fall, "I Was A Teenage Jazz Curmudgeon," an apology of sorts to Kenny G. What do I need to apologize for? There was this blog entry from several years ago, "Why Kenny G Sucks," that's probably a good place to start, as well as some more crankiness about the idea of authenticity. A long-winded audio review of Charlie Parr's excellent album Rooster should do the trick. But much of my earlier, grumpier thinking about music and criticism has arrived at a point of balance, brought about by the always-reliable Wynton Marsalis. Tune in today at 11:05 am on 88.9 FM WDNA in South Florida or online at wdna.org.

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2/26/11

Listener's Notes - Sammy Figueroa

Monica Uszerowicz of the Broward-Palm Beach New Times has an excellent article about Sammy Figueroa's playing here and there with a number of music legends, and what his musicianship brings to a performance. The piece features five videos for your viewing and listening pleasure, and is, in part, advance notice of Sammy's March 5 performance at Pineapple Groove.

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2/25/11

PN 147 - No More Money

2/24/11

PN Video Jukebox - Horace Silver

This week's jukebox gathers performances by Horace Silver from 1958 to 1974, including a full hour of the WNET program Soul!

For you readers out there, you can check out my review of Silver's 2006 autobiography, Let's Get To The Nitty Gritty.

2/23/11

Reader's Notes - There's No Money Left for NEA, NEH, and CPB?

     You won't find many people as appreciative of federal funding for the arts and humanities as me. I took part in two National Endowment for the Humanities summer programs for teachers -- experiences that changed the way I think about my work as a teacher and the world in general. I work in public radio. And much of the music I love, jazz, is kept vital by the regular support its masters receive from the National Endowment for the Arts. But the nation has to face it -- until the general public rethinks its priorities on a grand scale, there's no money left for anything.
     In the midst of The Great Stagnation, 44 states face budget shortfalls for the 2012 fiscal year, much of the the equity of the middle class is upside down, and the job market remains a question mark. I can tell you of at least three families I know who, despite two people in the household working full-time, have had to go through bankruptcy because of lagging wages and overall inflation. So, despite my own reliance on and appreciation for federal funding for the arts and culture, I have to step out and say that the time has come for a serious assessment of priorities.
     Much protest has flooded my inbox of late about the Obama Administration's proposed cuts of 12 to 33 percent of funding to the NEA, NEH, and grants to libraries and museums. Those are steep cuts, but keep in mind that there are those in Congress who want to do away with those programs (and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) altogether. In terms of the budget compromises to be made, what the Obama people are proposing is a negotiating position; in the end, the cuts will probably be much deeper, but need to be made in order to save the programs. Frankly, if you ask me, it seems more important to save funding for things like education, health care, unemployment benefits, and other essential social services. The arts are an essential part of life, of course, but in my view, when I drive down some streets in Miami and see all the overgrown, dingy foreclosed and abandoned homes, I have to wonder what happened to the people who lived in those homes. Something tells me they're not worrying about their tickets to the opera or their annuals membership to the museum.
     But really, in the bigger picture, what the nation needs to do is rethink priorities. Can we be content with a more efficient way of living, with conservation and green living, and with making do with less of everything? Can we agree that some business make too much money at too high a public cost, and they should be regulated and taxed accordingly? Can we raise the minimum wage, as well as provide health care and educational opportunity to all people? Can we stop believing in the American myths that keep people voting again and again against their own interests?
     If that's a progressive agenda, then so be it. And if we can start moving in the direction of progress, then maybe we'd feel more comfortable about funding the arts and other cultural institutions. For now, I suspect we might need to do a more effective job of taking care of the basics. When there's no money left, you do what you have to do to survive.

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2/22/11

Eater's Notes - Feet Long Debate

At the intersection of sandwiches, language, and copyright law we find the debate about Subway's claim that the corporation should have exclusive license to the phrase "footlong." Grammar and spelling aside, the Sandwich Experts (for whom I once worked, in 1991-1992) are not likely to win in this case. Partly, it's because their food really tastes bad, when you get right down to it. But mostly, who hasn't walked into a mom-and-pop hoagie/grinder/sub shop sometime in the past five decades and ordered a foot-long turkey-and-swiss with the works, toasted? Outside of the context of sandwiches, as well, would Subway contest the right of others to use the term foot-long to describe hot dogs or cheeseburgers or a part of the human anatomy. Here's an editorial from a Connecticut newspaper taking the Milford-cased Subway to task over all this nonsense.

2/21/11

Listener's Notes - Blues Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

     One of the quirks of cultural history in the United States is how, in the field of entertainment -- in which I include sports -- how hesitant people are to call institutions that recognize the traditions of an activity a museum. Instead, in American, we something like that a hall of fame. As a lover of both museums and halls of fame, I'm comfortable in arguing that the "hall of fame" is distinctly American, well-suited to the nation's obsessions with individualism and celebrity, as well as its (perceived or professed) dislike of elites. But if you visit almost any hall of fame -- from Cooperstown on down -- aside from the "room of heroes" such places have, you're in a museum.
     I've done my best to visit halls of fame when I can, and among the more notable are the following:

Activity          Location
Baseball          Cooperstown, NY
Soccer            Cooperstown, NY
Basketball       Springfield, MA
Swimming       Fort Lauderdale, FL
Fishing            Dania Beach, FL
Checkers        Petal, MS
Chess             Kendall, FL
Cricket           Melbourne, Australia

All this brings me to the topic of today's post, a recap of the nominations to both the Blues Hall of Fame (from the Blues Foundation, not the organization in Clarksdale) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame -- in Cleveland, because, apparently, Cleveland rocks.
Inductees to the Blues Hall of Fame will be Robert Cray, John Hammond (the musician, not the producer), Denise LaSalle, Big Maybelle, Alberta Hunter, and J.B. Lenoir. The ceremony will be held in Memphis on May 4.

Inductees in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will be Alice Cooper, Neil Diamond, Dr. John, Darlene Love, Leon Russell, and Tom Waits, as well as Jac Holzman of Electra Records, and Art Rupe of Specialty Records.

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2/18/11

PN 146 - R. A. Lawson, 'Jim Crow's Counterculture'

An interview with R. A. "Stovetop" Lawson about the early history of the blues and his new study, Jim Crow's Counterculture: The Blues and Black Southerners 1890-1945.

Permalink to PN 146 RA Lawson - 'Jim Crow's Counterculture'

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2/13/11

PN Unscripted - Salman Rushdie

Sir Salman Rushdie talks about his new novel, 'Luka and the Fire of Life,' as well as Frank Zappa, U2, the work of writing, adaptations of his books into other media, and (almost) acting in 'Talladega Nights.'

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2/12/11

Barcalounge Skipper - 2011 Passing Notes Fantasy Baseball League

With Spring Training just around the corner, I would like to put out a public invitation to anyone out there who might be interested in joining the 2011 Passing Notes Fantasy Baseball League, informally named the Barcalounge Skippers. Ideally, I would like to have 20 teams in a standard 5x5, head-to-head format with an automatic draft a few days before the regular MLB season starts. We'll follow all the standard settings for the Yahoo! fantasy baseball setup.
If you are interested, contact me through this website's comments (I won't post your information), or send me a private message through Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace. State your case as to why you should be a league member. From time to time, over the course of the season, developments from the Barcalounge Skippers might just make it onto the website or podcast. Batter up!

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2/11/11

PN 145 - Chris Locke 'End of American Magic'