Among Charlie Parker's many admirers, Lennie Tristano was especially respectful of Bird's character and astute in his assessments of the saxophonist's music. The blin
Like many American homes of the post-war era, mine had bookcases lined with Book-of-the-Month Club selections. William Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Page Smith’s two-vol
Thomas Reichman made this fascinating cinema vérité documentary on Charles Mingus in 1966. It was filmed during a particularly unsettled period in Mingus’s life and documents his eviction fro
My YouTube find of the weekend is this film of the Count Basie Orchestra in London in 1965. It’s a BBC production, and it’s first rate for audio, video, and the performance itself. As o
Today is Herb Pomeroy’s 83rd birthday anniversary. It’s also Patriot’s Day in Massachusetts, so while the “shot heard ‘round the world” resounds in our historical memory, it’s also
As filmmakers go, I probably knew the name Les Blank before anyone else besides Alfred Hitchcock. I would eventually become a devotee of Truffaut and Louis Malle and the American auteurs<
Today's centennial of Muddy Waters's birth reminds me of something about Louis Armstrong. About 25 years ago, documents surfaced that disproved Armstrong’s claim of a birth date of July 4, 19
