Tuesday, September 7, 2010

What's come in (after Rick Robinson's roundup notes)

Items in this long weekend, essentially:

Books:
STORIES, Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio, eds.
NEW STORIES FROM THE SOUTH 2010, Amy Hempel, ed.
THE YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY, Rich Horton, ed.
DARKNESS, Ellen Datlow, ed.
THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF THE BEST OF THE BEST OF YEAR’S BEST HORROR, Stephen Jones, ed.
THRILLER 2, Clive Cussler, ed.

Magazines (current issues):
FICTION (Mary Gordon has an interesting but minor stalker story to lead off)
PEN AMERICA
PLOUGHSHARES
FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION
ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE
THE LAB
PHOTO (the French original)
BARRELHOUSE
ASIMOV’S SF
ALASKA QUARTERLY REVIEW
TIN HOUSE
VIDEO WATCHDOG
Z MAGAZINE
BITCH (Ursula K. Le Guin’s brief interview is worth a look)
THE PROGRESSIVE
THE NATION

Albums
PREFLYTE SESSIONS, The Byrds
THE NEW CONTINENT, The Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra featuring Lalo Schifrin

DVDs
STRIVE FOR JIVE, The Toshiko Akiyoshi Orchestra
SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING (apparently a premium offered with a gift subscription to SIGHT AND SOUND)

10 comments:

  1. Let me be the first to commend you on your stimulating the economy by acquiring all those books and magazines! You are a true patriot.

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  2. Now to find to read the literature to my satisfaction.

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  3. Or even to find the time to actually spell out my time strictures. I consider it enlightened capitalism on the personal level (for example, I bought the THRILLER 2 at a Wegman's, where it was 20% off and has the small enocuraging effect on their book-stocking...my local Wegman's supermarket had more Hard Case Crime and other Leisure titles more regularly, at least for a while, than the big box bookstores locally did).

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  4. I'd get some serious listening mileage out of THE NEW CONTINENT. Enjoy.

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  5. Yes, I've had a budget LP of the recording for decades, and finally got around to picking up the much-delayed CD, which includes a short set from a Gillespie/Schifrin quintet. It's excellent music, one of the best Gillespie orchestral albums. Schifrin composed the suite.

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  6. I feel Schifrin is underrated these days. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't see his name being batted around as much as it was, say, twenty-five years ago.

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  7. Well, having just heard the quintet tracks for the first time, that's those other folks' foolishness. This is the Jazz Collectors 430 release, about which I can find little source info (though apparently you can order it through Amazon, as I did, and from various European distributors), and the quinted tracks were recorded at a Museum of Modern Art concert in NYC in 1961...not much more about them than that, aside from Chuck Lampkin was the drummer, Bob Cunningham was the bassist, and Leo Wright was the flautist and alto saxophonist...and all are Fine, to say the least, along with Schifrin on piano and Gillespie in good form. He blows out the board just a little (assuming they actually had a board, in a 1961 museum concert) in the first track, but you'll get over that..."Kush," "Salt Peanuts," "A Night in Tunisia," and "The Mooche" are the quintet tracks appended. Otherwise, all the notes are from Leonard Feather et al. on the original package with a brief introductory essay by one Alex Rec, which notes the additional recordings at the museum that night were destroyed, though why is not shared. So, you know you need this 2010 release.

    It's great to hear THE NEW CONTINENT without pops, as well (my copy of the vinyl is from the mid-'70s, on a very small label that didn't worry too much about packaging...the original, as you probably know, David, was recorded for and released by Verve in 1965, a rather long three years after the recording).

    Schifrin is quoted from a '67 interview noting how tired he was of touring, how enticing his new film and television composing career was in comparison even if less thrilling than performing live...until the exhaustion kicked in.

    http://www.schifrin.com/biography.htm ...as of last year, he was still actively recording, though...

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  8. And happy birthday to Sonny Rollins, composer of the FREEDOM SUITE, the other work (along with Max Roach and Oscar Brown, Jr.,'s FREEDOM NOW SUITE) that gave my radio shows and this blog their names.

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  9. As I think I said elsewhere, very good list of goodies, many of which I'd have picked for myself given the $ and time.

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  10. Thanks. Time is tight...the money isn't really all that great, here...

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