A nice comment on my last  post cited Coleman Hawkins as prime example of a musician who throughout his life sought new musical input. But,...

Here's what I mean: I played some 1950's  Prestige tracks for a friend  who knows a lot about jazz.  He listened and said "I n...

...to bring civilization to the West Coast. Back next week.

Can't be effusive enough about the great Roy Eldridge and thought I'd mark his birthday with a few comments and a small sampling of ...

Previously, the introduction of the  Chet Baker watch  inspired me to release these new products, essential for any jazz fan: Charlie Parke...

My wife can recognize Miles and Dizzy solos. Next stop: Fats Navarro. I found a bag of stuff in my house with some books and a 78 of Dina...

The Rules Committee, having been released en masse from Wormwood Scrubs , has finally met and tweaked the rules of the contest as follows: ...

As one of the dozen scam mailings my mother gets everyday would say: "Dear Entrant: You are one of a very small pool of residents in ...

Doug Ramsay was kind enough to feature my Louis Armstrong: Operatic at the Core post on his blog Rifftides.  Author of the Armstrong book...

It's been about a year since I became the sole proprietor of Brilliant Corners. Time for a new name.  Since I don't have the inter...

The jazz world started to get down on Louis Armstrong starting around 1950-the beginning of his ascension from jazz star to Star. And since ...

Jon Faddis My wife calls my trumpet my mistress. Don't think so. It's way too high maintenance. The fact is, for many of us, ...

We all remember the struggle the new AFL had when it first tried to crack the National Football League monopoly-playing in baseball stadium...

SP You see this object? JP Yea. SP Recognize it? JP Vaguely familiar. SP It’s called a radio . JP Ra-di-o. SP Yea, it’s a device t...

It's always tough to move to the next thing, but it would have been delusional to think that Occupy Boston and other Occupy groups would...

Economically, there was never much of a middle class among jazz musicians, but to steal an Occupy Wall St. slogan, we are now in a 99%/1% s...

This is a re-written version of a piece from last April, which I'm reprising as a pre-quel to a post later this week about the Occupy mo...