This Week: Great Jazz? You Betcha'!

This article is cross-posted from the Miles to Go Before I Sleep blog...

This week on Miles to Go Before I Sleep, the theme was...well, there was no theme - just great jazz. I took particular relish in featuring songs from artists new to my library, such as Clifford Brown, Haden & Rubalcaba, Art Blakey, and legendary pianist Horace Silver (pictured right). I was joined in the studio by my two interns - Sam and Daniel - and over the airwaves by the show's largest listenership thus far, and the lot of us bebopped and scatted to swingin' tunes through the night.  I also had the pleasure of debuting several liners produced by yours truly. Our selections this week were:

1. Excerpt: American Haikus - Jack Kerouac
2. Smells Like Teen Spirit - The Bad Plus
3. Yègellé Tezeta - Mulatu Astatke
4. What's New? - Clifford Brown & Max Roach
5. Windows - Chick Corea
6. Moonlight (Claro de Luna) - Charlie Haden & Gonzalo Rubalcaba
7. 'Til the Clouds Roll By - Paul Desmond
8. My Romance - The Ray Brown Trio
9. Come Rain or Shine - Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers
10. IX Love - Charles Mingus
11. Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis - Tom Waits
12. Rhapsody in Blue: A Medley - Eugen Cicero
13. In a Sentimental Mood - The Modern Jazz Quartet & Sonny Rollins
14. Stolen Moments - Oliver Nelson
15. The Lover - Medeski, Martin & Wood
16. Without You - Horace Silver
17. St. Thomas - Sonny Rollins
18. The Look of Love - The Ahmad Jamal Trio
19. The St. Vitus Dance - Horace Silver
20. Solar - Miles Davis

Talk-over music came courtesy of Mulatu Astatke, Paul Desmond, Yoko Kanno & The SeatBelts, David Holmes, The Gerry Mulligan Quartet, and Medeski, Martin & Wood.

As per usual, for a rundown of the Miles to Go playlist each week, keep your browsers here, and for the best jazz et al. around, keep your radios (or your iTunes) tuned to WKCO 91.9 FM!

This Week: They Were Collaborators

This article is cross-posted from the Miles to Go Before I Sleep blog...


This week's theme on Miles to Go Before I Sleep: "They Were Collaborators," so I made sure to lay down the tracks featuring partnerships from some of the best jazz cats and blues-hounds, known and unknown, around (such as two of the greatest, Davis and Coltrane, pictured, in the studio, on the right). And, as if that weren't enough, Miles to Go enjoyed a visit from the beautiful and talented Lili Martinez. Thanks again to all of those who listened in, and for your comments and requests. Here's the rundown for all of you who may have missed it, or want a reminder of I what I played tonight:

1. San Francisco Scene (The Beat Generation) - Jack Keroauc & Tom Waits
2. Pent-Up House  - Clifford Brown & Sonny Rollins
3. Big Nick - Duke Ellington & John Coltrane
4. Afternoon in Paris - Sonny Rollins & Dave Brubeck
5. St. James' Infirmary - Eric Clapton & Dr. John
6. Help the Poor - Doc Dalton & The Healing
7. Worried Life Blues - Eric Clapton & BB King
8. Summertime - Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
9. Misty - Stan Getz & Dave Brubeck
10. Moten Swing - The Oscar Peterson Trio
11. So What [Live] - Miles Davis & John Coltrane
12. Mood Indigo - Duke Ellington & Coleman Hawkins
13. In a Sentimental Mood - John Coltrane, Miles Davis, & Duke Ellington
14. Corcavado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars) - Stan Getz & João Gilberto
15. See You Space Cowboy... - Mai Yamane w/ Yoko Kanno & The SeatBelts
16. Off Minor - Thelonious Monk & John Coltrane
17. On the Sunny Side of the Street - Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, & Sonny Rollins
18. In Case the World Changes Its Mind - Medeski, Martin & Wood feat. John Scofield
19. Three O'Clock Blues - Eric Clapton & BB King
20. 'Round Midnight - Miles Davis & Sonny Rollins

Talk-over music came courtesy of Medeski, Martin & Wood, Mulatu Astatke, The Swingle Sisters, and Yoko Kanno & The SeatBelts.

For a rundown of the Miles to Go playlist each week, keep your browsers here, and for the best jazz et al. around, keep your radios (or your iTunes) tuned to WKCO 91.9 FM!

Be Crazy Dumbsaint of the Mind

This post, reprinted from Wordpress, was originally published 10 July 2009.

In one of my fits of insomnia, I stumbled upon this list of "beliefs and techniques" for the modern writer as outlined by Jack Kerouac. While you may not be the biggest fan of Kerouac, in general, at least scan through the list and see if anything piques your interest. Some of the tidbits are miraculous (no. 19 is a personal favorite), while others leave you scratching your head (for example, what in Hell is a "dumbsaint"?). Some of these pieces of advice, I think, may be as well applied to one's own life as to one's writing.


Belief and Technique for Modern Prose by Jack Kerouac

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven