Word
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Moondog
New York Street Music
By: - Sep 29th, 2014Born Louis Thomas Hardin (May 26, 1916 – September 8, 1999) Moondog was blinded playing with a dynamite cap as a child.. The musician/ poet hung out for spare change not far from my gallery. We collaborated on a sold out gig. It kickstarted his recording career.
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Dancing Shoes
Well Heeled Uncle Bill
By: - Sep 29th, 2014My elegant Uncle Bill was a professor of Romance literature at Queens College. With Astrid we met each year for a holiday dinner. Estere talked about having his shoes resoled with rubber. But not these he told her.
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Aging
Refusing to Wear Pearls or Pink
By: - Sep 29th, 2014Mirror mirror on the wall. Reflecting on age and not giving in.
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Small Minded
You Can't Put Quantum Mechanics on Your Corn Flakes
By: - Sep 23rd, 2014We look far to satisfy our discontent, and look strangely. It is we humans who are the proper object of wonder, and perhaps dismay, endowed as we are with beauty, banality, and yes, spooky action.
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Godfather of Soul
Hardest Working Man in Show Business
By: - Sep 23rd, 2014Saw James Brown lots of times. The Apollo Theatre, Madison Square Garden, a gym in Tampa with Phil Bleeth and Corrina pregnant with Jasmine. Matinee at the Newport Jazz Festival. Boston Garden on looped PBS weekend Martin Luther King was shot. Interview in New York for Blues Brohers press junket. Here we recall a night at Boston's notorius soul club The Sugar Shack.
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Kites
Bermuda Triangle
By: - Sep 22nd, 2014On Easter Sunday it's traditional to fly kites in Bermuda. That morphed into ten degrees of separation.
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Octopus
Fishy Friend
By: - Sep 22nd, 2014Friendships come in all forms. Including ones that can be clinging and venemous.
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Sicilian Valhalla
Death of the Don
By: - Sep 22nd, 2014In a Viking funeral the warrior is cast adrift in a burning vessel. The Sicilian Don expired amid tomato vines.
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Di-no-mite
Dreadnoughtus Don't Weep in Argentina
By: - Sep 21st, 2014At 65 tons, and not quite grown, Dreadnoughtus, bought the farm some 75 million years ago give or take a few million. Compared to which we showed up about 25,000 B.C.E. Don't count on the human species being around millions of years from now.
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Gregory Gillespie
Remembering Realist Artist
By: - Sep 21st, 2014In May of 2000 we were shocked to learn that the leading realist artist Gregory Gillespie hung himself. In hindsight there were clues to his state of mind.
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Nature
Studio Visit
By: - Sep 20th, 2014Lee Kransner was anxious to promote the career of her husband Jackson Pollock. She invited Hans Hofmann the renowned German artist, teacher and mentor to a generation of Post War artists to visit the studio
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Fulper
Damage Control for a Rare Bowl
By: - Sep 20th, 2014With her husband Jeff, when not making art and writing poetry, Jane is a partner in Hudson's Antiques at Mass MoCA. Here she considers the nature of condition and value.
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You
A Poet and Her Muse
By: - Sep 20th, 2014Decades later Jane Hudson, artist and musician, returns to her first love poetry. Here she evokes what inspires her.
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Ghosts
From The Merit of Light
By: - Sep 19th, 2014Ghost from the collection The Merit of Light. Written in Provence.
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Native Dancer
In the Zone
By: - Sep 19th, 2014Three dudes enjoy an afternoon in the Combat Zone. Barry was dressed for success.
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LAX
First Visit to City of Angels
By: - Sep 19th, 2014One of the first American critics to interview Elton John he invited me to LA for a party. There was a VIP on my plane and another one in the airport.
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Bitches Brew
Miles Combed His Hair
By: - Sep 19th, 2014When Bitches Brew was released it changed the jazz world. I spent months researching a series of Sunday features on Miles Davis from Charlie Parker to this landmark double LP. Through Columbia Records PR guy Sal Ingeme,, a friend of Miles, I got to speak to him after the gig at Lennie's on the Turnpike. That night I learned a lot about Miles as well as the art of the interview. Come prepared but willing to improvise. After the first question all that research went out the window.
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Mulligan Stew
Tirade in an Elevator
By: - Sep 19th, 2014There is nothing more soulful and sensual than the rich baritone of Gerry Mulligan. A routine interview proved to be anything but as he was pissed about everything.
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Anita O'Day
Errand Boy for Jazz Singer
By: - Sep 19th, 2014During her week at Sandy's, from airport to airport, Anita O'Day owned me. Recalling running errands for one of the great jazz singers of her generation. What a dame.
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The Mooche
Duke, Buddy Rich, George Frazier
By: - Sep 18th, 2014As a teenager my first visit to a nightclub occurred when my Uncle Brother, a huge fan, took me to see Duke Ellington at Storyville in Copley Square. Years later, as a jazz critic, he joined me to hear big band drummer Buddy Rich. In the tiny dressing room we had an odd encounter.
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Sophisticated Lady
Encountering Duke Ellington on the Road
By: - Sep 18th, 2014An afternoon appointment to interview Duke Ellington led to a strange encounter. Beginning with an angry woman loudly evicted from his suite in the Eliot Hotel.
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Royal Pain
Childhood Encounter with the Duke of Windsor
By: - Sep 18th, 2014My career as a journalist started young with an interview with the Duke of Windsor. It proved to be suitably imperious.
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Lunch With Dexter Gordon
Frozen Schnapps in Copenhagen
By: - Sep 18th, 2014Jazz giant Dexter Gordon was strung out and on the run when he fled to Denmark. He was off smack when I had a schnapps fueled lunch with him in Copenhagen. Not long after he returned to the States in triumph.
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Sed Festival
Ancient Egyptian Ritual
By: - Sep 16th, 2014On the occasion of his Jubilee Year the Pharaoh was tested in front of the court. Initially there were consequences which eventually evolved into ceremony and ritual.
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Trane
Giant Steps in Boston
By: - Sep 16th, 2014Only got to hear Trane once. He died young. Surprised that just one tune comprised the set.
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