Hi all, I was channel surfing -- forgot who said it, but I agree that with well over 100 channels on digital cable, and over 20 digital music channels, there's almost always *something* worthwhile on. Trouble is, at least now, you gotta live in a big enough city to get it. (Don't know the status of those satellite disk companies and their offerings -- do they reach everywhere?)
Where was I? Oh yes, channel surfing, and I stumbled onto Part 4 of Ken Burns' Jazz Series. (On one of the four(!) PBS channels we get on digital cable in SF). Wonderful, wonderful -- if I could afford it, I'd order the whole set from PBS ($100 for all twenty hours of it, I think -- probably worth it, but I can't right now...) Near the end of this segment, they told the heart-wrenching story of how overcome with grief Duke Ellington was when his mom died -- he couldn't or wouldn't write for something like eight months -- and then, while he was on a train, he starting writing furiously what would become Reminiscing In Tempo. I was ***blown away***! I *must* have this! Any of you familiar with it? -- it's 13 or 14 minutes long, and comes in three movements (does this sound familiar) -- and he mostly got critically raked over the coals for it (some of this was undoubtably racism -- gettin' too big for his britches crap). But oh!!! the part I heard was heartbreaking, and I can always use music to cry by. (Of Joni's stuff, quite a bit of TtT works for me -- from the sad Man From Mars to the happy, uplifting Facelift -- because I listened to it nonstop as my dad lay dying in '99. Sigh) Is there a particularly good collection/boxed set of Ellington -- it would have to include the Reminiscing in Tempo, or perhaps I could find a separate disk with that song... But you guys always have great suggestions. Thanks, Walt
