My sincerest thanks to our loyal customer base who are beginning to return to the bigger and better and now again online JazzLegends.com. And let this serve as a hearty welcome to new visitors as well. We are working hard to tweak things at the site in terms of organization, streamlining and ease of use, dealing with a non-working link or two, etc.
We’ve also begun adding “new discoveries” for the first time in a while, including some great, 1944 and 1946 from the Krupa band (already posted), a 1966 Newport All-Stars date with a spectacular drummer who all know and some of you love (soon to be posted), and early 1960s DVD concerts from the likes of Buck Clayton and Stan Kenton. Look for some stellar additions to the MP3 collection as well.
Good things are happening in Philadelphia music wise. Those who have long claimed that jazz is dead in Philadelphia need only head over to the venerable 23rd Street Cafe’, where the jam session is mobbed every Tuesday…as it’s been for the past 21 years of Tuesdays. Drummer and session producer “Big Jim” Dofton is doing a superlative job of keeping each and everything together. Believe me, it isn’t easy.
Our friend, pianist/singer Andy Kahn, deservedly, keeps getting busier and busier. He continues with regular recitals at Jacobs Music in center city Philadelphia, has returned to the Hedgerow Theater in Media, will return to The World Cafe’ at the end of April, and is not doing sessions at the city’s popular restaurant, The Prime Rib.
My good associate–bassist Bruce Kamsinky–and I recently took a ride down to that city by the ocean that musicians have long called “Beiruit by the Sea.” Atlantic City, New Jersey, that is. A.C. is the scene of the soon-to-open (with Beyonce’ at the headlining opener) Revel Hotel and Casino. The facility is said to have cost in the two billion dollar ranger. And a half-block away from Revel’s massive lobby? The same, decayed and in-pieces “homes” that have been a part of the inlet’s “urban blight” sector for more than 50 years. All the promises of using casino money to remove this decay? No one seems to know what’s happened, and it absolutely amazes me that allegedly intelligent business people who have managed to build a two billion dollar casino, could fix it so, when a customer looks out his pricey window, the view is nothing less than disgusting…for more than one reason. Whats-a-matter? You don’t have a couple of hundred to tear down a house?
AC needs all the help they can get, and starting with an enviornment that’s clean and safe is a good and long overdue beginning. The struggling resort has now dropped to number three in the “gaming destinations” rank, and has recently lost another seven or so percentage points in terms of gross revenue.
We all know that this business of entertainment is a young person’s game, but don’t tell that to the likes of Pat Boone, Wayne Newtown, Debbie Reynolds and Frank, Jr., who have announced busy, 2012 schedules.
Feel free to email me directly at DrumAlive@aol.com with suggestions, wants, problems and other info. All good wishes to you and yours for a swingin’ spring, a great holiday season-and beyond.
Keep swingin,
BRUCE KLAUBER