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1 A Twitter discussion yesterday led me to pull 5/29/69 issue of Downbeat off my shelf. A random issue, 51 yrs ago, & you cannot believe the picture it paints of the scene. Cover interviews w/Sonny Rollins (Ira Gitler), Dexter Gordon (Gitler) & Louis Jordan (Leonard Feather)
2 Here's the Dexter interview:
3 Here's the first page of the interview with Sonny.
4 And here's the second page.
5. Record reviews: Chick’s Now He Sings, Now He Sobs/Miles’ Filles de Kilimanjaro/JoeHen’s Tetragon/ Wayne’s Schizophrenia/Cannonball’s Accent on Africa/Marion Brown’s Gesprachsfetzen/Jackie’s Bout Soul/Mobley’s Reach Out/McPherson’s Horizons/Max’s Members Don’t Git Weary
6. Frank Strozier Blindfold Test
7 Live reviews of Cannonball, Stan Getz (Larry Willis/Miroslav/Joe Chambers) & and the Village Vanguard debut by the Tony Williams Trio w/McLaughlin & Young and soon to be known as Lifetime-- Ira Gitler, who’s all over this issue, writes an enthusiastic & perceptive review.
8 There's also coverage of a NY gig by Brew Moore with a curious band – pianist Dave Frishberg, bassist Jimmy Garrison and a drummer named Johnny Robinson.
9 Transcription of Ornette Coleman’s tune “Round Trip” with Ornette’s complete solo ("New York Is Now"). The magazine says the transcription is by “a young teacher-composer at the University of Illinois” – Jim McNeely. Anybody know what happened to him? cc: @jimmymacx
10. Page two of Ornette's solo.
11 News column item about David Baker at Indiana University beginning work on what would become a truly seminal book of interviews.
12 Other bold face names in various column notes: Bill Evans, Eubie Blake, Larry Coryell, Jim Pepper, Duke Ellington, Sheila Jordan, Thad & Mel, Albert Stinson, Earl Hines, Duke Pearson, Clark Terry, Kenny Dorham. And Horace Silver's new drummer is 18-year-old Alvin Queen.
13 My copy has two subscription cards still attached. Each others a free record with a new subscription -- either Ornette's New York Is Now or Lee Konitz's "The Lee Konitz Duets." 26 issues for $7; Pan American Union countries, $8; Foreign countries including Canada, $9,
14 Seriously, the entire issue is a mind fuck. I turned 6 in 1969. We can only live in the era in which we're alive, but this is the kind of thing that REALLY makes me wish for a time machine.
15 Coda: That important Baker book is “The Black Composer Speaks,” edited by David N. Baker, Lida M. Belt, Herman C. Hudson, published 1978 by Scarecrow Press. It deserves to be reissued & maybe updated. If any university press wants to commission me, I’m available.
16. Coda 2: I now see that Scarecrow Press is a subsidiary of @RLPGBooks — seriously, you guys should consider a new edition, especially in our current moment. It would be a timely and valuable resource.
