Happy birthday, Dave Douglas

The only connection here is that Paula Kirkeby gave me this Fritz Scholder book, plus a signed poster, on MY birthday.

I got this from NPR (while searching in futility in a hurry for the thing about the DC club promoter):
http://www.npr.org/blogs/ablogsupreme/2011/03/23/134804991/happy-birthday-dave-douglas

I was thinking of Dave recently because I am hoping to steal trumpet player and musicologist and griot Jack Walrath away from Stanford for two hours next month to bring him to an impromptu gig downtown — a couple years back I ferried Dave and some of his mates from Garden Court Hotel to Mem Hall as a way to fit in a radio stint on KZSU, which led to me later doing about a dozen more shows at KZSU (Glenn Hartman, Charlie Hunter phoner, Steve Bernstein phoner, Rupa Marya live mic, Don Byron phoner).

edit to add, April 29, 2011: while doing a Fugazi riff, I realize that Jem Cohen did some films for Greenleaf Music, such as

edit to add and thanks to Grace Davis for the suggestion against self-commenting:

Although I am now obsessed with the subject, I am not quite sure if I once saw Don Cherry at the Up and Down Club sessions party. This is comparable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S9eGFOcBEY

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About markweiss86

Mark Weiss, founder of Plastic Alto blog, is a concert promoter and artist manager in Palo Alto, as Earthwise Productions, with background as journalist, advertising copywriter, book store returns desk, college radio producer, city council and commissions candidate, high school basketball player, and blogger; he also sang in local choir, fronts an Allen Ginsberg tribute Beat Hotel Rm 32 Reads 'Howl' and owns a couple musical instruments he cannot play
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17 Responses to Happy birthday, Dave Douglas

  1. markweiss86's avatar markweiss86 says:

    I don’t know this piece at all but snagged it because it is called “earmarks” and my youtube name is “earmark86” I like that Uri Caine has an early solo; meaning to introduce myself to his brother Gidon Caine the lawyer who lives five doors down from us here in Plastic Alto; I should write a longer and more researched piece on DD.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP1-DcfFWJs

  2. markweiss86's avatar markweiss86 says:

    I traded email with Donny McCaslin who said he is playing with Dave this weekend and would pass on my greetings!?!

  3. Mark Weiss's avatar Mark Weiss says:

    Jack Walrath’s birthday is May 5, aka “cinco de mayo”. He and I were both born in a year that the St. Louis Cardinals reached the World Series, ’46 and ’64.

  4. Mark Weiss's avatar Mark Weiss says:

    Ambrose Akinmusire who I started tracking in summer, 2007 after Peter Apfelbaum called him one of the two best musicians under 30 that he knew of:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNzE2nTCtxE

  5. Mark Weiss's avatar Mark Weiss says:

    Although I am now obsessed with the subject, I am not quite sure if I once saw Don Cherry at the Up and Down Club sessions party. This is comparable:

  6. Mark Weiss's avatar Mark Weiss says:

    Taylor Ho Bynum (got this from FONT blog):

  7. Mark Weiss's avatar Mark Weiss says:

    Ron Miles (on CORNET) in a Bill Frisell band in Salzau Germany in 2006 with Greg Tardy, Tony Scherr, Kenny Wolleson doing Lee Konitz “Subconscious-Lee” not to be confused with “Palo Alto”:

    • Mark Weiss's avatar Mark Weiss says:

      In a related matter I am recalling that it was exactly ten years ago, in April of 2001, that Dave Douglas was at Stanford with Trisha Brown Dance and I realized that since the performance at Memorial Auditorium was basically the same building as KZSU I suggested to someone at radio that they drag Dave downstairs for an interview in between rehearsals (it was a premiere, I think; Dave wrote the music for Trisha, but there was indeed some down time). But since it was between sessions ie spring break and the station was short handed they asked me to go ahead and run the interview, which I had never done. And I recall that one of my questions for Dave was whether he felt a kinship with Bill Frisell (who I knew slightly better, had presented two times, and caught more often); Dave said “yes” and I also suggested over the air that they collaborate some day; I even said “Hey, Lee Townsend! If you happen to be listening, call Dave Douglas!” referring to Bill’s Berkeley-based manager and producer, i.e he was within earshot, of terrestrial radio. A couple years later, when I ran into Dave at a conference he recalled the suggestion and pointed out to me that they did end up working together. I actually recall sitting in Yoshi’s at someone else’s show and hearing something in the house system that sounded a little like Bill and a little like Dave and inquiring what they were playing and that’s how I actually first heard the set. I was thinking of all that because I am likewise trying to piggyback into, interlope or optimize in a utilitarian way something about the Mingus Big Band coming to Stanford next month and my relationship with Jack Walrath. I am trying to get Stanford Lively Arts and Sue Mingus to release Jack and maybe two more guys to come down to the jam session at Lytton Plaza led by Sue Webb at the farmers market on Wednesday, April 13 sometime between 3 and 6 p.m. The guys are also doing some clinics at Gunn High for area music students.

      • Mark Weiss's avatar Mark Weiss says:

        I am definitely out of my league here but I posted about 200 words (i.e. too much) and off topic mostly on the blog of James Darcy Argue which Ethan Iverson had linked to from his Do the Math.
        http://www.secretsocietymusic.org/darcy_james_argues_secret/2006/08/like_im_blowin_.html#comment-6a00d8341e689653ef014e6044b76e970c

      • Mark Weiss's avatar Mark Weiss says:

        This is not a good segue but as I prepare mentally for a concert I am producing later today I come across this link to news a few years back about the sad early demise of Swedish jazz musician Esbjorn Svensson who performed under the name EST (Esbjorn Svennson Trio). He was a piano player and composer. I recall that it was at his show at Yoshi’s that I met my friend Corinna Marshall who was the director of Stern Grove Music Festival. EST played a short-live five or six part folk and jazz series I produced in 2004 at an art gallery in downtown Palo Alto. I remember going to the bead shop downtown and, again, dealing with my nervousness as a promoter, I made a simple beaded string that I was meaning to give to EST as a small gift. I thought it could be used as a set list abacus or counter. I remember that they had a series of little toys decorating the set. Also, they left at the venue their copy of Sigor Ros cd; I still have it. It is what we would call an import. I kept Ake Linton’s phone number in my cell for quite a while; he was their sound man and “the fourth member”, Ethan Iverson, who also played that room and quirky not quite ready for prime time piano, noted in his excellent blog, from which I stole this link.
        http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=19452

  8. markweiss86's avatar markweiss86 says:

    Clifford Brown mentioned and spun this on KCSM (and we had a brief semi-anonymous conversation: he had no idea –beyond caller ID — who I was and I only no the tip of the iceberg of his prodigeous works), via Mark Samuels’ Basin Street Records:

  9. Mark Weiss's avatar Mark Weiss says:

    At the Mingus Big Band members clinic last night at Stanford for some young musicians there, I met the trumpeter Ami Robbins, who Jack Walrath worked with. He said he was a big fan of Ambrose Akinmusire, but did not know that Ambrose had been in residence at Stanford two summers for the Jazz camp recently. Ami a little searchinjuning reveals also spent some time with Dave Douglas last year during his residency, and produced this interview:
    http://livelyarts.stanford.edu/blog/index.php?id=38

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