12.30-31.16

[This is a convenient stopping point, for now, for daily entries.]

12.30

Up 8, watched Wedding Rehearsal (Alexander Korda, 1932). A little correspondence, then drove to Pasadena for coffee with Ted Apel; had a good talk, I think, and went to Book Alley (where a guy recognized me from NPB). Bought Charles Hersch, Subversive Sounds: Race and the Birth of Jazz in New Orleans; Percival Everett, Cutting Lisa, and Sam Price and His Kay Cee Stompers, Barrelhouse and Blues (Jazztone LP). Listened to v. 1 of the Czech boogie-woogie collection on the way out - fantastic Jimmy Yancey version of "St. Louis Blues." Some groceries for Bree + wine for New Year's parties. Hit rush hour on the way home - more b-w, and Elliot Carter String Quartet No. 1 (1951). It doesn't seem -quite- as opaque in construction (though only passingly 'tuneful') than other Carter I've listened to. Dinner, home: Read a bit of the Schiff here and there, but not much. Seem to have misplaced the Wharton.

12.31

Up 7 or so, stopped at Upland Starbucks and found my Edith Wharton book as suspected, went to a 9:40 matinee of La La Land; songs aren't bad but sort of unmemorable, most interesting touch is that the 'love theme' never gets words, there's a weird thing w/ jazz purism (and, implicitly, race), the dancing seems fine, and the movie's main demerit is that Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling don't have singing voices to carry a musical. Shame Marni Nixon isn't working. Finished Schiff; would repay a slower look, no doubt, and the last poem "The Houselights" is esp. intriguing (oddly gets into musicals/entertainment.) Gym, 1st time in ages, 30 min. on elliptical listening to the M. Fields album. Home, read 2 more Wharton stories, dinner, watched 1/2 of the Tony Bennett 90th birthday TV special, went out about 8 to Nathan Wilson's New Year's eve party; dj'd one short set while there from recs I've bought on this trip. Talked w/ Chris + Cleaver (whose Xmas party we missed), Steve Krank, Lisa Kuta, Steve Folta. Stayed to count in midnight, left around 12:15 - was fearing bad traffic or checkpoints (I had one stout), but it was fine. Listened to some Liquid Liquid and E. Carter Quartet #2 (less dynamic/engaging than #1, on first exposure) and most of Robert Forster's Songs to Play on the way back (I know what he's going for by this point, but a little staid). Also the 2nd boogie-woogie disc on earlier drives.

Might as well own up to my main goals for 2017: 

1) Finish full draft of bridge book
2) Release Work from Home cass. and (I hope) Viable singles comp
3) Finish recording new HH album for 2018 release
4) Drop 1/2 lb./wk (this includes 2-3 gym visits a week + some light home exercise, but mostly not being a pig)
5) [personal; redacted]

12.29.16

Up 7. Went to coffee: read another Wharton story (a light satire on pseudo-intellectual club ladies) and wrote a poem (strictly speaking, yesterday's) for the daybook based on a passage in Landscapes. Worked for a couple of hours on "Always Chasing Rainbows" (though I'm not sure whether the Harry Fox who first recorded it - as opposed to the composer of record Harry Carroll - is the individual after whom the Harry Fox Agency was named; he may, however, have invented the fox-trot). Met Bree and parents for birthday lunch at BC Cafe; dad gave me a copy of Bruce Springsteen's memoir (a funny choice, in a way, given that I haven't bought or read Elvis Costello's). Bree and I went on to the Goodwill bookstore on Foothill, Penny Lane, and the bank. Books purchased:

Rap Music & Hip Hop Culture, 2nd ed., Richard Mook ed.
Beckett the Shape Changer: a Symposium, ed. Katharine Worth
Nicholas Thomas, Possessions: Indigenous Art/Colonial Culture
Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds

CDs:

Liquid Liquid, Slip In And Out of Phenomenon
Billy Bragg, The Internationale (deluxe)
v/a Anthology of Boogie-Woogie Piano (2CD on a Czech label)
v/a A Piano Anthology (from Jelly Roll Morton to Bill Evans)
v/a Jazz at Lincoln Center Presents: The Fire of the Fundamentals

LPs:
Charles Rosen, Beethoven Piano Sonatas 26-27.
Mighty Sparrow in London
George Shearing/Dakota Staton, In the Night
v/a Stompin' 17 (R&P comp w/ Jesse Stone cut, 'Woo Woo' Moore)
Luis Bonfa/Don Burrows Brazil
Pearl Bailey, For Adult Listening
4 "Co-Star" LPs ft. Basil Rathbone, George Raft, Arlene Dahl, Vincent Price [Bree's purchase]

Cyndi Lauper "All Through the Night"/"Witness" 45 (for non-LP b-side)

Came home about 5, finished Landscapes; made plans to see Ted Apel tomorrow. Eventually took Bree to gym, wrote in daybook, Started Robyn Schiff, A Woman of Property. Strange book, "well-written" but more diffuse than I expected. Came home and watched Always Leave Them Laughing (Roy Del Ruth 1949), w/ Milton Berle, Virginia Mayo, Ruth Roman, Bert Lahr - and Max Showalter. Lights out 11.

12.28.16

Up 7. Did my radio show at KSPC, 10-noon. Rusty - some technical goofs, mostly felt one cue behind. Playlist. Lunch, groceries for Bree, went to Upland Starbucks to read Jackson. Correspondence, ripped the rest of the Mag. Fields set (I'm behind on listening, and haven't heard about the interview date). Listened to most of an Earl Hines collection. Finished Meister, read intro and title story in Edith Wharton, Roman Fever, but that's about it. Lights out 11.

12.27.16

Up 6. Watched Strange Powers, the Stephin/MF doc. Went out at 8, read another 1/3 of Meitner. Wrote 500 words about "Always Chasing Rainbows." Had lunch in Claremont w/ Dan Clucas and two other UHS Jazz Band members I hadn't seen since the 1980s. Dropped by the town library, bought LPs of Berg, Wozzeck and Dvorak, Slavonic Dances in the book/media sale room; same at Upland, found a CD set of Die Meistersinger, and some Philip Glass. Read about 1/3 of J.B. Jackson, Landscapes; mid-60s essays on urbanism/planning. Not bad - nice sense of historical changes in American attitudes toward our environments, urban and natural alike. Went out again after dinner to return the movie and poke around Rhino. Listened to Disc 2 of the Anna Records set and David Nagler's Carl Sandburg record (having now heard some of the material live 3 or 4 times, it really holds up; it may by the best-realized record by a 'peer' I've heard in some time.) Lights out 10.

12.26.16

Up 8. Watched most of The Dolly Sisters (1945 Irving Cummings), vaudeville-era tale based on a real sister act - one of whose love interests was co-writer of "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" (a 1918 AABA I had not noticed) and eventual founder of the Harry Fox Agency (the major clearing house for mechanical licensing). Got down some thoughts on Ira Gershwin at coffee, about 10:30-1, 1000 words. Dropped into a thrift store, bought nothing. Came home, read 1/3 of Erika Miester, Copia, listened to the 1st 5 songs on the Magnetic Fields advance (trying to do this daily until the interview) - it's good. Got involved in picking out "…Rainbows," above, from the B section of Chopin's Impromptu no. 4 (op. posth. 66) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pQT1W12R7o. Played through some early Kern, watched part of a lesser Elvis movie, The Trouble With Girls, set on the Chautaqua tent show circuit - oddly, "Darktown Strutter's Ball" figures in both this and The Dolly Sisters. After dinner, my dad played us 2 new songs, 1 his annual Christmas attempt, the other about the Madonna on the Trail statue on Euclid. Some correspondence in evening, sent roughs of the album to Pete and Matt. Daybook. Having trouble fixing on what to read next (prose). Lights out 11.