That's Lindsey Hunter of the Pistons. I love interviews with Rip Hamilton because he usually says smart things. After Sunday's game he was asked "you had a big early lead then Cleveland caught up and it was tight until the middle of the third. What happened in the third quarter?" and Rip and I both said, "Lindsey Hunter!" You could argue that Lindsey made the difference in the series because the series was hanging in the balance when he came in and the Pistons went on a 9-2 run to open up a lead.
That's Nate Robertson of the Tigers. Sunday he pitched 7 innings of 3 hit shutout ball, the Tigers scored a run in the bottom of the eighth on an error, and won 1-0 to maintain the best record in baseball. Only thing I worry about with the Tigers is I did some calculations last night and they've only played 2 teams all year that currently have a winning record.

Good weekend! The quartet played at Goodnite Gracie's, the big band played in Utica, the Tigers are kicking everybody's butts and the Pistons came through to finish off the Cavs. Here to celebrate is my LP rip of Ella Fitzgerald's "On the Sunny Side of the Street", a 1963 Verve recording with the Count Basie Orchestra and arrangements by Quincy Jones, all zipped up with BIG DETAILED cover scans in an RAR file from Rapidshare.

The II-V-I Orchestra show featured the great vocalist Al Jacquez. Al was a member of Savage Grace, so he is a certified SE Michigan rock star, but he can sing Frank Sinatra like nobody's business. Check out Al's band Measured Chaos at their webpage.

We note with sorrow the passing of Jazz Pour Tous. This weblog was an amazing resource for jazz education. It has been replaced in the last few days by a notice about some hotel industry executives getting promoted. What's going on with that? Check out this article for somebody to ask about it.

A couple of piano duo gigs coming up for benefit functions around town: for the Ann Arbor Academy Saturday night at the school, and Monday evening at WCC for a local women's advocacy organization or something. We'll be playing tasteful background music; here for that purpose is Alter and DeLange's "Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans?", sheet music page 1, sheet music page 2, and as performed by Victoria Williams MP3, courtesy of Subterranean Distribution and Mailorder. I don't agree with some of the chords in Victoria Williams' performance, but I've always gotten a real kick out of her performances. She's really got a lot of personality.

Of course we were all deeply moved by the tragedy of the flood of New Orleans but the song title in the form of a question always inspires a lot of goofy answers:

"I don't know, why don't you ask her?"
"No but if you hum a few bars I can fake it."
"It means you end up about 30 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico."

Busy weekend! Saturday night our Dean Solden Trio with Surry Scheerer played Goodnite Gracie's to a good house. The first set was our best ever, and my brother Paul and his friend Debbie were in from Colorado to see it. That was particularly fortunate because then they left and the second set was a train wreck.

Sunday night was the II-V-I Orchestra at the Creekside, and another one of those alarmingly talented high school jazz pianists sat in. Sorry I can't remember his name right now but he was good. He did clutch up on the end of Count Basie's "JaDa" because the Count Basie Ending wasn't quite as he remembered it.
Here is my approximation of the Count Basie ending, in Db because it seems like so many of the great big band charts are in Db, and here is a low-fi audio example in MP3 format, Neal Hefti's "Splanky", from the classic 1957 album "Atomic Mr. Basie". Neal Hefti is of course most famous as composer of the Batman theme, as well as the Odd Couple theme, but also wrote several bonafide jazz classics, including "L'il Darlin'", "Kid from Red Bank", "Cute", and "Cherry Point".

He is the author of the first tune I ever learned on bass guitar. I was in eighth grade in Reed City and the band director, Jerry Thornton, announced we were going to have a big band for the spring concert and who wanted to play bass guitar. As the bull goose tuba player at the time I was the logical choice. We got out the skeezy Italian hollow body bass guitar, he put the sheet music to Neal Hefti's "Cinnamon Kisses" in front of me, and said "This is a Bb. This is an Eb. The frets go up half steps, and if you go up four frets you're up to the next string". I memorized the part, took the bass home for the summer, and sat around trying to play along with my brother's Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper records.


For all of us here at "Jazz with Jerry Brabenec", it gives me great pleasure to announce that we have earned certification as an official Hosta Free Web Page. We will display this symbol with pride and continue in our efforts to protect the World Wide Web community from undesired exposure to hostas when browsing the web.

Tigers fans: TV20 will broadcast the following sixteen (15) regular season Detroit Tigers Baseball games:

1. Monday April 10, vs.White Sox 1:05pm
   
   
2. Thursday June 1, vs.Yankees 7:05pm
   
   
3. Saturday June 3, vs.Red Sox 7:05pm
   
   
4. Thursday June 8, @White Sox 8:05pm
   
   
5. Saturday June 17, @Cub 4:05pm
   
   
6. Saturday June 24, vs.Cardinals 7:05pm
   
   
7. Friday June 30, @Pirates 7:05pm
   
   
8. Thursday July 13, vs.Royals 7:05pm
   
   
9. Saturday July 22, vs.Athletics 7:05pm
   
   
10. Saturday July 29, @Twins 7:10pm
    
    
11. Thursday August 29, @Devil Rays 7:15pm
    
    
12. Saturday August 5, vs.Indians 7:05pm
    
    
13. Friday August 11, @White Sox 8:35pm
    
    
14. Saturday August 19, vs.Rangers 7:05pm
    
    
15. Saturday August 26, @Indians 7:05pm
    
    
16. Friday September 1, vs.Angels 7:05pm