May 022011
Speechless?
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I love Don Cherry’s asymmetrical cheeks.
Check this out, Mod:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My5F25WpKnc
I was looking at related clips, and I found this one of Ulmer playing a Steinberger! It’s the only time I’ve ever seen him play anything but a big honking Gibson. He sounds just like himself anyway. With Jamaladeen Tacuma on Steinberger bass, that looks like your dream trio!
That is a shock to see Ulmer play anything but a Gibson that couldn’t even be contained within his dashiki! As for Tacuma, does any musician look more natural playing a headless guitar or bass? If so, I can’t think of one.
Should I Stay Or Should I Go, Part 2
In a thread a few weeks back I asked for advice in going to my daughter’s Beatles class; look it up if you want more details (HERE).
I did go to the second class I was contemplating, featuring John Branca as the guest lecturer. He was Michael Jackson’s attorney and is the co-executor of his estate; he was the person who engineered the purchase of the Lennon-McCartney publishing rights for MJ.
This lecture was fantastic, everything the one two weeks previous by Bob Spitz was not – a great speaker, great stories, lots of new information. First thing that struck me is how young he was. He’s 61 and looks 15 years younger. He became MJ’s lawyer at 29 and was 35 when he negotiated the Lennon-McCartney deal.
He said he cleared the deal beforehand with Yoko and Paul, neither of whom were interested, Paul because he said it was too pricey and Yoko because she only foresaw problems in dealing with Paul. I wish I had asked (during the Q&A) about the reported rift between MJ and Paul in light of this version of events but I didn’t.
The purchase price was $47 million and today the combined Sony-ATV Publishing Company (resulting when MJ needed cash and so combined his ATV with Sony’s publishing company’s – all of which Branca glided over) is worth $1.5-$2 billion. Jackson’s estate owns 50% of this company.
I remember being stunned at the time of the sale that Yoko and Paul let this go, thinking that $47 million seemed paltry. During the Q&A I asked about this – was everyone short-sighted about the value of these rights or had things so changed in the interim that the value could have increased 20+ fold? Branca acknowledged that people were short-sighted but basically attributed the increase to changes in the industry.
After the lecture there was a performance by a McCartney impersonator (who is also a Syracuse University professor) and a duo called The Neverly Brothers, the latter being half of The Flashcubes, a punk-power pop band from the Syracuse area in the late ‘70s. This was all very enjoyable to me. The three performers and the professor and I all shared one thing (besides being close in age) – we all watched that first Beatles performance on Ed Sullivan on February 9, 1964 and were transformed by it.
Next spring, two of the tentative guest lecturers are Giles Martin (George’s son and the producer of the Beatles Vegas Cirque de Soleil show) and Geoff Emerick. The instructor said I was welcome to come next year as well.
This is great, Al. You’ve got to go see Emerick. Let me know if the instructor will let me tag along too:)
Wanna hear the new Cars album?
http://stream.movelikethis.com/
Instant review! — Meh!
What does it mean that I damn this equally for trying too hard to sound like classic period Cars and for failing to sound like classic period Cars?