“I initially hesitated to include Günter Wand in this group: for one thing, like Sergiu Celibidache and Jascha Horenstein, he was never really out of a conducting career. He had long tenures in the opera house, and led orchestras, if only as a guest, on both continents. A perfectionist who required seven to eight rehearsals, he was best suited to the German radio orchestras who could accommodate him. After an association with the Gürzenich Orchestra and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, in 1982 he became chief conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra. A contemporary of Karajan, he more closely resembled Celibidache , or Klemperer. My first and main Brahms Symphony cycle on CD was his. My choice also for Schubert 8th and 9th…”
“Those jam sessions encompassed a “Who’s-Who” of Jazz at that period. The loft, where Hall Overton had installed pianos and drum kit, became an after-hours magnet for local and touring musicians. Regulars included: Zoot Sims, Charles Mingus, Roland Kirk, Jim Hall, Bill Evans, Bob Brookmeyer, Jimmy Giuffre, and Steve Reich. Visitors: Doris Duke, Norman Mailer, Salvador Dali, Bob Dylan, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Smith recorded and photographed everything until 1965…”
“I rode my first train in 1950, give or take a year. Harry Patterson was taking his two sons, Jim and Will—childhood friends— and me, fishing on the “Little Mississippi” just north of Kingston. This was a half-hour or less by car, but as he did not drive, we took the Canadian Pacific train from the downtown Kingston station.This was in fact the old Kingston-Pembroke Railway: what was affectionately—or otherwise— known as “The Old Kick and Push”…
“John Edward Bain is a photographer, music lover, and guitarist, and a frequent correspondent to yours truly about these matters and others of mutual interest. Our paths first crossed in Kingston Ontario as part of the folk scene there in the mid 60s. He plays, in his own words, “folk and blues: what John Fahey coined ‘American primitive Guitar’”. He now lives in Halifax with his wife Colette, “in quiet and somewhat reclusive retirement, surrounded by books, records, musical instruments, and cameras.” This is his first blog for AIG, combining music and book reviews, insights into the lute, and interesting related links…”
