A Note from Michael
Flora

In 1998 we adopted Flora, a two year old dachshund who had just been rescued from a puppy mill in Kansas by Hearts United for Animals, a no-kill shelter located in the mid-West. Flora had numbers crudely tattooed on her belly
in green ink, a primitive and painful form of identification often used by mill owners to keep track of their inmates. Despite the appalling circumstances of her first two years, which included food extended with sawdust, cages exposed to extreme weather (Flora’s mother, Bahnie, lost the tips of her ears to frostbite), and puppy production in dogs as young as six months, Flora was one happy little girl.

During the first few months of her housebreaking training (she was an A student), I kept her with me in my studio, where she reclined under the piano, usually resting her head on one of my feet, while I wrote the material for the album
which would eventually become “Barefoot on the Beach.”

That year I sent my friends a picture of us posed at the piano with the title “Rodgers and Wienerstein,” since she was my faithful collaborator on all those compositions, as she was for every record since then.

We've put together a slide show to remember her. As these pictures will attest, our time together was what you might call a montage of happiness. Sorely missed, our once-in-a-lifetime girl,

Flora Franks
1996-2010

Wishing all of you Health, Prosperity, Happiness, Peace

Sidney Arodin

Clarinetist Sidney Arodin is best remembered to today as the writer of the song Lazy River. Oddly enough, although he appeared on a great many recordings, he never recorded the tune himself. On the numerous versions which were recorded he usually shared credit for the composition with Hoagy Carmichael. Lazy River was based on a common Jazz chord progression that Arodin would use as a clarinet exercise to "warm up" before a gig. He simply slowed the pace of his warm up and added words (which were modified by Hoagy Carmichael) and the song was accepted for publication. He got his start in music working on the Mississippi River boats, he went on to play in New York with Johnny Stein's New Orleans Jazz Band between 1922 and 1925 with Jimmy Durante. Arodin returned to the south where he played with Wingy Manone, and Sharkey Bonano. In the 1930s Arodin played in Louis Prima's band and with Wingy Manone in a revival version of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. After 1941 he became seriously ill and made only occasional musical appearances.

For more informaion about Sidney Arodin please visit Wesley Charter's A Tribute to Sidney Arodin

The Milan Latin Jazz Quartet

Our Project is ambitious because at the same time to face two targets
The First , give to the Latin Jazz Style an Italian colour , making its sonorities more easy to understand and giving to it an harmonious and catchy form, emphasizing its expressions with characteristics and sonorities from our country, without to renounce to its improvisations and movements that are the main characteristic of Latin Jazz Style.
The second , bring near more people to the Latin Jazz Style and to bring near also the people that don’t know this great Style but they are attracted from our more easily musical forms .
Thank to
all the great Artists that through their music , let us to be a little drop in this sea
Of Music called “Latin Jazz “

Milan Latin Jazz Quartet

A stunningly sensual and soulful performer whose delivery as a vocalist is as passionate as can be, wowing all who hear her. Already having appeared on numerous high-profile stages and won several awards, Rosie looks set to touch the hearts of millions.
mypleasure@brilltunes.com
CD " WHITE GIRL " £6
CD " DEFINITIVE BREAK UP " £6

Stan Gregg

Stanley Mackay Greig (b. August 12, 1930, Joppa) is a Scottish pianist, drummer, and bandleader.
Greig's father was a drummer and piano tuner. Greig played with Sandy Brown while still in high school in 1945, then played piano and drums with him from 1948 to 1954. He moved to London and played with Ken Colyer (1954–55), Humphrey Lyttelton (1955–57), and Bruce Turner (1957), then with the Fairweather-Brown All-Stars (led by Brown and Al Fairweather) in 1958-59. He played with Turner again briefly before becoming a member of Acker Bilk's Paramount Jazz Band from 1960 to 1968.
After 1969 Greig made piano his primary instrument, leading his own small groups and playing boogie woogie and blues piano. He played with Dave Shepherd and Johnny Hawksworth as a sideman in the early 1970s, then formed the London Jazz Big Band in 1975. From 1977-80 he played with George Melly, then toured as a bandleader in Europe (1980–82). He worked again with Lyttelton from 1985 to 1995, and worked with Wally Fawkes later in the 1990s. The Stan Greig Trio played many gigs in and around London, with the Rolling Stones's Charlie Watts sometimes turning out on drums.

The New Orleans Rhythm Kings Gennett recordings were a big influence on many of the white bands and musicians of the 1920s. In 1920, Paul Mares and George Brunies were working on the Mississippi riverboat S.S. Capitol when it stopped in Davenport, Iowa, where they teamed with Leon Roppolo on clarinet. They eventually added Elmer Schobel on piano, Frank Snyder on drums, Alfred Loyacano on bass and Louis Black played banjo. They got a gig at the Friar's Club in Chicago in 1922. At first they called themselves The Friar's Society Orchestra, after the club the Friars Inn at 1834 Wabash Street at Van Buren in Chicago, but they changed their name to The New Orleans Rhythm Kings in 1923 after losing that gig. Unlike Nick LaRocca, the leader of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Paul Mares did not try to deny the African-American roots of Jazz. The New Orleans Rhythm Kings were heavily influenced by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band and became the first group to put out a "racially mixed" Jazz record in 1923 with "Sobbin' Blues", featuring Jelly Roll Morton. Morton went on to record five more tunes with the band. The New Orleans Rhythm Kings were in existence from 1922 to 1925 when Paul Mares left the music business and went back to New Orleans to work at the family fur business. In 1934 and 1935 two recording sessions took place that revived the New Orleans Rhythm Kings name, but George Brunies was the only original memeber of the band to take part in the sessions.

WBGO LINK

http://www.wbgo.org/