Joe Maini.. he only recorded one album didn't he? Have you got it Al (details? available on CD?). If I remember right he accidentally blew his head off playing Russian roulette or something. Ouch.

Maini didn't have any records of his own, to my knowledge, but he owned quite a few of the dates he participated in.

About his death, Gioia says this in WEST COAST JAZZ:

"Joe Maini was 'probably one of the most talented [musicians]--raw talent--that ever lived,' Terry Gibbs has commented. 'He could play anything in any way. He was one of the greatest bebop and alto tenor players. He didn't own a clarinet, but he could play the hell out of a clarinet. He could sightread anything.' Born in Providence, Rhode Island, on February 8, 1930, Maini began playing professionally at age fourteen. After a year and a half in a federal hospital in Kentucky on narcotics charges, he came to California in the early 1950s. In the Golden State, he developed a reputation--but often for things other than music. Maini was perhaps better known as a sidekick of comedian Lenny Bruce and for his wild demeanor both on and off the bandstand. Maini's taste for the extreme led to his death from a gunshot wound on May 8, 1964. Handling a friend's gun--some say he was playing Russian roulette--Maini shot himself. He was thirty-four years old."

Go Namor, go! Does this mean you’re back on board the Bagamarine? Please, say it’s so, if even in an advisory capacity. Your stateroom w/ humidor & fully-stocked wet bar is waiting.

I’m a Maini-ac too, returning often to the handful of his small group sessions in my collection. My favorite of his dates are probably Kenny Drew’s TALKIN’ & WALKIN’ and Red Mitchell’s self-titled platter on Bethlehem. He’s all over those Terry Gibbs Dream Band sessions on Contemporary too. Here’s a nice website on the man w/ plenty o’ pics & a discog link: http://www.traversino.com/joe_maini_website/default.htm

Thumbs vertical on that Griff date too. Vintage “fastest tenor in the East” stuff, even the ‘ballads’ rip. A BLOWING SESSION from a couple years hence strikes me much the same way. The line-up never fails to floor (Trane, Mobes, the original Wynton, Mr. PC & Buhaina), but it gets slagged ‘cause Griff opted to tackle each of the four tunes at lightspeed tempos. I actually think it stands out/up better for this very reason. Mobley has some trouble, but Trane & leader hit the booster jets no problem.

The nihilism of McCarthy’s BLOOD MERIDIAN is seeming more and more prescient with each passing day.

What’s that fiber you write of made out of?

And how would you/others answer your last parting question? I’m curious.

Al,

I didn't realize you were working with glass! You could teach me a few things. A lot of the services I sell are provisioned over single mode fiber.

Haven't heard from you in a while. You been underwater all this time?

Cary

That Griff session may have the most insane version of "Cherokee" ever waxed. And I do mean waxed.

For those of you who have heard stories about Joe Maini the prankster, be sure to pay special attention to this photo from the page Derek cited...

http://www.traversino.com/joe_maini_website/images_maini/joe_large.jpg

This is the famous photo that was used in a DOWNBEAT advertisement, IIRC. Oops.

on the subject of fibers... is anyone outside of the few universities involved in the research talking about nanotubes yet? i don't remember the actual number at the moment, but i suspect 100lbs on 10 microns is childs play to some of of these woven fulleride threads.

i dunno how long they are yet, either.

m

Mark, we've heard nothing beyond speculation. With the Navy's contracting, it'll be years until the supercool technology's in use.

Cary, google it. Nothing to fiber. Less complicated than copper. And it's fucking simple to troubleshoot if your network or signal path ever goes down, bless it.

Thanks for the Maini link, guys! What a great little site.

To answer your question, Derek, it's been answered, hasn't it?

Thanks for the website link. Does anyone know if that 1957 Jimmy Knepper Quintet album is available on CD?

Dan -- the Maini / Knepper session is included on both the Mingus COMPLETE DEBUT RECORDINGS box and on the single CD issue DEBUT RARITIES VOLUME 1, both from Fantasy.

http://www.fantasyjazz.com/catalog/mingus_c_cat.html

Hey, Al, as I mentioned elsewhere in response to your recent Orwell epiphany, you should check out "Down & Out in Paris and London" too.

Thanks Joe - I figured it might be in the Debut box, which I don't have, but didn't know about the other one.

"Would that some of the new music (and some of its fans) could rid itself of its own awareness. Don't let it distract you that some of today's music is so conscious of its own supposed social and philosophical implications. And when music discussions here go off the deep end and finally come to rest with a childish last word, remind yourself that there's more to it than that. You just have to remember why you ever realized how much you love music in the first place." (see top of the page)

Now that all's (again) quiet on the transatlantic front (obedient to Dan's Picassoan
"Voulez-vous vous taire...Au dodo, au dodo. Savez-vous l'heure qu'il est?") I may be permitted to deep-end a potentially (and maddeningly) conscious dis/c/concussion with a childish last word from Mozart's Despina, Al, who seems to view men the way you view (some? most?) written opinions concerning music:
-Uno val l'altro, perche nessun val nulla.
(loosely translated: one is as good as the other because neither is worth a thing.)
or Picasso again:
-Cigarette 1, cigarette 2, cigarette 3, un deux trois, un plus deux plus trois egale a six cigarettes; une fumee, l'autre grillee et la troisieme rotie au feu sur le gril.

childish, indeed. last words, indeed. ai ai (ouch).

I was told there would be no math...

I prefer Blackjack gum.

Remove the cipherin' and you might get Bill Shakespeare's

"God's bodykins, man, much better: use every man, after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?"

(HAMLET, Act II, Scene II)