Confirmation: Weekly News and Notes

*Reviews for Love Letters From Ella range from "charming" to "a shameless cash grab." Some critics are concerned that Fitzgerald's voice is transposed over contemporary recordings on most of the new release's tracks. The current version of the Count Basie Orchestra is one of the groups providing new sounds. Those are the living versions of Fitzgerald and Basie in the 1979 video above.

*The August 3 Star ran a flattering profile of Gregory A. Carroll, the new executive director of the American Jazz Museum.

*The same issue of the Star reported that new management at the Phoenix "hopes it will reopen Aug. 10." As of August 8, however, the club's site doesn't confirm this news.

*Here's an interesting hand-written letter from Mary Lou Williams and a photo from the related Vancouver gig. (Tip from my friend M.)

*I'm just as annoyed by mimes as the next guy. Yet this dramatization of a "jazz dispute" between Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie is pretty well done.