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Reposted by Peter Sokolowski

Bird Lives @birdlives1.bsky.social · 18h

#jazzsky

Ethan Iverson @ethaniversonpiano.bsky.social · 21h

Happy Birthday to Sphere. All the jazz greats knew what they were doing, but Thelonious Monk REALLY knew what he was doing. It was Precise. iverson.substack.com/p/tt-442-bri...

TT 442: Brief Overview: Thelonious Monk on Record

October 10 is Sphere's Birthday

iverson.substack.com

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 22h

I'm in Stockholm those nights, hope to hear you!

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 22h

Are you playing anywhere next week?

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Reposted by Peter Sokolowski

Rick McLaughlin @rickmclaughlin.com · 23h

1/Happy birthday, Thelonious Monk! Obviously, his compositions and performances are awesome and iconic, but I also love the music of people who have taken inspiration from him. Take “Brilliant Corners, for example…
#music #musicsky #jazzsky #jazzmusic #happybirthday

youtu.be/Ncjb6GIvLmo?...

Brilliant Corners by Thelonious Monk from 'Brilliant Corners'

YouTube video by Thelonious Monk

youtu.be

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 23h

i disconnected mine, it only made me jump out of my skin

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Reposted by Peter Sokolowski

Robert Beauchamp @robertmtl.bsky.social · 1d

La Tour infinie des Livres » est une œuvre d'art public situé à la Bibliothèque municipale de Prague.

L'œuvre de l'artiste slovaque Matej Krén s'appelle « Idiome ». Elle est composée de plus de 8 000 livres, empilés dans une colonne creuse avec des miroirs en haut et en bas.

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Dr. Jeremy Swist @metalclassicist.bsky.social · 2d

Every other town in Massachusetts.

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 2d

What’s the word where you’re from that, when pronounced exactly as it looks, identifies a tourist immediately?

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Colleen @librarycolleen.bsky.social · 2d

‘Almost unheard of’: experts find more music by English composer Henry Purcell
www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

‘Almost unheard of’: experts find more music by English composer Henry Purcell

Printed score and keyboard manuscript by Purcell, who died in 1695, unearthed in Worcestershire and Norfolk

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Peter Sokolowski

Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 2d

If I had a bunch of beads and one of them was considerably older than the others, I would call it the venerable bead

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Reposted by Peter Sokolowski

Christine Kooi @christinekooi.bsky.social · 2d

I often tell students that one of the major differences between modernity and pre-modernity is that pre-modernity regarded "innovation" as a very bad thing.

Carl Hendrick @carlhendrick.substack.com · 3d

The Innovation Illusion: Most of what’s worth knowing in education isn’t new, and most of what’s new isn’t worth knowing.

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Reposted by Peter Sokolowski

Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 3d

Today is the centennial of Alvin Stoller, maybe the best drummer you've never heard of. First choice for Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Fred Astaire, Oscar Peterson, Stan Freberg, and nearly every record made in LA in the 1950s.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQXC...

Frank Sinatra With Billy May And His Orchestra – Come Dance With Me!

YouTube video by RetroGrafix

www.youtube.com

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 2d

That is exactly right! And I know that listeners expect perfection (& announcers need to know how to pronouce Saint-Saëns & von Dohnányi and the like).

I am second to no one in my appreciation of Terry Gross, but the two times she interviewed M-W editors, she clearly expected harsh prescriptions.

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 3d

And yes, @npr.org stations play this music...no one else does.

As a culture, we pay lip service to the importance of Louis Armstrong or Ella Fitzgerald or Miles Davis...but who actually PLAYS THIS MUSIC ON THE AIR?

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 3d

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 3d

A sampling of what I was spinning @nepublicmedia.bsky.social tonight, all Alvin Stoller sessions.

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 3d

Here's Alvin Stoller on brushes with Oscar Peterson...masterclass in energy and taste.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WCS...

Oh, Lady Be Good

YouTube video by Oscar Peterson - Topic

www.youtube.com

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 3d

Alvin Stoller replaced Buddy Rich (!) as Tommy Dorsey's drummer, and spent the rest of his career in the studios as "the Buddy Rich who can sight-read."

(Buddy Rich himself never learned to read music.)

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 3d

Today is the centennial of Alvin Stoller, maybe the best drummer you've never heard of. First choice for Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Fred Astaire, Oscar Peterson, Stan Freberg, and nearly every record made in LA in the 1950s.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQXC...

Frank Sinatra With Billy May And His Orchestra – Come Dance With Me!

YouTube video by RetroGrafix

www.youtube.com

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 3d

My theory, from hearing interviews and being interviewed by many radio hosts, is that they get so thoroughly thwacked for some perceived language peeve or faux pas early in their careers that they beome inveterate & incontrovertible prescriptivists.

Garfield, Terry Gross, Colin McInroe among them.

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 4d

Yes, he was in a 3-piece suit (the bank that is across from Amherst Cinema, now a co-working space).

I used to regularly see Shepp, Yusef Lateef, and, later, Gary Smulyan in that Whole Foods.

I miss For the Record!

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 5d

(I also showed Archie Shepp how to use the newfangled device called an ATM, but that's another story.)

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 5d

I met him around '93, he came to Amherst to attend a workshop held by Dave Monette, who makes Wynton's horns and mouthpieces. He introduced himself to Monette, who had never heard of him.

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Reposted by Peter Sokolowski

Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · 6d

Correcting strangers’ grammar uninvited is an act of hostility, so either jubilantly own that or don’t do it.

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Reposted by Peter Sokolowski

Michael Lobel @mlobelart.bsky.social · 9d

I'd never known of this artwork before, but with so much going on I think it's one we need right now: detailed 1934 drawing in black crayon by American modernist Charles Sheeler entitled "Feline Felicity," currently on view at the Harvard Art Museums harvardartmuseums.org/collections/...

Photo-realistic drawing of a cat snoozing on a cane-seated chair

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 6d

'Spiral' is terrific! If you want something shorter, I liked 'TOTEMS,' cold-war spies in the early '60s, like a French 'Tinker Tailor' meets the classic James Bond era.

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