NPR profiles Duke Ellington as the bandleader:
As a conductor, composer and arranger, Ellington was almost entirely a self-made success. With little formal training, the young bandleader became a keen observer of other professional orchestras, studying them in Broadway pits during daytime show rehearsals, then emulating their arrangements and techniques with his own ensemble at night.
Listen to the entire program here.
Art Pepper was a self-taught jazz saxophonist who never practiced. But he earned acclaim as one of the greatest alto players to follow in the footsteps of Charlie Parker, and one of the foremost exponents of West Coast jazz. His career was interrupted by 10 years in prison on narcotics charges, and he died in 1982 at the age of 56. Now his widow, Laurie Pepper, is trying to tell his story on film, doing it one chapter at a time and posting it on YouTube.
Nice portfolio of Cecilie Ellefsen, an an illustrator and animator in Oslo, Norway.
You’re still the sweetest!
Fantastic illustrator
John Gruber on Amazon’s Kindle:
So the Kindle proposition is this: You pay for downloadable books that can’t be printed, can’t be shared, and can’t be displayed on any device other than Amazon’s own $400 reader — and whether they’re readable at all in the future is solely at Amazon’s discretion. That’s no way to build a library.
Kindle isn’t the first eBook reader, but it’s the first portable bookstore. That’s novel. A book in 60 seconds whenever I want it at used-bookstore prices. And the daily push newspaper feature sounds like one hell of a bonus. I love getting the paper, but I hate getting the paper. What a complete waste of resources just so I can get yesterday’s news. I like that there’s some genuinely new thinking behind Kindle. We should embrace this, not tear it to shreds before it even has a chance.
Just what I need:
Please let you become like a soft pillow,
And let me embrace you into my heart.
Please give me one chance, one warm, heartfelt night,
so we can love each other tenderly like husband and wife.
Via Eversky.org
If you’re a photographer interested in shooting wedding pictures around Philly area, drop me a line. Give me your rate and provide some samples (website would be great) if possible.
A visual blog on posters