{"id":1362,"date":"2008-06-08T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-08T08:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/?p=1362"},"modified":"2008-06-08T01:05:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-08T08:05:00","slug":"correspondence_strayhorn_and_f","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2008\/06\/correspondence_strayhorn_and_f\/","title":{"rendered":"Correspondence: Strayhorn and Finegan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rifftides<\/em> reader Ian Bradley writes: <\/p>\n

\n

I have been meaning to write for a while to say how much I enjoy reading Rifftides<\/em>. I was prompted to write following your two most recent posts on Bill Finegan and Billy Strayhorn. Whilst Glenn Miller’s music is often denigrated in jazz circles – criticised for something it never set out to be – I always thought there was lot in there to listen for. <\/p>\n

I was fascinated to read – in David Hajdu’s Strayhorn biography<\/a>, I think – that Billy Strayhorn had listened to, knew and appreciated all of Finegan’s work for the Miller band. I am sorry to think that only until a couple of days ago, we still had with us the man who created that legendary arrangement of “Little Brown Jug”<\/a> – and that there existed such friendship between two such great arrangers. Add that I think Bill Finegan tutored and offered much to the young Nelson Riddle and you have the three greatest writers of a time when that sad disjuncture between popular music and jazz, written and improvised work, did not exist–and popular music was all the richer for it.  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

( Mr. Bradley blogs at The Record Shows<\/em><\/a>. — DR) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rifftides reader Ian Bradley writes: I have been meaning to write for a while to say how much I enjoy reading Rifftides. I was prompted to write following your two most recent posts on Bill Finegan and Billy Strayhorn. Whilst Glenn Miller’s music is often denigrated in jazz circles – criticised for something it never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}