this monday at the hideout

Merle Travis vs. Miles Davis. Yes friends, Missouri meets Kentucky on Monday night at the Hideout, where the nine-pound hammer faces the nine-bar jammer; smoke smoke smoke takes on shoot shoot shoot; cool battles coal; So What locks "horns" with That's All; hard bop encounters dry bread; friendly goes against unfriendly. He was known as the prince of darkness -- but just how dark? As a dungeon?

It's Walkin' (The Strings!), it's Kind of Black (Lung!), it's -- in my case, here at home trying to force the fundamentals of the Travis-style into my unwilling left hand in 5 days -- Sketches of Sprain. If you have better, send them on.

Helping me work these miserable wordplays into an extendedly pleasant and even musical evening will be: Jake Crowe as Cannonball Adderley and electric Merle, Beau Sample as Paul Chambers and Cliffie Stone, Scott Stevenson as Bills Evans and Liebert, me as acoustic Merle and an imaginary country guitarist inexplicably sitting in with the quintet, Gerald Dowd as Philly Joe Jones and nobody, and, in a long overdue starring role, the distinguished Anna S. Jacobson as Miles Davis and Tex Atchison.