Jazz Dialogue: Gary Giddins in Conversation with Loren Schoenberg. Lots of stuff here, including this bit on Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong:

So anyway Crosby and Armstrong hit it off immediately. Their relationship was not known, but I found letters between them that were unbelievable. It didn't surprise me that Crosby kept calling Armstrong a genius, but it surprised me that Armstrong kept calling Crosby a genius. They really had a terrific relationship. They smoked pot together and they drank and when Bing finished in his whites-only club, the Café Montmartre, he would go out to the Cotton Club in Culver City to see Louis. They would hang out. Joey Bushkin told me that when they were on tour in '75, a couple of years before Bing died, they were in the dressing room one night and Johnny Mercer had just died. They had all been close with Johnny Mercer and they started talking about the great musicians and Bing said, "Do you realize that Louis Armstrong was the greatest singer that ever lived and ever will live forever and ever?"

And Joey said, "Yeah, I love Pops, but what do you mean?" He said, "It's so simple. When he sings a happy song you laugh. When he sings a sad song you cry. What the hell else is there in popular music?"

He also said that Louis Armstrong is "the beginning and the end of music in America." Then he did something quite wonderful in 1936. He had been arguing for years with his film studio, Paramount, to let him produce a film. When he finally got the right to do that, he chose Pennies from Heaven, and made a deal with Columbia to finance and distribute it. He insisted that Armstrong not only be in the film, but get star billing. He's only in the movie for six or seven minutes, but he's billed on the same card with Bing.

I stumbled onto the Giddins interview while I was looking at the Jazz Journalists Association's 2008 Jazz Awards finalist nominees. I'm not a member -- I was invited to join a couple years ago, but rather arbitrarily decided the $75 fee wouldn't have been cost-effective, preserving my amateur status -- but got a notice from the publicist. But I rarely miss an opportunity to test myself against a ballot, so here's how I would have voted, with the following provisos: see the link above for context; choices limited to their nominees (with no alternate suggestions); choices limited based on 2007-08 recordings (which among others eliminates Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins):

• Lifetime Achievement in Jazz: Oscar Peterson, Lee Konitz (all are worthwhile, and at this rate they'll never come close to getting everyone they should)
• Musician of the Year: Terence Blanchard (Rollins and Coleman excluded)
• Up & Coming Musician of the Year: Tyshawn Sorey (read the nominees and go figure)
• Record of the Year: A Tale of God's Will, Terence Blanchard (actually, #146 on my 2007 list, beating out Abbey Lincoln at #188; the list includes non-jazz)
• Reissue of the Year: Compulsion, Andrew Hill
• Reissue box set: Lady Day: The Master Takes and Singles, Billie Holiday (regrettably didn't get any of the Mosaics)
• Record Label of the Year: Clean Feed
• Composer of the Year: Carla Bley (not sure but sentimental choice)
• Arranger of the Year: Uri Caine (ditto)
• Male Singer of the Year: Giacomo Gates
• Female Singer of the Year: Roberta Gambarini
• Latin Jazz Album of the Year: My Island, Rafi Malkiel
• Small Ensemble Group of the Year (< 9 pieces): Mostly Other People Do the Killing
• Large Ensemble of the Year: Gerald Wilson Orchestra
• Trumpeter of the Year: Dave Douglas
• Trombonist of the Year: Roswell Rudd
• Player of the Year of Instruments Rare in Jazz: Erik Friedlander, cello
• Alto Player of the Year: Steve Lehman
• Tenor Player of the Year: Joe Lovano
• Soprano Saxophonist of the Year: Wayne Shorter (consolation prize for that Herbie Hancock album I didn't like)
• Baritone Saxophonist of the Year: Joe Temperley
• Clarinetist of the Year: Perry Robinson
• Flutist of the Year: Nicole Mitchell (notwithstanding her dud record)
• Pianist of the Year: Myra Melford
• Organ-keyboards of the Year: Gary Versace
• Guitarist of the Year: Pat Metheny (I never get Bill Frisell records)
• Bassist of the Year: William Parker
• Electric Bassist of the Year: Stomu Takeishi
• Strings Player of the Year: Billy Bang, violin
• Mallets Player of the Year: Joe Locke
• Percussionist of the Year: Hamid Drake
• Drummer of the Year: Paal Nilssen-Love
• Jazz Journalism Lifetime Achievement Award: Stanley Crouch (who lately is horrible more often than not, but has done better in the past, plus I'm embarrassingly unfamiliar with the others, just a couple of names I vaguely recognize)
• Excellence in Jazz Broadcasting: no choice
• Excellence in Newspaper, Magazine or Online Feature or Review Writing: Larry Blumenfeld
• Best Periodical Covering Jazz: Signal2Noise
• Best Website Concentrating on Jazz: All About Jazz
• Best book About Jazz: no choice (haven't read any)
• Excellence in Photography: no choice
• Jazz Events Producer of the Year: Patricia Nicholson-Parker, Vision Festival (didn't attend any, but this one produced the most good records by a big margin)

Note also that while some of these are strong choices, others are very marginal ones.

On his blog, JJA president Howard Mandel has a post on jazz polls/awards in general that I haven't been able to make much sense out of. I certainly don't see any point in using such occasions just to suck up to the rich. Rather, they do two (or maybe three) things: they test what James Surowiecki called the wisdom of crowds, providing a sanity check for the voters; they give some relative unknowns a chance for recognition; and (maybe) they present the best face of jazz to a few outsiders willing to take a chance on it. But there are problems with each of these points as well. In particular, the crowds thesis tends to fall down not so much on varying tastes -- that's probably its strength -- but on inequal information.