Allen Michie

Jazz and arts critic for Artsfuse.org, record collector, record salesman on Discogs (Blythe Amusement), manager of the Miles Davis Discussion Group on Facebook, and administrator of Jazztodon.com for Mastodon. I'm a higher education administrator in the great city of Austin, Texas. You can read my reviews and articles at allenmichie.medium.com.

Last Notes

2026-09-04 12:23:09 UTC

"I think anybody running for president or vice president should be forced to take a coganitive [sic] examination. Right? I mean, you get a guy who gets in there -- he's got a good line of crap and he gets in -- and all of a sudden you're stuck with a man who's a moron. This is not good."
-- Trump

2026-08-29 15:48:08 UTC

Jazztodon artist of the week: Thelonious Monk!
"All the musicians that were thinking liked my music and wanted to learn how to play the different songs that we were playing. And the most talented ones used to be on the scene. Like Charlie Parker and Dizzy. They were about the fastest-thinking musicians. And so they would come and play all the time, and I would teach ‘em the songs, you know, and the chords. They didn’t just hear it. I had to tell ‘em what it was.
I wasn’t trying to create something that would be hard to play. I just composed music that fit with how I was thinking. I knew musicians would dig it, because it sounded good. I didn’t want to play the way I’d heard music played all my life. I got tired of hearing that. I wanted to hear something else, something better. In fact, I wanted to play differently. I had a different conception of rhythm section, and all that."
#jazz #theloniousmonk
https://jazztodon-com.s3.bhs.io.cloud.ovh.net/media_attachments/files/117/179/579/383/630/265/original/d9c7d06dd32a677a.webp

2026-05-16 13:33:39 UTC

"[Biden] has one ability I don't have: he sleeps... He has an ability to fall asleep while on camera... You'll never see me sleeping in front of a camera."
-- Trump, 2024

2026-04-01 03:01:26 UTC

The $490 bill has come due for the Jazztodon.com server. I would appreciate your help! Remember that Mastodon has no ads, no fees, and no one is profiting from a manipulative algorithm. It relies solely on its users. If you appreciate the vibe on Jazztodon, and on Mastodon in general, please consider making a contribution.
Our membership and engagement has gone down since the novelty of Mastodon has worn off and Bluesky has stolen a lot of the attention for federated networking. If you want Jazztodon to hang on for at least another year, I could use your financial support (and of course your support making engaging posts).
I didn't ask anyone for a contribution in 2025, but I can't carry the whole load this year. We have 45 active members. If each one contributed just $10, we'd meet the goal. My PayPal name is AllenMichie, or you can contact me privately for some other way to send some funds.
Thanks, and please help spread the word about the home for jazz people on Mastodon.

2025-12-02 19:05:00 UTC

https://jazztodon.com/system/media_attachments/files/115/651/529/922/044/425/original/1b390c85bcdad5d4.jpeg

2025-11-22 20:43:25 UTC

Paul McCartney just dropped a surprise new protest album with Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn, Billy Ocean, Ed O’Brien, Dan Smith, The Clash, Mystery Jets, Jamiroquai, Imogen Heap, Yusuf / Cat Stevens, Riz Ahmed, Tori Amos, Hans Zimmer, James MacMillan, Max Richter, John Rutter, The Kanneh-Masons, The King’s Singers, The Sixteen, Roderick Williams, Sarah Connolly, Nicky Spence, Ian Bostridge, and many more.
Not a joke.
#paulmccartney
https://open.substack.com/pub/tedgioia/p/paul-mccartney-invents-a-new-kind?r=37v074&utm_medium=ios

2025-07-29 18:59:33 UTC

I love this one. It’s a rarely heard track from the 1980’s Miles Davis band at its finest.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/remake-of-obx-ballad-full-studio-session/1629093520?i=1629093535

2025-07-19 13:21:03 UTC

"I never wrote a picture in my life." -- Trump
"Sometimes being a giver will open you up to new talents. Each year I donate an autographed doodle to the Doodle for Hunger auction at Tavern on the Green." -- Trump, in a 2008 book

2024-11-24 16:23:18 UTC

"Matt Gaetz is a private citizen. Congress should not investigate a private citizen."
-- Mike Johnson
"It doesn't matter that Hunter Biden is a private citizen. The American people deserve to know. Congress needs to investigate to the fullest extent possible."
-- Mike Johnson

2024-10-31 11:23:51 UTC

"President Trump has promised me...control of the public health agencies, which are HHS and its sub-agencies, CDC, FDA, NIH and a few others, and then also the USDA, which is key to making America healthy."
-- RFK Jr.
"I'm going to let him go wild on health. I'm going to let him go wild on the food. I'm going to let him go wild on the medicines."
-- Trump, at MSG rally

2024-10-28 23:21:11 UTC

“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.”
-Russell Vought, a likely candidate for Trump’s chief of staff if elected

2024-10-22 03:16:07 UTC

https://jazztodon.com/system/media_attachments/files/113/348/900/659/070/310/original/9d0d7978de90c0de.jpeg

2024-09-29 20:04:44 UTC

Basically every Republican calling for federal aid after Hurricane Helene voted to shut down the federal government … checks notes … last *Wednesday.*

2024-09-25 18:16:37 UTC

- reply

Cast the first stone. Hard. And don’t apologize.

2024-09-12 19:40:09 UTC

- reply

Rodent racism.

2024-09-12 19:10:22 UTC

If you ever get a call from an unknown number, pick it up and say “Hi, you’re on the air.”

2024-08-14 02:56:21 UTC

When you’re famous, they let you do it.
https://jazztodon.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/958/123/454/734/549/original/d19b95be78b454df.jpeg

2024-08-02 22:04:37 UTC

https://jazztodon.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/894/690/879/008/492/original/b65fe1cf8a134701.jpeg