Last week, the US Mint released a new quarter for the District of Columbia featuring the late American composer Duke Ellington .

This event didn’t receive the fanfare of the recent Obama Inauguration, but equally symbolic, Duke Ellington is the first African-American to appear on a circulating coin and he is a deserving recipient of this honor.

Born in Washington, DC in 1899, Ellington’s contributions to the American songbook may never have another rival. He was a passionate and intense composer who wrote and recorded more than 3,000 original songs including jazz standards ‘Mood Indigo,” “It Don’t Mean A Thing,” “Caravan,” “Take The A Train” and volumes of other material.

My musical education in high school was built upon this music as Sullivan Central High School band director Bill Canny introduced our jazz group to these songs and I’m still thankful for that introduction many years later.

Duke passed on in 1974 at the age of 75 and may very well be one of America’s greatest composers.

What’s more significant about this artist is the the significance of his work in a racially charged era. Duke and his band were the most popular acts in the country and traveled in private rail cars coast to coast performing with musicians that included Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane and Ella Fitzgerald.

In the mid-twentieth century, live music was one of America’s favorite past-times and big bands would dress with impeccable style and work together celebrating elegant functions that provided a romance still evident in the black and white photos of the times.

Ellington’s music made such an impact on the culture he even made his way into American cinema and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1961 for his score to ‘Paris Beauty.”

Wynton Marsalis speaks about Ellington in his book, “Moving To Higher Ground” and describes him as a “man for all people and the most unwavering example in jazz of pure dedication and ceaseless productivity.”

Duke Ellington’s music has such sophistication it deserves all the attention a quarter can give to this iconic figure. The music swings like no other and celebrates the joy, the reverie and spirit of a gilded age.

Marsalis also states in his new book, “I believe that to know the essence of a thing requires returning as closely as possible to the origin of the that thing.”

When it comes to jazz and great American popular music, Duke is a great history lesson.

In honor of this man and his music, here’s an important element in the YouTube archive featuring Ellington with the great drummer Louie Bellson who died just a few weeks ago on February 14th.

It wasn’t long ago my attention turned to Bettie Page. It wasn’t the first time and it probably won’t be the last either because Bettie was a doll and may be one of the most influential pop-icons to be associated with Kingsport, TN (whether that’s true or not).

Bettie died last Thursday, December 11th from pneumonia in a Los Angeles hospital. She was 85 years old.

Born April 12, 1923, Bettie Page was the daughter of Walter Roy Page and Edna Mae Pirtle. She became famous as a fetish pin-up model in the 1950s.

Her dark raven hair, fair skin, bright red lipstick and curvaceous figure was certainly the fantasy of many a young man at the time too and her posters are still drop-dead sexy. Appearing in over 20,000 photos, one reviewer mentioned she was the fore-runner for every “Suicide Girl” since and even the foundation for fetish fashion.

It’s amusing to watch the 21st century media machine gobble up the details around Governor Elliot Spitzer’s fall from grace. His recent allegations and $4500 appetite for “professional” sexcapades has been priority one for cable/entertainment news for several days now.

As the story has developed, the real attention has turned toward the woman that’s worth the big bucks with the executive service Spitzer has been entangled with.

Ashley Alexandria Dupre is a smart cookie too. She has a Myspace page and as of yesterday (according to CNN), her name was the fifth most popular keyword search on Google. I’ll admit we were passing around links at the office checking out the seductive young brunette and sure enough…she’s easy on the eyes.

I’m impressed too that she’s using the windfall of fame to culture her budding singing career. According to the report at CNN, she’s also tuning her Myspace site as interested voyeurs and journalists from all over the world give her the 15 seconds of fame this new age seems to dish out from day to day.

It’s hard to say how this will kick-start her career as either a budding musician or lead to greater profits altogether in her chosen profession. Her music is a blend of ho-hum R&B pop and isn’t anything Madonna and a brothel of others haven’t done already.

Nevertheless, I’ve never imagined a moment of bliss worth $4500, but I’ve never had the scruples to dupe my fellow tax-payers either.

Well another year has gone by and once again, I’ve enjoyed watching the music industry’s top-award show and glad to know Herbie Hancock walked away with Album of the Year.

I haven’t heard the “River – The Joni Letters” compilation, but after more than 40 years, it’s great to know a jazz artist won this coveted award. I’ve seen Herbie three times locally and it was a real treat to know that he beat Kanye West and celebrated his 12th Grammy.

Some folks scoff at awards shows and rightfully so. They’re pompous and most often don’t credit the real winners of the year, but if one show stands out – it’s the Grammy Awards. Now in its 50th year, it was good to see several old cronies and celebrate some upcoming artists that were truly ‘ear-candy’ this year.

I don’t think I’ll forget Ted Como’s criticism of CBS one day after a staff meeting. I was talking about Dan Rather and Ted scoffed at the network referring to their three letter acronym as the “Communist Broadcasting Service.”

I’ve smiled a long time about that comment and I’m sure Ted still remembers that because he still doesn’t care too much about the network.

I also remember the Dan Rather blowout on CBS when he was duped by a blogger and under fire for credibility and perhaps because of his rambling anecdotes too, they let him go. Rather has gone on to Mark Cuban‘s new HD Network and the man at the very least deserves applause for reinventing himself (at age 75) despite the controversy. His old-school journalism deserves plenty of respect too and besides that, Dan seems like a gracious Texas gentleman and he’s still a provacative reporter even into his senior years.

After a short round with Bob Schieffer on the air, Katie Couric was brought to the evening news at CBS and despite the fanfare, she never was able to get the numbers back up to what they were. I continued to watch for a while, but I’ve finally made a switch to NBC, especially now that Michael Douglas joins the cast.

I didn’t have any trick-or-treaters tonight for Halloween. A few parties here and there and when I read Nicole Sikora’s latest update on her blog as she was dressed up with just one kid knocking at the door, I couldn’t help remember my own fright night long ago. An era when Halloween meant coming home with enough candy to last until January.

I remember when all that changed too and the trick-or-treaters stayed home – afraid to go out in the dark.

One of my favorite memories of Halloween recalls me and my brother Keith scrambling from neighbor to neighbor in the seventies. We were about ten years old and we had to carry more than one bag as we had no trouble taking home a robber’s portion of candy bars, Now-Laters, Sweet Tarts, Mallow Cups and Zotz ! I remember Keith who was much shorter than I running through yards with a grocery bag and the dew from the October night slowly working a hole into his bag until he came home crying because he lost all his loot.

That’s the way it was. Now to the way it is.

I’ve started a new book from the two brothers, Chip and Dan Heath. Their bright orange cover with a strip of duck tape is titled “Made to Stick,” with the subtitle as “Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.”

This book is the latest title about modern-day business thinking and Chip and Dan come from different backgrounds to explore this topic. Dan lives in nearby Raleigh and is a former Harvard Researcher who leads Thinkwell – a tech start-up working with educators and create multi-media resources. Chip is a professor at Stanford University where he teaches organizational behavior and became fascinated with why bad ideas sometimes won out in the social marketplace. Over his ten year experience, he worked with students and researchers to explore urban myths and stories. It’s a great book and real gem for business book worms looking for sticky ideas.

Back to Halloween.

I remember when Halloween changed. It was sometime in the early seventies and all of a sudden, rumors spread like a virus about Halloween sadists who hid razor blades and booby-trapped peices of candy. By 1985, an ABC news poll showed that 60 percent of parents worried their children might be victimized.

What’s interesting about this legend – it’s not true. According to the Heaths, researchers studied Halloween incidents all the way back to 1958. Their studies revealed no single incident like the rumors that spread for decades. In fact, two children did die on Halloween, but their deaths didn’t come from strangers. A five year old boy discovered his uncle’s heroin stash and overdosed. Another case exposes a father who was hoping to cash in on an insurance scam and caused his own son’s death by contaminating candy (meant for himself) with cyanide.

Interesting note from the authors;

“In other words, the best social science evident reveals that taking candy from strangers is perfectly okay. It’s your family you should worry about.”

A couple of weeks ago I was amused like many others about the new videos from You Tube’s flavor of the month Chris Crocker.

Earl Carter first blogged about a recent photo shoot of Crocker at Steele Creek Park in Bristol and although I’m not sure exactly where Chris lives, we know he’s from somewhere nearby. Earl later retracted some of his details after an AP story broke nationwide about this native – his celebrity requiring some degree of anonymity.

If I were a Simpson character, this is the character you would see outside the “Kwik-E-Mart” in Springfield – at least according to Simpsonizeme.com.

This is a new website and brilliant marketing ploy by Burger King and the designers/programmers who have designed this new viral web destination. All you have to do is upload a close-up digital picture in a jpg or gif format, select a few Simpson characteristics and presto! You’re a Simpson cartoon character.

This site is many times offline because of the number of visitors flooding the site and it took me several times. Eventually though, I finally got around to it and I’m thinking my comic character trumps my real world avatar. It’s pretty cool though.

Caught The Simpsons Movie too this weekend. The Stricklers invited me to the opening night at Fort Henry Mall. I hadn’t been to the theatre in quite some time and Carson Waugh drove us into the parking lot a few moments before the show. By the time we got inside, the place was full and the only place to accommodate our entire group was the front row, so I got a wall of Simpsons three stories tall, or so it seemed.

Tracy wanted us all to sit together so we could laugh together. You see, the Simpsons are usually on their tele during dinner, every night and I’m still completely surprised they haven’t seen every episode. My fascination with The Simpsons is highly influenced by their love of this cartoon now in it’s 18th year and the Simpsons video game imprinted me with my own curiosity and affection toward this movie.

The movie was great too. Not alot of the great characters that make up this pantheon of characters, but plenty of slick, engaging humor. I was surprised when the movie ended, thinking it was short, but at 90 minutes, it’s surprisingly entertaining. Must have been the same scenario across the country too as the Simpson’s Movie garned $70 million. I won’t spoil the movie with a description, but Maggie’s first word – “sequel.” Now if I could just the hooky “Spider Pig” song out of my mind.

There was plenty of Simpson’s buzz over the weekend too and to cap it off, this appearance of Matt Groening on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Great stuff here as he discusses a tiff with Fox News.

Here’s an inspiring and moving video from the British television series “Britains Got Talent” that features Paul Potts, a cell phone salesperson who is living out a dream.

Paul was recently featured in front of Simon Cowell and the judges of this popular television show and this underdog is the subject of many blog conversations. I ran across this video on Seth Godin’s blog and he was talking about how people work through the “dips” (his new book title) and refers specifically to his teeth, his confidence and the critics in general.

If you don’t like opera, that really doesn’t matter here because this humble performer has an incredible talent and the audience reaction here on his first performance is breath-taking and if you can’t feel the goose-bumps…pinch yourself.

Paul went on to win this competition and will have the opportunity to perform for the queen.

HD Net is one of my favorite television channels now that I’m living the high-def lifestyle. Their coolest programming centers around a healthy collection of concert performances that air on the channel. Recently, Herbie Hancock was featured and he was talking about his latest recording, “Possibilities” and it’s been one of my favorite new projects I’ve listened to in quite some time.

Hancock is a living legend and multiple Grammy award winner and the 67 year-old artist shows no signs of slowing down. He catapulted his career when he began performing with the Miles Davis quintet in the sixties at the age of 21. He was one of the architects of the jazz-fusion movement in the seventies blending jazz and synthesizers. And GenX may remember his vanguard video and hip-hop anthem “Rock-It” and for baby-boomers – he produced most of the soundtrack for Bill Cosby’s Fat Albert cartoons.

Always the innovator – I’ve seen Hancock perform live three times now – twice in Knoxville with The HeadHunters (his jazz fusion group) and Wayne Shorter (whom he heralds as his most influential instrumentalist). I was front stage in Asheville a few years ago at Thomas Wolfe and consider it surreal everytime I get the chance catch him live.

“Possibilities” is a dream recording for Hancock as he’s cooked up a dream roster. Must be nice to play gigs with anyone you please and he had no problem attracting some of the most distinctive artists of the modern era.