Alex Ross goes ga-ga over awful

[Larry Kart]

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musi...crmu_music_ross

BTW, when I say "awful" I mean that it was IMO awful in its own right but mostly awful as a score for that film -- grossly obtrusive, imposing a sense of soupily sentimental, "moody" narrative that was at war with what director P.T. Anderson seemed to me to be up to -- but then I didn't like the film much either, so what do I know? But Ross watchers will want to take a look at this paen.

[7/4]

I read this yesterday..it made the music sound interesting, but I still can't be bothered to check it out.

Maybe as a cutout...

[clifford_thornton]

I thought it sounded halfway decent until I realized who wrote the music...

I'm not convinced Greenwood knows what he's doing.

[Larry Kart]

I thought it sounded halfway decent until I realized who wrote the music...

I'm not convinced Greenwood knows what he's doing.

From an email I wrote to a friend today:

My problem, leaving Ross aside for the moment, is that the score took itself so seriously in such a self-conscious manner. Among other things, all that "The coalescence of a wide range of notes into a monomaniacal unison may tell us most of what we need to know about the crushed soul of the future tycoon Daniel Plainview" crap from Ross ignores what to me is the most obvious and dramatically inappropriate fact about the relationship between Greenwood's music and what we're seeing -- the music wears "a modern, or formerly modern, European art music" badge (if not by outright intent, that's where those sounds come from directly or indirectly: Bartok filtered through '50s-60s Polish angst a la Pendercki) and thus it says among other things, though to me it says this quite strongly: "These sounds we're hearing come from another world than the one we're seeing and in which Plainview and the rest are acting [A higher one? A future one that's looking back and judging Plainvew's behavior and his early 20th Century mileu? Etc.], and don't you forget it." I'm not saying that such a dialogue between a soundtrack and what we're seeing couldn't be meaningful, even marvelous, if it were done just right; I'm saying that here it sounds to me like neither Anderson nor Greenwood understood what the likely effect of that "classy" modern music ansgt would be on the film -- or they thought that that it would have one sort of effect whereas, for me at least, it very much has another. As for Ross, this piece seems to me to be another example of him whoring after, in at least three directions at once, the holy grail of relevance. Modern music still has a "real" role to play, damn it, he says, stamping his foot -- and even better, it comes here from Mr. Radiohead, so it's relevant in the sense that you and your kids are really on kind of the same page here, if only you knew it and/or were awake enough to smell the coffee -- as Ross is here to tell us he is.

[Rooster_Ties]

I thought it sounded halfway decent until I realized who wrote the music...

Who wrote it changed you opinion about how it sounded?

I'm not convinced Greenwood knows what he's doing.

Nor am I convinced he doesn't. The jury's still out.

Edit: And at least it wasn't a half-baked Korngold impersonation. Or worse, some John Williams "steal from everybody" type score.

Edited January 29, 2008 by Rooster_Ties

[clifford_thornton]

I liked the film.

Mostly where I appreciated Greenwood & Anderson's attempt with the music was in the very first scene, or at least the very first shot.

I'll very quickly get in over my head on this, mostly because I don't really care about Greenwood or the score, and that (as I said), I enjoyed the film for the most part.

[clifford_thornton]

I thought it sounded halfway decent until I realized who wrote the music...

Who wrote it changed you opinion about how it sounded?

It helped swing my vote.

[analogak]

yet alex can draw superman better than just about anyone else alive.

[RDK]

yet alex can draw superman better than just about anyone else alive.

Heh. Was thinking the same thing. Don't know this other Alex Ross - and don't really know Greenwood either aside from him being in radiohead - but I dug the score.

[analogak]

SHAZAM!

[clifford_thornton]

Why you bringing Archie Shepp into this?

[analogak]

Why you bringing Archie Shepp into this?

actually i am bringing chick corea into it!

[clifford_thornton]

So there's a Corea song by that name too?

Saw Alex Ross on Colbert the other night. It was amusing.

[7/4]

So there's a Corea song by that name too?

Ga-Ga Over Awful?

Saw Alex Ross on Colbert the other night. It was amusing.

Almost.

Anything to sell books.

[analogak]

http://superherouniverse.com/superheroes/i...tain-marvel.jpg

[analogak]

http://freakcomics.com/images/posts/shazam9.gif

[7/4]

http://freakcomics.com/images/posts/shazam9.gif

[analogak]

cliff sorry for being obtuse. captain marvel says SHAZAM!

[Larry Kart]

Or as the vintage Mad magazine parody "Captain Marbles" had it: "Shazoom! -- Strength, Health, Aptitude, Zeal, Ox (power of), Ox (power of another), Money."

Cracked me up at age 12, and it still amuses me.

[Christiern]

Strictly speaking, this should go into the Political forum, but I wanted to post it here because of the references to Alex Ross (see purple text). Hope it's ok.--CA

Welcoming Obama To Reality

BY JOHN McWHORTER

January 31, 2008

Strong Black Woman.

Say it loud, "I'm black and I'm proud."

So why the sense of injury over the Clintons aiming slime at Barack Obama?

Mind you, it's been a moderate dollop. We've heard so much about how the Clinton machine would "get" him. So: he worked with a slum lord? His record on Iraq is a "fairy tale?" His embrace by black voters in South Carolina won't take him any further than Jesse Jackson got?

Compared to the Swift-boating affair against John Kerry, this is water balloons. And yet wise folk are telling us that part of the reason Mr. Obama copped so much of the black vote in South Carolina is indignation at the Clintons' abuse. The white punditocracy is similarly harrumphing over Mr. Obama meeting sharp elbows.

But aren't we supposing that this grown man in his fifth decade of life is curiously delicate?

Haven't our elections been permeated with mud since, well, forever?

Summer 1884: Grover Cleveland is governor of New York, running for president on the Democratic ticket, his appeal based on not being a Washington insider — i.e., untainted, like a certain someone. His Republican opponent, James Blaine, had dirty hands and everyone knew it: there were certain letters, on the back of one "Burn this letter" was written — but the letter remained distinctly unburned.

Blaine's guys fought dirty. They dug up that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child. Cleveland's response to his "peeps": "Tell the truth." They did, and Cleveland became president. He wasn't surprised that what we would today call "The Blaine Machine" did everything they could to try to defeat him.

Yet there is an element of surprise, a tincture of dismay, in how many view the sliming of Mr. Obama. If Grover Cleveland or John Kerry got slimed, what do you expect? But if Mr. Obama gets slimed, well.

There is a tacit sense that decent people would make an exception for him. Otherwise, why would so many think of it as news that the Clintons or anyone else would get nasty in trying to push past him?

Let's face facts: People see this commonplace phenomenon as news because of a tacit idea that as a black man, Mr. Obama should be treated with kid gloves.

Lawrence Bobo, professor of sociology at Harvard, gives it away comparing the Clintons' attacks on Mr. Obama to, specifically, the Willie Horton ad and the 2000 vote count. That is, events traditionally classified as "racist" — as if Republicans have not sought to best Democrats in ways disconnected to race. Upon which the Swift-boat thing is germane. Mr. Bobo appends that to his list, too — but misses that the guiding theme is not racism but hardball.

Welcome to reality: being judged by the content of our character means that we black people will not be exempt from hardball. We should not be seduced by the fantasy that we must pretend to be fragile.

I have been reminded of this in Alex Ross' survey of 20th century classical music "The Rest is Noise," anointed by the Times as one of last year's 10 best books. Mr. Ross takes us from Mahler through to John Adams, including Elliott Carter, this week being celebrated at Julliard.

But even in a chronicle of music only a rarefied elite care about, Mr. Ross feels a duty to "acknowledge" black musicians who have nothing genuine to do with what the book is about. So he must drag in Duke Ellington as a "classical composer," who would "follow Gershwin in uniting jazz and classical procedures," but "in his own way."

Yes — but in a "way" that was not classical music at all. Ellington was a jazz composer. He wrote short pieces united by titular themes. His works like "Black, Brown and Beige" and the "Far East Suite" do not take one or two musical themes and morph them meanderingly in various keys for 20 minutes in the way that is the definition of classical music.

The genius of Ellington was in the harmonic and improvisational richness within the short pieces. It was an art I love deeply: I have more Ellington in my CD collection than of any other jazz composer.

However, genuflectively saluting Ellington in a book about music like Milton Babbitt's is like Julia Child dutifully including a few Thai recipes in a book about French cuisine. The Thais will be just fine knowing that Pad Kee Mow is splendid — and maybe even better than chicken cordon bleu.

Just as Mr. Obama, an adult despite Maureen Dowd's terming him "Obambi," will be just fine getting heckled. If we pretend otherwise, we diminish him just as Ms. Dowd does. If he's strong, black, and proud, he can take being dissed — and the rest, to take a page from Mr. Ross, is noise.

Mr. McWhorter is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and weekly columnist for The New York Sun. His latest book is "Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America."

[clifford_thornton]

Kind of strange/interesting reference there.

Haven't read Ross' book but am curious if he's included anything about Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, or (no way he knows who) Bill Dixon (is).

Ellington was more than a jazz musician, Eno was more than a pop musician, etc. Obvious the Sun writer doesn't like classical or "modern" music.

[Rob C]

Huh. I don't think I'd want to listen to it on its own, but I thought the score was quite effective as part of the film.

It was clearly a conscious choice to use anachronistic music. Whether you think it "works" is, of course, a matter of personal taste. I thought it worked.

[Larry Kart]

Kind of strange/interesting reference there.

FWIW, McWhorter is something of a neo-con, not unlike but less flamboyant than Stanley Crouch:

http://www.racematters.org/mcwhorter.htm

[Christiern]

Yes, I have seen him on C-Span--what he said made me shake my head more then once.

[clifford_thornton]

Kind of strange/interesting reference there.

FWIW, McWhorter is something of a neo-con, not unlike but less flamboyant than Stanley Crouch:

http://www.racematters.org/mcwhorter.htm

It seems like two separate articles mashed together, to me. The NYT, that is.

Can't really speak about McWhorter, as I'm unfamiliar beyond what has just been posted and linked to here.