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Stanley Crouch Parker biography reviewed


Fer Urbina

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Well yeah. There's a big difference between playing, and then having it naturally become part of something ongoing, and deciding up front that you're participating in American Mythology or some overripe bullshit like that and then going out to play.

Seems to me that once you buy all the way into a theory like that, you're no longer participating directly in it, but are instead becoming an impartial observer. Because this "mythology" (or whatever the hell it is) that everybody wants to love is the result of, not the impetus for. the action. If I spontaneously make love to a woman all night long, it's pure magic. If I pick her up specifically to just do her all night, it's simply stunt-fucking. Ain't no magic nowhere in sight.

It's the lesson of Eden all over again - the way that Evil co-opts Truth & Beauty is to package and sell back to you what you already had for free. And it's sold back in significantly reduced quantity, because once you give it up, ain't never no getting it all back.

There's a sucker born every minute...

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Thanks for that clarification, Simon. Was leaning towards understanding it as the mythology of jazz itself, that when you step on stage you're stepping into the story of jazz up to that point and are extending, repeating, or reworking that story according to who you are and what you know about music, what you're trying to express.

Actually that would also be valid - Murray has a stance very like this, drawing on Malraux. I'm not sure if this is what they mean by mythology.

I think not (probably).

Simon Weil

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Apparently the first bit of Bird's bio is already available for pre-order, it already has been assigned a ISBN number, and, according to Amazon, it will be published in 2020 :blink:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kansas-City-Lightn...r/dp/0679438149

As for what's been said about myths, I'm against them through and through for many reasons, one being that musicians like Ellington, Satchmo, Bird, Coltrane, Miles... not only don't really need any mythology added, but it may hinder our appreciation of their actual greatness.

F

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Apparently the first bit of Bird's bio is already available for pre-order, it already has been assigned a ISBN number, and, according to Amazon, it will be published in 2020 :blink:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kansas-City-Lightn...r/dp/0679438149

As for what's been said about myths, I'm against them through and through for many reasons, one being that musicians like Ellington, Satchmo, Bird, Coltrane, Miles... not only don't really need any mythology added, but it may hinder our appreciation of their actual greatness.

F

If you google the title, you'll see that the West Orange Public Library may have a copy soon. Maybe 7/4 can tell us about it.

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Gary Giddins once reported that Crouch had generously shared his Bird research with him at one point, and he praised both the research and the generosity. I really have trouble reading Crouch, but I'll get this in the hopes of learning more about Charlie Parker. Crouch we already know about.

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Gary Giddins once reported that Crouch had generously shared his Bird research with him at one point, and he praised both the research and the generosity. ...

Yep. That's in the Acknowledgements section of his "Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker" book.

Edited by EKE BBB
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