AllenLowe

just to pull a Larry/copy editor thing, I woould take the following: "declining to conflate oversimplification with accessibility" and turn it into: "refusing to equate oversimplification with accessibility" he's using "conflate" in a way that I would question - the word means to combine or fuse - technically correct here but imprecise - though it sounds fancier in an academic way - "equate" is really what he means - this is a perfect example of the problem. And they are not "declining" anything, as they are not responding to a request - they are just refusing to do something - once again, "declining" has a more passive, academic sound -

well, if I ever get the energy to go back into the book I will try to pull out some passages. including a few in which new words were invented - truthfully, books like this, important as they are, exhaust me - I'm always editing in my head as I read them and there are some sentences I find myself reading over and over, just to fathom the word order. that said, nine out of ten grammarians recommend this book, for their patients who chew vocabulary -

give me a break guys, these are real issues - Lewis doesn't need protection from real criticism - just because we admire many things about him does not mean we have to like everything he does - he doesn't fawn over me, I don't fawn over him - neither of us has an obligation to the other to rubber stamp anything we do - the biggest favor we can do him is too take him seriously, and not treat him like he needs a press agent to sell his product to the undecided- and it's a BOOK, so LANGUAGE is relevant -

thanks for the plug Niko - yes I still have the Schildkraut for sale - as for "Otherwise, Dave sounded a lot like Bird on tenor. Am I right?" Not really - more Trane-ish in a manner once-removed - all Davey, with a bit of Sonny Rollins thrown in, too -

let's not start that jewel box thing again.... yes, Chuck, we want to order direct - in order to get our frequent-Organissimo-ite discount - can you take a third-party, cross-endorsed check from a bank that closed in 1987?

gotta think about it and do more reading - I agree that I see no point at which he is bending to please the academics in terms of his own opinions - I do think that, likely, the style is ingrained in him and I don't doubt his absolute sincerity in not only what he says but how he says it, but I do question the quality of the language -

"...his view that there can and should be no stylistic "jazz world" restrictions on the nature of "Black experimental music." if he is connecting this to his use of language - as in his argument in the book against the stylistic stereotyping of African American musicians as being outside of the 'classical' avant garde - than I think he is making a grave intellectual error. Surely he is correct that black musicians should not be typed as traditional jazz perfomer/composers (thinking, eg, of Stanley Crouch's attacks on Anthony Davis) but I would argue that 1) this is largely a straw man argument - in this day and age few serious jazz critics do this and 2) he is probably speaking about academic snobbery and stereotyping - but who cares what the academics think here? by working to justify himself to them he is acceding to their racism and artistic prejudices; and 3) he is seeking a cure that is possibly worse than (or at least as bad as) the disease - I like the book by the way, just feel it is, at times, too much of a chore to read it - and I will mention, by the way, that I am in a small minority here, judging by what reviews I have seen (Kevin Whitehead gave it a rave on Fresh Air this week) -

"Repeat, 50 times if necessary, until you find your answer or have at least narrowed down the possibilities." And than forget the whole damn thing and go learn Ruby My Dear (which I like better, anyway) -

maybe I need more of the stuff -

sorry - who ordered this?

I know what you mean, but respectfully disagree - honestly, I think the jargon is for academic cover, to make it most aceptable in the millieu in which he works - and this may come completely naturally to him, may not be an affectation, though, paradoxically, it really is. The language, for me, tends to obscure the discourse, to make it less meaningful as, paradoxically once again, it mimics the surface of meaning. Lewis does this less than a lot of academics, but he still does it on every page. Ironically or not, it does the opposite of what he intends, creating, as academics regularly do, a wall between the experience and the description of that experience. The ultimate effect is to replace linguistic style with mannerism -

"My package arrived in Tokyo yesterday." which would be fine except for the fact that you live in Utah -

add 94 sticks of dynamite, 51,000 shotguns, 23,000 bottles of liquor and one screaming virgin, and you have Northern Maine -

1) get 'em appraised at an inflated value 2) put 'em in a window-less room 3) buy some gasoline and put it in a can 4) get some matches 5) (this step left out for legal reasons) 6) Run like hell.....

I think that's Bobby McFarren's cousin -

dat be it - hope youse gwine to read it -

by the way, I'm not exaggerating -

well, only leaves me with 841, but I'll make the sacrifice -

better hurry - only 843 copies left -

years ago Kelly wrote a really dumb article for the NY Times on Miles as pimp - talking about Miles' as emulating a pimp in appearance and attitude - real bad piece -

now, I've only worked one gig in 12 years here in Portland, Maine; my agent told me he was worried about over-exposure -

add some napalm, 3 anti-personnel mines, a hand grenade, and one small nuclear device, and I'll bring some friends -

the basic rule of thumb in the jazz biz is that an agent will rep you only when you don't really need an agent - in other words, after you are already successful enough to work as much as you want -

If they'll throw in a grenade launcher, I'm there -

that's the guy - my mother used to have sheet music books with his markings -