Simon Weil

Yeah, happy birthday Larry. It's really a treat to have you here. Simon Weil

So was Big Train, wasn't it? Yeah, it's all part of his wooden "lightening up" thing . Simon Weil

I think E. Dankworth is some kind of an in-joke for Marsalis - like some sort of archetypal something or other he thought up to amuse himself. He's used it before. This is his "sense of humour". Simon Weil

Both Ra and the AECM seem to have a desire to retain form. I mean everything seems to be within form, whereas someone like Ayler was kind of finding his form in what he did. There is always a risk of chaos in what he does, even though he doesn't get there. The other thing is that "Great Black Music" seems to find a precursor in the sort of syncretic approach of Ra. It strikes me as witty - which would make it a kind of precursor of AECM's more sardonic, existentially dark, sense of humour. But maybe I'm reading too much into that, not being truly knowledgeable about SR. I do sense a connection anyway. Simon Weil

Well, given Tyner's hatred for electricity ("unnatural") and Vitous not exactly being my choice for funk bassist - it would be either really, REALLY, bad funk or something else again. Tyner and Vitous is kind of an interesting sounding combination (at least in theory). But Moto Grosso Feio has guys playing outside their boxes. Simon Weil

Ah, at last someone's noticed the amazingly understated, but unfortunately uncredited, oud playing on the album. And of course AMG picked up on those subtle Bill Monroe samples. Simon Weil

I'm not really a classical person, but I've got a Solomon 2CD of the late sonatas which I really love. There's just something about his touch. Simon Weil

Well, the whole thing of "we were just following orders", so that responsibility seems to evade you. It is just the most amazingly banal statement to make about such a horrendous exercise. And yet people make it. And they can't see the incongruity at all. Like somewhere their brain got clogged up with all the evil and all they can utter is banalities and platitudes. It's like banality is a defense against seeing their part in evil. Simon Weil That does make sense, yes. The inconguity you mention, however, is what causes such stark terror when you see the nazi parts of "Shoah" - worst being the man who was second in command of the Warzsaw getto. These things really are beyond grasp. That film is just so full of banal images which are somehow terribly memorable. It's just, somehow, like the evil is so unspeakable - so unvisualizable - that all it can do is hide behind these images. Which do, en masse, and over the extent of the film, create this sense of massive, unvisualizable evil. But I'm inclined to think that there is some sort of connection between the banality of the images as a carrier, by implication, of the unvisualizable nature of the Holocaust - and the banality of processes through which the Holocaust was carried out. That is I draw a distinction between the underlying reality, which is too appalling for Man to grasp, and the ways people relate to it. Like people needed to keep the processes banal to carry the Holocaust out and deceive themselves that they were untouched. "Normality" reigned. The more normality, the more evil. Simon Weil

Well, the whole thing of "we were just following orders", so that responsibility seems to evade you. It is just the most amazingly banal statement to make about such a horrendous exercise. And yet people make it. And they can't see the incongruity at all. Like somewhere their brain got clogged up with all the evil and all they can utter is banalities and platitudes. It's like banality is a defense against seeing their part in evil. Simon Weil

I don't really remember what they say, but some of the images...some of the images are indelible. The guy who sang in the small boat in that wood. The train stopped and the driver getting ready to leave. The crummy concentration camp officer spieling out his lies....Oh, it's all very "the banality of evil". Hadn't occurred to me until now, but that's probably why... Simon Weil

It's a book by William Styron which was made into a film by Alan Pakula. I know the film, which is about a Polish woman trying to make a new life in America after her Holocaust experiences. It is strange and unquiet and I have equivocal feelings about it. But it's worth seeing. Haven't read the book. I'm not sure it'd be your thing though, Ubu. Simon Weil

For some reason this struck a chord in me. So I did a web search and came up with this site. It says: Sounds like the core idea of "Sophie's Choice". Don't feel like reading any further, just at the moment, but I think I will investigate Borowski. So... Thanks, Ubu. Simon Weil

Brownie, it's just one of those things where "I hear it like that". I'm right at the edge of my sensibility when I get that response - so I wouldn't want to make any big thing about it. I can see that he has made an attempt to keep his aesthetics out of it... And the fact is I have changed my mind about these sort of edge of sensibility responses in the past. But the hidden camera is playing on my mind. Simon Weil

I seem to have kind of answered that in my reply to Brownie. I didn't experience problems with people dis-remembering (or remembering wrong) the Holocaust - I think that's a perfectly valid point - it's just that I felt he (Lanzmann) got mixed up in there too. The whole thing was this kind of seamless monolithic construct - that was my experience of it. Honestly, Ubu, I can only take so much of this stuff. I read "If this is a Man" and just felt I had found my legitimate voice to take me through the morass. After that, I kind of gave up. I mean, I've got loads of factual books, but he's the voice I hear. Simon Weil

For me, Lanzmann's aesthetics sort of got in the way of the subject. You know, I go to that film and get a kind of fusion of his aesthetic sensibility and the Holocaust. When I've watched it, it wasn't even that I was seeing the Holocaust through his aesthetic, rather that I couldn't tell what was his way of looking at the things and what was the past. I've never seen the Begnini film. It just sounds ghastly. The Spielberg, I think, does have value - even if it's sentimentalized and glossy, it still manages to create a bearable 3 hours about this subject for a mass audience - and I think that's no small achievement. But these things are an aesthetic minefield - apart from being a moral etc one. I agree with the basic thrust of Lanzmann's argument, which I take to be the impossibility of making a faithful reconstruction of the Holocaust on-screen. I think the failed attempts are sometimes worthwhile. Simon Weil

He's a proper authority, deeply respected. But no-one gets this stuff entirely right, not him - and not certainly Lanzmann. I found Lanzmann's use of hidden camera highly questionable - so that throws the whole thing into question. I like Primo Levi, myself. Simon Weil

The obvious one would be Kind of Blue (nul points for originality, but still). The other thing that comes to mind is some kind of Bluenote hardbop record, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, you know the drill... I'd have thought Giant Steps is "harder" than the above. Simon Weil

Well, the other thing that you can say - and I think, but can't prove - is that the change in the music reflects the change in Society that happened at about that time. I mean, in particular, the Watts riots in Summer 1965 represent a watershed - kind of the beginning of the end for the peaceful civil rights movement. I do, myself, think there is some connection between the peace evoked by Love Supreme and the awful nature of Om and those events. But I don't think Coltrane was any sort of Black Power person. Simon Weil

I think the voice of frustration speaks...Loudly and in pain. Simon Weil

Thanks, guys... Simon Weil

I'm really going to drop myself in it now. But anyway...I think Om is supposed to be this really intense spiritual experience, rather than an enjoyable listening to Jazz one. I mean, I feel a bit like I'm getting beaten over the head with a mallet at times. You see, if you take the view that he's trying to evoke the voice of God at the Dawn of Creation (which is what the sleevenotes say), then, evidently, this is a bit outside your standard Jazz fan's experience (understatement). I have this vision of it as like confronting the face of God (face of God/Voice of God at the Dawn of Creation, same difference). This is evidently an awesome and overwhelming experience - which one can only do for so long. But I think there ought probably to be some unbearability in the music as well (because one should not really be able to look God in the face). Anyway that's my rationalization for how I experience this music. Simon Weil [Thanks Ubu, enjoying it too]

Just to look at the stillness thing. There are, it now occurs to me, rather profound connections between Yoga and stillness - and Aum is a classic chant in Yoga. For example: In terms of Om and Live In Seattle, one of those tracks has someone chanting Om right in the middle of it. In terms of on the record about LSD stuff, nobody knows. It does sound very much as though JC experimented with it at some point. Seems like you're looking into alt versions of spirituality, AB. Simon Weil

Gawd knows...I mean he was definitely trying to reach some other zones via sound. To me there is a kind of thing to do with Om as scary massive primal sound that pervades a lot of his later work. A thing to do with awe and massiveness, and, if you will, confronting the face of God. But there is a kind of stilllness in some of it(even in that flute passage in Om) which is at odds with all of the burn-out stuff. May be (probably is) a spiritually based reason for it... Simon Weil

See, I'm only looking at Yogananda from a researcher's point of view, AB. You probably have a closer, more spiritual, "insider's" view. Anyway, there are a quite a few quotes in "Autobiography of a Yogi" that basically say that Om (=Aum) underlies "the oneness of life" Thus: “...The creative voice of God I heard resounding as Aum[note see below], the vibration of the Cosmic Motor.” p167-8 [Note p167-8] “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” John 1:1 “...the threefold nature of God as Father, Son, Holy Ghost (Sat, Tat, Aum in the Hindu scriptures). God the Father is the Absolute, Unmanifested, existing beyond vibratory creation. God the Son is the Christ Consciousness (Brahma or Kutastha Chaitanya) existing within vibratory creation; this Christ Consciousness is the “only begotten” or sole reflection of the Uncreated Infinite. The outward manifestation of the omnipresent Christ Consciousness, its “witness” (Revelation 3:14), is Aum, the Word or Holy Ghost; invisible divine power, the only doer, the sole causative and activating force that upholds all creation through vibration. Aum the blissful Comforter is heard in meditation and reveals to the devotee the ultimate Truth, bringing “all things to...remembrance.” Note 168-9 “... nature is an objectification of Aum, the Primal Sound or Vibratory Word.... p182 “...the ancient sage Patanjali, foremost exponent of yoga...speaks of God as the actual Cosmic Sound of Aum that is heard in meditation. Aum is the Creative Word. The whir of Vibratiory Motor, the witness [see note below] of Divine Presence.” p277 The idea of a unifying spiritual force is important to Coltrane. Simon Weil

I'm still listening to this and don't really know it that well - but, in terms of spirituality, I think it's likely he was getting it out of Paramahansa Yogananda's _Autobiography of a Yoga_. Coltrane had this book, and PY's name often comes up in anectdotes about JC. The description of Om in the sleevenotes is kind of a fusion of Christian ideas about The Word Of God at the beginning of Creation and Om, the Indian conception of the primal sound - which is basically what PY does in his book. The actual recited text on the track is from the Bhaghavad Gita (translated by Prabhavananda/Isherwood). Coltrane seems to have been on an Indian kick earlier in 1965, naming his newly born son Ravi after Ravi Shankar. There's a haunting flute passage in Om, which seems strangely anticlimatic after the burn-out stuff at the beginning - but I'm wondering if this might be some attempt to evoke: "Krishna, an incarantion of Vishnu [who] is shown in Hindu art with a flute; on it he plays the enraptured song that recalls to their true home the human sould wandering in maya-delusion." Autobiography of a Yoga/Paramahansa Yogananda p182 There's quite a lot of stuff in Coltrane's spirituality that looks like it might have been affected by Indian conceptions - and he did have quite an interest in Indian music. But it's quite hard pin down exactly. Simon Weil