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blajay

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Posts posted by blajay

  1. Roku, anyone?

    in Miscellaneous - Non-Political

    Posted

    I tried connecting my laptop to the tv to stream Netflix and the results were less than satisfactory.

    I am toying with this idea of a Roku, or possibly a Mac Mini running Boxee, which would also allow Netflix streaming, but the quality was so poor, we stopped watching after a few minutes.

    On the other hand, streaming directly to my laptop has been fantastic.

    What was the problem when you tried hooking your laptop up to the tv to stream things? We're debating the same things at my place.

  3. New Monk bio in progress by Robin Kelley

    in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...

    Posted

    so, I read about 1/3 of the book last night -

    excellent work, non-doctrinaire (surprisingly, considering some of the people he mentions in the acknowledgments), and a very insightful bio.

    I like it. And it's well-written, to boot. Highly recommended. Will be the standard for years to come.

    (hoping that last one ends up on the book jacket; I could use the publicity) -

    :tup :tup :tup :tup I got my copy yesterday, too.

  4. Freddie Hubbard -- where to go from here?

    in Discography

    Posted

    So Sing Me A Song Of Songmy doesn't get much airplay in the Stereojack household then, eh? ;)

    Bought it when it came out, shitcanned it not long after. :rhappy:

    A trumpet playing buddy of mine (and big Freddie fan) keeps touting this one to me, but I think I can live without it.

    Ha! I love that album, weird as it may be. And that picasso painting is a badass cover.

  5. What vinyl are you spinning right now??

    in The Vinyl Frontier

    Posted

    Those Adams/Pullen titles surprise me. Have I missed something? I know both musicians worked in the Soul Jazz area earlier in their careers, but thought that they were making stuff that verged from Hard Bop to Avant when they got together.

    MG

    All That Funk and More Funk are live recordings in the same style as their Timeless, Horo, Blue Note and Soul Note recordings.

    I'd say it's pretty hard to put those recordings into a strict category. I wouldn't consider it experimental, but they definitely explore a bit. That being said, some of those tunes, though, are just really soulful blues, even with vocals. I think you'd definitely enjoy, MG!

  8. New Monk bio in progress by Robin Kelley

    in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...

    Posted · Edited by zanonesdelpueblo

    Adorno, himself, was able to write Dialectic of the Enlightenment but also Towards a Theory of Musical Reproduction, both quite successfully. I don't see that being much different from Robin Kelley writing Freedom Dreams and then this Monk bio.

    But on second thought, you probably mean that in the works by them that you mention above, both Adorno and Kelley donned significantly different sorts of intellectual "hats" in order to fit those particular tasks/situations. If that is what you meant, it seems to me that Adorno, for better or worse, only wore one such hat, though of course his thinking altered over time (as his head swelled?). About Kelley's work, I don't yet have enough info to have an opinion.

    That's what I meant, yeah. I guess it didn't directly address your use of the Adorno quotes.

    I've had a few drinks, so this might not be clear, but here's what I've been thinking. I agree that Paul Whiteman may have been incorrectly characterized as a particularly racist oppressor for the purpose of rhetoric by a number of scholars that aren't digging deep enough. Those folks should spend some more time here! For me, and perhaps for many of what you and Allen call the "New Jazz Studies" academics, this was made clear a long time ago with Art Hodes joking around about music critics, but the reason behind the shift was more clearly articulated decades ago, when Amiri Baraka suggested that people examine the attitudes behind the music, rather than just the music itself in his essay "Jazz and the White Critic." He said:

    Usually the critic's commitment was first to his appreciation of the music rather than to his understanding of the attitude which produced it. This difference meant that the potential critic of jazz had only to appreciate the music, or what he thought was the music, and that he did not need to understand or even be concerned with the attitudes that produced it, except perhaps as a purely sociological consideration.

    I think it is not appropriate in this instance to characterize Robin Kelley, and a number of the "New Jazz Scholars" that have been grouped in with him (interestingly many of whom are Black, although the examples of Tucker and Deveaux are exceptions), as examples of Adorno's famous idea of "regression of listening." Kelley pays close attention to the attitude behind it, and what that might mean for universal liberation. From what I know, Kelley has taken this project very personally, both in gratification and meaning, so that regressive label does not apply. From how I understand it, Kelley fits Glenn Gould's understanding of the "new listener:" one that is "no longer passively analytical: he is an associate whose tastes, preferences, and inclinations even now alter peripherally the experiences to which he gives attention." (From Gould, "The Prospects of Recording")

    Now to bed!

  11. New Monk bio in progress by Robin Kelley

    in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...

    Posted

    Well, a good friend of his told me that Kelley has been taking piano lessons from Randy Weston, and that Weston has guided him in the musicology aspects of the book a bit. I thought that was pretty cool. Kelley is particularly strong at articulating the intersections of culture and politics through history, and I'm more interested in that than a purely musical analysis of Monk. That's just me, personally, though. I understand where people are coming from wanting something different, though. I anticipate that everyone will be pleased because I have heard that Kelley was especially conscious of that for this book. He's a great scholar; he's one of the best today.

    For folks in the Bay Area, it might be worth checking out his reading at City Lights at the end of October.

  13. Don Cherry

    in Artists

    Posted

    In Amiri Baraka's 1963 piece on Don Cherry in Black Music he mentioned that Cherry was writing a book. Did that ever happen, and if so, is it available? I like the way he described the group dynamics of the ensembles in which he played in his interview with Baraka, and I'd be interested to read further.

    Up. I guess not?

  14. Don Cherry

    in Artists

    Posted

    In Amiri Baraka's 1963 piece on Don Cherry in Black Music he mentioned that Cherry was writing a book. Did that ever happen, and if so, is it available? I like the way he described the group dynamics of the ensembles in which he played in his interview with Baraka, and I'd be interested to read further.

  19. Bill Dixon: In Medias Res

    in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...

    Posted

    "My work was all representational up until maybe 1960—I had a complete utter disdain for abstraction until then. I think at the same time I stopped reading novels I also abandoned representation. I remember one day when I was working at the UN and I was reading a novel, AJ Cronin or something, and I'd just finished it and said 'I don't need a singular figure telling me how a group of characters behave.' That was the last novel that I read."

    That is brilliant and hilarious!

  20. Dr Lonnie Smith - Rise Up!

    in Artists & Recordings

    Posted

    I saw him last night at Yoshi's SF, and I bought the CD afterward. I'll give it a listen tonight. Great show! I stayed for the second set, and it was a much better one than the first. The Hammond was a little beat up: a key came off and a couple bass pedals were making odd noises. Duct tape and a few jokes were an effective remedy, though. There was a Leslie too, but it just sat there unplayed. Peter Bernstein played well, too.

  22. What vinyl are you spinning right now??

    in The Vinyl Frontier

    Posted

    Max Roach--Drums Unlimited (Atlantic SD 1467)

    Elmo Hope--Sounds from Rikers Island (Audio Fidelity AFLP 2119)

    Fantastic night of music!

    Max Roach - that one is a fave !

    Elmo - I'd be 'tickled' to find a nice copy of that one. Congrats !

    Yes, I love every Roach album, really. I highly recommend that MJT+3 record, too. It's amazing to hear Muhal Richard Abrams early on playing bebop! Believe it or not, after that prior discussion in this thread, I was lucky enough to win the Elmo Hope mono LP for only $21.48 on ebay. I thought I'd be competing with you and with Clifford :crazy: .

  25. Bad news from Mosaic

    in Mosaic and other box sets...

    Posted

    I'm wondering if I should grab that Pacific Jazz piano trios set.

    That one is one of the best Selects in my view. Wonderful music by (in alphabetical order :)) Clare Fischer, Russ Freeman, Jimmy Rowles and Richard Twardzik.

    Yeah, I should get it too.

    I had it in my cart but dropped it. I just don't see myself listening to it enough.

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