Kalo

And as for that hackneyed quotation, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture," I've seen it attributed to everyone from Ornette Coleman to Frank Zappa to Martin Mull. Never trust a floating quotation. It seems to me that dancing about architecture is pretty easy. After all, architecture is about creating inhabitations for the human body in space, while dancing is about inhabiting space utilizing the human body. On the other hand, music, which we all know has its own architecture, translates the rhythms of the human body into sound, substituting moments in time for points in space. And guess what, people dance in buildings every day to music and other people write about it and nobody is confused by the whole process. There, I just wrote about dancing AND architecture AND music, and I wasn't even half trying. And if I had a web-cam you would now see me triumphantly cutting a rug about music, architecture, and writing. And who was it (Goethe?) who said that architecture was frozen music? I rest my case (Step, shuffle, ball, change...)

I recall liking this book when a read it a few years back. Rosenthal covers some (surprisingly) still untrodden territory, at least in book form. (A great anthology could be constructed, however, of already published writings on this era, but no one has done it, to my knowledge.) I, too, dug Rosenthal's discussion of "Badness," and his relatively extended treatment of the likes of Hill, Morgan, Brooks, and Moncur. The mistakes in the book, especially such things as the continued misspelling of Francis Wolff's name, seem to me to be the fault of the publisher rather than the (deceased) author. If they had just taken each article as it was previously edited and printed, then we would expect to see LESS consistency in such mistakes. I guess Oxford University Press, publishers of the definitive dictionary of the freakin' English language, can't be bothered to fact check a few names in a lowly jazz book. (Not to take them too much to task; after all, they do publish jazz books in the first place.) By the way, not to heap any more opprobrium on the head of poor Francis Davis (who I am actually a fan of), but has anyone else noticed that in his book Like Young the name Rahsaan is consistently misspelled as "Rashaan"? That's on the order of the dreaded "Thelonius" instead of "Thelonious." I blame the editors, even if it's originally Davis's mistake.

It just struck me that regional histories are needed as well. I believe thet there are several academic studies of various American regional jazz scenes, but as a denizen of Boston I am unaware of any extended treatment of the jazz scene here. Off the top of my head, there are numerous Boston or Massachusetts area musicians who made indelible contributions to jazz: Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, Chick Corea, Bobby Hackett, Ruby Braff, Ralph Burns, Serge Chaloff, Dick Twardzik(?), Tony Williams... I know I'm forgetting many others.

All the suggestions so far are good, I think. But the most necessary, most realistic in publishing terms, and most needed would be: 1: Art Blakey 2: European Jazz History (Large tome with chapters by country?) 3: Lennie Tristano (perhaps, a la Mosaic, incorporating Konitz and Marsh as well.) 4: ANDREW HILL (The one I would most like to read.) And what about Herbie Nichols? (Though there is the Spellman book and Rudd's amazing Mosaic booklet.) And isn't Peter Keepnews supposed to have been working on a definitive Monk bio, for how many years? Haven't read any of the available Monk books, but none of them seem any where near definitive. Any opinions?

Leftover porcini mushroom risotto (with peas) fried to a crispy pancake, accompanied by steamed rapini laced with virgin olive oil. Plenty of parmesan grated over all, as well as numerous grindings of pepper and a pinch of salt. Accompanied by a bottle of Costaripa Mazane 2003 (a freebie from work--my day job is in the retail wine trade), made from the obscure Italian grape variety called Marzemino, supposedly a favorite of Mozart. A typical Monday.

By "later Evans" I meant anything after the early-to-mid 1960s. I've heard many speak of a late-life renaiassance for Evans, and I need to investigate that. What are his best late recordings?

And I must add that NOBODY except a few odd friends told me to like jazz when I started listening to it in the late 1970s when I was in high school. They mostly told me to like what is now called "Classic Rock." All those mediocre bands that I still have to hear every day where I work: Bachman Turner Overdrive, Boston, latter-day Floyd, Foreigner, Peter fucking Frampton, and KISS for god's sake. This is classic? Give me the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, or The Who any day; or better still, give me Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, or P-Funk. Why don't "Classic Rock" stations play THEM? I guess because they're good and/or black. Seriously, what DO you like?

Okay, I can imagine a top 20 saxophonists list that leaves out either Dexter, Newk, or Desmond. But not all three. Who IS in your top 20? And calling Desmond, even at his most laid back, "Bachelor Pad Music," is like calling Steely Dan "Soft Rock." Those designations speak to context, perhaps, but not to content. The subversive genius of both Desmond and Becker & Fagan is that they got over to the general public with little or no compromise, their slick surface manner concealing their thorny matter. Had Desmond played with Tristano rather than Brubeck, say, or Steely Dan eschewed L.A., they'd be revered by the fringe-meisters. That being said, a lot of later Evans leaves me cold, too. But I don't make a crusade of it. And I'm open to revising my opinion at a later date. Live and learn, kid. Live and learn.

Windward Passages is an excellent record. I like his work with David Murray, but I LOVE his album The Jelly Roll Joys. You haven't fully lived until you've heard his stride version of "Giant Steps." Got to go, the Fresh Air concert/interview is about to start.

Funny, I just finished The Glass Key a while back. Though I saw the movie many years ago, as far as I can recall it also followed the book quite closely, except for softening the ending. Good book and a good overlooked movie, one of the best of the Alan Ladd/Veronica Lake pairings. The Dain Curse struck me as a mite too pulpy in a bad way when I read it, unlike Red Harvest, which is the uncut essence of pulp in a good way. Not so sure that Dain was "prescient" about druggy California cults as merely observant. They didn't just arrive full-blown in the 1960s. California's always been a haven for nuts (I was born in the bay area, so I know). I still haven't read the Maltese Falcon or The Thin Man. I've been reading a lot of crime fiction of late, so maybe it's finally time to get to them. As for movies of Hammett books, the Coen Brothers Miller's Crossing is clearly an homage to Hammett, a pastiche/conflation of Red Harvest and The Glass Key.

Ann Coulter's NOT a guy?

Spyro Gyra-- The only concert my college presented when I was a student that I DON"T regret skipping.

I just clicked on the Collector's Choice link above. If you're interested in Lee Wiley, Collector's Choice also recommends Barbra Streisand's "Duets," a compilation of duets from throughout her career, including exciting new collaborations with Barry Manilow and Josh Groban!

Wow, I forgot that Hackett was on that. The combination sounds delectable. Now I absolutely have to get it. Well, it's time for a Wiley revival in my life, anyhow.

Guy Klucevsek and Phillip Johnston: Tales from the Cryptic (Music Edition - Winter & Winter)

Can't decide between Bach solo cello suites and Blanton/Webster Era Ellington.

It's a tie.

Gee, thanks guys! (I think.) Why did it take me so long to finally post here? A friend has been posting for quite some time. For a while, I would glance at the board on occasion to see what he was up to. I began checking in with greater frequency as I slowly realized how much was going on here, particularly updates on Mosaic and other reissues, as well as news of worthy new artists and recordings. As a result of the trove of postings here, I became acquainted with amazing recordings I would most likely have never discovered otherwise. I also found myself returning with renewed interest to recordings I already own. As you might have guessed, my avatar is a tribute to a fascinating record I learned about on the board and fell in love with. That being said, though I occasionally itched to add my two cents, I delayed posting for a few reasons. For one, the erudition, level of insight, and occasional attitude on this board are a bit daunting. Plus, what can I say, I'm a procrastinator. But the combination of Clem's ragging on Francis Davis and this Ellington Suite thread made me finally take the plunge. I'm glad I did.

Dr. Rat, I basically agree with your critique of the "middlebrow critique." My (attempted) point was that despite my admiration for Curtis White's fiction, I thought his attack on Terry Gross was a silly exercise. I guess I'll have to work on the clarity of my postings. (Or at least keep my rants to readable length.)

That WAS a good band, Allen. I have fond memories of that show. I'm sorry if I gave the impression of putting down Terry Gross. Actually, I would consider myself a fan. My point was simply that there wouldn't be a show at all if she only interviewed "outcats" and the like. As for Davis, I have all of his books except the Kael interview. And I refer back to all of them fairly frequently (except the Blues one). I find him to be an excellent writer on the whole--I just think that the mingy amount of space he gets in the Voice is not his best forum. I read that rag less and less as they shrink down ALL of their reviewers' space. Has anyone noticed that they now banner an "Essay" in every issue, when it used to be that almost every article could be considered an essay? So, as I said before, mark me down as a Davis (and Gross) appreciator.

Oy. Now I have to get Wiley's A Night In Manhattan. And I'm even pondering, for the first time ever, buying a disc with the words "Maynard Ferguson" in the title. Thanks, JSngry! But much thanks to sjarrell for convincing me to HOLD OFF from purchasing something (the Bethlehems), at least for the time being.

Spiro Gyro: Nixon's VP + meat on a rotating spindle= ???????????????????????????????????????

OK, (deep breath), Mark me down as, on the whole, a Davis appreciator. I agree with Peter when he says, "I like his writing, read his stuff and find that the stuff he positively reviews I generally like as well." (He turned me on to, among others, Walt Dickerson, Joel Forrester, Phillip Johnston, Anthony Cox, and Gianluigi Trovesi. Except I'll never understand why Davis likes Stephen Sondheim. Even so, I take him at his word and never thought he was PRETENDING to dig Sondheim.) That being said, Davis's Free America Village Voice review did seem a bit, shall we say, peevish? Not cool calling Alan Shorter "fucked up." On the other hand, I take his dislike of Annette Peacock as a genuine esthetic quibble, rather than Clem's suggested misogynistic response. Davis has gone to bat for many a female artist that I, personally, don't like or have a hard time responding to. He's hardly a knee-jerk woman-hater. Chalk this review down to a bad day. It hardly invalidates the rest of his writing. Clem's wringing Terry Gross into the argument strikes me as bogus. To grossly simplify, it seems as though he's claiming that Davis hates women because he's henpecked by a more successful, middlebrow hack of a cultural commentator, who just happens to be female. Who's more the mysogynist? That being said, I would say that Davis' recent Village Voice pieces seem constrained by the stringent word-counts that this publication has (not alone) imposed of late. It's my understanding that Gary Giddins left the Voice, in part, owing to the shorter article lengths that the editors (or more accurately, owners) have imposed in the past few years. (And by the way, since Clem keeps hammering on the vast remuneration this gig entails, just how well do they pay? Anyone?) Aside: (I, myself, have been lucky enough to score several assignments from a major metropolitan newspaper in the last year. The powers that be at this 'paper have recently decided that reviews of one-night gigs should be no more than 350 words in length. A recent concert that I reviewed was the 30th anniversary concert by a respected new music ensemble, The Dinosaur Annex, which was conducted by Gunther Schuller. I repeat: GUNTHER SCHULLER! I had exactly 350 words to attempt to do justice to the TEN musicians, NINE composers, and SEVEN world premieres that were a part of this concert, NOT TO MENTION LIVING LEGEND GUNTHER SCHULLER. I did my best... but, REALLY!) Back to the point: OK, so Davis has a blind-spot regarding Beefheart. I bought the Fast 'N' Bulbous CD and find it to be a nice tribute to the Captain, but not ESSENTIALLY different from his own recordings. To Davis, on the other hand, it's superior to the old 'fheart's original recordings. So what. We all have our blindspots (Clearspots?). It's not as though other commentators haven't called BeefH an unsuccessful combo of Howlin' Wolf and Ornette*. That's not my take on it, but I understand how others, given the limited time we have on this earth, could maintain as much, looking from the outside in. I recall that Dave Marsh (who I generally dig) dismissed Pere Ubu as an unsuccessful attempt at Ornette-style rock (?), not to mention that he reviled Brian Eno as a blinkered elitist. (Eno, the guy who, admittedly elitist in his own way, helped bring both Talking Heads and U2 to their greatest top-40 successes.) Well, enough rant. I actually enjoy and learn from Clem's postings, as abrasive as they (intentionally) may be, and I share many of his musical and literary tastes. But how long do you think Terry Gross would last if she had Thomas Bernhard as a guest on every show? (Even assuming that he wasn't dead already). Curtis White, a writer I admire and part of the Dalkey Archive axis that Clem seems to revere, has also attacked Gross. Well, yeah, maybe she's the Øprah of public broadcasting, but so what? Mass culture is mass culture. At least there's someone in there pitching for the middlebrows and above. I'm sorry, but Thomas Bernhard and Albert Ayler, love them as much as I may, will never be media darlings. Yet it would be hard to say that they don't receive as much attention as they deserve, albeit at the fringes (If "the fringes" include major publications such as The Village Voice and The New York Review of Books, among others). Ask a 23-year-old if he or she has heard of Ayler or of Tina Brooks, or is acquainted with Bernhard or with Ronald Firbank. For my money, though most have heard of neither, more have heard of Ayler and Bernhard--MANY more. That's fashion for you. The bottom line? As Peter wrote: "Plus Davis turned me on to Alan Lowe, whose "Dark Was the Night, Cold was the Ground" is a fine collection of recordings!!!" Agreed . I saw Allen Lowe's band in the mid-1990s at the erstwhile Cambridge, Massachusetts venue called Nightstage, in support of his CD "A Modern Portrait of Louis Armstrong." And it was Francis Davis who got me interested enough to check out Lowe's ensemble in the flesh. In the band that night was ROSWELL RUDD, making his first Boston appearance in many a year. Davis and Lowe, I submit, inarguably helped spearhead Rudd's return to the jazz scene in the U.S. For that alone we should thank the both of them. *It's my opinion, and surely not mine alone, that folks who diss Beefheart's reed playing miss the point. He used the reeds as occasional color, rather than a focal point, akin to the way the AEC used their "little instruments." He's not presenting a romantic, heroic "jazz solo," so it's stupid to judge it as such, just as it's correct, but beside the point, to belittle the AEC as "percussionists" per se. Funnily enough, those who choose to foreground 'fheart's technique on reeds betray their own "avant" pretensions by foregrounding what was intended to be background.

BTW, y'all, since this thread began I've been immersing myself in the Ellington suites I possess, and as a result, have been experiencing an efflorescence of beauty and majesty in my general vicinity. I must add that this board has positively influenced my quality of life over the time I've been lurking (say about a year), despite the financial drain of the (mostly excellent) exhortations to BUY, BUY, BUY. However, as in this Ellingtonian example, you've also returned me repeatedly to my own extant collection to my great profit. That's why I finally began posting, to join the amazing conversation you are all engaged in; I should say: WE are all engaged in. Thanks.

EKE BBB Posted on May 6 2005, 03:05 AM "BTW: in the latest CD issue, the silence between Dance#1 and Dance#2 has been eliminated. But, in this process, the first bar of Dance#2, has also been cut off !!!" That sucks. Thanks for the heads up, EKE BBB. What's the best way I can access the original, intended version?