ep1str0phy

As an aside, and partially because I've given up looking for the South African Jazz thread, Hugh Masekela's Home Is Where the Music Is has just been reissued. It has both Dudu Pukwana (misspelled Phukwana in the scant liners) and Makaya Ntshoko (Larry Willis and Eddie Gomez round out the band). It's probably the best Masekela I've heard--and not just because of partiality to free South African music (and there's really none of that here, personnel notwithstanding)--but because the balance between jazz and R&B is truly fine, and the band plays wonderfully. Masekela is in mercurial form--as harmonically inventive and poised as I've heard from him. Dudu has a bit of that early Brotherhood anarchy in there. The rhythm section plays wonderfully, considering the rhythmic straightjacket of the R&B/mbaqanga groove. (As an aside, Louis Moholo was telling me how what was inventive about his approach to rhythm on In the Townships were the cymbals and the bass drum. "Traditional" mbaqanaga tends to emphasize the snare and very basic cymbal patterns. Like Moholo, Ntshoko is all the fuck over the place in this music, and it works wonderfully). I'd put this somewhat below In the Townships but definitely in shooting distance of Flute Music, in terms of music of this kind. Some of the repertoire will be familiar to those who follow(ed) Spear and Zila, so it will sit comfortably with those who want to have a listen, I think.

And to add to that, the advice that Roscoe Mitchell always gives--"Just study music." A-f'in-MEN.

OK--fair, and granted, I want to hear this, too- Something about the review is dangerously close to the "Braxton is too serious about what's he's doing"/can't get under a table thing, which strikes me as shockingly backassward. Granted, he doesn't generalize about Braxton as a totality, and he obviously likes the new album, but to lump this whole part of Braxton's oeuvre into this "inaccessible" thing is--I mean, this thread. Just read this whole thread. I don't know what true freedom is anymore, anyway. Even in the Bay Area--free improv people don't trust the Euro free improv people, neither group being trusted by the free jazz people, and none of them are trusted by the "free" performance art/fluxus people, though everyone listens to free folk and free rock even though I don't know if anyone really likes it.

And also, reading that review again, the passage: "This is music without boundaries. Anything is possible. Because of their skills. Because of their vision. Because of their creativity. This is music that demonstrates that any written part would have acted like a cage. This is wild as it should be. True. Fierce. Naturally restrained. Authentic. This is free in its truest sense." Comes across as douchey. Free dogmatism (as opposed to dogmatism that is free) can be a pain.

He's a little dismissive of Braxton's compositions, which he calls "often abstract, distant, and cerebral", a broad statement which I think renders his opinion here a little suspect.

That's really a terrific set, and the first bunch of CDs, when I heard it a month or two back, that had involved me so much in a while. I also got a copy of Comp. 247 recently--a bagpipe/2 reeds piece--and managed to obtain a copy of the score from James Fei. It is, I believe, from the second stage of ghost trance music, still emphasizing looped eighth note patterns but with some interesting, sometimes jarring interpolations. The score includes a number of Braxton's graphic/algebraic figures, the meaning(s) of which are sometimes intuitive and at other moments pretty mystifying. It's above all really beautiful to look at. The whip/accelerated GTM phase, from which the box is derived, is a bitch to sight read. Obtuse tuplet streams at somewhat unmanageable tempi and with minimal preparation... I admire and commend any musician who can make this stuff with any sort of proficiency. Braxton--you mad, crazy, mad genius you.

RIP, J. Griff.

Sad to hear about this, but glad to have heard the music that makes it hurt. RIP.

For my money, Bruce/Brown, especially right after Cream broke up, were as good a songwriting team as anything.

I don't think that Page is a glorified studio musician--though I'll maintain that that is where he thrived in terms of taste and technique--but, rock being what it is, hero worship goes a long way toward blunting critical edges. That, too, is a problem.

One of my bandleaders did one of those massive blowout workshops with Cecil in the Bay Area a few years back--it culminated in a recording session at Mills, cut off abruptly when Cecil wasn't too psyched about, I think, the financial situation. He gave the band a lecture about the music industry and everyone went home; I brought this up to someone later on and apparently it's not uncommon with Cecil. With the note about Grace Cathedral, which in other places and to other people might be depressing, I imagine just how resolute Cecil is and how much (or how little?) he probably gives a damn.

Hadn't seen CT's list, but I'm really happy to see the Michael Gregory Jackson album on there. Karmonic Suite is the one I'm most familiar with, and his guitar playing I think the most impressive element. Jackson's percussion work is sensitive and earthy on a level that approaches some smaller-setting AACM percussion episodes, but that guitar playing is genuinely prescient and unique--and integrationist works here--in its amalgamation of an expanded harmonic vocabulary and idiomatic folk and soul guitar. Unsung. Interesting comment(s) about Lewis as a writer, as he's actually, from what I can gather, pretty polarizing in some academic circles. The afrological/eurological distinction and its implications in the way of the validity of a lot of European musical practices--"truly" improvised and otherwise--has raised a great deal of umbrage. I've heard a lot of people, particularly downtown musicians, praise his writing as articulate and thoughtful, although I would imagine and have seen some improvisers on the international stage take issue with his debasement of some of the European folks. It doesn't help that the few full-length documents to address issues of provenance and validity in international improvisation--I'm thinking especially of Northern Sun, Southern Moon right now--are incomplete and tend to skate around the convergence of black music forms and European playing (if they address it at all; much of the debate is centered on Cageian aesthetics and not European improvisation at all).

Technical brilliance should never be confused with actual brilliance. It's like being an ace typist. Though I'll admit that Hendrix and Page made brilliant things, Clapton was only vaguely useful if he was in an interesting band with someone called Allman, and the others (with the possible exception of SRV- I've never listened) are glorified session men. Plenty of folks can still write a good tune, too. This gets us back to the 90-95% of everything is and always has been crap, music, film, art etc. Like every freakin' hippie in the 60s was brilliant? PS for the anti-Radiohead crew: They're really good, and In Rainbows bears that out. For me, anyway. There are and have been a lot of what massmind would call "stars" in the last few years, and an exponential number of people willing to associate with them. Not that it's all good-- Probably REALLY unpopular, but I have a soft spot for Pearl Jam. Page plays live like someone knitting with oven mitts. Phenomenal studio player, and the O2 thing was fun, but I get the indication from watching Page these days that we should probably just move on.

If it's a matter of fear, then you could argue that folks are simply recasting the paranoia of print media in a more readily diffusible manner--which scares the shit out of me. With due respect to those who came before and those now gone, I think self-challenge, which is itself wrapped up in patient and temperate independence, is a crucial listener tool. Easy hagiography is the other upshot of information dissemination and that's seldom a good thing. Though--a lot of new material is just as easily processed through the internet as old. This newer material is certainly not as readily championed, if it's as easy or relevant to interpret; the "justice" of the prevailing atmosphere will have it that we hear old things, maybe more than new things, which is a mixed blessing.

I stopped paying attention to Gouldus a long time ago.

Importance or accomplishment has nothing to do with it. It may, I'll admit, have something to do with siphoning the energies off of the honest-type ambient folk (that, I will also admit, I have to see and mingle with on a regular basis, courtesy of the city I live in)--which, I'll point out again, meddles a bit with my conscience and taste. And I'll definitely steer clear of the suspect ethical posturing of rock stars--nothing to do with moral disbelief, but simply because I don't want it wrapped up in my time. I'll also also admit that I'm entirely responsible for my enjoyment of Radiohead and Yorke's solo album--neither of which I've listened to religiously but for the radio static of the local electronic music lifestyle and the youth ether of the bourgey part of CA. One of my good friends loves both Kid A and Gordon Mumma. He recently shaved off his dreads. Phone number: available (PM for details). You're just begging for a wailing here arguing that "I can enjoy A even though I enjoy B and it won't hurt B because..." (infinite regress), and it actually really pains me to see those dialogs unfold because the defendant in virtually every situation appears just as that--defensive, etc. Maybe I'm just not invested in Radiohead enough, but Organissimo's resident loud folk are lively and fun so I just can't dredge up the energy to tell anyone to fuck off. If it suits you, please send over a list of the Yorke-horrified ambient acts you mean--both mrs. ep1str0phy and I would appreciate it. If anyone thinks I'm being ironic, I'm writing this request as many of my ambient friends are recommending later Genesis and it's kind of driving me insane. By the way--who ever said I was a guy? Bay Area, baby (although the handjob thing would still be vaild).

HELL TO THE YES. Thank you, J.H.

can't believe i am not the only fan here (guess nobody has figured out my avatar so far)... i am not promising i will still treasure this in 10 years, but don't miss the libertines albums and the libertines demos that are available for download in several places (legally)... edit: i mean especially the leg ii sesion: http://djmonstermo.blogspot.com/2005/02/li...ines-demos.html hope the links work The Libertines were a great group, if incredibly short lived. They were one of those amazingly gifted bands that flared up and burned out just as quickly. I remember when Babyshambles started releasing material, I was a little skeptical. I honestly didn't expect Doherty to live long enough to record much of anything post-Libertines. I was surprised and delighted that Babyshambles is as good as it is. I still don't expect Doherty to live very long, but maybe he'll turn out to be like Keith Richards (my theory is that Keith actually died back in the late 60s, but that he just kept on showing up to work, so Mick and the boys never got around to telling him). I'm also quite fond of Barât's Dirty Pretty Things. Here's another artist I forgot to mention: Damon Albarn. Blur may have been a fan fav for some, but they always came off like a poor man's Oasis to me. Albarn's post-Blur career has been something quite else. I enjoyed both Gorillaz albums and Albarn's recent project, The Good, The Bad, and The Queen (produced by Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton, who also did the second Gorillaz album). Any album that includes both DM AND Tony Allen (of Fela Kuti fame) is worth hearing! I can't believe I neglected to mention TGTB&TQ earlier. It might be the best pop record I've ever heard. And every time I hear it it's better than the last, over a year down the road. PS Libertines/DPT/Babyshambles? In brief response to earlier discussion--stylistic dominance in rock is so tied to industry organization that I think it's hard to address a topic like this one without hitting on those buttons. So whether the music is good or not is much more difficult to bead--not that I don't appreciate the discussion... On TGTB&TQ--I was disappointed at first that Allen's drumming isn't really foregrounded in that group, but taken as one of Albarn's projects, it's pretty effective, and different from the Gorillaz stuff (which I also enjoy). I think it's marvelously unhip to like Radiohead these days, but after my girlfriend got me to sit down with some of their stuff, I'm a fan. I'll give them credit for acknowledging their antecedents, and turn off the fact that a lot of what I really like about their more recent material has been shipped in from other environs. Yorke's solo album is good ambient fun, too. Muse was a Radiohead-esque indie rock group that had some creative prosperity until some lapses of taste intervened. A lot of it is really good. The SF/Bay Area has a great experimental/post-no wave rock scene going on--groups like Mute Socialite, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and the Atomic Bomb Audition. It's a pleasure playing and watching in and around this environment because the politics of genre are really slippery here.

Not sure about that. It's been 44 years since the Beatles hit in 1964. 44 years before that was 1920. Don't know that our parents/grandparents looked back as fiercely on Al Jolson or Bing Crosby or whatever as my generation does on the classic rock era. I agree with the comment that rock music has been in a 35 year decline. Some touchstones: 1 - the death of 60's idealism (think Charles Manson and Altamont) and the ascendancy of Cocaine in the rock world, which destroyed the populist aspects of the rock experience. Granted, much of the 60's idealism was a fairy tale, but it was a fairy tale with an awesome soundtrack. 2 - the firing of Clive Davis by Columbia. They were a very daring company in the late 60's, as was Warner/Reprise. A lot of great albums got made then by those companies which would not be today 3 - the ascendancy of the singer/songwriters and country rock groups on one hand and the hard rock/heavy metal groups on the other, which polarized rock music and made other styles a niche. 4 - The AOR format, which eliminated the free-form FM format on one hand and trivialized AM top 40 playlists on the other hand. 5 - The elimination of the ability of independant labels to break new music regionally and have it go national based on merit. 6 - Punk and Disco, which seemed at the time to immediately turn everything before it into dinasours. Granted, a lot of it had become fossilized prior to that, opening the doors for Punk and Disco. 7 - MTV was damaging on one hand, because the visuals became more important than the music in a lot of ways, and because it made it even more impossible for niche/local music to ascend to national status. On the other hand, there was a return to a focus on individual songs rather than albums for a brief time, and I would argue that the early-mid 80's were by far the strongest pop period of the last 35 years, even though much of the production sounds dated now. The writing was stronger than it had been in some time, and much much stronger than it has been since then. But MTV eventually led to the Britney's and Xtina's, via Madonna. Madonna had much musical merit at time, but that seems but a small part of her legacy, and much of the rest of that legacy has been pretty damaging on a lot of levels. 8 - Rap, while some has merit, further dumbed down a lot of musical values in many cases. I have to smile here, as my parents would say the same about rock, but there it is. 9 - There is still some good music to be heard on adult alternative rock stations (we have one of the best in the country, WXPN, here in Philly. David Dye's World Cafe originates from WXPN), but even there, the format is more rigid than we might wish, though a lot looser than on "for profit" commercial stations. 10 - When's that last time there was really something "new" of great value in music to draw the masses? Also, when's the last time a group seemed to grab the spirit of the populace the way groups like U2 or Big Country did in the 80's, and so many did in the 60's? Just some ramblings from a 53 year old on his lunch break, this is by necessity overly simplistic, but maybe will raise some good discussion points. Agree with most of your points. One I would add is the takeover of control in the music business of accountants, probably from the mid-80s. Creativity was severely compromised as a result and many of the albums we cherish now ( Pet Sounds for example ? ) might never have got made once the accountants took over. Arguably, the decline in rock and pop dates from this time. I think some of the logic in felser's post points to the fact that it's possible for this discussion to identify reasons why rock is as it is, but not necessarily, or rationally, what is or isn't "wrong". I do think that the sidelining of the middleman in the era of independent releases and the internet is a mixed blessing. Cream will not always rise to the top. It might be easier to facilitate new artists through new creative mechanisms, but I don't think it's possible to support the argument that there's less ephemera and more creativity now than ever before, or at least that forms of creative music are flourishing with larger and/or more enthusiastic audiences. And a lot of good stuff that does get put out there still doesn't get heard. It's not as if we're replacing the old infrastructure with the same thing, but myspace is an infrastructure nonetheless.

I think the "now what" question speaks well to what my concerns are about the influx of new mechanisms of media dispersal. The basic issue is that if more people, for whatever reasons, have their hands on the music, that must mean something for how that music is both interpreted and digested by society at large. Part of this is a matter of scholarship--I think a lot of useful historical analysis and work is getting done by the armchair folk these days, on an equally insightful, if not as polished, level as critics and musicologists--but it's also about future things. So--like mentioned in another thread--when there are more people allowed to digest music in easier ways, do we get good "newness"? Or does it mean we get stuck in what now must seem like the massiveness of information that already exists?

An issue that I've been pondering lately: Considering the glut of information and available to the contemporary creative (whatever you want to call it) music fan, and the ease with which this information is facilitated throughout modern forms of communication (especially in the Internet, or more specifically the blogosphere, even forums like this one), the casual music collector may be in a better position now than in the past to accumulate, if not absorb, large proportions of documented music history. Having not really been around before the last decade, I can't speak to how easy it was for the non-obsessive to get a hold of whole discographies of industry-marginalized artists, which it may or may not be fair to assume was formerly the area of musicologists, musicians, composers, and rampant followers. I guess what's most interesting to me at this point is that armchair analysts seem better poised in this epoch to have knowledge of, though probably not really knowledge about, documented creative music than even many musicologists. Now, I'm positive that many scholars are aware of the blogosphere, share websites, torrents and the ready accessibility of old recordings and even articles, papers, etc. This doesn't speak to the whole of musicology culture, however, and I'm interested to see just how many among the anonymous and pseudonymed seem better acquainted with what, say, Anthony Braxton's discography looks like, or rather the recordings of the Blue Notes, than the out-on-the-scene MA/MFA/PhD students and Professors I run into. I'd be interested in hearing whether or not y'all think this is merely an issue of rabid collectors coming out of the woodwork and networking, or if blog/forum culture (etc.), and even the new sorts of amateur musicology and analysis emerging therein, is really a new phenomenon. What I can detect, at least, is something like an emerging disconnect between the still-nascent institutional work on jazz and (especially) contemporary improvisation and media communities that have a strong hold on bodies of secondary sources. And for those credentialed writers and scholars here--I know I've heard among the most thoughtful ideas on very present modern musicology topics I've been privy to here on these forums. There's something to be said for that...

Not immediately relevant, but my copy of Air Time was stolen with my car. When the cops recovered the vehicle, it was gone. I think there's an audience in that.

Soapsuds, Soapsuds. F**k yes. And call me perverse, but I have a soft spot for New Grass. It's a little creatively underwhelming when taken against essentially all of his prior work--though I find most of his earliest European sides to be interesting from only a historical perspective--and really confounding when even his final Impulse sides reverted to a more rhythmically flexible, harmonically open sound, but taken as a weird curiosity album--and not even necessarily an Ayler or free jazz album--it's unique enough to be worthwhile. You could make the same argument for the Shags, but whereas it's easy to find elevated, kitschy crap I really can't think of anything more hyper-anachronistic than the saxophone work on New Grass. (Then again, I think there's something to be had in all of Ayler's recordings--I think Last Recording is unduly slagged upon, for example, though I'll admit that the vocal emphasis on Music Is the Healing Force... makes it probably the least interesting part of the Ayler catalog for me.) And some of the stuff on this list might actually make it onto a regular desert island call sheet--the Circle recording, for example. I gave that one a run again recently and found a lot to love, although I realized at last why I hadn't returned to it for so long (mostly the uneasy co-dominance between Corea and Braxton--too much of Chick's personality for Braxton to really sally forth at full-throttle--compare this to John Gilmore's role on Turkish Women..., which is pivotal to the group sound but not as present as it could be.)

Well, the Up to Earth case is not necessarily a special one--though it seems to be a personal kind of sore point as Messrs. MM, Parker etc. have surely been paid elsewhere--but that doesn't excuse the situation. The counterargument is that although highway robbery kind of goes with the territory, it doesn't make one more marauding any less invidious. Not to presume any avenging angel thing, of course--only that I get an unclean feeling in my rhombencephalon every time I pick up a brand new BYG/Actuel issue...

Which also reminds me of when I really upstartedly queried Roscoe Mitchell about the "furtive album circulation" issue. His response was something to the effect of (in a slow, measured tone), "Well, you could do that, but there are probably better things to do." I think I'm having a conversation with myself right now, and as a scholar of music that was created before I was born I'm certainly the last to talk, but I'd like to see the scores of younger people interested in the music--which is a rare enough phenomenon--funnel some of that interest into making some new music. (God bless you, Red, for being among the interested and creative.)