JSngry

Yeah, I don't either. But that's not Shipp's fault. He had his talk ready. He always has his talk ready. Blame whoever it was who thought that an interview longer than a CD would draw a crowd. I find that a quite admirable trait. Seriously. Media is all about providing content, so have content at the ready when media comes calling. Lather rinse repeat. I mean, everybody talks about how genius Charlie Parker is, but does anybody call Bird anymore? No, because he's not there. So a lot of people write "about" Bird, and that's half a con right there, right? Or they'll write "about" somebody and have 2-4 actual quotes and "construct" the rest. Or one guy will talk a lot, and then somebody else gets him, and he says the same thing again. Nope. No, I like that Shipp always has his talk ready, and whatever his theme is, he variates it every time out. It's good business, and god knows this music needs people who can conduct business and play.

Why is there a giant condom hanging outside that store?

I don't know what this means?

I tell you what, anybody who wants a career needs to have their talk ready. Fact.

Spectacular! was one of the first 25 or so jazz records I ever owned/heard, so...goodbye, and thanks for the riffs on "Buddy Boo" (and other things).

Roger Ramjet Roman Gabriel Joe Namath

Yeah, that's all of it I've ever known, and to be honest, I went a long time thinking that the second verse (or "chorus", to be technical) was added later. I mean. "some judge who thinks he's funny", that's pretty...brash for such an "old standard". But not only are there these extra choruses, there's two verses! From the same show: Funny how that works, eh?

Me, at least somewhat. But I'll say it here, to your cyber-face.

So...we have A 1929 recorded version that has the familiar lyrics A 1930 filmed version with unfamiliar/lesser-known lyrics, but supposedly this filmed version was based on the "stage success", which was from 1928(?) And the "Peggy Joyce" thing, which I've never heard of until now. Would it be safe to assume that all these lyrics were part of the stage show dating from 1928, but that the mandates of the 10" 78 dictated to "choose one"? And the familiar set is what they chose? Or is there more to it than that?

Were these the original lyrics? or this? The second set is very familiar (and the earlier recording, yes?), the first is not. Is there a story here?

Simon & Garfunkel Simon & Schuster Wayne & Shuster

ooooh...a RUSE! Count me in!

Marshall Royal Matt Groenig Dylan Thomas

Yeah, otoh, low-budget cheesey concept (and often, execution). OTOH, oddly prescient in its depiction of WE WANT IT NOW student protests of the 60s and how the kid with the beach house doesn't wanna hear it when his dad tells him that the beach house is there because Dad plays politics. One wonders where the kid is 20 years later, what kind of beach house he does or doesn't have now and how happy he is about it, and oh yeah, Kent State, that's right, The Man WILL kill your ass if it comes to that, so maybe a beach house is better than getting killed for being right, or at least a reasonable-enough consolation, being right is only what you want when you can predict the consequences, depends on how you look at it, and from where. Maybe. But it's a trip to watch this from a 1961 perspective, and then superimpose the realities of 1971, and then 1981, and so forth and so forth. This is not a juvenile deliquescent sex film, this is about student idealism trumping all, and in 1961, that was not a widely considered notion, never mind a widely acted-upon impulse. It ended up being a lot better than I was expecting, and it had kind of a "Western" feel to it, what with Right vs Wrong Ultimate showdowns and stuff like that. But...early on when the kids are speeding to school The Day After, is that a Rolls parked on the street, just casually sitting there amongst all the other occasional cars? That tripped my wife and myself out! Streaming Netflix. Loving it, for sure!

So you're a new dad? Congrats if so!

Jim's book would tell you to listen to all the records, read all the other books, follow all the leads (forwards and backwards), and figure it out by yourself, for yourself. Counting forward and acknowledgements and index, that's what, 1/4 page, max? Which would be a good bit longer than my other book, the Only Relationship Book You'll Ever Need, the one that's just a cover that says Men Are Self-Absorbed Assholes, Women Are Psychotic Bitches. The publishing industry would not find me a good investment.

Emerson is cool as shit. And they bring the heat too! "Cold", I dunno 'bout that. I can see that, but I can't hear it in the results. But what they find in that music is definitely there. Maybe they're a bit Glenn Gould-ish, they bring so much clarity that it's like WHOA, Not Sure That's What I Want for some (and I'm still "adjusting" to Gould...it might take forever). Fair enough. I've long known the Julliard versions, and what they found is not what Emerson found (not they they found new notes or anything, just how they "interpret" the "meaning" of those notes. And - at some point, I need to check out the Takács, because it seems they find something else yet in it. The Emerson is the version where I can hear the music most readily, but all that means is that now I can go back to the Julliard with fresh ears, and to the Takács (when I get to them) with even fresher ears. It's not like there's only one "way" that this music "has" to be played, or that there's only one "meaning" to it. If viewed as a "work in time", yes. and of course, it is that. But as music that transcends all that...of course there is always the risk of re-contextualizing to the point of wholesale redefinition rather than illuminating previously unconsidered possibilities, but time does what it does, and I don't think that anybody has "gotten" this music to the point where that should be anything but an ultra-reactionary concern. But I could be wrong. Same about later Beethoven - so much there to ponder (and what I said earlier about "changes", I was dead serious about that - yeah, themes, inversions, forms, and all that (and orchestration too), sure, but the harmonic movements, the changes (at times really just micro moments within a longer line), that is where you run into some serious WTF-isms, even today. The word "changes" might be construed as a "jazz" idea, but no, it might be a jazz word, but its a music idea). All that just to say that I don't see why an attempted discussion of a Beethoven 9th "mix tape" gets construed as an invitation to a "versions" war. No way was that the intent. And the idea might have never taken off anyway, for any number of reasons (as in I don't know enough different interpretations to say or I like several very different interpretations but they wouldn't do with any one movement being extracted out of the unity of the whole, any number of reasons up to an including THAT IS NOT THE WAY TO THINK ABOUT MUSIC). But it never got that far. I think it further reaffirms my long-standing impulse to not speak about "classical music" hardly at all, and even less often as specifically "classical music", because, you know, fuck "classical music". Not relevant to my lifestyle, and all that. It's a necessary evil to keep some truly great music being "heard", but it also creates an artificiality of importance. Importance is not Relevance (nor is Relevance Importance, but dammit when/where they intersect should be nurtured, not ignored and/or confused). Ain't but a little bit of anything really all that, you know? But apart from that - I posit the Toscanini's 9th as the most Zawinul-esque - and therefore most "Austrian" - I've heard. I supposed in terms of "classical music" that's a ludicrously naive and/or idiotic backwards notion, but again, fuck "classical music".

Rise Stevens Tu Tithe Mi afficianados Top Cat

"a solution to a blues that wore razors for spurs”...ok, Bird was getting ridden by "the blues", and the blues he was wearing rode him like a cowboy, only a sadistic cowboy, because real spurs are more spike-y, which a straight razor is not, so a razor would cut straight through, a prolonged open wound and not just press/pierce/puncture. I grew up in a big rodeo town, so I get the analogy. And the "solution", of course, is for the bronc to buck the cowboy, which is made all the more difficult by the fact that these spurs are slashing and gashing, not just poking and prodding. In fact, one could say that the bronc is doomed as soon as the chute is open, what with the cowboy using actual razors instead of real spurs. And who is the "cowboy" aka "a blues"? Junk? White Folk? America? Life In General? Herb Jeffries? It's just more Bird/Jazz as Wild/Old West, which is just as true as it is not, individually and collectively. And just as much romantic wishful thinking/projection as it is not. To say that Bird was a uniquely multifaceted human is putting it mildly. and to note that he was the ultimate hipster gunslinger is not inaccurate. Nor is it inaccurate to say that he was indeed a bucking bronc in a rodeo not of his own making being ridden by a cowboy/blues who used razors for spurs. I don't think that any of that is particularly wrong. But I don't think its in any way even remotely complete. I said I didn't mind the sentence, and I don't. I fully get the image and think it says what it intends to say. I don't think that a book full of sentences like that, though, is going to make for a good Bird biography, especially since I grew up going to rodeos and watching westerns, and not once was Buster Smith, mastering etudes, or visiting with Varese part of the picture.

Comparing "versions" is a pretty empty exercise if you don't know what's there in the first place. And an honest expression of enthusiasm is not a comparison, any more than a reading is an interpretation, any more than a hearing is an understanding, any more than an understanding is an Ultimate Final Answer. Music is not a building. A building can be "thought of" and "seen" in all sort of ways, but no matter how much you do so, at the end of the day, there sits the building, "interpreted" nowhere but in the mind (unless actual reconstruction/deconstruction/destruction is done on it, and the, hey, that's a lot of money, a lot of time, and really?). Music can be freely taken apart and put back together in all//many/any kind of ways, and at the end of the day, how it is now done is how it is. But so is as it was done, and how it will be done. As well as how it is also being done. Versions? Like v.2.7 rev 13? In some worlds, perhaps, but not in mine, I should hope not! In the world of drafts, alternate takes, etc. yeah, ok. As a manufacturing consideration, yes, because that is how things get made. But most things get made to be used. The manufacturing is just the beginning of the life, not the end of it. Comparing interpretations especially with music such as Beethoven's later work, is quite instructive, simply because there is much there that was "new", so much so that the whole matter of "what does this mean?", not simply in terms of "emotion", but in terms of basic music (so many places where "functional harmony" is all but temporarily obliterated) is still (STILL!) open to, yes, interpretation. These are not just great culminations of certain by-now fixed traditions, these are musical statements that answer questions that have not yet been asked, so to speak. So, yes. the music ultimately does "speak for itself". But what it is saying is sometimes (always, if one chooses to be of a "remix" mindset, but let's stay in the 20th Century for the time being) open to interpretation (figuratively and literally), and a listener, player, orchestra, conductor, whatever, should be able to deal with that on its own terms. And if not, oh well. It'll happen anyway.

I don't mind the sentence myself, just not sure if so many of them like that as to make a book is going to be a taste of the good life.

Rainn Wilson Park Overall Cassidy Curtis http://otherthings.com/