robertoart

Its a briefcase full of money, for curators to buy the works of young radical black artists.

Having babies and marrying multiple times is not at all unusual, especially when one considers Peterson's environment and the fact that we only recently have woken up to reality. I am currently compiling a list of jazz musicians who might possibly be straight. Please bear with me. Don't want to continue this much further, but I am trying to understand the terms here. Valerie above says that some of these musicians must be bi-sexual, which would seem to be accurate (assuming there's any merit to some of this, which I'm beginning to doubt quite frankly, and no, I'm not in denial). But Chris, stay with me here, you're saying that if someone is married to a member of the opposite sex for 50+ years (whether one marriage or several), dies married to a member of the opposite sex, fathers children, but also has relations with members of the same sex, that person's not bi-sexual; they're strictly gay??? This is a bridge too far for me. I'm not in denial mode or morally shocked or anything... and I don't mind discussing these questions. I asked Chris the very same question that John Tapscott rose again - however he seems to ignore it. So... Niko's explanation makes sense, but my point still is: it can be multi-faceted. You can be married, have affairs with people of both sexes... bi-sexuality exists. I quickly had the impression Chris was in denial-mode regarding bi-sexuality and found that a bit weird, but I guess I'm out of here now. I think it's crucial to note that, beyond the fact that bi-sexuality as a phenomenon (i.e., sex with both men and women) exists, bi-sexuality as a self-identifier is a very real thing. Reducing the conversation to a gay/straight dyad undermines the notion that many in the GLBT community do understand sexuality as more of a spectrum than a duality (and identify themselves at various points within--and not necessarily at the extremes of--that spectrum). This is actually a huge issue in contemporary sexuality--I've heard firsthand accounts of queer folk (self-identified as such) coming into tension with gay self-identifiers due to the fact that said queer folk are perceived as living in a non-committal, liminal space (i.e., get with the revolution). All this does is diminish the agency of people that do genuinely feel various degrees of attraction to both sexes, which is in its own way just as disenfranchising as perpetuating jazz's latent (or overt homophobia. On a different note, and keeping in mind I know very, very little about Arthur Rhames, I think it's interesting that Rhames's otherwise surprisingly detailed (for a relatively obscure musician) wikipedia entry completely omits any mention of homosexuality--especially considering his death at a relatively young age--in the late 1980's--due to AIDS-related illness. One of the more pointed passages in the liners to that Soundscape album that came out a while back was Vernon Reid acknowledging that (paraphrasing here) getting to know Rhames helped Reid "get over" his own homophobia. Obviously, Rhames's sexual orientation is totally incidental to whether or not the music moves you, but it's difficult not to see how the early death of this musician with remarkable potential was inextricably linked to the problematic nature of AIDS treatment/recognition/awareness. That's a very clear and relevant reason to discuss homosexuality in jazz. I think it's sad that Vernon Reid was homophobic, and sadder that it took someone who was the object of Reid's musical desires to help him overcome this. It's good though, that if he thought it was important to address Rhames sexuality in the liner notes, that he (Reid) was honest about his homophobia (if indeed this is what he admits to). I could not find any online source for the liner notes, but did find this very telling paraphrasing of them; "According to Vernon Reid, he was also a "deeply closeted" homosexual, and was "afraid that if he was 'out' that all of us in the 'hood who loved and worshipped him as an artist would turn our backs on him." In his final days, ravished by AIDS, Reid recalls him saying, with complete optimism, "When I get better and get out of here I'm going to concentrate on the blues because this experience has given me a new insight into human suffering."

No - that lot would be on the 'masochists' thread.. One of my favourite Peter Cook moments, Michael Parkinson Q. Peter what do you remember most about your public school days? Peter Cook A. Trying to avoid buggery.

All the ones sung by ageing rock stars and cabaret performers.

acting out in the supermarket of love

Yes, the interview is ambiguous. He doesn't confirm he purchased the catalogue. Yet also doesn't confirm he is just licensing the Calvin Keys Lp.

My link Label must have found a buyer.

Joe Henderson and Calvin Keyes 1984. Later than 77, but unusual and intimate. Certainly different to the only duo I ever saw play in an art gallery, Peter Brotzmann and Peter Kowald

It's probably a straight reissue of the Koch. Orignal vinyl is fine but I fancy a CD 'supplement'. My Lennox Avenue Breakdown and Illusions cd's are both Koch reissues, 1998. Thought they might have been Sony Japan reissues, but no. Wonder how much I paid for them as imports in the pre-internet days?

I'm fine with my original Columbia vinyl and whatever cd copy I have. It's gotta be one of the great recordings in jazz history. IMHO Is there new liner notes on this one. More text about this Lp would be super. Cecil McBee

A funny and interesting take on Henry Threadgill from the Stanley Crouch Ethan Iverson interview. Love the way Stanley Crouch mentions 'some unlettered black person who should be the final arbiter of value'. EI: You mention Henry Threadgill's Sextett in the book, and how good they sounded when you booked them into the Tin Palace. That band was an underrated, too-little known moment in the history of the music. [see also this post.] SC: Definitely! I'm one of those sentimental people who likes to think that there is some unlettered black person who should be the final arbiter of value, because they have absorbed the truth through their nostrils or something when eating collard greens and cornbread when growing up poor in the South. Blah, blah, blah---it's bullshit, of course. EI: You mean the kind of character Morgan Freeman gets hired to play sometimes in the movies. SC: Right! BUT…I will say, not in Henry Threadgill's defense, but in his celebration, that one night at the Tin Palace, this black guy--an uptown [Harlem] guy--happened to be on the Bowery and came in the club as Threadgill started to play. He stayed for all three sets and I talked to him a bit. He didn't know this band, but he was really moved and loved the music--thought they were really playing. There was something that Threadgill had with that band that could make this "unlettered soulful black arbiter of value" say it was the real deal. It was communicating to both people looking for the avant-garde and people who didn't even know there was an avant-garde. If Threadgill had kept that band together--two drummers, trumpet, trombone, cello, Fred Hopkins and himself--then that band could have been right next to the Art Ensemble of Chicago. But I think there is something in Threadgill's personality that prevented him from keeping that band together--something like "when people start liking what he's doing, he's got to figure out something they don't like." EI: Ornette can be a little like that, too. SC: Kind of, yeah. Threadgill did keep Air with Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall together for a while, and really turned out New York with that trio. The records don't do them justice. EI: I dig Hopkins. I admit I don't really like it when Air played the Jelly Roll Morton or ragtimes, but I really dig a record of all abstract music on Nessa called "Air Time." SC: Man, they killed when they played the Jelly Roll live. Fred Hopkins was deep--I loved him, man. Do you have the Sextett albums What Was That? and Just the Facts and Pass the Bucket? Olu Dara sounds smoking on that one. But for saxophone playing, when Arthur Blythe showed up, Threadgill felt the pressure. I remember that well, because Blythe had such a rich sound, and Threadgill didn't really have that. ---

The only one you could ask is probably, um, unavailable for comment. No, silly, it's not Cornell West. It was a rhetorical question.

Oh. Counterpoint

The good old English (and the French and Spanish and Dutch and Portugese) set the wheels in motion for a lot of 'historical determinism'.

Glad you got your body fluid shorthand together. What do you think of Archie Shepp's music? Were you grooving along to Attica Blues in 1972? No, buta couple of years earlier.... Good listen this. Very glad you bothered to link it. I doubt Shepp's opinion would have changed re- the White musicians he brings up, Blood Sweat and Tears, Janis Joplin, because what he is saying is true. The truth doesn't change. I would be more interested in hearing him revisit his desires for a Black music academy elevated from the clubs, and how that vision correlated to the reality of the Lincoln Centre organisation and other such achievements. I wonder what the Downbeat employee is up to these days. I wish you didn't edit her contributions out of the entirety of the interview.

Glad you got your body fluid shorthand together. What do you think of Archie Shepp's music? Were you grooving along to Attica Blues in 1972?

Thanks for the link. Really enjoyed reading this. 'European speculative improv community' I bet Stanley Crouch would love that.

Two more recent uploads re-Newport Jazz Workshops. From Hoffmannjazz

Once we get beyond the concept in the abstract, just what do you think the contours of a class-based look at jazz would be? Do you see class distinctions, apart from race, as central to the trajectory of jazz history? I can't say for sure, but I think it's possible. One thing that you see in jazz history--and this is probably an oversimplification--but it seems like the music moves from the streets, and, as it becomes more accepted as an art form, into the academy. At the same time, jazz at its peak was not entirely a working or poor man's music. Miles came from the middle class, etc. And many white jazz musicians came from poor backgrounds or broken homes. So there's something there as well. And then you also have the long-standing reality that many jazz musicians were black but that the audience for the music becomes increasingly white. This would involve a significant class dynamic in and of itself, since during the postwar era the average black person was significantly poorer than the average white person. There's also a strong argument to be made for a gendered analysis of jazz history, not just because the instrumentalists are overwhelmingly men, but also because of the kind of masculinity they project--especially within the black community. Obviously, the discourses on race, class, and gender all intersect in various ways. And as should be clear from this response I haven't myself fully thought through how these dynamics play themselves out in the history of jazz. But I wish someone would do that, instead of regurgitating the tired arguments about jazz as a black music, about the forgotten white contributions to jazz, etc. That seems like a field that has been played out and I don't think I've heard anything original on jazz and race in a long time. I agree with all of this completely. As jazz got increasingly more complex, the black audience (this can be seen in my own family to a degree, as well as others I've spoken to) moved to soul/R&B, and records like ones made by Grover Washington eventually birthed the smooth jazz genre. I wonder how many members of the black community did buy Blue Note for example after a certain point, such as Wayne Shorter's records, Jackie McLean's records, Bobby Hutcherson, etc. Or was it mostly white jazz fans into those artists? Miles tried to reclaim the black audience, but was that audience buying albums like "Dark Magus" or "Miles Davis in Concert at Philharmonic Hall"? it seems he lost touch with the audience, and Eddie Henderson's notes in the Blackhawk set make mention of that. Hip hop is the primary form of social expression for the black community, even there you have to look past the mainstream to get content that socially is saying something. I've wondered a lot myself and reading Nicholas Payton's blogs, how can the young black community get interested in jazz again? I think Robert Glasper, Chris Dave are definitely a good start connecting hip hop to jazz. But this raises the larger question how to get my generation and younger into jazz period. I'm unusual in that I grew up with jazz my whole life and took an interest in it when I was a child almost immediately. Do you think 1980's Miles Davis reconnected somewhat to a Black audience? Even if it wasn't a youthful one. I recently read that Miles Davis said some disparaging things about John Scofield. Scofield in response had a bit of a dig at Davis by saying that Miles Davis was obsessed with getting a 'hit', the inference being that it was more important to Miles to be popular, than the actual music he made. In light of what you are saying, could it be thought that perhaps the significance of having a hit record meant more to Miles than just mainstream success.

Obviously the Black middle class and the White middle class are two different things. Now 'educated' in what context. Has anyone also focused on the role military education supported the musicians ability to be fed and sheltered and concentrate on 'music'. Maybe this is marginal, but a lot of musicians "especially' African American musicians seem to have made that choice to join the services. Also a constant thread of Black musicians stories (historically) seems to be their struggle to move from playing rhythm and blues to (playing and learning) jazz.

Can you post some of your guitar playing on youtube Allen Lowe. I would like to hear it. I have read some of your posts about your guitar playing before and enjoy some of the things you said. Sorry for the threadcap. Carry on.

Love this footage so much. Love hearing the later generation players, playing in the tension between changes and modal freedom. As a listener it almost feels like a secret history. A time that went undocumented and overshadowed by early fusion. Probably it wasn't so much, and I should just do some more research. Anyway, I could listen to this band all day long. I just watched the 1966 Messengers footage with Lee Morgan and John Gilmore as well. It's a nice counterpoint to these clips. At some point, just before this 1974 footage, James Blood Ulmer and Woody Shaw were in the band. I would love to hear that. Here is a tune of Ulmer's featuring some fine Olu Dara. I remember reading the Downbeat review of this. It read something like "Dara blows a fat and sassy tribute to Miles on the tune Hijack". Interestingly, Miles Davis apparently refused to play any festivals that included Ulmer's bands around this time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSJja-IrtbU&feature=related

Does anyone think Cornel West actually prays when he is by himself?