_forumlogo.png.a607ef20a6e0c299ab2aa6443aa1f32e.png)
John B Litweiler
-
Posts
11 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Donations
0.00 USD
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Posts posted by John B Litweiler
-
-
17 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:
I was completely obsessed with Abe as a young man.
Very useful, but flawed. It is very much a narrative of how the part of the scene of he was involved was built, so the focus is quite narrow.
I had two main issues with the book. First, that the translation is quite direct, which makes many of the descriptions of people and music sound quite samey: the inferences and ironies that are presumably in the original are missing. Second, the scene was obviously very insular and clannish, and marked out by 70s student maoist / nationalist views that are a bit exhausting to read about, and hard to sympathise with.
Rabshekah, looks like I missed something. What book are you referring to? No doubt the 1970s free-jazz scene in Japan really was insular. (If it's really a $40 book, I'll only look for it in libraries.)
-
6 hours ago, clifford_thornton said:
Strangely, I haven't read "Five Minutes That Will Make Me Love the NYT."
and because of that paywall, we'll never read those 5 minutes of NYT
-
-
A couple thoughts re the Stephen Cerra interview that Elmo quotes:
1. How much did Ike Quebec influence the choices of whom Blue Note recorded as leader and sidemen in the 1950s? Blue Note recorded a lot more junkies during his a&r era than his successor Duke Pearson picked for 1960s sessions, and Nichols in his Blue Note heyday was shamefully clean.
2. On the basis of the one sideman recording I know, 2 tunes with a Joe Thomas group on Atlantic, Nichols was very bland pianist. His 1952 trio pieces with Chocolate Williams are better and this time show Nichols to be an eclectic, a player of several different styles including bits here and there that predict his BN and Bethlehem dates. It's those 1955-57 recordings of mostly his original songs with their unique changes and developments that show what a great original artist he was. He interpreted, embellished, varied his compositions more than he improvised on their changes in the bop sense. Much as I appreciate how Rudd and Kimbrough played some of the Nichols songs that Herbie himself never got to record, I wish that a Nichols-influenced pianist had recorded those pieces -- dammit, those are PIANO compositions, much as other instrumentalists like them. Simon Nabatov, bless him, is the one who came closest to the Nichols style. That was in a wonderful evening at the Hungry Brain club in Chicago as well as on his CD of familiar Nichols songs.
-
On 2/7/2023 at 11:51 PM, medjuck said:
I've been gradually catching up with the few Renoir's I've never seen. Just saw the unfinished, and unsuccessful, "La nuit du carrefour", and even it was interesting. (It's way more unfinished than A Day in the Country which seems quite complete to me.
Early in the century, shortly after rereading Simenon's "Night at the Crossroads" I saw "La nuit du carrefour," no subtitles, and the film seemed quite a success - a moody pre-noir that's painstakingly true to its source. I might think differently if I spoke French.
-
I've been going to this winter's Doc Films weekly series of Jean Renoir movies and am fascinated by how much they have changed since the last time I saw them 1 or 2 or 3 decades ago. They're still terrific and it seems like more vital than ever. "The Grand Illusion" last week.
Also, Pascal Merigau's biography "Jean Renoir" is surely one of the best ever, 700+ pages, no moralizing but clear about Renoir's moral and amoral sides. Like his nuts, desperate notion of going to Italy, working on the unfinished "Tosca" there and by doing that, encouraging France-Italy friendship - in 1940! This before escaping to America.
A favorite Merigau quote: as well as directing, Renoir occasionally acted, including "his role as a music critic, but that was truly an example of an occupation that produced nothing useful and therefore wasn't a real one."
-
9 hours ago, Brad said:
I’m 100 pages into it and enjoying it so far. The Dragon record of his 1959 performance in Stockholm is one to grab too.
9 hours ago, Brad said:I’m 100 pages into it and enjoying it so far. The Dragon record of his 1959 performance in Stockholm is one to grab too.
I'm looking forward to a paperback edition of Saxophone Colossus. A few years ago I was blown away by an almost-finished, unpublished early chapter. The stories of how Sonny's father created a national scandal by dancing with a white human female and of teenaged Sonny would, daily after school, go down from Harlem to Thelonious Monk's midtown home to hear and IIRC play music - these stories were fascinating and new to me. On the basis of that chapter this one looks like it could be a pretty terrific piece of research. Incidentally, Levy was a student of George Lewis at Columbia U.
-
4 hours ago, JSngry said:
Richard Scarry
Poor Richard
Mike Nock
Mike Pence
Clarence "Pants" Rowland
Rolling Stones
-
Is Peter Niklas Wilson's Ayler book in English? Good! I know a little of the research he did. There's a whole lot of valuable information in Koloda's HOLY GHOST and his friend Donald Ayler's story is almost heartbreaking. Terry Martin heard Donald's band in NYC one long-ago night when Albert sat in and IIRC Terry said yes, Donald could really play the alto saxophone. Really, Mom and Dad Ayler seem to have been awfully perverse characters so it's no wonder the brothers were so miserable. Charles Tyler's comment that Albert was terminally afflicted with that old-time religion is an undertone in Koloda's book.
-
On 6/17/2022 at 10:36 AM, clifford_thornton said:
Her MoMA retrospective was rad. She is important as is/was Fluxus -- it's fine not to be into it, but the movement and the art/performances/ideas were groundbreaking at the time. I like her music too and as a way to disseminate experimental art practices to the people, she found a way that was more successful than most. It was very moving to hear her speak at Ornette's funeral.
That MOMA retrospective was just upstairs from the wonderful paintings of the Black Migration by the young Jacob Lawrence (late 1930s), so Yoko's work seemed like kid's stuff by contrast. OTOH I've come to like her Lotus sculpture here at Jackson Park in Chicago.
Which jazz book are you reading right now?
in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...
Posted
IIRC Jerry Figi, who was one of the most original people I've ever known, introduced all 4 of us young Chicago jass lovers to the AACM ca. 1966 when it was still new. Larry's roommate Doug MItchell was Joseph Jarman's drummer in one of the first AACM-men concerts (Dec. 1965) and Pete Welding reviewed it in Down Beat.