Dr. Rat

Good question...but he sure as hell was a burner when last heard from. The new album is not really of the barnburner variety. He's working the same vein of ensemble sound that I associate with Sex Mob--it's a bit self-consciously done, but not nearly as self-conscious as Sex Mob is. For me it's actually kind of cool to hear this sound without the tiresome, super-sophisticated, "ONLY in downtown NYC" preening of the Bernstein group. --eric

Drinking rats! What's wrong with you people! --eric

can you make that retroactive? Yes! Just when our confidence in some of our most cherished institutions is being cast into doubt, we find that even this hitherto-thought-of-as-clean competition is also for sale . . . . how can we go on like this. Wrestling? Fake! Elections? Fake? Post counts? For sale! I need a drink. --eric

I used to watch too much, so I got rid of my TV. Years later I bought one so I could review an advance copy of Ken Burns's Jazz series (yet another evil thing he did!). But I never got cable, and you can only get like one station on-air up here, so we never watch any TV, though we do occasionally rent something to watch. So, kids: 2 movies/week. Adults: 1 movie/month. And that'd be cheating on the generous side. I feel like I was able to let go of a second job! I get a lot more reading and thinking done, and people feel good having to expalin things like Survivor or the Apprentice to me. When I do get to see some TV in a bar or something, I am apalled. (But I keep sneaking glances at it!--That's why I don't have TV, can't not watch no matter what my super ego says.) --eric

THIS guy? Singlehandedly kept the big bands alive! Could it be the same guy? --eric

There seems to eb a contradiction in this response: you seem to acknowledge that there's a problem with critics over- or under-rating musicians, but you don't want Jazz Times to talk about it? --eric

I've never been very happy with any of the arguments on this point. The "how can you forbid children to hit each other when you hit them" line has always seemed to me to be empty. How can we justify the state physically detaining criminal when we forbid individuals from kidnapping one another? The answer is that we aren't being absolutist. Some violence can be allowed, while other violence is forbidden. That's one of the more complicated moral lessons kids have to learn. Absolutism on issues like these seems to me to be adopting the immature, simplistic absolutism of children as the standard rather than planning a way to teach them something better. On the other hand the "i got hit, I'm fine" line also fails to persuade. I got hit, I'm far from totally fine (neuroses, anyone?). Does this have anything to do with being hit? I don't know. Would I be worse off with the "Plan B" discipline usually adopted by parents (guilt trips, ignoring the offender, contempt, etc.)? Quite possibly. I think it's a complicated issue. Anyone have suggested reading? --eric

I thought Marcus Shelby deserved a mention. --eric

Chess can be great. I played on a pretty good team in Philly for a while. A couple of black kids on our team obviously had their lives turned around by the discovery of their chess-board prowess, I hope less obviously (!), it was the only thing a lot of us white dweebs could really do well. It's good to do something well--to earn respect-- and royally whipping your elders assses is an OK way to do that. Besdies, the skills learned in chess can be of great use in anyone's life. BUT, there is a slippery slope into obsession, and its pretty easy to slide down it, especially if you are fairly good. I'd second maren's recs. on this. Chess, yes, but properly contextualized. --eric

Has anyone else had trouble submitting comments on the save the listings site? --eric

Really?

Yeah, that's the next step -- trying to narrow down the time and wading through the handwritten logs. BUT, our current rotation for daytime is about 300 cds, plus about 10-20% of the music on-air is from the archive or private collections of the djs. So unless he can get back to me with a pretty small window . . . The rain to sun reference is to Fortuna's Wheel, right? But I haven't been able to figure much more than that. --eric

From a local musician/listener/supporter: ps- Heard a song on the station one night in June as my daughter and I were driving back into town. You must get this a lot? I loved it but don't know who or what. It was a woman singer, also on a mix that a friend gave back around '98. It was sort of world / alternative and I think part of it might have been sung in Portuguese. The theme was water and there was a line that went something like "Sun becomes the rain, rain becomes the sun..." Any chance you know who it was? Help! Anybody!? --eric

As a longtime NYT reader, I gotta acknowledge, they're having their problems. NYT has a tough time for a lot of reasons, but one is that they've never really figured out how to be a national newspaper. When I lived near NYC about 10 years ago, the Times coverage of things local--local politics, the usual metro news, sports--was so sorry I used to supplement my daily reading with the Daily News or Newsday, just to feel in touch. On the other habd they've never been able to make themselves into a truly national paper (a la Wall St. Journal or USA Today) either. So they've lived in a nether world of mediocrity. There's a decent piece in the Atlantic some months back that goes into some of the structural problems they've got--civil service ethic amongst the staff, deep divide between staff and senior editorial level, ambiguous management organization, etc. But the Times has never been as good as its reputation--I think a lot of their reviewing--of books and music--has been chummy or vindictive. But they've got to change, the Gray Old Lady is getting her lunch eaten. I've always thought of the listings section as it exists as a charming anachronism--it really has a 1920s feel to it. But I really don't think the paper can afford charming anachronisms anymore--at least in terms of style, this is something they feel they've got to change. The attempts at "hip" have been fatuous sometimes, but that is definitely the direction they've got to go in. Just they need a stronger editorial hand in doing it--somebody who can figure out and help define what is truly hip, rather than just pandering. There are papers that have done a reasonably good job of making this sort of transition--I think of The Guardian--but I'm not sure that the NYT can really do it. --eric

Hey- I remember reading a lot of stuff about this in the Nation, and I was kind of taken aback by Tom Waits's letter to same. I thought to myself: "But rock is commercialized from the get go. 'Tom Waits,' the product, is what his career is all about. Same goes for Led Zeppelin, etc." Now I understand that there are bad moves these guys can make--identifying themselves with products their fan base finds heinous, or whatever. BUT I never really got the idea that commercialism in itself is some kind of betrayal. I mean, aren't these bands just products, products that were extensively advertized and which worked a particular vein of consumeristic "identity formation through purchase"? I'm not being moralistic about this--certainly I was there with everybody else. Just that when I look back on it, I don't see anything like an experience free of commercialism. What do you guys think of this line of [insert noun here]? --eric

I suggest top ten posters should be by the word, not the post! Blah, balh, blah, I say. And eeek. And anything else to infalte my word count. --eric

www.archive.org

OK. Honestly curious: What do you mean by "effectively blacklisted?" To me that sounds like "effectively pregnant." Why? Because "blacklisted" doesn't mean your career is going bad because of your work lacks market appeal. Blacklisted means that you are able to produce work that is viable in the market, and you are not allowed to work because of your politics or your color or your religion or something else that has nothing to do with your work. So, any evidence that Roach's career was "systematically stymied?" Any "deliberate marginalization" other than Roach's own? Any actual, as opposed to effective, blacklist? Or is "no room for argument" "no evidence to argue with." On the "disgrace" of other folks not liking what you like: Roach took his art in a direction that he knew was at best marginal in terms of appeal. I respect him for that. But people do this all the time--I've done it--I could be making more money being a lawyer or something. I made a choice not to pursue those options, instead I am doing things more along the lines of what I want to do. I don't think society owes me my "missed potential wages." I don't think society owes me greater monetary appreciation for what I do do. If I find my current situation sufficiently frustrating, I'll have to move along. Max Roach had options. He chose to do what he did. And, as best I can tell, he didn't do so very badly. Now Roach, granted, is a special case. And that's been recognized: the Lundvall recordings didn't makes any money, by Roach's own admission. Roach also brought home a McArthur--more that $300,000 of 1980s money. He had a fairly nice teaching gig at UMass. This is more or less as it should be, imho. I think there are limits to how far society is obliged to subsidize my hobbies and obscure interests. And I figure it's just as well for my hobbies and obscure interests that they aren't too well subsidized. Call me conservative. When an artist creates works for posterity, that artist had better realize that posterity doesn't have any money, either. Within reason, people and companies get to decide where to spend their money. Period. It isn't a "disgrace" if they don't choose to spend it in a way you hope for or approve of. Trotting out the old exploitation stories is kind of disingenuous, isn't it? The issue with John Lee Hooker et al. (who were hardly innocents--they just bet wrong) was who got the profits from compositions and recordings that made a lot of money. That just isn't the issue with Roach. (And btw, I am completely in favor of letting JLH and others back out of agreements they signed--blacks had been treated brutally and ripped off for centuries, they had no reasonable expectation that their future rights would be recognized. But I don't buy the usual argument that they didn't know what they were signing. That's patronizing bullshit.) But in the absence of evidence, this whole line of argument looks like a convenient "white guilt smokescreen" to make us forget this:

My concerns about the human tragedy blah, blah, blah actually are so broad as to include folks who aren't even jazz musicians--to people I know and work with who struggle to say, get their teeth fixed, or to scrape together money to have heart surgery. People who might one day die because they don't have the means to make use of the greatest medical system in the world. In this context, I find it kinda odd people immediately start talking disgrace when they know very little about what's going on. I find it kinda distressing that people start throwing around innuendo about Roach's family. And I really don't think it's a disgrace for the man to, as now seems to be the case, for the man to get proper medical attention for his sad state of health. Should he have been rich? Should he have gotten a record contract in the 80s? Should his records be easier for you to buy? Sure, but that doesn't mean it's OK to unleash the paranoid fantasies and trash his family, does it? Read the first post. Tell me that just isn't icing on the music-industry-mistreatment cake. Now Roach's illness is made the vehicle to launch innuendo against his family. Classic, don't you think? But let's not pay any attention to that. By all means let's talk about the blacklist. --eric

I really like a lot of the stuff Mingus did arounf the time of Tijuana Moods. I think East Coasting, also in the Bethlehem Box and also TM-era, is not as well-known and appreciated as it should be. I like the "sketchbook" piece from the Symposium album a lot, too. Mingus had a real gift for "programmatic" music, I think. --eric

So who does deserve to be in this situation? I mean, isn't every worker in America exploited? Do any of the regular folk end up getting true value for what they've done in life? How many millions end up in far, far worse situations than Max Roach? The man is sick and being cared for in a relatively "nice" situation. All this disgrace stuff--I can't see how this is a disgrace when there are people without insurance literally dying because they can't get the proper measures taken and no one pays the least attention. Max Roach's artistic accomplishments, imho, do not and ought not get him some special dispensation from what life brings. I am sorry he is so ill, I am sorry people are irresponsibly casting about for someone to villify over it. Just be sad, for god's sake. --eric

So, it would seem wisest and most fair to withhold judgement of both the Roaches and Chris until (if/when) we can learn more. Though perhaps the "disgrace" portion of the thread title may be something to be excised until further information is available. After all, messengers have responsibilities, too. And I'm not sure that hearsay bears the weight. --eric

Ain't no secret no more! Outright Rhino Banga? --eric

I am "Tree Trunk Indian," which is curious because I actually do have Native American heritage worth mentioning. Though it'd have to be a fairly modest tree, I'm sorry to say, if this were meant as a reference to my manhood. --eric

This topic gets you into some complicated territory, because from a (largely white) historical perspective, the most important thing for twentieth-century blacks ought to have been overtly renogotiating the relationship between whites and blacks. BUT, Ellington didn't live in the world of white historical perspective, he lived in a world where there were all kinds of other complicating issues: his ability to create art and get it accepted, the conflicts amongst working class and middle-class blacks (as well as between blacks of different hues), the not inconsiderable opportunities that existed for middle-class blacks, the question of on what terms the integration of white and black societies ought to take place. I think Ellington might well come in for some criticism by students who carefully consider all of these factors and conflicts. But usually what I see is people who just retrospactively (and rather arrogantly) criticize him for not being the socio-politcal leader they want him to have been, with precious little sense of the context. I think the John Hammond/Duke Ellington conflict might be one good place to start looking at the issues. --eric