Dr. Rat

In other news, Gibson has a publicity campaign going with "college" radio stations right now. (We're not really "college" in format, but are associated with one). It's a disc of Gibson answering questions that someone here is supposed to read (texts included) as if we actually had the opportunity to interview the great star! Also a couple of PSA spots (???) and other bric-a-brac. He's nuts: First thing that happened here was a music director grabbed it to run home and butcher it with CoolEdit and make Gibson sound like an ass. I look forward to the results. I can imagine this happening at every alternative station in the country. Thanks, Mel! We don't feel helpless anymore! Maybe that's why he did it, out of pure agape. --eric

Didn't know about this. --eric

Doc: I'm not 100% sure I understand your question, but I think I do and it really gets to the heart of why insider trading is nearly impossible to prove (Waskal pleaded guilty in order to minimize damage and avoid a potentially harmful investigation). Say Martha's story is true - she really had a standing $60 order. Then the sale is completely lawful, even if she receives the inside tip without disclosing it prior to the sale. There are three stages to proving insider trading: 1) Prove that the person recveived the information (this part is relatively easy). 2) Prove that the information, if made public, would have substantially altered the trading value of the stock (this part is very easy). 3) Prove that the seller did not intend to sell the stock prior to receiving the information. It's the third part that is nearly impossible to prove - prosecutors normally avoid charges that involve proving intent. I think Philly was making the point that it wasn't technically insider trading because Martha didn't get the tip directly from an "insider." (You'll have to go back and check against his posts). I was wondering IF this isn't "insider trading" could it still be "stock fraud?" --eric

Hate to drag this thread on, but, Philly, I'm wondering: Is the sale still fraudulant (because Stewart knew of the impending drop in price) even if it is not technically insider trading? From J's post, I guess the answer is yes, but just wondering what your take on that issue was. --eric

Re: Layin' in the Cut. I wish he'd do some in the pocket music in this style--I found some of the stuff on the Cut to be a bit, umm, abrasive yet forgettable, which is a bad combo in my book. Maybe he could guest with our proprietors on their next one? --eric

If Eric Lewis got together with John Reed for 10 days, I bet that would really shake the jazz world. Whoops, should have been Lewis throughout. I fixed it! Easy to do since Reed did that Christmas album, and I was talking about Guaraldi . . . --eric

Well, I don't know--I read JUNKY, and it didn't really scare me, but it gave me the "feel" of heroin addiction enough to douse any curiousity that I had about it. That was one drug I never messed around with. I steered clear of that one myself. Although, having had legal, prescribed opiates at one point in the past, I can certainly understand the attraction. Feels great, and everything's right with the world. At least ciggies had the plus side of making me cough and feel like shit... In case that ailment of yours ever comes back, there was a good article on poppy tea in Harper's a few years ago. . .

OK, OK. This is confusing, but I think I got it straight Here's what prosecuters were considering charging Martha with: 1. Stock fraud, for selling her Imclone stock on an inside tip knowing its value was about to plummet. 2. Lying to cover up the stock fraud 1. 3. Stock fraud, for lying about the first stock fraud charge and thereby articficially buoying the stockprice of her own Martha Stweart Living shares. Prosecuters decided not to pursue charges under rubric 1, charges under rubric 3 were thrown out by the judge, she was convicted of charges under rubric 2. The judge said no one was hurt in the supposed stock fraud under rubric 3, he wasn't talking about teh buyers of Imclon stock under rubric one. I think. --eric edited for usual bad typing

I'm interetsed in the Hot Box. What could I do for you in exchange? --eric

Like you care, I know. Anyhow, the Google topic got me to thinking that it probably wasn't fair to all the people associated with WNMC who aren't opinonated pains-in-the-ass that the fair name of the radio station should be sullied by my activities here. So B-3, through some alchemy has changed my handle to Dr. Rat, thus expanding our board species representation to at least three. And though you may think it, please, I beg of you, post no comparisons between my monicker and my general demanor. Thanks for you patience, --eric The Rat formerly known as WNMC

Got this for the station, and its far from an ideal disc for radio purposes, and it didn't wrestle me to the ground when I listened to it, but I'll give it another try. --eric

Yes, its a high standard, but not an unobtainable one. Larry's review makes it clear that, whatever else we may disgaree on, we agree that making your standard clear is important to criticism. He and I probably disagree about what sort of standard to apply, but there you go. Your joke about playing being easier than my version of criticism has a certain truth to it: I tend not to think of criticism as being secondary to artistic production. Criticism, at its best, can expose important things about the reception of teh aesthetic that art producers have no priviliged access to. Myself, I am less intereted in criticism that talks a lot about the production side of the equation. (Though, of course, I am keenly interested, just less so.) I see what you are saying, and I knew someone like Larry knows more than me from the get-go--I've read him before. But I wasn't questioning his knowledge, I was questioning his judgement, which is a very different thing. And certainly I do not mean to disrespect or disregard the deep background of someone like that. I've had a lot to do with experts in my time: people who know lots and lots about things, far more than I do (scientists, academic scholars, non-academic scholars, physicians, regulators . . .). All that knowledge is no guarantee against faulty judgement. I definitely respect technical and expert knowledge, but I think it has its place. And technical knowledge and expertise, I think, is really put to work by skepticism and questioning, not by deference. By my lights, to be challenged is to be respected, to be deferred to (except in specific cases, such as the one Larry brought up) is to be patronized. This probably makes me an odd duck today and probably shows just how much my head may still be stuck in eighteenth-century periodicals, but it does seem to be a better modus operendi if we are really interested in truth. And, even in scare quotes, that's an important thing for me. --eric

Diane and Eric at Traverse Jazzfest

Just so people don't miss the wood for the trees, here's the wood: "...wholly free jazz has proven, in sum, to be less than successful...Most audiences today find that free jazz is too random for them to deal with. (It has been suggested to me that one reason for the rise of free jazz was that it was often listened to by people on marijuna highs, which would have made the randomness more tolerable.)...a great deal of free jazz is in fact random...What the avant-garde sometimes forgot was that the first thing that the Lord did was not to pronounce freedom, but to make an ordered universe out of chaos." The Making of Jazz/James Lincoln Collier p476-7 (Papermac 1981) Collier hates free jazz. Simon Weil But this is a different stand of woods (a different book). The point not being what Collier thinks, but whether he slags or disrespects or seriously misrepresents free jazz in the Grove, which I do not think he does. At this point, from what I can gather, the Harrison "Jazz" article has also been replaced in the general Grove by yet a third jazz article. --eric

I'm not involved in psychiatry or any related field, but my understanding is that sociopath is essentially the new word for "psychopath" and that about 1% of people in the US have a sociopathic personality. So I don't think it is too far-fetched to think this about Parker. If he was, what does it mean? Well, that's an open issue. Like what it means that he was black. But I don't think we can just say it means nothing. I take no responsibility whatsoever for Ken Burns. If you read through the thread, you'll see I am not arguing that Collier is passing down holy writ, but I don't think he should be blacklisted, either. --eric

Thanks to Larry and Michael for their very informative posts re: the Grove. I agree that these errors (and all the rest you've noticed) constitute a to-do list for revision. I do not agree, though, that these errors constitute a reason for dissuading people from buying the book. But on that, I think we'll just have to disagree. Interestingly, Larry, you start your Tribune review (and lucky they are to have a reviewer capable of such a detailed look at the book) with a discussion of the standard to be applied in reviewing the book. Which I think may get right to the heart of our disagreement. I think the standard of perfection may be an appropriate one for the editors of such a book--you'll never reach it, of course, but it's the right goal to aim for. Here there may be a heuristic purpose behind applying an unreachable standard. But I think it is wrong standard for a reader or reviewer to apply, becuase there is no purpose at the point of consumption in applying a standard that the book can never satisfy. All you are doing is unnecessarily courting disappointment. So, I feel, when a reviewer finds himself applying an unreachable standard, the thing to do is formulate another standard, and not one that's just a slightly more forgiving version of the unreachable one. A reviewer's standard ought to reflect a reasonable consideration of what the thing under review is supposed to do, how it will be used, and what its consequences will be. And here again, we may just have to disagree (either about standards or your employment of them). On the Oxford Companion: I know it, own it, and have read, enjoyed and profited from the articles written by Chris and Larry. I actually give the Companion away as a gift/reward to particularly valued volunteers. It's a fine book, though my copy is pretty coffee-stained!

On Collier's "Jazz" article: Didn't have my Grove with me yesterday (and didn't relaize it was online), but I looked up Collier's essay on jazz last night. What Simon quoted is in bold. I don't feel Collier does anything terrible to free or out jazz in these passages when you read them in context. If he hates free jazz, he restrains himself here. Certainly he makes disputable points, but the alternative to making disputable points in a case like this is being hopelessly bland I think most people would walk away with a fairly neutral attitude toward the music having read this and nothing else. My last quote is just something I ran across on the usenet while searching. This person's take seems to be that the Grove is either neutral or mildly supportive of the music. --eric

Thanks all for helping me spend my money wisely, I'll report back on whatver I end up with, --eric

Sure, there's "something to it", but nothing even remotely worthy of the emphasis that Collier gives it. He's a descendant of the whole "jazz=sex-crimes" & "Reefer Madness" era. Fuck him, and good riddance when he dies, at least as far as the world of jazz goes. I'm as weary of the whole "hero worship" school of criticism as you are (although I freely admit to enjoying it when it's presented as nothing but, and especially when the object of the worship is somebody that I, too, admire), but I'll be damned if I'll give respect to any and all drivel that any idiot spews out just because it's attacking a sacred cow. That's nothing more than hero worship in reverse, and it's just as full of shit as serious criticism as what it purports to be running counter to. I'll not enjoy eating shit just because I don't like liver. I take away a bit more from him than the mere negative, sacred-cow-slaying stuff. And, agreed that sort of thing can be just slipping in anti-hero-worship by the back door. But I think it is important that parker was a sociopath, though not as important as Collier seems to think. But I don't recall anyone really making a point of this (aside from his peers, which I ran into later) before I read Collier. And I do think it's important that Armstrong may have had issues with male authority figures, etc., etc. These are things I wouldn't have run into if he hadn't written about them (except maybe here, I don't know). I don't think anyone was anxious to go in these directions before him. So much the worse for me that I think about these things now, maybe you'll say. But I feel a wee bit the richer for it, --eric

I hope you're not taking the OED! --eric

If you knew my TRUE feelings (and it sounds like you do...), you'll understand what I mean when I tell YOU to stop being coy about Collier. The man's maniacal obsession with pointing out character flaws and getting obsessive in the extreme about them (Trane's obviously real oral fixation somehow becomes grounds for questioning the musical merit of virtually all of his work , and the labelling of Bird as a "sociopath" is grounds for justifiable homicide in the parallel universe I'd like to inhabit for a quick minute, which I guess makes ME a sociopath too ) is the type of sensationalism that serves no purpose in serious criticism other than to foul the already less than pristine waters past the point of unpotability. And yes, I get pissed off about how he writes about (and reduces) Armstrong & Ellington, and, yes, it seems to me that he sullies everything he touches. Part of me, though, says that's because there's something to what he's saying. Otherwise I just wouldn't give a shit. At the end of the day I think, though often wrong, he's a good antidote to hero worship toward which jazz writing seems to tend so strongly. Just my opinion of course, I didn't consult Mohammed or anybody of similar authority before writing. --eric

Ah, a true beleiver as John McDonough would have them! Too bad Salman Rushdie slipped through your clutches! --eric

"...certain principles run through much of free jazz...[one] is the avoidance of order; if the music seems to be falling into a pattern, some means is usually found to break it." "The music of [the] second generation [of free jazz players][He is talking to a large extent about AACM musicians]...Much of it used principles derived from John Cage and other composers...randomness was deliberately sought." Entry For "Jazz" in 2nd Edition of the New Grove by James Lincoln Collier If you were a music student and pulled out the reference book of record for Jazz, the New Grove, you would find that Free Jazz is deliberately chaotic or random. Collier hates free Jazz and should never have been employed. Simon Weil Like I say, I understand that some people dislike & disagree with Collier. I can see your point about his not being neutral on many topics 1960+, but when we come to controversial points (and free jazz does constitute one) in a reference book, what is the best way to procede? And if these are the worst things he has to say about free jazz in spite fo the fact that he hates it, I admire his restraint. Let's rephrase the question here a bit. Rather than "Free Jazz is deliberately chaotic or random." being the issue, let's ask "Is free jazz relatively chaotic or random?" Relative to the music its practitioners thought it was "free" in comparison to. If it's there, was this relative chaos or randomness taken up deliberately? And if there is a deliberately undertaken relative freedom from organizing principles, the only thing we can really accuse Collier of in these passages is a certain sloppiness with terms like "chaos," by which, I would guess, he does not mean dis, but the sort of "chaos" we speak of when stuck in downtown traffic, which, when looked at closely, actually ends up being fairly well ordered. We imagine some person picking up the dictionary and walking away forever enslaved to the notion that free jazz is utterly ruleless and chaotic. I doubt that happens very often. If ever. --eric

Well, you and I may say that the idiosyncrasies of these dictionaries were not the fault of their compilers, but there were contemporaries who found fault with these works and scorned the people who produced them. Today we figure these people were pedants or were motivated by pettiness and jealousy. If the Grove is half-assed, how would I know? Well, perhaps if someone actually made a case for this point of view systematically, in print, in a place where it would be exposed to folks who could effectively respond to, attack or defend this point of view, maybe then I could make a judgement about the merits of your complaints about the Grove. I know of no such systematic demonstration. You are criticicizing a work that is generally considered a solid reference work. I am saying "show me." You demur. I am perfectly well aware that some people dislike James Lincoln Collier. I am sure Kernfield knew it, too. But I've also seen him complimented and referred to by other respected critics. Perhaps these people are all morons, but you'd have to show me this is so. Otherwise I am going to have to work on the assumption that there is room for disagreement. While we're on the subject Who is it that refuses to do homework here? Yes Kenny Dorham doesn't sound like a fabulous technician. Does that mean he didn't have the technical capacity? And even if he didn't you've got precisely one example of an error in evaluation. Johnson got the definition of "pastern" wrong, too. So what? It's a 1300-page book and so far we've found a nit. I'm not saying your opinion of the book is necessarily wrong, just that you've done precious little to support it. You are the one railing against received opinion here, not me. And since we've opened the subject of "problems": An attentive reader might have noticed that the deferrence was in regard to JohnL's rundown of the book, which didn't directly engage anything I had said. My deferrence was to his superior knowledge of blues scholarship and specifically regarded the question of whom Elijah Wald might have seen as being behind his strawmen. That's it. This had nothing whatsoever to do with the other quotation you exerpted, at least that I could tell. As far as the political and social agendas of the generation of critics who build the Johnson legend--people like John Hammond--if you care to argue that Hammond hadn't any, I invite you to do so. Otherwise it seems to me to be a pretty straightforward sentence--you'll have to instruct me in how to write sentences that don't strike you as "pontificating." Perhaps I should throw in a few more typos and grammatical errors? I've plenty already, I think. The most basic "homework" we have to do is to actually read what we're responding to and complaining about. I have no objection to complaints, but, as here, when they are transparently just vehicles for personal insult, I think you've done less than you ought to. But, anyhow, I don't think we need rancor in this discussion. We disagree, but I (along with others who may disagree with you, perhaps) am open to persuasion in the form of evidence and reasoned argument. --eric

I use it one the air a lot: a good variety of material in a small package. --eric