Cornelius

In the summer of '66 my family took a vacation to San Francisco. My father, a "buckle down" Republican, made it a special point that we should visit Haight-Ashbury just to see it firsthand. We crawled the length of Haight Street in my dad's blue '61 Chevy Bel Air as we took in every detail we could. It was all very strange. But what struck us most was just how many of the hippies were eating chips wrapped in newspaper. Later my dad remarked that he could tell that there was a very special sense of sharing and humanity in what the hippies were doing.

Thanks, etherbored.

I haven't a clue how other people would take it, but I can tell you how I would: Unless you have something substantive to say about race, then I would wonder why you even mentioned it in your broadcast, let alone used it for a segment title. It would strike me as gratuitous hook. On the other hand, if you had some trenchant things to say about race and culture and music, then I'd be all ears. However, even then, I think you can come up with a better title, since the pun on "Even Colored Girls..." is too predictable for me.

I really didn't want you to schlep for quotes on my account. I know about Coltrane's spirituality. What interests me is his saying that good jazz requires a good person, just as you too raised an eyebrow at that. / In another thread you wrote: "I honestly believe, in a completely biased and subjective fashion, that [Art Pepper] is the most sensitive, most deeply-felt interpreter of ballads in jazz history, on any instrument, in any historical period. His playing is so profound and gut-wrenching it says as much about the conflicted sadness and fugitive joy of being human as the greatest art, period." I don't have the Straight Life album, which you highly praise, but I do have most of Pepper's major albums from the '50s and '60s. Would you suggest an exemplary ballad track that might be among those albums? / You've posted some quite enjoyable letters here. I hope you'll post a lot more.

What are some good straight ahead jazz vocal records sung in Japanese (either original Japanese lyrics or translations of English lyrics)?

The beats listened to great jazz. The hippies created some great rock. Based on that, I'd say, musically (cultural score 0 - 1000): beats 300, hippies 10

When I wrote "conservatives today call themselves 'libertarians'" I was being breezy, using 'today' to suggest the trendiness of conservative "libertarians." / I strongly doubt that counter-culture leftists became consumerists (some won't admit it, some admit it sheepishly, and some real assholes proclaim it) because of the self-seriousness of the left. That sounds more like a rationalization. It's more likely that these people, being human, just couldn't resist the temptations. / Searching "Coltrane beautiful person" or "Coltrane pure heart" gives pretty much the same results as just searching "Coltrane"! Anyway, please don't look for it on my account. But if you do happen upon it, I'm interested.

There's a book on this subject. I don't recall the name, but I often see the book in book stores.

Dan, You disclaim anti-intellectualism, but you say that you agree that "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." I see that as a self-contradiction, unless I misunderstand what you mean by that aphorism.

Would you point to where Coltrane made those comments about the need for musicians to be good people? I don't doubt you that he said that; I'm just interested in reading more. / Conservatives today call themselves 'libertarians'. Social liberalism, but without having to pay taxes for all those welfare bums. There's no ideology there except the ideology of self-interest. As if the massive wealth of corporations is protected by some ethical-political statute of limitations on genocide, slavery, war, invasion, plunder, theft, and corruption. What a crock. / I think you mean Stan Levey.

Thanks, couw. I tink I got you now.

"[...] sanitised, respectable front as a solid affirmation of cultural seriousness and high-brow gravitas. Anything that deviates from this is dismissed by Crouch and his mates as decadence, self-indulgence [...]" [sNWOLF] I suspect that's an overstatement. / Along the lines of Allen's comments about the beats and hippies, at least these events loosened a bit the stick that goes up our culture. It seems to me that the self-permission that was demanded to take LSD and to deviate from routine ideation, art, and behavior has contributed to our freedom.

"[...] a denial of validity really isn't that far off from the failure to connect if the mode of communication is what it is all about. If someone has big problems with people intellectualising emotional reactions and proceeds to call those intellectualisations invalid, I cannot blame this person. It only denies objective validity of the intellectualisations for the person in question. It would be great if those broadminded enough to think this were nonsense would nonetheless take it as a valid opinion." [couw] I don't understand this, though I might guess at parts of what it means.

"Could you provide a couple of examples where [Mobley] plays the same thing on two different recordings?" [Lazaro Vega] Off the top of my head the first comparison that occurs to me is his blues solos on various heads during the early '60s. Perhaps "Pfrancing" on Someday My Prince Will Come could be your prototype for comparisons. Later, if you like, I could give you the chorus numbers. He plays variations on them scattered throughout other recordings. Basically a chorus or two with less variation than you might expect. "But they're usually "micro" patterns [...]" [JSngry] But there are the chorus routines too. / Interesting comments by Larry about "Cool Struttin'." I also like the comment he makes in the book about the rhythmic effects of the team of Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones.

I appreciate many approaches to writing about jazz: technical, biographical, and illustrative/metaphorical/impressionistic/sensorial/psychological (for lack of a better term for writing that describes the writer's sensorial and emotional responses in metaphors (or other tropes) that compare music to other sounds, sights, and concrete and psychological experiences (such Kart's enjoyably apt description of Mobley's tone as "like a blue gray cloud," if I'm quoting correctly). And I'd love for there to more writing that does a good job of combining these approaches. But the passage I quoted seems to go on to an ideational/metaphysical/ontological (for lack of a better term) approach. I'm not necessarily opposed to this kind of thing, but my radar of skepticism does start blinking like crazy. And in this instance, my radar gun dictated that I pull the speeding car to the curb. My feeling is that (not necessarily in order of importance), first, the prose is too dissimilar to its subject; second, the prose did not enlighten me and that some of what it is meant to convey was better articulated by Kart's own more down to earth metaphorical explanations in this thread; third, the rhythms, imagery, and voice of the prose did not appeal to me; fourth, along the lines just mentioned, for me, the particular ontological (for lack of a better word) analogies used "run past" Mobley himself in a way that distracts from digging him. I surmise that Kart does not mean that Mobley himself felt or thought about the things Kart finds in his playing. So, granted, the analogies could still be good even if Mobley did not think and feel those things; that's why they're analogies and not reports of Mobley's actual mental experiences; and I just said that I do dig analogies like "blue gray cloud." But the ontological analogies that Kart got carried away with are so abstract (and I found not too logical even as abstractions) that Kart has "upped the stakes" so that the conceits better be really well constructed now. Perhaps there's a kind of series of levels, from literal to concrete to metaphorical to ontological: For examples (I'm just improvising a rough notion here, so don't hold me to this in every detail): Level 1 (literal) "He played even eighth notes with the rhythm section's Latin beat"; Level 2 (musical illustrative) "His sound is brassy"; Level 3 (metaphorical, loosely speaking, since it could be another trope) "His tone is like a blue gray cloud"; Level 4 (a little further out) "His tone is a brittle as a skeleton on a highwire"; Level 5 (further) "His biting articulation and rhythmic displacements are the clarion call of political alienation" Level 6 (ontological): "[...] as though each move he makes has a counterpart in a wider world that might not exist if Mobley weren't compelled to explore it." (By the way, I have a better sense of what Kart means by that now, but I feel the rhetoric is inflated relative to its meaning.) So when the rhetoric becomes so attenuated relative to the message, the rhetoric demands of itself even more deft execution than casual comments like "smoky tone." Please do not misunderstand. This does not imply that I don't think writers should stretch boundaries, especially to move past expressions, like "smoky tone" that have become pretty worn out. I only find that in the passage Kart was out there, but the prose, the constructs, and conceit weren't enjoyable or meaningful enough for me to give him the rope of confidence to lead me out there with him. / Lazaro, thanks. / The import of something that someone posted is invalid. The poster teased that Dan spends a lot of time in a thread about Kart while claiming not to like or be interested in Kart's work. There's no contradiction there, though. The amount of time Dan spends commenting about Kart is likely a function of Dan's feeling that it is important to be present to keep up for his position against Kart's writings and posts and to defend himself against counterattacks. (This is irrespective of my feelings about Dan's position.)

"hey Cornelius - I think I'll go back and edited those old posts so it looks like I'm only attacking Dan Gould -" You better be joking, you time-stamp revisionist, you!

Allen, It is painfully ironic to me that I had to defend myself against charges of anti-intellectualism here. You see, arguing against anti-intellectualism, especially the view that jazz writing needs to be dumbed down, is one of my own gravamens! I get in arguments all the time with peope who insist that jazz writing needs to stay simple, simple, simple! That anti-intellectualism, anti-analyticalness, anti-scholarly, anti-substantiveness drives me NUTS! Damn, in another forum, continually, I have to defend my own posts from posters who cry that my posts are too "academic" and that the posts use what is deemed inpenetrable vocabularly (can you believe, people are offended that I am "pompous" for using words such as 'vitiate'?!). (This is not to imply that I'm some great jazz scholar.) And I've defended myself from a charge of anti-intellectuality lodged by a writer (you) whose book I've very much appreciated (with some reservations) as quite enjoyable writing, a refreshing critque (even as I may have some points of disagreement) of jazz historiography, and rescource for discovering more and more music.

"I did not challenge the reason for the book." [Cornelius] "Only by implication. The book's main theme is challenged by some criticism you laid out before." [Lazaro Vega] What is the main theme? How do my comments challenge that theme? If you construct an argument that my comments do challenge that theme, I still want to be clear that I have not personally contested whatever may be the raison d'etre of the book.

""Jordu" reminds me of something Benny Golson would do -- just real subtle dynamics, whereas "Sandu" seemed more unequivocally hard bop. [...] Hard bop pianists -- Horace Silver, Bobby Timmons -- seem to put more sweat in their playing." [Lazaro Vega] Part of the problem is that 'hard bop' was never a good rubric from the git-go. It's a term that's never had a consensus of agreement, and which is used in misleading, confusing, and beside-the-point ways. Many tracks and albums that are classified as hard bop are ones that don't fit the cliché definition "funky, churchy, hard driving." I posted this elsewhere: "There is too much music closely associated with hard bop that does not fit the usual definition. What about a soft ballad played by a hard bop musician? Is the ballad performance not hard bop? That would mean that the performer switched styles just to play a ballad. And not all hard bop is especially funky, but rather some hard bop suggests different colorings than the blues. And hard bop and so-called "cool" are not always so far apart. Some tracks on hard bop albums could be taken as "cool" jazz, while some tracks on "cool" albums could be taken as hard bop. I think there are better ways to categorize jazz styles. Primarily, I prefer that categorizations be based not so much on mood, energy, and color, but rather on more objective elements like form, melody, rhythm, etc. It's as if one wanted to base a book about automobiles on their colors, with chapters on red automobiles, blue ones, etc. Instead, you'd likely point out that it would be better to categorize automobiles by manufacturer, or engine type, or function (sedan, wagon, etc.)." So I think it's too narrow a definition not to include Golson as a prime hard bop player and composer. I even think subtle dynamics are more, not less, a characteristic of hard bop as compared with bop. "Jordu" is very much a hard bop tune, especially the way it conveys the minor key. And many pianists not as aggressive as Silver or Timmons are still hard bop. As to whether Jordan is definitive (or, perhaps you mean 'typical'), I'm not inclined to argue that he is, but just to bear in mind that that wasn't the original question.

"Corn and co. here are challenging the reason for the book [...]" [Lazaro Vega] 1. I did not challenge the reason for the book. Please don't put words in my mouth. 2. I have no company. If I did I'd be in a hell of lot of trouble with the tax boards. "[...] even if that communication is of an imagined soul or a soul personna [...]" I like that way of putting it. And it goes along with Larry's remarks about dramatic personae. I've often thought that jazz musicians are like actors. They convey these musical personalities, or sometimes take multiple roles. In that sense, I think authenticity is over-vaunted. In one sense, an actor's art (I'm not addressing the Brechtian sense) is not to be authentic, nor to actually feel the experiences of his character, but rather to convey these experiences as they are even sometimes faked. In that way acting is an act of courage, an "existential leap of faith," if you will. To fake, and to commit to that fake, is its own authenticity. I think jazz musicians may share in that. It's not so much a matter of what the soloist is actually feeling, but what the soloist makes us feel. The trumpet player may be in a really lousy mood that night, but the music from his horn is a much different story. For me, Hank Mobley is an extraordinarily fascinating case - raising all kinds of questions - in this regard. "Nothing is a foregone conclusion as [Mobley is] soloing." That's not true. Mobley sometimes played whole routines that are basically the same from one performance (even on different compositions, but especially blues) to another. So, there's a lot that is improvised, some that isn't, some that's improvisation of nuance, but it's not true that his solos are completely without pre-determination. One thing that interests me is how Mobley makes even planned routines sound tentative.

Larry, Thank you for your previous post (about drama and soloists' lines). Some interesting ideas put in interesting terms. Allen, Dan [written before I saw your "FU ... No, FU ... No, you FU" exchange]: I think Dan is rash to conclude "beyond a shadow a doubt" from one passage and some discussion about it that the book would offer him nothing at all. However, I did not sense that Dan meant that Kart is utterly vacuous in anything Kart might ever write, only that Dan thinks (by what I think is a poor inference) that Kart's present writings are vacuous, which is a gross overstatement. So while I think Dan pushes his case much too hard, I don't believe he went over (though maybe somewhat approaching) the line where criticism becomes personal insult and hardly "completely out of line." On the other hand, if Dan really meant to convey that there's "no there there" in Kart's mind (not even a possiblity of worthwhile thoughts), not just his writings, then that would be a personal insult. / Recall that the matter did not limit to consideration of Duke Jordan as a soloist, though that is probably the most important part of the matter. Anyway, "Jordu" is a very famous hard bop composition.

Thanks, Allen. I haven't thought about Dan Gould's posts enough to firmly opine on the fairness of your characterization of them, though my hasty impression is that you were, at least, somewhat unfair to him also, though his remarks were pretty harsh too. Perhaps I'll have time to give a more detailed followup on Duke Jordan. But first these points: 1. If we're going to examine whether he's a hard bop, as well as a bop, as well as a uniquely styled musician, we'd be assisted by some discussion of what those terms mean. As a start, I don't think of hard bop always as hard toned or hard driving, though it often is. For example, Mobley playing a soft ballad is still hard bop. The 'hard' in 'hard bop' doesn't need to be taken too literally. 2. As to contexts, among many others, 'Art Farmer Featuring Gigi Gryce', 'The Happy Blues', 'Watkins At Large', 'Here Comes Louis Smith', 'Blue Lights', 'True Blue'. 3. As I mentioned, sometimes the difference between bop and hard bop is not great. Sometimes it is a difference not so much in the soloists' lines but in the musical setting of them - the arrangements, the kinds of tunes, the style of the rhythm section, or just different musical emphases.

AllenLowe, I've responded to your criticisms with attention to their specifics and have disclaimed the contempt you ascribe onto me. Instead of a meaningful response, you come back with sarcasm that is sophomoric. At this point you've become plain unreasonable.

AllenLowe, You say that the following is directed also to me: "If you get nothing out of Larry's book than chances are you get nothing out of the music. This is the problem with jazz, audiences and musicians alike - a lack of intellectual background or perspective, a decided anti-intellectualism and a failure to understand that jazz is like all art forms and deserves the kind of sophisticated analyses that other forms receive. The failure to perceive this is why there is so much bad writing about jazz." I did not post that I got nothing out of the book. I posted that certain kinds of passages left me cold. As to getting nothing out of the music, what a non sequitur! Get hold of yourself, please. Yeah right, all these decades I've been thriving on the music, relishing its details, inspired by its nobility, and I've been getting nothing out of it. As to anti-intellectualism (decided anti-intellectualism, no less [emphasis mine]), again, a non-sequitur and factually incorrect given my intellectual interest in the music. As to bad jazz writing, generally I agree that it is almost surely due to the lack of intellectual energy you describe. But someone not appreciating a particular piece of writing that you do appreciate does not entail that that person is anti-intellectual nor reflects a failure to understand jazz as art deserving of intelligent analysis. "[...] it's the tone of Cornelius and Goulds's posts that bothers me - instead of engaging one of the country's finest jazz critics (and I am not exaggerating in that assessment) they seemed determined to prove that his whole approach is symptomatic of some kind of hyper-intellectuality [...]" Again, you've gone past what I actually wrote, this time to impute onto me a motive that I don't have (or at least you say that I "seem" to have this motive). 1. I am not interested in proving anything at all about his "whole approach." 2. I have no interest at all in combating "hyper-intellectuality." I don't even know what that is. However, that does not entail that I won't express my dislike for certain intellectual writing - but not on account of its intellectuality per se, just as I alluded to in my original post. "[...] the nasty and contemptuous tone of some of these posts [...]" Since you've lumped me with another poster already (and I'm not opining on his posts), this needs my response. Some of my criticisms were point blank and harsh. That is not contempt. I don't have contempt for Kart and should resist any attempt by you to characterize me as contemptuous of him. As to 'nasty', there are too many senses to that word for me to untangle in this instance, but I think 'harsh' or 'tough' are fair characterizations and 'nasty' is a less fair one, especially as it might suggest a personal attack.

You wouldn't be dicking me around, would you?