JAZZ IMPROV - ART BLAKEY

[blue-note-ojc]

The current issue of JAZZ IMPROV has an article on Art Blakey. As it is in a plastic bag I cannot see it before I spend the $14.95 for it. I wonder if anyone has seen it and if so what is is like. Anything new in there? I am particularly interested in Blakey from the period ending in 1965.

Thanks for any help.

Tom

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Well, yeah, probably worth the money. I have been a subscriber to the magazine since its inception and will continue to support it. I always find something useful in it, mostly the interviews and transcriptions. There is a lot of crap too, though. The reviews are a joke.

The long feature article on Blakey ("full-length biography, discography" - well....there is NO discography at all, just a recommended list of 16 albums) is disappointing. Basically the author took the chronology from my website (with a thank you credit) and wrote a narrative in that breathless style - "And then they made this record... And then they made that record...." with a paragraph describing each tune of the album.

The narrative ends in 1985 - why? I have absolutely no idea.

I found no evidence of original research. There are no footnotes to source the quotations, though many of them again come from my website (where the sources are always identified). Some of the other quotations are laughable - do we really need this, talking about Gypsy Folk Tales: "Scott Yanow describes the album by saying "[T]he hard-bop solos are consistently fresh." Oh. Really?

There are errors of fact and of editing in the article - anyone who's heard the two tunes knows that the Tina Brooks "Nutville" from Minor Move is NOT the same tune as the "Nutville" by Horace Silver on The Cape Verdean Blues. The Great Day In Harlem photo was August 13, not August 18, 1958. The jazz interpretation of the musical "Golden Boy" was NOT "Blakey's only foray in the genre" - what about the Lerner and Loewe one for RCA? And there's irrelevant trivia thrown in about record producers and album cover artists.

That Art Davis could be described as simply, "the second bassist on a rejected take of A Love Supreme" shows me that the author hasn't got a decent grasp on the subject of jazz history.

But anyone who calls the abysmal Clifford Brown biography by Catalano "recommended reading" saying that it is "thorough in the details of his life and the analysis of his music" must be living on a different planet from me.

Still, what other magazine has devoted so much space to Blakey? Pay the money - it's the price of a CD. BTW, this is no longer the current issue. Vol. 4 No. 4 has Pat Metheny on the cover.

Mike

P.S. You can read the review of my Gigi Gryce book in the Blakey issue pp.257-9. Unfortunately there is no real "review" apart from the opening paragraph ("they thoroughly explore Gryce's musical accomplishments"). Instead it's basically a two-page synopsis of the biography. Still, as they say, any press is good press.

Edited August 9, 2004 by Michael Fitzgerald

[blue-note-ojc]

Mike,

I seem to have trouble getting my reply posted. Thanks for your quick and detailed reply. I will get to Borders to see if the issue is still there.

I greatly enjoy your Art Blakey Chronology.

Tom