Rolling Obituary Thread: 2020

xgau the only person at the village voice he didn't punch iirc

he should’ve

lol I thought adam shatz was speaking figuratively when he said "He left some bruises, not always in the right places"

xgau the only person at the village voice he didn't punch iirc

One of the first things I did when I read the news was email Matthew Shipp: "Didn't you get into a physical fight with him once?"

He responded, "He attempted 2 times - was broken up both times."

Did he ever try picking a fight with Mingus?

Wondered where I knew the name from, and yeah, I have seen him talking in basically every documentary about 20s / 30s jazz. He was very enthusiastic, which was good.

sinkah otm

I knew his political facepalms best, so...

I had drinks with Stanley Crouch at several book parties. He was intense and funny. I didn't agree with most of his opinions, but he could bring it strong, no matter how wrong. Another part of my youth gone. RIP. pic.twitter.com/MqcOpHH4jK

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) September 16, 2020

This just in from New West Records:
Steve Earle & the Dukes announced today that they will be recording an album of songs written by Justin Townes Earle with 100% of artist advances and royalties going to a trust for Justin's daughter, Etta St. James Earle. It is expected that the album will be recorded in October and released in January, 2021, around the time of what would have been Justin's thirty-ninth birthday. More details to be announced shortly.

Yeah that wrecked a lot of us today. I had to read it twice to take it in. I don't think there's even been an album like this.

Just included his piece on “The Roots of Black Homophobia” on a syllabus I’m putting together for January.

― A White, White Gay (cryptosicko), Wednesday, September 16, 2020 1:34 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i really hope you're prepared to give some context for the piece, e.g.

Virulent homophobia was hysterically and consistently inserted into 1960s black nationalism single-handedly by Amiri Baraka.

^ conveniently ignores SC's own deeply disturbing homophobic attitudes, which you can hear for yourself in this spoken word piece from 1969 which i'm sure mr. crouch would've preferred we all forgot existed:

!! do not click if you don't want to hear dozens of homophobic slurs !!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA9elrRWfA8
"ain't no ambulances ..."

Wasn't aware of Crouch's own homophobic history, but I definitely planned to contextualize anyway. Thanks for this, though; it'll definitely figure into my discussion.

crouch was close to baraka iirc, as a favoured and talented disciple -- and made his bones breaking with him and breaking with free jazz, an event possibly more oedipal than careerist when it happened, though it did his career no harm of course

when i interviewed diamanda galas in the late 80s -- galas who had played piano with crouch and david murray and others in the 70s -- she had very evidently come to dislike him greatly at some point, perhaps always. she hinted at why but didn't expand and i didn't know enough to press the point

he could write of course, and his love of jazz before miles went electric is genuine, and scholarly. tbh i think he ruined marsalis.

Nice remembrance of Crouch in his complexity here by Ethan Iverson:

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/16/913619163/stanley-crouch-towering-jazz-critic-dead-at-74

WOAH

No one ever influenced me more than Stanley Crouch. As a young woman I was blessed to be taught by him & mentored by him. He gave me my true North, with his genius & incomparable ability to see right into you & show you what is true. May he rest in peace. https://t.co/Gi75VxKy9g

— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) September 16, 2020

uh, wow

Cause when I think of Stanley Crouch, I think of a love revolution.

https://media4.giphy.com/media/WONP1AEDRp7wHc2IUM/giphy.gif

I suppose Williamson is also kind of into poundcake speech politics except she's less "pull up your pants" and more woo woo - "your only limit is your own mind" type junk

To be honest I kind of love how she just keeps throwing curveballs at me, most of them more bizarre than upsetting.

my commie roommate read A Return to Love twice because it was, to paraphrase, "such compelling bullshit"

https://artsfuse.org/211996/arts-remembrance-soul-iconoclast-roy-c/?fbclid=IwAR28vNcDWiA7dUnddDXlLXd9u-gfzz4-nE-V4aMbeMmbt-ng9fKKEDMf7S4

RIP Roy C (Hammond), southern soul singer

https://www.wjbf.com/csra-news/soul-singer-roy-charles-hammond-aka-roy-c-has-died/?fbclid=IwAR0ppYaA8crmJH-8aYrUnC4D4UqyFAoO7ivYzcw-YuYYRbW2YKl2UgsO_MU

1965 hit, “Shotgun Wedding”. Another song, “Impeach the President”, which he recorded and produced with a high school group, the Honey Drippers, has had one of the most sampled drum tracks in hip hop. Later continued to tour on the southern soul circuit

RIP. The bells are ringing in Georgia.

RIP. Impeach The President is a JAM.

indeed. RIP.

Winston Groom, 77.

I didn't know there was a Forrest Gump sequel, Gump and Co.:

Forrest also meets an attractive blonde woman named Gretchen, who works in a beer hall. Originally from East Germany, Gretchen was spirited to the West, but her family still remains in the Soviet zone. Forrest and Gretchen start dating, but when Forrest suggests buying Little Forrest an oompah horn, Gretchen thinks he cannot afford such a gift on a private's salary and suggests better rapport could be built through writing letters explaining his situation in Germany. Despite Gretchen's concerns, Forrest shells out $800 for the horn (but considers it a better deal as he did not get ripped off for shipping as he did in Alaska).

That plot summary is a treat:

When Forrest's background in pro football is discovered, he gets recruited for the Sour Krauts, the unit's football team, to play against an intelligence unit, the Wiesbaden Wizards.

Alternate world where Forrest Gump on film was just another Ace Ventura-like role for Carrey.

Scanning the wiki page, that is....a *lot* of plot for 242 pages. I'm almost impressed.

RBG, 87

The great Michael Lonsdale, almost certainly the only person to appear in a James Bond film and a Jacques Rivette film:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54234139

Another big movie one, Ron Cobb, key designer on a major slew of 70s/80s films:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ron-cobb-dead-designer-alien-ship-back-future-delorean-was-83-1149219

Not to mention a to-the-point political cartoonist 50 years back with work that hasn't aged at all -- sadly.

Sorry to learn from @AnnoDracula about the death of the great Ron Cobb, whose editorial cartoons from the '60s are unfortunately more relevant now than ever. I wish they weren't, but they are. pic.twitter.com/CDgpVtxEk5

— Scott Edelman (@scottedelman) September 21, 2020

The great Michael Lonsdale, almost certainly the only person to appear in a James Bond film and a Jacques Rivette film:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54234139🕸

Oh no! I’ve spent the last three years reading old issues of Los Angeles Free Press, Chicago Seed and other counterculture papers from 1966-1970 and Cobb’s work was always there, had one or two on stuck to my wall. I actually had no idea about his work outside of the papers, since that was the only context I knew his name from!

Also Ron Cobb

https://dangerousminds.net/content/uploads/images/_framed/abab-original-1500-734.jpg

What an absolutely gorgeous sleeve

So RBG died 50 years to the day after Jimi Hendrix?

and she served on the Supreme Court for 27 years. spooky.

And Ruth Negga played Hendrix's girlfriend in that biopic...

Spookier still:
Hendrix used Marshall amplifiers, while Ginsburg was called the "Thurgood Marshall of gender equality law"....

This is probably apocryphal but I remember reading that when RBG wrote her Ledbetter vs Goodyear dissent she had like a whole sheet of acid tucked into her headband

Roy Head of "Treat Her Right" fame.

https://preview.houstonchronicle.com/music/roy-head-singer-who-took-houston-sound-up-the-15584781

Jan Reid, author of The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock, amongst others

https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/remembering-jan-reid-a-defining-magazine-journalist-and-voice-in-texas-literature/

RIP ROY HEAD! "Treat Her Right" was used perfectly in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Best fuckin opening to a movie in a while

Jackie Stallone

Cinematographer Michael Chapman:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-chapman-cinematographer-on-taxi-driver-and-raging-bull-dies-at-84

UK musician Dave Kusworth died a few days ago. He’s best known for recording with Nikki Sudden sometimes billed as the Jacobites. They had a tuneful Rolling Stones Glimmer Twins aspect to their sound mixed with punk , but often handled by just the 2 of them

Gale Sayers

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/29951448/chicago-bears-hall-fame-running-back-gale-sayers-dies-age-77

Brian's Song was Film Art when I saw it at 10.

Juliette Greco.