Books About Music

I have the collection. It's interesting enough, but very ziney. Maybe one day my zine writings "about" music will be compiled into a book, although I somehow doubt it.

I like the "England's Dreaming" book as well, and agree with the blurb about it being the best book about mass culture ever.

Simon Reynolds' "Energy Flash" is good too.

That much I do know.

In the grand ILX tradition of mis-reading, I first read this as Val Kilmer's book on free jazz and I got kinda excited for some reason.

I sort of got carried away too (wow music talk on ILB!!!), but I would not be able to choose between most of those books on my list.

My college's library has a pretty nifty book with excerpts from tons of jazz books: one section devoted from excerpts from autobiographies, one for short articles by various writers etc. I don't care enough to read full books about particular musicians, so this was a good 'un for me. There was even an article by Sartre!

"Our Band Could be Your Life"
My favorite punk book yet.

"Space is the Place" -John Szwed
SUN RA!! -best jazz bio I've read.

For philosophical improv/avantists Eddie Prevost's two books, No Sound is Innocent and Minute Particulars, are great.

"New Musical Resources" Henry Cowell
"Genesis of a Music" Harry Partch
"Conversations with Messiaen" -Claude Samuel

"Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon" -Michael E Veal

"Blues People" "Black Music" -Leroi Jones/Baraka

I HATE ADORNO!

i need to get back to the szwed/ra book: i enjoyed it a whole lot when i was dipping into it

looking forward to f kogan's forthcoming 'real punks (don't wear black)' which there's some discussion of on ilm right now actually

i was flipping thru and enjoying the unreadableness of 'the aesthetics of rock' the other day; will still rep for 'a whore like all the rest' tho it's an odd one, hm -

Personally I loathed Szwed's Sun Ra book. Szwed is a decent and conscientious biographer - his Miles bio is perfectly solid if a bit uninspiring. The problem he comes up against with Sun Ra is that Ra regarded himself a serious thinker. Szwed mistakenly takes that at face value: he elucidate Ra's philosophical thought in mind bogglingly tedious detail, offering an apologia for its nuttier aspects along the way. If you agree with Ra/Szwed that Ra was a penetrating thinker, you may enjoy this; I thought it made the book nearly unreadable.

and nobody mentioned the True Adventures of the Rolling Stones by Stanley Booth

'Whore like the rest' is v v good and yes, its odd but Meltzer is a v odd character - I think he wd've gotten me to listen to John Cage if I hadn't already been listening to him. Only one ilm poster has ever posted that he finished 'aesthetics of rock'. Only got to about 40 pages myself before having to give up but reading bks in bits is totally fine as far as I'm concerned. I did get round to his 'Autumn Rhythm' which has some music bits and those - on the 'white album' and older acoustic blues - are satisfying.

this ws mentioned yesterday on ilm and sounds gd.

That bk looks excellent.

(so many bks...)

One of the most fascinating (and, in many places, quite boring!) books about music I know is called My Music; it's a compendium of interviews with ordinary citizens about what, where, and why they listen to what they do. It's more or less straight sociology, and it can get a bit tedious, but it's not a well-known enough book to my thinking, and I'm sort of amazed that no one else has tried doing something like it. The closest analogue I can think of is Studs Terkel's Working, though this isn't as juicy. It's published by Wesleyan.

I've not re-read that Biog but it struck me that Szwed didn't really know what to argue with when talking about his philosophies. And he has to take the philosophies quite (if not entirely) seriously bcz it informs the music - that is, above all, what Ra will be remembered and why he got to writing the bk in the first place - so the main thing about Szwed's biog is that he is prob one of the few people that has listened to everything Ra had released during his lifetime and he does a very good job of mapping the musical development of the arkestra from LP to LP, as well as placing in context with the music made at the time of the release of key LPs (jazz, imrpovisation, classical, rock, disco, etc.)

Can't see anything from my brief look but I'd imagine he wasn't too keen on Santa.

This book has some really interesting historical info... but the reason you should read it is that Davis compiled all of Bessie Smith's and Ma Rainey's lyrics. Great stuff!

Also, "The Land Where the Blues Began" is very good.

Since it hasn't been mentioned yet on this thread, I will recommend Ned Sublette's book on Cuba, which I don't think you have to be a huge Cuban music fan to enjoy (though the later part of the book is maybe less interesting for a general reader than the earlier portions which cover a broader sweep of history and theme).

the performance scene in "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin. It just feels like jazz.

Howards End was certainly not perfect. I liked how deeply earnest Forster is about everything. It all matters so much.

“A terrible thing is that sonata, especially the presto! And a terrible thing is music in general. What is it ? Why does it do what it does? They say that music stirs the soul. Stupidity! A lie! It acts, it acts frightfully (I speak for myself), but not in an ennobling way. It acts neither in an ennobling nor a debasing way, but in an irritating way. How shall I say it? Music makes me forget my real situation. It transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of music I really seem to feel what I do not feel, to understand what I do not understand, to have powers which I cannot have. Music seems to me to act like yawning or laughter; I have no desire to sleep, but I yawn when I see others yawn; with no reason to laugh, I laugh when I hear others laugh. And music transports me immediately into the condition of soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time. I become confounded with his soul, and with him I pass from one condition to another. But why that? I know nothing about it? But he who wrote Beethoven’s ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ knew well why he found himself in a certain condition. That condition led him to certain actions, and for that reason to him had a meaning, but to me none, none whatever. And that is why music provokes an excitement which it does not bring to a conclusion. For instance, a military march is played; the soldier passes to the sound of this march, and the music is finished. A dance is played; I have finished dancing, and the music is finished. A mass is sung; I receive the sacrament, and again the music is finished. But any other music provokes an excitement, and this excitement is not accompanied by the thing that needs properly to be done, and that is why music is so dangerous, and sometimes acts so frightfully.

“In China music is under the control of the State, and that is the way it ought to be. Is it admissible that the first comer should hypnotize one or more persons, and then do with them as he likes? And especially that the hypnotizer should be the first immoral individual who happens to come along? It is a frightful power in the hands of any one, no matter whom. For instance, should they be allowed to play this ‘Kreutzer Sonata,’ the first presto,—and there are many like it,—in parlors, among ladies wearing low necked dresses, or in concerts, then finish the piece, receive the applause, and then begin another piece? These things should be played under certain circumstances, only in cases where it is necessary to incite certain actions corresponding to the music. But to incite an energy of feeling which corresponds to neither the time nor the place, and is expended in nothing, cannot fail to act dangerously. On me in particular this piece acted in a frightful manner. One would have said that new sentiments, new virtualities, of which I was formerly ignorant, had developed in me. ‘Ah, yes, that’s it! Not at all as I lived and thought before! This is the right way to live!’

“Thus I spoke to my soul as I listened to that music. What was this new thing that I thus learned? That I did not realize, but the consciousness of this indefinite state filled me with joy. In that state there was no room for jealousy. The same faces, and among them HE and my wife, I saw in a different light. This music transported me into an unknown world, where there was no room for jealousy. Jealousy and the feelings that provoke it seemed to me trivialities, nor worth thinking of.

“After the presto followed the andante, not very new, with commonplace variations, and the feeble finale. Then they played more, at the request of the guests,—first an elegy by Ernst, and then various other pieces. They were all very well, but did not produce upon me a tenth part of the impression that the opening piece did. I felt light and gay throughout the evening. As for my wife, never had I seen her as she was that night. Those brilliant eyes, that severity and majestic expression while she was playing, and then that utter languor, that weak, pitiable, and happy smile after she had finished,—I saw them all and attached no importance to them, believing that she felt as I did, that to her, as to me, new sentiments had been revealed, as through a fog. During almost the whole evening I was not jealous."

This seems as good a place as any for ... Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo on his literary diet, past and future (not just books about music).

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/poets-musicians-writing-ira-kaplan/#!

His experience with poetry and short stories is similar to mine.