'Jazz': Search and Destroy

The Cook/Morton collections are good, but, yes, frustrating (unless you maybe get them ALL, a mad idea).

I like Graham Lock's Braxton books — OK, disclaimer: piece by me in the essays collection, Mixtery — and his book of his own jazz essays. I believe he has a Sun Ra book out currently also.

Has anyone mentioned the Imamu? Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka's BLUES PEOPLE is still his masterpiece, before he got (a) all CultNat, and (b) Maoist...

Has Brian Case ever done a collection? His stuff in Maker/NMe in the 70s was SO FANTASTIC: great writer lost to booze, alienation and ennui...

Also 'Hear Me Talkin' to Ya' edited by Nat Hentoff and Nat Shapiro, (from about 54?) is really good - gets up to bebop and the early avant-garde, plus plenty of interesting material on early jazz and life in New Orleans etc, something which I hoped to get from 'Jazz' (the series) but which it failed to provide. The book is entirely paragraphs from interviews with a wide range of jazz musicians, all pieced together to make a fascinating read. Definitely better to hear things from the original sources and not what Wynton thinks 80 years later.

Brian Priestley's JAZZ ON RECORD is pretty good. Priestley is way cool: an old-skool Brit modern jazzer who RATES GARY NUMAN!

Gidins comes across as a reasonable sort in his interview - last night I read the relevant passages from the Meltzer comp where R. calls him a 'pigfucker' - and has this useful point to make in relation to Mark Pitchfork's post - "It's worth remembering that the avant garde is the longest lived movement in the history of jazz. It's been with us for 40 years now, much longer than swing or bebop or even dixieland. And it's stronger now that it's ever been, with more places in which it's performed than ever before. So while it always has a narrow audience in terms of size, it has an extremely devoted audience."

Stanley Crouch, in his interview, makes the amazing claim that pretty much the only avant jazz worth hearing is by people who at some point or other played w/Ornette Coleman ('cos Ornette swung and had tunes...)

I think I've read an article or two by Nat Hentoff, but lots of his liner notes, of course, he apparently having written one third of all jazz liner notes in the 50s and 60s. I imagine his other jazz writing would be good as well.

Crouch fascinates me, cuz he's a bully and a conman and a STRONG STRONG writer and — historically — the actual link between Baraka and Tate (renegade disciple to the first; warped guru to the second). Pinefox: I think Hobsbawm is pretty lame (plus he wrote all his crit under a pseudonym — Francis Newton? — so that the more anti-American Comrades wouldn't spot it and reprimand him...)

[usual stuff abt hard living/drinking/ cursing Billie, partner of both sexes blah blah] "... but out of it all she made unforgettable art—and would eventually become the Most Important Singer in Jazz." So why "but"? How "art"? What mean "important"? To who? How is "most" measured? Compared to Armstrong?

The actual musical contrast between Benny Goodman and Count Basie (that John Hammond is so astounded by) — can you actually HEAR it any more (I mean in what they're choosing to play)?

The avant garde issue is almost a red herring, I think: you have this fabulous music (I love love love Bunny Berigan), and yet the stuff the writers/talking heads are expecting you to get excited about is all like really lame ancient ad-copy. They don't say what gets THEM juiced about it: they tell you what they condescendingly assume will impress/amaze YOU, and it's like vacant fuck-off nothings. "Music from the very soil of America."

Like I said up-thread, I really liked _The Civil War_: but yes, part of the reason was that its form was in a ey way appropriate to an American sensibility of that era, the Cult of the mid-Century Dead, the Second Great Awakening in the Time of the New Necropolis (and that was BEFORE the war/ Gettysburg etc etc). "I did not stop to [??] with death/and so he stop'd for me"

Like I said, I think it's a nine-day success which signals a collapse and an end, rather than a revivification. For one thing, given the bully-pulpit they've co-opted for themselves, the actual intellectual content ON THEIR OWN TERMS, of what Crouch- Marsalis deliver, is SO WEAK. I don't mean boohoo no Braxton = boohoo no substance, I mean, if [x] does thinks Billie is the Most Important Singer in Jazz, what does that actually mean TO [X]? What are the specifics that get him moist?

I wanted to get into some of those photos themselves and talk out the odd little things that were never discussed, the blind-spot elements which push a bit against the cliché-grain of the narrative (the sweat under Gene Krupa's arms).

It's the middle of the night. I have to sleep.

ok, i was only kidding, but how about "although critically disparaged at the time, miles davis's heavy fusion was, of course, truly the way ahead for jazz, and the truth of this promise is bourne out by new album by [whichever terrible contemporary dance music crossover saxophonist]...."

1. Episode 428 of the "Fire Music" strand: "Studio Rivbea: The Consolidation Years" written by Wen Batson.

April 1976 was a busy month for Sirone. His great sonorous rat- infested bass was the lynchpin of "People's Republic" which placed the Revolutionary Ensemble at the centre of human development. They knew society and attempted to mould it to my liking. But they ultimately failed, as all "free" music did, as indeed all "jazz" did, as its sickening umbilical link to recognisable notes and compromise Republican-voting 4/4 rhythms (albeit suggested only) denied its potential to dent the world and reverse the tanks in the way that the Zappa/Terry Bozzio torrential duet on "My Plimsoll Done Got Bitchy (Movement 16: Crystal Prequel)" opened up a new vista of communal community which could only be sneezed at by a capitalist nose drenched in treacherous red. I was 14 when "Grand Wazoo" came out, you know (entire ILM personnel writes: now come on, Carlin, you did this routine last week. Do something different!). During one of my many prestigious exclusive coffee mornings with the apex of Western, not to mention Eastern, music, Derek Bailey, he humorously biffed me on my socialist bonce for uttering the dread word "jazz." How I howled! But not as deep and sonorous a howl as Frank Wright on Center of the World Vol 96. October 1977 was a busy month for Cecil McBee . . .

2. "Eye LUV Jazz!" by Jupitus Maconie.

Introduction: "Take Five."

TARA MARIELLA VOICEOVER SLUT: Jazz? Mmm . . . niiiice! (intoned as if this were a mindblowing and original insight, much like stout Cortez atop the Darien peak). No tunes! Striped bowlers! What's the real story? Yeah, right!

STUART "WRY" MACONIE: Jazz!! What was that all about? Eh? Eh?

UNHEARD OF DULWICH COMEDIENNE: When I woz like five, yeh, my dad made me listen to like Miles Davis and stuff. I wanted the Osmonz! YEH DONNY! I wanted a Raleigh chopper!

Cut to stock footage of Miles and Coltrane doing "So What." Lasts all of two seconds before being pointlessly intercut with excerpts from "On The Buses" and a floating plastic bag.

WRY "MACONIE" STUART: Albert Ayler! What was that all about? It was a bit like Nora Batty consummating with Quackers out of Tich and Quackers with Julio Cortazar looking onward before turning into a pomegranate peacock! Eh? Eh? Thing is I actually know about this stuff and listen to it! But you want dumb - look at the ratings! So I'm laughing AT you, plebs! Eh? Eh?

(ad infinitesimalum)

3. Erm, that's it, 'cos it's been a long week. "The Invisible Band"! What's THAT all about? Eh? Eh?

I once read Branford M, much the more likeable of the brothers (a Yes fan!!), being more sensible about this issue: re horrible poverty and oppression producing the blues, and black America's escape from the worst of same in the 50s as a damage to the music...

I think Marsalis is like Eric Burdon: he "wants to be black"

WM and Miles are both MAJOR mindgamers: no room for em both on the same stage. I doubt the given reason for the incident = the real reason — or that MD cd even articulate the "real" reason. WM disses MD via respect for LA: intolerable to MD cz it thows up HIS psychic relationship to LA, in terms — in late age — of success and failure and achieved achievement. The "Pops" remark — esp.in oedipal combo with the name "Pops" — sort of makes my point: you don't "forget" Armstrong (of all people) because he's just competely minor to you (like you might forget, I dunno, Ian Carr), you forget him because if you thoght abt him too clearly, you'd just shut the fuck up, toss yr trumpet in the garbage and go to Med School.

Actually, if we simply simplify the Jazz Arc to Pops-Miles-Wynton, and just dig about at their emotional relationship PLUS career twists PLUS personnel marginalia, we'd get a REAL INTERESTING better history of jazz as a popular/modernist form, what went right, what went wrong, where to now.

Daryl? Daryll? [Consults FIELDS OF GOLD: the Best of Sting 1984-1994, to discover HAHA absolutely no musician credits given!! That'll teach those fusion fatheads to whore themselves to the Man]

(Man != Maaan)

I am now listening to Fields of Fire. Yes I am.

OK: I was at a screening of Pokémon 3: The Spell of the Unknown this morning. The short shown with it — Pikachu and the Pichus — is set in old cartoon New York (Pikachu has a kind of countryboy adventure in the Big City: lifts, alleys, airshafts, flagpoles, you get the picture. The entire 20- minute work is soundtracked not with computer blings and John Williams knock- off, but with CLASSIC HOT SWING!!

The programme did not leave me any better informed or more enthusiastic about jazz. That's not necessarily a bad thing, or the prog's fault. Possibly I am ineducable. But one thing did stay with me beyond the bombast - and beyond the soloists and blowers and wild men.

I loved the last few seconds, in which Duke Ellington said goodbye, as it were. That seemed right - as though he had been orchestrating it all. I don't know owt about Duke E. 'Take The A Train' was played countless times during the series (I saw it on the credits over and over again, often x2 for one episode), but I still have no idea whatsoever how it goes. I know more about 'Z Train' than 'Take The A Train'. (Has anyone ever heard 'Z Train'? For that matter, has anyone ever heard 'Take The A Train'??) Still, the thing is, Ellington somehow seemed more compelling as a figure, to me, than many of the others. Perhaps because he came across as not a Musician (though I daresay he was a great one), not a Soloist, but a Composer - an organizer. In pop I am attracted to the idea of the figure who conceptualizes, plans, organizes (the Arranger, to use a Joyceans' term?), then delegates and deploys, gives the plan to someone else and goes off to hide behind it. Maybe it's even a Flaubertian- impersonality schtick, this, the omnipotent artist hidden behind their handiwork. (Bacharach?)

I daresay that Duke E was not really the kind of figure I am trying to describe. But I got a feeling that he was a wee bit closer to it than some of the up-front soloist types. A writer, a thinker, a planner, a leader - that was the image I got. And I like that, and I took away a small fascination with this fellow. I appreciate, though, that jazz folks may think I've got it all wrong.

But having said that: I think the program focused a bit too much on some of the players' roles as soloists, to the detriment of their other qualities. Charles Mingus definitely fits the description you gave, despite (I think) being much more prominent as a soloist than Duke. (This makes sense, of course, because Duke was such an influence on Mingus.) A lot of other musicians known for being soloists played big roles in other areas, as well - it just helps to have more familiarity with them to see how. Probably not on the scale of Ellington, but then his band was big and so there are a lot of different things for a mastermind to mastermind.

aargh...

Branford Marsalis: It's a Jazz Thing

World renowned saxophonist Branford Marsalis goes in search of the true spirit of contemporary jazz, embarking on a musical journey taking him from New York to Chicago and Paris to London.

Who is watching?

10.04 :: Branford Marsalis to present new TV documentary

...The 90-minute documentary was made by production company Somethin' Else and is directed by Christopher Walker. The documentary follows Marsalis' travels around Europe and the US as he meets leading contemporary figures in jazz including Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker, John McLaughlin and Dave Douglas, Bill Frisell, Medeski Martin and Wood, Tim Berne, Evan Parker, David S Ware, Ken Vandermark and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Commenting on the project, Jez Nelson, the executive producer on the show, says: 'There hasn't been a major, terrestrial jazz TV show for many years ? so this is really exciting for us. Branford is that rare thing ? a great musician who's also a superb and engaging presenter ? this should be a fantastic journey!'

So far NYC and Chicago have been visited

NYC, including

David S Ware
Tim Berne
DJ Spooky
Frisell
Dave Douglas
Michael Brecker

Chicago including:

Chicago Underground Trio
Ken Vandermark
Art Ensemble of Chicago

time spent on hawkins is partly because his progressivist leanings, harmonic ideas, etc. gave him certain affinities with the young players that he ended up associating with later in his career, to benefit of both parties; and because the story of his career provides a contrasting example of a swing-era musician looking for a way to be professionally successful (or just secure) apart from occupying a standard part in the swing music industry.

along with the berliner book, certainly the best thing i've ever read on jazz.

oh, and the musicological stuff is demanding (i can kinda follow the basic harmonic theory jargon but i've never studied it enough to -feel- what it means, which makes reading this stuff a battle against vagueness) but consistently illuminating.

[Please forgive me for not re-reading everything up-thread; I will do so later and discover that whatever I say has already been said.]

I loved the series, because I tend to be ignorant of pre-bebop jazz, and there was a wealth of material that was new and wonderful from those early decades. It was nice to see the young Louis Armstrong in full possession of his mojo, and to learn that his lithe singing — quite a bit removed from the gravelly self-parody of the Louis I would see on TV as a kid — was almost the equal of his trumpet playing.

But I was among the chorus of haters (like Jarrett) who resented the coverage of the post-Ornette-goes-to-New-York years. I've calmed down since, and can see the documentary now as a history of the jazz industry rather than a history of jazz. It makes sense, in that context, to cover the fifth decades of Ellington and Armstrong's careers, rather than give adequate space to "Not Jazz as We've defined it" — New Thing, AACM, Brötzmann, fusion, and so on.

It's odd/interesting that the Ornette portion was so nicely done, considering the short shrift given to what follows him, but it makes sense in light of the later acceptance of his music by the Jazz at Lincoln Center people. Welcome to the jazz-industry canon, Mr. Coleman.

The film begs for a Jazz II, covering 1960 onwards, but with Carla Bley and Rafi Zabor replacing Wynton and Crouch as consultants. Unfortunately, that's not the sort of thing that attracts the corporate sponsorship. Give it 20 years.

Anyway, I think your approach is the right one - yeah, the film was incomplete, but now there's a perfect opportunity to create their own take on it or to cover the ground that was missed. Hell, there should be 10 films.

Wynton Marsalis called this 11-year old jazz pianist his hero last year

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/arts/music/joey-alexander-an-11-year-old-jazz-sensation-who-hardly-clears-the-pianos-sightlines.html

that led me to Kojo Roney (Wallace Roney's 9 year old nephew!) channeling Tony Williams, and holy shit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Ow0YEO9qM