PRINCE: Well, how 'bout him? He did some great stuff, though I wasn't that big a fan back in the day.
I played "Purple Rain" a couple times at work last Friday night. The first time through I got all sad and nostalgic, but the second time was pure exaltation. It always was a gorgeous song. And that guitar riff at the end keeps going round and round in my head....
I always loved "1999," too. "Kiss" and "When Doves Cry" have grown on me over the years. "Sometimes it Snows in April" is a nice low-key piece off of PARADE. "Anotherloverholeinyohead" is interesting, too, also from PARADE, sort of an echo of "When Doves Cry." Some of Prince's more sexually-oriented stuff was just too in-your-face for me, and I don't think I even HEARD him after about 1989....
I heard "I Wanna be Your Lover" for the first time EVER on the radio last Saturday night (it came out in like 1978), and it sounded good, cute, solid. The guy was obviously meant for bigger things. He had a great few years there, from '81 through about '86 or so.
This has sure been a bad year for musicians. Keith Emerson and Paul Kantner were the ones that hit me hardest, but this one was also a shock. No more for awhile, OK? (Sorry, no breaks -- blues guitarist Lonnie Mack died this past week, too. KPLU's "All Blues" ran one of Mack's songs, "Stop," which is pretty freakin' great....)
GOOD NEWS FOR SEATTLE-AREA ROCK FANS: "Little Steven's Underground Garage" is back, starting at 11 p.m. Pacific Time Sundays on KZOK-FM 102.5 (I assume they also stream over the Internet). In the three weeks they've been back around, Steven and friends have done a two-part salute to The British Invasion that included great stuff by second-tier bands like The Searchers, The Pretty Things and Creation, and a salute to The Ramones -- in the middle of which up popped The Ronettes' great "The Best Part of Breakin' Up." Steven didn't understand why that song only peaked at Number 39, either....
CHECK YOUR GOODWILLS!: In the past month-plus I've found an amazing amount of good CHEAP music and books at my four area Goodwill stores. The books would make too long a list, but the CD's I've bought (or at least seen) include half a dozen Beatles albums (ABBEY ROAD, WHITE ALBUM, SGT. PEPPER, REVOLVER, HELP!, PLEASE PLEASE ME, MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR), Van Morrison's MOONDANCE, ASTRAL WEEKS and BEST OF, Moody Blues' DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED, Todd Rundgren's SOMETHING/ANYTHING?, Al Green best-of, lots of later Bob Dylan, a brand-new solid eight-CD set of early-'60s folk music for a ridiculously low price, lots of various-artists hit-singles collections, TONS of '60s and '70s jazz (Miles, Coltrane, Mingus, etc.), some earlier jazz (Ellington, Louis Armstrong, etc.), Can's CANNIBALISM 1 best-of (how the HELL did that get here?), Prince's PURPLE RAIN and ULTIMATE best-of, RAMONESMANIA best-of, Sex Pistols' NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, Clash's LONDON CALLING, Dave Edmunds' best-of, Rolling Stones' FORTY LICKS best-of and EXILE ON MAIN STREET, Santana best-of, lots of later Pat Metheny, and a whole lot more.
Course the vinyl bins are worthless -- that's all Jim Nabors and Ray Conniff, with only a VERY rare surprise....
I try to give my area stores at least a week to re-stock, and then I go hit 'em again. It seems to be all about the timing. Lately it's sure been paying off. If you're on a tight budget, you might want to check your local Goodwills out. They're practically GIVING this stuff away. But you probably already know this....
TELL ALL: Spent most of this past week re-reading former major-league pitcher Jim Bouton's excellent BALL FOUR (1970), which I seem to re-read about once every 20 years and get more out of each time. It's a hilarious, quick, easy read. And I'm not that big a baseball fan....
The first of the "tell-all" sports books, BALL FOUR was revolutionary because it treated professional baseball players not as the stainless All-American heroes they'd been held up as in the '60s and before, but as real men: They chased women, drank, partied, used performance-enhancing drugs, worried about their careers, didn't get paid enough (back in the stone age), had marriage and family problems, didn't always get along with each other, played hideous practical jokes on each other, and basically behaved with all the maturity you see at your average local high school. What a bunch of characters....
The baseball establishment was shocked, and more sports-tell-all books followed. Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn asked Bouton to sign a statement saying that he made the whole thing up. Bouton refused, and instead wrote a sequel, I'M GLAD YOU DIDN'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY. I'd like to find another copy of that, now. It's been years since I read it....
Monday, April 25, 2016
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Sharp right turn
Ron David's JAZZ FOR BEGINNERS (1995) is the best, funniest book on music I've read in quite awhile. It really is a sort of comic book, presenting a short history of jazz in less than 150 pages -- so simple that even a dummy like me can understand it.
I love David's jazz Attitude. ("If jazz can't include Keith Jarrett, that's jazz's loss." And "Miles Davis died in 1991 -- 10 years after his horn." Ouch. Has David not heard Miles's AURA?) David's text is laugh-out-loud funny, he's not shy about expressing an opinion, and he includes a long list of key albums to hear. And the drawings/cartoons/caricatures of jazz legends are both hilarious and true-to-life. Easily worth an hour of your time if you're interested in the music. (The BEGINNERS series also includes SEX FOR BEGINNERS -- maybe I should check THAT out!)
E. Jean Carroll's HUNTER (1993) is an attempt at a biography of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, famous for writing books like FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL '72, HELL'S ANGELS, and lots of great, crazed, allegedly non-fiction pieces for ROLLING STONE back in the '60s and '70s.
However, Carroll's book isn't a biography. It becomes an excellent "oral history" of some of Hunter's outrages, narrated by his old friends, old girlfriends, former co-workers, and his ex-wife. There wasn't much of Hunter's life that he didn't write about himself in his string of books that came out in the '80s and '90s. Carroll chose to set the friends' excellent oral history in a fictional framework -- in which she tries to out-outrage HST himself, and it's just silly.
Of course, the real final chapter isn't here -- Hunter's suicide, which happened a decade or so later. He always DID have way too many guns around. You can read all you want about Hunter's real life and his constant scrambling for money in the two huge volumes of letters that he left behind.
If you're a fan, HUNTER's almost worth it for the friends' fond memories.
Michael Largo: THE PORTABLE OBITUARY (2007) -- I had some hopes for this, a detailed look at the ways rich and famous people of the past really died. But it isn't very funny, not even "darkly" funny, and Largo's writing is sometimes kind of awkward. If you're going to tackle a subject like this, you've got to do it with some style....
John McPhee: THE RANSOM OF RUSSIAN ART (1994) -- In one of his shortest books, McPhee tells how a bumbling, rather absent-minded professor from Pennsylvania was able to smuggle thousands of paintings by Soviet dissident artists out of Russia during the height of the Cold War. The paintings are now worth millions of dollars. McPhee includes photos of some of the art -- there was some pretty weird stuff in the stash. The IDEA of this book is brilliant -- so was the smuggler. But the book is maybe too short, it doesn't quite hit with the impact it should. After the art photos, McPhee's text is only 144 pages. You can read the book in an hour or two. Interesting what people can get away with, though....
Ed Viesturs: K2: LIFE AND DEATH ON THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS MOUNTAIN (2009) -- I was hoping for some of that icy-cold Jon Krakauer/INTO THIN AIR feeling here, and there is some of that -- Viesturs has been around for some harrowing mountain-climbing disasters. But in his writing he sounds like such a competent, level-headed guy that it's hard to believe he'd ever make a bad mistake while climbing.
Mikal Gilmore: NIGHT BEAT (1998) -- A big collection of music pieces from ROLLING STONE and other places. Gilmore writes sensitively and with feeling about the artists and the music, but his subjects are the same old lineup -- Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Springsteen, Nirvana, Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Punk Rock, Lou Reed, Doors, Randy Newman, Elvis, Miles Davis, etc. There isn't much new here, and Gilmore -- though good, detailed and conscientious -- isn't Lester Bangs or Robert Christgau or Greil Marcus, though he's enjoyable enough to read. It just isn't enough somehow. Not much jumps off the page like I hoped it would. Best thing in the book is a hilarious, cranky series of interviews with Keith Jarrett -- that man really IS a pain in the ass!
Barry Miles: PAUL MCCARTNEY: MANY YEARS FROM NOW (1997) -- Not much new here either, unless you want to argue with Paul over old songwriting credits. "In My Life" was half Paul's? Paul was into tape-loops and the avant-garde long before John? OK, but only the Beatles era is covered here, as if Paul's life ended in 1971. There's 650 pages of Paul setting the record straight. And there's STILL no further details about that Frank Sinatra/Perry Como-style big-band "crooner" album Paul recorded before he joined The Fabs....
Timothy Egan: THE WORST HARD TIME (2006) -- Have only read a couple chapters of this, but it's already pretty involving -- a detailed look at the Dust Bowl, probably the worst ecological disaster in America's history, described by the people who lived through it. My grandparents were in the Dust Bowl, in Kansas, so I have some interest in the subject....
Carl Honore: IN PRAISE OF SLOW (2004) -- Have only read a couple chapters of this, but Honore's thesis is that everything is better if you slow down a step and take time to enjoy it a little -- work, food, sex, everything. (I thought everybody knew sex was better when taken slowly...?) Hard to argue with Honore's thesis, but good luck selling it in a country where most people seem to be in a hurry all the time. Especially young people....
Rod Stewart: ROD: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY (2012) -- I've only sniffed at this. I plan to read about Rod's early rocker/singer-songwriter years before he became mega-famous, then stop. Unless he proves so charming that I can't resist. Which seems unlikely....
It's amazing what you can find at Goodwill. Most of the books above I found at one of the four Goodwill stores in my area. Just wanted to say thanks for donating for people on a tight budget -- like me, most of the time....
I love David's jazz Attitude. ("If jazz can't include Keith Jarrett, that's jazz's loss." And "Miles Davis died in 1991 -- 10 years after his horn." Ouch. Has David not heard Miles's AURA?) David's text is laugh-out-loud funny, he's not shy about expressing an opinion, and he includes a long list of key albums to hear. And the drawings/cartoons/caricatures of jazz legends are both hilarious and true-to-life. Easily worth an hour of your time if you're interested in the music. (The BEGINNERS series also includes SEX FOR BEGINNERS -- maybe I should check THAT out!)
E. Jean Carroll's HUNTER (1993) is an attempt at a biography of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, famous for writing books like FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL '72, HELL'S ANGELS, and lots of great, crazed, allegedly non-fiction pieces for ROLLING STONE back in the '60s and '70s.
However, Carroll's book isn't a biography. It becomes an excellent "oral history" of some of Hunter's outrages, narrated by his old friends, old girlfriends, former co-workers, and his ex-wife. There wasn't much of Hunter's life that he didn't write about himself in his string of books that came out in the '80s and '90s. Carroll chose to set the friends' excellent oral history in a fictional framework -- in which she tries to out-outrage HST himself, and it's just silly.
Of course, the real final chapter isn't here -- Hunter's suicide, which happened a decade or so later. He always DID have way too many guns around. You can read all you want about Hunter's real life and his constant scrambling for money in the two huge volumes of letters that he left behind.
If you're a fan, HUNTER's almost worth it for the friends' fond memories.
Michael Largo: THE PORTABLE OBITUARY (2007) -- I had some hopes for this, a detailed look at the ways rich and famous people of the past really died. But it isn't very funny, not even "darkly" funny, and Largo's writing is sometimes kind of awkward. If you're going to tackle a subject like this, you've got to do it with some style....
John McPhee: THE RANSOM OF RUSSIAN ART (1994) -- In one of his shortest books, McPhee tells how a bumbling, rather absent-minded professor from Pennsylvania was able to smuggle thousands of paintings by Soviet dissident artists out of Russia during the height of the Cold War. The paintings are now worth millions of dollars. McPhee includes photos of some of the art -- there was some pretty weird stuff in the stash. The IDEA of this book is brilliant -- so was the smuggler. But the book is maybe too short, it doesn't quite hit with the impact it should. After the art photos, McPhee's text is only 144 pages. You can read the book in an hour or two. Interesting what people can get away with, though....
Ed Viesturs: K2: LIFE AND DEATH ON THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS MOUNTAIN (2009) -- I was hoping for some of that icy-cold Jon Krakauer/INTO THIN AIR feeling here, and there is some of that -- Viesturs has been around for some harrowing mountain-climbing disasters. But in his writing he sounds like such a competent, level-headed guy that it's hard to believe he'd ever make a bad mistake while climbing.
Mikal Gilmore: NIGHT BEAT (1998) -- A big collection of music pieces from ROLLING STONE and other places. Gilmore writes sensitively and with feeling about the artists and the music, but his subjects are the same old lineup -- Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Springsteen, Nirvana, Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Punk Rock, Lou Reed, Doors, Randy Newman, Elvis, Miles Davis, etc. There isn't much new here, and Gilmore -- though good, detailed and conscientious -- isn't Lester Bangs or Robert Christgau or Greil Marcus, though he's enjoyable enough to read. It just isn't enough somehow. Not much jumps off the page like I hoped it would. Best thing in the book is a hilarious, cranky series of interviews with Keith Jarrett -- that man really IS a pain in the ass!
Barry Miles: PAUL MCCARTNEY: MANY YEARS FROM NOW (1997) -- Not much new here either, unless you want to argue with Paul over old songwriting credits. "In My Life" was half Paul's? Paul was into tape-loops and the avant-garde long before John? OK, but only the Beatles era is covered here, as if Paul's life ended in 1971. There's 650 pages of Paul setting the record straight. And there's STILL no further details about that Frank Sinatra/Perry Como-style big-band "crooner" album Paul recorded before he joined The Fabs....
Timothy Egan: THE WORST HARD TIME (2006) -- Have only read a couple chapters of this, but it's already pretty involving -- a detailed look at the Dust Bowl, probably the worst ecological disaster in America's history, described by the people who lived through it. My grandparents were in the Dust Bowl, in Kansas, so I have some interest in the subject....
Carl Honore: IN PRAISE OF SLOW (2004) -- Have only read a couple chapters of this, but Honore's thesis is that everything is better if you slow down a step and take time to enjoy it a little -- work, food, sex, everything. (I thought everybody knew sex was better when taken slowly...?) Hard to argue with Honore's thesis, but good luck selling it in a country where most people seem to be in a hurry all the time. Especially young people....
Rod Stewart: ROD: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY (2012) -- I've only sniffed at this. I plan to read about Rod's early rocker/singer-songwriter years before he became mega-famous, then stop. Unless he proves so charming that I can't resist. Which seems unlikely....
It's amazing what you can find at Goodwill. Most of the books above I found at one of the four Goodwill stores in my area. Just wanted to say thanks for donating for people on a tight budget -- like me, most of the time....
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Total idiot writes about jazz!
Jazz explorations continue, budget and time permitting. Latest listening has included:
Count Basie: ESSENTIAL, VOLUME 1 -- This is too old and too big-band-ish for me to be able to hear, though the horn lines on "Miss Thing" are cute. Also, I could hardly hear Basie's piano. If I were to keep listening to this I'd probably someday be able to get into later Soft Machine. That ain't gonna happen.
Horace Silver -- "Song for My Father" is OK, but it keeps trying to turn into Steely Dan's "Rikki Don't Lose That Number"....
Chet Baker -- Light, cool, almost distracted vocal on "Let's Get Lost."
Gary Burton: WORKS -- A best-of/sampler from Burton's dozen albums on the ECM label. Light, airy vibraphone tunes. Guitarist Pat Metheny guests on a couple of tracks, but it doesn't make much difference -- there's none of Pat's usual melodic flow. Some nice Mick Goodrick guitar on "Three," but when the orchestra enters, it turns into a movie soundtrack. "Brotherhood" is a handful of notes -- pointless atmosphere. OK waking-up music, but not riveting. And the folks at ECM spell the word "crystal" -- as in Burton and Chick Corea's duo album CRYSTAL SILENCE -- wrong TWICE in the album booklet. Once with an extra "h." English is a tough language....
Ornette Coleman -- I could hardly hear his frenzied smears of sax sound on he and Pat Metheny's album SONG X (supposedly a masterpiece). But I got through "Lonely Woman" on Ornette's THE SHAPE OF JAZZ TO COME. And I could actually HEAR it. And it wasn't terrible. So, more exploring to come....
Miles Davis and John Coltrane: THE BEST OF (1955-1961) -- Milestones, Straight No Chaser, My Funny Valentine, Someday My Prince Will Come, So What, Blue in Green, Round Midnight, Bye Bye Blackbird. All solid stuff, even if it didn't grab me by the throat.
Miles Davis: BITCHES BREW -- Miles Runs the Voodoo Down, Sanctuary, Pharoah's Dance. The last of these sounds like "In a Silent Way," only sped-up. You sure can tell that's Joe Zawinul on the keyboards. Which leads us directly to....
Weather Report: 8:30/LIVE -- There's some great stuff on here. "Birdland" ALWAYS sounds lame, but "Boogie Woogie Waltz" is one of the greatest pieces of noise I've ever heard, and it just SCREAMS! "Thanks for the Memory" is a nice but eccentric sax solo from Wayne Shorter. "Black Market," "Teen Town" and "Slang" are also pretty cool. Amazing that I can enjoy WR's live stuff this much when I think their studio work is all stone dead....
John Coltrane: MY FAVORITE THINGS -- Not as screechy as I first thought. There's some nice McCoy Tyner piano in the middle of the title standard, which is good waking-up music. Coltrane has a lot of fun with it, takes it a long way out. But Tyner's solo on "Every Time We Say Goodbye" is a little cocktail-lounge-ish. I've never liked George Gershwin's "Summertime" in ANY version, but Coltrane gets away with it here because he hardly bothers to PLAY the melody -- some nice, rough bouncing-all-over on sax. Elvin Jones's drum solo is kind of dull, but he comes out of it with a nice roll and a smash. I can hardly hear any of the original tune on "But Not for Me," but it doesn't matter -- it's a nice finish to the album, a real quick 9-1/2 minutes. But where are the BONUS TRACKS?!
I also heard:
Miles Davis -- Concerto De Arunjuez.
Herbie Hancock -- Watermelon Man, Tell Me a Bedtime Story. Haven't heard anything bad by Herbie yet.
Wayne Shorter -- Juju, Footsteps.
Lee Morgan -- The Sidewinder.
John Coltrane -- Spiritual, Softly as in a Morning Sunrise.
Pat Metheny -- "Orchestrion" sounds like the Pat Metheny Group, only with wind-up-toy instruments in the background. Not that this is a problem....
Pat Metheny Group -- Phase Dance, Forward March, The First Circle, Praise, As Falls Wichita So Falls Wichita Falls, Ozark, Yolanda You Learn. Do I have to rave about any of these? "Yolanda" is a little better than I remembered -- but "Forward March" is still a painful joke. The rest are wonderful.
Happy the Man -- On Time as a Helix of Precious Laughs, Hidden Moods, New York Dreams Suite. Woops, how did THESE get in here? Ah well, "Precious Laughs" is a friggin' masterpiece, worth it all to hear Stan Whittaker's guitar erupt out of the bed of Kit Watkins' keyboards and Frank Wyatt's sax. I even like Whittaker's kind of uncomfortable vocal. The other two tracks are solid mood-music. And let's face it, if there was more good Prog out there I wouldn't be turning to jazz in a search for new sounds....
More coming soon. Hope to get back to Thelonious Monk's UNDERGROUND and Miles Davis's PANTHALASSA (especially "He Loved Him Madly," dark mood-music recorded on the floor of the Pacific Ocean) and IN A SILENT WAY, plus I'm looking for Miles's JACK JOHNSON, ON THE CORNER and GET UP WITH IT, more Mingus, and some of Keith Jarrett's quartets.
Suggestions and hate mail can be submitted below, as always....
Count Basie: ESSENTIAL, VOLUME 1 -- This is too old and too big-band-ish for me to be able to hear, though the horn lines on "Miss Thing" are cute. Also, I could hardly hear Basie's piano. If I were to keep listening to this I'd probably someday be able to get into later Soft Machine. That ain't gonna happen.
Horace Silver -- "Song for My Father" is OK, but it keeps trying to turn into Steely Dan's "Rikki Don't Lose That Number"....
Chet Baker -- Light, cool, almost distracted vocal on "Let's Get Lost."
Gary Burton: WORKS -- A best-of/sampler from Burton's dozen albums on the ECM label. Light, airy vibraphone tunes. Guitarist Pat Metheny guests on a couple of tracks, but it doesn't make much difference -- there's none of Pat's usual melodic flow. Some nice Mick Goodrick guitar on "Three," but when the orchestra enters, it turns into a movie soundtrack. "Brotherhood" is a handful of notes -- pointless atmosphere. OK waking-up music, but not riveting. And the folks at ECM spell the word "crystal" -- as in Burton and Chick Corea's duo album CRYSTAL SILENCE -- wrong TWICE in the album booklet. Once with an extra "h." English is a tough language....
Ornette Coleman -- I could hardly hear his frenzied smears of sax sound on he and Pat Metheny's album SONG X (supposedly a masterpiece). But I got through "Lonely Woman" on Ornette's THE SHAPE OF JAZZ TO COME. And I could actually HEAR it. And it wasn't terrible. So, more exploring to come....
Miles Davis and John Coltrane: THE BEST OF (1955-1961) -- Milestones, Straight No Chaser, My Funny Valentine, Someday My Prince Will Come, So What, Blue in Green, Round Midnight, Bye Bye Blackbird. All solid stuff, even if it didn't grab me by the throat.
Miles Davis: BITCHES BREW -- Miles Runs the Voodoo Down, Sanctuary, Pharoah's Dance. The last of these sounds like "In a Silent Way," only sped-up. You sure can tell that's Joe Zawinul on the keyboards. Which leads us directly to....
Weather Report: 8:30/LIVE -- There's some great stuff on here. "Birdland" ALWAYS sounds lame, but "Boogie Woogie Waltz" is one of the greatest pieces of noise I've ever heard, and it just SCREAMS! "Thanks for the Memory" is a nice but eccentric sax solo from Wayne Shorter. "Black Market," "Teen Town" and "Slang" are also pretty cool. Amazing that I can enjoy WR's live stuff this much when I think their studio work is all stone dead....
John Coltrane: MY FAVORITE THINGS -- Not as screechy as I first thought. There's some nice McCoy Tyner piano in the middle of the title standard, which is good waking-up music. Coltrane has a lot of fun with it, takes it a long way out. But Tyner's solo on "Every Time We Say Goodbye" is a little cocktail-lounge-ish. I've never liked George Gershwin's "Summertime" in ANY version, but Coltrane gets away with it here because he hardly bothers to PLAY the melody -- some nice, rough bouncing-all-over on sax. Elvin Jones's drum solo is kind of dull, but he comes out of it with a nice roll and a smash. I can hardly hear any of the original tune on "But Not for Me," but it doesn't matter -- it's a nice finish to the album, a real quick 9-1/2 minutes. But where are the BONUS TRACKS?!
I also heard:
Miles Davis -- Concerto De Arunjuez.
Herbie Hancock -- Watermelon Man, Tell Me a Bedtime Story. Haven't heard anything bad by Herbie yet.
Wayne Shorter -- Juju, Footsteps.
Lee Morgan -- The Sidewinder.
John Coltrane -- Spiritual, Softly as in a Morning Sunrise.
Pat Metheny -- "Orchestrion" sounds like the Pat Metheny Group, only with wind-up-toy instruments in the background. Not that this is a problem....
Pat Metheny Group -- Phase Dance, Forward March, The First Circle, Praise, As Falls Wichita So Falls Wichita Falls, Ozark, Yolanda You Learn. Do I have to rave about any of these? "Yolanda" is a little better than I remembered -- but "Forward March" is still a painful joke. The rest are wonderful.
Happy the Man -- On Time as a Helix of Precious Laughs, Hidden Moods, New York Dreams Suite. Woops, how did THESE get in here? Ah well, "Precious Laughs" is a friggin' masterpiece, worth it all to hear Stan Whittaker's guitar erupt out of the bed of Kit Watkins' keyboards and Frank Wyatt's sax. I even like Whittaker's kind of uncomfortable vocal. The other two tracks are solid mood-music. And let's face it, if there was more good Prog out there I wouldn't be turning to jazz in a search for new sounds....
More coming soon. Hope to get back to Thelonious Monk's UNDERGROUND and Miles Davis's PANTHALASSA (especially "He Loved Him Madly," dark mood-music recorded on the floor of the Pacific Ocean) and IN A SILENT WAY, plus I'm looking for Miles's JACK JOHNSON, ON THE CORNER and GET UP WITH IT, more Mingus, and some of Keith Jarrett's quartets.
Suggestions and hate mail can be submitted below, as always....
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Jazz phase
Hey, sorry for the delay, but I got distracted. By music, for a change. So there will be no reviews of four music-related books here, yet.
A week ago when my CD player started showing renewed signs of life and my income-tax return came in so money wasn't quite so tight, I went out looking for cheap new sounds to celebrate with. And I found a few. And I'll be looking for more.
Since I was starting to get a little bored with the same 170 Blues songs over and over (see last post), I decided to take another plunge into jazz -- this time to see how much of it I can actually HEAR.
I can count the number of jazz albums I value on both hands -- a few Pat Metheny albums, Miles Davis's IN A SILENT WAY and the PANTHALASSA remixes, John Coltrane's GIANT STEPS, Thelonious Monk's UNDERGROUND, Weather Report's 8:30 live album, Keith Jarrett's EYES OF THE HEART, maybe a couple others. I have a problem with pre-electric-Miles jazz: I can't hear most of it. It doesn't rock. I get bored.
Course, I have some problems with post-electric-Miles jazz, too: Some of it just sounds like noise. Most Miles I've heard after SILENT WAY has no real melody -- ever. I tried to treat The Mahavishnu Orchestra as if they were King Crimson Without Tunes, but that didn't work either. If there's a TUNE, I love jazz-rock's loudness. If there isn't, well....
Maybe I've just been listening to the wrong stuff. It seemed a good time to experiment and see if I can get past all this. And I made some progress. A little.
So far, I've made it halfway through Pharoah Sanders's 34-minute(!) "The Creator Has a Master Plan" from Sanders's 1969 album KARMA, and I like it. I like Pharoah's screechy, squalling sax, and the jangling bells and Indian/African sound-effects. I even like Leon Thomas's vocals. Pharoah at least sounds happy. The customers who came into my store seemed to like it, too.
My heroes at the PENGUIN GUIDE TO JAZZ say KARMA is fairly awful, that it's a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing, so I figured I'd better grab it and see for myself. I'll update you if I survive the rest.
Another nice surprise was Charles Mingus. I'd never heard him before. About a dozen of his tunes are included on THE DEFINITIVE MINGUS, part of the KEN BURNS' JAZZ series. Mingus's music is very passionate, very alive. His band may only include four or five guys in the studio at a time, but they sure make a helluva noise.
I'm more impressed with "Haitian Fight Song" as a piece of raucous group-noise than as a bassist's showcase. "Fables of Faubus" is heated early-'60s political satire and a piece of friggin' genius. And the ensemble playing at the end of "Peggy's Blue Skylight" is beautiful. The others are all growing on me.
And the band! Mingus's saxophonists! (Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Charlie Mariano were among 'em.) And his drummer, Dannie Richmond -- he's all OVER it! I'll update as I absorb the rest of this.
Put on some old faves at work -- Coltrane's GIANT STEPS has at least half a dozen memorable themes that I can hum or whistle along with, it keeps me moving when I'm working, and it's one of my favorite jazz-blowing albums ever (Monk's UNDERGROUND is the other). I listened to Coltrane's A LOVE SUPREME again for the first time in a couple of years. Last time I wrote about it here, I'm sure I must have mentioned that it's dark and turbulent and hard to catch all of. Repeated listenings required, I'm sure. Also tried out the title track of Coltrane's MY FAVORITE THINGS, with Trane on soprano sax -- kind of screechy, but the things he did to that tune....
Tried out Miles's KIND OF BLUE again for the first time in a couple years. I'm sure last time I could barely HEAR it. This time around it was pleasant enough -- some tracks seemed to end way too soon, too abruptly. And the contrast between the playing styles of Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley -- whenever Cannonball's throatier sax sound came in, it made me laugh every time. "All Blues" and "Blue in Green" are especially good.
Keith Jarrett's KOLN CONCERT is like going to church. Except for the parts where it sounds like he's having sex with the piano, of course. Pretty in places (supposed to be a jazz classic), but I'm tempted to say Jarrett sounds better in a group -- on his EYES OF THE HEART, you can HEAR the stress and tension as his quartet falls apart in front of an audience. It's the undercurrent that MAKES that album.
So I'm gonna have to track down some more Jarrett in a group setting. I've heard his gorgeous "Country," and I know his "Long As You Know You're Living Yours" is good -- it was good enough for Steely Dan to steal it as the gorgeous melody for "Gaucho."
Also played old faves "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo a la Turk" from Dave Brubeck's TIME OUT. Saxist Paul Desmond sure wasn't worried about making his playing conventionally "pretty" was he?
Also sampled George Winston's LINUS AND LUCY -- THE MUSIC OF VINCE GUARALDI. I've always been a sucker for those mid-'60s Peanuts cartoon-show soundtracks. Winston takes Linus and Lucy's theme and plays it straight, then starts messing with it. But he's on solo piano, and the first thing I thought was that Guaraldi was part of a trio -- and I missed the bass and drums. "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" is pleasant, though.
Interestingly, the CD came in a low-budget package with just Peanuts artwork, the title and Winston's name -- no indication of record company or copyright date, or anything else. It looks like a bootleg...!
Tried a BEST OF THELONIOUS MONK, made up of tracks that go as far back as 1947 -- the original versions of the jazz classics he wrote back in the day. This stuff may be too old for me to hear. I'll have to try to work through that. I know one thing after one listening -- that glissando (is that the right word?) Monk does all the way down the keyboard is charming the first few times. And then it gets old. And he does it in almost every song. But I like Monk's UNDERGROUND, even if that's supposedly watered-down Monk near the end of his career. So....
I'm gonna keep at this jazz thing until it gets boring -- hope to update with more views in a few days. Could be fun: "Total idiot writes about jazz!" Might be funnier than some of those rock books I was gonna review this time.... Hope you'll check back to see how much a fool I've made of myself....
A week ago when my CD player started showing renewed signs of life and my income-tax return came in so money wasn't quite so tight, I went out looking for cheap new sounds to celebrate with. And I found a few. And I'll be looking for more.
Since I was starting to get a little bored with the same 170 Blues songs over and over (see last post), I decided to take another plunge into jazz -- this time to see how much of it I can actually HEAR.
I can count the number of jazz albums I value on both hands -- a few Pat Metheny albums, Miles Davis's IN A SILENT WAY and the PANTHALASSA remixes, John Coltrane's GIANT STEPS, Thelonious Monk's UNDERGROUND, Weather Report's 8:30 live album, Keith Jarrett's EYES OF THE HEART, maybe a couple others. I have a problem with pre-electric-Miles jazz: I can't hear most of it. It doesn't rock. I get bored.
Course, I have some problems with post-electric-Miles jazz, too: Some of it just sounds like noise. Most Miles I've heard after SILENT WAY has no real melody -- ever. I tried to treat The Mahavishnu Orchestra as if they were King Crimson Without Tunes, but that didn't work either. If there's a TUNE, I love jazz-rock's loudness. If there isn't, well....
Maybe I've just been listening to the wrong stuff. It seemed a good time to experiment and see if I can get past all this. And I made some progress. A little.
So far, I've made it halfway through Pharoah Sanders's 34-minute(!) "The Creator Has a Master Plan" from Sanders's 1969 album KARMA, and I like it. I like Pharoah's screechy, squalling sax, and the jangling bells and Indian/African sound-effects. I even like Leon Thomas's vocals. Pharoah at least sounds happy. The customers who came into my store seemed to like it, too.
My heroes at the PENGUIN GUIDE TO JAZZ say KARMA is fairly awful, that it's a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing, so I figured I'd better grab it and see for myself. I'll update you if I survive the rest.
Another nice surprise was Charles Mingus. I'd never heard him before. About a dozen of his tunes are included on THE DEFINITIVE MINGUS, part of the KEN BURNS' JAZZ series. Mingus's music is very passionate, very alive. His band may only include four or five guys in the studio at a time, but they sure make a helluva noise.
I'm more impressed with "Haitian Fight Song" as a piece of raucous group-noise than as a bassist's showcase. "Fables of Faubus" is heated early-'60s political satire and a piece of friggin' genius. And the ensemble playing at the end of "Peggy's Blue Skylight" is beautiful. The others are all growing on me.
And the band! Mingus's saxophonists! (Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Charlie Mariano were among 'em.) And his drummer, Dannie Richmond -- he's all OVER it! I'll update as I absorb the rest of this.
Put on some old faves at work -- Coltrane's GIANT STEPS has at least half a dozen memorable themes that I can hum or whistle along with, it keeps me moving when I'm working, and it's one of my favorite jazz-blowing albums ever (Monk's UNDERGROUND is the other). I listened to Coltrane's A LOVE SUPREME again for the first time in a couple of years. Last time I wrote about it here, I'm sure I must have mentioned that it's dark and turbulent and hard to catch all of. Repeated listenings required, I'm sure. Also tried out the title track of Coltrane's MY FAVORITE THINGS, with Trane on soprano sax -- kind of screechy, but the things he did to that tune....
Tried out Miles's KIND OF BLUE again for the first time in a couple years. I'm sure last time I could barely HEAR it. This time around it was pleasant enough -- some tracks seemed to end way too soon, too abruptly. And the contrast between the playing styles of Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley -- whenever Cannonball's throatier sax sound came in, it made me laugh every time. "All Blues" and "Blue in Green" are especially good.
Keith Jarrett's KOLN CONCERT is like going to church. Except for the parts where it sounds like he's having sex with the piano, of course. Pretty in places (supposed to be a jazz classic), but I'm tempted to say Jarrett sounds better in a group -- on his EYES OF THE HEART, you can HEAR the stress and tension as his quartet falls apart in front of an audience. It's the undercurrent that MAKES that album.
So I'm gonna have to track down some more Jarrett in a group setting. I've heard his gorgeous "Country," and I know his "Long As You Know You're Living Yours" is good -- it was good enough for Steely Dan to steal it as the gorgeous melody for "Gaucho."
Also played old faves "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo a la Turk" from Dave Brubeck's TIME OUT. Saxist Paul Desmond sure wasn't worried about making his playing conventionally "pretty" was he?
Also sampled George Winston's LINUS AND LUCY -- THE MUSIC OF VINCE GUARALDI. I've always been a sucker for those mid-'60s Peanuts cartoon-show soundtracks. Winston takes Linus and Lucy's theme and plays it straight, then starts messing with it. But he's on solo piano, and the first thing I thought was that Guaraldi was part of a trio -- and I missed the bass and drums. "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" is pleasant, though.
Interestingly, the CD came in a low-budget package with just Peanuts artwork, the title and Winston's name -- no indication of record company or copyright date, or anything else. It looks like a bootleg...!
Tried a BEST OF THELONIOUS MONK, made up of tracks that go as far back as 1947 -- the original versions of the jazz classics he wrote back in the day. This stuff may be too old for me to hear. I'll have to try to work through that. I know one thing after one listening -- that glissando (is that the right word?) Monk does all the way down the keyboard is charming the first few times. And then it gets old. And he does it in almost every song. But I like Monk's UNDERGROUND, even if that's supposedly watered-down Monk near the end of his career. So....
I'm gonna keep at this jazz thing until it gets boring -- hope to update with more views in a few days. Could be fun: "Total idiot writes about jazz!" Might be funnier than some of those rock books I was gonna review this time.... Hope you'll check back to see how much a fool I've made of myself....
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