tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post40307090230280694..comments2024-03-27T22:39:08.396-04:00Comments on Sweet Freedom: Friday's Forgotten Books, etc.: Passions of My YouthTodd Masonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-79330353892954218042009-09-25T20:09:35.784-04:002009-09-25T20:09:35.784-04:00Chris:
Basically, Dave Brubeck and Cecil Taylor we...Chris:<br />Basically, Dave Brubeck and Cecil Taylor were maverick enough to praise each other's work, when Brubeck was the asinine hipster's definition of sellout and Taylor the ah's definition of Anti-Jazz So Recondite That It Shouldn't Exist. Miles Davis, and certainly not he alone, made noises to those effects about both, and was even more vocal and hostile toward Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane's music after he quit Davis's quartet. Meanwhile, John Lewis was a great champion of Coleman and the other earliest free players, helping them get recorded by his label Atlantic (which issues Coleman's FREE JAZZ and THE SHAPE OF JAZZ TO COME in part through Lewis's action on his behalf), and Brubeck was not only aware of his own commercial clout but his appeal to non-jazz audiences, particularly to 20th century classical fans, when talking up Taylor and some of the other free players, but also aware of his controversial status among some jazz insiders, and took that into account in those statements.<br /><br />Miles Davis remains the biggest jackass in the history of jazz (between his serial spousal/companion abuse, attitudinal posing, and joy in his position as tastemaker among the clueless, among other things), and he had some competition to overcome. Did some brilliant work, and some deadly dull, and was the one person I'd least like to meet or to have met among the major players. My ex was feeling poorly, the one time I saw him performing (or, mostly, not performing) in concert, and so I didn't mind leaving midset (it was a Very dull fusion jam, circa 1988 at Wolf Trap). We were mostly there to see the Modern Jazz Quartet, who'd opened to lukewarm audience response...as one woman sitting near us said after a piece or two, with some mild outrage, "They're Not Modern!" While every widely-spaced bleat from Davis during the first few pieces of his band's set got sycophantic applause.<br /><br />George:<br />I'd happened to catch the LAST CALL episode (the NBC late night show) featuring a long interview with Melaine Fiona promoting the release of this single, and I'd noted that she didn't feel any need to credit the Zombies at all.<br /><br />Brian:<br />Yeah, I'd picked up the first edition years before finding myself in Radnor, and it's always a pity when one or another of a long-running series of new editions gets the chopping block...particularly when the last edition of TOTAL TELEVISION came with a CD-Rom supplement/replication of the printed text, something I think Brand X has yet to do. Hell, I still miss the updates to Scheuer's MOVIES ON TV, the model Leonard Maltin sought to improve upon (and didn't completely succeed)...for more than a decade, Bantam kept offering new editions of the Scheuer even as Signet offered new Maltins (which I think Penguin/NAL nowadays publishes under the Plume inprint).Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-41222924435825107082009-09-25T16:59:33.653-04:002009-09-25T16:59:33.653-04:00Hey Todd, nice post. You must know something about...Hey Todd, nice post. You must know something about the Brubeck/Lewis - Taylor/Coleman thing that I don't. You mentioned it in a comment over on my blog awhile back. Something involving one supporting the other. I could use some background, actually. (:Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11284832038989114035noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-15632629894868167482009-09-25T09:30:10.556-04:002009-09-25T09:30:10.556-04:00If you want to hear an update to the Zombies' ...If you want to hear an update to the Zombies' "Time of the Season" check out Melanie Fiona's "Give It to Me Right" at: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=57024788Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04546161337366365635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-61168893266143874232009-09-24T20:32:09.352-04:002009-09-24T20:32:09.352-04:00I never really took a good look at Total Televisio...I never really took a good look at Total Television when I was at TVG, which is a shame, as I'd likely have devoured it once I got my hands on it. There are many Web sites with such info, but not nearly as accurate or as extensive. A new guide would be a great gift to TV-viewing humanity.Phillyradiogeekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06898493001431352624noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-43512585123799795572009-09-22T21:06:12.670-04:002009-09-22T21:06:12.670-04:00We ain't kids. Though I note that several of t...We ain't kids. Though I note that several of the all-women bands cited above are older than I thought, almost as old as Robyn Hitchcock, rather that sprightly fshghty-somethings like ourselves. (Nobody's as old as Bob the Zims.)<br /><br />Blog posts insinuate and evanesce, or most often linger. And, yes, we had to let them linger.Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-87222715398265543382009-09-22T15:27:21.134-04:002009-09-22T15:27:21.134-04:00Are you calling me old?! LOL. Looking forward to t...Are you calling me old?! LOL. Looking forward to the blog whenever it materialises (can anything on the web be said to "materialise"?).C. Margery Kempehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15910282257993793334noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-47722970684249625262009-09-20T19:33:27.385-04:002009-09-20T19:33:27.385-04:00Well, this anticipates another planned posting com...Well, this anticipates another planned posting coming when I can get to it...about, essentially, how much I've enjoyed the reunion albums from the Go-Go's and the Bangles over the last several years...albeit they are essentially generational peers to me.Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-82898173829702200752009-09-20T17:51:19.168-04:002009-09-20T17:51:19.168-04:00Fun to see a slightly different take on Forgotten ...Fun to see a slightly different take on Forgotten Books. I like to read about people's early experiences with music, because I think it gets harder to have those experiences as you get older. Not just an issue of being "jaded" so much as it's harder to surprise. Though I've had that nigh-on-adolescent fixation on both Dylan's <i>Modern Times</i> and Robyn Hitchcock's <i>Goodnight Oslo</i>, perhaps the finest recording either has done -- which is saying something extraordinary in both cases, but no less true for me.<br /><br />Always comforting to think that one's best work may indeed still lie ahead.C. Margery Kempehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15910282257993793334noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-10660153694416615652009-09-19T23:30:15.163-04:002009-09-19T23:30:15.163-04:00No, indeed. The space devoted to the Ellington Orc...No, indeed. The space devoted to the Ellington Orchestra is far more understanable, and rather too delimited, when compared to the space in the Lyons book devoted to Davis. And certainly when compared to the pages grudgingly devoted to Mangione, or even the Crusaders.<br /><br />I'm also amused by the space devoted to Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, with no mention of the support provided to those men by those nasty old fakers Brubeck and Lewis, and the attempts to stymie their careers, at least, from Davis.Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-84619497997742347192009-09-19T20:34:19.530-04:002009-09-19T20:34:19.530-04:00Nice to see something on jazz. You say "with ...Nice to see something on jazz. You say "with unsurprising major bowing to the Ellington Orchestra", and I think there need not ever be any apology for Ellington, either as composer or bandleader. Sometimes I am convinced "Ellington at Newport" is the best jazz small big-band album ever, it's certainly one I can listen to over and over. But then I hear "Time Out" or "Everybody Digs Bill Evans" or "Sonny Side Up" and I'm in a different place, and for a while the Ellington is forgotten.Richard Robinsonhttp://brokenbullhorn.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com