More third stream music: Saturday Music Club on Monday

The Jazz and Classical Music Society: Music for Brass/
George Russell and Gunther Schuller: Modern Jazz Concert  (aka Brandeis Jazz Festival)

1. JOHN LEWIS - Three Little Feelings
1.1 - Of Hope
1.2 - From the Heart
1.3 - Majesty
2. J.J. JOHNSON - Poem for Brass
2.1 - Sonnet for Brass
2.2 - Ballad for Joe
2.3 - Meter and Metal 
2.4 - Finale
3. GEORGE RUSSELL - All About Rosie
4. CHARLES MINGUS - Revelations (First Movement)
5. JIMMY GIUFFRE - Suspensions
6. GUNTHER SCHULLER - Symphony for Brass and Percussion
6.1 - Andante - Allegro
6.2 - Lento
6.4 - Quasi Cadenza - Allegro
7. GUNTHER SCHULLER - Transformation
8. JIMMY GIUFFRE - Pharaoh
JazzTimes review of this reissue combo


George Russell and the Big Bang Band, 1967

Part 2

The Don Ellis Orchestra: "33 222 1 222"


The Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra: The New Continent


Charles Mingus Band: "Minor Intrusion"


Gil Mellé: Tome VI

Ornette Coleman, RIP

Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015)


















Ornette Coleman: "Lonely Woman" (2006)


The Modern Jazz Quartet: "Lonely Woman"


John Lewis, Ornette Coleman, Jim Hall, Scot LaFaro: "Abstraction"


Ornette Coleman Quartet: "Abstraction"


Downbeat obituary
JazzTimes obituary and links
from Cadence: 1987 interview with Coleman (terrible background warning...highlight to read, I'd say).
previously on Sweet Freedom

Tempo International: "Ornette Coleman Trio" (1966)


1959: The Year That Changed Jazz (y'know, unlike every year, though it was an important one)


Ornette Coleman: The Shape of Jazz to Come


Ornette Coleman Double Quartet: Free Jazz


Ornette Coleman and the London Symphony Orchestra:  Skies of America


Ornette Coleman's Prime Time, with Jerry Garcia: "3 Wishes"

Patricia Abbott: CONCRETE ANGEL and more: The blog tour continues

Patricia Abbott, or Patti as she usually goes by, is not a natural self-promoter, but that doesn't keep her from being a busy writer, with over 150 short stories published in various magazines and anthologies since she began to get serious about writing about twenty years ago; she's published a poetry chapbook (Next to the Serengeti Ballroom) and three books of fiction before her highly-praised current offer, the novel Concrete Angel (Polis Books); her previous titles include the anthology (co-edited with Steve Weddle) Discount Noir (2010),  the short story collection Monkey Justice (2011),  and the novel-in-linked-stories Home Invasion (2013). The new book has as a starting point something of an inversion of the situation of James M. Cain's classic Mildred Pierce...in Abbott's novel, it's the daughter who is striving to make better life for herself and her challenging, even sociopathic, mother.

Abbott's husband is Philip Abbott, a professor at Wayne State University, who has published 11 books so far; their son is Joshua Abbott, a Macomb County, MI assistant prosecuting attorney, and their daughter is Megan Abbott, who has published eight books, most recently the novel The Fever.  Winner of the Derringer Award for her short story "My Hero," Patti is also a very active blogger, the host of the "Friday's Forgotten Books" weekly roundelay, and usually a participant in my "Tuesday's Overlooked A/V" weekly lists as well. Her next novel, Shot in Detroit, is nearing completion now.

The brief interview below is a stop on her "blog tour" to support the publication of Concrete Angel; previous interviews can and should be seen at the following links:

Kirkus Reviews
Dana King: Twenty Questions 
Gerald So: Concrete Angel chat
Bill Crider: Being a Late Bloomer
George Kelley: Patti Abbott's Bookshelves 
Charlie Stella: 3 writers who've influenced me...
J. Kingston Pierce: "Mommie Direst" (a reference to the character in Concrete Angel)
Ron Earl Phillips: Patti Abbott and Rob Hart: A Conversation
Ed Gorman: Pro-File 
Women of Mystery: Setting 
Elizabeth Spann Craig: Working My Way Toward the Novel 
Sergio Angelini: Why I Wrote Concrete Angel 
B. V. Lawson: R&R: Philadelphia Then 
Megan Abbott: Interrogation 
Deborah Diesen: Michiganding 
Marshal Zeringue: Page 69 Test 
Prashant Trikannad: 2 Questions
Patricia Abbott: Five Favorite Novels About Mothers and Daughters

I suspected I might be adding to this list, and I have been...Patricia Abbott and Bryon Quertermous spoke and signed copies of their new books at the Mysterious Bookshop at 58 Warren St, New York, NY, this coming Thursday, 18 June 2015 beginning at 6:30p.  --Todd Mason

TM: You've mentioned in previous interviews that you were not raised in a particularly literary household, though your mother

read "Ellery Queen"'s novels. But you were drawn to the neighborhood bookmobile at a young age, and became a regular patron of the Free Library of Philadelphia branch when it opened in your neighborhood. Was there a particular librarian or teacher who nudged you in that direction, or was particularly helpful in finding the kind of literature you wanted to read? Or, for that matter, were you encouraged as a youngster to write? You've mentioned you initially were only interested in books that were about girls very much like yourself...when did you branch out in your reading? 

Patricia Abbott: To answer the last question first, I am not sure I ever did branch out as much as I ought to. There are still many classic books in fantasy, science fiction, and similar areas that go unread. I should certainly read more non-fiction. Only my book group has led me to books like The Boys in the Boat, Unbroken, poetry collections, a few biographies, essays by various writers. My inclination is to read crime stories and straight fiction. Back to your first question: When the first library was build in my neighborhood, I began to go even more often [than to the bookmobile]. The children's' room was unbelievable to me after the bookmobile. I met my first African-American woman there--the children's librarian [this being the highly segregated Philadelphia of the 1950s]. Her name was Mrs. Robinson and she held books for me she thought I would like and also tried to broaden my interests. She was not so successful with "nudging" me, but she was willing to talk about what I had read. And if it was Cherry Ames, Army Nurse or a Trixie Belden or whatever, she was probably happy I was reading at all. Now that makes it sound like I came from a neighborhood of illiterates. But, in fact, the kids at my school were avid readers. I was the one with narrow interests. I didn't even read fairy tales or mythology books, for Pete's sake. As to writing influences, in sixth grade I had a fairly awful, in many respects, teacher. But she did have us write all the time and perform little plays. My math skills suffered but she may have introduced me to that possibility. It just took me a very long time to come back to it. 

I gather you were usually a good student and not Too much a troublemaker, but from early on you describe yourself as leaning into extreme inquisitiveness about how others lived, enough to gain a reputation for such in your neighborhood even as a preschooler (often the mark of a writer), and, by your teens, at least a brief period of "bad girl" rebellion. Did your reading have any influence on this? When did you start reading crime fiction on a regular basis? Did you prefer other kinds of fiction? 

At about fourteen, I became what they used to call "boy crazy." That led me in some wrong directions. My reading probably slowed down during this period but it never stopped. It was too much a part of me. And actually in that period, I read all of Sinclair Lewis, John O'Hara [whose work was crime-fiction-adjacent], Thomas Hardy, Pearl Buck, Leon Uris, [CF writer...before Rosemary's Baby] Ira Levin, Edna Ferber, etc. I didn't read crime fiction at all until I was 19, newly married and at the shore in Ocean City, N.J. Phil and I found a trove of Agatha Christie books at a used bookstore and bought them all for very little. And my vacation turned into binge-reading her. After that, my reading was equally divided between crime and straight fiction.

Have you been a lifelong movie buff? How has that informed your fiction? Have you ever written plays or other forms beyond prose fiction? (I'm amused that poetry editors were encouraging you to look at some of your poems, at least, as outlines for short stories, when you don't usually like to outline your work.) 

Yes. I think there has hardly ever been a week in my life when I didn't go out to the movies. And I have been known to do three [in a week or less]. I don't watch them at home very often. I need the dark, the smell of popcorn and licorice, the sticky floor beneath my feet to really get into a movie. At home, I am likely to read while I watch a movie and the experience is very disappointing. My first movie theater was the Renel Theater on Ogontz Avenue in Philly. I was allowed to walk there (maybe a mile) with my girlfriends from a very young age (perhaps 8). The only time this obsessive movie-going abated was the five years before my kids were in school. Once they were there all day, we went to the movies in the afternoon. So I am weak on movies between 1970-77. I think it does impact on my fiction a bit. I always imagine what movies the characters might watch. And I think the subject matter of French movies, domestic life, really influenced me. Especially [those of] Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer. I don't however picture the stories as if they are movies. It's the words I write for, not the images. 

As your fourth book, though (arguably) first novel and first bound and printed publication (in trade paperback format), how are you enjoying the fruits of your labor so far? You've just begun a speaking tour in support of the book, has it been what you've expected? Do you feel that with several books to each of your credit, that you, your husband and your daughter might be putting unfair pressure on your son to publish at book length? 

I am only doing two events. It is just too costly to go to a bookstore where I know no one, and would have to pay hotel and air flight. I have been to book talks like that...where there is an audience of ten people and three buy the book. Instead I am relying on the world of blogs to help me. And my friends have been very kind indeed. 

My son could write an amazing book I am sure. He has had some of the most horrific cases...but he likes to put them behind him. Marcia Clark, on the other hand, seems to be able to draw on her experiences. 

Abbott in conversation at the Book Beat, in Michigan.

My talk in Michigan was surprisingly delightful. I looked out on the faces--I knew just about everyone in the room (see what I mean about going to a place you don't have friends)--and felt embraced. I would like to say I am "over the moon" as someone suggested to me yesterday, but I view anything good as a harbinger of bad things to come. So I am not really enjoying having a book I can hold as a younger writer might. It's just not in my makeup. Instead I worry about not selling any copies and making Jason Pinter (the publisher of Polis) regret taking me on.

You're in the process of finishing your second traditional novel's revisions...do you know what else you'd like to try, in terms of fiction or related goals?  A novel of historical fiction, horror, contemporary mimetic fiction--all of which you've written repeatedly in shorter forms? Something else again? 

I would love, above all, to write a ghost story, but I doubt I could sustain the mood for 300 pages. I think I have an idea for a possible third novel--using one of my stories as an outline. See? That poetry editor taught me well.

FFB: THE EDUCATION OF HOPEY GLASS by Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics 2008)

Jaime Hernandez is one of the three brothers (though eldest bother Mario only occasionally contributes) who are responsible for the comics magazine Love and Rockets; elder brother Gilbert tends to write stories about characters in or from a small town, Palomar, in an unspecified Central American country, many of whom have emigrated to the U.S.; Xaime (as he sometimes signs his work) focuses on characters who grew up in relatively run-down suburbs of L.A.  JH's comics tend to hew to realism a bit more than his brothers', even given his earliest L&R comics were primarily science-fictional, with his two most consistent characters, Esperanza "Hopey" Glass and Maggie Chascarrillo, working as mechanics on small space-faring vehicles.  Soon, most of the sfnal content was dropped from these narratives, except as occasional reminiscences or such subplots as when one of their friends strove to become a supernaturally-gifted superhero, while Maggie and Hopey made their way through the L.A. punk-rock scene and the interplay of cultures around them. (Another of their friends is something of an actual witch, which allows Jaime to play at times with the fantasy/magical realism tropes more common in his brother's Palomar stories.)

The Education of Hopey Glass collects a series of shorter linked narratives from a period in which Hopey is going through some relatively serious life changes; a lifelong instinctive rebel, as she approaches forty, she takes on her first relatively "straight" job associated with the college courses she's been attending, that of a teacher's assistant in an elementary school.  At the school, the teacher she works with refers to her as "Hope" (a literal translation of Esperanza), and settling into that job has other small bits of estrangement, not least in reminding her of her own troubled early school experience. Hopey is also having troubles with the womanfriend she lives with, who among other things has grown tired of Glass's endless flirtation with other women. Hopey visits Maggie, which in turn connects this series of stories with the second half of the book, comprised mostly of narratives involving Ray Dominguez, like Hopey an ex-lover of Maggie's; Hopey and Ray's relations with Maggie are both unresolved on both ends. Thus, while Ray finds himself in the orbit of a mercurial woman named Vivian, he keeps being reminded of how much he misses Maggie, not least when he runs into Maggie on several occasions. Ray's adventures, despite their peripherally involving the murder of Vivian's abusive  ex-boyfriend, somewhat parallel Hopey's.

This is perhaps not the book to begin one's reading of Love and Rockets with, despite it featuring the charm and wit Hernandez fans have long since come to expect...something like the omnibus Locas would be better for the stories around Maggie, Hopey and their friends and family...but as with most good serial narrative, you might well find you understand enough of what goes on, in the characters' lives as in everyone's...

Please see Patti Abbott's blog for today's prompter entries.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films and/or Other A/V: new links

Limehouse Blues

This week's selections  (reviews and citations at the links below) of undeservedly (and a few deservedly) underappreciated audio/visual experiences...as always, thanks to all the contributors and you readers.

This week, dedicated to the memory of Ronnie Gilbert...and Mary Ellen Trainor.  On a happier note, happy birthday to contributor Yvette Banek!

Allan Fish: F for Fake

Anne Billson: Twixt 

Bill Crider: Dave [trailer]

Brian Arnold: Automan

B. V. Lawson: Media Murder

Colin: The Long and the Short and the Tall

Comedy Film Nerds: Ryan Sickler

Cynthia Fuchs: Heaven Knows What

Dan Stumpf: Limehouse Blues

Duane Porter: The 10 Best Films of 2014

Elizabeth Foxwell: A Gentleman after Dark; The Charles Dickens Museum: "A Dickens Whodunnit"

Eric Red: Top 5 Truck Movies

Evan Lewis: Pulp-Pourri Theatre: "The Pin-Up Murder Mystery"

George Kelley: State of Play (BBC-TV)

Iba Dawson: Beyond the Gates

Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.: Let No Man Write My Epitaph

Jackie Kashian: actor/comedian Retta on dramatic tv series, among other things

Jacqueline T. Lynch: Slander

Jake Hinkson: Falstaff (aka Chimes at Midnight)

James Reasoner: Alien Trespass

Jeff Flugel: Beneath the Twelve-Mile Reef

Jerry House: Mutiny in the Big House; H. Rider Haggard, 1923 silent film "interview"

John Grant: The World Accuses

Jonathan Lewis: Lepke; The Last Challenge

Kate Laity: Medievalism and "realism"

Kliph Nesteroff: How Keefe Braselle used his mob ties to get thuggish misogynist CBS executive Jim Aubrey to put KB's terrible series on the network (hint: a date whom Aubrey beat up badly turned out to be a mafioso's daughter...Brasselle intervened with his buddies when said mafioso put out a contract on Aubrey.)

Kristina Dijan: The Night Has Eyes

Laura: Sister Kenny; David Harding, Counterspy (1950 film)

Kismet

Lucy Brown: Kismet (1955 film)

Martin Edwards: bookfairs

Matty McKee: A Place Called Today

Michael Shonk: The Investigators (CBS-TV 1961)

Neer: adverts from more ?innocent? times

Patti Abbott: Pioneers of Television; Wallander (Swedish television; US import by MHz Worldview)

Philip Schweier: Raw Deal; The Fake; The Diamond Wizard

Randy Johnson: Mr. Wu; Challenge of McKenna (aka La sfida dei McKenna)

Rick: She-Wolf of London (1948 film); Thunderbirds (tv series)

Rod Lott: Blackout; Cry_Wolf

Ruth: Ace in the Hole

Sergio Angelini: Hostile Witness (play and film)

Stacia Jones: Yellowbeard; Clifford

Stephen Bowie: Ben Casey

Stephen Gallagher: Richard Johnson

Steve Lewis: Larceny: Changing Lanes

Ronnie Gilbert, RIP

Ronnie Gilbert, the sole female singer among the folk-music superstars the Weavers for all but their earliest formative days, and a solo artist, activist, actor and psychologist over the years since the band called it a day in 1964, died on Saturday, though I managed to not get the unfortunate update till seeing Jarry House's post just now.   Bruce Weber in the NY Times; Sing Out! hasn't managed to post their remembrance yet...

Ronnie Gilbert eulogizes her mother, 1985:


Ronnie Gilbert and Holly Near:  "Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida"


HARP: Holly Near, Arlo Guthrie, Ronnie Gilbert, Pete Seeger: "Wimoweh" ("Mbube")


Ronnie Gilbert and Judy Collins: "Goodnight, Irene"


The Weavers: "Venga Jaleo"


Ronnie Gilbert: "Joe Hill"


The Weavers: "Sinner Man"


From Wasn't That a Time: The Weavers: "Union Miners"


The Weavers: "Kisses Sweeter than Wine"


Ronnie Gilbert with the Gordon Jenkins Orchestra: "Trouble in Mind"


The Weavers: "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You" among their 1951 promo films.