MomsMobley

Adjust your dials appropriately! Joe Albany movie director is brother of Cliff Price mentioned upstream somewhere. And again, what evidence is there that Phil Schaap is a creative individual? Yet we're supposed to believe Albertson and Avakian that Schaap is just making shit up... to what purpose? He may be wrong but he probably has reasons for stating what he does-- And he might be correct or the point may be arguable & one it's one ofay's word versus another's, who was there-- & who perceived & remembers things as they wish-- & who has talked to people who were-- & their view too is subjective. I don't get the surety here over who's right and who's wrong tho' if there are specific disputations, they'd be interesting to review.

Moms -- I have no idea what you mean by these remarks, especially the "where did he come from?" business: 're: Chris Albertson, while I respect what he did, his judgements are... "stern" is a generous way of putting it. And where did Chris come from again? 're: Avakian, a prince of an executive etc, sure, but-- not to make too much of a class argument here-- an executive nonetheless and where did HE come from & how much power he did he wield?' "for better/worse, Schaap is coming from mixed-race middle class Queens, New York, jazz fan parents" Chris comes from Denmark and arrived here under by-the-bootstraps circumstances, I believe. He had a job in radio for many years at a public station and produced a number of important recordings, especially of New Orleans and other older musicians who otherwise might have been forgotten. He's been a freelance music journalist. He wrote one of the best jazz biographies. Avakian you disparage/dismiss as some sort of dabbling aristocrat? More so than the Erteguns? Than John Hammond, for freaking sake? My attitude has always been that "everybody's got to be some place," and it's what you do from then on that counts. Also you seem to be saying that Schaap's "mixed-race middle class Queens, New York, jazz fan parents" background in itself amount to a big plus or a saving grace? How so? Neither disparage nor dismiss Avakian but I don't think an Armenian aristocrat & record industry BOSS is himself in a great position to go after a Queens kid who heard it from the sources, i.e. the black people Avakian hired. Schaap very well might be wrong-- I don't know what specific issue we're talking of-- but of all possible disputes, you (generally, not LK) think Schaap is making something up just to fuck with George? To claim some fragment of "his" "legacy"? (As opposed to the legacy of the music makers themselves.) And, even if "it" is untrue, where did Schaap get the ** idea ** ? I am positing that Schaap is largely not creative and that most arguments against his history are in fact against those men who were his sources, sometimes in public (on air), often in private. Also, I'm not saying Phil Schaap = Billy Taylor or Rex Stewart (say) in his relations with black folks but he's a hell of lot closer and than George Avakian. And I'm certainly not carrying any water for the Erteguns though Neshui had decent taste & Jerry Wexler on his best days was half-a-mensch... though I didn't work for Stax Records either-- they might have a different opinion. Chris A. I wouldn't care to comment upon further but save Denmark, for all its fine qualities, is not Queens & affinity-- i'll even grant empathy-- is not immersion. orphan Q: Abel Meeropol, compared to Ahmet Ertegun or Mr. Avakian. John Hammond Jr. does have a nice collection of Hawaiian shirts.

LK-- I don't think Schaap flawless but fortunately or un- he's overwhelmingly working in oral tradition so we don't know where he's getting x, y, z or how he's synthesizing. But he's definitely done lots of reseeach on certain topics-- Bird most obviously-- and has historical and musical insights to offer. Also, tho' he can be imperious about dates etc, his pushing of interview subjects (moreso in past when more swing & bop players were alive) is generally towards greater good. They played a jillion gigs, might have made hundreds of record dates, memories blur etc. re: Chris Albertson, while I respect what he did, his judgements are... "stern" is a generous way of putting it. And where did Chris come from again? re: Avakian, a prince of an executive etc, sure, but-- not to make too much of a class argument here-- an executive nonetheless and where did HE come from & how much power he did he wield? for better/worse, Schaap is coming from mixed-race middle class Queens, New York, jazz fan parents (ardently so in his father) (ADOPTED the ghost of Chris Albertson will remind us), damn near a surrogate father/uncle in Jo Jones, frequent contact and conversation and later some work, broadcasting with TONS old(er) black guys & their families (he'll shout out the Eldridge family, the Eddie Durham family etc etc), he ** below ** them (Avakian always above, Albertson a functionary on the side or slightly above as radio guy) ... Those are VASTLY different perspectives & I daresay those black men (not exclusively but most importantly) spoke to Phil differently than they did to others. Perhaps-- obviously-- not all the way candid but moreso than not because of familiarity & Schaap's unquestioned adulation (which-- true-- might be annoying at times). Dick Katz came on the air with Schaap damn near six hours on John Lewis memorial broadcast; we can presume Dick knew something about jazz and even for the love of John, wouldn't fraternize with Schaap if he didn't like? "Record Executive" Side Q: Bob Koester, I believe, took a bus east for the 1963 March on Washington. What did George Avakian do? *** SGCIM: I don't have any inside dope on WKCR & it would be dangerous to admit it if I did, i.e. WKCR has always been in a semi-perilous position re: its mission both from above (commercially oriented admin) & below (short-sighted narcissistic students). I believe, however, the 'sign' that set Schaap off this year was the interruption of Duke Ellington b-day broadcast for a regular one hour Columbia sports talk show... when tradition says ALL regularly scheduled programs are pre-empted... I'll also note the kid who was host of that show graduated this year & is obviously a real piece of work: he goddamn well knew what he was doing & if not a decision he could make himself... that someone OK'd it is a Bad Sign. Also, the departure of Ben Young is regretable on # of levels, both his broadcasting & the continuity & seriousness he brought... There are other excellent alumni still there: Mitch Goldman (Ronald Shannon Jackson ex- road manager among things), Sid Gribetz mentioned above (a Bronx family court judge in real life), Cliff Price (his brother did the Joe Albany documentary recently), the beloved Sharif Abdus-Salaam, also long-time dudes who do African, West Indian, Latin music shows etc. Hopefully this was just bad mix of Schaap freaking out & WKCR making bad decision & everyone has calmed the fuck down, the sports monster & others can co-exist (and Schaap not anti-sports, cf. Dick Schaap et al, it's just the world doesn't lack for sports bullshit... Jazz & other vernacular musics & real community news, arts programming... isn't abundant (stating the obvious, I know)).

Ah, but Mr. Lowe! As someone who has yourself spoken to a great many jazz musicians, you know there are very often significant discrepancies between their perceptions of an event & events and what you might know & reasonable piece together from myriad sources. Oral history can be tremendously valuable and it can a mess of delusion, ignorance, invention etc. Think of how much you know or reasonably surmise from unique or largely overlooked sources etc. Now the same goes for Gushee also, of course, and his diligence in the archives. Think back, Pilgrim: where has much of Schaap's "knowledge" come from? If Russell Procope said it happened that way or Aaron Bell or Milt Hinton or Larwrence Lucie or Truck Parham etc etc. That said, Gushee is almost overstating the case out of professional pique and, if not "jealousy" per se-- nobody really wants to BE Phil Schaap though it would have been interesting to know, say, Jo Jones, Earl Warren, Roy Eldridge etc as he did-- than an irritation at his prominence relative to theirs. (Though for sure, tenured Gushee had an easier lot than the vagabond & un-tenure-able Schaap.) Also, yes, Schaap DOES posit himself as authoritative but, if you've ever seen his writing per se, you know he's got, ah... let's call them "clarity" and "concision" issues, so who's to say he doesn't accidentally garble his own primary research x oral testimony? Finally, if you study enough historiography, as I know you and Gushee have, it's actually pretty rare to see real historians (i.e. not slumming journalists though they sometimes do very well) INVENT something, 1) it's too easy to get caught and 2) it's too much work. Far more common, is combination of sloth, arrogance & insecurity that makes them overstate their case to the exclusion of contradictory or 'difficult' but complementary facts. I do not care in the slightest one way or the other about the erstwhile Mahalia Jackson shtick (a schoolboy jape, boring but inoffensive) but I don't think Schaap is in it for-- or capable of-- "inventing" all that much. If Mr. Gushee did or others would care to expound, that would be welcome. To clarify, Gushee was an esteemed academic musicologist-- also medieval music?-- and, I believe, an amateur horn player? Schaap has a BA in American history with ardent interest in same, especially American civil rights, but his primary vocations are discographer, record collector, broadcaster, valet for/acolyte of numerous old black guys, club booker/manager a few years (West End), gypsy educator, reissue producer (Savoy-- the unedited Bird at the Roost tapes-- Verve, Sony). Now, do we want to wonder what Larry Gushee could have achieved with that type of access to people and primary materials? OK, that's fair speculation. But re: Schaap and Duke, say, what is there he could invent that probably hasn't already been mangled in the historic press? Even mangled in the historic record if you've ever seen Census forms where someone starts to accidently transpose #s or names. And if Schaap did claim something that Gushee strongly disagrees with, might he not have a source, however disputable? Make no mistake, I've thought a # of times & even once called someone a poltroon based on their sloppy and /or rube like misuse of dubious sources but I when I did, independently, find their sources... what they had done did make sense.

quartet 8 concerto for two pianos

& because the great "The African Game" album on Blue Note that Bruce put out isn't on youtube...

I'd say that's a medium sized box that is worthwhile; it might even include vocal texts, as their Messiaen set did? Michael Korstick's piano concerto set on CPO is great, as is nearly evertyhing Korstick records, estimable Alun Francis cond. Francis' symphony set on CPO is also worthy btw unlike the Quatour Parisii's string 4-tet cycle, which is worthy and quite unavailable though hopefully will be reissued. I'm a Schoenberg fanatic-- he's both underated and frequently misapprehended (thus seems overrated, more doctrinaire than he ever, in fact, was)-- but that's hardly to the exclusion of Villa-Lobos and Milhaud, who never played tennis with George Gershwin.

Spon, you should have ALL Roussel as a matter of course, including "Padmavati" & the melodies. I like your Martinu list but will disagree with the 'wrote too much' though I once thought that myself. But no. You're a healthy, fecund composer-- you compose. Just the ballets, operas and cantatas alone make for a world class composer and if he 'reverts' to 'formula' at certain times in certain works... who doesn't? And, thankfully, Martinu was far from stuck within or inhibited by Austro-German monumentality etc.

Martinu mostly fantastic in all forms but there are masterpieces in ballets, cantatas, operas, serenades ++ that are relatively little known though nearly all have been recorded for Supraphon. Recently deceased, largly estimable if a smidgen dull sometimes in "early music" harpsichordist/conductor Christopher Hogwood was a GREAT Martinuvian... in a few works possibly even my fave Martinuvian but there's so much worth hearing, the symphonies very good, not 'the best,' cello concertos, all concertante violin works, goodly amount of piano music & concertos... VERY interesting "jazz" & sports (really) influences in '20s, '30s too worth pondering, likewise transmigration of Czeck folk tales, literature, folk musics etc. Jiri Belokalvek redoubtable Super! Děkuji!!!!!

this reminds me in world with Braxton Bird (not my fave AB) & Braxton operas (always interesting, often great), someone, Braxton or otherwise, should commit to & extend etc these charts, this concept--

carl

sonny & linda krishna bhatt & anindo chatterjee granted such could/should happen anywhere it's the WKCR interviews archive that's most gone in the air etc shit there must be dozens of hours with Ben Young & Bill Dixon, somewhere I have an excellent Steve Kuhn WKCR interview re: Coltrane etc etc

uh, whatever one did or didn't pledge to WKCR 10 or 20 or 30 years ago-- when the station's internet presence was either less/non-existant-- isn't precisely relevant today, is it? Nor has WKCR's policy re: sports v. other programming remained static in that period, has it? And even 10 years ago, WKCR didn't have the technology to broadcast thing & stream one other(s), did they? *** the great Sharif Abdus-Salaam announced this evening (Thursday 21 May) that Phil Schaap will be returning to the air Tuesday. He didn't offer any reason for Phil's absence.

hep & to clarify, I was using yr question to make 'public comment,' wasn't assuming it was yr opinion. The criticisms of Schaap-- bits of which are at times justified (he's a very eccentric guy, as anyone with his life and obsessions-- starting with many of his best friends being old black guys from the time he was a kid-- would be), most picayune, overblown, irrelevant compared to what he's done, offers, has encouraged in others etc, be it acolyte student DJs, the years he booked West End Club, the halycon days of Verve label reissues etc. Not to imply Schaap himself is irreplaceable-- he is unique & at his best, terrific (who else will always give you overlay of jazz & Civil Rights history as matter of course?) but the overall commitment of WKCR to jazz, classical, Latin, African, reggae, blues, arts, community news, etc is most important... But if Columbia U starts trying to push their goddamn sports because, you know, 'the brand'... Not sure why they don't broadcast more sports on internet stream and keep airwaves other, more needed, less served, capacious etc but... That WKCR exists as it does is MUCH to Columbia's credit!!!! of course, let's hope they realize its value and the immense goodwill it brings to the university community. And again, just Schaap's and Ben Young's interview archives alone are astounding & tho' the most prolific because of their time there, from the early-mid 1970s onwards there tons & tons of amazing inc., numerous 'new music' & avant jazz performances. Schaap disappearing without explanation and nearly without acknowledgment-- some DJs have noted, others haven't-- might be something Personal but it might a Something Else. Not to mention Bach-fest though I can't say I actually like a good % of old style performances they play. Schaap regularly does a Jazz meets Bach, Bach meets Jazz show for the fest that's excellent though he's also done one on St Matthew's Passion, which he's apparently an adept of.

Negative from whom? Shitheads who just want to hear the fucking music, man? Which is asinine, anyone can just listen to the music, man, anytime. How many minutes/hours of Bird interviews-- i.e. Charlie Parker speaking-- and how many hours of interviews of musicians who played with and knew Bird have you (or anyone) heard on your (anyone's) happy hoss horsewhit "public" radio station? Negative from one guy who had an interesting career in radio & other forms of jazz presentation 40+ years ago? The archive of WKCR interviews alone-- jazz & classical especially but also other arts, some politics, news etc-- is astonishing in depth & breadth & ** any ** signs that such is threatened, inc. Schaap's vanishing, are worrisome. So far, save the Ben Young departure noted by Clifford above and the unprecedented interruption of a birthday broadcast for a sports (or any) talk show, all is mostly as it's been but that doesn't mean it ** has ** to stay that way. Q: how many times have you heard 3+ hour interviews with Roswell Rudd in the last few years? Karl Berger? Ras Moshe? Pheeoan Aklaff? George Lewis? Adam Rudolph? Matt Shipp? MONTHS and MONTHS of dissection of all known recordings of Cecil Taylor 1970-1974? Tons and tons of stuff I didn't hear, am forgetting etc. How long did YOUR local radio station celebrate the life of Ronald Shannon Jackson? Etc etc. WKCR's opera & contemporary classical programming-- check the latter out, JSngry, weekdays 9:30-12 and 3-6, not always because depending on show they might feature diff period or 'contemporary improv' etc-- are alone invaluable and blow any fucking 'classical' station proper (sic) in the U.S. away.

7/4, no, he's definitely missing and it's been noticed. The robot or purposefully non-referential Facebook postings a smokescreen of some kind. I don't know if you noticed but the Duke Ellington b-day broadcast was interrupted from 9-10 PM for the motherfucking weekly sports talk show... do you ever remember something like that happening before? Not suggesting that and Schaap's vanishing are related but both Ominous Signs. A very reasoned but irritated person posted copy of their letter to WKCR board re: Duke b-day on Schaap's facebook btw. The WKCR policy towards sports versus other programming has varied over the years but it's always, horribly, the 9000 lb gorilla in room. If (the rightfully beloved) Sharif Adbus-Salaam doesn't say anything tonight on his program... I'd start worrying.

Respectfully, except for "Augie March," maybe, in parts, Bellow is insufferable and not worth yr time (unless you're already there). Uber-WASP William Gaddis a much funnier, capacious comic "Jewish" writer too. "Augie" at least has verve (if not David Stone Martin, but kinda Oscar Peterson-like, actually, when inspiration flags) & was of interest to superior others... the correct answer is... Theodore Dreiser The Titan Theodore Dreiser The Titan Theodore Dreiser The Titan it's not quite as great for Chi as Dreiser The Financier is for Philly (the Titan is continuation of that story) & American lit generally but still a masterpiece; the Chicago parts and the rest of Sister Carrie also essential if you've not (re-) read recently. If anyone cares to patronize Dreiser, Geoffrey O'Brien's piece on An American Tragedy is useful antidote-- http://www.bookforum.com/archive/sum_03/obrien.html AAT being, among numerous other things, greatest of all possible (white) crime fiction, every half- (& often less) ass "noir" or "hardboiled" this/that I myself have sometimes indulged laughably callow by comparison. The movie's lousy btw tho' Sergei Eisenstein's unproduced treatment of same is itself pretty amazing. I'm forgetting something non-Dreiser too, lemme ponder... Available audibooks for Dreiser mostly excellent btw if you indulge or want to try. *** having pondered: Studs Lonigan maybe more "important" than "great" but eh-- or feh!-- read at least the first volume, it was major totem to x # young writers 1930s-1950s... Frank Norris The Pit also though I'd recommend other Norris first and Dreiser before that though McTeague ---> Sister Carrie a hot combo if you wanna recreate early 20th c. habits. You well know the Stroheim "Greed" story already I presume. John L's answer swell & more embracing than mine, wish there was more, better non-Irish ethnic, black. modernist Chicago novels etc but... maybe someone else will make case for Algren? i'm (at least) agnostic myself but never heard reason to be otherwise.

Nothing on his FB page about his disappearance from the airwaves. Weird. And note, NONE of those posts make any reference to the present; show us a picture of today's newspaper or mention a minor league baseball score from last night or something to show us Schaap is actually alive and/or not kidnapped. I'm exaggerating, slightly, but not much. If he's not back and if Sharif doesn't say anything tomorrow... Something Is Up. Folks could ask Ben Young but... I don't know how much he could or would want to say.

Fast, I don't think it's been a month but at least a couple weeks. He was on for the Mingus and the Ellington birthdays, right? Last week I did hear I a Bird Flight student fill-in say Phil would be in sometine next (now this) week but yes, otherwise it Is A Mystery with no explanation even hinted at. Note also Schaap's good friend & everybody's, Sharif Adbus-Salaam didn't say anything last week as he usuaully would if Phil just had cold or other illness. Marcello, thanks for headsup on Facebook, which I otherwise don't look at but there's no evidence those are 'new' as opposd to pre-made but recent postings. On the other hand, promoting the archives of his site and not addressing his WKCR absence is Strange. Is Phil on vacation? Some serious illness or operation? Suspended?! Quit? Sulking? I never understood the gripes over Bird Flight-- anyone wants to listen to just Bird, the CDs (and now downloads) are there, have at it. The obsessive etc is what's compelling & in the past, interviews with Bird associates. Especially when most people in the U.S. are supposed to be "grateful" for some college or erstwhile "public" radio playing jazz 1.5 times a week, once on the weekends and once at maybe 3 AM on alternating Thursdays. Schaap's Traditions in Swing on Saturdays is often excellent, likewise his Monday Out to Lunch. I'm less than thrilled about the Wynton Marsalis affiliation but... what can you do? That's the reality he and others' in New York jazz have to live with. If anyone is on Twitter I wonder if asking WKCR or WKCR Jazz there would elicit a response?

Lots of people are called "giants", but few truly are. B.B. King was a gaint, and you don't kill a giant, they don't die, they just move on to the next phase. RIP to a genuine giant.

thank you. i gotta head out now but i'll bring back black & white cookies for anyone who wants-- lemme know.

Of course there are correct answers; we're talking musicology, not your favorite cookie. And while Beethoven has melodic moments etc... his genius is motivic And while Schubert did some astonishing things with developement, his genius is melodic These are the correct answers. Where one might 'rank' these in world historical competition Chuck posits is subjective, si, but blurring bar lines of musical construction/comprehension is the answer to nothing. And because I hestitated to start with even, say, Buxtehude or Handel... and this not even broaching the madrigals (which is as misleading as considering Schubert without lied...)