MomsMobley

lawanda page jeri southern (just a 'slightly' better standards/jazz influened pop singer than boob dylan, just a bit)

Gotcha LK. And of course Christie such an institution in France few early musicians would want to cross him but musically at least, the results are mostly exemplary. I still rate Rousset pretty well; his Couperin especially stands, I think, and fwiw, though I do enjoy Blandine Rannou greatly, I do recall that Forqueray set as being quite idiosyncratic-- and perhaps revelatory for being so? Agree with Rousset the conductor, have been a fan since the mid-90s when I stumbled upon his recordings of Handel "Scipione" and Jomelli "Armida Abandonata" on the FNAC label. Do you know the Ketil Haugsand Forqueray set on Simax?

Blake, thanks for the thoughtful reply; I know the work of your namesake very very well, from his first sides with Coot Grant onward, so I take your views with appropriate seriousness. That said, I absolutely stand by the statement thay for heartsong etc, those two R & L Thomspon records destroy "BOTT" which is blowzy, insincere, altnerately self-pitying and bitter, poetically and "intellectually" (sic) muddled and the music is mostly boring crap. The singing, if you care to isolate it, is, I admit, fairly strong but that's not enough. Whereas "I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight" and "Pour Down Like Silver" are nuanced, multifaceted, dynamic, both subtle and driving.... Neither Dylan's isolation nor the dogshit 1974 Band tour did him any good btw; "BOTT" tripe one reaction, "Desire" another though some of the Rolling Thunder Review shows were strong (MUCH stronger than that Band tour.) People get so invested in the idea of Dylan's fecundity that they ascribe him way too much credit; yeah, Fairport covered Dylan-- and Leonard Cohen, and Joni Mitchell etc. Others have addressed this but people pulling out '62-'67 Dylan to 'defend' or at deflect attention away from his 1970s are missing the point. And greatly diminishing the collective creative moment that was folk/rock/pop say '64-'74 (speaking loosely). As for Martin Carthy, a terrific musician but just because Zimmy copied him doesn't mean he 'invented' those tunes anymore than Robert Burns might have. (And re-reading Burns is far more salutary than re-reading Bob.) Q: Who's copying whom here? Hmmmmmmm...

Depending where one lives and travels too, some of the best-- and best deals-- in chamber music can heard in college/university music schools, usually, if not always for FREE. I can't remember where I saw it-- American Organist magazine maybe?-- but I've even seen ads about retiring to Oberlin and/or Bloomington because of the music schools' concert programs. (Ghost of Miles in Bloomington too.) speaking of chamber music

twice correct, thank you LK... I forgot-- willfully?-- the conductor book; thus Gunther made himself a target, so be it! I greatly enjoyed Norman del Mar "Anatomy of the Orchestra" however.

And yet-- and this enfolding J's mention of Herbie Nichols above, while we can't overstate American racism, personal and institutional, overt and coded, malevolent and paternalistic etc etc... Jazz was, for a few decades, a HUGELY popular music; what "help" did it "need" that the "market" didn't/couldn't provide? There are. certaonly, examples... Whereas 'classical' music was nearly always the provence of patrons, going on 5-6-700 years by then-- PAUSE J & anyone else, Robert Greenberg can be a little hyped but get thee ASAP to his The Great Courses lectures on Verdi; public library might have, I got mine via Audible.com, whatever... This specifically both because Verdi's musical genius but also his eventful, often admirable & sometimes very difficult life making it as composer in the popular marketplace-- I've actually not seen this video before but... END PAUSE and so while I agree about sometimes unfortunate distribution of resources etc-- though not as much as I greatly lament the declime of common music education in American schools-- there were some legit reasons for this and, be careful what we wish for, as all the $$$ & opportunity in the world hasn't turned Wynton Marsalis into even a good composer. We can name numerous other, lesser examples, for every giant like Wadada, Roscoe, Tony etc etc... Why do ya'll think George Walker-- sorry to say, for him and for us- can come off somewhat embittered? p/s: can't-- should never-- forget John Carter.

Considering that Lewis was one of the earliest "champions" of Ornette Coleman, I suppose that Dolphy could be forgiven for expecting different ears out of him than he got. What's even funnier is Dolphy provides pretty much the only sustaining moments of that whole project and I'm generally a John Lewis "fan." Phuckin' Phil Woods on the other hand... from jazz hot to (mostly) jazz schlock in how many bars? much as i might enjoy most of those musicians elsewhere, Eric was the ONLY one there with the true temperament for Brecht/Weill, which demands far more than slick note spinning and odd bits of 'quirky' orchestration to convey.

Not to defend anyone's errors but weird to see that guy get so sooooOOOOO worked up, especially in the contexts of 1) Gunther Schuller's multifaceted career 2) a pretty long ass book 3) the vast room for potential error in the writing, editing, printing of any book... 3a) especially before computers 3b) though, paradoxically, older books generally have a far higher stand ardd of production, proofreading etc than contemporary ones 4) consider the errors that frequently in numerous composer's scores, as written, copied, published. I'd no more defend Schuller en toto than I would, say, Dick Sudhalther but his (their's) contributions to music(ology) are substantial. Pretty sure Richard Rodney Bennett orchestrated yet I await Darcy James Argue's trascriptions (choreography optional)--

I'd echo the sentiment while suggesting the opposite-- better composer than pianist & however welcome to have en masse, that Haydn set was pretty awful, a black hole of vivacity, wit, drama-- dharma too! likewise, later, McCabe's recording of Hindemith "Ludas Tonalis." some of the symphonies i've heard are at least decent--

I trust you have good sources on William Christie? I've only heard the opposite but that's regarding his music & decades of intrepidness... This is somewhat surprising to the extent Christie an American exile because of Vietnam but... if it takes a little whip to make Les Arts superior to whomever, say, Leonhardt, McGegan, Kuijken etc... so be it: for his Purcell, Lully, Charpentier, Rameau, even Mozart (excellent Seraglio & Zauberflote) alone, Christie can kick anyone he wants in the shawm. He wasn't a slouch harpsichordist either though I think he's largely been surpassed, not least by Rousset and Sempe. Royer v. Royer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31fTGxg9Qg8

Mori, my sincere comrade in good sounds: as you well know, Richard Thomson neither wrote nor sang "Matty Groves," and though he sure played fine guitar, that lineup of Fairport-- also as you well know-- was a tremendous BAND. What he peeps about in some unseen interview not a concern-- and sounds like one of RT's dry jokes! Further, every song on "I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight" and "Pour Down Like Silver" are greater, in every possible way except callow verbosity, than any on "Blood On The Tracks" (save "Buckets of Rain") or "Desire" (save certain live performances of "Isis"). Also, putrid and inexcusably moronic as "Joey" is, the backstory and fusion of sincerity/idiocy that Dylan invests in it is... "remarkable." ("Astounding!") Stange so few contributors here seem familiar with Paul Williams' Dylan books as he nearly alone and at length was championing certain sides of his career-- performance especially-- when most right thinking folk-- couldn't be bothered. It's as a musician, and performer, that Dylan rises or falls for most of the last 40 years and yes, "Blood On The Tracks" was and remains middlebrow. If someone wants to grant it adolescent fervor (from a 35-year-old jillionaire of a man)... OK, there's room for value judgements. I think Dylan's 1984 MTV interview with Martha Quinn posted above is far far FAR truer-- and charming, sympathetic-- measure of the man but of course we couldn't know that then. (If anyone wants to get all "textual" etc, there's more potential value in "Renaldo and Clara," depending on how you see/read it, than all the lyrics of "BOTT" in any of their versions.) To take 95% of Dylan even half-seriously as a writer of song-as-verse, however, is ludicrous, and it's why "High Water Everywhere (For Charley Patton)" is a vastly greater achievement than ersatz "wistful" crap like "Blind Willie McTell." Now, if someone loves that song, again OK, but we could also substitute damn near any word & it would make no difference, which is to say Dylan's writing is null, just sounds and filler. That's fine, it's music after all but are so many people invested in pretending it's more? For language & ideation both, Dylan's writing of words '80-'84 (say) beats nearly everything from "Nashville Skyline" through the tentative "Slow Train Coming." He did start pushing hard again, albeit oddly. JohnL, your holistic view is a sage one but also why some of who were listening in the bleak-but-not-wholly-unredeeemed 1980s-- and those who never bought the "Blood On Tracks" schtick that more words = better-- have a difficult time with Zimmymania 2015-- let alone his lies about Tom T. Hall. Ginsberg & Dylan Danko & Grogan (kills anything the Band did after 1968)

Dylan seems to have written a lot of his lyrics to fit his own voice and phrasing, and so what looks on the page like a rhyme that doesn't work, ends up sounding perfectly fine when he performs it. One thing I love about his lyrics is the chance-taking and humor he uses in his rhymes, like pairing Honalul-lah with Ashtabula in "You're gonna make me lonesome when you go." Dylan also read a lot of free verse poetry, and of course he listened to a lot of blues and country, where perfectly formed rhymes were less important than the overall presentation and emotional content. Dylan obviously didn't emulate conservative lyricists, like Gilbert and Sullivan, whose rhyming schemes had to be perfectly in sync, but that's part of Dylan's coolness, in my opinion. In part, that's why I posted "Foot of pride" above, which, for me, really demonstrates the rugged appeal of his words. And it's hard to resist (for me, anyway) the sarcasm, barely concealed anger, and gospel fervor of this song. The two I posted from "Blood on the "Tracks" get across Dylan's enormously powerful but unsappy way with love songs. I also REALLY like the "On the Road," Beat Generation imagery of "Tangled Up in Blue." Dylan's "impossible-to-understand" lyrics probably came out of his deep appreciation for Rimbaud, whose New Vision approach, which was taken up by the Beats and other modern poets, was in large part about uninhibited self-expression. Got more to say here, but need to take my kid to the movies. not sure any of us know what "diddy wah diddy" means blake but i'll grant you're a Dylan enthusiast. i used to make similarly impassioned pleas for, oh i dunno... "Just Like Tom T. Hall Blues"? "New Danville Girl"? (the original recording, not the retitled "Knocked Out Loaded" abortion.) maybe even some demo version of "Caribbean Wind"? this last, from a period of misdirection, true. Both Allen Ginsberg/Dylan "Vomit Express" and Danko/Grogan "Java Blues" are far more sustaining. at his best, Dylan has come up with some novel combinations of prosody, image etc... he's also come up with A LOT banal dogshit-- some of which is redeemed by inspired musical performances (again, return to Paul Williams, not some slumming English professor, for details), much of which is not. This is why Dylan's albums since the vigorous "Love And Theft" suck-- cornball readymades straight up & down, on the page & in the air. Cultists may find glimmers but please... In a vast world of now easily accessible musical & literary achievement, why bother? And in a world of brilliantly layered English/Scots ballads & world folktales and literature (try the "Baghavad Gita" or Cao Xueqin "Dream of the Red Chamber" for starters) why did anyone ever bother with garbage like "Lily, Rosemary and Jack of Hearts"? "Roll On, John" is of course deathless, yuk yuk yuk, Leos Janacek only wishes he'd been so aged & vital. Dylan's "Titanic" is so fucking awful, on every possible level, it's almost enough to make one wish they had gone down with the great ship etc. Even at Dylan's peak btw, one was then and is now vastly better off reading any random dozen Grove Press/Evergreen books than thinking too hard about Dylan's meaning, which is almost invariably trite or commonplace. At certain times, with certain bands, the music-- and singing-- is engaging: 1963-1966; 1967 ("John Wesley Harding," mostly NOT "The Basement Tapes"-- a handful of good songs & lotsa dross-- & definitely not garbage like "Nashville Skyline")... then the great Elvis-influenced gospel bands (the words were mostly silly/doctrine but the live, with the sermons & backup singers etc, the songs cooked). white people LOVE the song Blind Willie McTell... puts such gauzey sepia tint on the remarkable life of a sophisticated black artist/entertainer one needn't even consider it real, oops. Far less a "tribute," it's insecure yet arrogant Dylan pining for approbation, worth by association he in no way deserves. Matty Merle

If you're not already a GTM adept, pass. It won't change your mind and same lessons can be learned elsewhere for less, either in the first Braxton House run or the four-cd 2006 quartet set on Important. It's cool the Iridium box exists but if you're talking a 100 bones... i'd start smaller & only jump for the box when you're craving more.

unmentioned (here) essential (if not necessarily flawless) notes and tones art taylor raise up off me hampton hawes jazz masters of the 1930s rex stewart jazz masters of the 1950s joe goldberg the swing era gunther schuller the big bands george t. simon thelonious monk robin d.g. kelley forces in motion graham lock who speaks for the negro robert penn warren http://whospeaks.library.vanderbilt.edu *** the glut of u press jazz (& some blues, country) dogshit is mostly (mostly) well-intentioned (prices usually not insane, ubu, compared to texts in other fields) but between largely unknowing department chairs handing out paper & largely non-interventionist u press "editors" (but not line editors as you'd hope)... LOTS of mistakes in conception & writing happen. avoid: ALL Whitney Balliett (you'll learn nothing true except how to fake it at slick magazine)-- hard to believe ANYONE would credit Balliett anything compared to, say, Edmund Wilson "To The Finland Station" or "Patriotic Gore" (doesn't matter if different subects, compare ideation) or George Steiner (read "My Unwrtten Books" first if unfamiliar) etc etc. Needless to say, jazz fans who've read Balliett and not the novels of Charles Chesnutt or at least five books by W.E.B. DuBois are missing forest for JAMF brand plastic trees.

interesting... did you discover via Boykan? Also, in the Z, between Zallman and Zelenka, say, Eric Zeisl:

was this not posted last year? i honestly don't recall. http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/greatest-music-producer-you-have-never-heard I know I need not remind you & other veteran board members but the idea that Tom Wilson-- born 1931-- was a Republican makes all the sense in the world... lest we forget the party of Jim Crow, legal in the south, de facto in the urban north. Martin Luther King Sr. a Republican until 1960, when Jack & Bobby helped get his son out of Georgia prison; Jackie Robinson was Republican until (fucking) Goldwater so disgusted him became prominent among Republicans for Johnson etc. Jackie at first cut Nixon too much slack but he'd not make that mistake twice and, going into the 1960 campaign, Nixon's black Civil Rights record wasn't half-bad... and no worse than Southern Democrat footsie playing JFK. In 1968, Jackie supported Hubert Humphrey, though he was still Republican with close ties to New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller.

mmmmmmm... i dunno. while not dismissing Higdon, some of her pieces seemed too soft for me, an impression heightened back when by this unfortunate interview-- http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113096332918386569 and granted, you want to communicate to a general audience etc... let's say I'm agnostic but open; touting John Adams doesn't impress me but the deeper parts of Copland and Barber both do. I suspect the Lark is already on it but I have, coincidentally-- not to compare women composers to only other women!-- been enjoying of Higdon's slightly older Brit contemporary, Sally Beamish. And-- though Branford doesn't interest me, neither does he grossly offend & credit where due-- Will check out the Bridge/Lark/Higdon disc, thanks for head's up.

It means he doesn't know WTF he's talking about; typical-- the idiot wind is within-- but there's likely some schmoe who'll annotate it instead of reading or re-reading George Washington Cable (who?) & knuckleheads will say... oooh, that's "America," that's "poetry" (sic.) Mark, for a few sides to that very interesting question of inventing the blues, I suggest you listen to this presentation the great & heavy collector, record producer & independent scholar Don Kent. It begins with Don mentioning a recent conversation he'd recently had with (not "Roll on") John J. Sullivan, whose Geechie Wiley piece many people rightly admired. http://www.eastriverstringband.com/radioshow/?p=1214 you can listen online, download an mp3 or (i think) get it free via itunes.

Obviously I'm not going to argue what 'means' something to anyone but the idea that "Blood On The Tracks" has ANY 'emotional truth' or ANY 'literary value' (yuk yuk yuk) I-- and others-- can only ascribe to mass delusion. "Buckets of Rain" is a nice tune, John Renbourn covers it live along with Randy Weston "Little Niles." That middlebrow lit critics have gulled anyone-- including themselves-- that this shit "matters" just shows how little they cared for literature-- high and low-- to begin with. (Writer and editor types especially like "BOTR" because its achievement is obviously attainable; just keep throwing shit down, find a strophic tune that fits, don't worry about "editing" or concision or le mot juste or "Mo' Greens Please"... "BOTR" may or may not be a persuasive performance but that's a differnt story-- consult goodhearted Paul Williams.) Dylan is still dogshit; "funny" his "camp" found Bill Flanagan to pimp Bob's fucking nonsense & he TOTALLY avoided the Tom T. Hall question. (Pimps don't deserve boldface.) What's the matter Bill and Bob, even the semblance of historical accuracy doesn't fit your $$$ or ego mad bitterness & deception? Dixie Hall RIP, lest we forget the man some of ya'll admire-- http://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2015/01/17/dixie-hall-prolific-bluegrass-songwriter-dies/21914181/ And yet-- I'll grant ya'll "Watchtower" (won't give it to you, that's for Prince & Larry Graham doorknockers to do) & "Buckets of Rain"-- with Robin Williamson!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBU9pEQwtQE

Please explain? Space is space, not sure if there is intrinsic "trumpet space" to be filled vs "tenor space". Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the notion? Either way, Ray Copeland & Thad Jones both handled the spaces they were given just dandily...I'd add Joe Gordon too, but slightly less dandily. And from a different instrumental approach, Don Cherry played him some Monk too.

All I know is that I've applied "Ballad Of A Thin Man" to both Life and to Jerry Jones's Cowboys early decline with equally satisfying profundity. Good song, good album-- vastly better than blithering doggerel dogshit like "Blood On The Tracks," which middlebrows extol because they figure-- not entirely incorrectly-- that if they apply themselves, they too can vomit forth that many lyrics-- no quality control. It also shows up what crap Dylan's current vocals are, his current standards drivel most definitely included. Side Q: did you read & if so, have an opinion on Joe Nick Patoski's Cowboys book from a couple years ago? Speaking of Sinatra-- *** LK, more on Lenny the man, did you read DeLillo "Underworld" & if not, if so, go back to section five, "Better Thingds For Better Living Through Chemistry" which has five uncanny Lenny Bruce routines set during the week of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Highly highly recommended whatever one's past feelings might be DeLillo. I believe Fosse originally wanted Cliff Gorman for the movie but who's Cliff Gorman? The commentary track on the Criterion "All That Jazz" with the film's editor Alan Heim is exceptional. (Most Criterion discs are padded with this filler, this one isn't, not that Heim's insight's are 'necessary,' but they are illuminating.)

turn it on, turn it on, turn it on greed kills more people than whiskey (from 1979, which is after the commonly accepted 'classic' period)

Paul-- I like plenty of Dylan and have since l-o-n-g before the current inane idol worship phase we've (re-)entered. The 1980 gospel tour is among Zimmy's very greatest musical work & within its own nutty, received bounds, it's lyrically trenchant also. Dullsville "Modern Times" & 'tastey' dogshit like most of "The Tempest" are a waste of everyone's time, save the idle idol worshippers. Roll on, John!!! Will we never hear (the loathsome) Traveling Wilburys again? What I take extreme umbrage at is his bullshit about Tom T. Hall which is factually, historically, politically wrong, as I'm sure you & other know. Interesting question whether a "friend" like Kristofferson told Bob he was out of line, DIxie Hall RIP sure but that's just for starters. That the author of "If Dogs Ran Free"-- or fucking "Sara" for that matter (& lots others)-- could be churlish about others' low points... Noone ever said he was "class," unlike Merle who's is an exponentially greater artist than Buck Owens ever cared to be; I'm a huge Don Rich & Buckaroos fan but come on. *** Larry, I cannot believe you called up Paulin Kael for that!! Which compeltely misapprehends both Fosse's intentions (tho' she's correct to note its visual splendor) and Lenny's career. Fosse as director almost never works on just the surface level, which is all Kael seems to have recognized. However, before defending "Lenny" further and explaining its "flaws"-- how could it NOT be flawed?-- I do urge you & everyone to rewatch "All That Jazz," one submotif of which is the editing of "Lenny" & which sequences feature the star of the Broadway Lenny, Cliff Gorman. Not suggesting it's true in your case but generally-- & I once included myself in this #-- otherwise smart people drastically underrate Fosse as film director because they can't believe he's serious, that the dancer/dance guy really made great, highly individual movies (OK, you got Fellini first but hey, that's like saying Coleman Hawkins got the tenor first, of course, now whaddya do with it?) That "All That Jazz" was a popular success of 1979 was remarkable then & flabbergasting now. *** Bob can be charming when he's trying to get laid--

from today's Washington Post "What DId Poor Old Tom T Hall Do To Deserve Bob Dylan's Scorn" http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2015/02/10/what-did-poor-old-tom-t-hall-do-to-do-deserve-bob-dylans-scorn/ *** There used to be a clip of Phil Ochs on "Midnight Special" with Curtis Mayfield '73 or '74-- deep in his bi-polar or multiple personality period-- but, despite a broken arm, Phil's strong and Curtis seemed genuinely pleased to introduce him.

Mr. S-- Phil a fascinating figure, went to Staunton military academy, Staunton, Va. became radicalized, the early protest stuff isn't the measure of the artist, the A&M studio records went beyond that with... 'curious' effect. Some great moments but generally, Phil and his guitar serve the ideation best. And he was a great writer, and a great singer, who thought/felt waaaaaaaaay too much about very difficult subjects and broke down from the effort. Q: have you seen Bob Fosse dir. "Lenny" lately? Highly illuminating to watch back to back with the astonishing "All That Jazz" (praise be Ralph Burns & George Benson) "The World Began In Eden And Ended In Los Angeles"