Jump to content

Face of the Bass

Members
  • Posts

    893
  • Joined

  • Donations

    0.00 USD 

Posts posted by Face of the Bass

  1. I was wondering if anyone could give me some feedback on the Muhal Richard Abrams set. Worth the price of admission? I'm looking to get into something new in this catalog. I'm already familiar with the material on the Braxton, Lacy, Haden, Dixon, Taylor, Hemphill, and Threadgill sets, and I think somebody is getting me the Lake and Cyrille sets for Christmas.

  2. There is a good book on the real estate markets in Chicago in the mid-twentieth century that deals with the relationships between Jews and African-Americans in a way that is nuanced and more helpful than that implied by most broader classifications. It is called Family Properties, and is written by Beryl Satter.

    One thing to understand about the relationships between Jews and blacks in the U.S. is that many urban neighborhoods that became black in the mid twentieth century were, prior to that, often Jewish and/or containing other white immigrant communities. So there is a kind of hierarchy at work, or rather perhaps a continuum, that occasionally put Jews and blacks into close contact with one another, and in relationships that were often antagonistic and economically exploitative (as happened in the buying and selling of real estate). I think one of the things Satter suggests is that the only partial integration of Jews into the mainstream of American life during the twentieth century often meant that upwardly mobile Jewish people played unsavory economic roles that encouraged anti-Semitism among blacks.

  3. I have for sale both the Chuck Berry Johnny B. Goode box set on Hip-o-select, and the Atlantic R&B Box Set. Both sets are in like new condition, prices include shipping to the US. Paypal only, please inquire for international deliveries.

    Chuck Berry: His Complete 50's Chess Recoridngs -- $70

    Atlantic R&B, 1947-1974 -- $50

    Thanks for looking!

  4. Leeway: Coltrane may have been caught up in the zeitgeist of the times, but it was others that made him a symbol. He would've said, if asked, that he was only searching for beauty.

    I think his music was a bit more political than that, not in an overly-reductive way, but it's there. I think free jazz is the most vibrant sub-genre of jazz that ever existed. The free jazz movement is now 50 years old, basically half the life of all of recorded jazz. While much of it fizzled in the 1970s, I think Leeway is right that it reemerged in other contexts, and can still be heard in the American context in the music of, for instance, William Parker.

    Without the post-Ornette musical legacy, jazz would be pretty boring, IMO. Economically perhaps it hurt the music, but in terms of extending the vitality of the genre, I think it played a very important role in keeping jazz culturally relevant after the emergence of rock and roll.

  5. I think Sonny Rollins's involvement with free jazz may have been two-tiered in its reasons. Part of it seemed to be a genuine desire to expand the artistic pallette, and part not to be left behind by messrs. Coltrane and Coleman. He later stated in interviews that he preferred playing on form and 'so shoot me'. I'm surprised Mr. Baraka didn't focus on Trane more.

    Oh, he does give plenty of love to Coltrane. He says at one point that Coltrane was basically finishing off the song form in jazz, and that Coleman and others like him were picking up where Trane was ending.

  6. I've been reading Baraka/Jones's Black Music this week and I think in those essays, mainly from the early 1960s, his critique of hard bop comes through rather clearly. He compares it to the swing music of the 1930s, in that the hard bop movement represents a mainstreaming of its more revolutionary predecessor (in the case of swing, that would be the music of the 1920s; obviously in the case of hard bop, that's the bebop revolution). He argues that this mainstreaming, with regard to hard bop, leads to a formulaic smoothing of the music's jagged edges. In the early 1960s he was arguing that the just-emerging free jazz of people like Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry and so forth was in a sense a rejection of hard bop and a return to the revolutionary rhythmic potential of bebop.

    FWIW, there's a lot about his analysis that I agree with. One thing I find interesting, reading his stuff from the early 1960s, was his sense that Sonny Rollins was going to be central to the development of free jazz. Certainly there are elements there in the music, but I think that Rollins's subsequent recorded output probably would have been regarded by Jones as something of a letdown.

    Reading these essays has reminded me that, for my money, he's one of the best jazz critics ever and a great essayist. I've never been able to enjoy the poetry as much as I do his prose, but I'll give it another try at some point.

  7. One of the reasons I got into academia was to improve the writing. There are absolutely ways to write about complex cultural phenomena with language that can be understood and appreciated by the educated layperson. I often think that the off-putting formulations of some academics are simply a function of not understanding how to write well.

    Also, to the point earlier that this academic discourse insults jazz, I would add that it insults just about everything that it tries to cover. Seeing the lives of ordinary people reduced in this way is actually even more offensive than what some writers try to do with Trane.

    I started reading the edited volume on Black America's Quest for Freedom and gave up on it partway through. My recollection is that there were a few nice essays but also a lot of stuff that was really third-rate.

  8. I have the following sets for sale. Prices include shipping to the U.S. Paypal only. Inquire for international deliveries. As near as I can tell, these prices are all better than what you will find elsewhere online.

    1. Don Cherry: Codona Trilogy (Like New Condition, ECM) $23

    2. Dexter Gordon Complete Prestige Recordings (Booklet and discs in like new condition. Outer box has minor shelf wear.) $90

    3. Sonny Stitt: Stitt's Bits The Bebop Recordings, 1949-1952 (Discs and booklet in like new condition. Minor shelf wear to outer box.) $13

    4. Henry Threadgill: Complete Black Saint/Soul Note (like new) $23

  9. I have the following Mosaic Sets for sale. Prices include shipping to the U.S. Please inquire about international deliveries. Paypal only, please pm if interested.

    Woody Shaw -- The Complete Muse Sessions. Discs 6 and 7 are still sealed. $100

    Tal Farlow -- The Complete Verve Tal Farlow Sessions. This is the Universal Mosaic Box Set. $120

    Box, booklet, discs and inserts on both these sets are all in like new condition.

    Thanks for looking!

×
×
  • Create New...