Reviews of 3 OJC Releases.

[JSngry]

http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/000868.html

Review of the Dexter Prestige box coming soon.

Thanks to Joe Milazzo for the opportunities, the patience, and for taking a chance by sending a player to do a real writer's job.

[BruceH]

Nice piece, Jim! Thanks for the link.

[JSngry]

Thankk you!

[Big Wheel]

I have no idea why, but my work's web filter (WebSense) blocks bagatellen. I can only guess that it thinks the words "bag a ...." in a URL have a sexual connotation.

[Dave James]

Same here. Would like to read this.

Up over and out.

[jazzbo]

Jim,

IF you find writing reviews as frustrating and spiritually draining (when the editorial guidelines go against your grain) as I do then An extra one for the perserverance and grunts.

[JSngry]

Thank you.

Getting started is the hard part, getting all the loose ends and soundbites (which come pretty easily, really) harnessed enough to feel confident enough to sit down and turn them loose into a (hopefully) coherent whole.

I suspect that if writing is akin to gestating and birthing, I feel like an elephant, only slower.

[RDK]

Good job, Jim! I've gotta get that Henderson disc one of these days...

[Chuck Nessa]

Jim, is this the reason Concord cancelled the next batch of releases?

[JSngry]

Yep.

I'm the man what done killed the jazz.

[CJ Shearn]

wow Jim, great review

[Dan Gould]

Nice review, but, uh, punctuation goes inside quotations.

Sorry, but its a pet peeve of mine.

[Big Wheel]

Nice review, but, uh, punctuation goes inside quotations.

Sorry, but its a pet peeve of mine.

Actually, it depends. Period yes, comma yes, question mark and colon, no.

edit: I am wrong. It's actually even trickier. (LINK)

Edited April 23, 2005 by Big Wheel

[Dan Gould]

Yes, but in all cases in Jim's reviews, the comma belongs within the quotations.

[JSngry]

Always something new to learn.

Rereading the thing last night, I also saw one or ten examples of sloppy sentence structure. In a sense I don't really care, because I make no claim of being a "real" writer whatsoever, but otoh, it does have my name on it, so the old self-respect bugaboo rears its head, if only by instinct.

My editor came out to my gig last night. Maybe I should have clocked him?

[JSngry]

edit: I am wrong. It's actually even trickier. (LINK)

Oh geez. Like if I didn't absorb all that in high school when my brain was still nimble, I'm going to do it now...

[Dan Gould]

Always something new to learn.

Rereading the thing last night, I also saw one or ten examples of sloppy sentence structure. In a sense I don't really care, because I make no claim of being a "real" writer whatsoever, but otoh, it does have my name on it, so the old self-respect bugaboo rears its head, if only by instinct.

My editor came out to my gig last night. Maybe I should have clocked him?

You also used a hoary cliche, which is something I am currently fighting with my writer-editor brother about in my article about the Sounds demo discovery.

But at least the cliche I have in mind isn't nearly as shopworn as "every cloud has a silver lining."

[JSngry]

Well, yeah, but I should have used "every silver lining has a cloud" to balance it out in regards to the dropped cut from the Griffin disc. That's what happens when you write all in one fell swoop - haste makes waste.

Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Edited April 23, 2005 by JSngry

[Dan Gould]

This just demonstrates how much of an asswipe you are, and why your pathetic rants against PUBLISHED authors are located HERE, where you can spew whatever goddamn lazy illiterate pathetic crap you want to.

Here's a newsflash, for ya, Clem:

I have no doubt that you are regarded as a fuckin' joke by 99% of the people here.

[JSngry]

Hey, don't put me in the middle of this. I dig both you guys, you each got your own very distinct flayva, and I fully appreciate that about both of you. Put me down in the (probable) minority who get a lot of enjoyment from what both of you bring to the table!

Bottom line, in whatever I do, music, amateur writing, whatever, I'm gonna do what I want to do the way I want to do it, accept the mistakes, learn from them, and try to improve as a result - not to please anybody else's standards (legit or avant), but to do it better, truer, and more knowingly the next time. Sometimes the rules will be followed, sometimes not, but it needs to be done knowingly, at least it does for me. That's just how I roll widdit.

All criticism is welcome, although all expectations (one way or the other) are put forth at their own risk.

[Dan Gould]

What do you call a circle jerk with only one participant?

Another episode of "Clem tees off on Francis Davis."

[ghost of miles]

Jim, I'll raise your "probable minority" one and add that you write every day--right here on Organissimo. And quite well, too.

Seems as if there are three schools of thought:

(1) Learn the rules before you break them.

(2) Learn the rules. Period.

(3) Don't learn the rules at all; you're much more likely to be innovative that way.

I probably buy into (1) and am willing to give (3) some time... though it can lead to a lot of untalented obnoxiousness. (And I await my Organissimo colleagues' hepping me to (4), (5), and more. ) And those who set a new style often spawn a bevy of bad imitators. Still, I love and admire Henry Miller, Selby Jr., and some Kerouac and Ellroy just as much as I love and admire stodgier, more stylistically correct folks... and what about Joyce, who overthrew just about everything in Finnegans Wake? Granted, I can read it only a few pages at a time... but it's beautiful, in a mad sort of way. Which is often the way that things are beautiful.

[JSngry]

It's all tools, ya' know, and the more tools you have (or, more accurately, the better command you have of the ones you do have), the better you can build exactly what you want to build.

This stuff ain't never finished!

[Joe G]

Hey, don't put me in the middle of this. I dig both you guys, you each got your own very distinct flayva, and I fully appreciate that about both of you. Put me down in the (probable) minority who get a lot of enjoyment from what both of you bring to the table!

Yep, I dig both of 'em. One of these days I might hit clem up for a list to take to the library (not that he hasn't laid it out already - just need to winnow it down a bit), and Dan and I hung out once on a beautiful Florida evening, so hey, all's cool with me. B-)

Edit to add: Nice write-up, Jim. But can't you write a review that doesn't include a swipe at Marsalis/Crouch?

Edited April 24, 2005 by Joe G

[Chuck Nessa]

But can't you write a review that doesn't include a swipe at Marsalis/Crouch?

Geez, I hate missed opportunities.