Worst liner notes you've ever read?

[ghost of miles]

Pardon this perverse topic, but I just got my first Storyville blowout sale shipment yesterday, and was digging the Benny Goodman LIVE SWING SESSIONS 1943-49 when I made the unfortunate mistake of reading the liner notes. Gawdawful, endless, polemic claptrap about defining "swing" and "the blues," all driven by a most-unearned chip on shoulder... nary a word about the Goodman performances contained within. I've read some pretty bad stuff, but I think this set of notes is the "winner"... I notice that at the bottom there's a disclaimer stating, "The opinions by Mr. Pirie are strictly his own and should not be construed as representing those of JazzUnlimited." No doubt!

[Spontooneous]

Gawdawful, endless, polemic claptrap about defining "swing" and "the blues," all driven by a most-unearned chip on shoulder...

Thought you were talking about Stanley Crouch.

I was going to mention a set of notes that offended me, but then I realized they were written by someone who's registered on this board, so I'll hold my tongue. (Not Kart, Albertson, Lowe or Sangrey.) Have great respect for this person as a musician; he just oughta get somebody else to write the notes.

[ghost of miles]

Gawdawful, endless, polemic claptrap about defining "swing" and "the blues," all driven by a most-unearned chip on shoulder...

Thought you were talking about Stanley Crouch.

Now that you mention it... last night I was enjoying the Charles Lloyd OF COURSE, OF COURSE Mosaic reissue. As I was reading the liner notes, however, I felt a vague sense of irritation beginning to take hold... they weren't gawdawful, just somehow irking me... and then I turned to the last page and saw the infamous Crouch credit. I don't generally go out of my way to bash Stanley, but please, Mosaic, don't make this a habit! Esp. when the Karts, Albertsons, Lowes, and Sangreys of the world are ready, able, and willing...

[Big Al]

Amiri Baraka's notes in the recent Monk/Trane at Carnegie Hall. Even worse than Crouch's in the same set, if you can believe that.

Edited May 22, 2006 by Big Al

[Aggie87]

Related thread...

[Ken Dryden]

I second the motion on the crappy, irrelevant liner notes in the Benny Goodman Jazz Unlimited title mentioned earlier in the thread. If you have to issue a disclaimer, it's better to pay off the author and then hire a real writer to contribute notes in his/her place.

Any number of Stanley Crouch liner notes is worthy of condemnation, but especially the ridiuclous praise of The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra's butchering of the music of Charles Mingus, inlcuding the unintended laugh line: "Lovers of Charles Mingus, lovers of jazz, and lovers of truly superior musicianship will find this an instant classic that lives up to that name." Compare any of these renditions to Mingus' own recordings and they will come up woefully inadequate, especially "Meditations on Integration." Only LCJO could manage to render this moving piece in a boring fashion.

[Simon Weil]

...Any number of Stanley Crouch liner notes is worthy of condemnation...

Oh well, if we're going to go there, I think his "poem" to "The Majesty of the Blues" must be mentioned. I mean, it does make me laugh out loud.

Irony-free. Gawd, a school of Crouch...

Simon Weil

[AllenLowe]

"I was going to mention a set of notes that offended me, but then I realized they were written by someone who's registered on this board, so I'll hold my tongue. (Not Kart, Albertson, Lowe or Sangrey.) Have great respect for this person as a musician; he just oughta get somebody else to write the notes."

now wait...I though Jim's notes on that last Organissimo CD were pretty darn good - especially the reference to 96 Tears -

[AllenLowe]

though I do get a little tired of the naked pictures of his wife on every cover -

[AllenLowe]

and if his kid records one more version of "Tomorrow" I may have to kill someone -

[Fer Urbina]

I notice that at the bottom there's a disclaimer stating, "The opinions by Mr. Pirie are strictly his own and should not be construed as representing those of JazzUnlimited." No doubt!

Pirie... he's fantastic on a June Christy/Johnny Guarnieri Storyville CD I reviewed a while ago: he makes a rather sarcastic comment about Christy's mistake when she introduces George Walters as playing trombone (he's on trumpet), and then incredibly enough he goes on to comment on Leo Guarnieri's violin playing... (LG played cello, and it sounds like a cello.)

Crouch... for some reason I just cannot read his liner notes in one go.

Worst for me are the liner notes to my copy of Zoot Sims' "If I'm Lucky". Nothing really especial (by Benny Green) but I have to read them with a mirror (for some strange printing error).

F

[AllenLowe]

glad that you mentioned Green - he would REALLY be my nominee for worst notes - pseudo-erudite, elliptical in the worst possible way, generally FOS -

[tonym]

Brad Mehldau -- stick to playing the piano mate

[robviti]

joel dorn. 32 jazz. nuff said.

[Rooster_Ties]

Brad Mehldau -- stick to playing the piano mate

Yeah, but I think they're entertaining in their own perverse sort of way.

[JSngry]

I found the original liner notes to O'Neal's Porch to be delusion, perhaps even borderline psychotic.

Great side, though.

[Shawn]

I judge liner notes based on whether they keep my interest whilst I'm sitting on the "throne". If I put them down and start reading the ingredients on the back of a bottle of hand soap...they don't pass my test.

However, in those cases they can be used if the spool is empty.

[Big Al]

joel dorn. 32 jazz. nuff said.

Aw man, I always enjoyed Dorn's notes. Little-kid wide-eyed enthusiasm at its finest, IMHO.

[Shawn]

I can't remember which album it was, but "Leroi Jones" wrote the notes to one of Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis' Prestige albums, wherein he spends the entire time talking about how boring the songs on the album are...but that Lockjaw manages to salvage them to some degree.

They came across as insulting and if I was Lockjaw, I would have found him and wrapped a mic stand around his head.

[Christiern]

If bad liner notes were rewarded with, say, the portly Crouch statuette, I think I would have a space problem.

[AllenLowe]

"Brad Mehldau -- stick to playing the piano mate"

- actually I'm not sure that even that is a good idea - I just heard him on BET Jazz playing the biggest pile of semi-new age piano garbage I have ever heard -

[Hot Ptah]

glad that you mentioned Green - he would REALLY be my nominee for worst notes - pseudo-erudite, elliptical in the worst possible way, generally FOS -

I read many of his liner notes on the 1970s Pablo records and would always wonder afterwards about what it was that I had read. There were a lot of words, but it was like cotton candy for the mind.

[B. Clugston]

No shortage of candidates from LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka. His liner notes to "Live at Birdland" are pretty annoying.

[BruceH]

One of the Savoy Curtis Fuller/Benny Golson reissues. The original liner notes are reproduced, but the funny thing is the writer starts dissing Golson's playing. What a maroon!

[sheldonm]

If bad liner notes were rewarded with, say, the portly Crouch statuette, I think I would have a space problem.

No exactly on subject but when I was in nyc a couple weeks ago, I ran in to Stanley at the Hank Jones/Joe Lovano duo show at LC. Hanging out by the bar drinkin' a bit. Also ran into Frank Wess and Jerry Dodgion sitting in the audience...nice guys.

Also ran into Stanley outside of the Borders in the same building....interesting dude.

m~