Louis Armstrong Mosaic planned with his 1935-1946 Decca sides

[Christiern]

I don't think so Chris.

That letter from Glaser was fascinating to see. Thanks.

I removed it because it was ignored and probably just in the way here. It will reappear, along with other more interesting stuff from that pile, in the "I came across" thread.

[AllenLowe]

thanks Chris, for making sense of a lot this -

On one hand, I do think it matters what we call things - in the same way it matters that certain kinds of music are jazz and certain kinds of music may be called rock and roll, because it gives us a picture of why people do things, why they sing and why they make music. It's the reason people come to this site; on the other hand there is the issue of value judgement - the Lincoln Center crew use terms like "blues" divisively, to separate it from that which they consider lesser forms of music like pop and hip hop, and in that I certainly agree with you and probably just about everybody else here. In doing so (and this is why I write) they also deny certain musicians their place in the music and in its history - so when I define Louis's blues playing as less than the blues playing of some other musicians, it is not to belittle his greatness (though Marsalis would interpret it as so) - it is only to say, hey, there is a big world of music out there, let us not use history as a club with which to beat people with whom we don't agree.

[Larry Kart]

And I'm telling you that in at least some quarters in at least some portions of America, that damn near any African-American vernacular music that is not hip-hop or MOR is consensually referred to as "blues".

Sure, but I think that part of Allen's point (if not the gist of it) was that when Armstrong was becoming Armstrong, in the early to mid-1920s, the lay of the land in regard to blues strains and strains of minstrelsy in the music was significantly different than it is now, and if one knows what the lay of that land was (insofar as we can know it), Armstrong's undeniable use of blues material seems to have been from a minstrelsy perspective. This, of course, does not mean that Armstrong was what used to be thought of as a minstrel show performer; not at all. Rather, that the game-like, shape-shifting of minstrelsy (its gift for amplification and projection) was, Allen and others feel, what can be heard in how Armstrong handled blues material, and that is not what one hears in, to follow Allen's apt example, someone like Tommy Johnson.

To emphasize again, Tommy Johnson and guys like Tommy Johnson matter in this not only because of the nature of what they were doing but also what they were doing then was pretty much being done then -- music like theirs was consensually/communally regraded as the blues (were not just talking about record companies here), and Armstrong was part of the community that was well aware of that strain of American vernacular music, felt its power, but (as Allen feels) then went on to, in Armstrong's case, "handle" it in effect. Armstrong, as is well known and can be heard, also felt and "handled" a fair amount of the Italian opera vibe that was readily available in New Orleans, but one wouldn't say that when he did this he was a Puccini or a Caruso musician.

P.S. I can't put my hands on it right now, but one of the most fascinating pocket examples of the musical "lay of the land" back then is a CD of Gus Cannon and His Jug Stompers material from 1927 -- Cannon born in Mississippi in 1883. From piece to piece, things shift from strains that are pretty clearly blues-like, minstrel-like, even what what would come to be called "old-timey" country (this is the band that gave us "Walk Right In")-- all this being played and sung by pretty much the same group of musicians with frequently tremendous zest and flair. But however satisfying/charming the blues-like pieces are, there is a definite sense of minstrelsy-like handling and presentation to them vis-vis-a-vis the kind of direct dramatic involvement one gets from Tommy Johnson or Charley Patton -- this also being evident in how the Cannon band can shift so readily and convincingly into other stylistic modes.

Now I'm not saying that Tommy Johnson or Charley Patton didn't know and couldn't have played the crap out of some mountain fiddle tunes if they'd wanted to, or that the "direct dramatic involvement" of their own material involved no amount of dramatization of their part, but you probably get the picture. And I'm certainly not saying that Cannon's Jug Stompers were in the same place as Armstrong, if only because the latter was, musically and otherwise, a kind of unleashed, unstoppable,immensely sophisticated thunderbolt, while Cannon and his colleagues had little room for "development" in themselves; they were great in their time and place, and that was about it.

Finally, Jim, not every attempt to sift and quantify is at bottom (as I sometimes feel you've come to think) an attempt to control and dismiss what has been running free and should be left to be that way. Take a look, for instance, at Lawrence Gushee's "Pioneers of Jazz: The Story of the Creole Band" (Oxford U. Press, 2005), to see what real jazz scholarship at work can be like and, more to the point, how it involves sifting through all sorts of contemporary, often fragmentary evidence and partial highly colored latter-day testimony, reminscences, and perspectives with a rather jaw-dropping blend of love and scrupulousness -- all of which can leave us with (as is the case with Gushee's book) something very close to a near-living-and-breathing woolly mammoth; the Creole Band (which included Feddie Keppard, Jimmy Noone, bassist Bill Johnson et al.) of course being tremendously important to the history of jazz -- touring the country as a fairly major vaudeville act from 1914 to 1918, it had a vast influence, even though the band left behind not a single recording.

[JSngry]

And I'm telling you that in at least some quarters in at least some portions of America, that damn near any African-American vernacular music that is not hip-hop or MOR is consensually referred to as "blues".

Sure, but I think that part of Allen's point (if not the gist of it) was that when Armstrong was becoming Armstrong, in the early to mid-1920s, the lay of the land in regard to blues strains and strains of minstrelsy in the music was significantly different than it is now, and if one knows what the lay of that land was (insofar as we can know it), Armstrong's undeniable use of blues material seems to have been from a minstrelsy perspective. This, of course, does not mean that Armstrong was what used to be thought of as a minstrel show performer; not at all. Rather, that the game-like, shape-shifting of minstrelsy (its gift for amplification and projection) was, Allen and others feel, what can be heard in how Armstrong handled blues material, and that is not what one hears in, to follow Allen's apt example, someone like Tommy Johnson.

To emphasize again, Tommy Johnson and guys like Tommy Johnson matter in this not only because of the nature of what they were doing but also what they were doing then was pretty much being done then -- music like theirs was consensually/communally regraded as the blues (were not just talking about record companies here), and Armstrong was part of the community that was well aware of that strain of American vernacular music, felt its power, but (as Allen feels) then went on to, in Armstrong's case, "handle" it in effect. Armstrong, as is well known and can be heard, also felt and "handled" a fair amount of the Italian opera vibe that was readily available in New Orleans, but one wouldn't say that when he did this he was a Puccini or a Caruso musician.

P.S. I can't put my hands on it right now, but one of the most fascinating pocket examples of the musical "lay of the land" back then is a CD of Gus Cannon and His Jug Stompers material from 1927 -- Cannon born in Mississippi in 1883. From piece to piece, things shift from strains that are pretty clearly blues-like, minstrel-like, even what what would come to be called "old-timey" country (this is the band that gave us "Walk Right In")-- all this being played and sung by pretty much the same group of musicians with frequently tremendous zest and flair. But however satisfying/charming the blues-like pieces are, there is a definite sense of minstrelsy-like handling and presentation to them vis-vis-a-vis the kind of direct dramatic involvement one gets from Tommy Johnson or Charley Patton -- this also being evident in how the Cannon band can shift so readily and convincingly into other stylistic modes.

Now I'm not saying that Tommy Johnson or Charley Patton didn't know and couldn't have played the crap out of some mountain fiddle tunes if they'd wanted to, or that the "direct dramatic involvement" of their own material involved no amount of dramatization of their part, but you probably get the picture. And I'm certainly not saying that Cannon's Jug Stompers were in the same place as Armstrong, if only because the latter was, musically and otherwise, a kind of unleashed, unstoppable,immensely sophisticated thunderbolt, while Cannon and his colleagues had little room for "development" in themselves; they were great in their time and place, and that was about it.

Finally, Jim, not every attempt to sift and quantify is at bottom (as I sometimes feel you've come to think) an attempt to control and dismiss what has been running free and should be left to be that way. Take a look, for instance, at Lawrence Gushee's "Pioneers of Jazz: The Story of the Creole Band" (Oxford U. Press, 2005), to see what real jazz scholarship at work can be like and, more to the point, how it involves sifting through all sorts of contemporary, often fragmentary evidence and partial highly colored latter-day testimony, reminscences, and perspectives with a rather jaw-dropping blend of love and scrupulousness -- all of which can leave us with (as is the case with Gushee's book) something very close to a near-living-and-breathing woolly mammoth; the Creole Band (which included Feddie Keppard, Jimmy Noone, bassist Bill Johnson et al.) of course being tremendously important to the history of jazz -- touring the country as a fairly major vaudeville act from 1914 to 1918, it had a vast influence, even though the band left behind not a single recording.

It's 2008 now, almost 2009. With each passing year I have a harder and harder time convincing myself that that any of this really matters any more except for those whom it matters, which (and I can't stress this enough), outside of those who lived it and for whom it is still living, breathing reality imprinted in their souls by first-hand contact, is becoming an increasingly isolated group of individuals with increasingly eccentric and self-absorbed agendas. Tommy Johnson, Charlie Patton, they did what they did, and there ain't no takin' it back. People today do what they do with or without any knowledge of all this, and frankly, I don't see how it ultimately makes a whole helluva lot of difference one way or the other if they do, other than that the people who do are a little-to-a-lot more self-consciously "removed" from their surroundings (and the further the distance, the moreso they become, it seems), which sorta takes the "pop" out of pop culture, and whether we're talking minstrelsy or country blues, it was all pop culture then.

Allen likes to point out that history inevitably repeats itself, keeps coming back. Well yeah, in a sense it does, but not with the same old faces. It's dynamics that repeat, not people. All this micro-dissecting of stuff that's long gone, there's something Pinocchio-ish, Frankenstein-ish about it all. When Chris posts a letter from Joe Glaser, hey, that's fascinating, because it's real. You start "theorizing" about long-gone misty visages in an attempt to prove/justify/whatever something, and even if you do get it done, so what?, sorry, I've lost the notion of why I should really give a shit anymore.

If this is the time to officially get off this vampire train, then I'm off. When history becomes something to constantly rehash and redefine (and again - to what end and to whose benefit?) instead of something to enjoy & propel you forwards (and to that end, kudos to Chris for his ongoing sharing of his personal collection, that stuff is fun, in the best sense!), I smell death, and I'm in no hurry to get there any sooner than I already will.

In the meantime, life right now is pretty damn good, pretty damn interesting, and pretty damn well worth being fully involved in. Whether or not Louis Armstrong had a medicine-show soul is not something that's going to make me dance, if you know what I mean. Louis Armstrong himself will make me dance, medicine-show soul or not, and at this point, hey, good enough, mission accomplished, I should think, long-term, big-picture game won.

Of how many of us will that be said?

Edited November 23, 2008 by JSngry

[JSngry]

One more thing - people who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but people who do learn from it seem to repeat it it as well.

Shit gonna be what it gonna be, one way or the other, good or bad, tragic or heroic, the good can fuck it up and the bad can get it right. We kid ourselves if we think otherwise.

[Larry Kart]

It's 2008 now, almost 2009.

And once it was 1898, almost 1899.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

One more thing - people who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but people who do learn from it seem to repeat it it as well.

Aphorism of the year!

MG

[JSngry]

It's 2008 now, almost 2009.

And once it was 1898, almost 1899.

Yeah, and they kicked it that way, didn't they?

[AllenLowe]

hmm, this is getting more complicated - however:

"Allen likes to point out that history inevitably repeats itself, keeps coming back. Well yeah, in a sense it does, but not with the same old faces. It's dynamics that repeat, not people. All this micro-dissecting of stuff that's long gone, there's something Pinocchio-ish, Frankenstein-ish about it all. When Chris posts a letter from Joe Glaser, hey, that's fascinating, because it's real. You start "theorizing" about long-gone misty visages in an attempt to prove/justify/whatever something, and even if you do get it done, so what?, sorry, I've lost the notion of why I should really give a shit anymore.

If this is the time to officially get off this vampire train, then I'm off. When history becomes something to constantly rehash and redefine (and again - to what end and to whose benefit?) instead of something to enjoy & propel you forwards (and to that end, kudos to Chris for his ongoing sharing of his personal collection, that stuff is fun, in the best sense!), I smell death, and I'm in no hurry to get there any sooner than I already will."

1) I've never said that history repeats itself; I said, after Philip Larkin, that it's always happening, the past is always present in the present. There's a significant difference.

2) to each his own on the uses of history - there is, however, a big difference between the way, say, Jaki Byard, and Bird, and The AACM, and Armstrong himself used it and the way Lincoln Center or the Widespread Depression Orchestra might do so. There is nothing deadly about any of these; just listen to the music. Ask Mr. Nessa about the musicians he's worked for and their attitude toward history (and not just jazz history) as something to be encountered with pleasure, not as a an ideal or a better time - just a different time, but one that still lives.

3) I understand where Jim is coming from, I think; it's like the Great Books methods of teaching, or high school histroy, in which the past is taught because it's somehow good for you - I agree that that's (middle class) nonsense; and Lincoln Center has tended to parrot that attitude. But to lump us all together is grossly unfair.

in my own work I study musical history because it feeds me, it keeps me alive, it's like looking into some kind of odd mirror to see not just where we, but where I, have come from. It's fascinating, and I don't believe that, in my own music, I use it in any way that is retro or reactionary. I also think that there is nothing of the museum in my historical projects - I try to make them living, breathing, complex organisms, and this is one of the reasons my work gets regular rejection from academics and academic presses.

Edited November 23, 2008 by AllenLowe

[John L]

And I'm telling you that in at least some quarters in at least some portions of America, that damn near any African-American vernacular music that is not hip-hop or MOR is consensually referred to as "blues".

Sure, but I think that part of Allen's point (if not the gist of it) was that when Armstrong was becoming Armstrong, in the early to mid-1920s, the lay of the land in regard to blues strains and strains of minstrelsy in the music was significantly different than it is now, and if one knows what the lay of that land was (insofar as we can know it), Armstrong's undeniable use of blues material seems to have been from a minstrelsy perspective. This, of course, does not mean that Armstrong was what used to be thought of as a minstrel show performer; not at all. Rather, that the game-like, shape-shifting of minstrelsy (its gift for amplification and projection) was, Allen and others feel, what can be heard in how Armstrong handled blues material, and that is not what one hears in, to follow Allen's apt example, someone like Tommy Johnson.

To emphasize again, Tommy Johnson and guys like Tommy Johnson matter in this not only because of the nature of what they were doing but also what they were doing then was pretty much being done then -- music like theirs was consensually/communally regraded as the blues (were not just talking about record companies here), and Armstrong was part of the community that was well aware of that strain of American vernacular music, felt its power, but (as Allen feels) then went on to, in Armstrong's case, "handle" it in effect. Armstrong, as is well known and can be heard, also felt and "handled" a fair amount of the Italian opera vibe that was readily available in New Orleans, but one wouldn't say that when he did this he was a Puccini or a Caruso musician.

P.S. I can't put my hands on it right now, but one of the most fascinating pocket examples of the musical "lay of the land" back then is a CD of Gus Cannon and His Jug Stompers material from 1927 -- Cannon born in Mississippi in 1883. From piece to piece, things shift from strains that are pretty clearly blues-like, minstrel-like, even what what would come to be called "old-timey" country (this is the band that gave us "Walk Right In")-- all this being played and sung by pretty much the same group of musicians with frequently tremendous zest and flair. But however satisfying/charming the blues-like pieces are, there is a definite sense of minstrelsy-like handling and presentation to them vis-vis-a-vis the kind of direct dramatic involvement one gets from Tommy Johnson or Charley Patton -- this also being evident in how the Cannon band can shift so readily and convincingly into other stylistic modes.

Now I'm not saying that Tommy Johnson or Charley Patton didn't know and couldn't have played the crap out of some mountain fiddle tunes if they'd wanted to, or that the "direct dramatic involvement" of their own material involved no amount of dramatization of their part, but you probably get the picture. And I'm certainly not saying that Cannon's Jug Stompers were in the same place as Armstrong, if only because the latter was, musically and otherwise, a kind of unleashed, unstoppable,immensely sophisticated thunderbolt, while Cannon and his colleagues had little room for "development" in themselves; they were great in their time and place, and that was about it.

Finally, Jim, not every attempt to sift and quantify is at bottom (as I sometimes feel you've come to think) an attempt to control and dismiss what has been running free and should be left to be that way. Take a look, for instance, at Lawrence Gushee's "Pioneers of Jazz: The Story of the Creole Band" (Oxford U. Press, 2005), to see what real jazz scholarship at work can be like and, more to the point, how it involves sifting through all sorts of contemporary, often fragmentary evidence and partial highly colored latter-day testimony, reminscences, and perspectives with a rather jaw-dropping blend of love and scrupulousness -- all of which can leave us with (as is the case with Gushee's book) something very close to a near-living-and-breathing woolly mammoth; the Creole Band (which included Feddie Keppard, Jimmy Noone, bassist Bill Johnson et al.) of course being tremendously important to the history of jazz -- touring the country as a fairly major vaudeville act from 1914 to 1918, it had a vast influence, even though the band left behind not a single recording.

Some interesting thoughts, but I don't know. Charley Patton and Tommy Johnson may sound less minstrelsy-like on record than Louis Armstrong often did, but that was not necessarily true of their live shows. Charley Patton had such a reputation for clowning that even Son House became dismissive of him for that reason. Tommy Johnson had a similar reputation. Patton, Johnson, and Armstrong offered very different flavors of the blues, but I don't see any reason to consider the former more authentic than the latter.

Edited November 23, 2008 by John L

[JSngry]

in my own work I study musical history because it feeds me, it keeps me alive, it's like looking into some kind of odd mirror to see not just we, but what I, have come from. It's fascinating, and I don't believe that, in my own music, I use it in any way that is retro or reactionary.

Hey, I hear ya' on all that. It's just that lately, you've been saying some weird shit, like you can play the blues better than Kenny Burrell (I've no doubt that you can play your blues better than Kenny Burrell could, and he his better than you could his, but other than that...uh...what?) & that you can "get" Black Gospel music in the same way that an elderly African-American woman riding to work on the bus at 3 AM to her job as a domestic worker could (I've no doubt that we can all feel something primal in that music, and that at the core we're all feeling the same basic thing, but damn dude, do you know how insulting it is to not allow people their own private zones of relationship, to claim that what they have is in no way their own personal property?) & now you started off on (and thankfully have modified) the notion that Louis Armstrong was not a great blues player.

You're a smart man, dude, a very smart man. But lately, based on some of the conclusions that you've been drawing, I gotta wonder if maybe the mirror you've beenlooking into hasn't gotten warped or cracked in some way, and if it might not be time to step away and look somewhere else for a little while. Too much of anything turns bad eventually...

And for the record, although I have spoken to you, here and elsewhere, in a manner that might be perceived as "blunt", please know that no malice is intended. I speak that way to those who I know can handle it, because the shortest distance between two points is always the best way to go. I care about what seems like it might be a precipitous turn to full-of-shitsville because I know that that is not where you belong. But again, I've been seeing a pattern of keen, sound, often intriguing observations in the service of some really wack conclusions, and...I worry.

Perhaps it is entirely presumptuous of me to even feel that I have any right whatsoever to address you in this way. But I hate to see a good mind go off on good tangents only to come back with some bad souvenirs, like going to Paris for a year and coming back with a Rock City t-shirt.

[Christiern]

I am a bit confused. Is someone saying that we should simply regard the past as something interesting, perhaps fun, but generally not applicable to the future, creatively speaking? I hope not.

I recall one afternoon, when I lived in Philadelphia, Lem Winchester came to my apartment and brought his grandfather with him. He told me how important to him it was to be in touch with people of past generations. "You can see in their eyes the fun they had, the experiences they had," he said (not his exact words, but close) an went on to tell me that he saw it all as a wonderful continuum and that he hoped future generations might see something similar in the eyes of his generation. I asked him if he thought that was a good thing for the music and he said yes! with a big smile, "that's it, you need to learn from the vibes, too" (again, I'm paraphrasing). I remember this particularly well, because this man, who so obviously looked forward to a future of passing the torch, accidentally took his own life within a year of the visit I described.

Obviously, music, like all creative efforts is never wholly original, but some people seem to regard past creativity as, perhaps beautiful, but essentially inert. I, of course, very much disagree.

Now, have I completely misunderstood what little I have read in this thread?

[Larry Kart]

Some interesting thoughts, but I don't know. Charley Patton and Tommy Johnson may sound less minstrelsy-like on record than Louis Armstrong often did, but that was not necessarily true of their live shows. Charley Patton had such a reputation for clowning that even Son House became dismissive of him for that reason. Tommy Johnson had a similar reputation. Patton, Johnson, and Armstrong offered very different flavors of the blues, but I don't see any reason to consider the former more authentic than the latter.

Neither I nor Allen, I believe, is saying "more authentic," not at all -- just different in flavor, as you say, and also perhaps different in recipes/ingredients and cooking methods. And those differences are potentially interesting.

Also, minstrelsy and clowning are not necessarily the same thing.

[JSngry]

I am a bit confused. Is someone saying that we should simply regard the past as something interesting, perhaps fun, but generally not applicable to the future, creatively speaking? I hope not.

I recall one afternoon, when I lived in Philadelphia, Lem Winchester came to my apartment and brought his grandfather with him. He told me how important to him it was to be in touch with people of past generations. "You can see in their eyes the fun they had, the experiences they had," he said (not his exact words, but close) an went on to tell me that he saw it all as a wonderful continuum and that he hoped future generations might see something similar in the eyes of his generation. I asked him if he thought that was a good thing for the music and he said yes! with a big smile, "that's it, you need to learn from the vibes, too" (again, I'm paraphrasing). I remember this particularly well, because this man, who so obviously looked forward to a future of passing the torch, accidentally took his own life within a year of the visit I described.

Obviously, music, like all creative efforts is never wholly original, but some people seem to regard past creativity as, perhaps beautiful, but essentially inert. I, of course, very much disagree.

Now, have I completely misunderstood what little I have read in this thread?

All I'm saying that too much of a good thing is not necessarily a better thing.

That and that the twinkle in those old folks' eyes was probably there because they lived their own lives, not somebody else's. I think we would all be well-served by doing the same so that when we get old, our twinkle is as much ours as their's was (their's).

Severing the past is ludicrous, and dangerous as well. But so is severing the present, never mind thinking that you can find the future without confronting the present as well as the past. That, the present, is the only place where the battles are worth fighting. The past gives us a crucial part of what we need to do that, but it is no substitute for it.

It is, however, easier to fight in the past, because, hey, who is there to fight back other than other people doing the same thing you are. Surrogates for one set of ghosts fighting surrogates for another set of ghosts. Which is really weird, when you think about it, this fighting the battles of the past in the present expecting anything to change, since the past has already passed, and...what's done is done.

This is not just true in music either. Thank god that our political system has produced a president-elect who appears to understand that you study yesterday's battles, but you fight today's.

Edited November 23, 2008 by JSngry

[AllenLowe]

well, I never said I could play blues better than Burrell - I think it was, actually, George Benson we were talking about, and my hamster can play better blues than him -

as for the black lady on the bus, obviously there's no way I can duplicate her life or her means of looking at the world; I mean, if you want to look at American terrorism, start with the Jim Crow South. But I can still try to look at the world she was looking at, because I believe that, in doing so, I (and a lot of other people who have done work in this field) help to validate her own life and history. and before you jump on that, I am NOT saying it needs validation from white people like me; only that, per Dubois and Ellison, it is an attempt to redress something of that history, to make sure she is no longer invisible. In many ways her history is mine, as even Stanley Crouch might agree, given our American connection. I feel somewhat damned if I do, damned if I don't here - I ignore that history and I am ignorant, I try to dig deeply into that history and I am a usurper of it. But I do believe that my understanding of the sounds she heard is closer than that of Wynton or Stanley. To cite Ellison again, this culture is not dispersed genetically -

Edited November 23, 2008 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

Follow your bliss, Allen.

[TedR]

wow....that is so disappointing in so many ways.

[JSngry]

Ok, I can't let this pass:

as for the black lady on the bus, obviously there's no way I can duplicate her life or her means of looking at the world; I mean, if you want to look at American terrorism, start with the Jim Crow South. But I can still try to look at the world she was looking at, because I believe that, in doing so, I (and a lot of other people who have done work in this field) help to validate her own life and history. and before you jump on that, I am NOT saying it needs validation from white people like me; only that, per Dubois and Ellison, it is an attempt to redress something of that history, to make sure she is no longer invisible. In many ways her history is mine, as even Stanley Crouch might agree, given our American connection. I feel somewhat damned if I do, damned if I don't here - I ignore that history and I am ignorant, I try to dig deeply into that history and I am a usurper of it. But I do believe that my understanding of the sounds she heard is closer than that of Wynton or Stanley. To cite Ellison again, this culture is not dispersed genetically -

I mean, really? You think you understand this elderly African-American woman riding to work on the bus at 3 AM to her job as a domestic worker better than Marsailis or Crouch?

Sorry man, but as much as I loathe both of them and their dogmatic effluvia, I would never presume to think that. We're talking about the "type" of person they both no doubt knew first-hand, on a daily basis, as friends, neighbors, maybe even family members from birth, a part of the fabric in which they grew. No matter how weird they've gotten since, for me - or you - to suggest that we "get" this lady better than they do...sorry, but I am just not that bold. And unless you grew up in a similar environment and have the same type formative experiences with these same "type" people, I fail to see how you can claim such boldness as your right. This is totally lacking in respect or humility - not about this woman, but about yourself. No, this culture is not dispersed genetically, but in many ways it is dispersed geographically, and yes, genetics has quite often dictated geography. a little humility, just a little, about your presupposed "understanding" would go a long way towards furthering the credibility for your claims of same.

FWIW, I have come to know this "type" of lady somewhat my own self. I have spent a fair amount of time doing food-service and other "menial" type jobs for a good many years, and those are jobs which at that time and in this place were stocked mainly by this "type" of person. And I didn't just "show up" for work either, I got into the gig, and the people. We became close, and many reflections were shared. All of which left me with the realization that no matter how much I "understood", there was that much more that I could never understand, just because it was the understanding borne of specifics. The "general" stuff, yeah, we got that down pretty quickly, as well a lot of the less general. But there comes a point where you look at each other and realize that I am not you, nor will I ever be, and you are not me, nor will you ever be, and that it is ok, that there is a level of intimacy/empathy/whatever that cannot be assumed or created, that it exists entirely of its own accord, and yes - it is ok. Failure to acknowledge that...privacy of self is the ultimate disrespect, be it physical, financial, or attitudinal.

You claim that your understanding of an elderly African-American woman riding to work on the bus at 3 AM to her job as a domestic worker is better than Wynton's or Stanley's? Even after stripping away all the dogmatic bullshit which they continuously cloak themselves in, get them back to where they came fro,m, not how they ended up (and I'm sure that they both still have that place, it's only the most dead among us who don't)?

Sir, I seriously doubt it.

Edited November 23, 2008 by JSngry

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

wow....that is so disappointing in so many ways.

See? You didn't have to be disappointed, Ted; they haven't stopped.

MG

[JSngry]

Yeah, I said I was getting off this train, yet here I am still on it...

Proof that bad habits are hard to break, and even more proof as to why it's so important to break them...

Edited November 23, 2008 by JSngry

[Christiern]

That may be what's disappointing Ted, MG.

[Larry Kart]

You claim that your understanding of an elderly African-American woman riding to work on the bus at 3 AM to her job as a domestic worker is better than Wynton's or Stanley's?

That's not what Allen said. He said: "...I do believe that my understanding of the sounds she heard is closer than that of Wynton or Stanley." (My emphasis)

[JSngry]

Oh.

Ok.

[Larry Kart]

It is, however, easier to fight in the past, because, hey, who is there to fight back other than other people doing the same thing you are. Surrogates for one set of ghosts fighting surrogates for another set of ghosts. Which is really weird, when you think about it, this fighting the battles of the past in the present expecting anything to change, since the past has already passed, and...what's done is done.

But Jim, Flip Wilson founded the Church of What's Happening Now almost 40 years ago.

[JSngry]

Yeah, and he's dead now.