André Hodeir 1921-2011

[Larry Kart]

I love Hodeir's music but his writing continues to enrage me; Jeff, if you want to have a coronorary, read Hodeir on Johnny Dodds; one of the most colossal critical misfires in jazz history,

Funny -- I was just recommending to someone Dodds's great solo on "Perdido St. Blues" with Kid Ory and His New Orleans Wanderers.

Smart as he was in many ways, Hodeir was arguably -- dealing both with early jazz and and almost everything post mid-period Coltrane -- a prisoner of his own sort of "progressivism," both as a critic and (it should never be forgotten) as the creator of his own rather petit-point style of modern jazz, which he obviously hoped would become the wave of the future and the salvation of us all. His attitudes as both critic and musician were quite sophisticated up to a point, but IMO they led him as a critic to throw the baby out with the bathwater when dealing with (again) pre-Armstrong and post mid-period Coltrane material, and in the crankiest, snottiest/most arrogant manner he could muster. BTW and FWIW, in the mid-1960s I asked Lucian Berio what he thought of Hodeir's then recent book about modern classical music "Since Debussy." Berio literally spat in disgust.

[jeffcrom]

I love Hodeir's music but his writing continues to enrage me; Jeff, if you want to have a coronorary, read Hodeir on Johnny Dodds; one of the most colossal critical misfires in jazz history,

I read Hodeir's first book, with his dismissal of Johnny Dodds, back in the late 70s. Yeah, quite a blind spot. His writing combines acute critical insights with those kinds of maddening blind spots. Larry's right about throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

His third jazz book, The Worlds of Jazz, is one of the strangest books on jazz ever. I like it, mostly. One of the selections, "Outside the Capsule," seems to report the findings of archeologists/historians in the distant future, who have found a battered copy of Miles Davis' Bag's Groove album. They painstakingly analyze the pass line, to the exclusion of everything else that's going on in the music.

[Larry Kart]

For all its cleverness, the work that may have been Hodeir's magnum opus, his jazz cantata on James Joyce, "Anna Livia Plurabelle," is holed through its engine room by its Mimi Perrin-styled vocals. For a work of, so it would seem, much ambition and beard-pulling "seriousness," such chi-chi warbling, while certainly French, was also IMO not that far in sensibility from Michel Legrand. To borrow from LeRoi Jones actually quite unfair putdown of John Carisi's "Angkor Wat," "It's cool progressive, you dig?"

[jeffcrom]

Ouch! I hate that Leroi Jones/Amira Baraka line so much that it hurts to read it quoted.

I think "Anna Livia Plurabelle" and Hodeir's dismissal of Johnny Dodds are both manifestations of his lack of feeling for/understanding of the blues.

[Teasing the Korean]

For all its cleverness, the work that may have been Hodeir's magnum opus, his jazz cantata on James Joyce, "Anna Livia Plurabelle," is holed through its engine room by its Mimi Perrin-styled vocals. For a work of, so it would seem, much ambition and beard-pulling "seriousness," such chi-chi warbling, while certainly French, was also IMO not that far in sensibility from Michel Legrand. To borrow from LeRoi Jones actually quite unfair putdown of John Carisi's "Angkor Wat," "It's cool progressive, you dig?"

This sounds like something I would love. Where can I find a copy? Is Christiane Legrand on vocals? Is it anything like the "Jazz Cantata" on "Jazz et Jazz?"

Edited November 3, 2013 by Teasing the Korean

[Larry Kart]

For all its cleverness, the work that may have been Hodeir's magnum opus, his jazz cantata on James Joyce, "Anna Livia Plurabelle," is holed through its engine room by its Mimi Perrin-styled vocals. For a work of, so it would seem, much ambition and beard-pulling "seriousness," such chi-chi warbling, while certainly French, was also IMO not that far in sensibility from Michel Legrand. To borrow from LeRoi Jones actually quite unfair putdown of John Carisi's "Angkor Wat," "It's cool progressive, you dig?"

This sounds like something I would love. Where can I find a copy? Is Christiane Legrand on vocals? Is it anything like the "Jazz Cantata" on "Jazz et Jazz?"

Apparently there are two recordings -- one with Monique Adelbert (1966), one with Patrice Caratini (2006)-- but for some reason I can't post a link to the earlier one with Adelbert.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/anna-livia-plurabelle-mw0001589577

[Teasing the Korean]

Apparently there are two recordings -- one with Monique Adelbert (1966), one with Patrice Caratini (2006)-- but for some reason I can't post a link to the earlier one with Adelbert.

ething I would love. Where can I find a copy? Is Christiane Legrand on vocals? Is it anything like the "Jazz Cantata" on "Jazz et Jazz?"

http://www.allmusic.com/album/anna-livia-plurabelle-mw0001589577

Thanks, never knew of these.

[AllenLowe]

Jones/Baraka's whole dismissal of those Gil Evans' sponsored sessions is nothing short of disgusting; when I got to know Carisi, I thought about asking him about it, but decided better of it.

Edited November 3, 2013 by AllenLowe

[Larry Kart]

Jones/Baraka's whole dismissal of those Gil Evans' sponsored sessions is nothing short of disgusting; when I got to know Carisi, I thought about asking him about it, but decided better of it.

He was following his taste and also had an axe to grind.

[brownie]

This is the original LP release of Hodeir's Anna Livia Plurabelle. It seems to have not been reissued on CD!

[jeffcrom]

I have this one, which I assume is the same recording as the one in Brownie's picture. It's a piece I admire, but it certainly doesn't draw me back to listen often.

[Teasing the Korean]

If it has that nervous twilight zone sound, I'm in.

[Larry Kart]

If it has that nervous twilight zone sound, I'm in.

The second recording of the piece can be found on Spotify.

[JSngry]

Why did Hodier record on violin with the pseudonym "Claude Laurence"? Was he trying to pass or something?