Why does LeRoi Jones (aka Amiri Baraka) hate Hard bop?

[Pete C]

Rhetorical question: would a right-wing rant, employing similar rhetorical devices, rhythms and structure (I use the word loosely), be similarly welcomed?

[mjzee]

This discussion's bringing up some bad memories. I remember the postings on BNBB after 9/11, and reading regular posters agreeing with Baraka's belief that 4,000 Israelis were told to stay home that day. I was frankly shocked that posters who wrote so intelligently about jazz could freely spout such racist, hateful nonsense. Since then, I've limited my postings (at BNBB and now here) to jazz and only jazz.

[JSngry]

Rhetorical question: would a right-wing rant, employing similar rhetorical devices, rhythms and structure (I use the word loosely), be similarly welcomed?

i don't know the answer to that question because I've never heard such a work before.

I am very fond of Hank Williams Jr.'s "A Country Boy Can Survive", though, if that even begins to help.

[Face of the Bass]

Even without the "offensive" content, I'm surprised that at least three intelligent people here would consider this even partially a "good poem."

Baraka is a better writer than anyone in this thread. I don't think the poem is especially good, but aside from the conspiratorial nonsense, I don't think it is bad either. But again, it works better as spoken word than on the printed page.

Rhetorical question: would a right-wing rant, employing similar rhetorical devices, rhythms and structure (I use the word loosely), be similarly welcomed?

That's an impossible question to answer unless you provide an example of a right-wing rant. Of course, part of the problem is that there is more truth to left-wing rants than right-wing ones.

[Larry Kart]

Rhetorical question: would a right-wing rant, employing similar rhetorical devices, rhythms and structure (I use the word loosely), be similarly welcomed?

In that vein, I (again) still cherish this (I hope) semi-ironic remark from Ethan Iverson about Jones/Baraka a number of posts back, in the course of a dialogue with Stanley Crouch:

"Well, as a flabby white intellectual liberal, I will always be willing to give an angry black man a hearing."

[JSngry]

Hell, I'm willing to give any angry man (or woman) a hearing, black or otherwise. As long as they're not just whining.

[Larry Kart]

Even without the "offensive" content, I'm surprised that at least three intelligent people here would consider this even partially a "good poem."

Baraka is a better writer than anyone in this thread. I don't think the poem is especially good, but aside from the conspiratorial nonsense, I don't think it is bad either. But again, it works better as spoken word than on the printed page.

Rhetorical question: would a right-wing rant, employing similar rhetorical devices, rhythms and structure (I use the word loosely), be similarly welcomed?

That's an impossible question to answer unless you provide an example of a right-wing rant. Of course, part of the problem is that there is more truth to left-wing rants than right-wing ones.

For one, there's the South African poet Roy Campbell (1901-57):

http://www.counter-currents.com/2011/10/roy-campbell-2/

about as far on the Right as you can get (he was a fervent supporter of Franco during the Spanish Civil War, when he and his wife lived in Spain). An excerpt from his epic poem about Spain and the Civil War, "Flowering Rifle":

To cheapen thus for slavery and hire

The racket of the Invert and the Jew

Which is through art and science to subdue,

Humiliate, and to pulp reduce

The Human Spirit for industrial use

Whether by Capital or by Communism

It’s all the same despite their seeming schisms

Got a certain lilt to it; Campbell was far from without talent. Speaking of "Flowering Rifle," Campbell did have an arguably "off" taste in titles. The book that made his name, his first, was another epic poem "The Flaming Terrapin" -- another was "Talking Bronco."

Hardly a surprise that like many on the Far Right, Campbell demonized the Jews. The League of Nations, he wrote, was that " sheeny club of communists and masons," while behind both Capitalism and Communism stood “the Yiddisher’s convulsive gold.” Again, "convulsive" in "convulsive gold" is quite good IMO. Campbell had an ear, as of course did Ezra Pound, who much of time had (you should pardon the expression) a golden one.

[Brad]

Hell, I'm willing to give any angry man (or woman) a hearing, black or otherwise. As long as they're not just whining.

Would that include the likes of Adolf Hitler or Julius Streicher?

This thread is developing a certain troubling bent, particularly when we start mentioning the likes of Roy Campbell. Are we going to start talking about the Protocol of the Elders of Zion next?

[JSngry]

It rhymes. Now that's poetry!

"The Invert", eh? That's one you don't hear any more...last time I heard it was in some old article about Lester Young, pleading the reader to understand that he wasn't one.

I do like the rage about reducing the human spirit to pulp for industrial use (and yes, "convulsive gold" is a good turn of phrase), that's real enough...don't at all like the way he gets there, so...B+ for desitnation, D- for route.

Saved from an F because... it rhymes!

And again, if we throw the whole thing out because of its wackiness, we lose the true parts as well. Reason enough to give any angry man (or woman) a hearing, even if they are batshit crazy.

[JSngry]

Hell, I'm willing to give any angry man (or woman) a hearing, black or otherwise. As long as they're not just whining.

Would that include the likes of Adolf Hitler or Julius Streicher?

This thread is developing a certain troubling bent, particularly when we start mentioning the likes of Roy Campbell. Are we going to start talking about the Protocol of the Elders of Zion next?

Giving them a hearing doesn't precluding kicking their asses back to hell where they belong.

And why we always gotta go Hitler, and why we always gotta suspect latent Nazi-ism?

I can't speak for anybody else, but If I give you my word of honor on my mother's still living and breathing soul that Hitler and Nazis never have, do not now, and never will live in this hear, soul, and brain of mine as anything other than the most vile and repugnant examples of the most vile and repugnant manifestation of the most vile and repugnant traits of humanity, can we just relax and discuss? Or is that (probably understandably) impossible?

[JSngry]

And besides, not being able to differentiate between a genuine psychopath, a repugnant asshole, and a plain old dumbass is not exactly having your survival skills honed to their sharpest, if you know what I mean.

[Pete C]

Baraka is a better writer than anyone in this thread.

I trust that assessment comes as the result of a thorough and extensive reading of the published writings of all those in question.

This thread is developing a certain troubling bent, particularly when we start mentioning the likes of Roy Campbell.

Especially if somebody goes searching for that name on a jazz board!

[Brad]

Baraka is a better writer than anyone in this thread. I don't think the poem is especially good, but aside from the conspiratorial nonsense, I don't think it is bad either. But again, it works better as spoken word than on the printed page.

Unless there are any other writers on here, god, I hope so since he depends on writing to earn his daily bread

[Larry Kart]

Speaking as a genuine psychopath myself, and having opened the door by mentioning and quoting from Roy Campbell, I vow to not attempt to discuss any further here why and how any number of the 20th Century's more talented literary artists -- e.g. Pound, Eliot, Wyndham Lewis, Celine, D. H. Lawrence, Robinson Jeffers, the list (however internally varied each figure might be) does go on and on -- were reactionary, anti-democratic, and in some cases outright Fascist, if only (but not only) because my head probably would explode if I tried.

[Pete C]

Unless there are any other writers on here,

At least three.

[fasstrack]

John, the part of the poem that talks about warning the Jews out of the WTC really, to my mind, supersedes any other sentiments. One cannot be, as the saying goes, a little bit pregnant.

as for the Organissimo critics, right on.

Baraka has both a way with words, real and definite talent, and a way of (and obviously a love of) getting any kind of attention.

Damn! Sounds like some musicians I know!

I remember a poem back in I think the '70s, published in the VV. It was about Jesus or used the metaphor. One, well, less-than-flattering line about Sammy Davis Jr.:

Jesus and his one-eyed self

Tongue-kissing Johnny Carson

From the backside

How do you follow that?

I guess with the WTC poem. If you want to make a splash---negative, positive, indifferent---get the hottest button around to push.

[Pete C]

Speaking as a genuine psychopath myself, and having opened the door by mentioning and quoting from Roy Campbell, I vow to not attempt to discuss any further here why and how any number of the 20th Century's more talented literary artists -- e.g. Pound, Eliot, Wyndham Lewis, Celine, D. H. Lawrence, Robinson Jeffers, the list (however internally varied each figure might be) does go on and on -- were reactionary, anti-democratic, and in some cases outright Fascist, if only (but not only) because my head probably would explode if I tried.

I'm a big fan of Ford Madox Ford, and in one of his memoirs I found a blatantly anti-semitic remark. I mentioned to a friend I was disappointed and he said, "Yeah, but if you stopped reading all the anti-semites you'd be missing a lot of great literature."

[Pete C]

I remember a poem back in I think the '70s, published in the VV. It was about Jesus or used the metaphor. One, well, less-than-flattering line about Sammy Davis Jr.:

Jesus and his one-eyed self

Tongue-kissing Johnny Carson

From the backside

Are you sure it wasn't Peter Falk he was talking about? Here it is:

http://between-dreams.deviantart.com/journal/When-We-ll-Worship-Jesus-by-Amiri-Baraka-241368881

As a jewish atheist, I don't really understand why an adherent of one of the Abrahamic sects would kvetch about Jesus. I mean, can't you just replace Jesus with Mohammed in the poem?

"we'll worship jesus when mao

do," -- Is Baraka still a Maoist or pro-Mao?

[Brad]

Speaking as a genuine psychopath myself, and having opened the door by mentioning and quoting from Roy Campbell, I vow to not attempt to discuss any further here why and how any number of the 20th Century's more talented literary artists -- e.g. Pound, Eliot, Wyndham Lewis, Celine, D. H. Lawrence, Robinson Jeffers, the list (however internally varied each figure might be) does go on and on -- were reactionary, anti-democratic, and in some cases outright Fascist, if only (but not only) because my head probably would explode if I tried.

You make a good point about the number of writers whose politics, shall we say, weren't conventional at the time. Comment withdrawn

As a jewish atheist, I don't really understand why an adherent of one of the Abrahamic sects would kvetch about Jesus. I mean, can't you just replace Jesus with Mohammed in the poem?

"As a jewish atheist, isn't that a contradiction in terms? Well, then again, maybe not

[JSngry]

Speaking as a genuine psychopath myself, and having opened the door by mentioning and quoting from Roy Campbell, I vow to not attempt to discuss any further here why and how any number of the 20th Century's more talented literary artists -- e.g. Pound, Eliot, Wyndham Lewis, Celine, D. H. Lawrence, Robinson Jeffers, the list (however internally varied each figure might be) does go on and on -- were reactionary, anti-democratic, and in some cases outright Fascist, if only (but not only) because my head probably would explode if I tried.

Now, see, if you were a genuine psychopath, you'd have a perfectly linear explanation that tied everything together nice and neat, no ambiguity, everything resolved in advance, and the only time your head would explode would be when a bullet went through it.

Fraud! :g

[fasstrack]

I remember a poem back in I think the '70s, published in the VV. It was about Jesus or used the metaphor. One, well, less-than-flattering line about Sammy Davis Jr.:

Jesus and his one-eyed self

Tongue-kissing Johnny Carson

From the backside

Are you sure it wasn't Peter Falk he was talking about? Here it is:

http://between-dreams.deviantart.com/journal/When-We-ll-Worship-Jesus-by-Amiri-Baraka-241368881

As a jewish atheist, I don't really understand why an adherent of one of the Abrahamic sects would kvetch about Jesus. I mean, can't you just replace Jesus with Mohammed in the poem?

"we'll worship jesus when mao

do," -- Is Baraka still a Maoist or pro-Mao?

It was Carson. Sure of that. His point seemed to be that Davis was embarrassing black folks sucking up to Johnny on national TV. To be honest, although I know where he was coming from I thought that a pretty cheap shot b/c Davis took a lot of shit too, was a great entertainer, and a trail-blazer in a sense. Before he and Nat Cole you hardly ever saw blacks on TV---or in his case headlining at the Copa. To me a putdown like that would be like a bitter, pissed-off Italian called Sinatra a traitor for whatever wacky reason. It's petty, divisive, and doesn't advance black folks. It's just childish.

I'm a jewish athiest, but I doubt my faith sometimes (; Christian friends pray for me a lot, and I even go to a Methodist church sometimes. I don't claim to have any answers. Got my hands full playing the guitar and learning tunes. I just have decided it doesn't take any effort to show a little class and not put down anyone else's beliefs. And if they come and tell you you're going to hell, etc., if you don't do like them just walk the f away. Let 'em stand there in self-righteousness. They'll find another pigeon any minute.

Edited March 6, 2012 by fasstrack

[Pete C]

I was talking about the one-eyed guy.

There was a big to do on Jazz Corner by somebody who posts here sometimes who refused to accept the concept of "Jewish atheist," when I brought it up, though it's a venerable tradition.

[fasstrack]

I was talking about the one-eyed guy.

There was a big to do on Jazz Corner by somebody who posts here sometimes who refused to accept the concept of "Jewish atheist," when I brought it up, though it's a venerable tradition.

I thought you meant yourself when I reread it.

F*&k Jazz Corner. I like Lois, though. Too bad the posters are such morons. Not her fault and she's very nice.

[johnlitweiler]

I'm a big fan of Ford Madox Ford, and in one of his memoirs I found a blatantly anti-semitic remark. I mentioned to a friend I was disappointed and he said, "Yeah, but if you stopped reading all the anti-semites you'd be missing a lot of great literature."

Pete, which Ford memoir was that? I've been surprised and disappointed in his occasional racism, in light of his customary sensitivity and humanity. For instance, the book where he visits Allen Tate in America and invents a defense of slavery.

[Brad]

Speaking as a genuine psychopath myself, and having opened the door by mentioning and quoting from Roy Campbell, I vow to not attempt to discuss any further here why and how any number of the 20th Century's more talented literary artists -- e.g. Pound, Eliot, Wyndham Lewis, Celine, D. H. Lawrence, Robinson Jeffers, the list (however internally varied each figure might be) does go on and on -- were reactionary, anti-democratic, and in some cases outright Fascist, if only (but not only) because my head probably would explode if I tried.

Now, see, if you were a genuine psychopath, you'd have a perfectly linear explanation that tied everything together nice and neat, no ambiguity, everything resolved in advance, and the only time your head would explode would be when a bullet went through it.

Fraud! :g

He must be a psychopath -- he's a moderator!