Choice J.R. Taylor piece from 1983 about

[JSngry]

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Polish_joke

Wiki not reliable of course on all things all the time but some boiler plate here ...

I'm sorry, but this is a funny joke, period, no matter at whom it's aimed at:

"Why can't they make ice cubes in Poland anymore? -- Because someone lost the recipe."

[Larry Kart]

Two Giddins stories, both from the same source, a prominent NY-based jazz musician whose name I won't mention for obvious reasons:

Stopping by Giddins' apartment one day to drop off a copy of his current CD, he was greeted at the door by the man himself, who, pointing to all the for-potential-review CDs strewn about the floor and on chairs, tables, etc., referred to them as "cockroaches." A mood boost, right there, albeit credit Gary perhaps for telling the truth about how he really felt.

Second, he and Giddins are standing backstage at a NYC jazz concert. During one number, Giddins turns to the musician and says:, "The blues and 'I Got Rhythm' are essentially the same thing, right?"

[Dan Gould]

Giddins sounds like the old timer who long ago stopped caring and has been going through the motions ever since.

Probably unfair because I know I've read things by him fairly recently that don't fit that description but still ...

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

It went back before the 1970s, I assure you.

And almost the same jokes can be transferred over into whatever group is desired to be the butt - blondes, Aggies, hillbillies, you name it. The framework of all the jokes is there for the taking, all you need to do is insert the target of your choice.

Of course, I'm sure no such thing exists in the UK, no Irish or Scottish or whatever jokes.

Yeah I actually didn't know that. That piece is from 1983 - that's quite late not to have purged his discourse of racism, I'd say - already out of step with the times.

Racism?

Is Polish a race?

I didn't know about POlish jokes in the USA either. Yes, we have Irish, Scottish and Welsh jokes here. Even about Essex Woman - What's Essex Woman's favourite wine? 'I want to go to Spine!'

MG

[kh1958]

And of course jokes about Aggies are native to Texas, being a reference to graduates of Texas A&M University.

[David Ayers]

Anti-Irish and other racist jokes might still be told by unreconstructed older bigots over here but no-one else goes near them.

[JSngry]

Irish is a race too?

[Larry Kart]

It went back before the 1970s, I assure you.

And almost the same jokes can be transferred over into whatever group is desired to be the butt - blondes, Aggies, hillbillies, you name it. The framework of all the jokes is there for the taking, all you need to do is insert the target of your choice.

Of course, I'm sure no such thing exists in the UK, no Irish or Scottish or whatever jokes.

Yeah I actually didn't know that. That piece is from 1983 - that's quite late not to have purged his discourse of racism, I'd say - already out of step with the times.

Racism?

Is Polish a race?

I didn't know about POlish jokes in the USA either. Yes, we have Irish, Scottish and Welsh jokes here. Even about Essex Woman - What's Essex Woman's favourite wine? 'I want to go to Spine!'

MG

Now, that's funny.

[David Ayers]

I guess the Internet has given sexism and racism a whole new lease of life.

[cih]

I didn't know about POlish jokes in the USA either. Yes, we have Irish, Scottish and Welsh jokes here. Even about Essex Woman - What's Essex Woman's favourite wine? 'I want to go to Spine!'

MG

Now, that's funny.

you got that? It took me a while to work it out, and I'm from Essex!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I didn't know about POlish jokes in the USA either. Yes, we have Irish, Scottish and Welsh jokes here. Even about Essex Woman - What's Essex Woman's favourite wine? 'I want to go to Spine!'

MG

Now, that's funny.

you got that? It took me a while to work it out, and I'm from Essex!

Ha ha!

Larry is a man of wide experience and can even read in Essex.

(OK, gotta admit Larry surprised me, too.)

MG

[AllenLowe]

just to go back a bit - to give him his due, Giddins has written some great things; problem is, he fell asleep around 1988 and missed the whole NYC downtown/Knitting Factory scene, which upset a lot of people, and rightly so, as he dominated the Voice's jazz coverage in those years.

as for Larry's quotes, I know the musician in question and will protect his ID. Though it points out another problem - it's prefectly fine for a crtiic to lack technical knwoledge, but Giddins (somewhat like Martin Williams on occassion) frequently tries to show off what he knows technically, which is often askew - hence he will say that I'll Keep Loving You has the same changes as You Are Too Beautiful (it does not), or he'll try to deal with the concept of enharmonicism (in which one man's D sharp is another's E flat) in relation to All the Things You Are, and will get it all wrong.

it's somewhat ironic because, as a self-taught guy I have many gaps in my musical knowledge - and have been known to call that particular musician (who is an old friend) to ask these very kinds of questions (though I know that Rhythm ain't the blues, thank goodness).

[Larry Kart]

I didn't know about POlish jokes in the USA either. Yes, we have Irish, Scottish and Welsh jokes here. Even about Essex Woman - What's Essex Woman's favourite wine? 'I want to go to Spine!'

MG

Now, that's funny.

you got that? It took me a while to work it out, and I'm from Essex!

Not immediately, but when I sounded it out, yes. Cracked me up. I could see that woman as well as hear her. A bit frightening.

[Larry Kart]

just to go back a bit - to give him his due, Giddins has written some great things; problem is, he fell asleep around 1988 and missed the whole NYC downtown/Knitting Factory scene, which upset a lot of people, and rightly so, as he dominated the Voice's jazz coverage in those years.

as for Larry's quotes, I know the musician in question and will protect his ID. Though it points out another problem - it's prefectly fine for a crtiic to lack technical knwoledge, but Giddins (somewhat like Martin Williams on occassion) frequently tries to show off what he knows technically, which is often askew - hence he will say that I'll Keep Loving You has the same changes as You Are Too Beautiful (it does not), or he'll try to deal with the concept of enharmonicism (in which one man's D sharp is another's E flat) in relation to All the Things You Are, and will get it all wrong.

it's somewhat ironic because, as a self-taught guy I have many gaps in my musical knowledge - and have been known to call that particular musician (who is an old friend) to ask these very kinds of questions (though I know that Rhythm ain't the blues, thank goodness).

Yes -- you've got to know what you don't know is something I've had carved into my forehead ... backwards of course, so I can read it in the mirror. And even then it's not that simple, at least for me, because I'm often drawn to poke around in more or less technical areas where I don't know what the "proper" names for things and the current formulas and understandings of those things are. OTOH, my relative innocence/lack of that sort of knowledge has served me well at times I think -- in part because it leads me to ponder in somewhat novel and ultimately valid (IMO) ways about what everyone already knows (but sometimes they don't), and also because the naming and conceptualizing processes in jazz are far more fluid IMO that a whole lot of people like to believe -- especially those who think that the technical-conceptual languages that arose from and pretty much fit most classical music can be applied just as neatly to jazz. For some reason I think of a Pepper Adams story. He and his fellow bandmates in the Jones-Lewis Orchestra are looking over a new chart from Thad and scratching their heads. Pepper says not to worry, "It's the same changes as 'Death and Transfiguration.'"

[Dan Gould]

Funny, the way I've heard it is "what's the best Jewish wine?"

"I wanna go to Miami!"

[AllenLowe]

Larry - the truth is that the best jazz critics I've read - yourself, Francis Davis, Max Harrison (well, Harrison seems to have some tech, background), Bob Blumenthal, Dan Morgenstern. Martin Williams, John Fordham - and probably others, but I'm tired - were not overly involved in technical anaylysis, but had a knack for getting at the truth in other, more impressionistic/descriptive ways. Or, really, coming up with philosphical parallels to the expression of the music. Even Randy Sandke's book, Where the Light Folks and the Dark Folks Meet, though written by a guy who knows more about music than anyone I know, is light on technical analysis.

and if you read George Russell's book on Lydian theory, you find, after a lot of the technical stuff. that his portrayal of the system is really almost mystical and beyond technical description. So even musicians know that there's more to it than modes and substitute chords.

Edited June 6, 2012 by AllenLowe