Which jazz book are you reading right now?

[ghost of miles]

[EKE BBB]

Revisiting

[Gheorghe]

On 6/3/2024 at 5:51 PM, EKE BBB said:

Revisiting

Oh yeah, I have this and think I had bought it in the mid 70´s . It was great reading, though I like books with more written stuff about the music better. 

And the one chapter with a drug night in Brussel could have missed. This is pure fiction I think. 

The fiction of the talk between Bird and Dean Benedetti could have happened that way, that´s true......

[EKE BBB]

1 hour ago, Gheorghe said:

And the one chapter with a drug night in Brussel could have missed. This is pure fiction I think. 

The fiction of the talk between Bird and Dean Benedetti could have happened that way, that´s true......

I would say one third of the book is fiction. The book is well intended, but gutter writting.

[EKE BBB]

Going back to the classics... again

[Gheorghe]

3 hours ago, EKE BBB said:

I would say one third of the book is fiction. The book is well intended, but gutter writting.

Yes, for me as a teenager then it was good reading, to learn a bit english, those books and linernotes, that´s why I couldn´t survive in everyday´s live english, only in music talk , I can make stage announcements and even here in Austria I make them in english because in german it sound´s somehow corny 😄

[mikeweil]

1 hour ago, Gheorghe said:

Yes, for me as a teenager then it was good reading, to learn a bit english, those books and linernotes, that´s why I couldn´t survive in everyday´s live english, only in music talk , I can make stage announcements and even here in Austria I make them in english because in german it sound´s somehow corny 😄

German translations of jazz  books often sound corny to me as well. There is no equivalent to many expressions in jazz talk in German. It was real hard to find the right words when translating a friend's article on John Handy for Jazz Podium magazine. 

[Gheorghe]

18 minutes ago, mikeweil said:

German translations of jazz  books often sound corny to me as well. There is no equivalent to many expressions in jazz talk in German. It was real hard to find the right words when translating a friend's article on John Handy for Jazz Podium magazine. 

You are right. That´s why I prefer to make announcements on gigs in English and it´s also easier for me to write about music in english, you can see it on my website.

[Big Beat Steve]

4 hours ago, mikeweil said:

German translations of jazz  books often sound corny to me as well. There is no equivalent to many expressions in jazz talk in German. It was real hard to find the right words when translating a friend's article on John Handy for Jazz Podium magazine. 

Quite right.
I happen to be a professional translator (with close to 40 years of professional experience "on my back" - mostly in many areas of engineering and economics but also a fair number of non-fiction books), and honestly - regardless of how interesting the subject matter might be to me personally,  I would not have gone out of my way in any attempts to acquire translation assignments for music books (particularly jazz) into German. If it is to be really, really well done, it is a highly demanding and time-consuming task.
Though the translation standards for jazz books have improved through the decades on the German market. Some time ago I chanced upon an original copy of the German translation of Sidney Finkelstein's (at the time) influential "Jazz - A People's Music". The German version clearly was well-intentioned but awkward and corny in more ways than one. Though probably not bad, objectively speaking. I have read a few German translations (by leading publishers) from the same (50s) period of novels by Sinclair Lewis - ouch ....

Talking about books recently discussed here, the German version of "Hear Me Talkin' To Ya" is relatively acceptable, given the times it was published (and the then prevailing standards in the profession). But the colloquial nature of the original texts may have helped here.

I am also one of those who bought Ross Russell's "Bird Lives" back in the 70s, and - fiction or not - it did give me insights, including those parts that "may well have happened that way".  (And without wanting to go into greater detail, reports of other documented backstage  and off-stage incidents somewhat corroborate the likelihood of some of Russell's fictionalizations) One day in the later 80s I received a German copy of this book (first published in German by Hannibal in 1985) by a well-meaning relative. It WAS readable but IIRC I put it away before I got to the end because compared to the orignal it just was uneven. I still have the book in a corner but have not looked at it in decades. I might pick it up one day if I have a LOT of time to do a private critical comparison with the original. (Yes, "professional deformation", I know ... )

Speaking of Hannibal publishers (of Vienna), for a time in the 90s a lot of their (translated) musician biographies were commonplace at Zweitausendeins. I picked up several of them (Dexter Gordon, Woody Herman, Kenny Clarke a.o. as well as Sally Placksin's Women in Jazz), but again was underwhelmed. In many places you got a distinct feeling the translator was grappling for words, and in some cases missed a finer point that clearly showed that he or she was not sufficiently familiar with the artists or that style of music. Which did not bode well for any trust by the (knowledgeable) reader in the German text.  By comparison (again IIRC), the Sally Placksin book had the best translation.

Another German one I recently got (my wife was unaware I - of course - already owned the U.S. printing) was the German translation of "Sam Phillips" by Peter Guralnick. This recent publication probably reflects the typical state of the art in the profession and should read well enough to most readers. I am not sure I would have been able to do it vastly better overall (particularly because translators usually have to work against insanely sick publisher's deadlines). Yet the German version has certain quirks that make it sound corny ever so often too, and in some cases there are goofs that - again - make you realize the translator failed to double-check the way he rendered the facts into German (in short, he misunderstood ...). 

So ... overall I still prefer reading any music books in the orignal language. Be it English or French or any other language I at least know sufficiently well to cope with (Spanish, Swedish).

Yet this begs another question: Are English translations always that much better?
One jazz book I have been (re-)reading in recent times was/is "Cubano Be Cubano Bop - One hundred Years of jazz in Cuba" by Leonard Acosta. I had started on it after I had bought it in 2007 but put it away as I found the going a bit rough with all that "name calling". But what bothers me in the first place now is the English translation which - personally speaking - grates me more and more (I am about one third through the book now). It just is so convoluted, awkward, stiff and clumsy. Strictly linguistically, what the translator wrote certainly is correct for the most part. But his wording and style just are so stiff, old-fashioned and stilted. My Spanish is relatively rusted up (but not enough to keep me from picking up Jordi Pujol's "Jazz en Barcelona" from time to time) but the more I continue with the Acosta book the more I feel this translator had fallen into the trap of writing Spanish with English words. Very often you literally sense the wording of the Spanish text through his translation. Which is not the way to tackle such a subject in the first place.  Because both languages in their structure and typical ways of expessing things fluently really work differently. In short, at least in part a disservice to the subject of the book and a missed opportunity ...

Having got all this off my chest , I am now beginning to wonder what those who have read the well-circulated English editions of Joachim E. Berendt's "Jazz Book", for example, have to say about THAT English edition ...

Edited June 12 by Big Beat Steve

[mikeweil]

Some examples: How do you translate "He sat in with ....", or, even better, "He played his ass off"?

[Big Beat Steve]

 

Though the latter one would be feasible in a passably idiomatic manner: "Er spielte, als ginge es um sein Leben" (He played as if his life depended on it)  (to name just one possibility).

Edited June 12 by Big Beat Steve

[Gheorghe]

17 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Quite right.
I happen to be a professional translator (with close to 40 years of professional experience "on my back" - mostly in many areas of engineering and economics but also a fair number of non-fiction books), and honestly - regardless of how interesting the subject matter might be to me personally,  I would not have gone out of my way in any attempts to acquire translation assignments for music books (particularly jazz) into German. If it is to be really, really well done, it is a highly demanding and time-consuming task.
Though the translation standards for jazz books have improved through the decades on the German market. Some time ago I chanced upon an original copy of the German translation of Sidney Finkelstein's (at the time) influential "Jazz - A People's Music". The German version clearly was well-intentioned but awkward and corny in more ways than one. Though probably not bad, objectively speaking. I have read a few German translations (by leading publishers) from the same (50s) period of novels by Sinclair Lewis - ouch ....

Talking about books recently discussed here, the German version of "Hear Me Talkin' To Ya" is relatively acceptable, given the times it was published (and the then prevailing standards in the profession). But the colloquial nature of the original texts may have helped here.

I am also one of those who bought Ross Russell's "Bird Lives" back in the 70s, and - fiction or not - it did give me insights, including those parts that "may well have happened that way".  (And without wanting to go into greater detail, reports of other documented backstage  and off-stage incidents somewhat corroborate the likelihood of some of Russell's fictionalizations) One day in the later 80s I received a German copy of this book (first published in German by Hannibal in 1985) by a well-meaning relative. It WAS readable but IIRC I put it away before I got to the end because compared to the orignal it just was uneven. I still have the book in a corner but have not looked at it in decades. I might pick it up one day if I have a LOT of time to do a private critical comparison with the original. (Yes, "professional deformation", I know ... )

Speaking of Hannibal publishers (of Vienna), for a time in the 90s a lot of their (translated) musician biographies were commonplace at Zweitausendeins. I picked up several of them (Dexter Gordon, Woody Herman, Kenny Clarke a.o. as well as Sally Placksin's Women in Jazz), but again was underwhelmed. In many places you got a distinct feeling the translator was grappling for words, and in some cases missed a finer point that clearly showed that he or she was not sufficiently familiar with the artists or that style of music. Which did not bode well for any trust by the (knowledgeable) reader in the German text.  By comparison (again IIRC), the Sally Placksin book had the best translation.

Another German one I recently got (my wife was unaware I - of course - already owned the U.S. printing) was the German translation of "Sam Phillips" by Peter Guralnick. This recent publication probably reflects the typical state of the art in the profession and should read well enough to most readers. I am not sure I would have been able to do it vastly better overall (particularly because translators usually have to work against insanely sick publisher's deadlines). Yet the German version has certain quirks that make it sound corny ever so often too, and in some cases there are goofs that - again - make you realize the translator failed to double-check the way he rendered the facts into German (in short, he misunderstood ...). 

So ... overall I still prefer reading any music books in the orignal language. Be it English or French or any other language I at least know sufficiently well to cope with (Spanish, Swedish).

Yet this begs another question: Are English translations always that much better?
One jazz book I have been (re-)reading in recent times was/is "Cubano Be Cubano Bop - One hundred Years of jazz in Cuba" by Leonard Acosta. I had started on it after I had bought it in 2007 but put it away as I found the going a bit rough with all that "name calling". But what bothers me in the first place now is the English translation which - personally speaking - grates me more and more (I am about one third through the book now). It just is so convoluted, awkward, stiff and clumsy. Strictly linguistically, what the translator wrote certainly is correct for the most part. But his wording and style just are so stiff, old-fashioned and stilted. My Spanish is relatively rusted up (but not enough to keep me from picking up Jordi Pujol's "Jazz en Barcelona" from time to time) but the more I continue with the Acosta book the more I feel this translator had fallen into the trap of writing Spanish with English words. Very often you literally sense the wording of the Spanish text through his translation. Which is not the way to tackle such a subject in the first place.  Because both languages in their structure and typical ways of expessing things fluently really work differently. In short, at least in part a disservice to the subject of the book and a missed opportunity ...

Having got all this off my chest , I am now beginning to wonder what those who have read the well-circulated English editions of Joachim E. Berendt's "Jazz Book", for example, have to say about THAT English edition ...

Very interesting. 

Yes I know about the Hannibal books, but never bought any, since I did have the original versions. 
 

About jazztalk in German language, when went to school and was the youngest of a gang of jazz lovers and musicians, the unsual kind of German being talked here in Vienna was Viennese slang. I think there was two kinds of Viennese slang, one more the workman´s type, and one more the "hipsters" kind of slang. 

If someone played a good solo, you might say:  Des woa UR-LEIWAND des solo was´d do gspüüt host. 
Try to translate the word "Leiwand" .

If something was good it was "leiwand", and if it was weak, it was "oasch" . 

And one of the first things an older, longhaired jazzfreak said to me when I was still almost a kid was "Heast Burle, hoost ´leicht aa scho die Fil-les de Killi-Mann-Tscharo ? " You have to pronounce the litera "L" in the Viennese way..... das Wiener "L".....

16 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

 

Though the latter one would be feasible in a passably idiomatic manner: "Er spielte, als ginge es um sein Leben" (He played as if his life depended on it)  (to name just one possibility).

Really sounds funny, it sounds more like commenting sport. 

I remember if there is a smaller town and the one who writes for the local press about a concert a jazz group does there "wie viele Solos haben Sie gemacht, können Sie uns eine Zahl nennen", or they translate be bop as "Zweierbob" .... I did read that in Jazz Podium....

Edited June 13 by Gheorghe

[mikeweil]

1 hour ago, Gheorghe said:

Yes I I remember if there is a smaller town and the one who writes for the local press about a concert a jazz group does there "wie viele Solos haben Sie gemacht, können Sie uns eine Zahl nennen", or they translate be bop as "Zweierbop" .... I did read that in Jazz Podium....

Viennese dialect is very special! And the misinterpretations of non-jazz translators all the more. One of the first books on "free jazz" was translated from the French by a German couple of modern classical writers who had no idea that in jazz "alto" means alto sax. So all of a sudden we had dozens of alto - viola or "Bratsche" - players in jazz.

Edited June 13 by mikeweil

[Gheorghe]

1 hour ago, mikeweil said:

viola or "Bratsche" - players in jazz.

Reminds me of the great Austrian caricature artist Manfred Deix: When there was a point wether the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra would admit women as musicians, since it was mens only orchestra, he made a caricature and wrote "Der Mann spielt gern Bratsche, für´s Weib gibt´s die Watsche" 😲

[soulpope]

8 minutes ago, Gheorghe said:

Reminds me of the great Austrian caricature artist Manfred Deix: When there was a point wether the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra would admit women as musicians, since it was mens only orchestra, he made a caricature and wrote "Der Mann spielt gern Bratsche, für´s Weib gibt´s die Watsche" 😲

Here - as quite often - Manfred Deix was spot on ....

[Big Beat Steve]

I wonder if we have lost all the non-German(ophonic) fourmists in these exchanges by now? 😄 

But the points raised by you are the core of the problem: There is a lot going on in these areas that is hardly (or not at all) translatable adequately if you really want to capture and reproduce the feel, the insider's terminology or slang and the "vibes" of the original language. Which is what you ought to aim for if such texts are to be translated properly at all.
German is not the ideal language for that.
And even if you come up with lots and lots of "insider slang" in the target language (that at first sight look like "equivalents") this will often be skewed because the "insider worlds" and the connotations that go with it are not always the same in a different language (see Gheorghe's Austrian-Viennese German example above, for example).
So ... better leave well enough alone "and learn some fucking English"! 

[mikeweil]

2 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

I wonder if we have lost all the non-German(ophonic) fourmists in these exchanges by now? 😄 

But the points raised by you are the core of the problem: There is a lot going on in these areas that is hardly (or not at all) translatable adequately if you really want to capture and reproduce the feel, the insider's terminology or slang and the "vibes" of the original language. Which is what you ought to aim for if such texts are to be translated properly at all.
German is not the ideal language for that.
And even if you come up with lots and lots of "insider slang" in the target language (that at first sight look like "equivalents") this will often be skewed because the "insider worlds" and the connotations that go with it are not always the same in a different language (see Gheorghe's Austrian-Viennese German example above, for example).
So ... better leave well enough alone "and learn some fucking English"! 

👍

[sgcim]

11 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

Reminds me of the great Austrian caricature artist Manfred Deix: When there was a point wether the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra would admit women as musicians, since it was mens only orchestra, he made a caricature and wrote "Der Mann spielt gern Bratsche, für´s Weib gibt´s die Watsche" 😲

What's the English translation?

[Big Beat Steve]

It won't rhyme in English.

So one possible (approximate and not very P.C.) rendering would be:

"The man likes to play the viola, but the woman just gets a slap in the face"

(To understand this in its proprer context, the sense of humor of caricaturist/satirist Manfred Deix always was very, very coarse and decidedly P.I. )

Edited June 14 by Big Beat Steve

[John Tapscott]

[sgcim]

22 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

It won't rhyme in English.

So one possible (approximate and not very P.C.) rendering would be:

"The man likes to play the viola, but the woman just gets a slap in the face"

(To understand this in its proprer context, the sense of humor of caricaturist/satirist Manfred Deix always was very, very coarse and decidedly P.I. )

Thanks!

[Jim Duckworth]

On 4/2/2024 at 2:16 PM, gmonahan said:

I've had this one sitting on my shelf longer than I've had shelves, and I know I've read "in" it, maybe through it, though if so, longer ago than I can remember, so I've decided to read it through...again?! I find myself wishing I had the original 1955 edition with the discography that they decided to omit from the later editions. It would presumably have been mostly 78s.

 

 

 

The discography can be found in a digital edition on Archive.org.

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.28912/page/n429/mode/

[sgcim]

Technically , not a jazz book, but Spencer Dryden sat in with Shelly Manne and was known to be a jazz drummer, Grace Slick scatted little things and listened to Ella and Sarah, Jack Casady played jazz with Danny Gatton in DC, and liked Mingus and Scott La Faro Jorma did play some early jazz in Hot Tuna, and Marty Balin was more into R&B than rock. Papa John Creach worked with Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, and Nat Cole in some movie.

I'm reading "Got a Revolution!: The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane" by Jeff Tamarkin.

There are many times when they practiced free improvisation on their records and performing live, too. They were busted many times for drug possession but never spent a day in jail. They all got into harder stuff than pot and LSD, but didn't die young like all their SF friends. Grace Slick performed on nationwide TV in blackface, survived a drunken car accident at 150 MPH, lived with every member of the band except Jack Casady (they never liked each other), and  told the audience once that they would never be able to afford things like limousines and shrimp salad like the Airplane did, because they couldn't do anything, and should get off their fat asses and do something.

Marty Balin wound up in the hospital after jumping down from the stage at Altamont, and trying to help the Black guy that was murdered by the Hell's Angels ( who were acquitted of all charges). He was the founder of the Airplane and was so sick of them that he left them for three months, and no one even called him, so he decided to call it quits. And so on...

[gmonahan]

On 6/15/2024 at 7:05 AM, Jim Duckworth said:

The discography can be found in a digital edition on Archive.org.

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.28912/page/n429/mode/

Thanks Jim! But damn, not a whole lot to it, is there?! Still, I was curious, so I very much appreciate your sharing it!

[Big Beat Steve]

On 6/15/2024 at 4:05 PM, Jim Duckworth said:

The discography can be found in a digital edition on Archive.org.

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.28912/page/n429/mode/

Thanks for the link. I had been wondering about what that discography might include too. I have a very early British printing (Peter Davies Ltd.) of that book but it does not provide a discography either.
At any rate, a rather balanced listing IMO with few surprises.