Monk Liner Notes

[medjuck]

7 hours ago, danasgoodstuff said:

Those are genius notes, the Monk/Hardin ones are pretty good too.

 

Lee Morgan, If I Were...

The worst jazz album notes from the '70s are ones on reissues that piss and moan about fusion when it's totally irrelevant to the subject at hand.

True, but not just about fusion: I've read notes where the writer took advantage of his platform to attack all kinds of music that was irrelevant to the music at hand. 

[danasgoodstuff]

56 minutes ago, medjuck said:

True, but not just about fusion: I've read notes where the writer took advantage of his platform to attack all kinds of music that was irrelevant to the music at hand. 

Yes, free jazz and pop of various sorts were often targets.  And on organ dates, weirdly enough, other organ players were often dissed.

[ListeningToPrestige]

21 hours ago, John L said:

Probably the worst liner notes I ever read were from Robert Levin for Shirley Scott's "The Soul is Willing" that features Stanley Turrentine.   The notes begin with the stupid line that "All jazz, directly or indirectly, has come out of Harlem," and go steeply down hill from there.   ..."it must be said that it [the music] has obvious limitations...The limitations of the music result from the limitations of the community from which the music comes.  Harlem is, after all, a ghetto, and many sources are not easily accessible to it.  The art it produces is one where the controlling emotion is frequently anger..."  etc., etc. etc.  

It amazes me that Prestige would have permitted this kind of garbage to be put on one of its records. 

 

That's horrendous.

[Teasing the Korean]

Elsewhere, I posted about Leonard Feather's liner notes for a BN Thad Jones/Mel Lewis compilation, in which he simply couldn't find enough adjectives to describe them.  You would hope that a writer of liner notes would be enthusiastic about the music, but Lenny almost sounds like he's being held hostage here:

"...In 1965, at the Village Vanguard, a child was born. In almost a decade that has elapsed, his cries have been heard and received with elation wherever true jazz has been heard. Never has a youngster been more prodigious in his ability to communicate in the universal language of music.  I would like to believe that the recordings of this orchestra will find their way into every library of music, every college music department, every connoisseur's collection, whether he grew on Basie or Brubeck or the Beatles or Herbie Hancock.  There just aren't any greater sounds being created by any musical organization.

"Am I overextending myself in my praise?  Listening to these four sides you will be convinced that if anything the case is being understated."

[Daniel A]

Leonard Feather also wrote this on a Paul Chambers album:

"I would call Chambers a gas, except that it is depressing to think about gas chambers"...

[Teasing the Korean]

2 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

Leonard Feather also wrote this on a Paul Chambers album:

"I would call Chambers a gas, except that it is depressing to think about gas chambers"...

Oh, dear...

[Brad]

5 hours ago, Daniel A said:

Leonard Feather also wrote this on a Paul Chambers album:

"I would call Chambers a gas, except that it is depressing to think about gas chambers"...

Strange. 

[mjzee]

Well, Feather was Jewish, so the notion probably resonated unpleasantly for him.

[JSngry]

But not so unpleasantly that he just put it out there on his own for no other reason than to do it 

The more I come to know about Leonard Feather, the less I think of him.

[Brad]

3 hours ago, mjzee said:

Well, Feather was Jewish, so the notion probably resonated unpleasantly for him.

I’m sure it did as it does for all Jews from that era but it’s an odd thing to say in liner notes. 

[JSngry]

It is an odd thing to say in a liner note. For me, it seems like an odd thought to have to begin with, to get from Paul Chambers to gas chambers, but to each their own thoughts. But in a liner note...why? How do you get there other than of your own initiative? Was he trying to do a Lenny Bruce sick bit?

Leonard Feather. Jazz Pimp.