Link Dump- Levine being Manny?

This was too good not to mention- the arts blogger at Boston.com compares James Levine and his uncertain contract status to... Manny Ramirez? I don't know where to start...

Destination Out has a great set of Steve Lacy/Evan Parker duos, on sale at their new shop! Congrats to the guys on their fantastic new ventures, and buy it already, will ya?

And Ethan Iverson continues his great interview series with the legendary Gunther Schuller. It's worth the long read, even if Schuller is just a name on the sleeve of "Birth of the Cool" to you. I don't know Gunther personally, though Ran Blake still considers himself Gunther's student, and one of my colleagues in my time at NEC, Eric Hewitt, served as his assistant for a number of years. Even now, according to them, his energy is amazing, and he is more impassioned and engaged in his work than most folks half his age.

Reading the interview brought up very mixed feelings about Gunther that I hadn't thought about for awhile. He is, of course, a peerless musician, with insanely good ears, and in his day was probably the best French horn player in the world. As president of New England Conservatory, he probably did more than anyone to try to bring the full spectrum of the jazz tradition to music schools. I continue to be so grateful for the small-c catholic vision of jazz that NEC teaches, where eminent musicians who probably can't agree on anything teach next to each other, and have for years. Personally, I find his writing like Elliot Carter's- clearly brilliant, but inscrutable and often way too dense for my ears.

The but... I remember in a workshop on jazz history at Eastman a visiting musician read a paragraph of Schuller's Early Jazz describing a seminal Louis Armstrong piece, and then a paragraph of Armstrong talking about making music. The language, the tone, the approach were not even on the same planet. In, I believe, an attempt to legitimize the brilliance of the musicians he clearly adores, he placed their music in a context they wouldn't even recognize. It may too have something to do with the patrician world Schuller had to function in as a classical musician. This disconnect between process and study, while almost inevitable in the arts, always struck me as a particularly acute problem in jazz education, and here may be the beginnings of it. (I should note that I think things here are better in many quarters than they were even ten years ago)

I'm not trying to dis Gunther Schuller here at all- for one, I don't have near the requisite credentials, and two, the brilliance and impact of his work is undeniable. But those who read this blog regularly know that the impact of jazz education on the music and culture of jazz is one of my bugaboos, and Schuller is in many ways the first king of jazz ed. Thoughts?

Your enlightenment gets me off...

Two random notes as I continue to try to compose my thoughts about Newport, and move to a new apartment:

Salon.com highlights the seedy underside of the guru in Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray Love". Really, they're just compiling older reports, but I think it's worth highlighting. I've had no contact as a teacher or a student with the SDYM, so I have no particular insight into these accusations. But I can say that I've studied with teachers who, while they were tremendously helpful to me and to my journey as a yogi, have behaved in ways that I find downright despicable. (Omgal sums it up beautifully) And there are other teachers whose ideas I greatly admire and work with who have been accused of the same. My own personal solution- I work with their ideas, meditations, and processes at a distance, not up close. I vividly remember something my father said to me once when I had my first experience with institutional politics: "you want to test someone's character, give them just a little bit of power". As a teacher, it's easy to let yourself believe the idea that somehow the fact that you came across this cool insight somehow makes you hot %$#t, which then gives you the right to shtoink anything you want and pull power trips at will. Ahhhh... not so much. It's not about you; it's never about you.

On a ligher note, the recently resurgent blogger (and author of the amazing The Rest is Noise. If you care about music of any stripe and haven't read it, I'm not sure I can talk to you...) Alex Ross collects suggestions of the "worst recording ever" after suggesting his own. I know it isn't the worst, but one of my least favorites is a collection of Howard Hanson conducting his own symphonies. I know it doesn't reach Ross' depths- for one, the fidelity is decent- by I have a personal animus against Hanson from my Eastman days, and the music itself is crap. If you have better suggestions, please send them to Alex. I also remember completely from my days studying with Brookmeyer his rant against a couple of comps he got from the Aum Fidelity label- he thought the music (mostly free, which wasn't typically to his taste) was ill-conceived, and then badly recorded at that. I don't think I agreed with him about those particular records, but I'm starting to see where he's coming from. But that's another post...

UPDATE: The Siddha Yoga Foundation responds to the Salon article here.

Looking back, the road seems empty...

I'm working on several year/decade wrap-up posts at the moment, but in the meantime, Happy New Year! Tiding you over:

Congratulations to Darcy, Dave Douglas, Vijay Iyer, and the other friends of this blog who picked up tremendous acolades in the big year-end lists. Richly deserved. If you haven't bought "Infernal Machines" or "Histiocity" yet, what are you waiting for? And check out:

Bob Brookmeyer turns 80, and Darcy (speaking of himself) celebrates with a great post, including sound samples. "K.P. '94" literally changed my life, as I'll blog about soon.

NPR posted the concerts they presented for the "Toast of the Nation" show, including Anat Cohen in Boston and The Bad Plus at the Vanguard.

You can't have enough orgies...

December is here in Boston, and we have the snow to prove it. We also have the annual WHRB orgies, long stretches of a single artist or motif. I'm a big fan, and hope you will listen either online or at 95.3FM in the Boston area. The whole schedule is here, and there's a whole lotta Chopin, but here are my highlights.

Wednesday 12/9, 5am-7pm, and Thursday 12/10, 4am-1pm: the Jazz Royals orgy, playing only those artists with King, Duke, etc. in their names. Silly gimmick, some great artists.

Friday 12/11, 5am-1pm: Messien and Radiohead. Looks intriguing.

Week of12/14 5am-2pm (Monday through Friday): Yuseff Lateef Orgy

Saturday 12/19 through Monday: Arvo Part Orgy

Monday 12/21: Modern Jazz Quartets and Quintets Orgy. (Or, just another Jazz Spectrum...)

It was a dry wind and it swept across the desert and it curled into the circle of birth

(Note: I'm trying to start blogging again, but that means I may not write all that well at first, so please check back for edits and corrections often, and comment if I am out of line, or just spelling things wrong... or even if you agree.)

While I've been away making a living and pursuing my other career as a yoga teacher, the jazz blog explosion of the summer came when Terry Teachout wrote a dismal prognosis on the state of the jazz scene, based on a census survey about who listens to what. Kelly Fenton wrote a nice summary with links, and Darcy has continuing coverage over on his blog. I've followed this debate with only one eye, and don't want to restate the obvious, but I had a few random thoughts that I hope are useful:

- There's been a lot of back and forth about the methodologies of the study Teachout mentions, and I'm not competent to get into that. But what I see from the commentary critical of Teachout speaks to the perceived (often anecdotal) health of the scenes in various towns. In what I see from friends online and in person, there are certainly strong scenes in cities like NYC (duh), Boston, Portland, Seattle, and Chicago. (All of the above would qualify as the bluest of "blue cities" politically. Coincidence?) I would be interested to hear about the state of scenes in smaller cities with strong scenes historically that aren't exactly media hubs or perceived as cultural centers, and may politically run "purple or red"- places like Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Kansas City, Atlanta, Cleveland, etc. What Sarah Palin calls "real America"- and I'm not trying to get overtly political here, believe it or not. To me, that would serve as a interesting and important litmus test of where we are as a jazz economy (and that's really what Teachout is talking about), more than who is hearing some cool shit in Brooklyn. This ties into my education rant below...

- I don't know why I though of this- I can't remember the last time I heard an honest-to-God instrumental solo on pop radio (John Mayer the notable exception). Not indie rock, pop. My memories of pop radio as a kid are littered with solos, good, bad and everything in between. Pop nostalgia for me isn't complete without the opening guitar madness of "When Doves Cry", the awful sax glop on "Careless Whisper", and a dozen others not worth mentioning. Not to mention the pop tunes that sit more meaningfully on my brain- the sax intro to "What's Going On", Herbie on Stevie's "As", Brecker on "Still Crazy..." And remember the outpouring of interest when Darcy counted down sax solos? But outside of Mayer, whatever you think of him, I can't think of an honest to God guitar or sax or anything solo on I've heard on pop radio in at least a couple of years. I don't know if its that radio edits are getting shorter, or that's just out of favor, or the triumph of the producer over the songwriter or what. But I think it matters.

I am a reluctant proponent of the "gateway drug" theory of musical interest. Kids hear instruments, they get interested in playing, and some eventually find improvised music and become players and fans. I see it as a teacher. If kids aren't hearing solos on the radio, they're less likely to seek out instruments to solo on, or as listeners seek music where solos are a focus.

- While I don't agree with everything Teachout says, like everyone else I'd love to see a larger audience for all kinds of art music in this country. If I had to put all my eggs in one basket as to how to "solve" this crisis, I feel like the answer is education. Not music education, education as a whole. I worry as I watch politics, the state of the newspaper, the fate of my peers that we are living in what local writer Charlie Pierce semi-satirically calls "Idiot America", a country that can't think in a paragraph longer than a tweet, where citizens are born on third base and think they hit a triple. If we don't create a citizenry who can think in paragraphs and form and process somewhat complicated arguments about anything, we're sure as hell not going to find an audience for a twelve minute jazz composition, no matter how well it's written or how sharply it's played.

The heyday of jazz in this country, at least as a commercially viable meduim, came at the height of the American educational system, when at least a plurality of middle-class kids came out of high school able to form a geometry theorum and comprehend Shakespeare. When Bernstein could produce a young people's concert where the text doesn't sound like Barney the purple dinosaur, and get an audience. God knows this wasn't a utopia, and there was a ton of inequity, but without wider access to an education where critical thought is valued, I don't us getting anywhere beyond where we are now.

Speaking of Bernstein, this clip isn't as textually eloquent, but Dolphy is amazing:

And the twelve-bar, anyone, anyone?

He's not as loaded as Ben Stein, but Ethan Iverson wants to give you $100 to blog about jazz.  Go, you know you want to.

On that note, I need to update the blogroll- this is school vacation/catch up week, so stay tuned.

On another note, as I mentioned in the gig list, the Jazz Composers' Workshop Band is playing NEC tonight at 8pm.  Especially in light of all the talk about big band in the blogosphere lately, it'll be interesting to see what the next generation is thinking (and writing) about.

For all, I care

it's all about the commas. Meanwhile...

The Bad Plus dissect their classical "covers" on the new album, with video and choreography to boot. I'm jealous, and now curious to hear about the cover covers. (The epic series of Wynton posts is great to, and has been discussed roundly on the interweb.)

Ryshpen thinks about how to approach the avant-garde if you're on the outside looking in.

The last month plus of stuff over at D:Out, especially the Ornette and the Headhunters stuff, is fantastic.

I'm baffled by twitter, much as I am by texting, but it certainly has possibilities as a kind of haiku, as being explored by old friend Jed Wilson and Christopher Walken. Also, many congratulations to Jed and his wife Deena on their new baby!

My bracket picks on Facebook are in the top 2 percent, with 15 of the Sweet 16 still in, which gets me a whopping 7,448th place. I'm so proud... (hides in corner)

Dave Douglas gets asked about practicing. Many of the responses are great, and I'll try to pick this thread up soon.

If you missed it, old friend Rudresh Mahanthappa was on Fresh Air earlier this month. The whole thing is great, but the sound clips of Carnatic saxophone playing blew my mind.

Daily musings

Wow, it's been awhile since I did this...

- A last minute concert announcement: Judy Silvano performs tonight at Lily Pad with Joe Lovano and the Fringe. I reviewed a similar gig last year, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Anytime you can see Garzone and Lovano on the same bill, and for only $10, how can you miss?

- I did get to most of the okayokay set last Thursday, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The trio of Khabu, vocalist Kyoko Kitamura and woodwind freak Mike McGinnis rolled through a whimsical set of songs and improvisations, riffs on the Weekly World News, e.e. cummings, and original loops. Khabu is playing a lot more mandolin, in addition to his burning otherworldly electrics, which in a strange way grounds the proceedings. A lot of fun.

- Congratulations to Miguel Zinon on the announcement of his MacArthur fellowship, a truly remarkable event. Darcy opines about it. I'm still listening to some of Miguel's solo stuff- I'm not that farmiliar with them- thinking hard about this one and what it could mean. More soon.

I'll snicker while you preen

I've got a couple of (late) reviews in the hopper, but in the meantime, here are some links:

First, a new link. Rebecca Pacheco, a friend and one of my early yoga teacher, has started a blog, OmGal, with lots of good yoga info.

Darcy gets all irrational. I mentioned it in the comments, but it feels like we're reaching a point in improvised music where the notation is not keeping up with the expression, especially in communicating 3:4 and 4:3 relationships. (See Maria Schnieder, Kenny Garrett, Lovano, and so many others) I like the fairly elegant solution he reaches.

Byron Katie tells her daughter about her day. This woman continues to blow my mind.

Quite awhile ago I linked to a rather lopsided tenor summit of Scott Hamilton and Wayne Shorter. But this blows it out of the water- Luciano Pavarotti and... Bryan Adams. Even ten years past his A-game, Pavarotti giggles, then wipes the floor with Mr. "Everything I Do". (via the Sports Guy) I should mention a personal animus here- I had to play a bad medley of "Everything I do..." and "All for Love" four times a week for several months on Cruise Ship X. But even if I thought he was godly, he is awesomely bad here, and he realizes it too late. (Of course, there's a link from that page of Adams, Pavarotti and Andreas Botticelli singing "All for Love", which is an embarrassment to all involved. I'll never understand...)

Nate Chinen reviews Ornette in New York. What are the odds of him ever hitting Boston again?

Links for groundhogs, goalposts and other creatures

Nate Chinen reviewed Trio M at Hotel Kitano in New York. A different, but equally positive take on the band to my reactions.

Ethan Iverson scores again with a parsing of Oscar Peterson and his notable critics. My reaction to come. And staying in the family, Ethan's fantastic wife Sarah reposts her amazing essay about vacuum cleaners and loss.

One concert note, my friends Prana Trio will play the Lily Pad tomorrow night. I would be there, but I'm afraid I'm a homer, and there's this little football game. But if that doesn't interest you in the least, go check 'em.

One note on that game. There has been a lot of blowback this week in the papers against the Pats, which I understand. It's hard to like a juggernaut for very long, especially one whose boss sometimes resembles a cross between a poorly dressed Dr. Frankenstien and a football Grinch who may have used, er, less then ethical scouting tactics. But those of us who live here are still pinching ourselves. My first football memory is watching an horribly inept Patriots squad on television give up a game winning pass to Buffalo (1979? 1981? someone help me here). We had three defensive backs in the area, they had one receiver- guess who caught the pass? That pretty much set up the football of my youth. I also remember losing to Tampa Bay back when they were god awful, and had lame pastel orange uniforms to boot. Likewise, my first baseball memories are 1.) seeing Dwight Evans on TV getting hit in the face with a beer while trying to catch a fly ball in Yankee Stadium, and 2.) having to leave my first ever game at Fenway Park because my grandfather had broken his hip. Paged over the stadium PA and everything. I'm not making this up. So forgive me and me ilk for reveling in our good fortune. And enjoy the game!

(Shakes head in disbelief that someone actually put up a Dewey Evans page on Wikepedia...)

Current listening: Bobby McFerrin, Medicine Music. Was reminded of this album recently, so I went out and finally got it on CD. (I had it on cassette 15 years ago.) Am I the only one that thinks that McFerrin is criminally underrated, partially due to his pop success?

UPDATE: One of the few bright spots of the aforementioned Pats from my youth, the amazing linebacker Andrew Tippett, was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame today. That makes me happy.

Not mean but be

Haven't done one of these in awhile.

There are various wrap-ups of the IAJE jazz blog panel featuring Darcy and Ryshpen, among others of interest to us who do and read these. In reading the posts about it, I'm struck by the position that the moderator took (as I read it), of initial skeptical derision. First, why doeas anyone need to justify a creative endeavor, be it a band or a painting or a blog. ee cummings said "a poem should not mean, but be". I'll defend blogs in that category

Second, anyone who reads any of the bloggers on the panel, or the other "major" jazz blogs (my big three are Darcy, Do the Math and be-jazz, both in terms of eyeballs and content) doesn't read them because the creators are self-promoting, they read them because they're worth reading. For the same reason political junkies read Woodward or Friedman or whoever, or football fans read Peter King. They're knowledgeable, well-connected, and have strong, informed opinions. And if there's promotion, especially of a quality product on top, what's wrong with that. But why would anyone read a blog that only self-promotes? And finally, what's wrong with self-promoting, anyway? It's not like the papers and the radio and the labels are going out of their way to help us out... Anyhooow, more links:

D-Out has a phenomenally warped version of Chameleon this week- yes! My middle schoolers are doing a big-band version of that old, overplayed chestnut for their upcoming concert, so anything i can give them to keep it from turning into an unwitting porn-groove is a good thing. (On the plus side, having to teach Chameleon does give me an excuse to teach them to learn the basslines and the rhythm parts as part of learning to improvise on a tune.)

YogaHope is featured today in the New York Times! I've done a little teaching at the Hello House, which is the facility they highlight, and it's a remarkable experience. The article doesn't overstate anything, believe it or not.

More as I see 'em.

Red states don't swing?

(via War Room) The Norman Mailer Institute and Zogby's recent poll about politics and entertainment, summarized here, is an interesting read. Most notable for this space:

"Conservatives are the least likely group to listen to jazz (34% vs. 44% of moderates vs. 53% of liberals) and reggae (8% vs. 20% vs. 26%)." Why do I get the sense that "hip-hop" was not a choice on the poll- I can't imagine it scoring better than jazz. Makes me feel like I should give JB Spins more love than I do- his is a lonely post. (Seriously, he's a very good writer, and while I disagree with him a lot, musically and politically, he's worth reading.)

And... "Classical music: although moderates are less enamored with it, classical music barely nudged ahead of rock as the most popular music genre overall." While I think this may well be a case of people tailoring their tastes to a pollster, Alex Ross would still be thrilled.

So, if you really want a change next election, start inviting your conservative friends to jazz clubs and reggae dancehalls?

Searching for a Heart of Gold

Some stuff in real-time, some good (planning for '08 gigs), some less so (family health crisis) will cut into blogging for the next little bit. But before I go, I wanted to tie up a couple of things.

More gigs to see:

Jennifer Kimball, my favorite singer-songwriter, is playing for free(!) at the (correction) Lizard Lounge in Cambridge every Wednesday night this month. no cover! Go see her, please. You won't regret it.

The Boston Symphony, under James Levine is doing an amazing program of the Berg Violin Concerto and Mahler's 9th Symphony. The Berg is probably my favorite classical piece, and has the best saxophone part in the orchestral rep. (no coincidence there, surely) And the power of Mahler was discussed at length earlier this summer on this blog.

Blogroll updates:
In this game a minute is the (relatively) new blog of Evan O'Reilly, guitarist, teacher and raconteur. Evan was an early contributor to No Sale Value, and is a good musician and interesting, contrarian thinker.

I also added the blog of Byron Katie to the "Shining Lights". Katie is a strange, remarkable story of enlightenment, for lack of a better word. I've found her method personally to be nothing less than life-changing, corny as that, or she, may sound.

Finally, thanks to Reid, Ethan and Dave (AKA The Bad Plus) for another hugely entertaining evening on music on Saturday. I thought the set started a little slow, then took off with the ABBA cover. I went with a friend who had never seen the band before, and they were knocked out. (particularly by the set's ending, which I won't spoil for those of you who get to see them soon)

Oh, it's election day in the states. Go vote. Thank you.

The whole world might be wrong

Apparently not everyone is thrilled with Radiohead's new gambit, which I will download this morning. (about $7 sounds right- that's a little more than I see when you buy No Sale Value's record on ITunes. Hint, hint) The bit, bitchy as it is, raises an good question- are we ready for a world where content only exists in an ephemeral form, where you don't have to go out and buy a box of something? That might be the height of post-modernism right there...

Every generation has a hero on the pop chart

The latest interweb dust-up about The Bad Plus and their covers has been well, er, covered at this point. I've blogged previously about Ethan, Reid and Dave, sometimes positively, sometimes less so. I stand by all of it. (And, pat self on back, I doubt I was first, but I called the prog angle two years ago...) A few thoughts anyway:

- I've thought, both as a player and as a critic, that the role of the critic was to judge what an artist does, not what the critic might prefer. My father likes to call that criticizing and ice cream soda for not being hot. Reading some of the (albiet selective) quotes TBP highlights, I think some of the critics would do well to remember that.

- One thing I like about TBP is that, if you played any of their records, but especially the last two, to someone who is musically literate but pop-culture clueless (like, say, my parents), I don't think they could tell the originals from the covers. There's an aesthetic unity to the work that I think undercuts some of the criticism they take for their covers.

- I won't touch the word irony, and I respect and thoroughly accept the what the band wrote, but I would say that, especially on a first listen, The Bad Plus' style can come across as quite, let's use the word glib. The last two bars of the A section of "Make Our Garden Grow" sound to me like a TV network audio logo, and I still find some of their cross cuts from crazy free to tight forms cuter than they need to be. Now that I know the band, both musically and socially, they make a lot more sense, and I like them more, but I understand why a critic wouldn't.

- Darcy asked the why TBP takes more flak for covers than, say, Jason Moran or Mehldau. I'd answer the question with a question- why are some pop tunes more acceptable for covering than others? Joni Mitchell, Radiohead, and Aaron Neville are okay, but Tears for Fears and Black Sabbath are out of bonds. Says who, and why? Lyrical quality- that never stopped us from covering "Miss Jones" or the much maligned "Surrey with a Fringe". I would, and do, think to cover Paul Simon or Curtis Mayfield, but not AC/DC or Blondie. That's due mostly to my own tastes and experiences, but I admit partially due to what I've been trained to expect "jazz" to be. Are musicians and/or critics projecting that out into a set of mores?

I would add that based on what I've heard so far of two much-balleyhooed new cover projects (and many before them), even picking "good, quality pop tunes" is no guarantee of making good music.

- finally, a tangent- one critic wrote: "…a slapstick version of E.S.T…". Would somebody explain the critical appeal of E.S.T. to me? (The popular appeal, as much as there is, I kind of get- It's pop-ish and approachable without looking like smooth jazz) I'm trying hard not to get to dark on other musicians, but... I've heard big chunks of two albums, and heard them live once, and hated every minute of it. The writing is thin on a good tune, the pianist hits the piano like it's a nail and he's a hammer, and I don't hear near the kind of interplay in that trio that I do in the bands they're often compared to. (Including TBP) I'd like to be wrong- can someone enlighten me?

Update: see Dave Douglas, another great advocate for covering newer music, and his especially cogent points on the topic.

Empty Your Cup

While I put myself together:

- Thanks to those who came to the hit on Sunday night with Lift. And huge, huge thanks to Eric, Andrew, Carmen, Bridget and Jason for bringing the music to life so wonderfully. We all agreed that it was a great start, and I want to do it again soon. Sound posts to come.

- Since Dave Douglas obviously doesn't have anything better to do at present, he wrote a long and fascinating blog about the issue of repertoire in jazz and improvised music. Hope this stirs the pot a lot- my thoughts to come. (I'm planning to make the opening FONT concert on Saturday night. Holler if you see me.)

- Darcy reviews the Claudia Quintet. I got to see the band in their last go-round in Boston, and it was equally great.

- I did get out to the Halvorson/Pavone duo and Ted Reichman hit in Brookline on Friday night. I had to be up at 5am, so sadly I missed the Speed/Noriega madness. Briefly, Halvorson/Pavone- fascinating, focused, riveting writing. Especially when they added their close-harmony duo singing. Unfortunately, the improvising didn't match it. Ted played long, minimal patterns on an out of tune piano with MIDI drumbeats. Not my cup of tea.

RIP Zawinul. Darcy, as usual, has the rundown. I bumped into Danilo Perez today, who was terribly bummed. He'd seen him at a festival this summer, and gushed about it. He will be missed.

- Finally, I was in quite a funk today even before that bad news, it being 9/11. Like many folks, I can still flash back to the moment I saw the TV with the planes, and the frantic attempts that week to reach people near the towers after the phones had gone out. I played the Knit ten days later- you still had to go through a National Guard checkpoint to get there- and walked by the rubble still smoking. I wish I had something eloquent to say this time, but I don't. I'd remind people that a conservative estimate puts the number of deaths US foreign policy has caused just in Iraq at more than ten times the deaths Al Queda caused on 9/11. And for what? We must do better, now.

sometimes the frog sings too

More Muppets whimsy- to celebrate the release of season 2 on DVD, the Phoenix newspaper compiled a top twenty Muppet Show musical moments. The Rich/Animal duel is already legendary; for me the find is the Paul Simon solo number. I didn't know this tune, and man is it great.

the dog who licks itself because it can

Words of wisdom from the great Lee Konitz. (via Rifftides)

Mwanji collects the shards of feedback on the most recent Keith Jarrett fiasco. The things I miss when I skip town. And I've been fortunate enough to see Keith's trio three different times- when I saw him in the Rochester area he actually laughed off an erstwhile photographer. Why do I miss all the good stuff? On a more serious note, before Keith's late 90s early 00s bout with chronic fatigue, there was a date set for a quintet record of the trio plus Lovano and Tom Harrell, playing all new material. (Rumors were floating around for awhile, and Jack DeJohnette confirmed them at a masterclass I attended in '97) One can only hope this idea gets picked up again...

And on a more frivolous note, Greg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback returns this week, just in time for really useless NFL preseason games. He gives rather roundabout capsules for each team, and a fantastic layman's guide to hedge funds, the biggest scam of the season not involving something made in China...

Addition: I'm the last one to this, but Steve Coleman finally has a blog. Anyone who's ever heard Steve speak or talked to him in person or on the phone, knows that this is long, long overdue. (My former prof Ralph Alessi, who toured with Steve for several years, said that if he called, he would just stop whatever he was doing, get his notebook and start writing.) It's dense, it's full, and some of it may be BS, but it's a must read. I've skimmed it, but I will spend an hour at work tomorrow literally mouthing along with the words, and then maybe, maybe start reacting...

Ain't nothing wrong...

But I am busy. Here's links so I'm mocked less for liking Tammy Faye...

The Bill Holman band on Youtube. (via Rifftides) It's easy sometimes, at least for me, to overlook how good Bill's work continues to be, and how much meat there is to chew on in what seems like very light, straight-ahead writing.

A new (?) model for jazz fundraising. (via Mwanji) The more I watch the jazz world from a slightly more global perspective (or try to), the more I think jazz is best served by local, ground up organizations. The orchestral/museum model, which is fantastic for what it does, rarely serves us very well. (Witness J@LC, ideology aside spending seemingly 90% of its time and energy simply trying to maintain what it's built) More thoughts on this later.

More on postmodernism in jazz. You know you love it, or maybe you just its signifiers...

On a related note, critic Fred Kaplan has a blog. I like his breakdown of the Jazz Journalist Awards. I love Andrew Hill- some very warm NYC memories are going to hang with Ron Horton when he was playing with Hill's sextet, and marveling at the music- but I always question showering someone with awards the minute they pass on. I wish this had happened upon the release of Dusk.

Examining Rock the Bells, an exercise in hip-hop nostalgia (?!), as it makes it's way to New England.

Muppet relics find a home. Awww...

Around the Horn

Useless statistic for the day: today is one of only two days on the American calendar where no major sports league has a game scheduled. (The other is Wednesday- the days before and after the baseball All-star game) A good day to crow about the hometown Red Sox, 10 games ahead of the next comer in the standings, early favorites for another trip to the World Series, even with their two best hitters not hitting and their #2 pitcher on the DL. I know, famous last words.

Anyway, batting cleanup on the interweb:

Mwanji reports on still more squabbles on the jazzosphere. TIG asks about postmodern jazz. I'll try to get back to this one... (BTW, I don't talk up, or read, The Improvising Guitarist enough. Always a keeper.) And Taylor Ho Bynum revels in an aesthetic fistfight.

From the Grey Lady, Murakawi on jazz and his novels, and the Public Editor on Iraq coverage. Both must reading for very different reasons.

Matana Roberts on Woman as Artist, Artist as Woman.

Ethan Iverson with an exhaustive look at Tom Baker as Dr. Who and Buffy. I grew up on Tom Baker- I was the fourth Doctor for Halloween when I was seven or so. Not to be outdone, his wife Sarah parses the feminine in male devotional poetry (and Kanye) and John Cage's rules. I still need to get Sarah's new book.

One addition to the "shining lights" portion of the linksroll- Yogahope, a non-profit based here in Boston that offers free classes to individuals living in homeless and battered women's shelters. Sue, who is the director of the program, is a Baptiste friend, as are many of the teachers there. (I may try to teach or assist with them in the fall) It is a wonderful, ground-up organization, (currently in a fundraising drive, hint hint) doing phenomenal work.

Finally, the other big talk of the weekend was, of course, Live Earth. I'm all for the cause (duh), and it reminded me of a few practical things I should be doing to reduce my wasteful ways, so if it did that times several million, I'd call it a success. Even if the nicest thing I can say about the music is "wildly uneven". High point for me, oddly enough, John Mayer's press conference. See 3:55. When does cynicism win? His set wasn't bad either. I didn't see a whole lot of it- like the Police, didn't love 'em, loved Kanye West's set, though his star turn with the Police at the end was, er, silly. My brother liked Genisis, but he has a real soft spot for even the "Invisible Touch" Genesis. Other thoughts/highlights/links? One disquieting thought I had- look at just about evey prime time act at every venue- Crowded House, Bon Jovi, Madonna, The Police, even Roger Waters dug up from the grave. Every one at least twenty years into their careers, and most at least ten years past their prime. That doesn't bode well for the music industry. I vaguely remember Live Aid way back when, and one of the striking things was how many (fairly) very current, newly established bands were featured- the Eurythmics, U2, a young Madonna, and a lot I'm forgetting. Where were the likes of them this weekend? Mayer, Kelly (yuk, I can't believe I'm saying this) Clarkson, The Killers, maybe, but I'm not sold, even on my man-crush Mayer. (Don't tell me Fall Out Boy and Shakira, sheesh...) Wasn't somebody willing to take a chance on Arcade Fire, or Esoteric, or some other cool band I don't know yet? That doesn't bode well. Well, at least we had Spinal Tap.