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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 5345
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 11:12 am: | 
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As much as you old farts love swooning over 50 year old music I'd have thought you would have been all up in heah!
Come on! 60's Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman man for me THAT'S JAZZ |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 10060
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 12:41 pm: |
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Do birth dates produce songs? The man and his music are the focus. |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2694
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 02:59 pm: |
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"60's Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman man for me THAT'S JAZZ."
Chris, from your inane cynical ramblings about music and obsession with comic book hip hop, I doubt seriously if you understand let alone appreciate the music of Coltrane, Sanders, Sun Ra and Ornette. What's on your T-shirt today? A picture of Cecil Taylor or Albert Ayler?
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Steve_s
Regular Poster
Username: Steve_s
Post Number: 303
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 05:16 pm: |
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What's on your T-shirt today?
"Keep Him Running" 
Recent acquisitions:
"Coltrane: The Story of a Sound" by Ben Ratliff. Not a biography but an unassuming-looking and fairly short book which appears to concentrate primarily on Coltrane's legacy. Haven't started it yet.
"Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz" by Stanley Crouch. Some of these I've already read but most of them I haven't, like the transcript of his battle royal with Amiri Baraka a few years ago.
"Coltrane's A Love Supreme Live in Amsterdam" by Branford Marsalis, DVD and CD.
"One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life -- A Story of Race and Family Secrets" by Bliss Broyard. A 500-page memoir about the author's discovery of her father's and her own African genealogy, beginning in pre-Louisiana Purchase New Orleans. I've read more than half so far.
"Black Skin, White Masks" by Frantz Fanon. Like Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" and Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartets with Chet Baker and Chico Hamilton, this was first published in 1952. There's a short story called "Fanon" in John Edgar Wideman's "God's Gym," which, like Don DeLillo's novel "Falling Man," could belong to a category called "post-9/11 fiction."
http://www2.oprah.com/obc/omag/bookshelf/omag_books_jwideman_e.jhtml
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Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2699
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 07:42 am: |
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""Coltrane: The Story of a Sound" by Ben Ratliff. Not a biography but an unassuming-looking and fairly short book which appears to concentrate primarily on Coltrane's legacy. Haven't started it yet."
I saw this book a few days ago. I was thinking about getting it.
""Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz" by Stanley Crouch. Some of these I've already read but most of them I haven't,...."
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Enjoy. Bro Stan is a lightening rod for criticism and hatin'. I've never seen one person so disliked by so many people. I'm very familiar with his writings, old and new.
".....like the transcript of his battle royal with Amiri Baraka a few years ago."
Actually it was more than a few years ago. As I recall, it happened at a Cecil Taylor concert and I believe Amiri was enraged about a negative review Stanley had written about one of his plays and confronted him about it. They almost went to blows in the club.
""Coltrane's A Love Supreme Live in Amsterdam" by Branford Marsalis, DVD and CD."
I'm sure it is nice. Branford has been doing a lot of recording overt he past ten years. Very talented and open. I like that.
""Black Skin, White Masks" by Frantz Fanon."
I just recently did some research on Frantz Fanon. I also checked out a very nice video about his life from the library.
"Like Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man""
Yeah, Ellison was a very controversial figure. His only noted work was "Invisible Man" and that was it. He rode the crest of literary prominence for one book. As you now, there was a very strained and openly hostile relationship between him and black nationalists and more politically aggressive blacks. They were very critical of Ellison. You may want to check out Arnold Rampersad's recent biography of Ellison.
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Steve_s
Regular Poster
Username: Steve_s
Post Number: 304
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 - 09:14 am: |
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Thanks. Yesterday I read a blog piece about Jean-Claude Izzo, the late author of noir crime fiction set in Marseille who weaved jazz and Arabic music into his novels, and the example the blogger gave was "Money Jungle," the 1962 Ellington/Mingus/Roach recording which, as I remember, was controversial in large part because of Mingus's own disparagement of it.
You know, I didn't read Stanley Crouch when he was writing for the Voice, but now I try to read his books. I sometimes disagree with his opinions, like for example, his dislike for a well-known trumpeter who, for all his success, is actually one of most "for real" musicians around.
Thanks for the info, I haven't looked at it yet so I didn't know that the Crouch-Baraka smackdown is from a couple of years ago. Have you by any chance read what Sterling A. Brown said about Baraka's plays in the (mass market paperback) anthology called Black Voices?
Haven't watched much of the Branford DVD yet except for his interview with Alice Coltrane, which is really interesting, but I listened to the CD, which is a slightly different interpretation than the one on "Footsteps of Our Fathers."
I scanned the Fanon in the bookstore and normally I wouldn't read that book except for the Wideman short story collection. I think there may be a kind of generosity of spirit on Wideman's part, since the story in some ways contradicts one of the main premises of the book (which was published when Fanon was only about 25).
Yeah, I've read both Ellison biographies and have some opinions about the so-called controversies past and present. A couple of interesting points about the Broyard story are that Henry Louis Gates first raised the issue, in a lamely-titled 1996 Time magazine piece called "White Like Me," that
"some people speculated that the reason Anatole Broyard couldn't write his novel was that he was living it --that race loomed larger in his life because it was unacknowledged, that he couldn't put it behind him because he had put it beneath him. If he had been a different sort of writer [!], it might not have mattered so much."
And now, decades later, the charge is that Ralph Ellison, who no sane person would ever claim didn't consider himself black, never *completed* (not "couldn't write") a *second* novel for much the same reason.
And there's also the political issue that Broyard, who was descended from a long line of carpenters, white and black, but somehow managed to entered the rarefied territory of daily book critic for the NY Times, didn't use that position as an 18-year bully pulpit for promoting black literature, of which he was often critical. And again, so was Ralph Ellison, who, as the first African American to serve as a regular critic for the Communist party's literary journal New Masses, from 1939 until 1942, didn't write "booster" reviews of black books, which was mostly what he was assigned anyway.
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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 5352
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 29, 2007 - 10:57 am: |
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"60's Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman man for me THAT'S JAZZ."
Chris, from your inane cynical ramblings about music and obsession with comic book hip hop, I doubt seriously if you understand let alone appreciate the music of Coltrane, Sanders, Sun Ra and Ornette. What's on your T-shirt today? A picture of Cecil Taylor or Albert Ayler?
(I don't wear t-shirts with people's pictures on them. I am an adult.
Do I understand their music? Anybody who says they understand it is a liar. You experience this music.
These guys were the first jazz I was exposed to. In my house we only listened to gospel music. I had to sneak to listen to anything else on the radio, and they sure weren't playing them.
When I got to college, this was what the hipsters were playing (they wore out "The Creator Has a Master Plan" by Pharoah Sanders.
It was the 60's. We were looking for--what I call •••• With Your Mind Music. You had Sly, Jimi Hendrix, Funkadelic coming on, all that acid rock. There will never be a time like it again.
I bet you wish you were me.
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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 5353
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 29, 2007 - 11:00 am: |
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Do birth dates produce songs?
(Spoken like a charter member of the Over the Hill Gang. Birth dates do produce a certain style of music. Louis Armstrong is great, but he is not Dizz or Miles)
The man and his music are the focus
(You don't know nothing about Coltrane, so you can quit posturing.
Lawrence Welk is your man!) |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 10080
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 29, 2007 - 11:49 am: |
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So a musician's birthday should be celebrated because this determines the kind of music he plays? Puleeze. You're just mad cuz NTFS and Steve put you in your place, chrishayden. And I don't have to know anything about Coltrane to "experience" and enjoy his music. So - STFU. |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2729
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 04, 2007 - 06:35 pm: |
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"I don't wear t-shirts with people's pictures on them. I am an adult."
Being an adult has nothing to do with it. I saw plenty of adults at the Monterey Jazz Fest two weeks ago selling and wearing T-shirts with pics of Duke, Trane, Miles, replications of Negro Baseball League logos, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Blue Note jazz logo, etc, etc....
"Anybody who says they understand it is a liar. You experience this music."
Not going to comment extensively nor debate the aforementioned. The blatant absurdity speaks for itself. Next......
"When I got to college, this was what the hipsters were playing (they wore out "The Creator Has a Master Plan" by Pharoah Sanders."
Outstanding recording. Did you understand..........oops! Sorry, I mean, did you experience it?
"I bet you wish you were me."
What???? Do I wish I were you??? Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Why? You are joking, right?
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Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2730
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 04, 2007 - 07:01 pm: |
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"You know, I didn't read Stanley Crouch when he was writing for the Voice,.........
He wrote a lot interesting vignettes and articles about various subjects. He also did a lot of music reviews along with Gary Giddens. I used to read them all the time. In fact, I have a number of them archived.
"....... but now I try to read his books. I sometimes disagree with his opinions, like for example, his dislike for a well-known trumpeter who, for all his success, is actually one of most "for real" musicians around."
Sometimes his writings can be a little obtuse. As I stated before, the guy is the biggest lighting rod for hatin' that I know of. Whites accuse him of being a black demogouge and racist while blacks accuse him of being a sell out lawn jockey for white conservatives. Go figure.......
"Thanks for the info, I haven't looked at it yet so I didn't know that the Crouch-Baraka smackdown is from a couple of years ago."
Actually, it's been around twenty years ago (as I recall -it was back in the middle 1980's)
"Have you by any chance read what Sterling A. Brown said about Baraka's plays in the (mass market paperback) anthology called Black Voices?"
No I haven't. What did he say?
"And now, decades later, the charge is that Ralph Ellison, who no sane person would ever claim didn't consider himself black, never *completed* (not "couldn't write") a *second* novel for much the same reason."
Bro Steve, I can't honestly speculate as to why he was not a prolific enduring writer. But others have given their less than flattering spin about this American enigma. Ellison was a very controversial figure for those who took a more assertive and active stance against racism. I really don't know what was going on in his head (I don't think anyone did). But it is strange and somewhat disappointing he did not follow up with more writings. I don't know what else to say but I'm not going to jump on the ban wagon of conjecture, name calling and vitriolic sell out condemnations as others have. But as you may know, one of his biggest supporters is Stanley Crouch.
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