NDIM 09/15/21
Elephants & Stars, Fallon disses Brotzmann, Olivia Rodrigo, Chicago Gumbo, Jon Hassell, Salinger's Voice, 'Strange Weather,' 'Spanish Model'
Have you heard Elephants and Stars? This Canadian outfit hails from Hamilton and Toronto, Ontario, and they released their EP Dreamland in April of this year and you can hear it and buy it now at Bandcamp.
There's a recurring theme here of isolation and of escape as characters look to get out of relationships, responsibility, and even life through exit strategies that include running away, drug addiction, and suicide. If that sounds dark, well, it is darker than the band's 2020 release Recovery, but the music here is still sharp and buoyant, anything but painful to listen to.
According to guitarist Manfred Sittmann:“The name of the record came from the cover photo which I found on social media. It is an abandoned theme part called Dreamland and I thought it was such a great metaphor for life. There is this great and wonderful façade, but inside it’s just all left to rot in the end.” Personally the cover reminded me of the abandoned real-life amusement parks used in the horror movies Carnival of Souls and Texas Chainsaw Massacre II--places that were definitely exit points for some characters. But this is a good EP, and these guys have at least one famous fan already.
This actually happened: Jimmy Fallon features a segment from time to time on The Tonight Show known as the Do Not Play List. The segment consists of Fallon playing clips from Village Discount-type vinyl records for the amusement and ridicule of the audience. But this week someone slipped a copy of Peter Brotzmann's somewhat classic free improvisation record Nipples into Jimmy's stack of vinyl weirdness. He proceeds to play an excerpt and joke about it. That lit up a certain segment of Twitter--free improvisational musicians, free jazz fans, and a smattering of those on the far left, all of whom were incensed that Fallon was making fun of Brotzmann, a bona fide genius on the level of Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, Art Ensemble of Chicago, and other free jazz greats. Many were also upset that the members of The Roots participated in the razzing that Brotzmann's record received. In their minds Quest Love was deficient in his musical knowledge for not being familiar with Brotzmann's music (if that is indeed the case) or worse still, a corporate shill who was paid to laugh at whatever his boss laughed at.
Pianist Ethan Iverson posted a thread in which he pointed out that there are Black American musicians who resent the attention that jazz critics lavish on free improvisation, particularly by Europeans. Critics tend to be more impressed by music that is harmonically or melodically expressive vs. music that is primarily driven by rhythm. Others on the thread were bitching about the unfairness of the segment and it all just suddenly reminded me of nothing so much as a roomful of fifteen year old Taylor Swift fans freaking out over a less-than-enthusiastic review of their idol's latest release.
So, I commented that maybe everyone was taking this a bit too seriously. It was obviously a lark, and besides, I suggested, Brotzmann is, at best, a minor figure in the history of jazz. I mean, free improvisation is an acquired taste and it is seriously listened to by a vanishingly small audience. That doesn't mean it isn't worthy of respect, it just means it isn't going to get it from the public at large. Generally speaking, the attitude of most experimental musicians of this type is that the general public are philistines and should pipe down. And that, indeed, has been Brotzmann's response to the whole thing--you know, these are small minded people with no knowledge of culture. So you would think his fans would largely do the same.
But they are actually a group of stans who took offense at my categorization of Brotzmann as a minor figure. The response "I wouldn't say he's minor at all" continues to receive likes. Another poster commented on the classic nature of Brotzmann's Machine Gun recording.
The thing is, I've listened to free jazz and written about some of it for over twenty years. I like a lot of free jazz--not all of it. But I recognize that it is outside the ability of most people who are raised on pop music radio to hear anything other than noise when they listen to it. Hell, some of it is noise. But some of it is not. And I know that Peter Brotzmann has played and recorded a great deal of music and that he is part of the world community of musicians who are free improvisers. But that doesn't make him Duke Ellington. And the sense of outrage over a late night comedian having some fun at Brotzmann's expense is overdone, just like the insane responses of the Swifties and all the other online communities of stans.
But enough about them. Let's look at something important, like the way that I feel badly for Olivia Rodrigo. Here she is with one of the most incredibly successful albums of 2021 in a period when albums aren't supposed to be such a big deal. It's created the kind of fervor that was previously only seen upon the release of a new Taylor Swift album, or the latest Marvel film, or a new Harry Potter book. In short, it's a cultural moment that found millions of people converging around this single album, something that happens less and less frequently, yet I find her trending on Twitter because of a story about how she has given away millions of dollars in royalties by handing out co-composer credits on several songs to Taylor Swift, Hayley Williams of the group Paramore, and their songwriting teams. Read More...
Check out the Chicago Gumbo Show Podcast hosted by Trombone Dave, for conversation with a variety of interesting people that eventually gets to the topic of music. Trombone Dave is a musician, educator, and community radio show host from the Chicago area. He teaches courses in American Roots music at Northwestern University, and has his own band, "Trombone Dave and the Lawn Clippings". It's a pretty interesting show especially if you have an interest in blues and roots music, rock and roll as well as the history of Chicago. Full disclosure: I was in high school jazz band with Dave, but that's not the main reason I'm recommending his show. It's just good.
A description on the front page of Jon Hassell’s website describes him as a “music visionary, continuing his lifelong exploration of the possibilities of recombination and musical gene-splicing.” That is as precise as any description of the trumpet player and musical pioneer who passed away last month at the age of 84. Read John Hassell: A Retrospective of Recorded Works
I'm fascinated by the story of Betty Epps, a reporter who wore a concealed Sony tape recorder to tape a conversation she had with writer J.D. Salinger in 1980. Since publication of her interview the tape has sat in a safe deposit box. Epps has never sold it despite some high offers from interested parties, largely because of guilt over the method she used to obtain the recording. "I stole his voice" she said, and she has revealed that the tape is to be cremated with her when she passes away. That naturally raises the issue of historical archives, publications, recordings, and the like. Does Betty Epps have the right to destroy the only known recording of Salinger's voice? Ultimately she does, as she is the sole owner. I find her devotion to her subject, who died in 2010, rather touching and, in today's journalistic environment her sense of ethics is refreshing.
But I do wonder how I would feel about it if someone had a recording of Buddy Bolden's voice or better still, his playing, and decided to destroy it rather than release it to the world? Bolden was reluctant to record because he was afraid of other players stealing his licks, and as a result he was left behind by others who left recorded evidence of their musical style and ideas. It's a bit of a different circumstance because I'm comparing a musician's music to a writer's spoken words.
A track that caught my attention this week as I researched various articles is Marianne Faithfull's version of the Tom Waits song "Strange Weather", which she also used as a title track for her 1987 Hal Willner-produced album. The album helped set Faithfull on a new path as an interpreter of art and theatre music, recording songs by Kurt Weill as well as eclectic pop composers like Waits. Her previous album, A Child's Adventure, had failed to capitalize on the surprise success of her comeback record, Broken English. Willner had featured Faithfull on his Kurt Weill tribute Lost In The Stars, and many reviewers commented favorably on the way her scratchy, damaged voice matched Weill's brittle songs.
Strange Weather is a good album, very solid in its choice of material, production, and the appearance of some great musicians who Willner worked with frequently, including Bill Frisell, Dr. John, Garth Hudson, Fernando Sanders, and Robert Quine. Quine adds his off-center guitar work to Waits' song, and the result is a sinister, poisoned meditation that seems all too rooted in today's troubled world. Naturally, it's a fantastic song with lyrics that will stick in your mind long after you've finished listening. Anyway, it's a pretty good album. You can stream it on Spotify or pick up a copy at Amazon.
I’ll leave you with a video about the making of Spanish Model, a new version of Elvis Costello’s classic second album This Year’s Model. Costello and producer Sebastian Kreys took the original backing tracks played by Costello and The Attractions in 1978 and then had present day Latin American artists sing the tracks in Spanish. The result support Nick Lowe’s contention that Spanish is the other language in which rock & roll songs sound good.
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