From Now 'Till Bloomsday
I'll come out of the closet and admit it: I'm reading James Joyce's Ulysses. Since I'm three hundred pages into it I figure I'm not jinxing myself. I'm reading ten pages (more or less) every night, and if all goes well, I should be done with it by Bloomsday. Do I know what the hell's going on in the book? Of course not. And that's sort of my lead-in, if you will, to the Ulysses of avant-garde jazz recordings, John Coltrane's Ascension.
Holy man, how can you wrap your ears and mind around the forty minute sonic assault that is Ascension? Very carefully? In bits and pieces? Absorbing it through your headphones while walking around the City, as I did yesterday? As with Ulysses, you realize that you do best to dive into the material, forgetting about logic and sense and let it take you where it will. The CD version contains two versions of the performance, so put that in your pipe and smoke it, man. Listening to it yesterday, it occured to me how beautiful McCoy Tyner's piano was in the middle of all the holy noise. Dig it.
Also on the Coltrane front, this morning I listened to one of my faves: First Meditations. As I wrote back when I was listening to the tumultuous Meditations on vinyl, I prefer the earlier, more structured versions of the songs found on F.M. The melodies are so beautiful and played with such power that I love the F. M. recordings almost as much as A Love Supreme. Check it out.
This morning I began the vinyl "F's" with Donald Fagen's 1982 solo debut, The Nightfly, on vinyl. It's no secret to those who know me well that Steely Dan is my favorite "group" of all time. I'll bore you to death with my Steely Dan love when we get to their place in the vinyl, but suffice to say, I think The Nightfly is a pretty keen record. With Fagen's voice and the sharp production it sounds like a record by the Dan, but it lacks the mordant humor and cynicism that Walter Becker brings to the Dan's records. Well, The Nightfly is supposed to be a somewhat nostalgic revisiting of young Mr. Fagan's nights of listening to the all-night jazz radio shows, and on that level it succeeds quite well. You might say it's Steely Dan before the Kennedy assassination. It contains two gleaming, catchy singles, "I.G.Y" and "New Frontier." The heart of Steely Dan without the guts.
Right at this moment we're tearing it up at The Blue Ark (Heather, literally, is clawing up the couch) with Tav Falco's Panther Burns Behind the Magnolia Curtain. Why do I prefer this crude and feverish Memphis mash to the Cramps' monsterbilly? I dunno. Maybe because these guys are real southerners? Like I'm any sort of expert on southern musical madness. Anyway, I love this crazy record. I highly recommend Robert Gordon's It Came from Memphis for an entertaining and informative portrait of the creative swamp from which this recording arose. Half-art project, half-the second coming of the Rock and Roll Trio. Excellent versions of "She's the One That Got It" and "Bourgeois Blues"(featuring a quote from Allen Ginsberg's Howl!).
Holy man, how can you wrap your ears and mind around the forty minute sonic assault that is Ascension? Very carefully? In bits and pieces? Absorbing it through your headphones while walking around the City, as I did yesterday? As with Ulysses, you realize that you do best to dive into the material, forgetting about logic and sense and let it take you where it will. The CD version contains two versions of the performance, so put that in your pipe and smoke it, man. Listening to it yesterday, it occured to me how beautiful McCoy Tyner's piano was in the middle of all the holy noise. Dig it.
Also on the Coltrane front, this morning I listened to one of my faves: First Meditations. As I wrote back when I was listening to the tumultuous Meditations on vinyl, I prefer the earlier, more structured versions of the songs found on F.M. The melodies are so beautiful and played with such power that I love the F. M. recordings almost as much as A Love Supreme. Check it out.
This morning I began the vinyl "F's" with Donald Fagen's 1982 solo debut, The Nightfly, on vinyl. It's no secret to those who know me well that Steely Dan is my favorite "group" of all time. I'll bore you to death with my Steely Dan love when we get to their place in the vinyl, but suffice to say, I think The Nightfly is a pretty keen record. With Fagen's voice and the sharp production it sounds like a record by the Dan, but it lacks the mordant humor and cynicism that Walter Becker brings to the Dan's records. Well, The Nightfly is supposed to be a somewhat nostalgic revisiting of young Mr. Fagan's nights of listening to the all-night jazz radio shows, and on that level it succeeds quite well. You might say it's Steely Dan before the Kennedy assassination. It contains two gleaming, catchy singles, "I.G.Y" and "New Frontier." The heart of Steely Dan without the guts.
Right at this moment we're tearing it up at The Blue Ark (Heather, literally, is clawing up the couch) with Tav Falco's Panther Burns Behind the Magnolia Curtain. Why do I prefer this crude and feverish Memphis mash to the Cramps' monsterbilly? I dunno. Maybe because these guys are real southerners? Like I'm any sort of expert on southern musical madness. Anyway, I love this crazy record. I highly recommend Robert Gordon's It Came from Memphis for an entertaining and informative portrait of the creative swamp from which this recording arose. Half-art project, half-the second coming of the Rock and Roll Trio. Excellent versions of "She's the One That Got It" and "Bourgeois Blues"(featuring a quote from Allen Ginsberg's Howl!).
posted by ken at 5:09 PM
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