Mr. Samuels's Planet

Perhaps it's fitting that on the day that Saul Bellow died I was listening to avant-garde jazz musician Anthony Coleman's Selfhaters (on John Zorn's Tzadik label), an examination of the tangled notions of Jewish self-hatred. Mother's milk for a self-reflexive Yid like me. In the wide-open America of self-invention, triumph and defeat (and triumph again), can a Jew even define his or her culture? And which Jewish culture, as Coleman asks in his liner notes: "Jerusalem, Belz, the Lower East Side or Rockland County? Or the culture of wandering, the culture of acquisitiveness, of having-no-voice-of-one's own, of mauschel-ing in any and all languages. Well, this disc doesn't purport to answer. Some say that's Jewish, too..."

Exactly. And that's why I find this mixture of melancholy wailing, introspective drones and even an interpretation of Duke Ellington's The Mooche (nice how that compliments our Ellington vinyl listening) so fascinating. You know the old joke: two Jews, three opinions. I don't know anything else about Anthony Coleman's work. I'll have to check it out.

And speaking of Canadian Jews (Bellow was born in Montreal), I listened to Leonard Cohen's The Best Of on CD. I'm embarrassed to admit that this is the only L.C. I own. I've always been meaning to spend more time with his canon, I just haven't gotten to it. This Best Of collection reminds me of my mother. She often played it around the house. A melancholy Jewess playing a melancholy Jew for her melancholy Jewish son. Well, maybe not for me. My ears just happened to be in the way, and my soul (assuming I have one) happened to get it, even if it took me a few years to realize that I had it.

Another CD I listened to was Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come. Longtime readers of this blog may remember I listened to some of Ornette's contemporary (to Shape) Atlantic recordings on vinyl a couple of months ago. There isn't much in music that I find more exciting than Charlie Haden's bass notes that lead to Ornette and Don Cherry's alto and trumpet cries to begin Lonely Woman, the opening track on the album. Bird and Diz for the new generation.

And speaking of Duke...This morning I listened to Money Jungle, his thrilling trio date with Charles Mingus on bass and Max Roach on drums. On the uptempo numbers, Money Jungle and Caravan, the pace is so frenetic that it almost seems out of control. Ellington's energetic piano playing on the title track seems to be driving Mingus a little mad (not a difficult thing to do). Quite a wild dialogue (or is it dueling monologues?) between the two of them. The ballad, Fleurette Africaine is simply lovely.

Yesterday's Ellington listen, Duke Ellington and His Orchestra Featuring Paul Gonsalves (1962) was a real surprise. I bought this record many years ago during my Ellingtonmania and just filed it away. So, in listening and relistening to it with pleasure over the past couple of days, it's like I just bought it. Gonsalves, as you may remember from my entry from a couple of days ago, was the tenor sax hero of Ellington's triumphant 1956 Newport appearance. In a sense, Gonsalves gave his boss a much-needed career jolt (due to the good press from that jazz festival, Ellington was "remembered" by the powers-that-be). Duke was ever-grateful to Gonsalves, and helped out the troubled, talented tenorist when he could. The story behind this album goes that Ellington had a pressing recording date but no new material, so he summoned the band and gave all the solos to Gonsalves in repayment for his loyalty and good work. Anyway, Gonsalves plays his ass off on this record--displaying a cool, breathy tone that is influenced by Ben Webster and maybe Sonny Rollins(?). A real classy slab o' wax.