What's Goin' On, Danny Partridge?
Dear reader(s),
Over the past couple of days I've been in kind of a strange mental and emotional space. Loud noises make me jump ten feet in the air, my right eye is twitching, and I break into tears every other hour. There is a simple reason for this: an episode of The Partridge Family that I watched the other night. Friend, co-worker, and documentarian, Sparky, loaned me a cassette of three Partridge Family episodes the other night, mainly for the purpose of me watching the first episode, the episode that has made my life such a wreck over the past few days.
Maybe every other '70's pop culture maven knows this, but until a couple of weeks ago I was never aware that The Partridge Family spent an episode in the "Detroit" inner city, saving a Black-owned club (the owners are played by Richard Pryor and Louis Gossett, Jr.) from the Black Mafia by hosting a block party and playing a "Soul" song. As Jeeves would say, "The mind boggles, Sir"
What's a more bizarre image, Richard Pryor "arranging" a song with Keith (David Cassidy) Partridge ("An 'Afro' number I've been working on," as Keith puts it) or Danny (Bonaduce) Partridge marching over to the local "Afro American Cultural Society" in his striped pants--this little red-haired honky, mind you--in search of violin and horn players for Keith's big Afro number? This Afro American Cultural Society--Black Panthers in everything but the name--are inspired by the ofay bassist's brass balls and march over to the club in formation, behind Danny!
Anyway, the song is played for what appears to be the most sparsely attended block party of all time, the money is raised (perhaps by people desperate to get the Partridges out of town as fast as possible?), and Danny is made an honorary member of the faux Panthers. He gets a proclamation and his own beret! Mind boggling, indeed! In addition to cringe inducing (I tried to crawl inside my couch), and an embarrassment to the entire human race. Hollywood should pay reparations to somebody just for that mortifying 22 minutes alone.
What else can you say but, What's Goin' On? I played Marvin Gaye's masterpiece on vinyl yesterday. For some unknown reason, I never heard this record until I was twenty five. I've seldom gone very long without listening to it since. I think it's the greatest Soul record of all time--the record Sam Cooke might have made had he lived longer. Marvin isn't my favorite soul singer, but based on this album and some other work ("Heard It Through the Grapevine," for one) I think he's the genre's greatest male artist. I keep intending to read biographies of him but I can't bear reading about the fuckedupness of his most tragic life. One of these days...
More vinyl Marvin to come.
Also on "G" vinyl, I had a rather pleasant surprise the other night when I spun this Erroll Garner record (its title? Erroll Garner) that I haven't played since I bought it twenty something years ago. I've always been under the impression that although Garner was a fine jazz pianist, he tended to lean toward the cocktailly. These days I'm not even sure I have a problem with that, but as it turns out, the cocktailish factor was not so prevalent anyway. On this recording I found him to be more stride meets mood music. Not boppish enough for some people though, I guess. Witty and sentimental without being soppy. If you want modern jazz piano neurosis, and suffering by the bucketful, there's always Bud Powell. And we'll get there, believe me.
On the CD machine it's been electric Miles: In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. I'm humbled beyond all measure by the fact that I avoided this phase of Miles's career for so long because it wasn't "pure" enough or part of the officially accepted jazz plot (yet I could listen to Cecil Taylor and Anthony Braxton by the hour. Go figure!). I'm glad that my ears have opened up some more.The rewards have been many. Let that be a lesson to you, snobs-in-training!
Over the past couple of days I've been in kind of a strange mental and emotional space. Loud noises make me jump ten feet in the air, my right eye is twitching, and I break into tears every other hour. There is a simple reason for this: an episode of The Partridge Family that I watched the other night. Friend, co-worker, and documentarian, Sparky, loaned me a cassette of three Partridge Family episodes the other night, mainly for the purpose of me watching the first episode, the episode that has made my life such a wreck over the past few days.
Maybe every other '70's pop culture maven knows this, but until a couple of weeks ago I was never aware that The Partridge Family spent an episode in the "Detroit" inner city, saving a Black-owned club (the owners are played by Richard Pryor and Louis Gossett, Jr.) from the Black Mafia by hosting a block party and playing a "Soul" song. As Jeeves would say, "The mind boggles, Sir"
What's a more bizarre image, Richard Pryor "arranging" a song with Keith (David Cassidy) Partridge ("An 'Afro' number I've been working on," as Keith puts it) or Danny (Bonaduce) Partridge marching over to the local "Afro American Cultural Society" in his striped pants--this little red-haired honky, mind you--in search of violin and horn players for Keith's big Afro number? This Afro American Cultural Society--Black Panthers in everything but the name--are inspired by the ofay bassist's brass balls and march over to the club in formation, behind Danny!
Anyway, the song is played for what appears to be the most sparsely attended block party of all time, the money is raised (perhaps by people desperate to get the Partridges out of town as fast as possible?), and Danny is made an honorary member of the faux Panthers. He gets a proclamation and his own beret! Mind boggling, indeed! In addition to cringe inducing (I tried to crawl inside my couch), and an embarrassment to the entire human race. Hollywood should pay reparations to somebody just for that mortifying 22 minutes alone.
What else can you say but, What's Goin' On? I played Marvin Gaye's masterpiece on vinyl yesterday. For some unknown reason, I never heard this record until I was twenty five. I've seldom gone very long without listening to it since. I think it's the greatest Soul record of all time--the record Sam Cooke might have made had he lived longer. Marvin isn't my favorite soul singer, but based on this album and some other work ("Heard It Through the Grapevine," for one) I think he's the genre's greatest male artist. I keep intending to read biographies of him but I can't bear reading about the fuckedupness of his most tragic life. One of these days...
More vinyl Marvin to come.
Also on "G" vinyl, I had a rather pleasant surprise the other night when I spun this Erroll Garner record (its title? Erroll Garner) that I haven't played since I bought it twenty something years ago. I've always been under the impression that although Garner was a fine jazz pianist, he tended to lean toward the cocktailly. These days I'm not even sure I have a problem with that, but as it turns out, the cocktailish factor was not so prevalent anyway. On this recording I found him to be more stride meets mood music. Not boppish enough for some people though, I guess. Witty and sentimental without being soppy. If you want modern jazz piano neurosis, and suffering by the bucketful, there's always Bud Powell. And we'll get there, believe me.
On the CD machine it's been electric Miles: In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. I'm humbled beyond all measure by the fact that I avoided this phase of Miles's career for so long because it wasn't "pure" enough or part of the officially accepted jazz plot (yet I could listen to Cecil Taylor and Anthony Braxton by the hour. Go figure!). I'm glad that my ears have opened up some more.The rewards have been many. Let that be a lesson to you, snobs-in-training!
posted by ken at 8:41 PM
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