Reject #5. And, while we're at it, #6.
Crown passed on Destination Out!, as did (o my lord) Billboard Books,
publishers of Freebirds: The Lynyrd Skynyrd Story. We're down to a few
majors now, and a sad string of farm teams that are just on this side
of being vanity presses. Seems the audience for free jazz, in most
editors' minds, is miniscule. (It is, isn't it. Don't tell me.) And it
seems that we haven't been especially convincing when it comes to the
overlap we claim exists between fans of out jazz, and, say, jam bands.
Also, most editors have mentioned that a narrative history, rather
than a record-centered approach, would appeal more, though whether
this is simply a hollow, face-saving gesture is anybody's guess.
Anyway, here's more of what they're politely saying No to, for your
trouble:
1978
Arthur Blythe
Lenox Avenue Breakdown
Columbia
Arthur Blythe, as; Bob Stewart, tuba; James Newton, fl; James Blood
Ulmer, g; Cecil McBee, b; Jack DeJohnette, ds.
Dexter Gordon ended his self-imposed exile in Europe with a series
of ecstatically received gigs in New York, followed by the release
of the disappointing and predictably named album The Homecoming.
Viewed at the time as a sign of jazz's reemergence as a relevant
artistic force, in retrospect it signals the spot at which jazz
turned in on itself, shedding new influences in favor of a
museum-grade worship of the past. A much less heralded moment of
jazz transformation came when NYC loft veteran Arthur Blythe signed
to Columbia in 1978. After a week of rehearsals with bandmates,
Blythe created Lenox Avenue Breakdown. A bracing amalgam of the new
and traditional, the album balances melody and free play, cohesive
group dynamics and wild fights of fancy, in creating an ode to
urban life in all its contrasts. Ranging from noirish nocturnes to
vampy blues wails, the album brought the influences that had been
incubating in the hot-house of loft jazz earlier in the decade into
the mainstream, however briefly. The first track in particular, the
carnivalesque "Down San Diego Way," is as breezy as its name, with
all players contributing equally to the lightly free funk. It
stands as a high point in the careers of all involved, particularly
Stewart, who put down here one of the great tuba statements in
modern jazz. Once loosed on the world, the world took little
notice. But sometimes it's important to step out of the museum and
into the light of day.
posted by Prof. Drew LeDrew at 4:33 PM 1 comments
Sad-eyed gentleman of the Low Life.
The wonderfully erudite Luc Sante gives Dylan's Chronicles, volume
one, the New York Review of Books treatment in their March 10 issue.
The multi-part essay also folds in a look at the complete Lyrics;
Studio A: The Bob Dylan Reader; and the recently re-released astral
emission that is Tarantula. It's a great review, the best of
Chronicles I've seen, as Sante finds a way to place the book into some
kind of context ("young man arrives in the City, wide-eyed but
nobody's fool"), while also allowing for its weirder, sui generis
aspects --- the non-peak moments described in chapters devoted to the
making of middling efforts New Morning and Oh Mercy.
Sante also looks closely at Dylan's lyric writing process, how he made
an art out of marrying "the folk-lyric tradition and Western
modernism," his linking of trad./arr. and his own Dada-fueled
unconscious. Some of this is just Sante conjecturing, but he does a
fine job of picking over the tidbits related to Dylan's creative
process that litter the four books under discussion. And, as a bonus,
he (too gently) puts Sleater-Kinney PR flak Rick Moody in his place
regarding the overall importance and merit of Blood on the Tracks.
Dylan bonus #2: The Independent (UK) recently posted a chunk from Sam
Shepard's Rolling Thunder diaries, on the occasion of the publication
of Shepard's Rolling Thunder Logbook in the UK this month. The book
was re-released in the US back in December.
Dylan bonus #3: TMFTML recently linked to this amazing story by Ian
