"Carlos", Plato, & No-Doz? (not required)

It's Sunday. I feel that I must explain myself concerning my blog-abouts - Where has Rayesti been blog-wise? Yesterday my wife and I attended to Olivier Assayas' 5 1/2 hour film "Carlos", featuring Edgar Ramirez in the title rôle. This engrossing film is a docu-fictional account of  the old-school terrorist Illich Ramírez Sánchez - better known as "Carlos". Carlos and his various crews (old-school "gangs") had a violent 20 year run, beginning in 1974, as Europe's maddest, baddest, and most wanted criminals. Carlos is presently in a French prison. Since I'm not down with the death-penalty, that's exactly where I. R. Sánchez should remain - in prison.
     Plato. Ah, Yes! Since the Fabulous 1960s Plato has been my man. I was formally introduced to Plato by George Nakhnikian in his Introductory Philosophy course at Wayne State University. I continued my Plato studies at Wayne with Raymond Hoekstra.
     Today, Christopher Rowe is tutoring me. His very instructive Plato and the Art of Philosophical Writing, CUP, 2007 is my guide. Rowe opposes the scholars' usual tripartite arrangement of the Plato corpus into Socratic, Middle-period, and Late-period dialogues. He prefers a pre-Republic, Republic, Post-Republic arrangement - with Socrates, in jazz terms, soloing with Plato throughout; free-(jazz)-Plato. In other words, Christopher Rowe maintains that the character of Socrates in the dialogues is Plato's mouthpiece. It's all very complex; that's why it thrills me - very musical. The Introduction of Rowe's book has 175 endnotes! I am down with Plato and Christopher Rowe's Plato.

Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell (1924 - 1966) & Significant Others

In his Guardian article [http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/24/norway-tragedy-extremism-europe] on the tragic killings in Norway, Aslak Sira Myhre writes:

When the world believed this to be an act of international Islamist terrorism, state leaders, from Obama to Cameron, all stated that they would stand by Norway in our struggle. Which struggle will that be now? All western leaders have the same problem within their own borders. Will they now wage war on homegrown rightwing extremism? On Islamophobia and racism? 

Simon Goldhill in his book Foucault's Virginity writes:

The failing search for a pharmakon for desire is a topos of Hellenistic poetry, and Theocritus, the pastoral master, begins one of his most famous poems (Idyll 11) with the declaration that 'there is no pharmakon for desire, no salve, no ointment, other than the Muses'.

This line of Theoritus's, along with Simonides's For the Spartan Dead at Thermopylai (480 B.C.) 
         
         Take this news to the Lakedaimonians, friend,
         That here we lie, who followed their command.
                                                          Peter Jay, 1981

have affected me, whenever I summon them, in a way that prevents my speaking for a long while.
     It took a very long time for me this morning to speak to myself about the 95 lives taken in Norway by the Norwegian rightwing extremist, Anders Breivik.
     Yet I have also had trouble speaking to myself about our madmen, our own rightwing extremists in our House of Representatives (and elsewhere), and especially the quite 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' John Boehner, Republican of Ohio.
     There is no pharmakon for the political desires of the rightwing Republican kind; certainly no Muse or Song either. Who will take the news to our Commander, to President Obama? Here we lie, down here on the ground, with Boehner's and Obama's hands in our pockets - which brings to my mind Dizzy Gillespie's tune "A handfull of Gimmie and a Mouth-full of Thank-You-Much". Of course the other Republican mascots (aka "Democrats") are outraged, mad at their mascot, President Obama. Ha Ha.

Bud Powell, Dexter Gordon, Francis Paudras and Bertrand Tavernier - Round Midnight


Thinking this morning about Norway, Boehner-Obama, hands in my pocket down here on the ground (our socio-economic Thermopylai) led my thoughts to Bud Powell, and then to the Dexter Gordon, Francis Paudras, Bertrand Tavernier-Round Midnight nexus. I don't know why. It just happened. I decided to listen to Bud Powell all day (Sunday is my music day anyway). And I decided to listen to Bud Powell with Bird, with Dexter, with Stitt, with Byas (did I miss anyone?).
     Then I decided to watch Tavernier's film Round Midnight, starring Dexter Gordon. Then I decided to re-look at Paudras's Bud Powell book, Dance of the Infidels: A Portrait of Bud Powell.
     Why all of this? I wish that I could provide an explanation for my insistence on Bud Powell, on Messrs. Gordon, Paudras and Tavernier. As Marcel Duchamp explained to an interviewer, "We have to make our own arrangements." Why Bud Powell? is a mystery to me. His life and music - his music was his life - appeared to me as follows.
     1957 - I heard Bud Powell in person at the Masonic Temple in Detroit,  as part of the Birdland All-Stars Tour. Listened to the Savoy recordings of Charlie Parker with Bud Powell throughout high school. Listened to Powell's Blue Note recordings in college and afterwards. Listened to Bud Powell with Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt and Don Byas through the years. Met and listened to Detroit's Barry Harris (keeper of Bud Powell's flame) in New York City in 1961. Watched Tavernier's Round Midnight in 1986 and thereafter. The image I have is like that of a telescoping tunnel as seen on TV shows like The Prisoner.
     I got up at noon today; read the Guardian and its accounts of the tragic Norway event and the absurd USA Obama-Boehner minstrel show; decided to devote myself to Bud Powell and related masters and matters. While our minstrels do their steps - to what music one can't imagine, we (the rest of us) search for our Muse, for our music, for our anthem. It certainly won't be in the key of "I have a dream". It appears to be rather in the key of our minstrels' "We have a scheme." Right.
     You know the steps here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmakos
   

Sweet Music - Bitter Reviewer

I had thought about blogging-on about my music-ecology experiences, the madness involved in promoting performances of the musics of Schoenberg, Kagel, Kurtag, David Murray, and Oliver Lake in Detroit, Michigan and Columbus, Ohio. Indeed, I promised my reader to blog-on about it. I decided this morning - as I lay in bed deciding if and when to get up - not to blog-on about my dismal, depressing, disgusting mad-dog experiences as an unpaid music-ecology front-man for the imperialist 'Classical' music presenting establishment.
     I thought to myself this morning, Why not listen to music this Tuesday? Why not blog-on about what thrills you instead of blogging-on about what disgusts and chills you? Why not indeed!
     But there remains one disgusting matter that I must dispense with before "accentuating the positive". John S. Wilson, the former jazz reviewer for The New York Times is in my view the all-time, worst reviewer ever to have written about jazz. (His successors at NYT haven't been much better either.) Circa 1959 I got a copy of Wilson's book The Collector's Jazz: Modern - a volume presently held together by a rubber band. He trashes nearly all of my favorites - Gil Mille, John Coltrane, Donald Byrd, Jackie McLean(!), Art Blakey(!); while praising Stan Kenton, Les Brown, Lennie Niehaus, Shorty Rogers. Draw your own conclusion from this sample and juxtaposition. Terrible stuff, this Wilsonian hacking; making the jazz safe for us. Stick with Gunther Schuller, André Hodeir, Amiri Baraka, Whitney Balliett, A. B. Spellman, or Val Wilmer. Later for Wilson and NYT Wilsonians.

     Whereas almost none of Schönberg's row music ever equalled Pierrot Lunaire for sheer beauty of sound, Webern seems to have been far better equipped for this type of writing; in Das Augenlicht he devised a vocal polyphony which, despite a certain rigidity due to the alternating of homophonic and contrapuntal passages, attained a very high degree of aural refinement. [André Hodier, Since Debussy: a view of contemporary music, p. 73]

Doesn't the Hodier passage above compel us to tune into Arnold S.'s Pierrot  and Anton W.'s Augenlicht in order to find out what André is trying to tell us? Hodier's Jazz: It's Evolution and Essence is one of the best books ever written about jazz. His Since Debussy is also an outstanding work, as are his Toward Jazz and especially his The Worlds of Jazz. The works of the above noted authors - not Wilson - along with Paul Griffiths, Andrew Porter, and (of course) Sir Donald Tovey would straighten out the conceptual confusions of many of our present day philosophers of music aesthetics (if only they read them instead of, or in addition to, each other).
     Let's listen to Schönberg and Webern; let's find out about beauty - twelve-tone-row-wise.
     I had planned to go on with this; but I thought better of it. Plato's Meno is tugging at my coat.

 

Bert's Marketplace - Drop Me Off There!

Jim Murphy, Thom Pride, and I were recently at Bert's Marketplace in Detroit's Eastern Market for an evening and morning (11:30PM - 3:00AM) of wonderful Detroit music - improvisations grounded by driving-intense-poly-rhythmic pulsations provided by the rhythm section that featured superb electric piano, rock-steady bass, and outrageous percussion by the young drummer (just two years out of high school). The quartet's trumpet player had a lot to say also and his attack, while percussive and strong, was less to the front of the music, and was a little (not much) laid back. These musicians certainly knew what they were doing. And they went for what they knew!

     Names, names, names . . . . That magical Friday (8 July 2011) the only 'hat' that I had on was my music hat; I had neither my Blogger’s nor my journalist’s hats with me. I was transfixed by the music. [As I write this, I’m listening to Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers - Blakey and his Messengers were present at Bert's Marketplace that Friday. That’s what it was like.] Except for the surname, "White", of the fabulous post-high- school drummer, I don’t know the names of the other members of the quartet. When I am apprised of the missing names, I'll revise what I've written here. I must add that the other drummer (no-name yet) on the date was terrific also.

     I met Scott Reiter, an alto saxophonist and band leader, who was sitting in with the quartet. Scott is from Toledo, Ohio and is a friend of the pianist Stanley Cowell (the Second Toledo Flash) and poet, DJ, etc. John Sinclair (I've mention John elsewhere). Scott was at Stanley Cowell’s house when The Toledo Flash, Art Tatum was giving a piano lesson! To have met a person who was in a room with 'God' ! . . . . Scott pointed out to me that the legendary piano-man, Johnny O'Neal was in our room that evening. He also pointed out a post-high-school alto saxophonist who proved to be quite on "creative alert" and up to hanging with what was happening musically.

     Now the quartet’s keyboardist (no-name yet) performed brilliantly Friday. After Johnny O'Neal sang a ballad, he assumed the piano chair. The mentioned keyboardist stood behind O'Neal with his mobile-phone’s camera ready to photograph O'Neal’s flying fingers. A piano lesson was provided and photo-notes were taken - it was a piano-flash and percussion-discussion kind of night; the horns weren’t locked out by any means, it’s just that the rhythm-thing was so, so heavy.

     The young lady who attended to our refreshment needs was engaging. The music was both engaging and incredible.

http://youtu.be/U1zZJRPy0MQ

"Destination Out"

I discovered this morning a wonderful music-ecology website, Destination Out. Check it out for yourself.

http://destination-out.com/

What To Do? What To Think About? - Coming Distractions

Over the past few days, my time has been delightfully spent as a short-order cook for my son and his family. I have also spent some of this time with my doctors. Regarding the later the Viennese satirest Karl Kraus comes to mind. His German is reputed to be untranslatable; but there have been 'translations', among which are the following (I quote from memory):

Doctors: "Your money and your life."

Psychoanalysis: "Psychoanalysis is that disease of which it reckons itself to be a cure."

     I've been thinking about writing about my experiences as an unpaid, unappreciated and reviled music producer (I prefer the term "music-ecologist") - projects which involved the Arditti String Quartet, David Murray, Oliver Lake, Hamiet Bluiett, John Stubblefield, the World Saxophone Quartet, and D. D. Jackson. Except for the Arditti, photographs of these master musicians have been displayed in this Blog at various points.[*] Thus this music-ecologist shared a similar fate of certain environmental-ecologists: distain and marginalization.
     What might be the opposite of eco-nut? Eco-Imperialist, Rapist, I suppose. What might be the opposite of music-eco-nut? I leave this as an exercise for the reader.
     [*] Arditti link with photograph: http://www.ownvoice.com/ardittiquartet/