Private verses Public Works - On Being Marginalized

I have since the Christmas holidays spent most of my waking hours in my library. My television viewing has for the most part resided in looking in on ESPN's morning First Take program - I'd rather get my sports second hand, it's more entertaining, there are certainly individuals who can ball, but few teams who ball; and watching Martin Lawrence and Alfred Hitchcock reruns.
   Given the cable television situation with Comcast, Time-Warner, Netflix, Amazon and the rest, my mission is clear: get rid of cable and ball with my books and music. But a strange thing has happened. I've been overdosing on movies that my wife and I had collected on our cable box. Last Saturday my wife and I watched Jean-Charles Tacchella's Cousin Cousine (1975) and Claude Lelouch's A Man and A woman (1966) with the very beautiful Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant; after which I watched Patrice Leconte's Intimate Strangers (2004) with Sandrine Bonnaire, Fabrice Luchini, and Anne Brochet.
   This morning, on my way to watch my usual dose of back to back half hour Alfred Hitchcock segments, I discovered the Ron Shelton's truly wonderful (one-star) film Play It To The Bone (1999). The actors are Woody Harrelson, Antonio Banderas, Lolita Davidovich and Lucy Liu. This film cost $24 million to make and grossed about $3,000 the first week. The actor's are superb, the script is tight and very funny. One problem with the film was most likely its initial release. It premiered on Christmas day. Although Harrelson's character has visions of Jesus Christ - among other visions; it's not exactly everywoman's A Christmas Carol. Because it was released on Christmas day and because it's such an intelligent film, it's my personal choice to be featured with Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (pace my being down on Mr. Allen, isn't everyone?) as the Christmas Holiday doublebill. Watching Play It To The Bone it was hard for me to imagine that this film was made in America. It also joins the ranks of my British favorite films - Snatch, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Layer Cake. It also joins the very dark French comedy(?) Crime d‘ Amour by the late Alain Corneau on my faves list.
   I'm sure I'll get over not having cable tv when we cut it loose. Television, radio, roads, electrical power, public transportation, symphony orchestras, museums, health care, cities were at one time reckoned to be for the public good - so were elections. Nations have been subsumed by corporations - Washington has been paid-off big time.
   "Power to the corporation!"   

"We Almost Lost Detroit"

I watched the Gil Scott-Heron documentary that aired on TV-One yesterday. I knew his music, his poetry, and his story. Sitting in front of my 'idiot's lantern', taking in the spectacle of Gil Scott-Heron's stardom, his music, and his American life; I began to wonder about the powerlessness of an individual to shape a decent life even when one has talent, and thereby is, presumably, afforded something of a 'head-start' in life.
   I wonder what power music, poetry, art, or philosophy holds for the assumed consumers of these arts. Scott-Heron's music, poetry, and philosophy (his Art) has influenced a number of hip-hop artists. The power of hip-hop seems to be almost entirely economic for the few 'artists' who have made it. Sampling is everywhere: ours is a remote-control, MP3 culture. We flip real estate, cities, channels, tunes, nations, cultures - all sorts of stuff. Yet an artist - Gil Scott-heron was an artist - rarely has control over the byproducts of her art - not even Lady Day, Mingus, or Stockhausen.
  Sometimes it's best to stay underground and away from the Clive Davis's of the culture industry.
  The Last Poets and Kip Hanrahan, whether by choice or chance, manage to stay underground. I return to Kip Hanaran's music-collages quite often. I'm sure it's because of the heavy-weight musicians that Hanaran employs - If you want to know who they are, buy his CDs.
   "We Almost Lost Detroit" is a nuclear-power-danger protest song that Gil Scott-Heron wrote. It didn't take a nuclear power plant melt-down to loose Detroit, did it? We remain at a loss to formulate the proper questions. As a nation we are quite adept at providing answers - "crime", "terrorism", "sloth" - before asking the proper questions. "Power to the people!"
   Thanks to Walter Kim Heron.

Teddy Wilson, "Jumpin' For Joy" 10 CD set, and Do The Math

I've been working my way aurally through Teddy Wilson's magical 10CD set, entitled Jump For Joy. There are no personnel groupings provided with these discs. The trio and solo performances aren't troubling from a discographical point of view. The small groups are another matter. Admittedly the recordings that Teddy Wilson made with Billie Holiday are easy to put together in terms of personnel groupings, since we have documented recordings under Lady Day's name - these are the recordings that I blogged on about under the rubric Jam Session Aesthetic. In listening to Wilson's CD10, I re-discovered the Sarah Vaughan sides with Teddy Wilson - "Penthouse Serenade (When You're Alone)", "Don't Worry 'Bout Me", "Time After Time", and "September Song". When I write that I rediscovered the Vaughan-Wilson sides, I mean that I knew about them (in a previous life, perhaps); but I had never heard them - don't recall hearing them.
   Needless to say the early Divine One's performances are 'heavenly'. A couple of other surprises reside in the bopish arrangements of "I Want To Be Happy" and "Just One Of Those Things". I guess I'll have to examine the 65 page Teddy Wilson Discography to find out exactly who created the wonderful music captured in these 10 discs.
   I urge you again to look in on Ethan Iverson's blog Do The Math: http://dothemath.typepad.com/
 
P. S. I forgot to note that there are three amazing tracks featuring Teddy Wilson, piano; Harry James, trumpet; Red Norvo, marimba; and John Simmons, bass that knocked me out. "Ain't Misibehavin'", "Honeysuckle Rose", and "Just A Mood (Blue Mood) (Part 1 & 2)" reminded me of the Don Ellis (t) recording, New Ideas (OJC 431), with Jacki Byard (p); Al Francis (vib); Ron Carter (b); and Charlie Persip (d). I am now reminded of Arthur Blythe's recordings with marimba and percussion. I love the dark sounds in the marimba's wood.

Mr. Roy Eldridge, Messrs. Hank Mobley and Amiri Baraka

Among my favorite recordings by trumpet-man and master musician Roy Eldridge is his circa 1956 recording on Savoy with the British pianist Ronnie Ball. Mr. Ball was at one time a house pianist at Savoy - Mr. Hank Jones was the Savoy house pianist; the trio recordings with Jones and Messrs. Wendell Marshall, bass and Kenny Clarke, drums are a delight. Ronnie Ball was way back in the day a student of the pianist Lennie Tristano. Roy Eldridge was very highly regarded by Mr. Tristano. Hang on! It gets thicker. Ronnie Ball is the pianist on the wonderful 1956 Hank Mobley Savoy recordings. Also, on Mr. Mobley's recordings are some of Detroit's finest musicians: Mr. Donald Byrd; trumpet; Mr. Barry Harris, piano; and Mr. Doug Watkins, bass. What a tremendously strong bassist was Doug Watkins - no wonder Mr. Charles Mingus called on him. In addition to being a fine tenor saxophonist, Hank Mobley was a composer of many post-bop/hard-bop standards. His "Funk in Deep Freeze" is one of my favorite Mobley tunes - a very hip title.
   Roy Eldridge was from Pittsburg, Pa., as were Art Blakley, Erroll Garner, and Mr. B, Billy Eckstein. Hank Mobley was from Newark, N. J., as were Sarah Vaughan, Wayne Shorter, Woody Shaw, and Walter Davis, Jr.
   The poet and much else Amiri Baraka was of Newark. Mr. Baraka passed on, joining all of those mentioned above - except Barry Harris who is still with us. He died on January 9 of this year at the age of 79. I return often to Amiri Baraka's 1996 book Eulogies. As I noted in previous blog-posts, I had the great fortune to have been spellbound by the music and artistry of Miss Sarah Vaughan, Mr. Billy Eckstein, and Mr. Baraka, the music-poet.
   This evening as I write this, I'm listening to discs from the Hank Mobley10-CD set Kind of Mobley. The playing and the musicianship on these recordings is so strong. Art Farmer, Lee Morgan, Jackie McLean, Horace Silver, Donald Byrd, Art Blakey, Kenny Clarke, Doug Watkins, and Milt Jackson said what they had to say musically - no tricks and no footnotes required; just like Roy Eldridge and Amiri Baraka. Fetch Baraka's India Navigation recording with David Murray and Steve McCall - if you've hung with me up to this point, you know who these musicians are, what their respective horns were &c.
   Those who know and who desire to know suggest that immortality resides in the good that one has contributed and set out during one's lifetime. My bet is that those who I've mentioned herein are immortal because of the work that they've done, because of the music they've created, because of their compositions, poetry, and plays.
   Just listen to Messrs. Eldridge, Mobley and Baraka's music-poetry - no footnotes required.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJnSpL2Y-gk

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/uptown/amiri-baraka-honored-posthumously-harlem-article-1.1605063