Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time

Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time

I'm starting the third novel in Powell's twelve part series of novels. Years ago I set out to read, and finish, Marcel Proust's mega Remembrance of Things Past. I managed to slog through half of it - promising myself to finish reading it "soon".


I put off reading Anthony Powell's mega-Dance since it had been unfavorably compared to Proust's great work and I hadn't "finished" Proust. I must say that I am enjoying Powell's Dance very much - it's quite funny. In preparation for my having fun reading Powell I enjoyed the following treats: Edward St. Aubyn's The Patrick Melrose Novels (both the printed and cable-TV versions), the BBC adaptation of Powell's Dance, and Downton Abby - my wife finally persuaded me - to my delight - to watch it along with The Durrells in Corfu (another TV delight). 

I guess I'm a sucker for multipart things. Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet was another obsession of mine many, many years ago.  

Summer Musics

Forty or so years ago, in the summer I would pick through my vinyl record collection, selecting recordings that I thought I wouldn't listen to again. I'd take the selected records to Peter Dale's fabulous Car City Records in St Clair Shores, Michigan to sell for cash or to trade for vinyl recordings. I don't think I ever took the cash option. Peter Dale sold his store to Bob Setlick and retired. Later Peter came out of retirement to own and operate Encore Music in Ann Arbor. In between my dealings with Car City Records and Encore Music there was Steve Bergman's fabulous store in Ann Arbor, Schoolkids' Records and Schoolkids in Exile. In 2011, Peter Dale retired again and sold Encore Music to his employees. Steve Bergman closed Schoolkids also in 2011. Encore Music is still operating, thank goodness!
     Ann Arbor! Many fond music memories: Eclipse Jazz Concerts, Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival, Bird of Paradise, Once Festival (Robert Ashley, Eric Dolphy).... All gone.
     Meadowbrook: Mahler's 8th Symphony and Joni Mitchell with Jaco Pastorius, Pat Metheny, Brecker brothers. Goodness!
     Detroit: The great Bluiett-Jackson-Thiam concert at the Serengeti, with quest Roy Brooks. David Murray Octet at Chene Park. Archie Shepp at the DIA. The Arditti String Quartet concert - at Orchestra Hall - Schoenberg and Kurtag, Ouch! .
     Summertime Music Listening. My earliest music-listing memories reside in the year  ca. 1949 when I was eight years old. I was awed by Coleman Hawkins' Talk of the Town and Stuffy and Woody Herman's Lemon Drop - can't imagine what "lemon drop" encoded. I was also in awe of the 16 inch 78 rpm discs that encoded my mother's friend's operas.
     When we lived in Grosse Pointe music was accessible to us - recordings, concerts, clubs. Columbus, Ohio is where we have lived for the past 25 plus years. As a friend of my wife remarked, It's not Ann Arbor. It's not Detroit either. Both positives. Music and pizza are northern delights. I asked a deli owner in Columbus how he managed such bread-like bread. He replied, I have it sent down from Cleveland. I met Pierre Boulez in Cleveland. I met Gunther Schuller and Lucas Foss in Columbus. I still favor Cleveland - Music, Books and Food.
     Back to Hot Fun in the Summertime.
     Mahler and Clarinet music. Mahler's 6th Symphony and Brahms' Clarinet Quintet.  Pianist Ivan Moravek's Debussy. Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 1. Grown-up music. Sublime music.
     Art Music, Improvised music? I'm sure there was lots of it in the summertime. There is right now. Ah! John Coltrane's My Favorite Things at Newport with Roy Haynes in Elvin Jones chair! Coltrane's My Favorite Things at the Village Gate in NYC with his sextet and Roland Kirk has been the ultimate music experience of my life, August 1961.
     Perhaps I'll add to these reflections later. As Jalen Rose would say, Best to get them on wax.  It's been a while. 
      

Summer Time is Mahler-Time

Composers Pierre Boulez & Rocco DiPietro and Ray White

I never cared for Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1, "Titan" until I listened attentively recently to Pierre Boulez's DGG recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Such detail, such clarity - I've read that Boulez's Mahler recordings are conceptually the antithesis of Leonard Bernstein's much admired Mahler recordings. My first Mahler recordings were Maurice Abravanel's Mahler Symphony No. 8 with the Utah Symphony and Leonard Bernstein's Mahler No. 7 with the New York Philharmonic - recordings that I still admire.  

It's not only Mahler-Time, but Mahler's time - think of Fin-De-Siècle Vienna.

Derek Raymond's The Crust on its Uppers

I've just finished Derek Raymond's 1962 London crime novel The Crust on its Uppers. It's a novel about three Etonian/Oxonian morries of the SOHO manor who become involved in a slush scheme. This fascinating work begins with a three page Glossary of poetic underworld argot.

Read it whilst learning a new language.

Diary -- The Minor Key

22 May 2017
Today, I'm engaged in listening to the 1959 Live at The Blackhawk recordings by Shelly Manne, leader and drums, and His Men -- Joe Gordon, trumpet, Richie Kamuca, tenor saxophone, Victor Feldman, piano, Monty Budwig, bass. These outstanding recordings are 4 hours and 40 minutes in duration.
23 May 2017
Sonny Stitt knew more tunes than anybody. Miles Davis and his quintet, featuring Sonny Stitt on alto and tenor saxophones, appeared at the Minor Key in Detroit, Mi. in May and September, 1960. In that same year the John Coltrane quartet and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers appeared at the Minor Key on multiple occasions. I saw Messrs. Coltrane and Blakey perform numerous times at the Minor Key. I remember (?) seeing Miles Davis at least twice there--once with Sonny Stitt (fabulous playing by Stitt) and once with J. J. Johnson.   

Detroit Music, Musings

Today, 20 May 2017 I needed some Detroit music. I started with trumpeter Donald Byrd and his Blue Note recording Off to the Races featuring Jackie McLean (alto saxophone), Pepper Adams (baritone saxophone), Wynton Kelly (piano), Sam Jones (bass), and A. T., Art Taylor (drums).
    Next I went to the Donald Byrd Sextet with Yusef Lateef (tenor), Bernard McKinney (euphonium) and Barry Harris (piano), Alvin Jackson (Milt's brother, bass) and Frank Gant (drums). This live recording was took place at The New World Stage in Detroit (Highland Park?) on August 23, 1955. Circa 1957/8, friends and I peeked in on the music happening at The New World Stage in Highland Park. Abe Woodley (vibes) and the group were performing Bird's Blues for Alice, one of my favorite Charlie Parker compositions. I heard Donald Byrd perform at the Minor Key club circa 1960. When I was in New York in 1961, living in a loft at 326 Bowery, I ran into Barry Harris on my way to the Original Five Spot Cafe. We were both on our way the check out Ornette Coleman who was performing at the Five Spot.
    In the fall of 1961, a former girlfriend and I walked from her house on Puritan Street in Highland Park past Klein's Show Bar on 12th Street one evening. Yusef Lateef was performing at Klein's that evening -- sadly we keep walking. Before Yusef Lateef left Detroit for New York, I had the pleasure of taking with him over coffee at the Minor Key. I remember the night/morning at the Minor Key when Yusef Lateef got into a profound tenor saxophone session with Clifford Jordan -- Detroit verses Chicago.
    Order your copy of Before Motown: A History of Jazz in Detroit 1920 - 1960 by Lars Bjorn with Jim Gallert (University of Michigan Press).    

Misha Mengelberg (RIP)

The Dutch pianist and composer Misha Mengelberg, age 81, has died. I best remember him as the pianist on Eric Dolphy's 1964 recording "Last Date". Misha Mengelberg was a force in the Dutch avant-garde music scene.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/arts/music/misha-mengelberg-dead-dutch-jazz-pianist-composer.html?ref=todayspaper

What I've Been Doing to Avoid 'Politics'.

For the past couple of weeks I've been attending to Trump-matters in the Washington Post, Guardian, New York Times and The New Yorker - good stuff in all. But the reporting on the Con Man can be for one, for me, unhealthy, troubling, depressing, a straight-up waste of energy and time. Is there a pharmakon for my troubles? Yes, the Muse, Music. Enormous amounts of chamber music is just the thing: Schoenberg and Bartók string quartets, Dexter Gordon and Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis, Glenn Gould, Billie Holiday, Pierre Boulez's Le Manteau sans Maitre, Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. Lot's and lots of music.

The O. J. Simpson documentary on ESPN is also worthwhile. My wife and I did 3 hours last evening - only 5 hours to go.

- see Zadie Smith's http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/crazy-they-call-me -,

Terry Teachout's Unlikely Duke

A few years ago I picked up Terry Teachout's then recent (2013) biography of Duke Ellington. I looked at the first pages, thumbed through the book, put it back on the shelf; saying to myself, "This is not for me" - there was an nasty smell about the book.
     Duke Ellington's nephew, Stephen James has taken steps to set the historical record straight in a thoughtful calling out of Mr. Teachout and his Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington. Mr. James' essay is to be found online at
                                http://jjs.libraries.rutgers.edu/index.php/jjs/article/view/77
     As I mentioned to a friend today, when we were growing up musically we had WQXR's John S. Wilson to contend with. Today Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal is our burden.
     For those who desire to know, David Schiff's The Ellington Century and, of course, Gunther Schuller's writings on Ellington and much else are the places to go.

Bud Freeman & Chicago Cats

I've been listening to tenor-man Bud Freeman's 1929 - 1940 recordings with Pee Wee Russell, Jess Stacy, Jack Teagarden, Grachan Moncur, Gene Krupa, Big Sid Catlett and many other midwestern worthies - some Benny Goodman, Bunny Berigan, and Tommy Dorsey too. Bud Freeman's tenor, his use of vibrato, reminds me of Anthony Braxton while his ensembles with Pee Wee Russell and Jack Teagarden  remind me of Mingus.

The pianist, Jess Stacy's music has been closely attended to me lately. He was many years Benny Goodman's main piano-man. Stacy was married to the great and wonderful singer Lee Wiley for three/five years. Her performances of "Sugar" and especially "Steamboat Tennessee" with Stacy and friends are captivating. Take a look at Will Friedwald's insightful study Jazz Singing: America's Great Voices From Bessie Smith to BeBop and Beyond. 
 

It's been quite a while - technical difficulties.

Until today, I haven't been in the mood to share my thoughts, rants, or much of anything else. Today is a new day. I solved my longstanding technical problem - I could read my Blog but I couldn't write to it. Then, today, by strict inadvertence I stumbled upon the solution - all buttons are not functionally alike.

More later....

"Giant Steps" One Step Leads to Another

Mark Adams posted a YouTube item by pianist Don Friedman, a trio recording of John Coltrane's "Giant Steps". This led me to the YouTube of Tete Montoliu's recording of "Giant Steps", another fine recording, one of my favorite Montoliu recorded efforts. In turn, I was pushed to find Matthew Goodheart's article in Perspectives of New Music (Vol. 39, No. 2, pps. 63 - 95). In this very interesting article, Goodheart makes many insightful points, relating Coltrane's music and his "Giant Steps" composition to other music - Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Miles Davis. I had first read Goodheart's article five or so years ago.
   Next, I thought about Jackie McLean's comments about "Giant Steps" in the fine documentary, Jackie McLean on Mars. Professor McLean was trying to explain to his students the difficulty that he experienced in learning "Giant Steps" - check this out on YouTube.
   As I recall, the first time that I heard a live performance of Coltrane's "Giant Steps" was at Bert's Black Horse Lounge, in Detroit (fabulous '60s). It was a remarkable performance by the Chicago saxophone legend, Eddie Harris (check out his "Giant Steps" on YouTube).
   Although I heard John Coltrane perform in person many times - in Detroit at the Minor Key, Drome Lounge, Cobo Hall and in New York at the Village Gate - I don't recall his having played "Giant Steps". When I got to Trane in person, the music or muse had taken him in other directions. The first time I heard Trane in person was at Ford Auditorium in Detroit when he was with Miles Davis - the legendary Miles Davis Sextet.
   Lastly, I recall being very fond of Rahsaan Roland Kirk's "Giant Steps" (check out his YouTube "Giant Steps"). I met this wonderful musician at the Half Note in NYC - Christmas Holidays 1959. Fabulous!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHQEujakWbw

Good-bye Pierre Boulez and Bye-Bye Facebook*

Today I discontinued my Facebook account. In the beginning, I started Facebook to keep up with my granddaughters. In the mean the time, they have, for the most part, moved on to other social media outlets -- I will not follow them in this move.
*Not quite, not so fast - post something? Facebook won't let go!
   Instead of spending my time answering liberal-hating, keyboard racists and suchlike, I thought that resuming blogging, reading, listening to music would be better for me.
   Pierre Boulez died yesterday at the age of 90. Maestro was one of my heroes. I have started listening to the 13 CD DG set of the Maestro's music.
   I certainly treasure having had the opportunity of meeting Pierre Boulez -- a great soul and a great composer-musician. Take a look at the link below.
   http://boulezian.blogspot.com/

Taking A Break From My Books

This morning I watched an interview on You Tube with the great tenor saxophone master, Sonny Rollins. Mr. Rollins said that he felt blessed for having been on the scene with so many other jazz masters and greats, with Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Lester Young. Indeed, Bud Powell and Jackie McLean lived in Sonny Rollins' Harlem neighborhood.
    So today I've devoted my attention to music, to Ben Webster, Mingus, Monk, Tete Montoliu. Try this from You Tube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqGQh52ZCB8

Happy Birthday Charles McPherson

West End Hotel News - In Walked Charles

Otis “Bu Bu” Turner

At the baby-grand piano,

Sings If You Could See Me Now beneath a triumphal arch,
Separating two rooms of beboppers, night-owls,

‘Players’ who knew what Bu Bu was saying,

Knew what he was playing,

Knew Diz and Dameron.

Blues In The Phone Booth

Alvin Jackson, a double-bass playin’ brother,

Brother of Bags, has completed his phone-call,

Leaves the door wide-open for the trumpet player who,

Prefers to jam sitting down - get down sitting down then.

Roy! Brooks! drummin' man,

Has set up his drummin’ stuff to one side of Bu Bu’s baby-grand.

Trumpet’s in the phone booth - was that Lonnie,
Lonnie Hillyer, inside with his Trumpet,
Pet?

Phone booth action happened on the other side of Bu Bu - at his left hand.

In Walked Charles of the McPherson clan - an alto playin’ Man!

Worst coffee in the world! But the West End Hotel's after-hours' hang,
Provided everything else that this young man’s soul required.

Man!

Teddy Charles - "Coolin'"

St. Mark's Place, NYC -- Five Spot Café and Jazz Gallery -- Summer Evenings 1961.

• I saw and heard Teddy Charles, vibes perform at the Jazz Gallery with Mal Waldron, piano and Ed Shaughnessy, drums. Seated at a table in the front row were three Jazz Messengers -- Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter and Bobby Timmons with two or three women of or from the Orient.
• Outside the Jazz Gallery that evening, a woman was trying to have a chat with Thelonious Monk. Monk in his green suede shoes was dancing 'round his would-be interlocutor. 
• I had met Mal Waltron one evening at the Five Spot Café. I was outside the Five Spot the night of the legendary Eric Dolphy's live recording at the Five Spot, a group that featured Mal Waldron, Booker Little, trumpet, Richard Davis, bass, Ed Blackwell, drums and Eric Dolphy, reeds. 
• The Five Spot, 5 Cooper Square in the Bowery and the Jazz Gallery, 80 St. Mark's Place were owned and operated by the Termini brothers. The Five Spot has a very rich history musically. It was also a favorite hang for New York artists and literati. I lived across the street at 326 Bowery during the summer of 1961.
• Listening to Teddy Charles' recordings today prompted the above.

Ornette Coleman R. I. P.

Ornette Coleman, the master musician, died on June 11, 2015 at the age of 85. In 1958, before Amazon there were neighborhood record stores -- Sears, department stores, appliance stores &c. sold vinyl recordings. In Highland Park, Mi. at that time neither Sears nor any of my vinyl-record suppliers were apt to stock Ornette Coleman's debut recording Something Else. So I had to special order it. There have been only two occasions, prior to the Compact Disc Era, on which I special-ordered vinyl disc: the Something Else!  and David Murray's 1976 debut recording Low Class Conspiracy (Columbia Record Club orders don't count).

Touching on People and Places 
   In the summer of 1961 I went to New York City to stay with a former high school friend who, with another artist, had an artist loft located at 326 Bowery. This address was across the street from the famous and fabulous Five Spot Café. When I went out on my  first evening in NYC the first person I ran into was Barry Harris, the renowned Detroit piano master. We were both on our way to hear Ornette Coleman at the Five Spot. I returned many times to the Five Spot during Ornette Coleman's engagement there. The trumpet chair in the Coleman group was held by Bobby Bradford, Charles Moffett, was the drummer. The bassist was, I believe, David Izenzon. I had never heard Ornette Coleman in person before. The music was, needless to say, breathtaking. I had a number of talks with Bobby Bradford, who was very kind to me.
   The next time I heard Ornette Coleman in person was on a very hot June 1973 afternoon at the Strata Concert Gallery, 46 Selden St. I was there with my friend Jim Murphy and I recall the artist Ellen Phelan being there too. It was a trio setting this time with Charlie Haden on bass and Ed Blackwell on drums -- totally sublime music making.
   In the fall of 1980, I heard Ornette Coleman with the Pat Metheny group at Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit. I don't remember much about this event -- that's the way I am with guitars, usually.
   February 18, 1982, my friend, the writer Bill Harris, and I heard a performance by Ornette Coleman's Body Meta/Dancing In Your Head/Prime Time group -- Charles Ellerbee and Bern Nix, guitars, the amazing Jamaaladeen Tacuma, bass guitar, and two drummers. This fantastic music took place at the Power Center at the University of Michigan.
   The last time that I heard Ornette Coleman in person was March 19, 2004 in Hill Auditorium at the University of Michigan. I was with Peter Fylonenko and Jim Murphy. The group consisted of two basses, one of whom was Greg Cohen and Mr. Coleman's son Denardo on drums. The music was very lamentation-like, a hymn to the all the artists; rather like Ornette Coleman's pre-Skies of America writing for his group and a small set of strings. A beautiful evening of music.
   Ornette Coleman appeared many times at the Minor Key in Detroit in 1961. I don't recall hearing him there. I think I was in New York at the time.
   Ornette Coleman's music has meant a great deal to me during the past 50+ years of listening to his wonderful music. Ornette Coleman and Thelonious Monk were the record holders at the Five Spot Café for the number of weeks of continuous performances. Charles McPherson who had performed at the Five Spot as a leader and with Charles Mingus told me something that I didn't know about this venue's policy: performers were able to perform at the Five Spot as long as the audiences supported the musicians, i. e., Ornette and Monk were all-time drawing cards at the Five Spot Café.
   Let's listen to this music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0sAuMPhFt8
 

Mozart - The Physical and the Mental

I've been pursuing Mozart's music lately, especially his music for wind instruments. Charles Rosen directed me to Hermann Albert's massive 1515 page biography, W. A. Mozart. I bought my copy a few years ago at a great price. Today for $29.00 plus $3.99 for shipping it can be yours.
    There are two problems for me. (1) I hurt my left wrist by frequently grabbing onto Cook & Morton's 1725 page The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD. (2) Charles Rosen had a photographic memory; something I haven't got!
    I shall press on though. I'll let you know about my wrist and memory.

On Neglecting My Music - Johnny Hartman

Between surgical procedures, followups thereto, college basketball, reading too much; I've neglected my music. When I neglect my music, I get irritable - of course the US and world situations increase one's crankiness.
    Thirty(?) years ago, when the Book Cadillac Hotel in Detroit was a quasi-going concern, Johnny Hartman with a trio sang to my wife and me for a couple of hours - there were at most eight people in the room. Mr. Hartman's recordings with John Coltrane's quartet are among the very few sublime vocal recordings in the jam session aesthetic. I'll drop a few names in this tradition: Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Ethel Waters, Kay Star, Rosemary Clooney, Fred Astaire, The Divine One - Sarah Vaughan, and Herb Jeffries.
    This evening I've rediscovered Johnny Hartman's Songs From The Heart that features Howard McGee, trumpet with the Ralph Sharon Trio - sublime music.

http://rayesti-thoughtmatters.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-proof-is-in-jam-part-5-jukebox.html

Bloggy-Block? Not Really • Dennerlein & Gulda

This morning I'm listening to the music of the Hammond B-3 virtuoso, Barbara Dennerlein • See YouTube links below if you must know visually. On her Junkanoo CD she performs with "King" David (aka David Murray) and other fine musicians. It's groove-music all the way down.
   I discovered Miss Dennerlein's music through the work of my main piano-man, the late Friedrich Gulda. Mr. Gulda died on January 27, 2000. The Austrian pianist's devotions were Bach, Mozart and Jazz; his Beethoven swings too. Lame connoisseurs of That Music would have us remain in the dark about Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven as improvising musicians - they kicked it too. Friedrich Gulda was a member of the very heavyViennese trinity of pianists, the other members having been Jörg Demus and Paul Badura-Skoda. Gulda's recordings of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, especially the Beethoven Cello Sonatas with Pierre Fournier, swing. Compare Gulda's recording of  Mozart's Sonata in F major k. 332 with that of Mitsuko Uchida, a pianist I also admire. The Gulda has pulse and swing; the Uchida not at all.
   It took me a long time getting next to Mozart's art. His string quintets, clarinet quintet and concerto, and a few of the piano concertos were about all I could take of the Great Mozart. Papa Haydn was my man. He was the Duke Ellington of his day, a musician's musician - no fluff, not dainty. What I disliked about Mozart were the performances of Mozart's music -- the music ain't on the page. Mozart was a violist himself, but not many recordings of his wonderful string quartets and quintets reveal his swinging viola writing. When one hears the viola part articulated properly we have a Mozart we can feel.
   Have a taste of the YouTube Barbara Dennerlein and Friedrich Gulda linked below -- especially the 1st and 2nd items.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ8QtEzZuoI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmeYEMwrkZM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGVXr4Ji49o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hy_dc8UOjw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcrvnwckKGI