Eliot is my friend whose band I used to manage. He grew up with Jonathan Lethem so I made him read Hayden's profile of JL. I thought they'd hit it off, and they did. Among other things they share the Melville love. (That always sounds dirty... which is why I like to say it.)
Lyra Jane, try Miles Davis' Kind of Blue and Coltrane's My Favorite Things, both of which are easy to find and can usually be had for $10 or under. They're also very "easy" albums: unlike Ornette Coleman's landmark recordings from the same period, or bebop for that matter, they yield immediately pleasure -- there's no learning curve where you need to get into a mindset to get it -- but at the same time they're hard to exhaust because there's so much there. Kind of Blue is the Sgt. Pepper of jazz albums... except that it deserves its standing.
Thanks, Joe. My problem with jazz is the same as my problem with classic literature -- it always feels like homework.
Eliot is my friend whose band I used to manage.
Didn't you send me stuff from that band? Idlewild was it?
Very odd about Elvin, since just today, for the first time in a long time, I was listening to Coltrane.
The Idle Wilds were another band I knew from Philadelphia. I might have put a couple EDO tracks on the end of the Raymond Scott thing I sent you. George Rush, the RSO bassist, was in EDO when I managed them, but had left long before the recordings I think I might have sent you. "Upper Darby Gives Me The Creeps". "Bob Hemp". "I'm Sorry". Maybe "Phineas Gage". I think those are the ones I most likely sent you. Maybe "Used to Be a Priest" (co-written by Jonathan.) The band had a window of opportunity back when I was involved, but we pissed it away. Great band, fabulous live show, tremendous musicians and Eliot is so funny, so smart, so sharp, so inventive. But it was also a really weird band and Eliot can't sing (great front man, though, and too central to the whole thing not to have him out there) so it wasn't an easy sell. We developed a good following between Albany and Morgantown, but never gave it the full commitment and push that Yanni, an original member who quit, came back, then quit again, did with his band, Stinking Lizaveta. Probably could have sustained a living doing what they wanted to do, although big success would have been a complete fluke -- like the Anheuser Busch sponsorship we had! But the only guy willing to tour non-stop was the one with a full-time job. The other guys, un- or underemployed, just hemmed and hawed and made excuses. And I was no help. I did my part because I loved them and the music, but they really needed someone to get out there and fight for them and work the phones and work the bookers and schmooze the labels and so on. I'm not a shrinking violet, but I don't have the aggressive, don't take no for an answer streak that was needed, and I let them down. I still feel bad about that. OTOH, there's nothing I'm prouder of than the role I played in helping something really wonderful start and then blossom.
My problem with jazz is the same as my problem with classic literature -- it always feels like homework.
That's why I suggested those two albums. I love A Love Supreme, but it would probably feel like work. Kind of Blue and My Favorite Things are beautiful and lilting but with real bite.
That's why I suggested those two albums. I love A Love Supreme, but it would probably feel like work. Kind of Blue and My Favorite Things are beautiful and lilting but with real bite.
That's the same thing with Bitches Brew. If you're ready for it, it's absolutely awe inspiring. If you're not, it's just noise.
Are you a Jack Johnson fan, Gandalfe? McLaughlin & Miles are killer.
Joe Boucher, ladies and gentlemen -- the man without a paragraph break!
My favorite yoga teacher used to do a class to Kind of Blue, which was part of why she was m.f.y.t.
Happy birthday Hayden, and Joey, wherever you are.
Are you a Jack Johnson fan, Gandalfe?
Sadly, I haven't heard it . . . .
