John Doe was on Soundcheck today. Interview & performance.

A little late, but here's Gary Giddins on Cecil Taylor. Fifty years into his career he's still controversial. The difference between Cecil and Albert Ayler is that Taylor is an absolute monster. Even Ayler's biggest fans wouldn't argue his case on the merit of his chops (and I'm certainly in the chops-are-just-a-means-to-an-end camp), whereas even Cecil's biggest detractors would find it hard to gainsay his technical mastery. If I remember correctly A.B. Spellman, in Four Lives in the Bebop Business, claimed that Cecil's virtuosity outstripped even Art Tatum (who is often used as the jazz benchmark for virtuosity regardless of instrument.) That said, it's likely that more people heard of Cecil Taylor from Ken Burns' documentary than from the rest of career. Which would be fine except that he's the one figure in the documentary who is actively disparaged: "self-indulgent bullshit," Branford Marsalis responds to Taylor's contention that the audience needs to prepare for his music. (See the Giddins piece for more on this.) I'll admit I don't quite get Cecil, but I don't think he's a put-on artist. I have musician friends who can listen to large-scale pieces (Cecil usually plays for an hour or more) and hear the structure of them, and they get a lot out of it. The fact that I don't hear it (I'm sure with some training, formal or self-, I could learn how to do it, but I don't have that training) doesn't mean it isn't there. And it's not essential to listening to his music. Some people just connect to it on a very basic level. I don't, and I don't understand its more esoteric elements, but I think Cecil is sincere and undeniably talented and we're lucky to have him. I love this bit from the Giddins interview: "Tommy Flanagan went to hear him when Cecil was playing duets with Elvin Jones at the Blue Note a few years ago. He stayed through two sets and was set to open at the Vanguard a week or so later. When we left I said, jokingly of course, 'So will you be playing any Cecil Taylor tunes?' He said, 'No, but you can bet I'll be thinking of them.'" May not be my cup of tea, but we're better off having it than not having it.

I think he played that "You're Beautiful" song, but I only stuck around for about 3 songs and wasn't sure. I might pick up the album. He was rather cute and was very good at making eye contact with different sections of the audience.

I like Damien Rice as well, but I find I can't listen to the whole album at once. However, he works perfectly in shuffle mode on the iPod, which is a whole new realm for me: albums I enjoy in full, albums I enjoy on Shuffle.

"self-indulgent bullshit," Branford Marsalis responds to Taylor's contention that the audience needs to prepare for his music.

I wonder how many soprano saxes those Marsalis boys have shoved up their asses over the years to get to be so freakin' self-righteous.

Not that I think it's automatically terrible to disparage Taylor, but I do think the Marsalises have made a career out of disparaging free and electric jazz, while sticking to obnoxiously safe music over the years.

Anyway, that said, a friend on another board mentioned that he was reading an extremely rare Beefheart autobiography the other day and the good Captain also disparaged Taylor as "merely measuring the piano." Actually, now that I think about it, the difference between Beefheart's and Marsalis's putdowns say quite a bit about the relative worth of each man.

Thanks for the Taylor posts. I saw a profile about him the other day that just seemed like a standard issue jazz hagiography. But I couldn't stand the excerpts they played. It's satisfying to hear that his sound is so controversial, and a bit disappointing that it was hardly mentioned.

Can't remember where I saw it; CNN or something.

the good Captain also disparaged Taylor as "merely measuring the piano."

I'm not sure what that means. They're both off-puttingly weird, consciously and unselfconsciously. That is, the weirdness is a choice, not an accidental byproduct of their endeavors, but at the same time the weirdness wasn't chosen just for the sake of being weird. I like Bfart and Cecil (and Ornette for that matter) more in theory than in practice. For better or worse each was (and still is) following his own muse, not trying to cultivate some kinda uberhip or ubergeek rip. And like the line between clever and stupid that line's pretty thin sometimes. And one of these days I'll look at the High Hat's banner and think "Beefheart" instead of "Benicio del Toro... no, wait! Beefheart!"

Cecil reminds me of Sarah Vaughan. If you listen to early Cecil, like Jazz Advance or Love For Sale or his half of Into the Hot, it's recognizably Cecil, but it's not hard to get into at all. You can hear his love of Ellington, Monk, and Bud Powell. Or listen to Sarah sing "Speak Low"; you know there could be something to all that Greatest Singer Ever business. But maybe for someone who could do anything with her voice or for someone who could play anything (including lots of stuff most people never imagined) that was too boring. Now that I write it, though, I'm not even sure that that's it. I think it (avoiding boredom) was the case for Sarah, but not for Cecil. I think he was following his muse, and because his instrumental skills were so extravagant there was nowhere he couldn't follow her. He never had to rein in his musical goals and ambitions. Which isn't always a good thing. Limits can be useful. Three minute singles. The Hollywood studio system. Sonnets and haiku. Form can be freeing as well as restrictive. I love Go Down, Moses and am happy to argue with anyone who says that the fourth section of "The Bear" is a giant mess (it's eccentric, but the internal logic holds), but beyond telling someone that it is great, that it's worth the effort, and that I'm willing to help someone make the connections I wouldn't try to force it on anyone. "It's too much work" is valid as far as I'm concerned. But just as I get genuine satisfaction from something most people want no part of, I have no problem believing Gary Giddins when he says that as much as he admires Cecil Taylor's music he loves it because it grabs him at gut level and really moves him. And I also have no problem saying it doesn't grab me like that. I listen to it every once in a while and hope it will reveal its mysteries and pleasures but so far no luck. Monk clicked on first hearing. The Replacements left me cold for years but one day w/o trying I ended up on Paul Westerberg's wavelength & have loved them since. My last word on Cecil Taylor: A.B. Spellman's Four Lives in the Bebop Business (the other three lives being Ornette, Jackie McLean, and Herbie Nichols) is definitely worth checking out. Then again it may convince you to listen to Cecil, at which point you'll get mad at Spellman and me.

ETA: It's been a while since Misha abused me for not using paragraphs.

So we are listening to "Shangri-la" by Mark Knopfler, and the dude has a song on there written from the point of view of Ray Kroc, founder of McDonalds. I almost fell out of my chair.

I'm going to San Bernardino
Ring-a-ding-ding
Milkshake mixers
That's my thing, now
These guys bought
A heap of my stuff
And I gotta see a good thing
Sure enough, now
Or my name's not kroc
That's kroc with a 'k'
Like 'crocodile'
But not spelled that way, yeah
It's dog eat dog
Rat eat rat
Kroc-style
Boom, like that

It's really a good song, too.

I heard that on the radio here some months ago, Robin, and no one has believed me that I really heard it!

tina, thanks for the shopping info. Wikipedia came in with some recs, and I'm finding some stuff that will work.

Seth's doing great - 3 months old on Friday - and yeah, he sleeps from about 8pm to 6am most nights, so the only problem is getting home in time to play with him before bedtime. We took him to his first festival this weekend, and he loved it - wriggling around on the grass or jigging about in his sling to the Trojan Sound System, Tipper Irie, Youngblood Brass Band (who were astonishing) and loads of DJs.

Oh, and I'm halfway through S1 of The Wire and you were dead right - it's astonishingly good.

Jim - awesome. I took Li'l Sphere down to SXSW, but he didn't get to hear much of the music. I bet he's going to love it next year, though.

Also glad, but unsurprised, that you're digging The Wire. It keeps getting better, too, so stick with Seasons 2 & 3.

Form can be freeing as well as restrictive.

Damn straight, but it's different for different artists. I think that Beefheart, by the time he got to Doc At Radar Station and Lick My Decals Off, Baby had completely mastered his own ambition, which is why they're much better albums than the sprawling Trout Mask Replica. Love, with "7 & 7 Is" and Forever Changes, is another good example of how an artist can destroy the form of the song in favor of their own internal logic and make the song better. Or, more conventionally, Big Star, who took the form of the Kinksy pop song into all kinds of crazy directions, most of which it blended so seamlessly that it all sounds like happy, good-time music until you think about the chords, structure, and instrumentation of the song.

Currently, I'm listening to the epitome of the guy following his own muse on the rock/folk/whatever side - Jandek. I've decided that my review of Blue Corpse in LITG is definitely lacking because I don't talk about several things that are obvious to me now - the singer on the first three songs isn't Jandek, but someone else. Jandek can be heard Bob Willsing his encouragement in the background. On the other hand, Jandek only plays guitar on the first three songs; the rest are clearly a different guitarist. The words and even the phrasing are pure Jandek throughout, so the other singer must have been coached by the weird man, and I'm assuming that the other singer is the second guitarist who plays throughout the rest of the album. Jandek calls him "Eddie" at one point. Eddie knows how to tune a guitar or, at least, cares enough to do so. Eddie guitar isn't Jandek's - they have different tones. Jandek is recording his voice by mic'ing an amp, which is either a Fender Reverb or another tube amp with a reverb pedal on it (which explains the odd feedback on his version of "House of the Rising Sun." Also, most of Jandek's lyrical obsessions are hit throughout the album, and his lyrics are more simultaneously poetic and direct than on any other album (of the 30 or so I've heard, at least - the man is up to 42 as of this month, but has been very prolific recently - four albums last year and three this year already).