Jam session

Here's Duke Ellington and his Orchestra performing "C-Jam Blues." It has to be from sometime between 1940 and 1946, after the arrival of Ben Webster and before the death of Tricky Sam Nanton. The bassist looks too fat to be Jimmy Blanton so I'm guessing it's after Blanton croaked in mid-1942. Enjoy.

[UPDATE: Wikipedia and IMDB both say 1942.]

Swing to the right

I'm sure most of the rock'n'roll stars on National Review's Top 50 conservative songs are thrilled to be there. What, no Nuge?

The NYT asks Dave Marsh, and allows John J. Miller to defend his wacky ideas. Who are these people kidding, really? (The defense of "The Battle of Evermore" is the funniest of all.)

[UPDATE: This is a funny rebuttal. Wish I'd had the time to write one myself.]


FMFM: Dizzy's sides with Chano Pozo, from December 1947. A huge sound, created with such confidence. The remakes ("Woody 'n' You," "Good Bait") prove how far Dizzy had come; the new ones ("Cubana Be/Cubana Bop," "Manteca") show where he was going.

Show me you can take a punch

You baseball fans -- especially those of you with an opinion on Michael Barrett's right hand to A.J. Pierzynski's jaw last weekend -- will enjoy this little contest.

(Background, for the non-fans: A.J. was obtained by the Giants in an awful trade with the Minnesota Twins a couple of winters ago, despite rumors that he was one of the most obnoxious, difficult players in the league. Suspicions were confirmed. He had a terrible year for the Giants, during which he allegedly kicked the trainer in the nuts, then went to the White Sox just in time to win the World Series. He's, uh, not exactly beloved here.)


FMFM: Machito's sides from the early 1940s, from the Proper box set. Although his most lasting contribution to music was his fusion of Afro-Cuban rhythms with the jazz of Parker and Gillespie, I think I like his earlier pre-bop material best. My taqueria-grade español is just decent enough that I know when he's singing about soup or rice, and when he's singing about a little love. Sometimes he's singing about practically nothing at all. But there's always a warm wind in this sound, just like on Catch a Fire, that brings me back over and over.

Building on fire

I spent last evening at the Great American Music Hall, where Architecture in Helsinki took the stage. I had heard only scant bits of their music before, and I admit attending largely on buzz.

After meeting the Boss for a round at the redoubtable Route 101 (actually, it's just doubtable), I arrived at the GAMH just in time for Tussle's all-instrumental set. Wish we'd stayed at the bar longer. I liked their double-drummer interaction just fine, but on the whole their set proved to be quite monotonous, with two-note electronic grooves and funny noises on top of the energetic drumming. I'm afraid I wasn't on the right drugs for this one. They were like a jam band that didn't jam. Maybe it works on record. Didn't work for me here. Amorphous and dull.

Architecture in Helsinki is an eight-piece group featuring up to three horns, a percussionist and a drummer, usually keyboards, usually bass, and a guitarist-singer. I'm pretty sure I saw a wood flute up there late in the set, and there were certainly some other things floating around onstage. Their songs are rife with tempo shifts sudden and gradual, hooks buried and unburied, melodies lost and found. (Although the horns are always hooky, the singer isn't always melodic.) The group members often shift or trade instruments (even mid-song), leading to a cheerfully chaotic scene onstage. Variously during the evening, I thought of them as a redeemed Arcade Fire (without the funerary thing), a controlled Polyphonic Spree (without the choir), and a potential conclusion of what Here Are The Facts You Requested set out to do. (Also: One false radio-friendly move, and they could have a Dexy's Midnight Runners-like hit.) I even thought of the Human League at one moment. Boss said he thought the singer sounded like Colin Hay, but I never quite heard it that way; he also noted some Cure-like moments, which I can agree with although I never really liked the Cure.

This was a fun night. The band eventually wound up playing its finale with about 20 people up there, including some invited (and some uninvited?) guests from the audience banging on triangles and whatnot. I can't say I ever really caught onto the band's lyrical content, although I could see that their serious fans were singing along with every word. Worth my time and money.


FMFM: Billy Preston's bumpin', clavinet-driven "Outa-Space," which should really be called "I wish I wrote 'Superstition' but Stevie Wonder already did it." Awesome kick drum on this early-70s instrumental.

Evidence of Specialized Advancement

After some consideration, the co-creator of the Advanced Theory has confirmed my suspicions that Royal Trux were somehow Advanced, despite their relative lack of commercial success or influence on the history of rock'n'roll. He has noted the existence of a related category, Specialized Advancement, in which Royal Trux clearly lies.

I was reminded of an excellent piece of evidence that RTX were Specialists. In 1997, when their beloved album Sweet Sixteen appeared, Virgin sent me the above document (click to enlarge) to advise me of suggested conversation topics when I went to interview the band. Neil Hagerty had obviously given this a lot of thought.

Although the interview is probably lost to the sands of time (not even Alexa can get to that one), I recall touching on #6, 7, 8, 17, 18, and probably #1 although I don't think I realized it at the time. I'll bet Neil would love the flash mob piece.


FMFM: Chet Baker & Gerry Mulligan

Who were those masked men?

Incredibly, Lordi has won the Eurovision Song Contest. And apparently, it wasn't even close. (Thanks, KPK.)

It's really a pity they're terrible. I wanted to see them win all the way, though.


FMFM: Bill Evans' Village Vanguard date, on double vinyl from Milestone. This is harmonically fascinating, although so un-flashy that it could almost pass for a George Winston record if you're not paying close enough attention. Evans' left hand continues to amaze, and Scott LaFaro appears to be at the peak of his powers just ten days before his untimely demise. A lovely session.

Move over Babe, here comes Barry

Tyler Snyder, 19, of Pleasanton, caught the home run on the fly with a left-hander's glove from his vantage point behind the aisle between Sections 145 and 146 in right field. When he was asked by a medioid minutes later if would give the ball to Bonds, he encapsulated America's bilious ambivalence toward this achievement in a two-sentence retort:

"Hell, no. I hate that guy."

You can add #714 to my list.

(By the way, my hermano has that 45rpm record. I may never forget that melody.)


FMFM: Ella and Duke at the Côte d'Azur

You better watch your speed

The Department of Energy says that gas mileage drops sharply at speeds over 60 mph, and that drivers can assume that each 5 mph over 60 is like paying an additional 20 cents per gallon of gas.

What a great time to contemplate raising the speed limit to 80. Weird. It's almost like they're trying to help the oil companies get richer.

Will his star ever stop rising?

Not only did Jodie Foster quote Eminem in her Penn commencement address, but Yakov Smirnoff got himself a degree as it happened.

I'd like to know a little bit about the positive psychology that has helped Branson, Missouri take its lofty place in American culture.

Then we come to the farmlands, and the undeveloped areas

This isn't my finest photoset ever, but I got a few interesting ones through the window of the plane as I flew over the Western U.S. this afternoon. Using Google Earth, I managed to figure out where I was when I snapped a few of them. Coordinates are posted in the comments section of all the Colorado stuff.

No idea which High Plains town that is in the other photo ("Northwest Kansas or similar"), but I'd love to figure it out somehow.


FMFM: The João side of Getz/Gilberto #2. A winning complement to an all-time classic.

Greetings from Maryland, the Advanced state

The View from Fort Miley has been quiet for a few days as I've been traveling, through two Eastern states and one non-state that is nonetheless represented in Congress. Please congratulate me on choosing the nicest day of the year to visit Baltimore, the City that Reads. I, for one, Believe. Will post photos soon.

I'm happy to announce a Fort Miley first: A total stranger has decided to link to me, apparently based on my oh-so-engaging content. It's the co-creator of the Advanced Theory of popular music, whose musings I noted a couple of weeks ago. (He is a friend of a friend, and will surely be my correspondent soon, but to date we have had no other contact save for our blogs bumping against one another.) I advise daily visits or even an RSS feed, for he supplies some of the best music content around. I am honored.

I have been wrestling with Advanced theory for a few weeks now. You have to wrestle with it. It is, of course, Difficult, because it is Advanced. I fear I may have wrongly applied the theory to Calexico, whom I think are a wonderful band but have not necessarily achieved the true heights of great art from which someone like Lou Reed has Advanced. So the question is, does the theory still apply on a smaller scale, when an artist Advances beyond his fans, regardless of how many there are or were?

This brings to mind Royal Trux, who never really sold a lot of records but were always fairly controversial among their own fans. I suspect a lot of their fans didn't even like their records, which would be just about the most Advanced possible state of affairs. The band claimed that one of their most critically and commercially successful efforts, 1993's Cats and Dogs, was created in an attempt to mock their audience, although nobody who actually bought it seemed to agree or care. The band said the same thing about "Shockwave Rider," which was possibly their most accessible song ever but was released only as the b-side of a 45, the flip of which I recall being fairly unlistenable. They are best known in critical circles for Twin Infinitives, which almost nobody has ever actually enjoyed from start to finish.

RTX straddled the Great Point of Inflection, when the typical career path of independent and/or critically acclaimed rock bands stopped moving from messy or noisy or Difficult to relatively radio-friendly (Sonic Youth, Husker Du, R.E.M.), and started going from fairly normal to self-consciously bizarre (Wilco, Radiohead). It's hard to pin down when the Great Point of Inflection occurred, but I think it had something to do with Eddie Vedder being on the cover of Time. Before the Great Point of Inflection, people who had already revealed their Difficult visions to the world were allowed, however begrudgingly, to meet the commercial audience halfway by watering down their Difficulty level. After the Great Point of Inflection, people who had already sold a lot of records without doing anything too strange were now obligated to explore their weird side or else be lumped in with the Goo Goo Dolls, a band that may have been credibly noisy in 1991 and worshiped at the feet of the Replacements, but soon became insufferably mushy and has now entered their tenth year of true awfulness.

The Goo Goo Dolls were technically pre-GPI, but emblematic of its necessity nonetheless. They may have even caused the GPI. Let me think about this a little while longer. I'm going to spend most of tomorrow on an airplane with an iPod, so I will surely have some additional findings soon. I may have to listen to In Utero, which is probably right in the eye of the GPI hurricane. Possibly an old calculus textbook will help too.

Anyway RTX's later, fairly accessible records didn't make anywhere near as much as a splash as its out-of-tune, out-of-focus, turn-that-shit-off records did. Strange band. Strange time they lived in. Possibly RTX and the Goo Goo Dolls are two sides of the GPI coin. I'll have to think about this on the plane too.

Were RTX Advanced? I guess they were neither popular enough nor great enough to satisfy the theory, but they definitely went over their audience's heads. I don't think they could be Overt, although they could be like Neil Young in that they built a career on having no rules. Then again, everybody understands Neil Young. And although I was among RTX's most loyal record buyers, and met and interviewed them twice, and was able to ask them exactly what they were doing and why they thought it was important, I currently have no idea what they were trying to do with music, despite more than ten years of careful analysis. If that isn't Advancement, I don't know what is.

The name of this band is Talking Heads

The Onion AV Club has a list of ten successful musical artists with terrible names. Although Jethro Tull is on the list, I don't think their name is that bad -- actually, I kind of like it.

[UPDATE/FOOTNOTE: The author says that "Jethro Tull" is a poor band name because everyone thinks somebody in the band is named "Jethro Tull." At this moment I feel obligated to admit that I just recently learned the truth about the Marshall Tucker Band.]

Def Leppard (originally known as Atomic Mass, says Wikipedia!) has to be on that list, for two primary reasons:

∙Spell it correctly, and its stupidity is even more apparent.
∙It was a painfully obvious ripoff of Led Zeppelin to begin with. It's practically a cryptogram (albeit a bad one) of "Led Zeppelin".

Other bad ones: Squeeze (allegedly no one in the band will admit that he is the person who named it, although sources claim it has to be Chris Difford), Cheap Trick, Spoon, Superchunk (sorry, Matt).

Trend that must end: Band names that could be "Before & After" puzzles on Wheel of Fortune. These would be the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Deathray Davies, etc. (Free pass for Camper Van Beethoven for being 15-20 years ahead of the curve.)

Name I used to think was lame, but now I think is pretty good: Screaming Trees.

Pretty bad name which has long since transcended its triviality: The Beatles.


FMFM, last week in the desert: The glorious original Motown 8-track masters of Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," in contraband ProTools version (thanks to a record producer friend). Yes, I got to sit there and mix this fabulous record myself, 20 times in a row. The two-drummer lock sounded like a pair of seven-footers in the paint who somehow don't run into each other; the mysteries of James Jamerson's timing will never cease to amaze me; the funky piano sneaks up with that memorable triplet lick going into the bridge; and best of all, Marvin's foot is constantly slamming into the floor throughout the song as his vocal pushes into the red. Incredible. My musical high point of 2006. No way anything will challenge it.

Blink

I thought I'd share these three early R.E.M. films with you....

∙The video for "Wolves, Lower," which didn't even make the cut for the 'R.E.M. Succumbs' videocassette (1986?)

∙"Radio Free Europe" on David Letterman...

∙...and something not yet called "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)," a few minutes later.


FMFM: Peter Tosh Wanted: Dread or Alive. Has its moments.

Out with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels

Desert photos are here. As you might surmise from the photo sequence, we began with a night on the southern shore of Lake Tahoe before heading south on Highway 395, the fairly lonesome road that rolls down the backbone of the Sierra. Once we hit the barren desert, we turned southeast into the heart of the Mojave, camped a night in Joshua Tree National Park, and spent a couple of days with old (and new) friends at a villa in Twentynine Palms. (The long trip home went more or less the usual way, with a brief stop in the wonderful Pioneertown, a place with three bars and almost no people. Not a tourist trap.) We experienced all four seasons in five days.

Quail ran through our camp, and at least one rodent made it to an unguarded piece of food just outside the tent where I slept. We saw two snakes, countless lizards, and a fair number of Marines. (Ouch. I'm just kidding!) No bighorn sheep or owls this time, though.

I'm looking forward to not driving today. May wash the car though.

Upon closer examination

I just want to pull some of these quotes out from the article to which I linked yesterday....

"a sleek round of commerce for the taste-making class"
"not an audience that wears T-shirts of its favorite band or beer"
"the audience is still largely mid-20's, white, upper middle class, educated: prize ponies for advertisers"
"leisure mavens used to exercising choice, and they favor small designers"
"informed and fairly dispassionate consumers sampling a band, checking it off a list, moving on"
"sense of informed caution was everywhere but onstage"

Whew. I'm picturing Ben Ratliff leaving his desk in New York, heading out among the stinking SoCal masses, getting deflated by the wilting desert sun, retreating to his hotel, and getting a little fired up. Wonder if he brought enough water. Wonder if he read the flash mob piece.

Seems like an interesting cat though. More interesting than the other one.

"As an adolescent, reading Rolling Stone and the Voice's music section, I thought that the whole point of being a music critic was that you could live in a cultural cocoon and foist your hipness on the world. It seemed like subsidized record-fetishizing. And I think that for some people, it is precisely that.

But the real challenge of the job--and particularly in writing for a daily--is to keep in motion, always putting more distance between you and what you thought was cool when you were in your early 20s. (You can always admire the old favorites again, but carefully: you must meet them on new ground, as a more developed person.) You have to keep going against assumptions, especially your own. Hipness is a disease, it really is. It freezes thought."

Hot hot heat

Madonna was in line with another characteristic of Coachella bands: she is a clinical analyst of music from the 1970's and 80's.

I just read this NYT piece about the Coachella music festival and, by extension, about the current state of indie-rock music. It appears the author agrees with me that the bands are starting to sound more like critics than the critics do.

Back in a day or two. Greetings from the desert. It's hot. I'll post photos soon.


FMFM: Hooting quail, howling coyotes, and the hum of the Dell desktop.