JAM Magazine: June/July 1997 Issue: Storyville: Reading Jazz- A Literary Review

WRITINGS ABOUT JAZZ --
Sometimes Bad, Sometimes Beautiful

© 1997 Bill Fogarty

Some people collect used streetcar transfers or cigar bands. Others fill rooms full of little glass elephants, owls or bees. I must confess I have the strangest compulsion of all. I save writings about jazz that are incredibly stupid.

It all started when I clipped out a review by Barry Ulanov in an early-1950s issue of Metronome. Ulanov, who was actually one of the better critics of his era, had listened to a Thelonious Monk single and wrote: "If only this early bebopper could learn to play the piano!"

My collection isn't limited to reviews and published essays. There's also a treasured stack of liner notes. For example, a two-LP set I have titled Chet Baker In Paris has these words from one Alain Gerber of Jazz Magazine. "Those who, here and there, accuse (Baker's) music of being 'castrated' do not realize how terrible such mutilation is, and at the same time cannot realize that such castration is perhaps indeed a form of privileged aesthetic fertility, for it indefinitely prolongs desire."

I said I collect stupid writings about jazz. But there are still other items in my trove that totally befuddle me. (Maybe I'm even dumber than these writers, for I have been puzzling over their words for a long time and still can't figure them out.) From "The Trouble with Jazz Singing" by Mark Jacobson (Esquire, January 1995):

"(With the advent of bop), the music made itself largely unsingable. The acute angularities inherent in music like Monk's chopped up the phrasing to the point where archly laborious scatting of the 'Sassy' Vaughan variety became reflexively de rigueur."

Now warmed up, Jacobson goes on.

"But this is nothing compared with the spiritual dilemma created by the fastidious 'cool' of Miles Davis, which demanded an agnosticism of almost anal proportions, and the effusive religiosity of later John Coltrane, which posited a sonic universe in which humanity is struck inarticulate in the presence of the higher power. You know a style is in trouble when its 'First Lady,' Ella Fitzgerald, can be soulful, have impeccable pitch and delivery, and play with Duke, and still every time she opens her mouth, it's 'A-Tisket, A-Tasket." (Gee, thanks, Mark, for letting us know who the First Lady is.)

After consigning Sarah and Ella to the dustbin of vocal jazz history, whom do you think this critic offers up as the New Hope? Cassandra Wilson. And I'm not making that up.

My collection also includes writings that casually amend history. Here's something Boston Globe music critic Bob Blumenthal wrote (and may actually have been paid for) in a recent issue of the Atlantic Monthly.

"No other European musician has made a grater impact on the direction of jazz than Joe Zawinul."

That's right. Django Reinhardt, here's your hat.

Drivel such as I've cited here might chase any normal person away from reading about jazz. But sometimes I feel I'm almost as hooked on the jazz word as I am the music itself. That's the way I felt when I got my copy of Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage and Criticism from 1919 to Now (Pantheon). It's a brilliant anthology assembled by Robert Gottlieb, a former editor for the New Yorker.

The reach of this 1,000-plus-page book is vast. You can read, for example, Anita O'Day's account of her 1954 drug bust in Kansas City. Or Gene Lees' memoir of his close friend, Bill Evans. And you can read critic Leonard Feather's rueful admission, 40 years later, that something he himself wrote in 1945 about the "musical illiteracy" of the "moldy figs" (advocates of traditional jazz) was mean-spirited and clumsy.

Some of the 106 pieces in Reading Jazz are by recognized literary giants. Ralph Ellison, for instance, contributed "Minton's" and "On Bird, Bird-Watching and Jazz." Jean-Paul Sartre provided "Jazz in America." But I got as much enjoyment from reading reportage by musicians themselves, such as Rex Stewart and Miles Davis. Perhaps the first serious review ever of a jazz performance was written in 1919 by the distinguished Swiss conductor, Ernst Ansermet, who was thoroughly gassed by Sidney Bechet. That's in this book, too.

I must say that there are pieces in Reading Jazz that I completely or partly disagree with. But that's not the point. The value in reading a cross-section of jazz writing in a large collection like this is that you can rekindle some of your own deep feelings about this music. You might laugh at the explanation by French critic Hughes Panassie as to why Bird's music cannot be called jazz. But you come away with a better feel for how jazz has gone through great changes and has still remained the same.

It may seem strange, but after reading what all these musicians, reporters and critics have to say about the music I have been in love with for well over 50 years, I think I trust my own instincts and taste more than ever. That may be how it should be.

I don't know if I'll ever finish Reading Jazz. As with a great collection of short story masterpieces, I find it best to read no more than two or three pieces at a time, then think about what's been said. By the time I've read all 106 entries, I'll be ready to go back and start over again. Like painting a battleship.

Reading Jazz cost around $40 in paperback.

What a bargain!

RETURN TO JUNE/JULY 1997 MAIN INDEX

------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors 1996-2001. All rights reserved.






	Search our site:		WRITINGS ABOUT JAZZ -- Sometimes Bad, Sometimes Beautiful © 1997 Bill Fogarty Some people collect used streetcar transfers or cigar bands. Others fill rooms full of little glass elephants, owls or bees. I must confess I have the strangest compulsion of all. I save writings about jazz that are incredibly stupid. It all started when I clipped out a review by Barry Ulanov in an early-1950s issue of Metronome. Ulanov, who was actually one of the better critics of his era, had listened to a Thelonious Monk single and wrote: "If only this early bebopper could learn to play the piano!" My collection isn't limited to reviews and published essays. There's also a treasured stack of liner notes. For example, a two-LP set I have titled Chet Baker In Paris has these words from one Alain Gerber of Jazz Magazine. "Those who, here and there, accuse (Baker's) music of being 'castrated' do not realize how terrible such mutilation is, and at the same time cannot realize that such castration is perhaps indeed a form of privileged aesthetic fertility, for it indefinitely prolongs desire." I said I collect stupid writings about jazz. But there are still other items in my trove that totally befuddle me. (Maybe I'm even dumber than these writers, for I have been puzzling over their words for a long time and still can't figure them out.) From "The Trouble with Jazz Singing" by Mark Jacobson (Esquire, January 1995): "(With the advent of bop), the music made itself largely unsingable. The acute angularities inherent in music like Monk's chopped up the phrasing to the point where archly laborious scatting of the 'Sassy' Vaughan variety became reflexively de rigueur." Now warmed up, Jacobson goes on. "But this is nothing compared with the spiritual dilemma created by the fastidious 'cool' of Miles Davis, which demanded an agnosticism of almost anal proportions, and the effusive religiosity of later John Coltrane, which posited a sonic universe in which humanity is struck inarticulate in the presence of the higher power. You know a style is in trouble when its 'First Lady,' Ella Fitzgerald, can be soulful, have impeccable pitch and delivery, and play with Duke, and still every time she opens her mouth, it's 'A-Tisket, A-Tasket." (Gee, thanks, Mark, for letting us know who the First Lady is.) After consigning Sarah and Ella to the dustbin of vocal jazz history, whom do you think this critic offers up as the New Hope? Cassandra Wilson. And I'm not making that up. My collection also includes writings that casually amend history. Here's something Boston Globe music critic Bob Blumenthal wrote (and may actually have been paid for) in a recent issue of the Atlantic Monthly. "No other European musician has made a grater impact on the direction of jazz than Joe Zawinul." That's right. Django Reinhardt, here's your hat. Drivel such as I've cited here might chase any normal person away from reading about jazz. But sometimes I feel I'm almost as hooked on the jazz word as I am the music itself. That's the way I felt when I got my copy of Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage and Criticism from 1919 to Now (Pantheon). It's a brilliant anthology assembled by Robert Gottlieb, a former editor for the New Yorker. The reach of this 1,000-plus-page book is vast. You can read, for example, Anita O'Day's account of her 1954 drug bust in Kansas City. Or Gene Lees' memoir of his close friend, Bill Evans. And you can read critic Leonard Feather's rueful admission, 40 years later, that something he himself wrote in 1945 about the "musical illiteracy" of the "moldy figs" (advocates of traditional jazz) was mean-spirited and clumsy. Some of the 106 pieces in Reading Jazz are by recognized literary giants. Ralph Ellison, for instance, contributed "Minton's" and "On Bird, Bird-Watching and Jazz." Jean-Paul Sartre provided "Jazz in America." But I got as much enjoyment from reading reportage by musicians themselves, such as Rex Stewart and Miles Davis. Perhaps the first serious review ever of a jazz performance was written in 1919 by the distinguished Swiss conductor, Ernst Ansermet, who was thoroughly gassed by Sidney Bechet. That's in this book, too. I must say that there are pieces in Reading Jazz that I completely or partly disagree with. But that's not the point. The value in reading a cross-section of jazz writing in a large collection like this is that you can rekindle some of your own deep feelings about this music. You might laugh at the explanation by French critic Hughes Panassie as to why Bird's music cannot be called jazz. But you come away with a better feel for how jazz has gone through great changes and has still remained the same. It may seem strange, but after reading what all these musicians, reporters and critics have to say about the music I have been in love with for well over 50 years, I think I trust my own instincts and taste more than ever. That may be how it should be. I don't know if I'll ever finish Reading Jazz. As with a great collection of short story masterpieces, I find it best to read no more than two or three pieces at a time, then think about what's been said. By the time I've read all 106 entries, I'll be ready to go back and start over again. Like painting a battleship. Reading Jazz cost around $40 in paperback. What a bargain! RETURN TO JUNE/JULY 1997 MAIN INDEX ------------------------------------------------------------------------ © Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors 1996-2001. All rights reserved.