last words - the exegetes

Over the holiday, I’ve compiled an eschatological list of triadic words from some of my favourite novels. It makes uninteresting reading, so I reproduce the litany here in no particular, but reverse, order:

10.on the shore - The Waves, Virginia Woolf

 9. lost for ever - The Rings of Saturn, W. G. Sebald

 8. of the future - Threads, Julia Blackburn

 7. England I said - In Search of England, H. V. Morton

 6. tales the Bible - Wild Wales, George Borrow

 5. from the mountain - The Living Mountain, Nan Shepherd

 4. one spring day - Under Milk Wood, Dylan Thomas

 3. and twenty eight - Orlando, Virginia Woolf

 2. forever he said - Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

 1, and he slept - East of Eden, John Steinbeck

From these ten triads come this poem, an unwitting collaboration between authors, only one of which is not a posthumous contribution, nevertheless involuntary:

And twenty eight tales the Bible

Of the future lost for ever

From the mountain on the shore –

England I said; forever he said.

And he slept one spring day.

Poetry is not simple or precise. It demands effort from the reader. It matters little what the author intended, because the essence is not in what is intended to be said, but how the reader, the poetry lover, interprets the message. Therein lies the craft of the skilled poet.

Here is my interpretation of what the authors mean in the poem above:

Twenty tales, could imply one told per day, therefore = February (assuming not a leap year) The Bible of the future is an allegory for apostasy and atheism.

Lost for ever = once we lose faith it can never be reclaimed because gods will vanish.

The mountain = reaches up to the Heavens and is there to be climbed, but is rooted on:

The shore = the mountain starts at the shore but never quite reaches the sky.

England = another allegory, this time for a nation looking backwards to an age of elitism – or

                             England could be conflation of Heaven and the nation state.

Forever = an axiom, nothing lasting for ever, and therefore is probably an allegory for hubris.

And he slept one spring day = just when he should be awakening, he falls asleep. Mistiming.

I = the guilty party.

He = the metaphorical he, the central epitome of humanity which really only wants to sleep.

Sleep = head buried in the sand (or up his own arse if he or she is a politician).

In a nutshell, the poem forecasts that in February 2018, religion will die because gods have turned their backs on humanity, preferring not to exist rather than be accountable for the hopeless mess which priests and arch-bishops blame on them. Even the highest aspiration is rooted in the soil, (mountain on the shore) hence grounded, so humanity will be culpable for the loss of those things which hitherto have met our inherent need to find things to worship. And all “the man” can do is pin his (or her) hopes in a futile dream of little proportion in comparison with the vastness of the universe – England the tiny puddle against the immensity of universal oceans. So at the end of February, the beginning of spring, “he” falls asleep.

In short, we’re doomed and it’s all our own fault. Considering nine out of ten of these authors are long dead, their abilities at prophetic poetry is astounding. If they’re right, fasten your extra-terrestrial seat belts because we’re in for a bumpy ride.

Happy New Year.

larking again

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he so loved larking

And now he’s dead

it must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

they said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving, but drowning.                                    (Stevie Smith)

Somewhere I read that Philip Larkin enjoyed this famous poem because he could imagine the first line of the second verse was “Poor man; he so loved Larkin.”

I love Larkin for his poetry and his wit, but mainly for his honesty when writing jazz reviews, such a contrast to today’s obsequious and fawning pundits. In 1969, for example, he wrote:

“If I were to frame Larkin’s Law of Reissues it would say that anything you haven’t got already probably isn’t worth bothering about. In other words, if someone tries to persuade you to buy a limited-edition of the 1924-5 sessions by Paraffin Joe and his Nitelites, keep your pockets buttoned up; if they were any good, you’d probably have heard them at school, as you did King Oliver, and have laid out your earliest pocket money on them.

                Everything worthwhile gets reissued about every five years.”

We have to bear in mind that Larkin was at school in the middle-to-late 1930s, one of the true golden ages of jazz, so he’d have been buying contemporary stuff released before the shock of the be-bop era and the inception of baffling forms of jazz such as free, acid, funk and smooth (smooth! makes sign of a crucifix). He wrote his Law of Reissues over thirty years later, by the lamp glow of the residual radiance of jazz’s silver age, light-years away from where we are now. Jazz was yet to arrive at the Darwinian multiple-bifurcation which would eventually lead to universal chaos.

What would he make of today’s scene? He was certainly a waver, but I have the feeling that he’d now be more of a drowner. And I suspect he’d have trouble finding anything to buy other than reissues. An emerging previously never-released King Oliver, originally rejected because it wasn’t good enough, would seem a jazz detectorist’s dream.

“Nobody heard him, the dead man; but still he lay moaning” just about sums it up for me.

Happy Christmas

Philip Larkin's Jazz

The poet Philip Larkin was also jazz critic for the Daily Telegraph from 1961 to 1971. His often acerbic comments were reproduced in book form, title “All What Jazz,” a handy dip-into sort of historical guide to contemporary music, or jazz at least.

Almost 50 years ago, he wrote:

“My favourite New Year’s resolution is Cyril Connolly’s for 1929: ‘Resolve: to be altogether more advanced and intelligent.’ And clearly, according to Leonard Feather in the Melody Maker, I’m going to need to be. Of course jazz is not dying, he says, unless by jazz you mean swinging jazz, Dixieland jazz, or anything in straight two or four. Of course, that’s on the way out, and still more American jazz clubs will collapse. But anything in Latin, or Cuban, or 5/4 rhythm, any freedom music ‘in which the beat is often suspended. Distended or ignored at certain points’ anything with electric or electronic sounds, anything ethnic or with sitars – why, man, the scene is made. By a subtle stroke of page make-up, this cheer-leader is printed shoulder-to-shoulder with an article recalling the deaths in 1967 of Edmond Hall, Muggsy Spanier, Willie Smith, Buster Bailey, Herman Chittison, Pete Johnson, Red Allen, Billy Strayhorn, Rex Stewart, Sidney de Paris, Stuff Smith, Jimmy Archer and one or two more.”

What an annus horribilis 1967 must have been  (my words). Larkin continues:

“Readers of this column may rest assured that as long as there is any swinging or Dixieland jazz in straight two or four on recent records they will hear about it. The rest will be judged by the degree to which it approximates to the excitement produced by the aforesaid swinging or Dixieland jazz.”

A quote from the frontispiece of “All What Jazz” is from Miles Davis, and was originally published in Down Beat on 13^th June 1968:

“But if something (i.e. Ornette Coleman) sounds terrible, man, a person should have enough respect for his own mind to say it doesn’t sound good. It doesn’t to me, and I’m not going to listen to it. No matter how long you listen to it, it doesn’t sound any good.”

Larkin was renowned for his love of ‘traditional’ jazz, Dixieland and New Orleans and was often critical of the avante garde. In the introduction to my 1984 edition of his book, he writes:

“In any case, my views haven’t changed. If Charlie Parker seems a less filthy racket today than he did in 1950 it is only because, as I point out, much filthier rackets succeeded him…”

These words sound iconoclastic in 2017. Yet I find myself sympathising. Jazz these days appears to be anything a musician wants it to be. Take any rhythm, beat or melody and add the word “jazz” and – voila! – it is jazz. No it isn’t. It’s not jazz. Maybe it’s smooth-jazz, for example, but that’s not jazz. We need a champion of jazz; we need somebody to ride to the rescue to take it away from the floss and dross being passed off today as jazz and thereby restore its authentic gloss and substance.

These comments could appear contradictory. After all, as you’ve probably noticed I’m a huge fan of Charles Mingus, undeniably one of the most innovative and exciting musicians of all time, sometimes testing the tolerance of audiences to the very limits with his avante-garde ideas and compositions, but even he said that his music should not be shoved into one of the pigeon-holes of categorisation. Just call it Mingus music, he said. That’s sweet subtle irony… one of the greatest jazz-men of all time calling for his own music to be stripped of the title “jazz.” But he understood. I think many don’t understand these days. If Philip Larkin were alive today, I’d be writing him letters of support.

mexican jumping bean

Charity shops are not too rich in jazz records, but occasionally a real pearl comes to hand - like this one, my favourite baritone sax player joining one of my favourite piano players.

Recorded in front of a sedate Mexican audience in 1968, "Compadres" I think has not been released so far in CD format, so I'm especially pleased to find this original album.

It features: Dave Brubeck (on piano); Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax); Alan Dawson (drums) and Jack Six (bass). Produced by Teo Macero on CBS label (S 63395 CS 9704) the liner notes are written by Leonard Feather. I can't track down actual recording dates.

Tracks are: Side 1 - Jumping Bean; Adios, Marquita Linda; Indian Song; Tender Woman
                  Side 2 - Amapola; Lullabye de Mexico; Sapito; Recuerdo.

Good value at twenty times what I paid for it - £1.25.

a brief thought on genius

genius: noun: consummate intellectual, creative or other power, more exalted than talent

(Chambers Dictionary) - a prosaic definition, hardly doing justice to the inherent nature of the word itself. 

"He died soon after celebrating his thirty-first birthday; he did not live long enough to achieve his full potential. But Chu's reputation has been short changed; the record by which he is remembered, Ghost of a Chance, is a fine ballad performance whereas Berry was nearly always at his very best in faster moving music. The comparative under-estimation of his talent is most unjust for he was a very fine musician who lacked only the ultimate spark of genius possessed by those two famous near-contemporaries, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young."

These words were written by Tony Watts in 1995 and are extracted from liner notes to "Blowing Up a Breeze," a Topaz collection of Chu Berry tracks (1933-1941). Nobody could deny that the three tenors, Hawkins, Young and Berry, all have prodigious talent, yet I can't quite put my finger on the crucible of that "ultimate spark of genius." At what point will gifted, or talented, or proficient, or even damned fine, find ignition to become genius? A jazz musician (any musician) can have complete mastery of his or her instrument, equal to the best of musicians, and yet still not quite earn the accolade "genius." My music teacher once told me: you can polish your saxophone as much as you like but you'll still not be able to play the bugger. Perhaps by the same token, a musician can be as technically perfect as possible, but still not be able to play jazz. Take Yehudi Menuhin for example.

And this is where I like the word "spark" in Tony Watts' annotation. It's a lovely word, making me think of two flints being struck together - but then I wonder if spark is enough. What's the point in having a spark if there's no tinder to set alight? The result needs to be flame; sparks just scintillate for a moment and then instantly vanish. So I venture to suggest that the difference between ‘talented’ and ‘genius’ rests less with the musician per se (the spark) and more with the listener (tinder). A variation on the tree-in-a-forest philosophical mind game: is a musical genius still a genius if nobody is there to appreciate such genius? It’s me (and the receptive you, of course) that makes the genius. We decide, as subjective as such a process may be. And I decided that Hawkins and Young were undoubtedly geniuses, but so was Chu. It’s a good album, by the way.

collector's piece

I found this original 78 rpm 12 inch record among others in a charity shop in Boston, UK. It's "St Louis Blues" by Bing Crosby with the Duke Ellington Orchestra and the cover registers that it was recorded in New York on 11th February 1932. The record itself is in a neat cardboard sleeve on which the previous owner had bothered to list all musicians:

Arthur Whetsol, "Cootie" Williams, Freddy Jenkins (tpts). Joe Nanton, Lawrence Brown (tmbs), Johnny Hodges (alto, sop) Harry Carney (bar, alto, clt), Barney Bigard (clt, ten) Duke Ellington (pno), Fred Guy (bjo, gtr) Wellman Braud (bs), Sonny Greer (dms) Bing Crosby vocal.
On the label (Columbia DX898 BX 11263) I'm told that the composer was Handy and in parenthesis that it's a "concert version. On the obverse is "Creole Love Call," again a concert version (Columbia DX898 BX 11264) with the same recording data as Side 1.

Obviously the previous owner was not only a keen jazz fan, but a person who understood the true essence of jazz listening. What genuine aficionado can truly enjoy a piece of music without knowing the names of musicians, and where and when it was recorded? This one has gone to great lengths to organise his or her record collection, taking pride in identifying the line-up on every record probably so each soloist can be identified in turn. I imagine him or her sitting in a dusty arm-chair beside a battered old record player, ear cocked towards the speaker as he or she (I desperately try not to be sexist) holds the record and reads the notes and silently applauds in sincere appreciation. Or maybe it's not imagination - it's a mirror.

Yet how did this collection end up in a charity shop? Once a jazz fan always a jazz fan. They don't sell records or books; they store them for future reference. I'll never know why, but I can guess.

a special post on behalf of the Pooter Dodman Christmas Charitable Appeal

The billionaires' mantra is unmistakable. Charity begins and ends at home, their home. Yet knowing this, we selfishly ask our moneyed leaders to make decisions about poverty and need, decisions on our behalf which could on rare occasions damage their own personal interests.

This is an unfair state of affairs. Ask yourself in all honesty: would you consciously make a decision to take action which will be detrimental to your own well-being? Of course not. So why expect our billionaire leaders and their accomplices to make such decisions?

We should feel sorry for the likes of Ree-Smug, Bojo and Mrs Maybot.  Please give them a thought this Christmas. You have nothing to lose or protect, and therefore you have no need to worry about anything more important than finding somewhere out of the cold and a bite to eat. The freedom this gives you! The sheer emancipation of having nothing between you and destitution. How liberating!

On the other hand, consider the hardships of Mr Ree-Smug (to take an example of many). He is the modern Prometheus, chained to his responsibility to improve himself and having so many vital decisions resting on his narrow shoulders: how to best protect his fortune, for example. How to ensure he hangs on to power; what colour bow-tie should he wear to this year's festive season ball. Will his wife ever forgive him for the unsubtle but ambiguous response he gave to the flirtation of Victoria Coren-Mitchell on "Have I Got News For You"? How can he bolster his reputation within the Tory party? So many concerns; so much stress he's under.

Further, think about his poor family. What if he dies? All those issues to resolve - death duties; inheritance tax; the cost of a state funeral if they're not covered by MPs' expenses; O - don't start me on pensions.Whereas if you die, a pauper's grave will cost your family just a notional payment. You have nothing to worry about. It'll all be taken care of, eventually, somehow, and perhaps someone will leave by the railway track a small bunch of wilted flowers.

Stop your endless whinnying and complaining. You just don't know when you're well off. Stop moaning all the time about your lot; you've never had it so good. You've got nothing. Be grateful. Start thinking about others, in particular those suffering the angst, pains and suffering of the ruling classes. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, give thanks that you have the ultimate liberty of nothing to safeguard - no home; no money; no future. And bear in mind that it's all your fault. You voted them in, thereby off-loading your duties by putting the burdens onto their wealthy shoulders. The stress our rich leaders suffer is as a direct result of your vote (this applies in the USA as well as the UK).

Look at Mrs Maybot. How she's aged since she became Prime Minister; how stooped she is and depressed she looks. It's the Peter Principal. She's been promoted to the level of her incompetence and it's sapping her strength. That's entirely your fault for facilitating the imposition, Are you completely heartless? I think not.

I believe in you. I believe you are not completely heartless. So at this time of goodwill to all men and women, I call on you, all the needy and impoverished citizens and inhabitants of the UK, to give a thought to all those poor billionaires less fortunate than yourself and be prepared to give generously in an effort to cheer them. Imagine their little faces when they wake up on Christmas morning and find that they haven't been forgotten, that they're true plight has finally been recognised. Please donate your last few pennies. A financial trust near you needs your cash, and let's be honest - you're better served by giving it than having it taken from you.

What do you need the money for anyway? Your reward will come in Heaven whereas even Satan won't accept our billionaire leaders for fear of being found guilty by association. And remember, charity begins at home - or would do if you had one.

Merry Christmas.

                              Next year: an appeal on behalf of newspaper proprietors and bankers.

The Black Saint and the Lady Sinner

“When Mr. Mingus first asked me to write a review of the music he composed for this record, I was astonished and told him so. I said I thought I was competent enough as a psychologist but that my interest in music was only average and without any technical background. Mr Mingus laughed and said he didn’t care, that if I heard his music I’d understand…

… Mr Mingus thinks this is his best record. It may very well be his best to date for his present stage of development as other records were in the past. It must be emphasized that Mr Mingus is not yet complete. He is still in a process of change and personal development. Hopefully the integration in society will keep pace with his. One must continue to expect more surprises from him.”

                               Edmund Pollock, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist.

“I wrote the music for dancing and listening. It is true music with much and many of my meanings. It is my living epitaph from birth til the day I first heard of Bird and Diz.”

                                                                Charles Mingus.

Words within quotation-marks are taken out of context with each other from liner notes for Mingus’s 1963 album “The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady.”

I wonder why nobody has taken this music and choreographed a modern ballet to the score.

discography - charles mingus

Image from "Charles Mingus Discography" by Michel Ruppli, published by Norbert Ruecker in Frankfurt 1982, dis-enhanced by my own annotations.

This is proving to be an essential source book. It has resided on my study shelf for years and I refer to it a lot.

the awakening

In a way, I'm a hideous incarnation of Sleeping Beauty, except I'm far from beautiful. There I was in peaceful hibernation, slumbering away my final few years (9 years 6 months 4 weeks 2 days to go) when I was kissed by a prince and I woke up.
The prince is a poet. He wrote a poem titled "Where the Hell is Shafi Hadi?" a question I've been asking myself for years, and I was interested to discover that I'm not alone in raising pointless queries.
The saxophonist I seek doesn't owe me money (nobody does - James, I exonerate you) and I have nothing to gain by knowing the answer other than the satisfaction of finding an answer to a bugging-me-riddle: how can a genius disappear without trace?
Bloody Prince Sean Murphy. But for stumbling across his poetry I'd still be resting uninspired but content in my unconscious-ignorance. Now I've shifted into consciousness I'm aware of lacunae in my bank of knowledge and I need to address past errors of omission and commission to try to rectify them.
Now, therefore, I'm wide awake; I can't get back to sleep again because my mind is full of pleasurable nothingness being crowded out by trivial things. So I might as well use my remaining time to pick up where I left off a few years ago and start posting again. I know I shan't offend or bore anyone because nobody reads my fucking stuff anyway. But it keeps me occupied as the grey cells deteriorate... and I can't quite remember what I wanted to say next.

shafi hadi revisited - update

A few years ago I blogged about my favourite saxophonist: Shafi Hadi. The first five paragraphs of this post are lifted directly from that original piece with one or two minor amendments and edits. The rest is an update, what I’ve since discovered about this shadowy genius:

One of the great unsung heroes of the alto and tenor saxophones was a man named Curtis Porter. He’s probably better known as Shafi Hadi, perhaps having changed his name on religious grounds during the late 1950s.But even as Shafi Hadi, few will have encountered him because he appears to have enjoyed no more than the metaphorical 15 minutes of fame. By the middle 60s, he seems to have dropped into semi-obscurity.

I first heard him in about 1962 or 1963 when Mingus and his Tijuana Moods album erupted into my hitherto cloistered British-trad-jazz-revival consciousness. Suddenly I was listening to a sax player capable, in my opinion, of trouncing the great Bird himself.

His tone was cut of the best diamond, sharp yet plaintiff, stuffed full of 100 carat emotion and bluesy fire. Solos were considered and intelligent, delivered with exacting precision. Phrasing and intonation were often laconic; he eschewed the fusillades of notes. For him, his jazz was not about increasing the numbers of notes per second by running frenetically up and down the chords, but was more to do with turning short sentences and phrases into pithy sayings of expressive substance. Pauses were as significant as the notes themselves; somehow he stitched silence with sound to produce solos of the utmost beauty.

Little is known about him. He started playing in various R&B bands (before R&B become a corrupted concept) and I know for a while he was associated with Hank Mobley, recording on at least one album with him. His first recording venture with Mingus was “The Clown” in early 1957 (about 6 months after becoming a jazz player at the age of 26) and he was involved with the great bassist on at least seven albums until middle 1959.

During 1958 he collaborated with John Cassavetes on the sound track for the producer’s film “Shadows” in which Mingus was also involved. Cassavetes acted out the roles as Hadi improvised accompanying music. Cassavetes wrote: “It was terrific. He played the story of his life to music.” The actor also records that Hadi was married, was large in stature as well as creativity, and stood physically tall. Nat Hentoff in the liner notes for “The Clown” writes that Hadi had said after the recording: “I think more jazz groups should tell stories like Mingus does, instead of just playing notes and techniques.”

Update:

A rumour went around that he’d died of a heroin overdose in the early 70s, but a Wiki entry suggests he was still around on the music scene in 1975, and in 1977 he was reported to have collaborated with Mary Lou Williamson on her composition “Shafi” although typically the source is vague about the extent of his contribution. A couple of years later he was said to have worked in some way with Sue Mingus (Charles’ widow) to provide original scores of her late husband’s music.

In coda, I can’t help be struck by the similarity in tone and phrasing between Shafi and another brilliant alto sax player, Jackie McClean, especially on Mingus’ “Blues n Roots” album. Mingus was never a composer to look backwards; he always edged forward, so I’m surprised he employed a sideman sounding so much like an earlier one. Perhaps I’m wrong on this; I’m not technically minded with music. I’d be interested to hear expert views, and to know whether anyone has more information on what happened to such a skilled and gifted jazz musician.

Shafi Hadi

What happened to Shafi Hadi?