Secret Society

What I Say

After all the delays and controversy and general hoo-hah, I admit I could scarsely believe my eyes when I walked into the record store yesterday, but I'm very happy to report that the Miles Davis Cellar Door Sessions box set was, in fact, released on December 27, just as Bob Belden said it would be. More thoughts on the set as I digest the music contained therein, but for now, I'm just relieved this music has finally seen the light of day.

"If you know what you want why not just write it?"

Dave Douglas has an excellent essay up at the Greenleaf Music blog about integrating composition and improvisation. Go read.

Spiritus Mundi

Yesterday, Rachel Maddow, subbing on the Al Franken show, interviewed Tim Westergren of Pandora.com, the cool online music service we blogged about earlier.

Some interesting tidbits gleaned from their conversation:

• Pandora programs in "sets" (something I'd come to suspect). This is to say, it tends to zero in on one significant attribute of your feed material -- the song(s) or artist(s) you used to set up your "station" -- at a time. This means Pandora will program several songs in a row that share that single attribute (say, instrumentation, or vocal style) before moving on to another attribute -- presumably this is designed to avoid too much stylistic jumping-around.

• Pandora employs music theory grads to chart the attributes of each song. Not to be snarky, but this probably explains why some of the songs are occasionally described badly or flat-out incorrectly ("major key tonality" for minor-key songs, etc) -- in my experience, theory majors don't always have the best ears. (They might have done better with musicology majors!)

• Pandora doesn't take lyrics into consideration at all. Of course, this is a valid and interesting approach, and part of the fun -- by focusing on purely musical similarities, it often suggests interesting but cool left-field connections -- but the service may ultimately be frustrating for people (like Lindsay) who listen much more intently to the lyrics than the music, and are more interested in finding new music based on lyrical similarity rather than musical similarity.

Anyway, you can download Friday's broadcast here. The segment with Tim Westergren starts around the 1:33:45 mark.

Secret Society @ the Bowery Poetry Club, 20 Jan 2006

Now that TypePad is finally back up, I'm happy to announce that Secret Society will be returning to the Bowery Poetry Club on Friday, January 20th, 2006. 10 PM start. Details and personnel TBA -- watch this space.

We love playing the BPC -- it's a nice space to perform in, and Stefan Zeniuk's Open Ear series has some of the best programming around -- so it's good to be invited back.

CBGB gets death sentence

The venue is apparently to be shot at dawn on Nov 1, 2006. They swear it's gonna stay dead this time. (Or be relocated to Vegas, which amounts to the same thing.)

But with CB's, you never know, you know? If I were Muzzy Rosenblatt (CB's nasty landlord), I'd read this book very carefully.

Stick a fork in it

As I alluded to earlier a lot of people really hate Pitchfork. (For the uninitiated, Pitchfork is a widely read and influential online indie rock mag.)

I cop to being a semiregular Pitchfork reader, mainly because while I'm not exactly a staple on the indie rock club scene (I have my hands full just trying to hit a fraction of the jazz gigs I want to see), I remain ever-curious about what y'all are listening to, good and bad. So I'll occasionally stop by PF to see whatever they're hyping this week and maybe give it a taste -- I've found a lot of interesting music that way. Now it's true that the reviews don't often give a very good idea what the music they're describing actually sounds like. And it's also true that many of their reviewers are kids who don't really seem to know anything about music recorded before they were born. And sure, the prose is notoriously overwrought to boot. And, yes, I know they are every bit as beholden to their advertisers as mainstream dead tree publications like, say, Spin (or Down Beat). And okay, sure, I admit that howlers like this are par for the course over there:

Impulse! Records had been defunct for more than a quarter century.

So… wait a minute, why the hell do I bother with Pitchfork?

Over on this thread, Jon Abbey (a Pitchfork-hater) recommends I Hate Music (a Bagatellen-associated forum), but the musical focus is completely different and (as another contributor to the thread pointed out) bulletin boards aren't really conducive to skimming. There's also Stylus, Dusted and PopMatters, which are all arguably better than Pitchfork, but not that much better. (For instance, this Dusted review of the Either/Orchestra's Live in Addis is one of the most horribly misguided reviews I've ever read, easily as bad as the worst of Pitchfork.)

Now, I know there's no shortage of indie rock-oriented blogs out there, but that's precisely the problem -- there are far too many to wade through unaided and find the ones that are actually worthwhile. So, um, suggestions welcome.

Meanwhile, I think I'll start with JVS's excellent Vermont-based blog Latitude 44.2N. His review of the Calexico+Salvador Duran+Iron and Wine show at the Spectrum makes me both nostalgic for Montreal and damn sorry I couldn't make the NYC dates on this tour -- especially since I won't be able to catch Calexico's gig at Joe's Pub on Jan 24th either. Sigh.

Oh hell yes

Julius Hemphill's brilliant, elusive (as far as I know, it's never been on CD) debut Dogon A.D. is now available in its entirety as a free download, courtesy of Tim Berne's Screwgun Records.

Slouching towards hackery

Wow, you can always count on Stanley Crouch to say something appropriate and insightful, can't you?

This past Saturday Richard Pryor left this life and bequeathed to our culture as much darkness as he did the light his extraordinary talent made possible.

When we look at the remarkable descent this culture has made into smut, contempt, vulgarity and the pornagraphic, those of us who are not willing to drink the Kool-Aid marked "all's well," will have to address the fact that it was the combination of confusion and comic genius that made Pryor a much more negative influence than a positive one.

It's literally impossible for me to imagine the magnitude of self-deception required for an alleged jazz critic and historian to have written those words, but Crouch seems hell-bent on securing his reputation as the Michael Medved of jazz and letters.

Steve Gilliard has some choice words for the "hanging judge":

Crouch wants to pretend if black people were nice, white people would respect them. Richard Pryor knew better.

All Pryor did was tell the truth about black life. What he also did, and what unnerves Crouch, who hides behind a silly argument over language, is that he exploited the fear whites had of blacks and blacks had of whites. Bill Cosby isn't even in the same room as Pryor, Salieri to Mozart, and Cosby knows it. Pryor's career exploded as America confronted race, sex and drugs.

But the sad fact is that Crouch is obsessed with the way white America sees black, as if these social ills didn't exist, they wouldn't have any excuse for racism.

Then again, as far as I know, the late Mr. Pryor never make a habit of hitting people who piss him off -- tragically missing a valuable opportunity to become a positive influence, like Stanley Crouch.

Mercy Seat

The blogosphere is ablaze with the case of Cory Maye, a man who now sits on Mississippi's death row. The details of his case read like a TV melodrama made horribly real:

Cops mistakenly break down the door of a sleeping man, late at night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, the man wasn't named in the warrant, and wasn't a suspect. The man, frigthened for himself and his 18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom after the door's been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black, has killed the white son of the town's police chief. He's later convicted and sentenced to death by a white jury. The man has no criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about drugs (rather, traces of drugs) in his possession at the time of the raid.

Thanks to Radley Balko of The Agitator for both breaking this story and keeping on top of the details. Whatever your opinion of the death penalty, this case is a travesty. Please write to Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and urge him to do the right thing.

Gil Evans Fellowship

I'm overdue for a big shout-out to my friend and colleague Sherisse Rogers, recipient of the 2006 Gil Evans Fellowship. Past recipients include Maria Schneider and John Hollenbeck, so yeah, this is kind of a big deal. Those of you who have caught her band's recent live gigs at the Jazz Gallery and Dizzy's, or picked up her killing debut record (full disclosure: I co-produced) know the honor is richly deserved.

A title match made in heaven

Creed vs. 311. For real.

Every one of those late night stations playings songs bringing tears to my eyes

I'm fairly sure I'm the last person on the internets to find out about Pandora, but on the off chance you're even further behind the curve than I am…

Pandora is sort of like a custom radio station that is aggressively marketed to a single-person demographic (i.e., you), or an artificially intelligent jukebox that tries to follow up your initial selection with other stuff you'll like. It also learns from your feedback -- "I like it," "I don't like it," etc.

For instance, I went there and tried entering "Maria Schneider" as the artist. I didn't offer any feedback, I just let it play for a while to see what it would come up with. Here's what I got:

"Nocturne" - Maria Schneider, Allegresse
"New Leaf" - Drew Gress, 7 Black Butterflies
"Concierto de Aranjuez," Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain
"Orbits" - Wayne Shorter, Alegría
"Thieves and Poets Part 3" - John McLaughlin, Thieves and Poets
"Journey Home" - Maria Schneider, Allegresse (okay, evidently since Pandora calls this "Maria Schneider Radio," it's going to play Maria's stuff with more regularity than the others)
"Dizzy's Business" - Dizzy Gillespie Big Band, Birks Works
"Discipline" - Sun Ra, Space Is The Place
"Ad Lib On Nippon" - Duke Ellington, The Far East Suite
"Hiroshima Memorial" - Dave Liebman Big Band, Beyond The Line
"Todo Modo" - Mingus Big Band, I Am Three
"Zulu" - Tony Lujan, Zulu

Not bad at all, I thought. Of the tracks I wasn't already familiar with, I thought the McLaughlin was a long way from John's best work, the Liebman was beautiful and very different from other things I've heard from him, and the Tony Lujan (who I've never even heard of) had strong writing and playing, but never quite grabbed me.

Anyway, you can create up to 100 different "stations," each based on either an artist or a specific song, and each independently customizable. And it's free! (Apparently, the free version is ad-supported, but I haven't heard any yet.)

This is definitely a fun toy. If you try it, make a note of your results and post them in comments.

EDIT: I let it play a little longer, and I got "Piece One," from Anthony Braxton's out-of-print 1976 record Creative Orchestra Music. How cool is that?

Maddow 2.0

Some good news for fans of the best news show in the country -- starting Jan 2, 2006, the Rachel Maddow show will be (A) expanded to two hours instead of one, and (B) broadcast at a (barely) more tolerable timeslot (7-9 AM instead of 5-6 AM).

Of course, everyone who reads this blog already subscribes to the Rachel Maddow Show podcast, right?

Jeff Wall

This is kind of a random request, but if anyone knows where I can find a high-res version of Jeff Wall's photographs "Rear, 304 East 25th Avenue, Vancouver, 9 May 1997, 1:14 & 1:17 p.m." (only one of the pair of shown), or what book(s) they are collected in, or how to order prints, or know of any interviews where Wall talks about these photos, etc etc etc… I'd be very much obliged if you'd let me know via comments or email.

UPDATE: I found this amazing Flash show from the Tate Modern, which is currently showcasing a Jeff Wall retrospective. Unfortunately, the photographs I'm looking for aren't included, but go check it out anyway -- breathtaking work, especially "After Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue."

Iron & Wine+Calexico+Salvador Duran Webcast

Last night's DC show, courtesy of NPR. Available here -- downloadable versions apparently coming soon. Busy now, but can't wait to check out Salvador Duran's set.

Via Latitude 44.2N.

Three NYC shows at Webster Hall, Dec 4-6 -- dunno yet if I'll be able to make it. If anyone goes, shoot me a comment or email and lemme know how it is.

Blog Against Racism Day

Chris Clarke hosts. Lots of thoughtful posts trackbacked in the comments there. Check it out.

Speaking of The Bad Plus

Their Big List of band/author connections is up.

Loud Cloud Crowd

Okay, the article…

As Nate Chinen hints at, Gold Sounds -- the new record of Pavement covers by James Carter, Cyrus Chestnut, Reginald Veal, and Ali Jackson -- is a producer-driven project. The boys behind Brown Brothers Recordings came up with the concept and brought the musicians -- who by their own admission, didn't know Pavement from Melt Banana -- into the studio to execute it.

A brief blurb in Now (Toronto) gives us the origin story:

Ever wondered what Pavement songs would sound like if interpreted by the best of the new suit jazz crew? Neither have I, but Alan Suback and some fellow Pavement fans went to a benefit concert and thought, "What if Wynton Marsalis 's kick-ass band - Cyrus Chestnut , Reginald Veal , Ali Jackson and James Carter - lent their serious chops to Summer Babe, Cut Your Hair, Trigger Cut, etc?"

Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with producer-driven jazz projects. [I've only heard one track off of Gold Sounds so I can't really comment on this particular record one way or the other -- but if you wanna check 'em out live, Carter et al. are at the Iridium this week.] But it's an odd lede for an article that is mostly about jazz musicians who do actually listen to indie rock (broadly construed -- Radiohead and Wilco count as "indie" here) and incorporate those influences into their music in a significant way. The remainder of Chinen's article artfully traces those paths.

Now, everybody knows about Brad Mehldau's several Radiohead covers, but it's also not hard to hear echoes of the band's oblique harmonies and cinematic song structure in Mehldau's own writing, and even his approach to standards. And, on Largo, Brad collaborated with golden boy producer Jon Brion (whose star is rising thanks to his work on Kanye West's Late Registration and the rejected-but-widely-circulated original version of Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine).^[1] The rock/pop inflections in Brad's playing and trio concept would be just as obvious even if he never played any tune written after 1955.

The Bad Plus are infamous for their wry covers of "Heart of Glass," "Chariots of Fire," etc, but their real strength is in their brilliantly constructed originals. (Last Saturday, opening for Ornette Coleman, the only cover was Ornette's "Street Woman.") There's a widely-held misconception that indie rock fans only like the Bad Plus because they play "Iron Man," but it's actually the opposite -- I know a lot of indie rock snobs who hated The Bad Plus until they heard originals like "Frog and Toad" and discovered that TBP weren't the jazz equivalent of Dread Zeppelin or Hayseed Dixie.

Chinen goes on to briefly touch on the long established noise-rock/avant-jazz axis (Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, Nels Cline, etc) before discussing some of the younger indie-influenced jazzers like Kneebody (also in town this week) and other Shane Endsley projects, Todd Sickafoose, my friend and fellow NEC alum Mike Gamble, and Eivind Opsvik -- all great players who embrace the indie-rock DIY spirit.

The point here is that the musical values of the people who read Pitchfork -- and the people who mock the people who read Pitchfork -- communication, integrity, sincerity, intensity, freshness, broad-mindedness, relevance -- are all exactly the same as what our musical values should be as creative jazz musicians. And if you, as a jazz musician, are serious about reaching the "indie rock crowd" -- which seems to be shorthand here for "intelligent music fan, age 21-35, always looking for new bands but doesn't normally go to jazz clubs" -- you have to prove that you can communicate those shared musical values to someone whose record collection is wildly different from yours. There are no shortcuts for this. You don't establish your indie-rock cred by, say, coming out with a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah cover record. You do it by taking whatever you value in that music and making it yours.

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[1] Which looks like it just might see an official release after all.