Dylan Calling

A short, yet charming take on "London Calling" by Bob Dylan.

Jazz Records: Update

I have been updating my jazz records list this weekend. There are some changes:

- Firstly, I have broken down the collection into alphabetized posts, eg. A-C. This makes it easier for me to update the site, as well as it gives you easier access to various parts of the list.

- Second, I have added many more records, including ones that I do not own myself. The reason for this is twofold: they function as a "hyped" and therefore "check out!"-list for me. Additionally, they are incentives for you to drop in later to see what the heck I'm going to give whoever's album.

The record labels and release/recording-dates are culled from various, often contradicting sources. If you find any mistakes or have any other comment don't hesitate to leave one or send me an e-mail.

Enjoy!

Books

Kevern Verney: African Americans and US Popular Culture 2003, Routledge (130 pages).

Starting off with the degrading representation of blacks in Minstrel Shows at the end of the 19th century, Kevern Verney gives insight to the different roles African Americans have played in music, movies, literature (covered less thoroughly) and sports, and their simultaneous fight for Civil Rights and fair representation and participation in popular culture. Biases and prejudices were used to prevent African Americans from participating in US society as a whole, but these measures were eventually broken down, albeit not without struggles. From the minstrels through The Harlem Renaissance. From radio to TV, and acknowledging music as African Americans' largest contribution to US popular culture. Major figures in the book are Jack Johnson, Paul Robeson, Sidney Portier, Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr., plus an array of musicians from Bert Williams through Miles Davis to Public Enemy. They all represent important aspects and eras of the African American history. Verney has a background as a lecturer in American History at college level, and his vast knowledge is apparent throughout the book. His writing is smooth while at the same time presenting the topic with the seriousness it deserves.

One of the recurring themes in the book is minstrelsy. Verney starts his story with minstrel shows and tells about the degrading representation of African Americans in them, initially played by white actors in burnt-cork make-up. At the same time they sang songs inspired by African American tradition. Blacks were eventually allowed to play in minstrels, but even they had to wear burnt-cork make-up to ensure caricature was maintained. Verney argues that the minstrel representation has permeated much of African American history in US popular culture even after the shows themselves stopped running. One example he uses is Louis Armstrong and how he at several times while playing opened his eyes wide and rolled them around, a well known minstrel trick to show the contrast between the white of the eyes and the darker skin. The argument is that for a long time such tricks were used to cater to the white audience's prejudices.

I do however have one bone to pick with Verney. While I agree with the fact that biases and prejudices have prevented African American fair participation in US popular culture, I do not think Verney pays enough tribute to how African Americans used their own cultural expressions to comment on their situation even before the Civil Rights movement. Before the advent of minstrelsy, black slaves had work hollers and spirituals that cleverly used metaphors and imagery that would later on be used by both blues and folk artists. Although Verney covers topics such as be bop, 1960's jazz and 1970's funk, he does not, to my opinion, acknowledge that in be bop's case it was a conscious attempt by black jazz musicians to break free from standards set by white swing orchestra-leaders in the early 1940's. The changes in structure and tempo were used both as signs of aggression and as a move from dance music to listening music, that is from "entertainment" to "art". The smaller combos made this sort of playing easier, but it also put the players at center stage, as opposed to the (white) orchestra leaders. Verney gives better attention to the links between the Civil Rights movement and jazz and soul in the sixties and seventies, but even this could have been elaborated a bit more.

Over all, though, I think Kevern Verney has presented a very good history of African Americans in popular culture, even if the shortage of pages may have prevented him from a more in-depth analysis of major developments.

People are drunk...

EDIT:

Note to self: Never write posts while drinkng.

Rock-post-rock

Apparently, the guys behind this years best album also headlined this years best indie-rock show, according to Tom Breihan. Shame I couldn't be there. (Not too sure about his stance on indie-rock, though).

Rollins and Ware

Sonny Rollins and David S. Ware, two of my favorite living saxophone-players, have both released good albums this year; The 9/11 Concert and Live in the World respectively. All About Jazz has a piese of the two giants in conversation. A lot of talk about God and spirituality, but an enjoyable read.

Down Beat reports that Jazz Line Distribution is to release Eric Dolphy: Last Date on DVD. It has previously been available on VHS. I know nothing about this film, but Eric Dolphy is one of my all time favorites, and any soundbite and footage of him is highly welcomed.

I Wanna Beeeee A Teen Again...

I've received criticism for my inclusion of several power pop-records on my 2005 re-issues list, and perhaps to some extent rightfully so. I expected nothing less anyway. Power pop is a strange genre. Mostly sentimental and nostalgic (radio-days, 7" singles, that summer etc.), conservative in both style (Beach Boys-harmonies; Beatles-esque song structures) and lyrical content (girls), sometimes verging on the misogynistic, but sometimes also entirely good-hearted. My friends pretty much divide into two schools when it comes down to power pop; a few of them swallow it down, hook and all (pun intended), the others remain more skeptical, and some of this skepticism seem to me to be a reaction to the whole-hearted praise of my other friends, which is understandable. In Norway, there has for a long time been a tendency to herald the obscure and equate that with quality, note the popularity of the Nuggets-series. I by no means subscribe to that notion myself. That said, there is no rule that says obscurity in terms of recognition equals mediocricy (or worse) in quality. The means and mechanisms of distribution in popular culture is too complex to make a clear-cut distinction in that respect. So as for Yellow Pills, it is filled with mostly unknown (to me) artists, some of them bad perhaps, but I find a good few of the songs highly entertaining and likeable. Hoboken Saturday Night may be a better record (I'll admit to not having listened to it for some time), and I have no doubt that Yellow Pills will race down the list in due time as there are not enough good songs on it to retain that top position. But for now, I just plain enjoy it.

Speaking of compilations, Blue Note have released a The Very Best-series with among others Thelonious Monk, Lee Morgan, Bud Powell, and Horace Silver. Most of them have eight to ten-plus tracks. Thelonious Monk's Blue Note legacy has already been sealed through his Genius of Modern Music Vol. 1 and 2, so that is a hard act to follow. The Monk-record looks good on paper, but I miss some compositions, and duck points for only ther only being 13 tracks. Bud Powell's a bit better, the only notable exclusions being "Wail" and "Audrey". "The Scene Changes" is from the album of the same name, which is worth buying by itself. Lee Morgan and Horace Silver differ from Monk and Powell in that they mostly started recording albums, whereas Monk and Powell began in the pre-album era and started out recording "sides" (early version of what we call "singles"). Therefore, sides-compilations have a different function than albums, especially since there was a trend at Blue Note to record albums as a collective whole. That said, both Lee Morgan's "The Sidewinder" and Horace Silver's "Song for My Father" are so well known and work excellently on their own. For some strange reason Morgan's compilation omits "The Sidewinder", though.

Updates

Nothing much going on, except to tell you that I've been updating my 2005 lists. Have a look!

Rosa Parks

Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks passed away on October 24. J.L. Chestnut Jr. pays tribute.

Excitement, disbelief, and suspicion

That the Lightening Bolt's Hyper Magic Mountain is getting such good reviews fills me with excitement (I'm yet to hear it myself, though).

That My Morning Jacket's Z (the noise you make while sleeping???) gets equally good reviews fills me with disbelief.

This fills me with suspicion, though I hope it's unfounded.

My Morning Post...

One of the great things about having friends that write blogs is that you can link to them when you ain't got time to write a goddamn post yourself:

Eirik on My Morning Jacket (for readers of Norwegian only!).

Babies and Men

Still very busy. I plan to update my 2005-lists before the end of the week. There have been a lot of interesting releases since the previous update (Danger Doom, Amy Rigby ++).
This means the songs-list need some refreshing too. It's not very large at present, but there are plenty of songs I can and will add.

Speaking of this, that kook Davendra Banhart's album Cripple Crow has failed to impress me, but I find the song "Chinese Children" utterly enjoyable and it will most likely make the revised songs-list.

The Constantines' Tournament of Hearts I like far better, and especially "Soon Enough", which has to be the finest country song from a non-country artist this year:

Soon enough
work and love
will make a man out of you

Ain't it true!

Argh!

It's /fai/ery Furnaces, NOT /fi/ery. (This outburst, of course, will mean nothing to you with English as your mother tongue).

A song to song comparison of Blender's and Rolling Stone's respective Top 500 by Scott Woods.

That is all.

This an' that...

I'm very busy these days, so I haven't got much time for in-depth analysis and the like (!?!).

If you read Nick Sylvester's article on Norwegian music that I linked for you in my previous post, you'll have seen that he doesn't think it is all the doom and gloom my excerpt may have led you to believe. Mr. Sylvester, funny though he is, may be too indie for my taste, as witnessed by his mention of the clique at the end of the same article (I get the feeling he means "the elite few"), and his recent 9.0 rating of the new Deerhoof album The Runners Four, a record that has so far neither made me punch the air, shake my hip, nor given me any other hints that I like it.

I'm far more pleased with the new album by the Fall, Fall Heads Roll. Not great, but more consistent than Mr. E. Smith has been in a long time. A return the glory days of the mid-eighties, perhaps?

I've also been listening to Eric Dolphy's Iron Man, which sounds really, really good. Recorded ca. 1963 just before his masterpiece Out to Lunch, and you can hear the development towards the looser structures he used on that album. Key track: "Burning Spear", a 12 minute long steamroller with two bass players; Richard Davis, who remains a favorite, and Eddie Khan, who I don't know much about.

Looking out for Billy Bang's Vietnam: Reflections, and James Carter's Pavement tribute (!) Gold Sounds.

Things I didn't write

These are mostly things from last week, but they are still interesting reads:

Simon Reynolds, critic and author of the ok Rip it Up and Start Again, has written a review of Return the Gift, the re-recordings of old faves by the best band of the original post-punk (or whatever you wanna call it) era, Gang of Four.

Also, Nick Sylvester has interesting views on a live show and new stuff by the Rapture, the band with the best record of the new post-punk (or whatever you wanna call it) era.

Seeing as Mr. Sylvester is an industrious fella, he has also managed to write this article on Norwegian music for pitchforkmedia.com. You can read it yourself, but I'll quote you this part:

"...countless Big In Norway acts do their best and big-selling impersonations of American and British rock bands for a sizable hometown base that, for understandable reasons I guess, want Coldplays and Travises and Velvet Revolvers of their own. This band Madrugada are huge there-- terrible! Turbonegro still draw big crowds-- why? You fuckers heard of Magnet? Enormous; terrible".

I have nothing to add.

How do you like them apples?

Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine has achieved a metascore of 87 on metacritic.com. Here is one reason why I think the previous, and un-released, mix is better:

One of the best tracks on the album is a song called "Get Him Back". The title is pretty self explanatory as to what the theme is. The initial version, mixed by Jon Brion, had a ramshackle sound. The drums were prominent, as was a percussive piano. The production was crisp, which made the track sound a feel like it had a bite; the music and the lyrics were on the same mission . In the new version, the percussive elements are put in the background, and the song is slowed down a bit. It lacks the clenched-teeth, bitterness and the above-mentioned bite of the Jon Brion-mixed version. Therefore the music removes the energy of the lyrics, and the whole thing sounds less purposeful.

I realize that this is the third or fourth piece that I've written about Extraordinary Machine (or Fuck Sony as it was once named on the internet), which is out of proportion to how much I like the album. But there you go.

C-c-c-c-c-cocaine!

West coast pop/soft rock/FM rock-whutevva has been so en vogue lately, it is good to see someone daring to make fun of it again. With help from Mr. Matos, I came across these guys doing a story-behind-the-song-thingy. Hilarious.

I am Wonder Mike and I like to say...

"Hello"!

Been listening to rap for the most part recently. As much as some people (including myself) claim that indie-hop is being outshined by more commercial hip-hop (thank you Kanye, Jay-Z, Missy) in recent years, not least in the respect that some mainstream artists have been more adventurous and innovative beat-wise than indie-hoppers, most of my favorite hip-hop records of this year are hardly recognized as mainstream.

None have mixed beats and a political stance as effectively this year as the Perceptionists, whose Black Dialogue has grown on me in recent weeks despite being released as early as April. The new Blackalicious album displays the genius that Gift of Gab can be; lyrical and smooth and fast and tricky. The beats are as bouncy and funky as you'd wish they would be. Eirik is beginning to like it too. Dangerdoom is by far the funniest rap record so far this year. MF Doom's outpouring of words brings plenty of pleasant, if not knee-slapping surprises. And the skits are good too ("Call me doggie! WOOF"). Edan's Beauty and the Beat was a strong contender earlier this year, and although I still enjoy it, I find it a bit too retro-centric and perhaps a bit one-dimensional. Blueprint's 1988 still sounds great, though. Big girls need love too. Count Base-D's mini lp Begborrowsteel is a lovely little gem, perhaps reminiscent of Common at his best, which means Like Chocolate..., not Be. Quasimoto's second offering is a bit disjointed, but that is part of why I like hin in the first place.

But having said all this, Kanye still remains a favorite, and although there is no denying his place in the mainstream (as if that was something bad), he displays more compassion, warmth and commitment through his music than mot indie-hoppers do. This year he got political too, both in and outside of music. And I'm a sucker for political art. Well, as long as it's good anyway.

Don't call me whitey...

Damn, nearly a week since my last post.

Tom Breihan did a piece on Paul Wall on his Status Ain't Hood blog on Friday, in which he disses the white rapper for not concidering race to be an issue. Which it IS, of course. Especially if you're not white. You don't have to look further than to the recent events in New Orleans and its media coverage to figure that out. I don't see the point in his "history of white rap"-list though, unless it's more tounge in cheek than I take it to be.

The record releases seem to be picking up, with Blackalicious and Amy Rigby among the ones I have been looking forward to thew most. Had a couple of spins of the 'licious cd already, and Gift of Gab seems just about as sharp as ever.

Unbelievably, Pitchfork gave the new Wolf Parade cd a 9.2 rating. Eirik is unimpressed, though. I have to side with him.

Have I ever told how amazing Air's 80 Degrees Below 82 is? Check my jazz list.

Beef and chicks

Pitchfork critic, Riff Raff blogger and all-time funny man Nick Sylvester has been checking out a live gig by two of Norway's biggest hopes for world domination, the lovable Annie and Røyksopp. A good read.

Steinar gave me some stick yesterday regarding some ratings on my jazz page and the high entry by Spoon's Gimme Fiction on my 2005 list. No harm in that, it's a large part of the reason why I post these lists in the first place. Discussions are healthy. They keeps culture alive. I wish more of you would do the same. Discuss and post comments that is.

As regards the Spoon record, I think it has a good share of cracking tunes; "The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine", "I Turn My Camera On", "Sister Jack", and "I Summon You" to name my favorites. I doubt if it will hold the number three spot in the end, though, but I rate it highly. It's certainly better than Robert C. reckons it is.

My year by year-page was set up during spare hours in the summer, and was probably a result of hubriss on my part. At present, I have plenty of tasks at hand, so I have not been able to post any lists. I hope to have some soon, though, but don't hold your breath.