Thursday, August 30, 2018


Music Week

Music: current count 30033 [30010] rated (+23), 344 [345] unrated (-1).

Week didn't start until Wednesday, after we got the air conditioning fixed, or probably later given how sleep-deprived I was by then. Returned to the Silkheart catalog, figuring that might be easiest, although by the end of the week, trying to move quickly through so much avant-squawk made it hard to distinguish. Generally speaking, the Sun Ra veterans came out on top, probably because they still swung some. The Ernest Dawkins record is probably the best of the B+(***), although they're all pretty good. And, of course, I strayed off-label for a few things that caught my eye. Unfortunately, Napster only had one cut from Dawkins' Jo'burg Blues, so that remains unreviewed.

New music, mostly picked from Napster's lamentably short "featured" lists, didn't yield much of interest, although I started playing the digital-only reissue of a 1992 collection of A Tribe Called Quest remixes before I knew what I was getting into. Most of the songs originated on their debut album, and I was surprised how many I recalled, especially given that at the time I only gave the album a B -- sure, probably from their 1999 best-of The Anthology. Seemed pretty likely that I had underrated their debut. I was tempted to quietly nudge the grade up to B+, but wound up re-checking the album, and decided A- would be more appropriate. Biggest caveat I had was their paean to veganism, but (on principle at least) that's not something I either credit or begrudge.

One background note is that I've been reading the questions sent into Robert Christgau's Xgau Sez, and one of the most common threads there is to ask about records he rated low at the time but has since come to regard more highly. I can think of a couple dozen for him, a few more for me, but realistically we only find such shifts (or errors) when there is some current reason to revisit. I'll also note that Christgau feels even less compulsion than I do to match his graded list to his current taste, partly because he's more disciplined at spending his listening time on paying projects, partly because he puts a higher value on the authority of his grades. On the other hand, I'm almost never certain of my grades, figuring they're never more than my latest impression, worth jotting down because I figure any small bit of information is better than none. At one point, I even thought about adding a parameter to the grades: a second number which would indicate an estimate of certainty. For instance, I might add [1] to indicate a single play, [2] for two, maybe even [∞] for the Pet Shop Boys' Very -- the last record I can remember playing at least once a day for more than three months. That might help, but it's just another wild ass guess, and would be a lot of extra hassle.

My big project last week was to update Robert Christgau's website to prepare for the release of his new book, Is It Still Good to Ya? Fifty Years of Rock Criticism 1967-2017, to be published October 26 by Duke University Press. One stipulation of the contract is that most of the previously published pieces be embargoed from the website for three months before and two years after publication date, so most of the work involved tucking those pieces away, so they'll reappear on the proper date. I did some further work sprucing up the book pages and the Xgau Sez feature, and started the task of converting old pages as I ran into them into proper validated HTML5. The latter wasn't terribly hard, but frustrating in two respects: one had to do with warnings about nesting CSS styles inside tables, which I temporarily fixed by moving the CSS but a better fix would be to get rid of the tables used for page layout; the other was that in most cases I was left with one or two warnings about a squib of non-conforming javascript code I picked up from Twitter. I decided to let that go, but at some point would like to rewrite the code myself, without the warning (and probably a lot of other shit). Sure, you'd think that a state-of-the-art outfit like Twitter could write valid code, but then I accidentally ran a simple Google search result page through the validator, and results there were shocking indeed: 36 errors, 315 warnings.

Turns out that despite my best efforts some of the book pieces weren't even on the website. I did find two in a "nyet" directory that I had forgotten about, and the Chuck Berry obit over on Billboard's website. Not sure offhand what else is missing, but I couldn't find mention of "Sticking It in Their Ear: Bob Dylan" anywhere on the web.

I also managed to add this year's Expert Witness posts to the monthly CG columns (although some are time-locked). They're not in the CG database yet. I still have technical problems reconciling the changed database access code and, until I figure out the UTF-8 requirement I'm reluctant to make an database changes. I'll make another push on this once the dust settles. Thus far I've gotten zero feedback on the update, so I guess that means that I didn't screw it up too bad.

One more project milestone last week: I've been collecting the political posts from my notebook/blog, starting from 2001, initially under the title The Last Days of the American Empire. Sheer verbiage made me split this project into two volumes, one for the Bush era (2001-08), a second from 2009 on (or maybe just for Obama, as Trump is already getting out of hand, and has a different feel. I made it through 2008 a while back, but decided to make a second pass and stick things into a separate personal file, which I call Notes on Everyday Life: family and friends, cooking, house work, computers and blog maintenance, notes on movies and TV, some bits on music (but not the stuff already collected in the jazz guides). I had initially put some of that stuff (mostly movies) into a 2001-09 volume appendix. The 2001-08 tome wound up at 1590 pages (766k words), while Notes has 316 pages (130k words).

I doubt the latter has any but personal interest, although I could refer to it if I ever get around to writing that memoir, and I'm happy to have it better organized. I'd like to think my political writings might have some more general appeal. The most straightforward thing would be to keep the chronicle organization, trim lots of fluff and redundancy, flesh out the framework with historical notes and asides, and add some post-facto commentary. One thing I'm struck by is much of Trump's agenda was introduced by Bush, in many cases implemented much more efficiently. Had Trump not been elected, we should be closing the door on the Bush years -- something Obama should have worked much more dilligently at doing -- but with Trump it's all the more urgent.

I've also kicked around three other book ideas that could pick up words from this journal. One is a dictionary of terms and concepts -- I started working on such a thing a long time ago, and it will take some digging to see if I can find what I actually did. A second is a collection of slightly longer essays on various topics, especially those related to free software and related concepts. My working title here is borrowed from an old Paul Goodman book: Utopian Essays & Practical Proposals. A third possible carve out would be material on Israel-Palestine. I wrote a lot more about that than would make sense for a US-oriented political chronicle. I came up with an outline for such a book a while back, and tried pitching it to a friend to co-write. She didn't bite, but if enough good material already exists, it might be worth reconsidering. (And, of course, the second volume will add to this base. Whereas Bush-Obama-Trump make for clearly differentiated epochs, Sharon-Olmert-Netanyahu is a single piece.

I've started moving on to 2009. Did a lot of work on the house in January, while Israel was smashing up Gaza, and Bush and Obama were keeping their heads down.

One last note: Polish trumpet player Tomasz Stanko has just died, age 76. He played with Krzysztof Komeda in the 1960s, gravitated to free jazz. He somehow managed to straddle the Iron Curtain, playing in Western Europe in groups like Globe Unity while maintaining his ties to Poland. He recorded primarily for ECM from 1994 on, with Leosia and Litania early masterpieces -- you can find my grade list here. Poland continues to be an exceptionally strong and vibrant jazz venue, with dozens of superb musicians emerging in the last decade or two. Stanko was their pioneering giant.

PS: Will try to get Streamnotes out tomorrow (last day of July).


New records rated this week:

  • Barker Trio: Avert Your I (2017 [2018], Astral Spirits): [bc]: B+(*)
  • Florence + the Machine: High as Hope (2018, Virgin EMI): [r]: B+(*)
  • Gorillaz: The Now Now (2018, Parlophone): [r]: B-
  • The Internet: Hive Mind (2018, Columbia): [r]: B+(**)
  • Houston Person & Ron Carter: Remember Love (2018, HighNote): [r]: B+(***)
  • Dave Rempis/Tomeka Reid/Joshua Abrams: Ithra (2017 [2018], Aerophonic): [cd]: B+(**)
  • Dave Rempis/Jasper Stadhouders/Frank Rosaly: Icoci (2017 [2018], Aerophponic): [cd]: B+(***)
  • Ty Segall & White Fence: Joy (2018, Drag City): [r]: B+(*)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

  • A Tribe Called Quest: Revised Quest for the Seasoned Traveller (1989-91 [2018], Jive/Legacy): [r]: B+(***)

Old music rated this week:

  • Ahmed Abdullah Quartet: Liquid Song (1987, Silkheart): [r]: A-
  • Ahmed Abdullah: Ahmed Abdullah and the Solomonic Quintet Featuring Charles Moffett (1987 [1988], Silkheart): [r]: B+(***)
  • Bob Ackerman Trio: Old & New Magic (1993, Silkheart): [r]: B+(***)
  • Thomas Borgmann/Wilber Morris/Dennis Charles Trio: The Last Concert: Dankeschön (1998 [2000], Silkheart): [r]: B+(***)
  • Roy Campbell Pyramid: Communion (1994, Silkheart): [r]: B+(**)
  • Roy Campbell Pyramid Trio: Ethnic Stew and Brew (2000 [2001], Delmark): [r]: A-
  • Daniel Carter/William Parker/Roy Campbell Jr./Rashid Bakr: Other Dimensions in Music (1989 [1990], Silkheart): [r]: B+(*)
  • Ernest Dawkins New Horizons Ensemble: South Side Street Songs (1993, Silkheart): [r]: B+(***)
  • Joel Futterman Quartet: Vision in Time (1988 [1990], Silkheart): [r]: B+(**)
  • Joel Futterman Trio: Berlin Images (1991, Silkheart): [r]: B+(***)
  • The Joel Futterman/'Kidd' Jordan Quintet: Nickelsdorf Konfrontation (1995 [1996], Silkheart): [r]: B+(*)
  • The Joel Futterman/'Kidd' Jordan Trio With Alvin Fielder: Southern Exterme (1997 [1998], Drimala): [r]: B+(**)
  • Joel Futterman and Ike Levin: Live in Chicago (2007 [2017], Charles Lester Music): [r]: B+(***)
  • 'Kidd' Jordan Quartet: New Orleans Festival Suite (1999 [2002], Silkheart): [r]: B+(***)


Grade (or other) changes:

  • A Tribe Called Quest: People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (1990, Jive): [r]: was B, now A-


Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Aguankó: Pattern Recognition (Aguankó)
  • Steve Coleman and Five Elements: Live at the Village Vanguard, Vol. I (The Embedded Sets) (Pi): August 30
  • Mahobin: Live at Big Apple in Kobe (Libra)

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