I feel like I’ve been knighted by the King of Arts Blogdom, none other than Terry Teachout. If you’ve come to me via About Last Night, thank you for taking the time to visit. Music, books, good works, and other reasons for living – that’s what this blog is about. In other words, whatever is on my mind – snapshots of my life as a writer and a reader, a listener and a watcher, a wife and a daughter. The categories under which these musings, opinions, and commentary are filed include Boos & Bravos, Notables, Hmmm…, Word Play, Writing Life, Reading Life, I’m All Ears, Jazz Ears, Date Specific, and This ‘n’ That. I post five days a week, usually in the evenings (California time), and while I do not plan to allow readers to post comments directly, I do welcome your emails. Only one thing can make me even happier than getting a nod from a much respected colleague and that would be reader feedback. Please stop by often, and let me hear from you.
Canadian Brass
Have you ever heard the Canadian Brass play? Not only do they play wonderful classical chamber music, they also play great jazz, and Luther Henderson is the man reponsible for hundreds of their “jazz” arrangements. I am working on a biography of Luther’s life, and I didn’t know much about his relationship with the Canadian Brass unil after the fact. Here’s a brief excerpt from my introduction — I was describing a memorial concert/gathering that took place in Los Angeles almost a year after his death:
The most amazing performance of the afternoon came from the Canadian Brass, a primarily classical ensemble of five musicians. They began their tribute to Luther with an appropriately jazz-tinged rendition of Amazing Grace, after which Billie playfully called out, “Who’s arrangement was that?†knowing full well that it was Luther’s. And Anne Edwards called out, “I bet he’s listening to you out there.â€
Chuck, one of the trumpet players, spoke about how Luther was their “link between the [jazz] tradition and five guys who went to classical music school and studied Bach.†He explained how Luther’s belief in what was jazz differed from that of Wynton Marsalis. “Wynton made a statement that I think he subsequently softened – ‘if it ain’t improvised, it ain’t jazz’ – and Luther felt like the improvisations he could do for us would be an organized cogent improvisation that would then be codified. It would become the classical music that could be handed down.â€
But Luther also loved what is commonly referred to as classical music, music in the European tradition by the old masters. Introducing their second piece, Chuck said, “Bach being very important to Luther, he requested somewhere along the line that it was our duty to perform the Toccata and Fugue in D minor in his honor, which we will fulfill this afternoon.â€
The piece in question is a keyboard work, one with which Luther was totally familiar, and Chuck added, “I think he was amazed that we would play this at all on brass instruments.†Hearing a Bach piano piece rendered by two trumpets, a French horn, a trombone, and a tuba was certainly different, and Luther’s arrangement was both clever and delightful.
“We play Luther Henderson’s music every night,†Gene, the trombone player, told us. “He hasn’t missed a concert for at least twenty years. So we feel an attachment to him, and you can imagine it’s sort of emotional. Without Luther, there would have been no Canadian Brass. We feel that strongly.â€
And with that, they launched into their final selection, an arrangement Luther had written for them early on, called Saints Hallelujah. Despite the fact that it was a memorial service of sorts, the atmosphere was festive, and I heard Billie say, “My favorite.†In this arrangement, the trombone leads off solo, and is then joined by the tuba. Meanwhile, the other three horns execute a few choreographed steps across stage, followed by an elaborately gesticulated preparation for what we anticipate to be their next musical entrance. They moved their horns toward their lips, but it’s a fake out, and instead of brass notes we heard them shout, “Hallelujah, Hallelujah.†The audience roared. Smiles were wide, even through an occasional tear, and that was how Luther would have liked it.
Creating a medley with When the Saints Go Marching In, a traditional New Orleans funeral parade song, with the classic Hallelujah Chorus, not only illustrates Luther’s humor and mischievous pleasure in tickling an audience, but it also epitomizes his desire to bridge the jazz and classical worlds. Luther agreed with his dear friend and collaborator, Duke Ellington, when Duke said that there are only two kinds of music: good, and the other kind. I thought about the work that Luther had done for Duke in the 1940s, and the monumental symphonic Ellington project he had completed for Sir Simon Rattle and the Birmingham Symphony in Great Britain just a few years ago. On the surface you might say that it began and ended with Duke, and while to limit it thus would be a disservice to the outpouring of Luther’s talent that filled the decades in between, it is true that Duke did play an elemental role in Luther’s career.
When I’m working on a piece about a musical artist I like to listen to their work while I’m writing. One CD that is now often playing in my office is the Canadian Brass’ Take the A Train: The Best of Duke Ellington You might also enjoy reading the tribute to Luther on the Canadian Brass web site.
Serendipity and a Grazing Addendum
Okay, so last night I didn’t state the most obvious linguistic connection between writing and breathing — inspiration, derived from French inspirer and Latin in+spirare, to breathe. It’s so darned obvious that I didn’t even think about it. Then this morning, using a few free minutes as I always do to click on a blog or online journal I haven’t seen in a while (it’s just not possible to keep pace with all of them all of the time), I stopped in at Speakeasy to see the Spring issue, clicked on an essay by Jim Heynen titled Faith in My Writing and found the following (emphasis added):
“…In faith, I wait for the gift of inspiration, the gift of an idea, the gift of an insight, the gift of the right word at the right time, even the gift of clarity. To be inspired means to breathe in the spirit. I can live with that notion of openness and receptivity. With faith, I wait for the gift, for what D. H. Lawrence called the wind that blows through us.
“Like most writers, I don’t know when that breath will come. I don’t even know if it will come unpolluted, free from depleted conventions and clichés. I can’t force inspiration. I can’t determine it (though I do have my little rituals), and when it does come it is like a gift that I hope will be worthy of readers.” (read the whole piece here)
If I believed in time warps and parallel universes and other such Star Trek realities, I would think that Heynen and I had been having a conversation, or that at least he had read my last night posting. But, being the pragmatic sort, I just believe that the universe I know is sending me a message. Especially when shortly thereafter I found myself reading an article about The Twin Cities in Publishers Weekly (June 6th) and see that the number one person on a list of leaders on the literary scene there is Linda Myers, longtime executive director of the Loft Literary Center. Significance? Speakeasy is a literary culture magazine published by The Loft. When all roads lead to Rome…
Grazing
I’ve been grazing on the pages of Bartlett’s Quotations and came across this from F. Scott Fitzgerald:
“All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” (an undated letter)
When I think of swimming under water, which of course necessitates holding my breath, it evokes the sensation of a long journey, pushing through resistance to get to a destination where you can once again find some air. Engaging in this activty requires perserverence plus a measure of faith that your breath will be sufficient to get you there. Writing sometimes feels that way too.
On the other hand, I think there is a correlation between holding one’s breath and keeping strong emotions (especially the bad ones) at bay. Deflecting emotions such as sadness and pain might be useful as a survival tactic, but it can also lead to lackluster life and dreadfully dull prose. Quite simply, one must recognize pain in order to appreciate joy, let alone write about either. Or, as Alfred North Whitehead put it:
“Intellect is to emotion as our clothes are to our bodies; we could not very well have civilized life without clothes, but we would be in a poor way if we had only clothes without bodies.” (Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead – ch 29, June 10, 1943)
Pages and Predilections
I was a precocious reader, and the days of Nancy Drew were short lived. At the age of twelve I was reading Heart of Darkness, Peer Gynt, The 50 Minute Hour, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty – none of which made any lasting impression on me at all, but which I remember only for their shock value. My favorite books at the time were the historically based but fictionalized biographies such as Nicholas & Alexandra, The Agony and the Ecstasy, and Lust For Life.
In recent years nonfiction readings dominate, and lean heavily in two directions: biography or memoir, and books about writing. The latter category no longer outweighs the first, but I still have some favorites. It doesn’t matter if it’s about fiction or nonfiction, craft or creativity, I read it all; Word Painting by McClanahan, Follow the Story by Stewart, The Art of Creative Nonfiction by Gutkind, Story by McKee, Writing For Story by Franklin, and dozens more all share space on my bookshelf.
I read Marilyn French’s A Season in Hell while recovering from my own illness and was inspired by her resilience in the face of one disaster after another. If she could survive, then I could too. And with that reading I realized once again, and on a much more personal level, the power books have to truly touch the lives of readers. Then I read My Year Off, Robert McCrum’s memoir about recovering from a stroke. I didn’t identify as much with him, so I was better able to pay attention to the construction of his book and was intrigued by the way he was able to integrate his first person narrative with excerpts from his own diary as well as that of his wife.
I also like to read autobiographies by artists I admire. Isaac Stern: My First 79 Years written with Chaim Potok was magnificent! By the end of the book I felt as though Isaac were a close personal friend. I was working on my husband’s ‘autobiography’ then, and I kept trying to detect just how Potok was able to make Stern’s life so vivid. Then I slapped myself, realizing that I was comparing myself to Potok, a more experienced writer of many bestsellers, gave up trying to pinpoint “the answer,†and went back to writing it as I felt it. Sidney Poitier’s book, on the other hand, was a severe disappointment. This is a man who I have had the pleasure of talking with on several occasions, an eloquent and elegant man, and none of that came through on paper.
No one book has been so influential as to stand out from all the rest. Most often it is a single thought or a well-turned phrase that resonates for me, and I save up these snippets and store them away in a notebook to be rediscovered. When it comes to style, I revere the simple and succinct, especially when it is imaginative and unexpected. “At ten in the morning, heading out the front door, Mrs. Reed is a vision of vitality in slow motion.†That is one of my favorite sentences from Walt Harrington’s At the Heart of It: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives.
But I am also I am a sucker for elegant or poetic prose such as “O, what a world of unseen visions and heard silences, this insubstantial country of the mind! What ineffable essences, these touchless rememberings and unshowable reveries!…This consciousness that is myself of selves, that is everything, and yet nothing at all – what is it?†So begins The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes.
Book End?
Do you finish reading every book you start? I have trouble giving up on a book, especially if I spent money to buy it. Sometimes, if I “can’t get into it,” I put it aside for awhile and try again later. Sometimes it’s just my mood, or level of concentration that makes reading difficult.
Sometimes, however, a book is simply not very good, or not meant for my tastes, and I should just give up. But all too often, a combination of guilt and the fear that I will miss something keeps me going.
“Most of us give up on people faster than books. Imagine you’re at a cocktail party and the first person you chat with turns out to be a stupendous bore. Do you keep talking to him for the next hour because you started with him? To the contrary, you suddenly develop a passionate interest in the spinach dip across the room and excuse yourself.
“Or consider wine tastings. Do we finish the whole bottle for each wine we sample? Tastings wouldn’t get very far if we did.”
That was from a piece by Steve Leveen. (Read the whole thing here.)
Still, my reading list continues to grow. A while back, I promised to compile a list of the books that fill the nooks in my bedroom, living room and office, patiently waiting for me to give them my attention. I have taken the short list I posted that day, added several more, and posted them here. (You can see the list anytime by clicking on Books Awaiting in the Pages box on the left side of your screen.)
Haven’t You Heard?
The New York Times ran a huge feature story about it last summer, it’s been tauted by a popular arts blogger (here and here and here), and the main stream press and wire services were abuzz about it after this year’s Grammy Awards. The “it” to which I refer is ArtistShare. ArtistShare is a new concept in Internet marketing and distribution, one that not only returns control to the artist, but also renders moot the fears of digital piracy. Mastermind Brian Camelio, sympathetic to the plight of his music friends, and tired of record companies bemoaning their losses, came up with the concept to empower the artists. As he explains it, “The answer is to market what cannot be pirated: the artist, the artist’s creation process, a fan’s love of an artist’s work. The fan is now part of the creation process, not the litigation process.â€
Several jazz artists have now launched ArtistShare websites, among them Maria Schneider, Jim Hall, Jane Ira Bloom, Brian Lynch , and most recently, Bob Brookmeyer, to name only a few. In this model the customary end product, such as a CD or a copy of a music score, turns out to be a by-product, while the sharing of the artistic process becomes the primary product – a product that is experienced over time as it evolves. The behind-the-scenes exposure is provided by media events such as streaming audio and video clips of rehearsals and meetings, photo galleries showing the artist at work, perhaps a pdf peak at the first draft of a new score or an audio lecture analyzing a composition, and journal entries about the project’s progress. Another perk at certain levels is the participant acknowledgement – for example, the placement of the participant’s name in booklet accompanying a new CD.
Because participation in the process is now the product, what might have been viewed as pre-sales now becomes the source of funding for a project. By offering varying levels of participation, an artist can target specific groups of fans. For example, Jim Hall offers guitar lessons posted online for Player Participants, and both Maria Schneider and Bob Brookmeyer offer lessons and scores for Composer Participants. Whether you are an average listener, fellow composer or musician, an aspiring executive producer, or a jazz philanthropist, there is a particiation level for you. If you’re a true jazz fan and arts lover, you’ve got to check it out!
National Critics Conference: Musings Part 3 – Love For Sale
The second day of the conference was devoted to cross-disciplinary panels, and money was a consistent theme in both morning sessions as well as the luncheon.
The topic of the first panel was The Role of the Critic in Contemporary Society. Jack Miles, in considering journalism as the first draft of history, suggested we are historians. Coco Fusco advocated asking our readers to consider an issue, putting us in a more activist light. But whether we view ourselves as reviewers or critics, consumer reporters or upholder of standards, promoters or provocateurs, entertainers or educators, we all face some thorny issues, most of which relate in some way to what Coco referred to as “the economics of making a living.â€
The vast majority of arts writers must supplement their income, if not with unrelated jobs, than at least with other kinds of writing assignments – other, that is, than criticism and journalism. All too often we are called upon to write press releases and feature stories that are full of hot air. Suppose you are a writer who, in the course of supplementing your income, is hired to write a cover story profiling of the director of a museum or concert hall, and suppose too that there are controversial issues relating to that museum or concert hall – do you
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1. write the puff piece for which you were hired and pay your bills,
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2. write the whole story, warts and all, and then pray for a kill fee (you know they won’t run the piece – even if they agree with you, they are looking for future advertising dollars), or
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3. turn down the assignment and let your answering machine talk to your creditors.
If you take option #1 you risk losing your credibility, #2 can get you blacklisted, and #3 can get you broke.
If it were a once-in-a-great-while kind of thing, it would be easier to say “take the high road.†(Can’t you hear your mother? “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.â€) But such scenarios are becoming not only more frequent, the lines are fuzzier and more imprecise. The panel on Ethical Traps explored some of the murkier waters. What happens when you are assigned to write a review and your editor is on the museum’s board of directors, or your editor happens to mention that The Publisher’s Wife is chairwoman of a charity fundraiser that is getting a percentage from the Fall season’s ticket sales? These are no-win situations because your motives will always be questioned. If you write a favorable review, people will wonder if you liked it, or didn’t but couldn’t say so. If you gave the show a bad review, somebody is bound to say that you were super-critical to avoid any appearances of favoritism.
Norman Lear’s exhortation from the preceding day’s keynote speech would have us provide “perspective on how truthfully and skillfully creative works are speaking to power.†How can we, when Power is our boss (or a major stockholder)? Our mission is imperiled by the ever-increasing privatization of culture. Corporate sponsorship and individual patronage is not new, but it’s become more insidious as the “patrons of the arts†demand more and more control of the arts, all the while laundering their money and polishing their image.
It has become more than simple patronage, there is big money to be made. Of course this money will not be going to the artists, or the writers. On the first tier, it’s all about real estate — think The Getty, Disney Concert Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, or Museum of Modern Art. On the second tier there are staffs to be hired: executive directors, artistic directors, curators and programmers, publicists and lawyers and accountants. Eli Broad, a man who created not one, but two Fortune 500 companies, made it clear when he gave his luncheon keynote address. By way of introducing Mr. Broad, let me quote from the Broad Foundation web site :
“Committed to the belief that all great cities need a vibrant center, Mr. Broad is currently leading the effort to turn Los Angeles’ Grand Avenue into a truly “grand avenue,” to rival the main boulevards of the world’s greatest cities.â€
Broad rattled off statistics – 2200 Los Angeles-based visual and performing arts organizations, 105 museums, four of the best art schools, 705 musical groups, 220 theater companies, 60 film festivals… His point? Cultural tourists spend more money, stay longer, and visit more frequently than business travelers. Broad took some questions from the floor, but his answers were deflective. I guess he thought that arts writers would be thrilled to have more to cover. Our point? If you’re going to fund more art institutions, you had better fund some media coverage of the arts as well.
By the way, not all Angelenos think Broad’s Grand Plan is such a good idea. In today’s Los Angeles Times, Joel Kotkin, an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and author of “The City: A Global History,” opened his commentary with these words:
The $1.8-billion proposal to redevelop Grand Avenue represents the latest in a series of ill-conceived schemes to revive downtown Los Angeles, and former Mayor Richard Riordan was absolutely right when he recently called it “a bunch of baloney” whose main effect will be “rich guys getting richer.”
This brings me right back to the morning’s questions:
National Critics Conference: Musings Part 2 – An Upbeat Attitude
I sent him a private email, but I want to take this opportunity to thank Los Angeles Times jazz writer Don Heckman publicly for the tone and direction he set when moderating the “Jazz L.A.: The View from the West Coast†panel at the National Critics Conference. It is so easy to succumb to the lure of carping about the downside – whether about the lack of jazz in LA, or the lack of jazz coverage in the media, or even the diminishment of critical thought in the media – but he took the high road and enabled us all to focus on the positives. AllAboutJazz Editor Fred Jung spoke of the terrific mentoring that Los Angeles artists are doing with aspiring musicians. (By the way, this is something that the Jazz Journalists Association has recently begun doing with aspiring jazz writers). Titus Levi, a jazz economist* working at the Center for Cultural Innovation, pointed out that the isolationism caused by the geographic spread of Los Angeles has an upside – it breeds heightened identity and stronger networking. Another often lamented issue is the relative non-existence of jazz icons today; if that is true, Don suggested viewing it as an opportunity rather than a problem. His message (not verbatim) was clear: jazz is in a period of great opportunity – we should have an upbeat attitude and encourage our audiences.
*I’ve never heard of, let alone met, a jazz economist? I plan to talk more with Titus later this summer, and will report back.
Minor Reorganization
It’s amazing how voluminous a blog can become, and how correspondingly difficult to navigate if you do not visit every day. Knowing that my postings touch on a variety of subjects, and understanding that many of you are unable to check in daily, I have tweaked the categories a little to make it easier for you to stop by whenever, and narrow your focus if you so desire. Personally, when reading the blogs of others, I enjoy the serendipity of seeing things I would not have thought to look for, but I know that sometimes we just don’t have time to take in everything.
Every posting is assigned to a category (under the title and date you will see Filed under:…), and most postings will reflect more than one category. For example, my writing life often involves my reading life, and sometimes the books I mention may be about music. If you do not want to browse down the opening page (which is, of course, in reverse chronological sequence) you can limit the display by clicking on a category in the blue box on the left side of your screen.
So the categories are:
Announcements – general info, such as this very posting
Boos & Bravos – (used to be called Rants & Raves) While this might include reviews of products and performances, most often it is an expression of my displeasure or delight in a particular event or experience
Date Specific – subjects pegged to a particular date, be it a birthday, anniversary, ….
Hmmm – subjects on my mind, and food for thought
I’m All Ears – (used to be called Sensitive Ears) has something to do with music
Jazz Ears – relates specifically to jazz
Notables– about people
Reading Life – thoughts, quotes, lists, and occassional recomendations, as well as comments about the kind of writing that I like to read
This ‘n’ That – doings and other items that don’t seem to fit elsewhere
Word Play – anagrams, word derrivations, and such
Writing Life – my own thoughts, activities and experiences as a writer, plus thoughts (my own and others) about writers and writing
And don’t forget I’ve Got Mail, which will cease to exist if you don’t drop me a line. Send it to: devra AT devradowrite.com