I read most of this last weekend before getting interrupted, but I had to come back and finish it and say it was fantastic. I like this kind of expansive but personal take, maybe all the more when it’s on someone new to me (as she was).
Abbey Lincoln was new to me, so I started listening to Abbey is Blue before reading the piece, and then, all of a Baader Meinhof sudden, there she was featuring in Soundtrack to a Coup D'Etat, organizing a protest at the United Nations. It's Abbey's year, seems.
Thanks so much, Matt! I'm glad you're a "Golden Lady" fan. It got the coveted five stars in the yellow Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide I used to carry around to stores, but these days it seems relatively overlooked. I do think she and Shepp sound amazing together and wish there had been another pairing. I'm gonna transpose "Throw It Away" so I can sing it this afternoon. It's much of what I believe, or want to believe, not only in its lyric. P.S. When I first glanced at your comment, I read "insane" as "inane," and thought, Wow, Matt's really coming out swinging! :>.
Still reading, and I apologize, as I will get through it once I wake up and my left eye opens....fine piece, but I will add a caveat or two. I would hesitate to quote Griffin, as her book pretty much illustrates that she knows little about music or Holiday (her comments on Billie and Jimmy Rowles are just - well, disgustingly inaccurate and racialist, insulting to a great pianist whom Holiday loved as a musical compatriot.) Moten I also find lacking, as part of that academic cabal which seems to now be trying to dominate our dialog about race and music. What they all lack - and what you have to offer - is a real understanding of the music and an ability to cut through the socio-cultural b.s. to get at the start beauty of Lincoln's singing. Everything else is, to me, post-aesthetic, false, rationale.
Thanks for reading, Allen, and for your kind words about the piece, and I appreciate your caveats. What I know of Moton's work, mostly "In the Break," is sometimes hard for me to penetrate. It's not my discipline, and often he's responding to texts I don't know, and I suspect some sentences could be less clotted but still satisfy disciplinary rigor. Not sure. But I often find him absorbing all the same, and I enjoyed seeing an informal online Q&A with him where he talked quite a lot about Aretha Franklin and other music in plainer language. I loved it. He's fashionable to quote, I realize, but I haven't felt that he's crowding other stuff. I know the quote I used is a convoluted version of "beyond words," but I thought it arrived at something, and that the quotes from Griffin and Moten articulated responses to "Protest" I can't fully grasp. I like how Harmony Holiday writes about Lincoln's screams, too. I read Griffin's book quite a long time ago and only reread the Lincoln chapter for this piece. I read her mainly for extramusical commentary and learned from it. I vaguely remember the material about Holiday with Rowles. Like you, I love Rowles. I cherish his solo and duo records from the seventies and eighties and always buy a record with his name on the back. Beautiful player.
glad you did not take offense. I just have had it up to here with academics; never say in 10 words what you can say. without making sense, in 300. And Harmony Holiday reads like an AI bot that is trying to write in two languages at once. But it was a beautiful piece, and thanks for it.
I am glad I stayed until the end.
Thanks, John!
I read most of this last weekend before getting interrupted, but I had to come back and finish it and say it was fantastic. I like this kind of expansive but personal take, maybe all the more when it’s on someone new to me (as she was).
Thanks, Ryan!
Abbey Lincoln was new to me, so I started listening to Abbey is Blue before reading the piece, and then, all of a Baader Meinhof sudden, there she was featuring in Soundtrack to a Coup D'Etat, organizing a protest at the United Nations. It's Abbey's year, seems.
This an insane piece of writing. I love Abbey Lincoln. I love Golden Lady. And I love “Throw it Away.”
Thanks so much, Matt! I'm glad you're a "Golden Lady" fan. It got the coveted five stars in the yellow Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide I used to carry around to stores, but these days it seems relatively overlooked. I do think she and Shepp sound amazing together and wish there had been another pairing. I'm gonna transpose "Throw It Away" so I can sing it this afternoon. It's much of what I believe, or want to believe, not only in its lyric. P.S. When I first glanced at your comment, I read "insane" as "inane," and thought, Wow, Matt's really coming out swinging! :>.
so glad you don't want to cancel him.
Still reading, and I apologize, as I will get through it once I wake up and my left eye opens....fine piece, but I will add a caveat or two. I would hesitate to quote Griffin, as her book pretty much illustrates that she knows little about music or Holiday (her comments on Billie and Jimmy Rowles are just - well, disgustingly inaccurate and racialist, insulting to a great pianist whom Holiday loved as a musical compatriot.) Moten I also find lacking, as part of that academic cabal which seems to now be trying to dominate our dialog about race and music. What they all lack - and what you have to offer - is a real understanding of the music and an ability to cut through the socio-cultural b.s. to get at the start beauty of Lincoln's singing. Everything else is, to me, post-aesthetic, false, rationale.
Thanks for reading, Allen, and for your kind words about the piece, and I appreciate your caveats. What I know of Moton's work, mostly "In the Break," is sometimes hard for me to penetrate. It's not my discipline, and often he's responding to texts I don't know, and I suspect some sentences could be less clotted but still satisfy disciplinary rigor. Not sure. But I often find him absorbing all the same, and I enjoyed seeing an informal online Q&A with him where he talked quite a lot about Aretha Franklin and other music in plainer language. I loved it. He's fashionable to quote, I realize, but I haven't felt that he's crowding other stuff. I know the quote I used is a convoluted version of "beyond words," but I thought it arrived at something, and that the quotes from Griffin and Moten articulated responses to "Protest" I can't fully grasp. I like how Harmony Holiday writes about Lincoln's screams, too. I read Griffin's book quite a long time ago and only reread the Lincoln chapter for this piece. I read her mainly for extramusical commentary and learned from it. I vaguely remember the material about Holiday with Rowles. Like you, I love Rowles. I cherish his solo and duo records from the seventies and eighties and always buy a record with his name on the back. Beautiful player.
glad you did not take offense. I just have had it up to here with academics; never say in 10 words what you can say. without making sense, in 300. And Harmony Holiday reads like an AI bot that is trying to write in two languages at once. But it was a beautiful piece, and thanks for it.