josh blog

Ordinary language is all right.

One could divide humanity into two classes:
those who master a metaphor, and those who hold by a formula.
Those with a bent for both are too few, they do not comprise a class.

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17 Jul '02 02:59:23 AM

I hardly have to be acquainted with the relevant history (of jazz) to be able to hear that it's running throughout Mingus Ah Um. Except that 'running thoughout' isn't enough. I probably need lots of words. The past is alluded to. Made modern. It's tangled together with what's contemporary. Hiding behind it. Blossoming out of it. It shades everything here, but never grossly - it never seems like a heavy weight Mingus is struggling to heft, or a host of nattering voices, remonstrances from the proponents of tradition. The past is also the subject of fond tribute. Clever appropriation. Mingus' mastery of it seems total, especially to me, lucky that I hardly have to be acquainted with that history to notice it, since I hardly am.

If that seems like it's a bit much, well, right now I feel like it should be.

What we've got here, I think, is one of those composers who engage with the vernacular, using something like the kind of western art music compositional techniques that are "serious" music's bitches, but it's probably still not what they ("they") want.

16 Jul '02 05:48:38 AM

Nude as the News interview with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, by way of Fluxblog.

15 Jul '02 09:10:28 PM

This afternoon's mix while washing dishes:

"Doit" makes me grin and palsy around uncontrollably more and more every time I hear it.

15 Jul '02 09:04:10 PM

Fred is back!

12 Jul '02 07:40:59 AM

Note to future self: write extended meditation on "Blame it on the Sun".

12 Jul '02 07:25:08 AM

Nice story about meeting Lester Bowie and others from Phil.

12 Jul '02 07:10:12 AM

Five things I will play for my kids when they are little if I have kids:

Wait screw the list that's all I'm going to play them.

11 Jul '02 07:06:37 PM

Last night in a Chipotle I heard Senor Coconut's latin cover of Kraftwerk's "Showroom Dummies". This unnerved me a little because Chipotle is owned by McDonald's, even though it'd be hard to tell from the restaurant itself - I assume that they use piped-in music, and it's usually a strange mix of rootsy music and dancy pop, some of it in Spanish, but which I hardly ever recognize. Somehow Senor Coconut's sounding "latin" got them slipped into the programming bin, I guess.

11 Jul '02 06:22:01 AM

In case you missed this the first time around...