Day 73: Glenn Gould "Glenn Gould at the Movies" & Jan Garbarek "Visible World"

Sliding through the crate it's two CDs that I thought would be a good idea to have but wasn't anxious to listen to immediately, or ever since they were never opened. Also, today we get to the 100th Amazon player widget. For those with adblock, it's a little player box above each post that allows you to listen to samples of the disc I'm listening to if it happens to be available for download at Amazon. So far, 100 of them have been.

Glenn Gould
Glenn Gould at the Movies

I was trying to think about what I'd say about Glenn Gould because classical CDs have proven to be a little on the difficult side for me to create content about and I realize something, I'm more interested in Glenn Gould as a character, or element, than I am as a performer.

There's that Cuban cigar element to his playing. That kind of thing where you think, "How much better can it really be?" until you actually hear it. Well, alright, that's pretty amazing in a world of just amazing piano players...big deal, right?

Except for what that means. I tend to think of Charlie Parker in the same way and have even used him in the Albatross that way. That monumental performer that sort of owns an instrument or a style in a way that sort of becomes unrepeatable. There have been great saxophonists since Bird, there have been great guitarists since Hendrix, and there have been great piano players since Gould. But they don't get 'the' spot. A transformational piano performer now will be the 'greatest since Gould...'

There is a novel I keep wanting to read (but c'mon, it's seriously a 200 page paragraph...) about the two piano players that show up to study with Horowitz at the same time as Gould and what that does to them. That's the kind of thing that fascinates me about Gould. Not so much the legendary status or what it was like to 'be Gould,' that kind of thing doesn't interest me. What interests me is what it's like to live in the immediate world someone like that creates, how does that change you're view of self if you're an amazing piano player in the same time and place as the amazing piano player?

This is stuff he either selected or recorded especially for films, or was used in films after his death.  The first half is a bunch of harpsichord pieces played on a piano, which always feels wrong to me, but there's nothing really behind that.

On the last track he goes with 'original instrument' by playing the Art of the Fugue on an organ.

Jan Garbarek
Visible Worlds

 So there was this CD I got as a promo, it was one of those rare 'classical sensations,' not as big as Chant, but did well. And this time, it was something I actually liked quite a bit. The vocal group the Hillard Ensemble recorded some motets and Norwegian saxophonist Jan Gabarek improvised over them. It actually sounded pretty cool, I loved it. I played the hell out of it at the store and even managed to lose it a few times as a personal copy and had to replace it more than once. In fact, I'm pretty sure I no longer have it, but here's hoping because on Amazon it ranges from fifty to seventy bucks, apparently.

I even attended a concert performance of that in the Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill seated right behind some important Norwegian, I don't remember now if it was a politician or a member of the royal family. All I can really remember is thinking it would be really funny to lean forward and ask if he knew of my mom's family. It was a good night for impulse control.

The success of that CD meant that there were suddenly going to be a lot more Jan Garbarek CDs. Awesome, I thought. Sucker. For the most part, Garbarek produces some pretty mild smooth jazz, though still manages to have long open solos instead of repetitive riffing, but that's what he plays. Which I guess goes to why they selected him of all people to perform with the Hillard Ensemble, but I was hoping for more experimental stuff. I mean, he is a European jazz artist, most of the European jazz artists I had run into were mostly pretty caustic free jazz artists.

Not Jan, he's mellow. And I have multiple CDs by this guy. As far as I know they're all like this.

There is no liner notes to explain the theme of this album, just this rather intense photo of Mr. Garbarek. He kind of looks like he's about to perform a feat of mentalism with his sax rather than play it.

I sound like I'm hating on him for not living up to my completely made up expectations of him and my own bias' against smooth jazz. And I guess I am, if I was fairer I'd not that he really isn't that 'smooth' with his smooth jazz, this stuff is just out there enough to avoid being played on the Quiet Storm.

I wasn't prepared for the last song to have lyrics. Of course, I have no idea what she's saying.

Day 61: George Duke "After Hours" & Mose Allison "The Mose Allison Chronicles - Live in London V.1"

Well, I'm all caught up on the 8tracks thing. Now I can do them as I go so it's not so time intensive. Back to our regularly scheduled program.

George Duke
After Hours

I have to admit, I was rooting for this homeless CD to not make it. The back is fairly scratched and in fact a few of the tracks didn't make it over in their entirety. But now I'm a little bummed about it because it's not the worst thing.

First, I thought that George Duke was a guitar player, apparently not. Keyboards. I associated him largely with smooth jazz, but while he is playing fusion it's not as...mellow. Well, this second track is. But the first one was kind of funky.

I just cringe when I get titles like "After Hours." I tend to expect Tim Meadows to introduce it on 'The Quiet Storm.' To be fair to Duke (who has an impressive resume looking at Wiki), the only thing that separates After Dinner Drinks from a 'straight ahead' jazz piece is the synthesizer sounds and drum machine feel.

I've added to my dissapointment because I couldn't get the CD to play directly, so I listened to it from the library. But I forgot to turn shuffle off, so for a minute when the first track was followed by a blues song I found myself going, "Well, there's a direction I didn't expect." But when that lead into the theme to Space Ghost I knew I had screwed up.

This is kind of soundtrack jazz. Not necessarily porn soundtrack jazz, maybe romantic montage soundtrack or something to that effect. Or parents jazz. It's hard to get excited about but seems unnecessary to trash it. I wish I had started this CD earlier, though.

Together as One is more or less a straight up piano trio piece, a ballad of course.

Once again I'm letting my bias towards smooth jazz color how I approach the CD since it's really not that bad.

I must have listened to it, it's been out of its case for a really long time. Though I probably gave in after the first few seconds of the first track to move onto something else.

Mose Allison
The Mose Allison Chronicles - Live in London

Ah, back to straight ahead land. I have no idea how 'straight ahead' became the distinctive phrase for non-fusion jazz. I don't even know how many people use that, it's just what I heard when I was a teenager and wanted to make that distinction.

I don't really know anything about Mose Allison. He's one of those that I think I should know, I just don't. There are a lot of those in my promos. I would get them and if the rep handed them to me directly I'd say something open ended and vague like, "Sweet, thanks man!" like I was a fan or something, but mostly it was "Great, now I can figure out what this artist is all about!" But then I never took this CD out of its case, so I never learned what Allison was all about.

Like, I wasn't expecting singing. Which is, apparently, what he is known for.

This is live, obviously, but the location is pretty awesome. It's at a pizza place in London where, according to the liner notes, Allison plays at quite a deal. He seems like a half way between a Bob Dorough/Randy Newman and Dr. John.

I got distracted during Middle Class White Boy and I think I missed something. But it's a long CD and I'm kind of tired. Now instead I'm getting a sorrowful rendition of You Are My Sunshine...

Much is made in the liner notes and other sources about Allison's dry wit. He may or may not be that prototype for singers with that folksy jazz songs with ironic lyrics.

Day 49: Matt Otto "53 West 19th" & Everette Harp "For the Love"

I've made the mistake of moving some CDs in from storage before I was done with the bag, so now I keep wanting to move onto those CDs and not finish the bag. It doesn't help that the bag has torn and now the CDs are intermingling with the ones that have already been done. Ah well...

Matt Otto
53 West 19th

This is another one of those CDs that I wanted but didn't know that I had. Not that I have any idea who this is. Because I don't. But that was the thing, I wanted saxophonists I hadn't heard, contemporary jazz musicians, etc. Except that it was always hard to buy Matt Otto, guy I've never heard, when I still don't own Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil. (I may very well actually own that...).

Of course, I was getting CDs for free and I still didn't listen to this CD until now. But I might have brought this home with Speak No Evil, so, you know...

This is actually a pretty decent jazz album. There isn't anything standing out so far, but it's pretty decent.

Well, that's not entirely true, there is something standing out, and it's the one thing that is quickly becoming my favorite thing...the liner notes.

But this isn't the regular fun and game that liner notes usually are. For some reason, Matt Otto has decided to go in a completely different direction with the liner notes: Socialist manifesto.

And I'm not talking that whole Tea Party notion of anything that doesn't benefit you directly is socialist knee-jerk kind of way. Like "it is the reoccurring reality of class society based on the private ownership of the means of production. That is, a society in which a minority of people (the ruling class) own all of the social resources and profit off the labor of workers who have only their labor to sell in order to survive." (direct quote) socialism.

As far as I can tell from the essay, he's against the exploitation of the worker for the benefit of the ruling class. And that the jazz musician, performing a music that spawned from the most exploited worker in history, owes a responsibility to work towards changing that. But he still had me huck his CD for just above minimum wage.

He also seems to feel that specialization in education has led to passiveness and subservience in the worker. That and sexism and racism used to divide the workers against each other.

Not at all what I expected to see in the liner notes of a CD.

So the lesson of the Albatross is: Always read the liner notes, you never know what you're going to find.

Yeah, and the music is pretty good, too. He doubles a few tracks to make things sound fuller, which in a purest kind of way doesn't seem right, but that's kind of unfair, really. It's not a live album, some mastering is bound to take place, why should it have to 'sound' live. [EDIT: I have been contacted by Matt Otto! and that turns out to not be true, everything was in fact live to tape.-walrus]

Ooooh, 'hidden' track. These tracks are never so much hidden as stuffed after a long pause on the last track of the CD.  Basically it's just a way to wreck havoc on you putting the CD on random.

Everette Harp
For the Love

Nuts, fusion. Smooth jazz fusion. Radio jazz. I recognized the name but didn't know anything about the artist. The CD loaded before I was finished setting up the post, so it's already playing before I was able to type out what my expectations were.

Every one of these CDs where I don't know who the person is is like Russian roulette, eventually that chamber is going to be filled with some bland smooth jazz.

Smooth jazz/contemporary jazz/fusion, what have you, sounds like soft core porn. That may be because it's late and I'm watching movie channels, but it's only Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, so it's not really that...

I'm not sure what the source of my complete disdain for this kind of jazz is. I mean, it's one thing to just not like it. There are flavors of ice cream I could do without, I don't like beef burritos nearly as much as I like chicken burritos, but that doesn't mean that I loath beef burritos. I don't hate other forms of pop music as much as I dislike smooth jazz. I don't listen to pop punk, but I don't hate it. I think rap-core is kind of comical, but hate? Smooth jazz, though...

I think that it's because this is the overcome I have to deal with when trying to introduce someone to jazz. Like, if I say I like jazz there's that chance that the person is going to say, "What, like Kenny G?" and then I have to kill them. And then I either go to jail or more likely, since I'm not really all that much of a tough guy, I get my butt kicked in the failed attempt. And really, what do we gain from that?

There isn't even liner notes so there isn't the chance that they're filled with a political screed or something.

At least it's short, just shy of fifty minutes.