#NowPlaying Herbie Nichols Trio, 1956. Satisfying straight-ahead piano trio, w/the great Max Roach on drums! This is pianist Herbie's show though, and it's delightful. He co-wrote Billie Holiday's "Lady Sings the Blues" and there's a great version here but her voice is missed.
Sometimes a song is described in a way that sounds too intriguing to be true and when you hear it, it actually sounds like an exact replica of the description in a way that strips the music of nearly ALL its juice, and the degree to which it was almost excellent is impossibly small!
Recent spins: Ut, In Gut's House (1987, Blast First/Mute [mine is a reissue], hard-edged radical no wave-drenched experimental rock) & Mute Duo, Lapse In Passage (2020, American Dreams, searing pastoral melancholic ambient drone-Americana).
If you're in Connecticut, tune in to the Colin McEnroe Show on CT Public Radio for a live panel on Pynchon, including a brief appearance from yours truly! It'll be shared as a podcast afterwards so I'll send that out when it's available.
Obligatory read. To reckon with the fascist toilet we find ourselves in, we only need to look at Tommy Ruggles Pynchon Jr.
NEW EPISODE: Writer @motherslug.bsky.social joins co-hosts @sugi.bsky.social and Whitney Terrell to talk about her recent article for @currentaffairs.bsky.social “Thomas Pynchon Saw American Fascism Coming.”
@literaryhub.bsky.social
lithub.com/ana-gavrilov...
I‘m at a show about Làslo Krasznahorkai in Vienna and saw this letter from Thomas Pynchon to Krasznahorkai. I was reminded of this brilliant feature about Pynchon by @motherslug.bsky.social
This piece from @motherslug.bsky.social on Thomas Pynchon and our current predicament is superb
I re-read VINELAND ahead of the release of ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER and it not only held up, it resonated more with me than when I first encountered it in the '90s
www.currentaffairs.org/news/thomas-...
African Skies / Kelan Phil Cohran vinyl
Original & reissue #vinyl I’m very happy to see him finally getting the recognition he deserves. Hopefully Listening Position will reissue his other albums. I’m planning a special edition of my radio show devoted to his art.
Totally agreed!
Extremely jealous!
Dig the music: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffFQ...
Latest from me: on Listening Position's reissue of Kelan Phil Cohran's 1993 album African Skies, one of the deepest post-1970s spiritual jazz records. Features two double basses, two harps, lots of percussion, cornet, voice and the Frankiphone, an electrified kalimba that Cohran built himself.
A grip of Vintage Contemporaries as I’m sorting books.
I shared bits of Shadow Ticket while reading it but saved most of my thoughts for this piece. It might technically be "lesser" yet it's dense as hell, both funny and a blast to read, makes for interesting bedfellows with Vineland, and is clearly connected to Against the Day, too.
You can read the first page here if you zoom in and should you be interested in subscribing to the magazine, you can use code FRIENDSOFCA for 25% off: www.currentaffairs.org/membership
I love John Biggs' illustration accompanying my Thomas Pynchon piece in @currentaffairs.bsky.social. I wrote a bunch of stuff about how he predicted it was going to get worse like a month before everything got so much worse.
Alice Coltrane describing the difference between the piano and harp vis-à-vis the sun: "The piano is the sunrise and the harp is the sunset ... But the sun is always the sun and a person is always who he or she will be.”
No matter how much you listen to John Coltrane, it is impossible to overstate the depth of his art. The beauty is out of control, whether it’s a beloved Rodgers and Hammerstein melody or irrepressible free jazz.
Really interesting to read in Alice Coltrane's own words how she characterized her approach to playing avant-garde music as journeying through a park and stopping to consider the beauty of its different areas: “Sometimes your moment is there like an eternity.”
Jennifer Kelly (@aquariumdrunkard.com, Dusted) needs our help. Underground music heads, please join me in chipping in.
It is! A new biography is coming soon too, keep an eye out for that.
Alice Coltrane on John: “But he would sit there and the quiet was strong. It didn't make you feel isolated, but part of. I identified with it right away. And it was a kind of silence that you don't want to disturb. You don't interrupt with, ‘Oh, would you like some tea?’ You respect it.”
Fascinating to read Virginia Woolf's first novel and an Alice Coltrane biography at the same time, having an inadvertent conversation about genius women entering creative and artistic spaces typically reserved for men.
No, and I'm very curious about what his book will reveal of this part of her life!! This is from Monument Eternal: The Music of Alice Coltrane by Franya Berkman.
You are beyond worthy of this heavy pile! ❤️🔥
Detroit jazz: Bennie Maupin reflecting on Alice Coltrane being a PERCUSSIONIST in high school concert band!
Miscellaneous reading plans for the year:
• Mason & Dixon
• Underworld
• The works of Virginia Woolf
• Music books & memoirs
Yes! He was wonderful.