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Highly Opinionated

9

Give Your Regards to Broadway—and Hollywood

Read "Give Your Regards to Broadway—and Hollywood" reviewed by Con Chapman


Those who recognized the complexity and beauty of jazz early on--such as twentieth century French critic Hugues Panassié--rightly characterized it as American's unacknowledged classical music. Their sentiment came to fruition in the wrong way by the end of the century when the genre had fallen from its peak to its current lowly status, tied for last with European classical music in terms of popularity. This downward plunge has been blamed on everything from Elvis Presley and the coming ...

6

A Tale of Two Jazz Humbugs

Read "A Tale of Two Jazz Humbugs" reviewed by Con Chapman


"Humbug" is a little word of great utility that has unfortunately passed out of general usage. It means, according to Webster's Dictionary, “a person who does not live up to his claims; impostor." While it carries the connotation of deception or trickery, it was more generally applied to what we would today call--with less compactness--a pious fraud; the fellow who claims to have principles, but upon closer examination fails to live up to them. This is a tale of two ...

15

The Rat Pack vs. the Kids in the Kitchen: Are Those Our Only Choices?

Read "The Rat Pack vs. the Kids in the Kitchen: Are Those Our Only Choices?" reviewed by Con Chapman


It was a more important anniversary than most so we decided to splurge on a local restaurant that always gives me buyer's remorse when I get the check. My wife and I are both getting up in years and we eat out at what she used to jokingly refer to as “blue hair hours," when you can get the early-bird special if you want. In that time slot the crowd consists of senior citizen guys and their wives, ...

6

Jazz Inside And Out: Select Posts from 2013-2015

Read "Jazz Inside And Out: Select Posts from 2013-2015" reviewed by John Goodman


Here's a selection of posts from my now-discontinued blog, Jazz Inside and Out. I started writing it in summer 2013 and persisted for about six years. As 2016 rolled around, like many others I got quite taken over by politics, and my posts reflected that. Readership went up, jazz took a sabbatical. Politics and jazz are my passions, but politics is always transient—and jazz endures. Some of these posts still have relevance, I imagine, and of course your ...

9

Zappa and the burning strings

Read "Zappa and the burning strings" reviewed by Mick Raubenheimer


Zappa. A glimpse. The composition was entering its fifth mood, a diabolical, gleeful, lurching rhythm, led by deep-plowed violin. The song was “Revised Music for Violin and Low Budget Orchestra," it was written for Jean-Luc Ponty by Frank Zappa. A new instrument dawned into my framework as that composition wheezed and moaned and ranted and spun—that classic, demure, genteel pansy of an instrument had been plucked from its staid Old European stand and forged into a complex, eloquent ...

7

Ornette Coleman: An Outsider Cracks the Egg

Read "Ornette Coleman: An Outsider Cracks the Egg" reviewed by S.G Provizer


Part 1 | Part 2 There are two ways a musician can make a significant impact on jazz. One is to mobilize virtuosity and knowledge to push the current boundaries of the music. There are a number who fall in this category, but unassailable examples are Louis Armstrong, Art Tatum and Charlie Parker. The other way to make an impact is to bring an alternative approach powerful enough to challenge the entire pre-existing musical paradigm. Ornette Coleman was ...

6

Frank Sinatra: Myth, Reality and a Critic Standing in Line at Arby’s

Read "Frank Sinatra: Myth, Reality and a Critic Standing in Line at Arby’s" reviewed by S.G Provizer


The mere act of re-releasing a 1960 Frank Sinatra album speaks to the fact that his name still creates ripples when tossed into the cultural pond; still has the power to inspire a reaction when other other vocal stars of yore have receded into distant memory. An ocean of ink has been spilled in portraits and musical criticism of the “Chairman of the Board," some of it merely respectful, most adulatory. Long ago, the rough, mafia-inflected edges were smoothed out ...

73

The Trump Files

Read "The Trump Files" reviewed by Gene L. Ford


Having observed--from a safe distance--president Donald Trump's pathetic and propaganda-driven response to the coronavirus pandemic, the nation's collapsing economy, the horrific death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police and the coast-to-coast protests that have followed, your intrepid reporter was moved to present (as Fox News would assert) a more “fair and balanced" narrative and safeguard it for posterity in a series he calls “The Trump Files." The reportage was begun in mid-April and should, if all goes ...

9

Craft Recording's "Chet" is a Rare Win for Baker

Read "Craft Recording's "Chet" is a Rare Win for Baker" reviewed by Patrick Burnette


"There's a little white cat out here who's going to eat you up." —Charlie Parker (to Miles Davis) Chet Baker and Miles Davis. Two trumpet players born three years apart. Both unusually handsome and slight of build. Both lacking, as trumpeters, the qualities most often associated with those brass alphas of the jazz world--power, speed, stratospheric range. Both associated, in their early years, with Charlie Parker. Both boasting incredibly prolific recording careers, with dozens of leader dates ...

2

Blue Note's 80th Anniversary Vinyl Initiative

Read "Blue Note's 80th Anniversary Vinyl Initiative" reviewed by Patrick Burnette


Blue Note moves in mysterious ways. It seems like only a few months ago that the storied jazz label announced its Tone Poet vinyl series, because, well, it was only a few months ago, and here they are with yet another entry in the vinyl reissue game: the Blue Note 80th Anniversary Series. Like the Tone Poet sequence, the 80th Anniversary releases will be on 180 gram vinyl and mastered from analog sources “where possible." So far, so much better ...


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