Author: Jeff Albert

Social internet TMI

I am fascinated by some of things people will write on Twitter or Facebook. I think sometimes we forget that these are more public places than we realize. The dilemma is: when we see people being hypocrites, are we obliged to call them out? Publicly or privately?

Case in point: a recent Facebook status update was “vindictive people suck.” This was posted by someone who has given people grades in an apparently vindictive manner. (I would say obviously vindictive, but I’ll leave the benefit of the doubt.) To call this person out would seem equally vindictive, so I guess just quietly enjoying the irony would be the best course of action. The middle road between the full on call out and the quiet contemplation must be the vague blog post.

I think I may be reading too much Gowder, although I imagine Paul would just rock the call out and be done with it.

Dial “M” for Musicology: Thinking with the ear

I just recently started reading this blog, and I can’t remember how I got turned on to it, but I really like today’s post. There’s a fairly long quote below. Click the link to read the whole thing.

Dial “M” for Musicology: Thinking with the ear:

“Last time I wrote about performance as a series of deliberative acts vs. performance in a ‘flow state’ and thought about what understanding of self and volition these two states entail. It got me thinking about an old friend — let’s call him Chuck — who was a music undergrad at the same time as me and with whom I played a little chamber music. This guy was one of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life, a sponge for languages, ideas, literatures, whole fields of endeavor. His intellectual restlessness manifested itself in his approach to music; he was a seriously deliberative musician. When we played together, he would plan out everything that would happen in every phrase, every little pause and inflection worked out along the axis of a carefully-prepared analysis. And I, being at that time convinced that such an analytical orientation was indispensable for proper interpretation, went right along. I enjoyed the crossword-puzzle aspect of our rehearsals, the satisfying feeling of figuring out and verbalizing what he and I were to do at any given moment of the piece. But Chuck’s playing never lost a certain stiffness, a certain lack of organic cohesion—everything he played sounded as if it were made out of Tinkertoys. And it never really grew past a certain point, as Chuck admitted himself, which is why he ended up doing something else with his life (and meeting with a great deal of success). 

I’d go so far as to say that those musicians like Chuck, musicians who think of performance as a highly deliberative act, are at a disadvantage.”

Rob Mazurek – Lisa Sokolov

These discs deserve reviews, but I don’t really have the time to get to them. They have both been in my player quite a bit lately. Mazurek’s disc is full of great textures. Come to the Lisa Sokolov disc with out jazz singer expectations, and you’ll get to some good music. If you look at the titles of the songs, and expect something similar to what you’ve heard before, you might have a hard time with it. Let it be what it is, and you’ll be treated to a great new experience.

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Beginning of Jazz Fest and other craziness

We are into the second weekend of Jazz Fest, and I still haven’t written anything about the first. Here’s the quick and dirty recap.

Last Thursday night, George Porter Jr and the Runnin’ Pardners kicked things off at Southport Hall. We don’t get to play together too often, but every time we do, it is a real treat. That night was extra special for some reason. Everyone was playing great, and we all had lots of fun. I’ve been playing with that band for 6 years or so now, and still at least once per gig George and Russell do something that is so bad that I have to put my horn down and laugh (or scream or something). It is nights like that, that remind me how lucky I am to do what I do.

Saturday was a totally new experience for me. I volunteered at one of the Jazz Fest beer tents (well they sell soft drinks too, but mostly beer). The Band Booster Club for my step son’s high school band works at this drink tent to raise money for the band. That’s a side of Jazz Fest that I hadn’t imagined, and it was fun. When you are at the Fairgrounds, be nice to those folks, they work hard. While hauling the 40 lb bags of ice was fun, the highlight of my beer tent time was working the station near the Fais Do Do Stage during the Del McCrory Band set. Those guys were SLAMMIN’.

Tuesday night, my quartet played at the Open Ears, and we had a great time. My old buddy Charlie Wooton was there and played a bit. He and I, and the Italian drummer Marcello Bennetti played a nice trio. Of course Ray, Dave, and Tommy sounded fabulous as always on the quartet stuff. There should be audio evidence on the Open Ears site…eventually.

Today, I was at the Fairgrounds, playing the Economy Hall tent with Ronnie Kole. I have to give some props to the sound crew in that tent. The stage sound was excellent, and people told me the front of house sounded good too. That’s not always a given at Jazz Fest, so thanks guys.

I caught a little bit of Kidd Jordan and Clyde Kerr with the Louis Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp Alumni Band. Kidd and Clyde have taught at that camp for years. It would have been cooler if Kidd would have had his own band. I understand that they want to show Kidd enough respect to have him play, and they aren’t brave enough to give him a whole set, but he is so much better in the right setting. He never plays halfway, so to stick him with a group that only halfway goes where he is going is lame. His set 2 years ago with Clyde, Alvin Fielder, William Parker, and Joel Futterman was great. I wish they’d program that again.

After our set, I caught a bit of the George Wein Newport All Stars. Besides Wein on piano, it was Randy Brecker, Anat Cohen, Howard Alden, Esperanza Spaulding, and Jimmy Cobb. They did mostly tunes that were not quite as old 40 years ago at the first jazz fest in New Orleans. I’d never heard Esperanza Spaulding on anything other than her record. She sounded good. Her bass playing was right there, and she sang “Prelude to a Kiss” with an anything but straight delivery. I had heard a lot about Anat Cohen, and heard a few recordings, but today was the first time I heard her live as well. I enjoyed what she played. Despite the safe repertoire, she didn’t stay in the safe spots.

National record store day scores

Yesterday morning I read on several blogs that it was National Record Store Day. I had two gigs in the quarter with time to kill in between, so I went browsing at La. Music Factory (which come to find out wasn’t one of the participating stores, but oh, well).

I went whole hog on the “record” part and even bought vinyl. I got a used copy of Chick Corea “Circling In” and a new copy of Larry Young’s “Into Something” for $9.99 each.

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Facebook …friendship or communication tool? Stage | guardian.co.uk

Critics shouldn’t befriend artists |Stage |guardian.co.uk:

“As a woman of reasonable drive and sanity, I try not to spend too much time on Facebook. I’ll log on weekly to see which friends have a birthday approaching (felicitations, Peter and Lars) or to post an update. And for a while I really liked that Slayers game, Zombies Must Die! But lately I find myself forced to visit the site for an uncomfortable purpose: declining ‘friend requests’ from actors, directors, playwrights and publicists.

Why not just hit ‘accept’? Yes, many of these people are unknown to me, but so are several of the erstwhile classmates I cheerfully agreed to ‘befriend’. And many are known to me and very likable – a category that includes, remarkably, several publicists. But I write for publications with strict codes of ethics – chiefly, the New York Times – and they don’t look too kindly on pals profiling pals. Yet, to friend or not to friend is really a modern gloss on a much older dilemma: what is the appropriate relationship between the artist and the critic?”

This is an interesting dilemma. I am getting to the point that I don’t necessarily see a Facebook Friend Request so much as a request to be my “friend” as much as a request to have approved communication. More and more I am finding people that have my email address, and phone number, and mailing address (it’s all on my website) using Facebook (or MySpace) messages to contact me. The addition of another layer of technology is mildly annoying, but it seems to be a somewhat necessary annoyance. Apparently this is how people want to communicate, and if I want to be accessible, I need to be accessible there.

Thoughts? Leave a comment, or email me…or friend me so we can message each other.

Clean Feed gets Indie Music Blog shout out

Indie Music Blog » Blog Archive » More Other Stuff: “Clean Feed, a label based, perhaps rather improbably, out of Portugal,  is among the new leaders in creative improvised music.”

On a related note, Clean Feed is due to release the next Lucky 7s CD, “Pluto Junkyard,” on April 21. If you are new to my ramblings, the Lucky 7s is a band that Jeb Bishop and I co-lead, that also features Josh Berman, Keefe Jackson, Jason Adasiewicz, Matthew Golombisky, and Quin Kirchner.