Category: Jazz

La La Land: Justin Hurwitz

Classification: Jazz
Release: 2016

Some day I may get around to reviewing the movie, "La La Land". Spoiler alert, I love it. It's sad. It's sweet. It's bitter. It's jazz and slick and Hollywood perfect. Sure, sure. I'm a sucker, what can I say? My wife is a big fan of Ryan Gosling - I think most wives are. She always seems to have new Hollywood crushes, but Ryan Gosling is one that often comes up in her list of most attractive men. I know this list because she likes to ask me who I think is pretty in Hollywood. I don't think she really wants to hear my answer. I think she wants me to ask the question back.

Since 2014 I have included Emma Stone in my list. This is partially because of Emma Stone, partly because I am forever behind in my Hollywood gossip. There is just too much content these days. People that don't have anything to say should just stop saying it. Hmm. That cuts a little too close. I've stopped including Emma Stone in my lists when Erin asks me the Hollywood question. This has nothing to do with Emma Stone, per se. It has everything to do with Erin's response to my inclusion of Emma Stone in my list. Erin said something to the effect that Emma Stone looks like her sister. There is a vague similarity there, but I wouldn't have noticed it without Erin's pointing it out in ways that made me realize that she had done her homework to prove her spurious point.

It's made things weird between us. Not between Erin and I (nor between Erin's sister and I). Between Emma and I. There's this disconnect now that wasn't there before. It's me, Emma. Not you. See, that's weird isn't it? La La Land the movie used to be the perfect movie for Erin and I. Now? Well, let's just move on to the album.

There is a stack of folders that I want to edit and put on the blog. Instead I'm sitting listening to La La Land for the fifth time in three days and writing about it. I should have classified this post as a review in the Musicals category. It would have fixed a broken link. So would some of the papers in the stack of folders an arm's reach away, for that matter. It would be dishonest to put La La Land in any other category than jazz. Sure, it's a safer jazz than some of the other albums I've been listening to. Here's looking at you King Tut. It's got that Hollywood slickness about it that something like Head Hunters doesn't have. Still, a duck is a duck whether its in the little pond near our apartment or in the lobby of the Peabody. 

"Are there any words", asked Erin on its second go round the turntable? It was then I knew that it couldn't go in the Musicals category. There are some words, in case you were wondering. Only on City of Stars, which might actually be one of my least favorite tracks on the whole album. Mia and Sebastian's Theme, which runs through both album and movie, has a beautiful piano refrain. I can't put my finger on it, but for some reason hearing the song over and over again I am reminded of Cloud Atlas and its recurring piano theme. 

Now, there's a film (or book) I wouldn't mind picking up again. This is why I can't catch up to the content that Hollywood keeps churning out. I get distracted too easily in deciding what to watch with the overabundance of choices. I wind up returning to the same thing over and over again. La La Land is that type of jazz record: a refuge, a safe return when the plethora of choices seem overwhelming. It is the ultimate tool of procrastination. The stack of folders that need to be edited can wait another day. 

Tutankhamun: Art Ensemble of Chicago

Classification: Jazz
Release: 1969

Another jazz album, another stab at poetry. This might not be a tenant, but there's a strong connection between jazz and poetry. I think it has something to do with the endorphins associated with absolute freedom. Fear reduces us to staccato speech. Excitement moves us to speech fast. The push and the pull of this reaction to a world with no rules is exhilarating. Have you ever heard an exhilarated goose? The sound it produces stretches the definition of music to a breaking point, pushes it beyond the pale and leaves its carcass buried in the desert. Out of this snuffed out definition of music comes Art Ensemble of Chicago's Tutankhamun and the four poems I have written in response to listening to this album. Next to the definition of music you will find the remains of the term, "poetry". I buried it there last week.

What can I say? Impenetrable jazz gets impenetrable poetry. To collage is to recreate life as it is experienced, not as it appears. For eight hours a day, nine on this particular day I sat at a computer doing the work of a salesman. Erin & I were going golfing at 6:00 - an exciting first for us. At 5:59 a zipper tab was pulled violently by a passing wind. The clouds relieved themselves in a torrential downpour and we went home. A collage of today would rightly emphasis the one minute that defined it rather than the nine that constituted its majority. I say it again, to collage is to recreate life as it is experienced, not as it is. 

Confession is good for the soul. I confess that I am a bit of a history nerd. I purchased this album because I am going through a bit of a jazz phase and I liked the cover. Confession is good for the soul. I confess that I really struggled with this album. In fact, while the album was playing I walked into the other room where Erin was - behind a closed door. Her look told me all I needed to know about her take on Art Ensemble of Chicago's definition of poetry. Incredibly, it sounded better and more like music from behind the heavy wooden doors. I also bought the album because of the track lengths. The titular song clocks in at an astounding 18:10. It makes the 15:35 The Ninth Room seem mercifully short. The Ninth Room is easily the best song and my worst poem. 

Because I am not a sadist, I have included a digital collage I made while relistening to the record, twice. Once from behind the heavy wooden doors. Once at 45 rpms instead of the suggested 33. The heavy doors improved the experience; the other, did not. Because I want you to read these admittedly terrible poems, I have placed the picture at the bottom of this page. This is a digital version of ears of corn on the side of the road with a box for you to throw money into. On your honor, read the poems. Then look at the collage. (You'll notice that my poetry suffers for being too literal in its response to the album. It would appear that literalism is becoming a threat.)

Tutankhamun

tasked to put words to music:
                       who tasked?
tell me,
        tell me.
                       i'll kill em...

cacophony. caw caw. cacophonous. caw.
                                 caw. ?

sounds.    toot.    toot.             ?
                       who tasked?
tell me,
        tell me.
                       i'd like a word...

thinitthedalen part one

i couldn't do it.
kill-kill him,
            i mean.

The Ninth Room

geesesgoosesgoslingoose
groove/ya dig?
quackedquackquackery
groove/ya dig?

you want impenetrable? i'll give it to you.
impentrabley igpe atinlay 
groove/ya dig?

impentrabley?
impossible/impassable/impassabley 
                                    [read lei]
impenetrable impervious imperil
improv imperdimproved impassabley 
                                    [red. lay]

impenetrable jazz gets impenetrable poetry
we are divided/divisible
groove/ya dig?
cant even agree to disagree
groove/ya dig?
quackedquackquackery
ya dig?

geesesgoosesgoslingoose
groove.

thinitthedalen part two

rush to the volume knob:
what's wrong with the bumble bees?
nada
    nada
        nada 
            the geeses fly south
            fed up with the bees
        nada
    nada
     

Til we meet again, King Tut.

Head Hunters: Herbie Hancock

Classification: Jazz
Release: 1973

The second of the powerful first triumvirate of my record reviews who by chance happened to have first been released in 1973. I don't believe in coincidences. My beliefs are also not beholden to your credulity. That sounded much more aggressive than necessary. Time travel can make me a bit jumpy. 

I'm sitting here in my little apartment, listening to jazz on vinyl, typing my thoughts out on a typewriter. The rhythmic hammering of the keys enriches, envelopes and experiences the oneness of peak hipsterdom. I have reached the summit to discover that the embracing and acceptance of the label is to truly become one with irony. By accepting it without shame, without irony one becomes irony itself.  

Sly embodies the Dionysian chaos that is so alluring to me in Jazz. I embrace the embodiment. I am writing poetry, on a typewriter, listening to jazz on a turntable. I can feel the mid-century mod flowing through my veins. The crystal ash tray on the teak side table has my favorite cigarette in it. My feet are up on the coffee table. It's from etsy, hairpin legs with a painted atomic age starburst on it. More mid-century than real mid-century. The ostentatious fluting on Watermelon Man overwhelms me. I am one with the vision. I write poetry on typewriter listening to jazz record smoking imaginary cigarette in imaginary room with feet up on imaginary table and newspaper in hand. This is what the vision says:

it begins with the irresistible bass
the the guitar oozes sex
the horns are a'comin
the horns,
i'm a comin

I pick up the cigarette, cinematically. The seventies, as constructed by secondary experiences hangs in the air, giving everything a hazy glow. I smoke the cigarette, cinematically because this is what cinema is. Vein Melter is playing in the background and I am sitting on the couch smoking a cigarette after a hard day's work. The record ends and my imagination is purged by the Apollonian reactionaries. It is tough to breath at the peaks of mountains. I have had my taste of vision. Remember the good book says, give us our daily bread; key word - daily. Let us end with a prayer: may the good Lord find gluttony to be a far greater sin than lighthearted syncretism.