Obvious hiatus

 

Heard the one about..? Sigh... OK... it's not even worth making a joke out of it at this point. Thing is, I started the "main" Thumbscrew post several weeks ago, didn't finish it (obviously) - and that in turn sort of prevented me from writing anything else. Part of the problem stems from my suspicion that I shan't have anything very interesting to say about it - that all I seem to be able to do is analyse the aspects of it which are "weighed in the balance and found wanting". I very much don't want to be that guy - or to continue being him, if that's indeed who I have been previously - but it may well turn out to be the case that the most pungent comments I can provide on it are those I've already posted. That would be perverse, since the more I have listened to the album, the more I've enjoyed it; but hey, who's counting? No half-serious fan of B's music is holding off from buying the album until they've heard what I have to say about it.

So - I will still finish and post that, but since self-imposed deadlines are not helpful or effective for me, I will free myself up at this point to write about other things first. What else is going on?

Atanase has recorded some more music (following the stuff I mentioned briefly in December): this is promised to be "somewhat heavier", with a different guitarist this time - who is "not afraid to play messy"; A. himself stuck exclusively to his main axe, tenor saxophone, for this outing. All of which sounds just fine with me, but I haven't yet found time to hear this new recording, and I'd intended to wait until I had, before plugging it... but fuck it, whatever else might turn out to be true of the music, I can basically guarantee I will dig the sax playing. 

I recently read a famous book on modern jazz which I only bought quite recently, A.B. Spellman's Four Lives in the Bebop Business. This very readable book is well written and has a distinctly socio-political angle, examining the music scene as it does through the perspectives of three musicians who were either entirely marginalised (Herbie Nichols) or whose opportunities were severely curtailed owing to a perceived lack of commercial appeal in their musical approach (Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman), plus one (Jackie McLean) who had plenty of success, but who found himself on the wrong end of the NYC music scene's outdated regulations anyway; it makes no mention of B. at all, anywhere in the text, but - naturally enough - I was reminded at numerous points of the difficulties faced by the maestro, in trying to get his music accepted and validated by (what has been for the most part) a strongly resistant establishment. If I can actually get my shit together I will probably look at these connections in a bit more detail, but... not right now.

Other than that? Not much... twice recently I was involved in auctions for multiple Braxton CDs on eBay, but I lost them both, and in truth I wasn't trying all that hard to win them (since in both cases they included releases which I already have, as well as some I'm still looking for). That won't make any sense to a lot of people, who would just see the acquisition of duplicates as an opportunity to sell, but... I never have been any good at that side of things. So it remains the case that the last purchase directly relevant to what I do here - when I do it at all - was the RogueArt Duo (DCWM) 2013... anyway. More soon, honest...