September reading

Robert Palmer, Deep Blues

Frank Bruno, Bruno and Son (my dad's memoir of his dad)

Phyllis Korkki, The Big Thing

Ted Greenwald, Age of Reasons

Paul Oliver, Savannah Syncopators: African Retentions in the Blues

Robert Bruce and Abner Silver, How To Write a Hit Song and Sell It (1939)

Janet Malcolm, Forty-One False Starts

Ted Greenwald, Clearview/Lie

David Gilbert, The Product of our Souls: Ragtime, Race, and the Birth of the Manhattan Musical Marketplace

Julian Tepper, Ark

Poems of Robert Burns

Lucy Ives, The Hermit

Evan Kindley, The Questionnaire

Tricia Rose, Black Noise

10.2.16

Up 9:00. Weight 215.8.

Ran through Allen’s songs tonight, transcribed a few lyrics. Made a bass chart for “Going to Fontana” for Mon. rehearsal. Coffee: daybook, 10 p. of Banias. (Has not impressed me past the first 1/3; a shaming poem called “Enough” is particularly bad.) Bought a new toner cartridge (+ one of the superfine red pens I like), took phone in for new battery.  Dominican parade on 37th Ave.

Home for a while, at Oracle about 3. Finished the bit on “I Ain’t Got Nobody,” started next section on “Ja-Da” (from a previous draft). Left for WFMU about 5:45. Weekend train/shuttle bus mishegoss added time; finished Jasen & Jones (ends w/ Fats Waller; useable quote from Dizzy Gillespie on the bridge of “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”) Listened to Ike Turner, Rhythm’ Rockin’ Blues, comp of ‘50s work. Almost all 12-bar, somewhere between Louis Jordan and Chess. Slightly later material on Cobra is more varied.

Met Allen and his friend Scooter who drove him up from Philly at the station at 7:30, on Gaylord’s show about an hr. later. Allen did a good interview, I interjected a few times. Played “Be Positive,” “Issac’s Shadow,” “State Trooper” (bringing in the riff behind Allen’s reading and going straight into the song – spur of the moment, but it worked) and “Bicycle.” Solid. PATH/subway home, another chunk of Bullies, now into the part that emphasizes Oakland history over the immediate motorcycle club narrative. Home 11, dithered a bit, lights out 12:30.

10.1.16

Happy New Year. Up at 8. Weight 215.9.

Bree’s eye is looking better. Left for Greenpoint at 9; read Jasen & Jones (on J. Mayo Williams/Paramount records, shift from published blues to country blues), wrote in daybook at coffee bar, finished just as Steve Silverstein walked in. Went to his studio nearby, final track assembly for upcoming Shrimper radio/demo/odds & sods tape. Made decisions about tops/tails, track order/spacing. Went smoothly, done by noon. Major step in getting this out, next one is to write liner notes (long and hard to organize b/c of variety of sources).

Had a bite, stopped in The Thing on Manhattan Ave. Picked up cheap CDs by Billy Bragg (the b-sides comp), Marvin Gaye (#1s, for reference), Walt Dickerson, and a 2002 collection of unrecorded Ellington from an unproduced 1958 musical; also took a flyer on a 1998 Oxford book on philosophy of interpretation, and a instructional book on pro jazz/pop arrangement from the mid-1950s. Defines “montuno” as “An ad lib solo with just rhythm interest playing back of it…Having no harmonies in the background gives the solo complete freedom to play any harmonies or in any key he wants to, as long as he finally works back to the key the orchestra is going into at the end of the montuno.” (Helpful for my James Brown chapter.)

At Oracle by about 1:30, worked on 3 paragraphs about various recordings of “I Ain’t Got Nobody” until about 6. I guess I made my 600 word quota (for writing days, of which there have not been enough lately), but it came hard, and I petered out on Louis Prima. Read to about the halfway point of Bullies on the way home; skipped poetry today. Rec’d Jameson book (An American Utopia) I’d ordered on discount. Needed to crash, napped to a couple of OTR Dragnet episodes (used to be a regular habit, may be again). Got back up around 9:30, returned a call, refreshed to-do lists for the next couple of days, located a phone repair place in the neighborhood. Misc. tasks and distractions, lights out past midnight.

9.30.16

Up 8:30. Bree is doing ok, swelling down noticeably. Coffee, read quota of Jasen & Jones so I wouldn’t have to cart it around; “popular”/ “vaudeville” blues era (Perry Bradford, Clarence Williams). Did a few things inefficiently around the house, found clothes for gig. Decided I needed a haircut, left around 1; longer than usual wait at the Barber, read in Banias, wrote in daybook, started a crossword puzzle. To Oracle Club (the writer’s space I belong to in Long Island City) around 3; not enough time to write, but rehearsed Laura’s song for tonight on their piano and cleaned up a few things online.

Left to make 4:45 soundcheck at City Winery; read a bit of Bullies. Could give blow-by-blow of the show (Wesley Stace’s Cabinet of Wonders), but it’s quite late, so: played piano on “No Way There From Here,” “Starry Skies,” and her arrangement of “Love Vigilantes,” w/ Laura and Mark Spencer, and organ (Nord) on an all-hands-on-deck finale of a Kevin Ayers song. Hit it off w/ the house pianist, got David Nagler’s Carl Sandburg CD. Cab to Queens w/ Laura, home 12:30.

Rain a hassle all day. No prose. 

9.29.16

Up in the middle of the night for a couple hours, did nothing useful; back to bed at 6 am, up for real at 10. Weight 216.

Bree just has to put ice on her face and wait to see if the swelling starts to go down if it’s supposed do. I shopped for a few groceries in the morning, left around 11, remembering to take some copies of Allen’s book John Davis had sent. Read Jasen & Jones on train; now into material about W.C. Handy and Andy Razaf I know in outline already. Stopped at 2nd Ave. Bean for ½ hr, cleaned up desktop (too many shards of book draft). Met Allen and his friend/tour manager Cara, a nurse at the Pomona Valley Hospital (where I was born), at Vesalka. Conversation mostly Inland Empire lore; Liz Clayton came by after a while, w/ more books. Walked and chatted w/ her as far as Russ & Daughters.

My phone battery is all but dead; kept an eye out for somewhere to replace it, and will have to deal w/ this in the next few days, but ended up charging it at a public station (new city thing, apparently sponsored by a long-distance company) on 2nd Ave. Called Bree to check in, nothing new except that her dentist said that if she hadn’t had discoloration or breathing problems yet, she probably wouldn’t, so there’s that. Ended up back at Bean, worked for 2 hrs. and change revising the subsection on Will Marion Cook and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Would have been smarter to generate new material.

Met Drew Gardner at Vanessa’s Dumplings. Talked about frustration with our respective endeavors (though it sounds like his tour with Elkhorn was pretty good). Headed over to Bowery Electric, caught last few songs of Glen Morrow’s Cry for Help, watched Pete Galub’s set (first full band show I’ve seen in a couple of years, in excellent form, w/ new bassist and previous one now on 2nd gtr), stayed for about half of Steve Wynn (I was about rocked out by then). 2 beers; chatted w/ Serena Jost, Matt Kalenos, David Heatley, briefly discussed recording plans w/ Pete. Wrote in daybook on the train, about the train; read another chunk of Banias (particularly liked “Morphology,” a Jorie-ish loss-of-self poem, and a line about being dragged through the “shitty toll plaza” of language; last poem in first section strains to bring the individual/collective theme home) and 40 p. of Alex Abramovich, Bullies. I’m drawn in, don’t want to draw a bead on what’s going on too quickly.

Home by 12:30, wrote this up, set out a few things to get moving tomorrow. Lights out just after 1 am.