Up at 6. Went to Starbucks for a while, read W&P (just started Book Four), wrote up yesterday’s entry. Annie can’t play the (possible) HH show, will ask Tom Shad [later; he’s in]. Came back about 9:30, read a little of DeVeaux, listened to his musical examples: Hawkins and Armstrong’s solos on 1929/1930 recordings of James P. Johnson’s “One Hour With You” (which we almost learned for States of Country last month). Spent an hr+ clearing email inbox, down to 100 from 200+, as much as I could take. Listened to songs in a bunch of promo emails - Stella Donnelly’s “Tricks” was the standout. Had WKCR Ornette b-day broadcast on for a while too. Read to p. 100 of DeVeaux, listened to some other records cited, would have played a solo transcription on the piano but Bree has stuff piled on the (closed) keyboard. Read Brecht, napped. Bree came home at 3, we eventually got down to assembling a piece of furniture we ordered. This (including clearing space and cleaning up after) took until around 10 pm, so that was my day - and we still have to put the back and doors on. At least we listened to the first 2 of this 4-disc Bebop Spoken Here box, a couple times through each. Bree i.d.’d “All God’s Children’s Got Rhythm” from a Red Rodney record - I doubted that boppers would be using material that overtly minstrelized until I checked the playlist. Good ear! Went out myself for a bite, read another 1/4 of McMorris. I wonder how much of the graphic apparatus and generous white space comes from Susan Howe. Some of what he’s doing started to lock in for me w/ a key line: “not all words survived the voyage.” And the conventionally lineated poems in pt. II (“Pidgin Geometry”) build on this effectively. Came back, read 30 or so pages of Brecht (who deals with fugitivity quite differently, I want to say less passively). “Valse plus triste” (778-9)— ostensibly about a village dance Brecht is watching as a refugee. “Riches stepped out with the local judge/True love — you should have seen them!/They tried to gaze into each other’s souls/But they didn’t have a soul between them.” Lights out 11:30.
3/8
Up at 6, left for school by 7. Read Kindley on the way up, finished and office, and wrote him about talking to his Ashbery class in April shortly after. Graded stray/late papers, just had time to check out a Sam Durant catalog from the library (for a Kevin Young essay). Taught - went well, though I had to rush on the last proof. Crossed paths w/ my officemate, caught 1:10 bus; long wait at White Plains station. Listened to the “contemporary” disc of a 3-disc set advertising the wares of peermusic (the successor to Ralph Peer’s Southern Music) circa 2011. They had a piece of Beyonce at the time; “Countdown” does jump out against the background of already-dated pop productions (Demi Lovato and the like, and multiple songs w/ Snoop features); did like something called “The Barn” by Family of the Year, for its loose group vocals. Put on a 5049 podcast w/ a new-music violinist. Read the last big of that little Giffin book somewhere in here - opaque, but I learned the word “foramen” (a hole in a bone). Too tired to stay in Manhattan ’til evening, came home from GTC, read W&P and just 10 p. of Brecht. Left 5:30, went to McNally-Jackson to buy a couple things I’d passed up last time: Hervé Guibert, The Mausoleum of Love (journals by a friend of Foucualt’s, blurbed by Kostenbaum), Kate Briggs, This Little Art (on translating Mallarme, it just looked good), and Chico Barque, Split Milk (on remainder). Reminds me that I should hear the recent Caetano Veloso album before I see him in April. Passed on the temptation of a fancy notebook. David Derby msg’d me about playing a show w/ Gramercy Arms in April. Had a coffee and started reading Scott DeVeaux, The Birth of Bebop, which Elizabeth Newton recommended. It looks like a great balance of the musical and sociopolitical - the intro talks back to Baraka a bit, but also Martin Williams and Rudi Blesh, all of which I appreciate. He starts the book proper by contextualizing Coleman Hawkins — got to p. 50 on the train (missed a stop) and waiting for a show at the Stone to start. Took a while, so opened Mark McMorris, The Book of Landings. Read about 40 pages (many of which have just a few lines, or single words in a grid of 12 boxes. Limnal, I guess? The introduction is very artists’ statement. Listened to a set by Ches Smith (d, nominal leader), Marc Ribot (g), Kris Davis (p), Leon Boykins, Devin Hoff (both b). Had been wanting to hear Davis for a while - she’s kind of amazing, a strategic and disciplined player. Ribot a bit loud. Don’t know how composed these pieces were, but the group wasn’t afraid of either tonality or a groove. Closed with a pretty fantastic workout on “Locomotive,” a less-played Monk tune that made a nice vehicle for Ribot’s riffing and Davis using more “jazz language” than the rest of the set. Listened to Sonny Still/Dizzy Gillespie on the way home, cool, somewhat recomposed version of “Sunny Side of the Street” w/ Diz’s hipster vocal 1/2 way through, after multiple solos, and a blues “After Course” that starts w/ a couple of great gutbucket low-resister piano chorus (though the player is slipping my mind). Home around 11, stayed up an hr, tried an English podcast about old postcards, very soothing. Lights out 12:30.
3/7
Up for a while 3:30-4:30. Online. Went back to bed w/ John Grant, Live with the BBC Philharmonic, which is been in a stack for at least a year. Fell asleep 3 songs in. Up at 8. Read 30 p. Brecht (he’s still in exile; the awesome, righteous judgment against living one’s life is hard to take), breakfast. Left about 10:30, coffee at E77, started my friend Evan Kindley’s Poet-Critics and the Administration of Culture. Interesting model of justification in the preface. Worked at Spacious about 12-3, rewrote 1st 2 grafs of “form” section of preface, about 650 words. Stuck getting into harmony. Lunch, rode home, bought light bulbs, groceries. Read to 1/2 way point in Evan’s book on train and at home, chapters on Eliot and Moore as critics, and Auden’s The Orators. Changed light bulbs, talked some things over w/ Bree when she got home. Read 1st 2 sequences in Lawrence Giffin, Sorites - a short, 40 p. or so book that turned up while I was culling. 1st is obviously based on Platonic language, seemingly The Republic, second is a lot of play on ought/aught/naught. Barely feel as though I should say I’ve “read” this - damned if I can make out an argument, and it’s hard to feel it be worth the work. Got through what’s actually disc 2 of the John Grant — as a lyricist and vocalist, we’re in territory adjacent to Eitzel, Buckner (maybe Stephin M. too, but JG is more Sincere about his Pain despite flashes of humor), and some of the tunes are fine, but there is altogether too much Elton/Lennon rock-ballad piano plod. Orchestration adds more to some songs (“Outer Space”) than others, but the grandiosity of the presentation sets overly high expectations. Called dad. Listened to disc 1 - I don’t know, it’s like a series of inferior rewrites of “Life on Mars?” Worked on my taxes. Read through some card tricks in a Phil Goldstein book, lights out before 11.
3/6
Slept very poorly - probably up for good around 4 am. W&P. When Bree got up at 6, I moved a few things to facilitate the Goodwill pickup. Left for school before 7, listened to Rising of the Moon, best-of CD of The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem. Should note down titles, but there are multiple double-length ballads (eight lines in common meter, or thereabouts) w/ aaba phrase structures. Read a little Albertine, but pretty tired, listened to part of a cheap Hoagy Carmichael reissue w/ some snappy songs I didn’t know (“No More Toujours L’Amour,” “Billy-A-Dick”). At office 9:30, hastily graded a batch of hwk. Taught - ok, but I feel like I’m moving too fast to get everything covered before the midterm (2 weeks). Lunch, finished grading and recording, went to library and checked out Rogin, Blackface, White Noise + a W. Grant Still/William Levi Dawson/Ellington CD. Left 3:30, no energy for reading, listened to junky podcasts on the way home. Home around 6 - got in bed before 8 and slept until 11. Read a few pages of Coolidge, put on the Clancy Bros. again and went back to bed.
3/5
Woke up before 6, listened to the rest of the R. Flack best-of. “Back Together Again” (one of many Donny Hathaway duets) has a great live-disco arrangement I should keep in mind for “Breath on My Cheek.” W+P. Started Viv Albertine, To Throw Away Unopened. Cleaned up, put on a CD of obscure Sousa orchestral works — “The Dwellers in the Western World” (1910) in three movements: “The Red Men,” “The White Men,” The Black Men” (w/ a cakewalk section) and “Three Quotations” (1895), followed by songs from a musical “Teddy and Alice” (about the Roosevelts) for which a modern composer (the conductor) and lyrics adapted Sousa tunes. Competent - the attempt to set “Stars & Stripes Together” as a campaign speech is interesting. Left with Bree a little after 10; rest of the day was devoted to personal activities, not represented here. Had a break at 1 point at read 30 p. Coolidge: “that poem was actually a blues with a bridge” (86!) Home around 10:00, prepped some things for tomorrow, read to about p. 50 in Albertine before bed. Lights out just before midnight.