Up at 6. Coffee at 8, finished War and Peace! Had no idea Tolstoy was so Kantian — though the ending is ostensibly about “history” and the fate of nations, it’s really an essay on the conflict between free will and determinism (a term he doesn’t use). The set-up of the problem is really very similar to the Kantian aporia — but T. comes down on fatalism, and the illusory character of “personal” freedom. Tried to update to-do list - very hard to keep complete. (And haven’t done anything with the “Zettelkasten” note-taking system as of yet.) My inbox had swelled to 250+ messages; got it down to 150. The local handyman came at 10 to help put together a bedframe; made quick work of it. While in that mode, I cleared the debris/trash generated, and screwed together a smaller bookshelf for Bree. Done w/ that around 1. Rested for an hr., read Brecht up through the late, bitter Bucknow Elegies; his struggle w/ disappointment w/ the East German state is evident. Called dad. Wrote a quick chart for “The Old Currencies,” got it copied. Headed into Manhattan 5:15. Started reading Shane Vogel, The Scene of Harlem Cabaret. Bought a new strap and guitar cable at a place on 27th: I hate guitar stores. Met Matt, Pete, and Tom Shad for ramen, headed over to Euphoria, where Jenny met us. Rehearsed 8-11 - got through all but 2 songs, sounds pretty good for a first time w/ Tom on bass (and not having played together for months). 1 more rehearsal after CA trip should do it. Too tired out to read or anything on the way home - think I listed to a meditation podcast (which I do instead of meditating). Lights out 12:30.
3/25-27
On the run last 3 days; this will be brief.
3/25
Up 7. Grading + charts for Laura. Breakfast w/ Jean. On the flight to NY w/ her Jean, Tomeka, assorted Big Ears folk, inc. Bill Frisell. W&P. Home at 3. Visited w/ Bree, left for rehearsal 5:30. (Also belatedly booked HH rehearsal for Thurs.) Read Shaughnessy, listened to a little Poulenc on the walk to Mark’s. Rehearsed w/ Laura/Mark/Kenny/Jeremy + guest singers about 7-10. Got through the 2 songs I’m singing, but have work to do before the show. Rode home w/ Laura and Jeremy. Lights out 11.
3/26
Up 6. Tired; just listened to podcasts on the commute. Graded a make-up exam, taught, talked to students about their exams. Long wait for train, not home ’til 4. Rested for a couple of hours, worked on charts for “Decoy” and “Cheat” so Jenny can sing them at the HH show. (Annoying I didn’t have these already). Went to E77 after 8 to have 1 beer, read W&P (“What is the force that moves nations?”), got back into Brecht (he’s in East Germany now; returns to the mode of pornographic sonnets, plus a ridiculously long party-line poem praising the Soviet pioneer of millet cultivation), and finished Shaughnessy (she’s v. skilled at there’s some range of tone; book is largely a clever and grim expression of what we already know about the probably-coming apocalypse; you begin to think some poets think it’s a deficiency of the species that we like to be warm and fed). Picked up documents of a co-op application, which I have to review as bldg. secretary, from neighbor. Finished and sent the charts, listened to a few of the Laura songs, but will have to devote most of tomorrow to getting up on the set. Lights out 11:30.
3/27
Up 8. W&P. Therapy. Lunch. Home by 1:30, mainly worked on rehearsing, getting charts organized for show. Picked up coat from cleaners. Left for Sid Gold’s at 5:30, listened to some Poulenc on the train — I enjoy his harmonic sense, particularly taken by 3 Mouvements Perpetuels (1918). Ravel admired the naivety of Poulenc’s tunes, so there you go. Played Pennsylvania States of Country show - my “Kentucky Volunteer” was shaky but worth trying, “I Knew You Were Trouble” somewhat better. Set highlights were Dahny’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” and Lianne Smith’s “Don’t Touch Me,” and Mark’s Michael Hurley song, “Automatic Slim and the Fat Boys.” Home 11, lights out 1.
3/24
Up around 8. Went out for an hr to go to bodega (though they don’t call them that here), merch area (some Art Ensemble related CDs + Ron Miles’ I Am A Man; didn’t go hogwild), and buy 2 small notebooks at the print/Western-wear shop on the main drag. Asked where they got their stock of embroidered (Nudie-style) suits/coats/shirts, worked boots, and the like — some of it’s on consignment from Marty Stuart! Came back, graded the proof sections of about 1/3 of the midterms. Headed out to Richard Thompson w/ Knoxville Strings - a commissioned set of songs about WWI (Thompson’s grandfather was a British soldier, permanently disabled by poison gas). Pretty somber, reasonably enough, orchestration integrated into some numbers better than others. Left at interval to catch Art Ensemble panel; Mitchell is a curious individual (I mean that in 2 senses). From there, heard Bill Frisell’s group w/ Petra Haden, Hank Roberts (underused), and a 2nd guitarist whose name slips my mind (I’ll bet he gets that a lot). Repertoire split between folk/jazz — “Hard Times,” “Red River Valley,” “Lush Life,” and a great “On the Street Where You Life” w/ a nice vocal arrangement. Frisell really plays behind the beat a lot; Petra sounds great. Anxious about grading, so I skipped some things, went back to room, and finished, about 5:30-7. Figured out the curve for letter grades, haven’t recorded them. Hardly time for a snack, got in line for the Art Ensemble of Chicago show at the main theater. Quite a remarkable and deliberate set, in terms of range and choice of material - some not only composed but conducted, some improvised (though for RM, that’s just composition in real time). One highlight was a thorough diatonic song about Jamaica, with a middle section that brought in pre-recorded rain forest sounds — that sounds cheesy on paper, but it was a coup de theatre, and the vocalist was incredible. Fun to see Jean and Tomeka in the front line. Got out about 10, found a bite, saw the AEC violist (Eddie something), said hello (though a local street character was also trying to engage him). Inspired or energized enough to stay up working on charts for Laura’s show until about 1.
3/23
Up at 7. Meditated 15 min. Graded truth-tables. Quick breakfast/coffee, finished Xamissa — the conceit is worked out well, but I don’t have anything to add to yesterday’s note. Improvisation/composition workshop w/ Roscoe Mitchell in the museum atrium. Timed solos, then duos, then an attempt to get an instrumental balance (long tones, paying attention to quietest instruments as dynamic baseline) then somewhat general/cryptic directions about listening and responding — he emphasizes “development” without “following.” Not enough time to get into the nitty-gritty, but the last full-group improvisation did seem to “go” somewhere (in the direction of a mass crescendo). He also got out his soprano to duet briefly w/ a tenor player who was evidently more advanced than some (inc. me, w/ my sad wheeling melodica drone). Glad I did it. Went back to bookstore, bought Brenda O’Shaunessy’s new The Octopus Museum, and a used book on smart-note taking with a semi-GTD angle, by a German sociology/communications type. Read that off and on. Thumbscrew: Herbie Nichols’ “House Party Starting” was a highlight. Ran into Eric and Ann going into Carla Bley. Completely different set than at Jazz Standard — on the quiet/moody side, but ended with a fantastic arrangement of Monk’s “Misterioso,” w/ some clever variations/counterpoint and straight blues playing. Tim Berne’s Snakeoil, w/ Oscar Noriega, Ches Smith, Matt Mitchell. What you’d expect, but v. solid — I hadn’t heard Mitchell before. Bought the CD. Jack DeJohnette trio w/ Ravi Coltrane (sax) and Matt Garrison (bass, electronics). Seemed improvised, w/ no breaks, but I gather they were passing through material from a new ECM record. Funkier than most of the festival’s offerings (at least those on my docket); DeJohnette also an interesting, impressionistic pianist (on Miles’ “Blue in Green”) — unfair, in a way. Caught up w/ Eric & Ann for dinner, joined by Dan Sharp, a Tulane U. academic who writes on Brazilian music. Enjoyed conversation, no need to detail here; bent Dan’s (receptive) ear about bridges for just a bit walking back to hotel. Rested for an hr, went back out to Sons of Kemet (standard bearers for a new generation of UK jazz — tenor/tuba/2 drummers), but didn’t stay long — also funky, and I almost felt I heard an English Beat cadence at certain points, but kinda leaden, and the sound was boomy. Might have just been burnt out. Back to room, read the note-taking book ’til my eyes closed, about 1.
3/22
Was up for a while around 4. Read my chunk of W&P, played a piano-orchestra piece by Vivian Fine on Spotify. Skimmed a pdf of a card magic book. Not sure when I got back to sleep; up for good at 9. Texted Jean for Tomeka’s info. Starting the day too late to grade, but did some course admin. Left room at noon. Listened to 1/2 of the Carla Bley best-of I bought yesterday walking around over the course of the day. Knox County Library book sale - came away w/ a book on symbolist poetics, one on “mathematical discourse,” and the hardcover of Donald Barthelme’s The Dead Father (the same edition I remember from Upland Public Library growing up), + CDs of Poulenc and Samuel Taylor-Coleridge. $8. (No interesting vinyl, many discards of ’20-‘30s popular novels by utterly forgotten authors — I could imagine being interested, another time.) Bijou Theater, program of Joan LaBarbara, and then an ensemble of younger players, performing Alvin Lucier. I only grasp a little about this kind of work; it depends on slow shifts in pitch and timbre, and the effects of their interaction. Lucier took the stage at the end to perform “I Am Sitting in the Room,” the famous tape-decay piece that’s ground zero for one kind of post-Cagean line. Hearing an old man’s unsure voice (he has always had a stutter) disappear with repeated playbacks of the tape he’s just recorded gives the piece flesh, and a “literary” content about mortality that perhaps weren’t imagined in the original conception (like Ashbery’s interview line - “All that time I thought I was writing about nothing, I was writing about aging.”) He got a standing ovation (for sitting in a room!) Walked to the other end of downtown for Code Girl. I don’t know if Halvorson and co. will ever do another album in this song-based format, but it’s a very solid, memorable body of material; seemed like the improvises sections, esp. a drum/trumpet duo, have become longer and more dramatic since the Jazz Standard set I saw last year. Saw Gary Ostertag (who was at Carla Bley last week), Eric Weisbard, and Tomeka - met her boyfriend (who’s named David Brown, exactly like Jean’s husband). Took a break for a deli wrap, some mint chip ice-cream, and a coffee. Called my dad, and my aunt Rosalie (meaning to do that for a week or two). Walked to the museum (didn’t get quite as lost as yesterday afternoon, but had walked the wrong direction during phone calls) for panel w/ Mary H., Tomeka, and Larry Grenadier (Brad Meldhau’s bassist, whose recent ECM solo bass album I enjoyed). “Agreeable” conversation (as MH put it) on themes from Nate’s book, and some trio improv. Kind of a forced situation. Jean showed up just before the talk started - will presumably see her later this wknd. Tried to find a record store but the address in my app was wrong; it’s moved too far to walk. Went to one of the smaller/divier festival venues, Pilot Light, watched 1/2 a set by Sima Cunningham, a Chicago singer-songwriter w/ Tweedy ties. Hot and tired won out - came back to the room before 10. Read another chunk of the Rossouw book - a v. long documentary poem working off an inventory of Dutch slave holdings in early 18th c. South Africa (pre-apartheid per se). Author is the descendent of Huguenot immigrants “eager to benefit from slavery,” so it’s a work of historical guilt, which of course overlays present-day sections as well (“I stumble and pause/to remove my Adidas/as if I had the right/to even your blisters”). Also a good deal of apostrophe directed at a kind of idealized rebel figure, Lena van de Caab, extrapolated from the sketchy (decayed) historical records; she functions exactly like “Lucy” in the dance-theater piece I saw 2 nights ago. The poetry, in any case, is polyglot, fragmentary on the page in that Susan Howe working-w-documents manner, but oddly readable.
Knoxville, at least the part of it I’m seeing, is very New South — there are many bars, and it’s hard not to wonder where the broke part is. Speaking of historical guilt.