jun 8-9

6/8 It’s now Tuesday and I can’t do a blow by blow of Monday, but I spent about 3-8 at the library, still working on the intro revision. Dead when I got back; couldn’t do horns, poetry notebook, or the Canadian anthology. Read 50 p. Rappaport on the train, that’s it.

6/9 Up at 6. Sorted piles of books in my office, mainly into those I’ve read but want to copy my pencil notes from, and those I haven’t and might take to CA. Bought tickets for David Byrne on Broadway in October. I haven’t seen him perform since high school. Left at 8, read Rappaport. Therapy. Hungarian Pastry Shop, worked from maybe 10-2. Getting closer on this task, still tarrying w/ Adorno. Bookculture, bought poetry by Stephanie Young and Miyo Vestrini; had really gone in for a jazz studies book but in perusal it didn’t seem necessary (or very musical). Got a slice. Home by about 4, read until 5:15, worked on horns until 6:30. Dinner w/ Bree in neighborhood, as planned. It adds up. Wrote my daily poem at one point while she was in the bathroom. Home a little before 10. 

jun 7

Woke up around 5, listened to a couple of podcasts. Should have tried harder to get back to sleep. Finished the Schimmel AEC book - solid history and responsible musical analysis of selected records (inc. 2 live ones I don’t have access to), and v. Interesting on the group’s professionalism and business acumen (esp. Lester Bowie’s), qualities not usually associated w/ experimental jazz, and on the Bowie/Marsalis beef, but also hagiographic and intellectually credulous in places. Listened to Hank Jones and a couple of Verlaines tracks. Went to coffee at 9. Read Rappaport - basically a hit piece on Derrida’s opponents, a counterpart to Against Deconstruction, David Lehman, etc. So hot it was hard to do much in the house and not attractive to leave the neighborhood. Wasted early afternoon. Eventually got cracking again after 3, went back to cafe and worked on intro until 7. Made some sensible edits. Came home and read more of the Canadian anthology - M. Nourbese Philip, Karen Macormack (who has a hard-ass Marjorie Welish quality that makes for an entertaining trainwreck of an interview, but who’s poetry has more levity than I’d remembered), and the interview half of Rachel Zolf. Bree went to bet early, worked on horns from 9-10 or so.

jun 6

Up at 6. Read a bit of AEC in bed. Went to coffee, wrote 2 poems (one a collage of phrases from The Trial and a coffee-table book on shabby chic decor, both sitting on the cafe shelves), read Natalie Stephens section in Canadian anthology. Not taken w/ the work. Came back and read a bit of AEC book. Found someone online to take my extra ticket for tonight. Listened to Sparrow Spectacular. Left around noon, worked on intro revision 1-5, sent some Frankenstein version of the ch. to Holbo. David Nagler texted proposing we try to get a show together at the Owl, which would be great. Straight from there to Joe’s Pub, had enough time to call my dad. Saw the Mighty Sparrow — he’s around 80, used a cane to get on stage, and performs sitting down, but he was totally commanding, singing strongly and playfully (occasionally throwing in a Louis Armstrong imitation) interacting w/ band and audience. Band itself, w/ 3-pc. horn section, was mostly white session guys, except for the excellent pianist, led by Lane Steinberg on unobtrusive electric guitar, w/ several players I know: Tom Shad on bass, Dave Foster on acoustic, Jeff Hudgins on alto. I’ve probably met the drummer but couldn’t see him. I didn’t know much of the material (Sparrow has written 700 songs) and would like to learn, but the songs were more variegated, esp. harmonically, than what one might naively expect of calypso as a genre. Highlights: “Who Killed the Sparrow?” (Basically a decades-old diss track against Lord Kichener and Lord Melody, both dead), and the cannibalistically signifying “Congo Man.” Great show. Got back around 10, made myself do a couple measures of the horn chart, lights out not long after 11. Also made it through 2 chapters of the Canadian anthology - Gail Scott and Margaret Christikos.

jul 5

Up around 8. Slow morning, but worked on horns for an hr. around 11-noon. Tried to scare up someone for my extra ticket to see the Mighty Sparrow tomorrow. Went to the store for Bree. To Lincoln Center by 3, worked ’til 6. Did, in fact, listen to A Jackson in Your House. Mitchell’s vocal contributions (on the title track, about his cat, and a “crick crack” section give off a very different vibe than his present-day demeanor). Took some time to find a file w/ excised sections of introduction. Checked out two of Jasen’s facsimile collections of 1910s sheet music. Bought a new phone charging cord, got an ice cream, came home. Started reading Prismatic Publics, ed. Kate Eichhorn and Heather Milne, an anthology of interviews and selected work by Canadian innovative/experimental women poets - picked it up at a bookstall on Union Square a couple months ago. Finished that at home — sections on Nicole Brossard and Susan Holbrook (new to me - interestingly playful writer, has a N+7-ish piece based on tampon instructions). Read another chapter of AEC book, covering their ‘70s activities. Not up to much after 10 - fooled around on some standards on piano, read 15 p. or so of Herman Rappaport, The Theory Mess: Deconstruction in Eclipse, which looks to be a defense against d’s (and D’s) American reception. Pub’d 2001, things have moved on, esp. politically, not sure why I want to read this now. Put on the New World Records CD of Joe Jordan’s music (reconstructed by the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra) - fell asleep after a couple of instrumental rags, should listen w/ concentration. 

jul 4

Up at 6, felt restless, went out for coffee early and read through intro chapter, made some edits, need to find some excised sections and reintegrate. Back at 10, read to p. 120 of Art Ensemble book, off and on. (Extended analysis of A Jackson In Your House, which I should now dig out and listen to.) Still winnowing email - giving myself 1 week to get to inbox zero. Read 2nd 1/2 of John Holbo’s paper and replied (to his comments on my drafts as well). Left at 6, went to hear Lonnie Liston Smith Trio at Jazz Standard, 7 pm set. Fascinating command of Hammond registration and dynamics, and funky moments throughout, esp. on “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” of all things, but I imagine he was once a fleeter linear improvisor - he’s 79, after all. Solid younger drummer, guitarist a bit on the loud/pedal-happy side - most of his solos started interestingly but ended in showy arpeggiation and near-tapping. Back in JH, stopped off to see the Pedro Giraudo Tango Quartet at La Terraza. Piazzola and originals by the bassist-leader, who’s also a beautiful player. All very composed, even-quasi classical — I thought, oh, yeah, I could hold down those piano parts, but then there would be these ridiculous runs. Great stuff. Back at home about 11, bed soon after. Read the rest of Johnston on trains over the course of day. Well-crafted and pointedly reticent but to me uneven - it’s still “quietist,” as Bernstein used to say and probably still does, even if knowingly so. I wonder if he gets along w/ Ange? I did end up liking the Ovid, and a poem about “Frankie and Albert” and the murder behind it held my interest. Johnson mentions the possibility that the bones of the song predate the case, and St. Louis street singer Bill Dooley, but I think that kind of speculation (by Leonard Feather, e.g.) doesn’t hold up.