(Click here for an explanation of this project, and the two previous installments.)
“I Was Young When I Left Home.” December 22, 1961, home of Dave Whittaker, Minneapolis, Minnesota. First released in 2001 on a bonus disc included with initial pressings of “Love And Theft”. The first fifteen songs on this disc all come from the same tape, the so-called “Minnesota Hotel Tape.” This was recorded in Minneapolis when Dylan went back home for the holidays. This was a triumphant return to a degree his last trip back, in May, couldn’t have been: he’d not only been signed, but had actually recorded his first album, even if it hadn’t been released yet. While he was in the Twin Cities, fellow folkie Tony Glover recorded just over an hour and a half of him singing and talking. The results have circulated for decades, and constitute another key document of the early Dylan. Coming exactly a month after his first album sessions, they either show how far he’d come in a scant four weeks, or show just how much he’d been holding back in Columbia’s studios. The Minnesota tape is, in other words, better than the record he’d just finished making, and if the best half of it had been released instead of what was, it would have made an even more impressive debut. This quasi-traditional number (extensively reworked by Dylan) was one of the key tracks, and deserves a place at the beginning of any brief overview of Dylan’s career. "Never did no wanderin'," the Folksmen would later admit, and neither, really, had Dylan, but he can make you believe he had.
“Hard Times In New York Town.” Released in 1991 on The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1-3. What the tape lacks is new originals, except for this one, a much more listenable take on his early NY experiences than “Talking New York” had been. It takes its melody from a Harry Smith Anthology tune, “Penney’s Farm.” "When I leave New York I'll be standin' on my feet." That's just what he'd done, of course; you can hear a little flash of defiant pride as he sings it.
“Dink’s Song.” Released in 2005 on the No Direction Home soundtrack. A traditional number collected and arranged (the credits read) by John and Alan Lomax, although they evidently did little more than push “record” while “a woman named Dink” sang it. Dylan’s performance is golden, real expert tension-and-release stuff, and that gonzo way he had of reaching deep down for a note. "Fare thee welllll."
“Candy Man.” A Rev. Gary Davis tune that all the folkies did – Hot Tuna even did it. It's back room stuff, suggestive and goofy, and Dylan has a lot of fun with it, playing with those B's in "run and get the bucket get the baby some beer." Whaaa?
“Wade In The Water.” Released in 2001 on Live 1961-2000: Thirty-nine years of great concert performances (Japan-only). A trad gospel number, done up with a desperate conviction, and a bottleneck. You’ll notice that this is the fourth different place where fragments of this tape have been released. Obviously Columbia owns it, and someday they’ll release it complete, no doubt, but in the meantime they’ve been stringing us along with it. Annoying, that.
“Stealin’.” An old Memphis Jug Band number. In 1987 when Dylan got together with the Dead, he and Jerry realized they’d both played this in their folkie days. They pulled off a charming, if ramshackle, rendition then. Here Dylan goofs around with it just a little too much – he had that tendency in the early days. Sometimes his, erm, youthful enthusiasm could overpower his musical sense. He was only twenty, for God's sake.
“Poor Lazarus.” A trad number. He’d return to this in the Basement with the band in 1967, in fragmentary fashion. He's digging deep again here, trying hard to evoke the weariness of a seventy-year-old man, preferably black, preferably from Mississippi. Your reaction to some of these early Dylan performances may depend on how tolerant you are of obvious effort in recordings. Yes, he's trying to be something he's not. As a rule, that can lead to disaster, or so we're told in this culture where "be yourself" is gospel. But sometimes it can lead to great art. I heard in this what I hear in some early Rolling Stones songs, or early Elvis: an overpowering desire to be something more than one is. Imitation and flattery and all that, sure, but implicit in this desire is the potential for transformation. Dylan would never become a seventy-year-old black man from Mississippi. But the desire to sing like one would mark him, and in the end he would become - Bob Dylan.
“Cocaine Blues.” More Gary Davis. He’d return to this one on the Never-Ending Tour in the late 1990s, to great effect.
“Omie Wise.” A traditional number, variously spelled as “Ommie Wise” or “Naomi Wise.” A classic murder ballad.
“VD Blues,” “VD Waltz,” “VD City,” “VD Gunner’s Blues.” A quartet of some of Woody Guthrie’s lesser-known, and perhaps less distinguished, compositions – but they were commissioned for a good purpose, to educate servicemen about the dangers of venereal disease. Dylan, no doubt, got a twenty-year-old’s silly kick out of singing about such a risqué subject. An infamous passage on the Minnesota Hotel Tape.
“Long John.” Traditional. Mostly this is just a harmonica jam. Dylan’s harp work is something we haven’t talked about much, but it was what got him noticed first in the Village. He played harp accompaniment on a few sessions for other people – most notably Harry Belafonte and Victoria Spivey – before getting his own record deal. It's one of the few areas of his career we don't examine in this series. Gotta draw the line somewhere...
“Hezekiah Jones.” A folk recitation written by hipster comedian Lord Buckley. Another of the finest moments on this tape, as Dylan delivers it with just the right mix of thoughtfulness and sardonic humor. It borders on the precious, and in other circulating performances it goes there, but not here.
“Smokestack Lightning.” This and the next three songs, and the conversation that surrounds them, were recorded on January 13, 1962, in the apartment of Cynthia Gooding, New York, New York, and broadcast on Gooding’s WBAI Radio program “Folksinger’s Choice” on March 11 of that year. This is, of course, the Howlin’ Wolf number, a rare early excursion into the repertoire of the electrified Chicago variety of blues. This tape gives us another opportunity to hear Dylan at his folksinging finest, just before he started concentrating on his own compositions; it also gives us another chance to hear him tell some of his choice early whoppers.
“Hard Travelin’.” One of Woody’s signature songs. This may be my favorite of Dylan’s Guthrie covers, at least before “Pretty Boy Floyd” in 1987. It’s just a perfectly well-rounded performance.
“Roll On John.” Another traditional number, and the only song from these sessions to be released (to date). It came out in 2001 on There Is No Eye: Music For Photographs (Recordings Of Musicians Photographed By John Cohen). The title of this comes, of course, from a song Dylan hadn’t yet written in 1962. Not the best performance from the tape, but... Dylan once described some of his songs as "exercises in tonal breath control." That's what we have here. He's holding his breath a long time on some of these phrases.
“Long Time Man Feel Bad.” Trad., arr. Alan Lomax. A very nice tune, this shows up on a number of Dylan tapes from around this time. And we have quite a few tapes beginning right about now. 1962 is a pretty well-documented year. And it’s a good thing, as it would be a very important year for Bob. On this volume of the Chronicles we're kind of finishing off what you could call his First Album Period; I think of it as his Folksinger Period. Pretty soon he'd move on.
“Poor Boy Blues.” Recorded February, 1962, location unknown, New York, New York. The big thing that happened was that in early 1962 Dylan started writing in earnest. This song and the next two come from a small batch of songs he recorded as publisher’s demos for Leeds Music, a deal that John Hammond worked out for him to give him a little cash. He also recorded “Hard Times In New York Town” and “Ballad For A Friend” for Leeds, and a couple of songs he’d record formally at his next studio session (we’ll pick them up then). “Poor Boy Blues” and the next two, he would never come back to. They’re nice songs, though. Certainly not very original, but they’re nicely put together. The guitar backing to this seems to have morphed into “Oxford Town,” a much stronger melody.
“Ballad For A Friend.” A fine, affecting ballad, with something of the wistful, weary air of “He Was A Friend Of Mine.” I wouldn’t mind hearing this one revived sometime, but no doubt Dylan forgot it the minute he finished singing it.
“Standing On The Highway.” This one he also sang for Cynthia Gooding, so it seems to have been part of his set for at least a little while. A nice, gritty blues.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Emmylou Harris and the Nash Ramblers: At The Ryman (1992)
One of the nice things about having a CD collection as stupidly large as the Tanuki's is that you can go spelunking. You can find things you haven't listened to for years and years. Things you forgot you even had. Sometimes you realize there was a good reason you forgot. Sometimes you wonder what you were thinking every minute you weren't listening to Emmylou Harris And The Nash Ramblers At The Ryman.Why do I even have this? I don't know. I like country music, but more in the breach than the act; I don't have much of a collection. I appreciate Emmylou's importance, but thought all I had of her was stuff she did with Gram Parsons, or the Band, or Dylan, or for the Coen Brothers. Then I stumbled across this the other night, and put it on, and was spellbound for an hour.
I've come to appreciate voices. Singing. This is not something you always learn growing up as
a rock fan, especially in the postpunk era, when a scream or a growl was more trustworthy than a croon. And I still naturally gravitate toward vocals with the bark and husk left on (Dylan's my man) over the vocal acrobatics that some musics prize. But I have come to appreciate a beautiful voice and a well-sung song.Well, Emmylou Harris has a voice. Just listen to how she delivers "Hard Times" (and isn't that a topical song?). She gets as breathy as a prayer, but never weak, never unsure. Listen to that little oomph of aargh - 'scuse me, that added measure of passion she packs into "who toils." The way she phrases the rest of that line, the way she makes "better days are o'er" soar and weep.
Or take what she does with "Mansion On The Hill." You might think Bruce owns it - he wrote it, after all - but dig the way she just opens up and lets it float on "children playing," "tall cornfields," "beautiful full moon." She finds this rich pathos in the song, this full beauty, that Bruce's version hints at, but is too stark petrified of its own discovery to realize.
My favorite moments on the record, though, come in the Bill Monroe covers. This whole album is acoustic: it's Emmylou and a crack bluegrass outfit, a perfect fit for her pure voice. And of course they shine on the Monroe tunes. But the thrill is how completely she owns them. Listen to "Get Up John." All the gentleness of "Hard Times," the contemplation of "Mansion On The Hill," is out the window. This is fast, hard-charging railroad music - but she's right on top, mastering it at every moment. The way she delivers that first verse, punching the melody, but simultaneously caressing it - she's a rounder and a preacher all in one. And then, we get the refrain, and she vows "I'll go with you," and it's just a plain statement of fact (until the last time around, when it's a shout of exultation), and then she hollers "John the Baptiiiiist." You know, the song is written from the point of view of the Lord. She makes you believe it.
The point is, she knows how to sing. But beyond that, she's got that voice. Even at the joyfullest moments of "Get Up John," that voice is heavy with some secret acquaintance with sorrow. It always expresses more than it says. If you accidentally pull this record out after leaving it on the shelf for fifteen years, and it catches you in an untethered moment, you might just find yourself with tears in your eyes.
I think I'm going to be getting me some more Emmylou.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Blogging the Dollhouse: Episode 5: True Believer
I thought the theme of watching and being watched was big in the last couple of episodes, but now I see they were just getting started. This episode’s central conceit is that Echo’s being wired up with a brain camera which will hijack her sight and send it off to the ATF. I am a camera (is this a reference to the line in Isherwood, to the play and movie it inspired, or the Yes/Buggles song they inspired? – in each case, of course, it points to the state of passivity that Echo embodies, and in turn suggests that Echo’s passivity may, like the camera, contain intense observation). Of course this leaves Echo temporarily blind – as Topher so aptly puts it, “Echo herself will see no evil.”
But that’s not all. Look at all the watching we have besides: Agent Ballard watching footage of Caroline given him by Alpha; Ballard seeing Caroline/Echo on TV news coverage of the siege; Langton turning to security-cam footage to unravel the ATF agent’s scheme; and most intriguing of all, Topher and Saunders watching Dollhouse security-cam footage to see what’s up with Victor, which reveals that what’s wrong with Victor comes from watching, too – his watching Sierra.
I don’t want to make too much of this. A certain amount of this emphasis on surreptitious observation is par for the course in a paranoid techno-thriller. But combine all this with the careful geometry of the Dollhouse itself and it’s pretty hard to escape the feeling that all this watching means something.
The presentation of the cult here was extremely careful. I don’t mean cautious, I mean well thought out and meticulously modulated. The story prepares us to assume the worst about them: we’re told that the leader’s an ex-con, that they had to leave their previous compound, that the community and the feds have all sorts of vague suspicions, and that someone has sent a message out that says “save me.” So when we see their cache of weapons, we know they’re nasties, right?
But do we? The show doesn’t give us any further proof that the cult is up to anything illegal. The leader is an ex-con, but we have no evidence that he’s doing anything worse to the cult members than encouraging them to live apart from the world (and dress in an Abercrombie & Fitch version of pioneer duds). It really may be true that they have the guns only because the feds are harrassing them – we know the ATF agent is willing to bend any rule to nail them, and therefore we don’t know if we can believe anything he says. Certainly the cult leader goes nuts at the end, but the question the show wants us to ask is, would he have gone nuts if the feds had left him alone? Did they have any right to intervene?
Old questions in cases of this sort, of course, but here they’re put to a new use because of the obvious paralleling of the cult and the Dollhouse. DeWitt admits that they’re analogous situations: groups of people living in perfect (illusory?) security because they’ve surrendered their egos. The corrupt senator says this can’t be happiness, because for happiness you need self-awareness – but he’s a corrupt senator, so can we believe anything he says, either?
The paralleling goes deeper. The cult calls their compound the Garden. In the Dollhouse, meanwhile, Topher discovers that Victor has started getting aroused looking at Sierra in the shower. This is a problem: the dolls are supposed to be so empty that sexual desire is not an issue for them. When DeWitt finds out she gives a startling speech about how the Dollhouse must be kept a pure environment, free of temptation – she all but calls the place the Garden of Eden. And Saunders as good as names sexuality the Serpent. Lots of interesting questions here. How deep does a wipe have to go to eradicate the sexual instinct in an adult – what Topher calls the “man-reaction”? And why does DeWitt think that once introduced, such a temptation would "spread like a cancer"?
And are we now supposed to see the Dollhouse minders as God and the dolls as Adam and Eve, waiting to be kicked out of the garden? But the fact that the process is repeated suggests less a Judeo-Christian template than a Hindu/Buddhist one, where each doll is an entity undergoing endless reincarnations, going forth from the cosmic oneness into atomized individuality, but always returning to the cosmic oneness again, like the spark that jumps from the fire and falls into it again. This in turn would give an interesting twist to the awakening that Caroline/Echo is so plainly heading toward. A Matrix-like awakening from a dream of commodification, certainly, but also a Buddhist awakening from the karmic nightmare, an escape from the chains of samsara.
Is it time to talk about Eliza Dushku’s acting, since everybody else seems to be doing that nonstop? Here are the issues as I see them. I don’t think she’s one of these chameleonic actresses like Julianne Moore or Cate Blanchett, who are capable of totally submerging their own personalities in a role; she’s more the Hollywood star type of actress, who makes each of her performances an elaboration on her own persona. I don’t mean this as a criticism of Dushku; I think both are valid approaches.
On the face of it, the role of Caroline/Echo/This Weeks’ Girl seems to call for the chameleon rather than the star, because that is in fact what the character literally does: assume a new personality each week. But as we’ve noted, Mutant Enemy is already running a big risk there: viewers want to identify with the main character, but that’s next to impossible when the main character has no identity at all. An actress who was a better chameleon might just make the show impossible to watch. I know it might sound like I’m making excuses for the show, but I think it might have been part of their calculations that allowing Dushku to make each week’s character recognizably Dushku might help offset some of the audience-alienation built into the premise. The benefits, in other words, might be offsetting the risk of people thinking it’s just bad acting.
But it’s weirdly appropriate on a thematic level, too. As we notice with Victor, part of what the show is doing is asking how deep personality goes. Granted the sci-fi premise of the brain-wipe, how far does it have to go in order to eliminate what? When we notice Dushku-isms in Eleanor Penn, in Taffy, in Esther, how different is it from noticing bits of Caroline showing through in Jordan, or Jordan in Taffy – which is what we really want to see, no? And when we wish for a more versatile=chameleonic actress, aren’t we really wishing for someone capable of a more thorough personality suppression – a more complete scrubbing? A better doll?
But that’s not all. Look at all the watching we have besides: Agent Ballard watching footage of Caroline given him by Alpha; Ballard seeing Caroline/Echo on TV news coverage of the siege; Langton turning to security-cam footage to unravel the ATF agent’s scheme; and most intriguing of all, Topher and Saunders watching Dollhouse security-cam footage to see what’s up with Victor, which reveals that what’s wrong with Victor comes from watching, too – his watching Sierra.
I don’t want to make too much of this. A certain amount of this emphasis on surreptitious observation is par for the course in a paranoid techno-thriller. But combine all this with the careful geometry of the Dollhouse itself and it’s pretty hard to escape the feeling that all this watching means something.
The presentation of the cult here was extremely careful. I don’t mean cautious, I mean well thought out and meticulously modulated. The story prepares us to assume the worst about them: we’re told that the leader’s an ex-con, that they had to leave their previous compound, that the community and the feds have all sorts of vague suspicions, and that someone has sent a message out that says “save me.” So when we see their cache of weapons, we know they’re nasties, right?
But do we? The show doesn’t give us any further proof that the cult is up to anything illegal. The leader is an ex-con, but we have no evidence that he’s doing anything worse to the cult members than encouraging them to live apart from the world (and dress in an Abercrombie & Fitch version of pioneer duds). It really may be true that they have the guns only because the feds are harrassing them – we know the ATF agent is willing to bend any rule to nail them, and therefore we don’t know if we can believe anything he says. Certainly the cult leader goes nuts at the end, but the question the show wants us to ask is, would he have gone nuts if the feds had left him alone? Did they have any right to intervene?
Old questions in cases of this sort, of course, but here they’re put to a new use because of the obvious paralleling of the cult and the Dollhouse. DeWitt admits that they’re analogous situations: groups of people living in perfect (illusory?) security because they’ve surrendered their egos. The corrupt senator says this can’t be happiness, because for happiness you need self-awareness – but he’s a corrupt senator, so can we believe anything he says, either?
The paralleling goes deeper. The cult calls their compound the Garden. In the Dollhouse, meanwhile, Topher discovers that Victor has started getting aroused looking at Sierra in the shower. This is a problem: the dolls are supposed to be so empty that sexual desire is not an issue for them. When DeWitt finds out she gives a startling speech about how the Dollhouse must be kept a pure environment, free of temptation – she all but calls the place the Garden of Eden. And Saunders as good as names sexuality the Serpent. Lots of interesting questions here. How deep does a wipe have to go to eradicate the sexual instinct in an adult – what Topher calls the “man-reaction”? And why does DeWitt think that once introduced, such a temptation would "spread like a cancer"?
And are we now supposed to see the Dollhouse minders as God and the dolls as Adam and Eve, waiting to be kicked out of the garden? But the fact that the process is repeated suggests less a Judeo-Christian template than a Hindu/Buddhist one, where each doll is an entity undergoing endless reincarnations, going forth from the cosmic oneness into atomized individuality, but always returning to the cosmic oneness again, like the spark that jumps from the fire and falls into it again. This in turn would give an interesting twist to the awakening that Caroline/Echo is so plainly heading toward. A Matrix-like awakening from a dream of commodification, certainly, but also a Buddhist awakening from the karmic nightmare, an escape from the chains of samsara.
Is it time to talk about Eliza Dushku’s acting, since everybody else seems to be doing that nonstop? Here are the issues as I see them. I don’t think she’s one of these chameleonic actresses like Julianne Moore or Cate Blanchett, who are capable of totally submerging their own personalities in a role; she’s more the Hollywood star type of actress, who makes each of her performances an elaboration on her own persona. I don’t mean this as a criticism of Dushku; I think both are valid approaches.
On the face of it, the role of Caroline/Echo/This Weeks’ Girl seems to call for the chameleon rather than the star, because that is in fact what the character literally does: assume a new personality each week. But as we’ve noted, Mutant Enemy is already running a big risk there: viewers want to identify with the main character, but that’s next to impossible when the main character has no identity at all. An actress who was a better chameleon might just make the show impossible to watch. I know it might sound like I’m making excuses for the show, but I think it might have been part of their calculations that allowing Dushku to make each week’s character recognizably Dushku might help offset some of the audience-alienation built into the premise. The benefits, in other words, might be offsetting the risk of people thinking it’s just bad acting.
But it’s weirdly appropriate on a thematic level, too. As we notice with Victor, part of what the show is doing is asking how deep personality goes. Granted the sci-fi premise of the brain-wipe, how far does it have to go in order to eliminate what? When we notice Dushku-isms in Eleanor Penn, in Taffy, in Esther, how different is it from noticing bits of Caroline showing through in Jordan, or Jordan in Taffy – which is what we really want to see, no? And when we wish for a more versatile=chameleonic actress, aren’t we really wishing for someone capable of a more thorough personality suppression – a more complete scrubbing? A better doll?
Friday, March 13, 2009
Horace Silver: The Blue Note Years
Let's talk about record covers.
As part of his ongoing periodic exploration of jazz he doesn't know (which is still basically of it), the Tanuki recently decided to pick up a Horace Silver compilation. How does one choose a compilation? By what you know, is one way to do it. The Tanuki knew just enough of Horace Silver to know about three songs he definitely wanted ("Song For My Father," "Filthy McNasty," and "Nica's Dream"). That settled it, because only one comp had all three, a Japanese import called The Blue Note Years, part of a 20-disc series of anthologies of Blue Note artists released in Japan in 2004.
Now if you're at all into jazz and you've traveled, you quickly realize that some other countries pay a lot more attention to jazz than the U.S. does. This is certainly the case in Japan, where the classic American jazz labels' back catalogs often receive more respect (i.e. more and better reissues) than they do Stateside.
That's definitely the case with the Horace Silver disc in question. Musically, I think it's a better selection, and a fuller disc, than what I saw available domestically, but you can always debate track listings. What we're here to discuss is the cover, and the Japanese disc wins there hands down, and in a way that tells you about the respective attitudes.
The thing about Blue Note is that in their heyday they had an impeccable design sense. Some of the most evocative jazz photography ever, combined with innovative approaches to typography and sleeve design, made them pretty much the index of cool in the '50s and early '60s. This Japanese comp respects that. Note first the photo: black and white, in the best Blue Note tradition. Horace hunched over the piano, gazing off to the side, tie loose and hair in his eyes, looking young, earnest, and hip. He's subtly reflected in the piano lid; some sheet music (?) is blurry in the foreground, and the background is pleasantly nondescript. It's a fine photo, telling you that here's an artist who's both casual and dignified, hard-working and laid-back. Or something. Superimposed on the bottom right corner of the photo is the Blue Note logo, and at the bottom is a strip of turquoise with the artist's name and the title of the disc. The color is restful, and the strip is wide enough to be bold but thin enough to avoid overpowering the photo. The whole thing is evocative of the fine visual traditions of Blue Note.
Now let's look at what's available domestically. There's a four-disc set that's pretty attractive, but I want to confine this discussion to apples and apples: single-disc comps. The most widely-available one seems to be this 1990 disc called The Best Of Horace Silver. It's subtitled The Blue Note Years, but the tracklisting is different from the Japanese edition.
Again, though, let's forget about the tracks and look at the cover. The photo is nice enough; maybe not as attractive as the one on the Japanese comp, because Silver's expression is less complex, less intriguing; but nice enough. But the photo is overwhelmed by the color band that half frames it on the top and left. But the real problem is the lettering. Why is the S in Silver so damned big? Why is it alone given a white shadow? Why is Silver written with caps-and-lowercase when everything else on the cover is written in all caps or small caps? Above all, why are they using a serif typeface (a very serif typeface) when Blue Note was known for its sans-serif? The
kicker is that uneven strip of dark blue at the very top. It's not quite a fade, not quite a stroke of paint or a piece of torn paper: what is it? And why is it there?
In short, the message this composition sends is confused. It's off balance, but not in a pleasing way, and it doesn't send a confident aesthetic message. It's not cool, and it never was, not even in 1990. But it looks like it might have been trying to be cool in 1990, and that's the problem. It suggests a crisis in confidence - a desperation. The very opposite of what the Japanese cover suggests.
There was a sequel to the 1990 disc, and it's even worse. Same layout, but an even less impressive photo, and now the half-frame is two-tone, with an awful peach color. The less said here the better.
There's a newer disc, but it doesn't seem to be that easy to find. It's on the big river site, but it doesn't come up early in your Horace Silver search. It's Horace Silver The Very Best, and its cover suffers from similar problems to the 1990 design. This is not an unattractive cover, although it has its puzzling elements. Why the almost psychedelic yellow-to-pink fade? Why is the photo treated so heavily? Why the cowboy movie font? But most of all, why doesn't this look in any way like a Blue Note record? No Blue Note logo on the front, an even more serify font, wacky colors, and photo that distances us from the artist. Once again we have a total lack of confidence in the whole proposition, a desperate attempt to appeal to clueless kids with a contemporary look, or a lame facsimile thereof.
Okay, so here's "Nica's Dream." And here's United Future Organization's version.
As part of his ongoing periodic exploration of jazz he doesn't know (which is still basically of it), the Tanuki recently decided to pick up a Horace Silver compilation. How does one choose a compilation? By what you know, is one way to do it. The Tanuki knew just enough of Horace Silver to know about three songs he definitely wanted ("Song For My Father," "Filthy McNasty," and "Nica's Dream"). That settled it, because only one comp had all three, a Japanese import called The Blue Note Years, part of a 20-disc series of anthologies of Blue Note artists released in Japan in 2004.
Now if you're at all into jazz and you've traveled, you quickly realize that some other countries pay a lot more attention to jazz than the U.S. does. This is certainly the case in Japan, where the classic American jazz labels' back catalogs often receive more respect (i.e. more and better reissues) than they do Stateside.
That's definitely the case with the Horace Silver disc in question. Musically, I think it's a better selection, and a fuller disc, than what I saw available domestically, but you can always debate track listings. What we're here to discuss is the cover, and the Japanese disc wins there hands down, and in a way that tells you about the respective attitudes.
The thing about Blue Note is that in their heyday they had an impeccable design sense. Some of the most evocative jazz photography ever, combined with innovative approaches to typography and sleeve design, made them pretty much the index of cool in the '50s and early '60s. This Japanese comp respects that. Note first the photo: black and white, in the best Blue Note tradition. Horace hunched over the piano, gazing off to the side, tie loose and hair in his eyes, looking young, earnest, and hip. He's subtly reflected in the piano lid; some sheet music (?) is blurry in the foreground, and the background is pleasantly nondescript. It's a fine photo, telling you that here's an artist who's both casual and dignified, hard-working and laid-back. Or something. Superimposed on the bottom right corner of the photo is the Blue Note logo, and at the bottom is a strip of turquoise with the artist's name and the title of the disc. The color is restful, and the strip is wide enough to be bold but thin enough to avoid overpowering the photo. The whole thing is evocative of the fine visual traditions of Blue Note.
Now let's look at what's available domestically. There's a four-disc set that's pretty attractive, but I want to confine this discussion to apples and apples: single-disc comps. The most widely-available one seems to be this 1990 disc called The Best Of Horace Silver. It's subtitled The Blue Note Years, but the tracklisting is different from the Japanese edition.
Again, though, let's forget about the tracks and look at the cover. The photo is nice enough; maybe not as attractive as the one on the Japanese comp, because Silver's expression is less complex, less intriguing; but nice enough. But the photo is overwhelmed by the color band that half frames it on the top and left. But the real problem is the lettering. Why is the S in Silver so damned big? Why is it alone given a white shadow? Why is Silver written with caps-and-lowercase when everything else on the cover is written in all caps or small caps? Above all, why are they using a serif typeface (a very serif typeface) when Blue Note was known for its sans-serif? The
kicker is that uneven strip of dark blue at the very top. It's not quite a fade, not quite a stroke of paint or a piece of torn paper: what is it? And why is it there?In short, the message this composition sends is confused. It's off balance, but not in a pleasing way, and it doesn't send a confident aesthetic message. It's not cool, and it never was, not even in 1990. But it looks like it might have been trying to be cool in 1990, and that's the problem. It suggests a crisis in confidence - a desperation. The very opposite of what the Japanese cover suggests.
There was a sequel to the 1990 disc, and it's even worse. Same layout, but an even less impressive photo, and now the half-frame is two-tone, with an awful peach color. The less said here the better.
There's a newer disc, but it doesn't seem to be that easy to find. It's on the big river site, but it doesn't come up early in your Horace Silver search. It's Horace Silver The Very Best, and its cover suffers from similar problems to the 1990 design. This is not an unattractive cover, although it has its puzzling elements. Why the almost psychedelic yellow-to-pink fade? Why is the photo treated so heavily? Why the cowboy movie font? But most of all, why doesn't this look in any way like a Blue Note record? No Blue Note logo on the front, an even more serify font, wacky colors, and photo that distances us from the artist. Once again we have a total lack of confidence in the whole proposition, a desperate attempt to appeal to clueless kids with a contemporary look, or a lame facsimile thereof.
Okay, so here's "Nica's Dream." And here's United Future Organization's version.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Blogging the Dollhouse: Episode 4: Gray Hour
Dollhouse is proving to be particularly adept at playing with our heads. The way they set up this engagement so that we think it’s another sex gig, a rich man’s gift to his son. And then with the faked rape – we remember Episode 2, and think, it’s happening again. But no.
I also love how they have us expecting that Echo’s going to come through in the end. She’s wiped, sure, but we keep thinking she’s going to summon some hidden reserves of memory, some residual core of consciousness, her own or borrowed, and remember how to get herself out of this. We’ve come to expect this, because in every new episode she’s shown a little more ability to free-associate between her imprints, to read the palimpsest that is her brain. But it doesn’t happen this time. Even her spasm of action at the end, neutralizing the guy with the gun, is ambiguous. It could have been a reflex. And note that again, Echo’s moment of autonomy, of transcending her programming or lack thereof – her fumbling toward awakening – is an act of violence.
Topher. “I’m scared like a little girl.” Yes, Topher definitely has his creepy side. Like the way he talks to his cute Asian assistant. “Humility is part of learning. I break you down and build you back.” This is how he interacts with women. The whole Dollhouse thing is his sick brainchild, no?
Langton. So far he’s the closest thing we have to a point of view character, since he’s new to the Dollhouse, and since he strikes us as basically a good guy. Certainly his and Echo’s bond of trust is the only thing the show has resembling an emotional center right now. Of course on her part that’s fake. What about his? He’s clearly come to care about her – not in a romantic or sexual way, but a fatherly way. He’s protective. This sets him apart from the other handler we’ve met, and from Dominic the security guy, who seems to despise the dolls.
Why do any of these people work at the Dollhouse? The series began with tantalizing hints that Echo is here because Caroline did something she needed to escape from or atone for; either being a doll is her “consequences” or it’s a way to evade them. Is the Dollhouse a prison, a form of rehab? Remember the cages and prison motifs in Episode 3…
Sooner or later I’m sure we’ll be exploring her motives, but I’m just as curious about the motives of the others. We know nothing about Langton’s background except that he’s an ex-cop, and this gives him a little more instinctive interest in solving clients’ problems than some of the other handlers have; perhaps not coincidentally, this makes him a better Dollhouse employee, since his desire to complete missions coincides with the Dollhouse’s desire to satisfy its clients. Why isn’t he still a cop, though? Is it just money? Is his ready trigger-finger a factor? Is he hiding from something, too?
And what about Saunders and DeWitt? Unlike Dominic, but like Langton, they both seem to have some sympathy for the dolls. They share Topher’s scientific interest in their capabilities, their behavior when unprogrammed. But they also – especially Saunders – seem to have some concern for the dolls’ welfare. Dominic’s eager to send Echo to the Attic; DeWitt gives the impression that she wouldn’t hesitate to do that if it was necessary, but she wouldn’t like it. Is she really the idealist after all?
Nice use of “I Go To Sleep” there at the end. I think this is the version they use, although I (predictably, I fear) kind of prefer the Pretenders’ (which Sia’s version is a pretty close copy of), and I like Ray Davies’s original version a lot too.
I also love how they have us expecting that Echo’s going to come through in the end. She’s wiped, sure, but we keep thinking she’s going to summon some hidden reserves of memory, some residual core of consciousness, her own or borrowed, and remember how to get herself out of this. We’ve come to expect this, because in every new episode she’s shown a little more ability to free-associate between her imprints, to read the palimpsest that is her brain. But it doesn’t happen this time. Even her spasm of action at the end, neutralizing the guy with the gun, is ambiguous. It could have been a reflex. And note that again, Echo’s moment of autonomy, of transcending her programming or lack thereof – her fumbling toward awakening – is an act of violence.
Topher. “I’m scared like a little girl.” Yes, Topher definitely has his creepy side. Like the way he talks to his cute Asian assistant. “Humility is part of learning. I break you down and build you back.” This is how he interacts with women. The whole Dollhouse thing is his sick brainchild, no?
Langton. So far he’s the closest thing we have to a point of view character, since he’s new to the Dollhouse, and since he strikes us as basically a good guy. Certainly his and Echo’s bond of trust is the only thing the show has resembling an emotional center right now. Of course on her part that’s fake. What about his? He’s clearly come to care about her – not in a romantic or sexual way, but a fatherly way. He’s protective. This sets him apart from the other handler we’ve met, and from Dominic the security guy, who seems to despise the dolls.
Why do any of these people work at the Dollhouse? The series began with tantalizing hints that Echo is here because Caroline did something she needed to escape from or atone for; either being a doll is her “consequences” or it’s a way to evade them. Is the Dollhouse a prison, a form of rehab? Remember the cages and prison motifs in Episode 3…
Sooner or later I’m sure we’ll be exploring her motives, but I’m just as curious about the motives of the others. We know nothing about Langton’s background except that he’s an ex-cop, and this gives him a little more instinctive interest in solving clients’ problems than some of the other handlers have; perhaps not coincidentally, this makes him a better Dollhouse employee, since his desire to complete missions coincides with the Dollhouse’s desire to satisfy its clients. Why isn’t he still a cop, though? Is it just money? Is his ready trigger-finger a factor? Is he hiding from something, too?
And what about Saunders and DeWitt? Unlike Dominic, but like Langton, they both seem to have some sympathy for the dolls. They share Topher’s scientific interest in their capabilities, their behavior when unprogrammed. But they also – especially Saunders – seem to have some concern for the dolls’ welfare. Dominic’s eager to send Echo to the Attic; DeWitt gives the impression that she wouldn’t hesitate to do that if it was necessary, but she wouldn’t like it. Is she really the idealist after all?
Nice use of “I Go To Sleep” there at the end. I think this is the version they use, although I (predictably, I fear) kind of prefer the Pretenders’ (which Sia’s version is a pretty close copy of), and I like Ray Davies’s original version a lot too.
Blogging the Dollhouse: Episode 3: Stage Fright
This episode might be my favorite so far. The engagement, as bodyguard to a pop idol, is rich with ironies that the writers are careful to exploit. In fact, the parallels between Rayna’s situation as a manufactured star and Echo’s as a “lab-grown” personality are brought out in some daringly on-the-nose dialogue. And the metaphorical dimensions of Echo are expanded even further. That she’s a stand-in for the general exploitation of women is confirmed here, but in this episode we begin to see how the show is exploring both the more specific exploitation of starlets and the more general exploitation of workers.
Does that sound too ivory tower (“she seemed so earthy with Katie Couric”)? Well, how about this? Don’t most jobs require some sort of suppression of the personality in order to please the boss and/or the customer? Some sort of sacrifice of what you want to do in order to do what you have to do? Some sort of filling your head with things that are irrelevant to your life outside work? In this light, isn’t Echo the perfect employee? She knows what you want her to know, and forgets it when you want her to forget it. And once the job is done you can forget about her: she’s a temp.
And, come to think of it, isn’t there a bit of personality-suppression in most relationships, too? In healthy relationships, it’s just a matter of learning to accommodate your partner, balance his/her needs with yours. But how many relationships are healthy enough that neither partner takes advantage of the other? And how many of us, deep down, would rather not accommodate the other at all? Of course this is why Echo’s the perfect girlfriend – she’s the perfect prostitute, willing and able to be whatever the customer requires.
(So what’s the difference between a prostitute and any other wage-slave?)
Topher: another in a line of Joss Whedon geek-boys: Xander, Jonathan, Warren, Andrew. With all of the above in line, at the moment he seems closest to Warren: he’s genius enough to be able to create a perfect woman, and sick enough to define “perfect” as “completely pliable.” But the show hasn’t told us to hate Topher yet; we’re still torn between finding him charming (or at least annoying/charming), pitiable (if anything goes wrong, it’s always his responsibility in the end), and creepy.
I liked the final scene of this episode. Langton and Saunders on the balcony, discussing what Echo – not any of her programmed personae, but Echo, the woman in her untutored state – is capable of, while the subject of their conversation does arts ‘n’ crafts below. The architecture of the Dollhouse is highly symbolic, I think; we’ve already noted the curiously centripetal sleeping arrangements, and I’m not sure we know everything about what they mean. Now we notice how the actives live their lives in what amounts to a pit, with handlers and controllers above. The power differential is obvious, but it’s not just a question of height. It’s about observation, vantage point. It’s the panopticon model of power differential. Echo is like the subject of an experiment (inquiries into what human capabilities are left when you strip away a subject's subjectivity?).
Being watched is, of course, a big theme in the series. Langton is there to “handle” Echo, which means to watch her (he’s her Giles). But of course he’s being watched, and not just by DeWitt and Dominic. As Dr. Saunders avers, there’s always someone else watching. In this episode, the watcher-watched dynamic is underscored by the obsessive fan/hemmed-in star idea. And notice how we viewers are consistently implicated, too: in three episodes, how many viewscreens have we been confronted with? Alpha watching yearbook video of Caroline, Rayna and “Jordan” watching webcam footage of the Fan tormenting Audra, and of course all of Topher’s and Langton’s readouts of Echo’s status. We’re often watching someone watch someone else.
The endpoint of all this watching? Echo and the other actives. And Echo knows this: that’s why, at the end of this episode, she has to signal Sierra not to let on that they recognize each other. They’re being watched.
Does that sound too ivory tower (“she seemed so earthy with Katie Couric”)? Well, how about this? Don’t most jobs require some sort of suppression of the personality in order to please the boss and/or the customer? Some sort of sacrifice of what you want to do in order to do what you have to do? Some sort of filling your head with things that are irrelevant to your life outside work? In this light, isn’t Echo the perfect employee? She knows what you want her to know, and forgets it when you want her to forget it. And once the job is done you can forget about her: she’s a temp.
And, come to think of it, isn’t there a bit of personality-suppression in most relationships, too? In healthy relationships, it’s just a matter of learning to accommodate your partner, balance his/her needs with yours. But how many relationships are healthy enough that neither partner takes advantage of the other? And how many of us, deep down, would rather not accommodate the other at all? Of course this is why Echo’s the perfect girlfriend – she’s the perfect prostitute, willing and able to be whatever the customer requires.
(So what’s the difference between a prostitute and any other wage-slave?)
Topher: another in a line of Joss Whedon geek-boys: Xander, Jonathan, Warren, Andrew. With all of the above in line, at the moment he seems closest to Warren: he’s genius enough to be able to create a perfect woman, and sick enough to define “perfect” as “completely pliable.” But the show hasn’t told us to hate Topher yet; we’re still torn between finding him charming (or at least annoying/charming), pitiable (if anything goes wrong, it’s always his responsibility in the end), and creepy.
I liked the final scene of this episode. Langton and Saunders on the balcony, discussing what Echo – not any of her programmed personae, but Echo, the woman in her untutored state – is capable of, while the subject of their conversation does arts ‘n’ crafts below. The architecture of the Dollhouse is highly symbolic, I think; we’ve already noted the curiously centripetal sleeping arrangements, and I’m not sure we know everything about what they mean. Now we notice how the actives live their lives in what amounts to a pit, with handlers and controllers above. The power differential is obvious, but it’s not just a question of height. It’s about observation, vantage point. It’s the panopticon model of power differential. Echo is like the subject of an experiment (inquiries into what human capabilities are left when you strip away a subject's subjectivity?).
Being watched is, of course, a big theme in the series. Langton is there to “handle” Echo, which means to watch her (he’s her Giles). But of course he’s being watched, and not just by DeWitt and Dominic. As Dr. Saunders avers, there’s always someone else watching. In this episode, the watcher-watched dynamic is underscored by the obsessive fan/hemmed-in star idea. And notice how we viewers are consistently implicated, too: in three episodes, how many viewscreens have we been confronted with? Alpha watching yearbook video of Caroline, Rayna and “Jordan” watching webcam footage of the Fan tormenting Audra, and of course all of Topher’s and Langton’s readouts of Echo’s status. We’re often watching someone watch someone else.
The endpoint of all this watching? Echo and the other actives. And Echo knows this: that’s why, at the end of this episode, she has to signal Sierra not to let on that they recognize each other. They’re being watched.
Ebert on snark
Here. He's writing apropos of this year's Oscars (about which I respectfully disagree with him), but his remarks on snark have a much wider application.
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