I’m in the process of editing something so all these strange questions come for me. I have no answers. Well, not exactly. And not while I’m in the midst of this process. What might a book be saying or declaring? Is what it’s not saying as important? But how can we know what it’s not saying? Does a book actually say anything? Didn’t someone write? Well, did they? OK, does even the writer know what they re saying? Could you write a book about what the book isn’t about? What are the words not saying? Is it the words, each of them, or the phrases, or the sentences or lines? Who is or isn’t in the poem? Who is knocking on the door to come into the poem? (Oh, so, here’s a metaphor!) Who doesn’t give a shit? Are these simply random, stumbling questions? Are any questions random? Is it a return of the repressed? What are the book’s gestures? ‘Wo es war, soll ich werden’, anyone? Is the book a symptom of something? So, the book
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Chris Murray
Have you seen the hateful reviews it got when it came out? Maybe the biggest jazz backlash in history?
On the Corner, man, what a tremendous album - all those electric Miles albums are good
are you familiar with Agharta and Pangaea? recorded live in japan on the same day in 1974, the last recording he did before the hiatus
Agharta is the matinee performance, Pangaea is the evening performance
except for the reed player (Sonny Fortune at his soulful best, playing his ass off) the band had been together for about 2 years, and the fractured funk has morphed into rock that grooves so hard and heavy that it can be uncomfortable - bassplayer Michael Henderson has this monster honking sound
guitarist Pete Cosey takes Hendrix, Sonny Sharrock, his own experience as a Chess session player (that's him doing the wacka-wacka on Electric Mud) and his experience playing with chicago free jazz musicians, and turns it all into one of the most massively blistering guitar attacks ever
not to mention Al Foster on drums and Ndugu on percussion... man, it just piles up in there
of course, these being Miles Davis albums, there are moments of great vulnerability and tenderness - Miles' solo that starts about 8 minutes into side 3 of Pangaea (disc 2 on CD), for example, so simple and lovely, and that sound of his!
the greatest thing about these two albums, and this on no way diminishes the delectability of Jack Johnson, On the Corner, Bitches Brew, Get Up With It, and all the others, is that it is all live, and, because the band had been together for a good while, the music turns on a dime - the studio albums are all highly edited...
well, they're both incredible - chris daniels says check it out