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Saturday, July 19, 2008

From Revolutionary to Normative: A Secret History of Dada and Surrealism in American Music

From Revolutionary to Normative: A Secret History of Dada and Surrealism in American Music
A new article published earlier this month by noted Philadelphian composer and scholar, Matthew Greenbaum and here He also studied with Wolpe which makes him uniquely qualified to write this article. I Loved Well Those Cities is a spectactular work that spun its way through my ipod for a while. A Floating Island is also really well done. Musicians are uniquely qualified to write because they are constantly required to be rooted in the past, history, to analyze their responses to the music they are writing and playing. Good musicians, and i think Greenbaum lands squarely in this category, move into a philosophy of music as informing their historical perspective. Why else would one write an article on Dada and Surrealism if the importance of past events bearing on the present and the future was not considered? The point is not to simply apply the understanding of the past to a single area, such as music or art, but to an overarching understanding of one's conection to the present day. This stance is definitively influenced by Postman's work, Building a Bridge to the 18th Century, which I would highly recommend.

Poster poems: Listen to the music, write on

Poster poems: Listen to the music, write on

Any association of two items under the reference of "kissing cousins" is an unfortunate one, but Mills makes an excellent point in this piece. It is interesting that he doesn't mention Joyce or the music that his poems have been set to. Also check out people's responses to this post. There are myriad of songs and poems mentioned and posted in response this author's writing. The poem below is referenced in the post. You may clicked on it but I wanted to make sure it was available. Sandburg is one of my favorite poets. His Honey and Salt book is exceptional.





Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Smoke and Steel. 1922.

III. Broken-Face Gargoyles
6. Jazz Fantasia

"DRUM on your drums, batter on your banjoes, sob on the long cool winding saxophones. Go to it, O jazzmen.

Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go hushahusha-hush with the slippery sand-paper.

Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome tree-tops, moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible, cry like a racing car slipping away from a motorcycle cop, bang-bang! you jazzmen, bang altogether drums, traps, banjoes, horns, tin cans—make two people fight on the top of a stairway and scratch each other’s eyes in a clinch tumbling down the stairs.

Can the rough stuff … now a Mississippi steamboat pushes up the night river with a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo … and the green lanterns calling to the high soft stars … a red moon rides on the humps of the low river hills … go to it, O jazzmen."

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Composing behind closed doors

Composing behind closed doors

Philadelphia's Harry Hewitt, prolific, gentlemanly and unknown, is getting a hearing five years after his death.
This is David Patrick Stearns' article on Hewitt from his interview with Jennifer Kleenman, Dr. Hsu and Betty Hewitt. Overall it's a pretty good picture of Hewitt. It also presents Hewitt with human flaws which is somewhat difficult to completely swallow after being so close to his work and his writings and being so invested in his music. While it's difficult to capture a person's life in 1000 words or less I think Stearns does a decent job. The particular item I would respectfully disagree with is Stearns' short analysis of Hewitt's Symphony No. 32. It's not entirely removed from the sphere of art that the listener is to step into a piece which begins and ends at the points that the composer thinks are important. This in support of the idea that the musical or literary idea continues both before and after the listener or reader steps into interaction with it.
I would also take slight umbrage at Stearns' insinuation that Hewitt was deluded at points in his life. While Hewitt was definitively strange I'm not entirely sure how much of a logical step it would be for Stearns to imply Hewitt was somewhat less than mentally stable. Besides that it is good to see Hewitt in print. I hope it continues.


Sunday, July 13, 2008

Taking Obama as well read

Taking Obama as well read

I wonder if in some ways that the contents of Obama's bookshelf is designed to smoke screen whatever issue(s) or platform(s) that Obama is or will espouse. One can have a large amount of books on their bookshelf and the assumption becomes that the individual has indeed read those books. It seems that the bookshelf also functions as the proverbial candidate tie that the casual voter uses to make their decision. The fact that Brooks mentions the reading habits of past Presidents. To paraphrase a Postman-like idea, perhaps what is mentioned as being on Obama's shelf and thus important is as not as meaningful as what is not on the shelf or is not mentioned. How authentic is a list of what is on Obama's bookshelf as a presidential candidate? I think if a list of books are being used to identify an individual that list will be carefully tailored and presented.