Category: uncategorized

When jazz cats cover classical

~ Mark ~ 1 Comment

I got to wondering the other day, what’s the best-ever jazz cover of a tune from classical music? Seems strange that jazz–influenced classical stuff seems so much better known than the reverse. Is there a jazz-community stigma from drawing on the old white stuff? A classical tendency to canonize? More marginalized musicians? A comparatively higher level of general quality in in-house jazz than in-house classical? Maybe I’m just more ignorant?
In any case, the question came up when I was listening for the millionth time to what is my nominee for #1, Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane & Co.’s cover of Abide with Me. Take a great tune by William Henry Monk (no relation?) and add some breathy woodwinds. What a beautiful piece of music.

"Abide with Me" sheet music

You’d have to try pretty hard to mess that one up. Another bulletproof melody comes from Joaquín Rodrigo‘s Concierto de Aranjuez, which I think is probably better known in Miles Davis form:

Another strong contender for 2nd place is Duke Ellington’s twist on Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite:

Also, the man has charisma coming out of his ears:

Beyond those, I didn’t know any really outstanding ones. Bill Evans’ version of Fauré’s Pavane seems a little safe and boring until you get to the improv. At least he avoids the heavy, trodding, sappiness that a lot of classical recordings seem to embrace. Wayne Shorter’s take on Sibelius’ Valse Triste is lively. Glenn Miller’s riff on Verdi’s Anvil Chorus ranks above the Woody Herman recording of Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance, but both are a little too… swing-y? Big band-y? for my tastes. I don’t expect anything different from those guys, but I’ve always struggled with the big band stuff. Although maybe that’s because I’m not dancing. I wonder what else I’m missing.

Leveling the field: What I learned from for-profit education—By Christopher R. Beha (Harper’s Magazine)

~ Mark

This is a fascinating funny/sad inside look at for-profit education. [$]

The first chapter of our textbook, Your College Experience, was entitled “Exploring Your Purpose for Attending College,” and that’s where we would begin. It seemed strange to me that a credit-bearing college course should be dedicated to telling students why they should go to college, but the entire first-year sequence turns out to be an almost surreal riff on the socialization process of higher education, where secondary characteristics of college graduates become the actual subjects of the courses.

Leveling the field: What I learned from for-profit education—By Christopher R. Beha (Harper’s Magazine)

~ Mark

People have not yet learned that every work of art is a game played out at the worktable. Nothing is more harmful to creativity than the passion of inspiration. It’s the fable of bad romantics that fascinates bad poets and bad narrators. Art is a serious matter. Manzoni and Flaubert, Balzac and Stendhal wrote at the worktable. That means to construct, like an architect plans a building. Yet we prefer to believe that a novelist invents because he has a genius whispering into his ear.

Umberto Eco. I’ve collected some other good Umberto Eco quotes, but never read any of his works. Open to suggestions…

The Discourses by Epictetus, Book One – The Internet Classics Archive

~ Mark

The latest in my journey through stoicism. Last night while reading this I realized I was reading ideas from 2000 years ago on an iPad. Mind blown.

Bear and endure. Have you not received faculties by which you will be able to bear all that happens? Have you not received greatness of soul? Have you not received manliness? Have you not received endurance? And why do I trouble myself about anything that can happen if I possess greatness of soul? What shall distract my mind or disturb me, or appear painful? Shall I not use the power for the purposes for which I received it, and shall I grieve and lament over what happens?

“Yes, but my nose runs.”

The Discourses by Epictetus, Book One – The Internet Classics Archive

Movies saved my life: A young New Yorker meets foreigners in film—By Tom Engelhardt (Harper’s Magazine)

~ Mark

Unlike most of my peers in the 1950s and early 1960s, I advanced with the U.S. Marines and the Russians, bombed Tokyo and witnessed Hiroshima after it was atomized. I took out Panzers, but for two hours one afternoon was a German boy willing to die as American tanks bore down on him. They confirmed in me a sense that the world was not as we were told, and that ours was not necessarily the most exceptional way of life.

Movies saved my life: A young New Yorker meets foreigners in film—By Tom Engelhardt (Harper’s Magazine)

Changeling

~ Mark

Changeling. Man, Clint Eastwood has a steady hand. He will take his damn time and everything will be in its place. He even did the music. There’s no razzle-dazzle here, it’s just firm, reliable storytelling. I’m glad he didn’t go into the more lurid aspects of the story, focusing more on building your outrage and indignation. You only see one death in full and its impact caught me off-guard. Heavy stuff. Angelina Jolie is excellent. The only other Jolie films I’ve seen are one of the Tomb Raider films (ugh) and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (eehhhh), so this was a nice change.

My current rankings for Eastwood’s work as director:

  1. Unforgiven
  2. Gran Torino
  3. Million Dollar Baby
  4. The Outlaw Josey Wales
  5. Changeling
  6. Play Misty for Me
  7. Bird
  8. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Lots of good work there. Cf. Hitchcock.

Uncreative Writing: It’s Not Plagiarism. In the Digital Age, It’s ‘Repurposing.’ – The Chronicle of Higher Education

~ Mark

Summarizing some of Marjorie Perloff’s ideas on unoriginal genius:

Today’s writer resembles more a programmer than a tortured genius, brilliantly conceptualizing, constructing, executing, and maintaining a writing machine.

Also:

For the past several years, I’ve taught a class at the University of Pennsylvania called “Uncreative Writing.” In it, students are penalized for showing any shred of originality and creativity. Instead they are rewarded for plagiarism, identity theft, repurposing papers, patchwriting, sampling, plundering, and stealing. Not surprisingly, they thrive.

(via)

Uncreative Writing: It’s Not Plagiarism. In the Digital Age, It’s ‘Repurposing.’ – The Chronicle of Higher Education

~ Mark

“If Celebrities Moved To Oklahoma” — Pretty Faces, Poor Bodies | Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style.

The power of these photos, then, is the way that they illuminate the amount of capital it takes to make bodies not look like this. Celebrities weren’t born looking gorgeous and sophisticated. They are created; they are the product of capital. That process is elided, in part because the allure of the celebrity is the effortlessness with which he or she appears. But it’s absolutely crucial for us to remember, if only to recall that bodies are never automatically “trashy” or “classy,” “famous” or “poor,” including our own.

~ Mark

For what shall I wield a dagger, o lord?
What can I pluck it out of or plunge it into
when you are all the world?

Devara Dasimayya, 10th century Indian poet/saint. (via)
~ Mark

We must be indulgent to the mind, and from time to time must grant it the leisure that serves as its food and strength.

Seneca.

On Tranquillity of Mind – Seneca

~ Mark

As predicted, I’ve been on a stoicism bender. This was a good one to dive into early, as my recent Heraclitus and Seneca might have tipped you off. This bit on friendship was one of my favorite parts:

Nothing, however, gives the mind so much pleasure as fond and faithful friendship. What a blessing it is to have those to whose waiting hearts every secret may be committed with safety, whose knowledge of you you fear less than your knowledge of yourself, whose conversation soothes your anxiety, whose opinion assists your decision, whose cheerfulness scatters your sorrow, the very sight of whom gives you joy! We shall of course choose those who are free, as far as may be, from selfish desires; for vices spread unnoticed, and quickly pass to those nearest and do harm by their contact.

On Tranquillity of Mind – Seneca