THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
“Art for art's sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for.”― George Sand
I have been digging around in the basement these past few days…moving records around…swapping ones I want to keep but have just listened to with ones that that feel right for the summer heat….some that have been in boxes from our move out of the city three years ago today. There is just not enough room in the house to display all the records in the collection unless I convert the house into the type of lair that only I would like. It was moving day three years ago that I ended up having to move the whole collection myself and realized the madness baked into the collector personality
Since then, I have been trying to downsize this 45+ year collection…make it more manageable. There are some records I have been carrying around with me, not paying any attention to, for decades. And so I putter around in the basement, pulling and pondering the records all around me. Do I need Lou Reed’s Rock and Roll Heart? Do I need to be a completist when it comes to his inconsistent career output? (the jury is still out on that one, but I am leaning towards getting rid of it). How about all of those Buck Clayton Jazz jams? Great covers…but keepers? As fellow record collector (and muse for my downsizing) Josh Rosenthal will tell you: if you have to the think about getting rid of a record, just get rid of it: most of the time, when you DO get rid of one, you just don’t miss it.
So I pull records and listen to them, listen to them when the kids are asleep with a breeze running from window to window, with the stars popping, and while I am writing this newsletter. Some records get the axe, some shine out as long-lost friends.
I came across a truly strange but compelling LP boxset this afternoon that I totally forgot I had…that I bought a long long time ago in the early 90’s at The Record Store on La Cienega in Los Angeles. The boxset is called JAZZ ON THE POTOMAC…a 7 LP endeavor, each side showcasing a 15-minute jazz radio show hosted by legendary DC Jazz DJ Felix Grant. The series is from the late 60s, funded by “your local” US Marine Corps Representative, and features truly hip jazzbos from the time like Bill Evans, Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery (among many others). Grants’ mellow voice lulls you from song to song, throwing down incredible information about the tracks he is spinning, maintaining his vibe in the middle of every show when making a plug to check out the Marine Corps….he actually makes the plug as if he is selling you Harvey’s Bristol Cream. So smooth. Have you checked out the local Corps? You should! Bet you would find it nice…and now back to Brother Jack McDuff.
The whole concept of the show is so bonkers…and yet I am through record 3 of the 7 LP boxset and I cannot stop listening. There is a late period Johnny Hodges number with Wild Bill Davis called Rent City that just blew by (and blew my mind) that I had never heard before…and is not on Spotify (it is actually not ANYWHERE on the internet and me thinks might be misnamed…will take a deep dive later). The next show features up-and-coming Jazz guitarists…the whole thing is an incredibly curated time capsule of hip Jazz during the beginnings of the Vietnam war (note: the idea of WAR is never brought up AT ALL). I am listening and learning and loving.
I wish I could link to an example of the show…but there is nothing on the internet. It is just this funky one-of-a-kind item that has been hiding in the basement waiting for its rediscovery….so good…such a keeper…
The Night the Beastie Boys Got Punked by Liverpool
My dear friend Roger Bennet released a memoir yesterday. It blows my mind how Roger has become such a huge figure in the professional sports announcing field, and now this! The book is entitled (Re) Born in the USA and talks about his childhood adoration of the US and what it was like to become a citizen during a dark period for the country. Anyway, he posted a story from the book in GQ about when the Beastie Boys came to his hometown….looking forward to reading the rest.
Lauded biographer of musical icons discovered on Hill
I love rummaging through local newspapers to find stories that get tucked away within their leaves. Found this great one about Sun Ra/Alan Lomax biographer John Szwed who was recently “discovered” by his local community. Great article with some good Sun Ra stories…
Don Letts: the soundtrack of my life
Don Letts is such a monster figure in the world of reggae and beyond (wayy beyond: he made The Punk Rock Movie)…I got turned onto him when he appeared in Mick Jones’ post-Clash band Big Audio Dynamite and really enjoyed his stage curation at Glastonbury’s Reggae field (Glastonbury would have been this weekend….sigh). This article, where we get insight on Letts’ favorite things, is incredible.
How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously
Was I the only one who scratched my head when I found out that buried in the last governmental Covid loan plan was a demand that all the files about UFOs collected by various agencies be given to the government? That the government was going to conduct a study and release information about the truth behind UFOs once and for all? Gideon Lewis-Kraus does a great job in digging into the whys around this crazed event.
It Was the Animals
By Natalie Diaz
Today my brother brought over a piece of the ark
wrapped in a white plastic grocery bag.
He set the bag on my dining table, unknotted it,
peeled it away, revealing a foot-long fracture of wood.
He took a step back and gestured toward it
with his arms and open palms—
It’s the ark, he said.
You mean Noah’s ark? I asked.
What other ark is there? he answered.
Read the inscription, he told me.
It tells what’s going to happen at the end.
What end? I wanted to know.
He laughed, What do you mean, ‘What end?’
The end end.
Then he lifted it out. The plastic bag rattled.
His fingers were silkened by pipe blisters.
He held the jagged piece of wood so gently.
I had forgotten my brother could be gentle.
He set it on the table the way people on television
set things when they’re afraid those things might blow up
or go off—he set it right next to my empty coffee cup.
It was no ark—
it was the broken end of a picture frame
with a floral design carved into its surface.
He put his head in his hands—
I shouldn’t show you this—
God, why did I show her this?
It’s ancient—O, God,
this is so old.
Fine, I gave in. Where did you get it?
The girl, he said. O, the girl.
What girl? I asked.
You’ll wish you never knew, he told me.
I watched him drag his wrecked fingers
over the chipped flower-work of the wood—
You should read it. But, O, you can’t take it—
no matter how many books you’ve read.
He was wrong. I could take the ark.
I could even take his marvelously fucked fingers.
The way they almost glittered.
It was the animals—the animals I could not take—
they came up the walkway into my house,
cracked the doorframe with their hooves and hips,
marched past me, into my kitchen, into my brother,
tails snaking across my feet before disappearing
like retracting vacuum cords into the hollows
of my brother’s clavicles, tusks scraping the walls,
reaching out for him—wildebeests, pigs,
the oryxes with their black matching horns,
javelinas, jaguars, pumas, raptors. The ocelots
with their mathematical faces. So many kinds of goat.
So many kinds of creature.
I wanted to follow them, to get to the bottom of it,
but my brother stopped me—
This is serious, he said.
You have to understand.
It can save you.
So I sat down, with my brother ruined open like that,
and two by two the fantastical beasts
parading him. I sat, as the water fell against my ankles,
built itself up around me, filled my coffee cup
before floating it away from the table.
My brother—teeming with shadows—
a hull of bones, lit by tooth and tusk,
lifting his ark high in the air.
