Reading

I recently finished reading Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus' Banker to the Poor, an inspiring account of the invention and spread of the practice of micro lending. Micro lending is the practice of lending small amounts of money to people with no physical or monetary collateral, and relying upon human decency and the creation of social networks of lenders as the collateral, a revolutionary idea to say the least. His program has been incredibly successful in his native Bangladesh and has spread elsewhere, and he has generously offered his model up to anyone else who would like to start a micro lending organization. Their focus is on the poorest of the poor, and they have made incredible strides for those people through his program.

In the book he calls for socially conscious business enterprises to become more common practice in the private sector, essentially bypassing the normative bureaucratic routes that funding goes through. For profit businesses using their profit to do positive things socially. It's something that I and many people I know would love to see, and invest in, and if Yunus' outlook comes across as romantic sometimes, it's rooted in his own experiences that have created a very practical methodology for alleviating poverty.

Inspirational to say the least.

I found a couple hidden articles on the OkkaDisk site, hidden only in that there doesn't appear to be any linking to them off their main site. One is an article by Kevin Whitehead called "Why many records are very bad—and a few are good" and another by Stu Vandermark (Ken's brother?) called "Recording Jazz: A Questionable Practice? (or, A Call for Re-examination)."  They're both interesting in their own right and I don't want to go into a detailed analysis of either of them, but I thought they were relevant as part of a larger discussion about recording jazz. The Whitehead article is interesting in light of the recent Behearer discussion, since he mentions the "overlooked" artists of the 70s and 80s, while also discussing major labels' role in the situation.

Stu Vandermark questions the practice of recording entirely, not discarding it, but coming to the central point that:

"Buying records is like bringing home a copy of the exhibit book from a showing of works by visual artists. It is nice to have photos of the works to help jog fine memories, but the book is not a substitute for the exhibit. Analogously jazz is more like the work of certain types of “tactile” artists, such as painter Vincent van Gogh and sculptor David Smith. Those artists have produced works in which it is impossible to perceive and measure the shift between the total, larger impact and the three-dimensional vitality of the detail. In such cases the artifacts — photos on the one hand and sound recordings on the other — fall far short of the jolting reality."

Whether or not that's true is debatable. I don't think many people would argue with the notion that jazz is best experienced live, but there are some recordings that seem to transcend the limitations of the medium and allow for a transcendent listening experience. I also value the fact that I can listen to a recording in the comfort of my own home in an idealized listening environment without the clanking of beer bottles or the coughes wheezes and whispers of an audience.

Following this tangent and making a leap to a related discussion about recording, I wanted to comment on the sentence that Mwanji highlighted in the William Parker quote I posted recently. To paraphrase, Parker says that he believes jazz recordings should be done more akin to the process of rock recordings, where bands go into the studio for extended periods of time rather than the one or two day allotments given to many jazz recordings.

What it really made me think about and wonder is if jazz has moved towards having more home based recording environments, as many rock musicians and producers have, and if it hasn't, why is that the case? Recording technology keeps getting cheaper, so why is the studio even in the equation? I wonder if it has something to do with the technical difficulties of recording jazz. I would assume, based on my own rudimentary knowledge of microphones and recording technology, that making a good jazz recording requires a higher level of mastery than the average home recordist possesses. Nevertheless, I think it makes sense for jazz artists to look beyond the traditional studio environment as a means of making records if there is really value in being able to spend more time recording.

Just a thought.

Currently listening to Sticks and Stones - Shed Grace, featuring Matana Roberts, Josh Abrams and Chad Taylor. I love their dynamics and interplay, and this is my second favorite setting for Chad Taylor, second only to his work with Cooper-Moore in Tryptich Myth, especially the second release on Aum Fidelity. Matana sounds great on this recording and Josh Abrams is a highly underrated bassist in the creative music scene, perhaps because of his genre mobility that sees him collaborating with everyone from Prefuse 73 to Town and Country.

For your viewing pleasure, a Max Roach Quartet video featuring Odean Pope Billy Harper (thx Jason), Cecil Bridgewater, and Reggie Workman: