"[F]rustrated by what he saw as the harmonic limits imposed by having a pianist play chords behind his improvisations, he began performing and recording accompanied only by a bassist and drummer..."

"... an unusual (though not unprecedented) approach at the time. (Pianists 'got in the way,' he said at the time. 'They play too much.') He recorded several memorable albums without piano.... By 1959, Mr. Rollins was receiving consistently glowing reviews and was widely regarded as one of jazz’s new stars. Nonetheless, that year he suddenly stopped performing and recording and virtually disappeared from the public eye. Over the next two years, convinced that his playing was not up to his own standards, Mr. Rollins devoted much of his time to practicing, often late at night on the Williamsburg Bridge, not far from his apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where the acoustics appealed to him and there were no neighbors to complain. His absence from the scene, and reports of his bridge sessions, added to his growing mystique, and to his growing reputation as a perfectionist. 'A lot of people couldn’t comprehend why I would stop playing,' he told DownBeat magazine in 2001. 'But I learned something. It was necessary for me to do to have the kind of confidence I need to play music like this.'"

From "Sonny Rollins, Giant of the Jazz Saxophone, Is Dead at 95 Even by the standards of a music that prizes individuality, he stood out, as both a musician and a personality" (NYT). 

A playlist:

 

AND: Note that Miles Davis performs on some of those tracks and today, May 26th, is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Miles Davis (who died in 1991). See "Miles Davis at 100: Musicians explain why he is the GOAT" (L.A. Times).

ADDED: I already had a "Sonny Rollins" tag. There's only one other post. It quote Rollins, in 2020, when he published a NYT essay titled "Art Never Dies/It outlives the contentious political veneer that we cast over everything." The quote:

"Silencing music by a dead person who committed crimes does nothing to stop those kinds of crimes from happening in the future."

"If we consistently threw out all music by people who once acted horribly, we’d have no John Lennon, no Beatles, no Miles Davis. Of course, the Beatles revolutionized rock and pop music, and Miles Davis revolutionized jazz. So we’d be left musically impoverished, just to make ourselves feel good."

Writes my son John (at his blog post, "Should we stop listening to Michael Jackson?"), adding, "And yes, I am that guy!," linking to an Onion piece, "Man Always Gets Little Rush Out Of Telling People John Lennon Beat Wife."

And it's not just music. Don't forget "Red-blooded Caravaggio killed love rival in bungled castration attempt." So, burn this:



In case you're wondering, that painting is "Mary Magdalene Cannot Believe Martha Failed to Provide a Fork."

"This is the definition of art that has always most excited me: the feeling of being taken to the boundary of the universe, then beyond that boundary..."

"... into the surrounding darkness, and you’re the first person to ever be there. It’s not an experience that happens very often, but I’m willing to wait. I’ve never been someone who’s enjoyed music in general, or contemporary fiction in general, or films in general, or theater in general. I feel I’m standing on the runway waiting for the next big one to come in, carrying some of that outer darkness with it."

Said the writer Mark Haddon, commenting on the liner notes to the Miles Davis album "Bitches Brew," which read: "it’s not more beautiful, just different. a new beauty. a different beauty. the other beauty is still beauty. this is new and right now it has the edge of newness and that snapping fire you sense when you go out there from the spaceship where nobody has ever been before."

Haddon (the author of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time") is quoted in "Art Should Be Uncomfortable/For the writer Mark Haddon, Miles Davis’s seminal jazz album Bitches Brew is a reminder of the beauty and power of challenging works" (The Atlantic, May 2016). The liner notes were written by Ralph J. Gleason.

I'm reading that article after googling "art should make you uncomfortable" — which is a phrase I wrote at the end of the post "The brown spot." I was moved to google my own words because my statement was challenged — "So that is a crucial component of art: making the viewer uncomfortable?" — and because I didn't think what I was saying was at all original. Perhaps I thought I could find some authority to back me up.

My challeger, the commenter Loren W Laurent, added "A conveyance of joy is thus outside of what art should do?" I answered: "Joy should make you uncomfortable. After a short while, you need to come down and want to move back to normal. If your brain doesn't work like that, you have a problem. You can't go about your life in a state of ecstasy."

Additional "comfortableness" topics I just got into a long conversation about:

1. Comedy. Should comedy make us uncomfortable? Doesn't the best comedy comedy make us uncomfortable? One criticism I have of the Kathy Griffin concert I saw in Chicago last Thursday is that the audience was treated as an in group, with shared values, and Griffin never challenged them. She only attacked people out there beyond the enclave of the theater. She had been exiled, so I understand her motivation, but she asked nothing from the audience except that they commit to her and be on her side, against those others out there. The audience adulated her, and she dished adulation back at them. It was a rally. I thought it was ironic: She hates Trump, but her show was like the stereotype of a Trump rally (more than an actual Trump rally is like that stereotype). I prefer comedians who makes their own fans uncomfortable. Andy Kaufman. Lenny Bruce. Etc.

2. Religion. I thought of Jesus:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

3. Politics.

Don Cheadle as Miles Davis.

"It’s just a brief clip, but Cheadle’s got Davis’ husky speaking voice down pat, and the trumpet lessons he took in preparation for the role seem to have paid off...."

"I don't feel like going on at length about the tenth anniversary of 'About Last Night' precisely because it is still here, a fixed point on the horizon of cyberspace."

Writes Terry Teachout.

I do, however, want to point you to a few of my favorite postings. Some of them are about art, others about life, most about the intersection between the two. All are personal, most very much so. 

Example from 2003:

As I sat down to lunch today at Good Enough to Eat, my Upper West Side hangout, I heard a familiar sound floating over the purr of conversation. Buzzy, keening, coolly anguished...sure enough, it was Miles Davis playing "All Blues," the best-known cut from the most popular album in the history of jazz, Kind of Blue....

Bono is "struck by the one quality [Frank Sinatra's] voice lacks: Sentimentality."

Quaff a pint glass of the velvety blackness of the rock star's prose.

***

Things Frank said to Bono:

“I don’t usually hang with men who wear earrings.”

“Miles Davis never wasted a note, kid — or a word on a fool.”

“Jazz is about the moment you’re in. Being modern’s not about the future, it’s about the present.”

IN THE COMMENTS: Bill White says:

Sinatra's voice was the most selfish I've heard, which makes his Christmas songs hilarious or unlistenable depending on your mood.

And Original George links to this movie clip of Sinatra singing "Someone to Watch Over Me" — which has that line "I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood," which is surprisingly unmasculine, and in fact, the song was written for a woman:

Wedding photographs of the "Bride and Groom" are being taken, and Kay, still disguised as a maid, tries to convince Jimmy she would be a better wife than fussy Constance. She tells her rag doll that she needs "Someone to Watch Over Me."

Now, I think the song is sentimental when a woman sings it, so how can a man sing it — especially with that "lamb" line? Yet, the song is better sung by Sinatra. It's a mystery. Does it have to do with selfishness?

We're also talking about lambs this morning over on the "Macho Jesus for men" post: "Paintings depict a gentle man embracing children and cuddling lambs." We're exploring masculinity today, and I propose reconciling the macho with the lamb.

Music to read by: the suggestions.

Today, my iPod Shuffle arrived, and I adore it, as blogged here. You may remember I bought it to fill with music that would help me read and study without distraction, and I solicited advice from readers about what they thought would fit this need. I've already noted some preliminary suggestions, including a warning against classical music, the theory being that it's too complex and interesting, which makes it distracting. Clearly, you don't want to study while listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, but I think there are some good classical choices. One reader writes:

In response to your e-mailer who suggested that classical music is too distracting to read by: presumably that depends a great deal on the individual reader/listener. I, personally, am distracted by schlocky music. Most contemporary movie soundtracks would have me yanking off my earphones and begging the barista to chat me up. The thing I love about Chopin (for example) is that, while it has a deep, complex musical structure and emotional texture, it doesn't have any of the insistent qualities that demand that you focus your immediate, conscious attention on it at every moment (like a driving beat, or an incessant rhythm or lyric, or a rigid structure). Last week in the library I read two books and skimmed three more in two and a half hours while listening to Rubinstein play Chopin, and my concentration never wavered. I can rarely sustain that level of concentration for that long, and I credit the music for helping to maintain my interest and focus.

In fact, I have this CD already, and I put the only the slower pieces on my "Reading Music" playlist. Here's another email with classical suggestions:

My taste might be more vanilla than you're looking for, but I often study listening to Chopin's nocturnes, Schubert's impromptus, and Vanessa-Mae's classical work. A good Chopin CD is Jean Yves Thibaudet's "The Chopin I Love"; there's quite a bit on that CD, including the E-flat major nocturne, which is my absolute favorite. For Schubert, the Wanderer Fantasy CD is very nice, especially if you can find the one played by Leon Fleisher. Actually, most of Leon Fleisher's piano work is wonderful. And Vanessa-Mae--her Original Four Seasons CD is very nice. It has the Vivaldi pieces but also her own work, the Devil's Trill Sonata, which is fantastic. Her CD Violin Player is also probably good, but I don't have that one. I do have Storm, which is interesting--she is a beautifully talented violinist who likes to fuse classical music with more modern work. She combined Bizet's Can-Can with a driving techno beat, and that worked quite well. But some of her other pieces on that CD are a little annoying--Bach just shouldn't be combined with a synthesizer or electric guitar line.

Here's another:

I find that the Hilliard Ensemble's "Morimur" is great to read to. (It's on ECM New Series.) The recording was inspired by the research of Helga Thoene, a musicologist who argues that Bach alluded to chorales in the Chaconne from the second partita for solo violin. So the recording presents several chorales (in German) and the partita, followed by a reconstruction of the Chaconne with singers emphasizing the chorale melodies. (Of course, you can't go wrong with Bach for stringed instruments, either: the 'cello suites, the sonatas and partitas for solo violin, and the lute music -- there is also a very fine, recent release of Segovia Bach transcriptions on Deutsche Grammophon.)

I have a lot of Bach on CD and am putting a good portion of that into the Shuffle. Someone recommended Schubert's "Wanderer Fantasy," which I had.

Another of the "preliminary suggestions" noted in the earlier post was movie soundtracks. As that emailer above indicates, many film soundtracks are bombastic and inappropriate for my purpose, but from my existing CD collection, I chose the Philip Glass soundtrack from "Kundun." Although I haven't ordered any of these, here are some specific soundtracks that were recommended: "Ghost in the Shell 2," "The Last of the Mohicans," "Cinema Paradiso."

Another recommendation noted in the "preliminary suggestions" post was Brian Eno's ambient music, particularly "Music for Airports." I've ordered that, along with Eno's "Ambient 4: On Land" -- a classic example of making a second purchase to earn the free shipping.

Now, for some extra stuff. One emailer pointed me to this list of music featured on The Weather Channel. A couple people recommended Sigur Ros -- which sounds great. Another interesting idea is "True Love Waits: Christopher O'Riley Plays Radiohead" ("Radiohead consistently produces very complex melodies and this works surprisingly well. Classically they fall into the 'Romantic' camp. Very Debussy.") One emailer suggested Miles Davis, specifically "Kind of Blue" and "Sketches of Spain." Someone recommended Aphex Twin. Someone recommended Ottmar Liebert. ("He plays 'nuevo flamenco,' some of the most beautiful and interesting classical guitar you’ve ever heard. Perfect background for reading or just thinking. Or in my case, for coding :)")

From my CD collection, I pulled out a lot of early music. I have had very good reading success with this CD in the past, so it went right in. And I had these two Hildegard von Bingen chant recordings. I put in some Monteverdi.

One more email:

It may be rather SNAGy (Sensitive New Age Guy) of me to mention this, but there is, in fact, a lot of so-called New Age music that is not overly cheesy and quite relaxing. I read and write to George Winston, Michael Jones (solo piano), David Lanz and/or Paul Speer (they collaborated), among others. A lot of it is the sort of pretentious 'Toltec Magician' (I kid you not) crap, but there are also some halfway decent composers out there. I subscribed to Real's Rhapsody service, which is pretty cheap for streaming audio, and they have a New Age stream where I get some ideas. A bunch are available on iTunes.

Anyway, that's enough for now!