A Soviet critic writes....

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

JAZZ....

“An idiotic little hammer knocks
drily: one, two, three, ten, twenty
knocks. Then, like a clod of mud
thrown into crystal-clear water, there
is wild screaming, hissing, rattling,
wailing, moaning, cackling. Bestial
cries are heard: neighing horses, the
squeal of a brass pig, crying
jackasses, amorous quacks of a
monstrous toad…this excruciating
medley of brutal sounds is
subordinated to a barely perceptible
rhythm.

Listening to this screaming
music for a minute or two, one
conjures up an orchestra of madmen,
sexual maniacs, led by a man-
stallion beating time with an
enormous phallus."

Maxim Gorky....On the music of the Fats. 1928.

Well, if you will buy ECM cds....


BN.

[burning dog]

Founder of the Philip Larkin school of jazz criticism!

[Serial_Apologist]

By coincidence I was just yesterday listening to the two episodes of "Swinging with Uncle Joe" I taped off of the wireless. There was literally no recorded jazz in the USSR from 1939 to 1953, when Stalin died, apparently, as jazz was seen as US propaganda, and one of the programmes spent its 30 minutes with presenter Russell Hardy just saying as much, so I wiped it. Given the anti-religious aspects of the Communists - not just the Stalinists - I never could figure the puritanicism. That existed on the British far left too. I remember once telling an admittedly pretty feeble joke to some of the comrades, and them being, like, surprised at me telling it. It wasn't homophobic, unless one read that into it, which would have been suspectly farfetched to say the least.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Stalin was a big fan of Busby Berkley musicals...Gorky was a repulsive egotist who fingered his friends...despite the merits of his earlier works.

Trotsky and Rosa dug Bird.

BN.

[Bryn]

A rather more wide-ranging assessment of jazz in the era of Uncle Joe.

[Serial_Apologist]

Stalin was a big fan of Busby Berkley musicals...Gorky was a repulsive egotist who fingered his friends...despite the merits of his earlier works.

Trotsky and Rosa dug Bird.

BN.

Luxembourg had route canal on her radio station before being reborn as Bird

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

thanks for that interesting bit of scholarship Bryn

[Serial_Apologist]

A rather more wide-ranging assessment of jazz in the era of Uncle Joe.

Looks v interesting - thanks Bryn, definitely to be read shortly.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

In one of Marx's last letters* to Engels he said, "The English will stop at nothing to dull the senses of their working class...I predict they will unleash a banjo hell in the form of Trad Jazz...."


How true.


BN.

* Terry Eagleton..."Why Marx was right". 2012.

BTW one of the lighter reasons given for the recent exodus from the Socialist Workers Party was that "they made us go to Gilad Atzmon gigs."

Hilarious.

[Serial_Apologist]

In one of Marx's last letters* to Engels he said, "The English will stop at nothing to dull the senses of their working class...I predict they will unleash a banjo hell in the form of Trad Jazz...."


How true.


BN.

* Terry Eagleton..."Why Marx was right". 2012.

I always thought that Marx was referring to Blake's Seven...

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Two things Marx hated...Capitalism and Banjos.

Shame Ken Colyer never understood this.

In the WRP we played Cecil Taylor on rotation. "Oh I could dance to this, Its just like Dusty!"...V. Redgrave.

BN.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

BTW the late Oxbridge Marxist economist and statitician Andrew Glyn,
tutor to Les enfents Miliband, was also a very good jazz pianist in the style of Bill Evans.

Shame Ed preferred Mrs Mills.

BN.

[burning dog]

Better John Stuart Mills than David "Russ" Conway?!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I have been told that David Miliband keeps his all Peter Nero LPs shrink wrapped and only takes them out when Obama and Michelle come around to talk enhanced "rendition" over a latte.

And of course, his weekends with Blair and Wendi.

BN.

[burning dog]

An extraordinary rendition of David's theme