tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1959286621592188397.post8241655064108776536..comments2024-02-20T07:06:18.516-05:00Comments on Brilliant Corners: The Return of Jazz Shtick-by Steve ProvizerSteve Provizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09757505876939504133noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1959286621592188397.post-27744641870806256452010-07-04T17:42:09.403-04:002010-07-04T17:42:09.403-04:00Alas, the word shtick may have fallen into disrepu...Alas, the word shtick may have fallen into disrepute. Not with me. It takes balls to do shtick, especially in a ART-y context. You have to have so much confidence in your core abilities that you can climb out on this limb... Who sports the duster?Steve Provizerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09757505876939504133noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1959286621592188397.post-2894601680693841852010-07-04T17:38:53.335-04:002010-07-04T17:38:53.335-04:00I can't overlook our own Laurence Cook how has...I can't overlook our own Laurence Cook how has an entire kit bag of sly send up aspects from joke shop laugh boxes to performance draped in sheets and he began in the early 60s with Roy Haynes.<br /><br />His is the sly understated yankee version but quite noticeable, Bennink is another and then Django Carranza who learned his shtick with Hobbs and Timo as avante jazz buskers.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18394197995097602185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1959286621592188397.post-63088222346947118882010-07-03T20:46:06.131-04:002010-07-03T20:46:06.131-04:00I just saw MOPDTK open for the Schlippenbach trio ...I just saw MOPDTK open for the Schlippenbach trio at the Vancouver Jazz festival. While they all played like motherfuckers, I was/am especially taken with drummer Kevin Shea. <br /><br />The faint whiff of shtick was totally overpowered by the stench of musical excellence and drum set virtuosity.<br /><br />Lastly, let us not confuse shtick and fashion excellence. Like a dark denim duster*, two pair (pairs?) of sunglasses is a good look for any one, including a drummer.<br /><br />* -- extra points if you know who wears the duster in question...Stanley Jason Zappahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06526308723808269327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1959286621592188397.post-79845727676422294272010-07-01T11:41:47.389-04:002010-07-01T11:41:47.389-04:00Dick V. DM'd:
I don't think you were har...Dick V. DM'd: <br /> I don't think you were hard enough on the boppers. They were hell-bent on seeking respect as artists and as black artists at that. This really fueled the rebellion against musician-as-entertainer. <br /><br />Throw in some generational rebellion, some attitudinal changes in wartime America, and the fact that Duke's band and Woody's band were gaining traction with their more ambitious concert music. <br /><br />You want schtick? Listen to Eddie Condon's crowd. Or Louis Jordan's. Seems to me there was no fun in bebop at all until the media made the weed-smoking, beret-topped caricature of the bop musician popular. Then they played the role to the hilt, at least off the stage.Steve Provizerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09757505876939504133noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1959286621592188397.post-91354164633688677722010-07-01T00:38:48.241-04:002010-07-01T00:38:48.241-04:00I realized that, for me, comedy meets me every tim...I realized that, for me, comedy meets me every time I step past my door, without fail. <br /><br />I live in Cambridge.<br /><br />There is a panoply of the preposterous, bushels of buffoons, heaps of howls.<br /><br />It is a dense epicenter of living kitsch and ditzes run amok.<br /><br />Modern American life in such over anxious and affect saturated places is a rapid churn of tragicomic goofiness as if God set the blender on Liquefy.<br /><br />And when the door closes on it all, in the quiet of my shelter, I can unwind from the comic overload with some sounds of the sublime as an antidote to the avalanche of the ridiculous. <br /><br />This very blog is daily comedy as some crazy fat guy stalks it to menace with broken impersonations while uber serious neurotic lurkers anxiously scan for signs of travesty and reasons to harrumph.<br /><br />So it's rare I have to bother poor old Jazz to make me laugh. Sunny Murray continues the humor tradition..."When you play this music..people assume you must be an intellectual or something." <br /><br />And if I need to bother Music for a laugh, there's always Fats Waller, Albert Marcoeur or the Waterson's whimsical songs about sheep shearing delivered in nasal voices.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18394197995097602185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1959286621592188397.post-34650179774008829582010-06-30T20:22:44.468-04:002010-06-30T20:22:44.468-04:00I agree that many in Jazz may have lost their sens...I agree that many in Jazz may have lost their sense of humor around 1964 as well as its direction, but that’s another story. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Lenny Bruce was King with his bits such as “The Palladium”, “Religions Incorporated”, “Father Flotski”, and later “Christ And Moses”. Bruce was also hanging out with a number of musicians, in particular Joe Maini. In his autobiography for Playboy, Bruce tells the story when he and Maini took Maini’s drunken mother to a local LA TV show that featured that had the best sad story. They won a refrigerator, but couldn’t get into the bungalow that they were living in. It probably wasn’t true, but it was a funny bit as told by Bruce. Bruce lost his sense of humor when he became overwhelmed with his legal battles and his routines turned into dissertations on the American Legal System. He was no longer funny! <br /><br />A new wave of comedians began to poke fun at society and made us take a good look at ourselves. That was one of the great leaps into reality and broke the mold of humor for humor’s sake alone. It just so happens that Jazz began to go in several directions at the same time and several of them took themselves too seriously. The Jazz musicians who remained in the mainstream of Jazz did not lose their sense of humor. Dizzy, Moody, Dexter, Roy, Jacquet….go right down the line. I knew all of them and believe me; they were always ready for a laugh!<br />Tom Curry<br />Jazz From The Top (Zumix Radio)<br />reallypissedoff.comAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1959286621592188397.post-91830601792201562712010-06-29T20:47:53.805-04:002010-06-29T20:47:53.805-04:00The curators and art mandarins just suffocate thin...The curators and art mandarins just suffocate things. I am nearly violently opposed to the entire introduction of the 'curator' function for presenting live music.<br /><br />It's either maudlin Gen X english majors hiring Uncle Tupelo Refugees or creepy faux visionaries hiring hellish navel gaze white Improv Eyeglaze with enough sanctimoniousness to choke an elephant or, in Boston, gutless middle brow cute stuff that draws flies to its treacle.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18394197995097602185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1959286621592188397.post-36023666317789461512010-06-29T17:55:49.785-04:002010-06-29T17:55:49.785-04:00Sounds most excellent and entertaining. Naturally,...Sounds most excellent and entertaining. Naturally, I exaggerate in order to try and force historical perspective on an unwilling public. Other stuff has happened, but the overwhelming vibe has been ART ART ART and screw having a good laugh.Steve Provizerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09757505876939504133noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1959286621592188397.post-22965801903277461402010-06-29T17:27:28.054-04:002010-06-29T17:27:28.054-04:00That's funny, the first euro production I ever...That's funny, the first euro production I ever did was in 82 or so and it involved Willem Breuker's Kollectief in a chapel space on Tufts Campus.<br /><br />The joint was packed, all the provincial glitteratti showed up. Beginners luck. <br /><br />And it was all madcap shtick all the time with fairly elaborate arrangements. They's play tuned booze jugs kind of like a euro free jazz Spike Jones. <br /><br />I remember picking them up at Logan with a car caravan of helpful Tufts friends. I didn't know them from a wall hole but kept an eye for aging euro hipsters with instrument cases. That worked. On the ride to the hotel, they had this odd and funny habit of conversing in multilingual sentences..start in Dutch wander to French before German and a bit of English like confetti or a garnish.<br /><br />Entertainment interwoven with edification. The crowd went wild.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18394197995097602185noreply@blogger.com