Anodyne
Sunday, December 04, 2005
 

Speaking of musical recommendations, I found Geoffrey Hayden's Quintet of the Year on the remainder table yesterday at Obnoxious Large Canadian Chain Bookstore: a 300-page account of the 1957 jazz concert at Massey Hall, featuring Charlie Parker (white plastic sax, originally billed as 'Charlie Chan'), Bud Powell (keys), Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), Max Roach (percussion) and Charles Mingus (bass). Very much in the spirit of Geoff Dyer's But Beautiful, and equally brimming with musical analysis and biographical anecdotes:

"Max Roach told me that one night, when they asked Parker how they could be like him, he offered his disciples this analogy: He said, 'My cup runneth over. You take this glass of water here. The empty glass is you. Water is musical knowledge. When the glass is full, to the very top, all you have to do is just blow at it and it runneth over. Ideas just gush out of you. But it takes time to fill your cup.'"
- posted by cjb @ 8:48 PM


<< Home

Powered by Blogger

.post-title { display: none!important; }