Freedom is Free!!

Well well well... A long time coming. The bad news is that I haven't been able to blog the Jazz du Terroir for many moons. The good news is that I may have discovered how to podcast in the meantime. If this works, you'll hear ten or so of my fave free jazz tracks (or tracks approximating the free).



The list:

Spoken Intro
David Murray, "The Fast Life" (from Ming)
Albert Ayler, "Ghosts: First Version" (from Spiritual Unity)
Andrew Hill, "Unnatural Man" (from Nefertiti)
Ornette Coleman, "Jordan" (from Sound Grammar)
William Parker, "Foundation #2" (from Painter's Spring)
John Coltrane, "Ascent" (from Sun Ship)
Tomasz Stanko, "First Song" (from Balladyna)
David S. Ware, "Alignment" (from The Wisdom of Uncertainty)
Cecil Taylor, "Living (dedicated to Julian Beck)" (from For Olim)
David Murray, "Interboogieology" (from Interboogieology)

Suggested Wine Pairing: Drink whatever you got!

Ornette Coleman, Sound Grammar (Sound Grammar)

Who would we be without ghosts? They don't exist, precisely the point. I'll explain better: Every time Nirmala has read my cards, I realize that I believe not a bit in the Tarot. This makes the correctness of her divinations of my future all the more enjoyable when they come to pass. I have two explanations for this phenomenon. First, in any given situation, there are only a limited number of possible outcomes; but there are just enough possible outcomes that they defy rational comprehension, you can't predict the one outcome because your mind cannot fathom the 297,154 permutations set in front of it. The Tarot: a limited number of symbols that may be arranged in multiple, yet still finite, configurations, just enough to boggle your mind and predict your future. The second explanation is a bit more unsettling: nothing exists without its negation. Which is to say, nothing exists. If a thing exists, its nothing must also not exist. No meaning without nonsense. No life without afterlife. No body (or mind) without ghosts. But, of course, ghosts do not exist. We've come too far as a species to fall back into superstition, material reality is fine by me. Ghosts do not exist, but no mind (or body) without them. This is why we have Ornette Coleman, in all his harmolodic splendor.

Suggested Wine Pairing: You're going to need something tough, thick, and dark to make it back to daylight, something to flood your palatte with life before its tannins and alcohol evaporate into your sinuses. Domaine Berthoumieu, Rouge Madiran, 2004.

Lee Morgan, The Sidewinder (Blue Note)

Some times you need Finnegan's Wake. But not oftentimes. You need Joyce, the world needs Joyce. But some times you want John Updike. Some times you need Eugene Ionesco, but some times you want Tennessee Williams. Some times you need Duchamp, but some times you want John Singer Sargent. Some times you need Vallejo, but some times you want Neruda. Some times you need Pierre Ferrand Selection des Anges, but some times you want Jameson's on rocks. Some times you need "Revolution 9," but some times you want "Satisfaction." Some times you need "Hiroshima, Mon Amour," but some times you want "Duck Soup." Some times you need pan-seared fois gras served on poached pears, but some times you want a chocolate shake and fries. Check that. You always need pan-seared fois gras on poached pears. But when you get the chocolate shake and fries it still makes you very happy. Like all things in life. We always need someone or some thing difficult, someone or some thing to show us new ways to see hear smell taste touch, however painful the process. But some times we just want something that is beautifully crafted, and it helps if it's got some serious groove. Some times you need Ascension. Some times you want Lee Morgan's Sidewinder.

Suggested Wine Pairing: Something good to wash down the shake & fries? I'll take Earthworks Shiraz, Barossa Valley Australia, 2007.

TO ALL MY FAN (S)

Apologies for the delay in getting posts up on Jazz du Terroir. Over the past several weeks I've been secluded for the most part, immersing myself in Walter Benjamin and high-end avant-garde Brazilian pornography. (Alas, there are worse fates.) In any event, as a result this has turned into a slow-blog, and no one likes the slow-blog. New posts later tonite.

In the meantime, might I recommend you open a bottle of your favorite, maybe go through all those Ahmad Jamal records you've been saving for this very occasion...

John Coltrane, The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings (Impulse)

On the way to 2009, Ania and I asked the wine seller to pick the perfect wine to bid farewell to the old year and bring in the new. He landed on a California Cabernet grown on hillside of dark, glassy rock, so steep that it was almost a cliff and nearly inaccessible. This produced gnarled, thorny vine from which very few fruits sprung, thick-skinned and filled with bejeweled incandescent juice. The ridge was so steep that what fruit there was could not be picked by machine, so that every grape had to be picked by a human hand that had scratched its way up the hill and scraped its skin against the trunk of the vine. The result of this torturous process? A wine of such deep color and dense beauty that it will haunt us for the rest of the year, at least.

Coltrane is hand that claws its way up the ridge. Coltrane is the plunge off the cliff. He is the center that holds. He is the train that ties India to Brasilia, Miles to Medieval Europe. The path is almost impossible, almost inaccessible, almost too much to handle, almost perfection, almost bliss. The rock that hits another, chips of glass fly off, carves a an obsidian arrowhead so sharp it pierces your heart instantly. You felt pain, this is true. But you can leave all the torture behind you. It's time to start anew.

Suggested Wine Pairing: There is no point of buying an incomplete "Village Vanguard," because once you start you will be compelled to get the complete 4-disc set. Likewise for the Obsidian Ridge Red Hills Lake County Cabernet Sauvignon, 2005.