No, wait! Detective fiction is like jazz!

If the cadence may be regarded as the cradle of tonality, the ostinato patterns can be considered the playground in which it grew strong and self-confident.  - Edward E. Lewinsky

A decade and a lifetime ago, I interviewed Dr. Ed Lewis, then the head of the jazz department at the University of Regina. I was just kinda getting into jazz at that point, I think maybe I'd just bought my first Vandermark 5 album, and I'd been getting down with, like, Medeski, Martin & Wood and, I don't know, that's probably it. Wait, Roland Kirk. The Inflated Tear. That was happening.
These were not, are not, necessarily the best entry points into jazz, but there they were. And this would have been, really, probably the fall of 2001, really the height of my arrogance as a music writer. I mean, I was headed for a big crash, but I didn't know it. Things were still pretty hot back then for music writers, jobs would find me. There were a few mags I could whip off an email to, say "Hey, buddy, this is what I'm writing today, you want some?" And I'd get these fantastic cheques in the mail for US dollars, and this is back when that mean something. I mean you take a cheque for US$100 into the bank (this was back when you still took cheques to the bank) and they'd give you back $135 in Canadian money. Back then, you could rent a one-bedroom apartment downtown for like $250 in Regina so, the idea that a guy could make a living writing about music was not so fantastical.

Dr. Lewis, known in Regina at the time as "the Jazz Doctor", was a great interview. A natural talker and a wellspring of jazz lore, he took advantage of my jazz novice enthusiasm and gave me his history of jazz. Klezmer, or "klezma" as he called it, played a huge role. He also addressed something that I'd been curious about--why were there so many jazz versions of Broadway showtunes? In my young mind, the two genres couldn't be more disparate: jazz was the sound of America at it's coolest and most sublime; musical theatre was the sound of crazz pandering to base emotions and the death of my career in the legitimate (high school) theatre.

I strained to keep my naive disdain for showtunes to myself, but if Lewis saw it he didn't care. He told me about the Bop revolution (which I knew a bit about from all my Kerouac reading back in the day) and how jazz players grew more interested in improvisation and less interested in composition. The riff ruled. Ostinato. Popular songs, standards, showtunes were great for this because your audience was probably already familiar with the melody and could better appreciate the demarcation of what's composition and what's improvised virtuosity. They'd be hep to your blowing.

Detective fiction is like Bop, in this way. It might even be true of all genre fiction, but I'm not familiar enough with any other genres to say for sure. The plot, or melody, is familiar but what the writer does within the framework (or sometimes without) of that familiarity is what's thrilling.

Frank Black is the Capital of Kansas

originally published in the July 2/09 edition of prairie dog magazine. Black Francis plays solo acoustic at the Exchange on Wed., July 8.

In between breaking up the Pixies in 1992 and reuniting with them in 2004, Black Francis released nine albums as Frank Black. The first song on his 1993 self-titled solo debut was “Los Angeles”. The last song on 2003’s Show Me Your Tears, his final album with his country-rock band the Catholics, was “Manitoba”. Kind of like Nia Vardalos in reverse.
Now, a decade might seem like a long time to cover the distance from the world capital of show biz to the longitudinal centre of Canada, but consider this: In 25 years of writing Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler never achieved the required artistic confidence or intestinal certitude to send his private investigator to The Pas. Frank Black not only went there (at least in his song), but he brought in Van Dyke Parks to work on it.
Fascinatingly, during the 1920s, Manitoba had a provincial treasurer by the name Francis Black.
The Pixies’ six-year-run of off-kilter, noisy pop and infighting makes for great rock & roll mythologizing, and it’s hard to argue with Surfer Rosa and Doolittle as two of the best albums of the 80s, but it would be a shame to overlook--as many do--Francis’s solo career, which has been just as interesting, rewarding and often as surprising as his Pixies material.
He’s travelled through styles, growing out of the Pixies’ sound over his first three albums. He’s done country songs and soul songs, and even cut an album of wild minimalist electro-jazz remakes of Pixies songs with David Thomas of Pere Ubu’s collaborators Two Pale Boys. He quit making records for labels in the 90s, just before labels quit making records. Instead, he makes his own albums and then licenses them to labels for promotion and distribution. He once told me that he’s taken voice training. He’s one of the most down-to-earth people ever to record an album inspired by a semi-obscure Dutch painter (2007’s Blue Finger celebrates the late Herman Brood). Lately, he’s started a new band with his wife Violet called Grand Duchy and released their debut album earlier this year. He’s equally effective singing about Pong as he is about Spanish missionaries showing up in what would become the state of California. He’s an artist who is endlessly fascinating because he himself seems endlessly fascinated with the world.
In 1998 he recorded a song about Jonathan Richman, a fellow Bostonian whose first band the Modern Lovers cut what was probably the first actual punk rock album in 1972, but broke up before it was released in 1976. Richman, in fact, had by that time completely changed his sound, and to this day disappoints fans who come out to hear “She Cracked” by singing about Johan Vermeer. Surely there was some self-reflection involved when Frank Black wrote “The Man Who Was Too Loud.” I wonder if he’ll play that song at his upcoming acoustic show when Pixies fans shout out for “Debaser”?

Vancouver-related: Mats Gustafsson of The Thing was in town last week, playing half a dozen shows for the ends-today Jazz Festival, and I missed them all. But the new Thing album Bag It! is killer.

mp3: "Drop the Gun" by the Thing

The Mystery that Almost Was

Finished Mortal Causes last weekend. I had to wait a long time to get it. Previously, when I've requested Ian Rankin books from the VPL, I've always been the only person requesting the book and been able to pick it up within days. Not this time. I was sixth on the wait list. INCONCEIVABLE! Somehow, since the beginning of the year, when I began my mission to read the Inspector Rebus books in sequence, the series has become more popular--at least in Vancouver. I'm inclined to shoulder the responsibility for that, since I talk about it on my blog here, and we all know that my blog is perhaps the most influential music/comics/Rebus blog on the ENTIRE INTERNET.

As much as I'm reading Rankin for enjoyment, I'm also reading the series with a bit of a studious bent, paying attention to Rankin's progress as a novelist--a process greatly aided by the sweet introductions by the author in the editions the library lends me. It seems like each introduction features some variety of "This was the novel where things really clicked." Which is inspiring.

Anyway, I finished Mortal Causes, and was all jazzed to read the next one, Let It Bleed. But the VPL doesn't have it. Oh sure, they have the "sound recording", which I guess is the AudioBook. And they have Rebus: The Lost Years, which is an omnibus edition with three novels in it, the first of which is Let It Bleed--so that would've worked, especially since I've got a bunch of lakeside reading time coming up real soon. But it's checked out and not due back until Aug. 12, so fat lotta good that does me.

I live about two blocks away from a pretty good book store that has a whole entire shelf full of Rebus novels that go for about $8 a pop. So I figured I might as well just go grab Let It Bleed from them, and quit being such a mooch. Not in the cards. They have copies, multiples, of 16 different Rebus novels, but no Let It Bleed. I was starting to take it personally.

If you know me, you know that I love to take things personally. Nothing warms my heart like a good vendetta. From Edmond Dantes to Barney Panofsky, my heroes have always tended toward the vindictive and thin-skinned. But even more than I love being offended, I love to solve mysteries. And the seeming disappearance of Let It Bleed was looking to be a stone cold whodunnit.

The bookstore near my house happens to sell those nice Moleskin notebooks for, like, $11, so I got the flip-top reporter's notebook and got ready to investigate why the universe was conspiring against my desired reading. By which I mean, I grabbed a coffee and did the crossword. Nothing gets the wheels turning like trying to think of a ten-letter word for "Pinata material".

Sunday, then, Scott and I went to the beach. We walked around Kitsilano for hours, pounding the beat. Eventually, we ended up on West Broadway. It's interesting to look at how different neighbourhoods shake out. West Broadway, for example, is a lot like Commercial Drive in some ways. Lots of people on the sidewalk, lots of food stores, restaurants and cafes. But unlike the Drive, W. Broadway is almost devoid of convenience stores, which suggests to me that the people who live around there are healthier than the Drive folks, since convenience stores do most of their business in cigarettes.

West Broadway also has a number of bookstores, both new and used. The first one I investigated was in the same family as the one near my place, only with a much smaller Rebus shelf. Not surprisingly, there were no copies of Let It Bleed. Walking out, full of confidence that I was embroiled in a great quest, I espied a used bookstore on the other side of the street. They had a small crime/mystery section against the back wall and it didn't take me long to find their Rebus selection. The first book I noticed was Knots & Crosses, which had a tag on the spine that read "1st Rebus novel". I was in the right place. And then I saw it. My epic journey of less than two days was at an end at lest and I could set my weary mind at ease. There was Let It Bleed.

I'm glad I found it, glad I got it, but also sad that my investigation barely had the chance to develop into a full bore obsession. Sigh. And besides, I have to finish When You Are Engulfed In Flames first, so that Nicole can take it back to the Burnaby library.

Just when you thought I wasn't going to mention Batman (still haven't seen TDK), the excellent comics blog The Beat has word about Ian Rankin's new career as a comics writer!

mp3: "Rebus 1" by Joe Morris, Ken Vandermark and Luther Gray

THIS BAND... THIS MONSTER!

Last night we saw The Thing with Ken Vandermark at the Roundhouse. Hoo-ah. I went in fully prepared to be blown away by Vandermark (as you've no doubt figured), but was equally if not more blown away by The Thing!
The set started with Vandermark on tenor and The Thing's Mats Gustaffson on baritone sax. Gustaffson is kinda built like Ben Grimm and plays approximately as if it were, indeed, clobberin' time! Barely as tall as his horn, but wide in the chest, Gustaffson was blowing this deep foghorn tone, like baun-n-n-n-n! Baun-n-n-n-n! And Vandermark was doot-doo-duh-loo-loo! And Ingebrigt H. Flaten on the bass: a-thrumb-bumb-a-lumbum. And then Paal Nilssen-Love (pronounced lew-vuh) on a tiny little drum kit, doing things I can't even spell! Like, usual drums sounds but also, he did this thing at one point, rubbing the skins and making them squal like a soprano sax or something.
Throughout the set, Gustaffson switched off to an alto sax, and Vandermark blew his own baritone, as well as a clarinet. At one point, both Vandermark and Gustaffson were laying it down on baritone and, I swear to god, my teeth rattled.
Suffice to say, I walked in a Vandermark fan and walked out a Thing fan.
Earlier, in the same room, the Parker/Guy/Lytton/Fernandez fourpiece played a set of even freer jazz. I don't mind free jazz, and I really like improvisation, but this--this was not my thing. It was four guys doing their own thing independent of one another, I mean, they weren't playing together, they seemed barely aware of one another. I dunno. Evan Parker is a big name, he even played on a Scott Walker album, but it was not my thing. Which is not to say that I couldn't see the merit in it. I think it's good to see and hear things you don't understand or necessarily like. If for nothing else than to be able to not just be an ignorant playa hata.

In other news, George Carlin died earlier this week. I interviewed Carlin in 2003 (the story ran on Saturday, November 15, 2003, if anyone has a subscription to Infomart and wants to send me the text, that would be awesome) for the Leader-Post, and Carlin was a great interview. A lot of times, comedians are terrible interviews, but Carlin was sharp and he told me a great story about when he was still coming up and got booked for an extended stay (sometimes I wish I had kept better records of my interviews and articles, but alas!) in Regina during the winter, and the thing he remembered most about Regina was walking up Albert St. and all of the moisture in his nostrils froze solid. I remember writing a lukewarm review of his show for his over-reliance on four-letter words and shocking language. Having grown up with all the folks who followed in Carlin and Pryor's footsteps as far as that goes, I was well-versed in foul language long before I even understand the metaphors behind most of it.



mp3: "Better Living" by The Thing

VANDERMARK! VANCOUVER! TONIGHT!

Just a few short hours away... Vandermark! Vandermark! Vandermark!

mp3: "East Broadway Rundown" by the Vandermark 5

If this be Thursday...

It must be jazz time!
I'm five sleeps away from seeing Ken Vandermark (with The Thing) and I'm so excited, it'll probably only be four sleeps. Vandermark's main group, the Vandermark 5, released their 12th album earlier this year, called Beat Reader and it is smoking hot.
The Vanderman himself is going to be doing a workshop on Saturday, here in Vancouver, at Tom Lee Music on Granville at 1 p.m. I'm sure it will be 100% edifying.
I'm kinda bummed that I missed all of Vandermark's shows outside of Vancouver, but I'm definitely going to be at the show on Monday night, so I'm not heartbroken.
If Vandermark is a little too free for your jazz tastes, you don't have to feel left out on Monday night. The remarkable Molly Johnson will be at the Centre in Vancouver for the Performing Arts performing her inimitable brand of steamy vocal jazz with a pop bent. Aside from being an awesome lady with a great voice and sharp musical instincts, she's also the sister of one my all-time favourite tv detectives, Meldrick Lewis. Er, I mean of the actor who played him, Clark Johnson, utterer of such memorable lines as "You know, you live in your own little world cause don't nobody wanna live there with you."
Speaking of Beat Reader (see top), what's a Jazz Thursday without beat poetry? Sure, Ginsburg's okay and he hung out with Bob Dylan, but if you want the good stuff, dig some Gregory Corso or Lew Welch (who was quasi-step-father to none other than Huey Lewis: small world!).
Speaking of reading, in a moment of weakness I bought the current issue of Details. Yeesh. I used to read Details fairly regularly when I was a teenager, and in fact, an article in a fall 1995 issue about a Balkan sniper really energized my writing ambitions. I hardly read any print mags anymore, except old ones in waiting rooms and laundromats. But Batman's on the cover, so I figured why not? This is what happens when I'm between novels.
The Christian Bale profile was pretty trite, but I get the impression that's as much Bale's doing as the writer's. Bale seems like an arrogant a-hole, but y'know what? If I was as good and successful at my chosen lifework as he is--AND got to dress up as Batman without being called immature--I'd probably come across as a twat too. Also inside: a brief rant about nobody wants to hear how tired you are, claiming tiredness is the new status symbol, nevermind that the US economy is far down the crapper that, yeah, people are exhausted, it's unsustainable, we're all doomed, etc.; a profile titled "Josh Groban is Not a Tool", which sets out to prove that Groban is at least as hep as John Mayer, and that, like Mayer, even though his music sucks you should still respect him, because he's a dude; a pretty objectifying piece on "Hollywood Gross Out Girls", which claims that hot chicks shouldn't have personalities. Throw in a bunch of aspirational claptrap about unattainable manliness, and I'm feeling bad about the five dollars I spent, and even worse about the 45 minutes I lost reading the mag. Howev, there's a redeeming piece from my man Michael Chabon on talking to your kids about marijuana without being a hypocrite. FIVE DOLLARS WELL SPENT!

mp3: "New Acrylic (for Andreas Gursky)" by Vandermark 5
mp3: "Ode to the West Wind" by Gregory Corso
mp3: "Sleep in Late" by Molly Johnson

Thursday Jazz: new(ish) Inhabitants, plus Vandermark!

It was last July 1 that we went to Rime (now Lime) and saw Vancouver's the Inhabitants play a blistering set of skronked out space jazz/noise rock awesomeness. JP Carter's trumpet work is the centrepiece of this boffo combo, but Dave Sikula's guitar playing is nothing to shrug about either. Pete Schmitt and Skye Brooks are the rhythm section, and, y'know, they probably get short shrift, but they're awesome too.
It turns out that while I wasn't looking, the Inhabitants released a new album last November. I finally got my hands on The Furniture Moves Underneath and it kicks all kinds of ass. From loose, cosmic numbers to wild, kinda funked-over stomps, it's everything you want in an Inhabitants record. Even Downbeat loves it (4-star review in the May ish).
The Inhabs are gonna be playing at Ironworks in Vancouver on June 25 as part of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival.

mp3: "Kurt's Dirt" by the Inhabitants

Also part of the Jazz Festival, my Jazz Hero #1, Ken Vandermark is going to be here. And not just here, but he's got several Vandermark dates in the PNW. It looks like the 1999 recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship is going to be in my general neighbourhood for about a week, and I plan on seeing and hearing as much of him as I can. Even if it means ignoring my job and my loved ones. I'm talking about Ken Vandermark, dammit. Cut me some slack.

Vandermark's key appearance at the Jazz Fest will be June 23 at the Roundhouse as under the billing The Thing with Ken Vandermark, who recently released the four-cut extended improv recording Immediate Sounds on the Smalltown Superjazz label.

mp3: "Immediate Sounds" by The Thing with Ken Vandermark

But he's also going to playing shows as the Ken Vandermark/Paal Nilssen-Love Duo, which sounds tempting (especially the show in Roberts Creek, since I know how to get there). In the spirit of all that, here are some of the Vandermark tracks ABWAWBA has brought you in the past.

mp3: "Late Night Wait Around" by Portastatic with Ken Vandermark and Tim Mulvenna

mp3: "Jack Kirby Was Ripped Off" by the Ken Vandermark Quartet

mp3: "Rip, Rig & Panic Suite" by the Vandermark 5

Thursday are for Jazz

Slow week. Busy week.

I've got a few submissions from musical people sitting in my inbox, but haven't really been making/taking the time to listen to them and figure things out. Working. Writing. Posing for pictures. Thinking about the future. Working towards it.

Wade over at Signal Response has launched a new feature called Today. It's kinda like Twitter, but also not. Wade also recently linked to a conversation between ABWAWBA fave Douglas Wolk and David Hadju, author of The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. I would like to read that book, and I'm sure that one day I will.

Who do I call at Universal Music to come pick up those Hawksley Workman Christmas albums?

I finished Ian Rankin's Strip Jack earlier this week. My fourth Rebus novel. I'm not sure how I liked it. It definitely takes for granted that you are already interested in Rebus and his environs, since the crime angle is not quite as interesting or thrilling as in the other books. I mean, there's not even a corpse until page 65. The character work, however, is very enjoyable and makes the book worth reading for if you're into the series.

Taking a break from Rebus and Edinburgh, I've launched into Dan Fesperman's latest, The Amateur Spy. I suppose it's only a matter of time before we start seeing terrible movies based on Fesperman's excellent novels.

As you already know, we're going to see Wanda Sykes tomorrow night. This is doubly good because A) I like Wanda Sykes and B) it means I'm not going to be at work tomorrow night. It's not that I don't like being at work, it's just that I like not being at work even more.

Walking home last night/this morning, I saw many bats. In the stillness of pre-dawn Vancouver, they seemed huge, but not terrifying like they can seem in the August night out at Buffalo Pound Lake.

Is there a sweeter song in all of jazzdom than Roland Kirk's "The Creole Love Call"? I doubt it. If I was forced by some bizarre new federal law intended to impose someone else's warped morality on the nation insiduously tacked on to an Income Tax amendment to only listen to one artist for the rest of my earthly days, I would probably pick Roland Kirk. So far, no such law exists, but with this government, anything's possible. Eric Dolphy's "Iron Man" is pretty wicked, but not exactly sweet in the same way.

mp3: "The Creole Love Call" by Roland Kirk
mp3: "Iron Man" by Eric Dolphy