Sunday, August 30, 2009

home again

i've decided i can't really write any more about the week (his last) i just spent with my pop, or our complicated relationship, because he was a very private cat and i have to respect that.

inspahrd by a link terry posted to an essay by gtrist morgan craft on "a new black american avant garde," i'm re-reading greg tate's flyboy in the buttermilk while listening to ornette and george clinton (who, i forgot, headlines jazz by the boulevard on 9.11, which means _that's_ where i'll be if i'm not working that night). i read tate's scrawl -- which conflates b-boy street slang with highly convoluted academese -- in the village voice, and this book appeared when i was recently discharged from the military, about to get divorced, and listening to plenty ornette, miles, cecil, and p-funk, making tate my most influential music scribe between st. lester and clinton heylin. (the following year i'd return to rekkid retail on a moonlighting basis to help pay my child support and rediscover dee-troit ramalama. but that was later.)

on my one visit to the princeton record exchange this trip, i copped o.c.'s dancing in your head (the first place i heard shannon jackson's drums back in '76 and a joyous explosion that just might be its creator's masterpiece) and of human feelings (which really belongs to bassist jamaladeen tacuma and is ornette's most organic-sounding outing with prime time) while passing on body meta (which features the most disgusting distortion box-driven tone in all eternity from charlie ellerbee) and virgin beauty (which was released on columbia and had jerry garcia on it), as well as a last exit album (i forgot to look for power tools' strange meeting, dammit, and they had copies of every arthur blythe album except the one i wanted, illusions). also copped another david murray octet side (home); words can't express the delight i feel in seeing the black saint label spinning on my turntable after 30 years.

tomorrow terry invited me out for an early morning walk-run, then i have to mail a rekkid to dennis gonzalez, make a bunch of phone calls, and cook scallops for din-din. feels good.

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