Synopses & Reviews
Review
andldquo;Microgroove is a brilliant contribution to the tradition of Nat Hentoff, Lester Bangs, Robert Christgau, John Rockwell, and Robert Palmer. John Corbett loves improvisation and can write about unusual and nonpopular music in popular ways, taking readers behind the curtain to help them understand what creativity means and the conditions under which it comes to be. Corbett plays against the ultra-narrowcasting concept that dominates media now, and seeks audiences willing to chance an encounter with the unexpected. The genre-busting of Microgroove is highly laudable and sorely needed.andquot;and#160;
Review
andquot;John Corbett likes, Iand#39;m sorry - LOVES - all kinds of music. But who doesnand#39;t? Well most people really just dig one kind of genre or other but there are those who are into it ALL and continue to seek and follow the wild threads from African American jazz, blues, RandB and hip hop to the indie rock heart beat of college kid psychosis to the luscious worlds of Braziliana to European free improvisation to Japanese noise and pop paroxysm. One may suspect this erudite fellow as a chin scratching academic but Iand#39;ve been in the passenger seat next to this dude while heand#39;s blasting Chicago blues cassettes and heand#39;s hammering the steering wheel and fully turned on by the dripping music moment of creation and emotion. To share and express the impression of expression in discussion to the intellect and to the cosmic fire, this is where the righteously engaged Corbett comes into play. The respect, consideration and wonder is genuine. As music defines his aesthetic perspective, so he playfully identifies our sentience with the promise of music, the power of foreverness.andquot;
Synopsis
Microgroove continues John Corbettand#39;s exploration of diverse musics, with essays, interviews, and musician profiles that focus on jazz, improvised music, contemporary classical, rock, folk, blues, post-punk, and cartoon music, as well as painting, design, dance, and poetry.
About the Author
John Corbett is a music critic, record producer, and curator. He is the author of Extended Play: Sounding Off from John Cage to Dr. Funkenstein, also published by Duke University Press. His writing has appeared in Downbeat, The Wire, the Chicago Reader, and numerous other publications.and#160; He is the co-owner of Corbett vs. Dempsey, an art gallery in Chicago.
Table of Contents
Preface: Tympanum of the Other Frog
Acknowledgments
Introduction
One. On The Road, Into The Cul-De-Sac
Joe Harriott and Bernie McGann: Flying without Ornette
Michael Hurley: Jockoand#39;s Lament
Mayo Thompson: Genre of One
John Stevens: Unpopular Populists
Peter Brandouml;tzmann Tentet: Freeways
Steve Lacy: Sojourner Saxophone
David Grubbs: Postcards from the Edge
Voice Crack: From Nothing to Everything
Two. Exigeneses Of Creative Music
Milford Graves: Pulseology
Out of Nowhere: Deleuze, Grandauml;we, Cadence
Carla Bley and Steve Swallow: Feeding Quarters to the Nonstop Mental Jukebox
Misha Mengelberg: No Simple Calculations for Life
Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink: Natural Inbuilt Contrapuncto
Form Follows Faction? Ethnicity and Creative Music
Anthony Braxton: Ism vs. Is
Anthony Braxton: Bildungsmusikandmdash;Thoughts on Composition 171
Paul Lowens: Lo Our Lo
Clark Coolidge: The Improvised Line
Nathaniel Mackey: Steep Incumbencies
Sun Ra: From the Windy City to the Omniverseandmdash;Chicago Life as a Street Priest of D.I.Y. Jazz
Fred Anderson: The House That Fred Built
Three. Ululations And Other Vocal Stimulants
Sun Ra: Queer Voice
Jaap Blonk: Uncommon Tongue
PJ Harvey: Motherand#39;s Tongue
Aural Sex: The Female Orgasm in Popular Sound (coauthored with Terri Kapsalis)
Liz Phair and Lou Barlow: On Music, Sex, TV, and Beyond
Liz Phair and Kim Gordon: Exile in Galville?
Koko Taylor: The Blue Queen Cooks
Brion Gysin and Steve Lacy: Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permuted
Four. The Horn Section
Ornette Coleman: Doing Is Believing
Roscoe Mitchell: Citizen of Sound
Fred Anderson and Von Freeman: Tenacity
George Lewis: Interactive Imagination
Mats Gustafsson: MG at Half-C
Ken Vandermark: Six Dispatches from the Memory Bank
Ken Vandermark and Joe McPhee: Mutual Admiration Society
Peter Brandouml;tzmann and Evan Parker: Bring Something to the Table
Five. Track Marks
Oncology of the Record Album
Discaholic or Vinyl Freak? Mats Gustafsson Interrogates John Corbett
Twenty-Seven Enthusiasms: A Spontaneous Listening Session
A Very Visual Kind of Music: The Cartoon Soundtrack beyond the Screen
R. L. Burnside and Jon Spencer: Fattening Frogs for Snake Drive
Before and After Punk: The Comp as Teaching Tool
Raymond Scott: Cradle of Electronica
Six. Melodic Line and Tone Color
Peter Brandouml;tzmann: Graphic Equalizer
Albert Oehlen: Bionic Painting
Albert Oehlen: Mangyandmdash;A Conversation and a Playlist
Christopher Wool: Impropositionsandmdash;Improvisation, Dub Painting
Christopher Wool: Into the Woodsandmdash;Six Meditations on the Interdisciplinary
Sun Ra: An Afro-Space-Jazz Imaginaryandmdash;The Printed Record of El Saturn
Seven. The Texture Of Refusal
Helmut Lachenmann: Hellhandouml;rig, or the Intricacies of Perceptiveness
Guillermo Gregorio: Madi Music
Experimental Oriental: New Music and Other Others
Afterword: A Concise History of Music
Grooving On: Selected Listening
Credits
Index