jor
|
|
response 3 of 5:
| 
Jan 24 23:31 UTC 1995 |
Return-Path: <duke@snafu.win.net>
Reply-To: duke@snafu.win.net (Bill Duke)
To: jor@umcc.umich.edu, fbacik@aol.com
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 11:44:48
Subject: Re: Holly Cole
Holly Cole at the Montreal Jazz Festival
I've no idea who Holly Cole is. Can't say I've even heard the name
before. I'm just not keeping up these days.
I thought the songlist was interesting so here it is:
Interesting, indeed. From her repertoire, it's hard to say what kind
of singer she is. What sort of approach did she take with these
songs? Jazz? Jazzoid? Anyone who does "Slow Boat to China" AND
"Alison" has get a head start with me. ("Slow Boat to China" was the
first tune I remember hearing by Charlie Parker. Probably not the
first song I heard, but the first one that stuck with me. I remember
thinking how unlikely it was that the guy would take (what I regarded
as) a banal pop tune, and making it sound COOL! Changed my whole
attitude toward choosing material, i.e., selecting tunes solely on
formal grounds, on the basis of the potential in the tune itself (what
melodic material there is to work with, etc.), instead of whatever
pop cultural associations the song has acquired. Probably the
ultimate example of this is Coltrane's "My Favorite Things." Almost
overnight the song went from a sappy show tune to a tour de force of
catalytic improvisation. Pushing the outside of the envelope, as
Yeager might say. (But who would've thought to choose that envelope?)
1. Where is Cole from? Is that a midwestern/nasal accent I hear?
I wish I knew. Now my interest is piqued.
2. That was Cole singing on the commercial that used Calling You,
right?
No idea. I can't even place this commercial. (This is pathetic.) Radio
commercial? TV? What was the commercial for?
3. That was NOT Cole who had the recent airplay with
I can see clearly now, right? Who was it?
When did Nash write this? What album?
I'm battin' .000 here. For some reason, I thought it was Jimmy Cliff
('course, I could've sworn he wrote it, too). It's hard for me to
associate this tune with Graham Nash.
4. Is Holly Cole a jazz singer?
Beats me. What did she sound like in Montreal? A pop singer doing
jazz? A jazz singer doing pop? None of the above? Speaking of the
Montreal Jazz Festival, are you familiar with Detroit-Montreaux jazz
festival? (Have I asked you this before?)
The Detroit-Montreaux jazz festival is a tradition begun after I left
Michigan (sometime after 1977). A jazzbo from San Francisco told me
about it on the UseNet jazz group (rec.music.bluenote). He was
surprized I'd never heard of it. I'm gonna try to catch some of it this
year, if I can wangle a trip to Michigan in September. It's held at the
"Hart Plaza" (whatever that is -- something they built or renamed after
I'd left).
Speaking of jazz, I've been reading an interesting novel called
"Coming Through Slaughter" by Michael Ondaatje. (He won something or
other -- National Book Award? Booker Prize? Pulitzer? -- last year
for "The English Patient," which I've not read.)
"Coming Through Slaughter" is a novel only because it doesn't really
qualify as anything else. It's part history, part fiction, part
meditation. It's focused (pretty accurately) on the life of Buddy
Bolden, cornet player and jazz pioneer. Bolden's one of those
shadowy figures from the earliest days of the New Orleans jazz scene.
He started out playing in brothels in Storyville around 1900. (He may
appear in E.J. Bellocq's well-known "Portraits of Storyville," a
chronicle in photographs of life in the district at the turn of the
century.)
Many of those who heard him (including Louis Armstrong and King
Oliver) insisted he was incomparable, miles ahead of anyone else on
the scene in those days. Unfortunately, his emotional instability grew
worse with time, and in 1907 he was commited to an insane asylum,
where he died in 1931. Sadly, no sounds of him playing were ever
captured on record. (If there's a Holy Grail for jazz historians and
archivists, it would have to be the three wax cylinders he's believed
to have recorded in the early 1900s. There are glancing references to
them in the reminiscences of some of Bolden's contemporaries, but the
cylinders themselves have never been found.) Fascinating guy, real
interesting book. Anyways....
Let me know what you find out re: H. Cole.
-- Bill
|
jor
|
|
response 4 of 5:
|
Jan 24 23:38 UTC 1995 |
I thought the songlist was interesting so here it is:
Interesting, indeed. From her repertoire, it's hard to say what kind
of singer she is. What sort of approach did she take with these
songs? Jazz? Jazzoid? Anyone who does "Slow Boat to China" AND
I did not think it was jazzy, despite the jazz
standards, her Vegas-style physical appearance, etc.
No scatting; no superfluous frills, no pointless
exploration of the limits of her range of pitch.
Just pure statements of the melodies, with the
only embellishments being the natural timbre of
her voice, used like a musical instrument.
1. Where is Cole from? Is that a midwestern/nasal accent I hear?
I wish I knew. Now my interest is piqued.
I'm glad it hasn't peaked.
2. That was Cole singing on the commercial that used Calling You,
right?
No idea. I can't even place this commercial. (This is pathetic.) Radio
commercial? TV? What was the commercial for?
You heard it, I believe it was for a phone company.
"I . . . I-I . . .
am call . . . ing you . . .
Unfortunately this one portion was taken out out context
in the ad and repeated. I think it turned a lot of people
off, haunting though it was, and maybe explains why I
got ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSE to my Cole items on a couple
local bulleting boards. There's more to the tune that
this one excerpt.
3. That was NOT Cole who had the recent airplay with
I can see clearly now, right? Who was it?
When did Nash write this? What album?
I'm battin' .000 here. For some reason, I thought it was Jimmy Cliff
('course, I could've sworn he wrote it, too). It's hard for me to
associate this tune with Graham Nash.
I was surprised when the credits named Nash.
As surprised as when she broke into the Costello tune.
4. Is Holly Cole a jazz singer?
Beats me. What did she sound like in Montreal? A pop singer doing
jazz? A jazz singer doing pop? None of the above? Speaking of the
My main interest is her emphasis on the hypnotic,
downbeat oriented groove. That's what I noticed when
I first heard her on NPR doing 'Holiday;' a simple
melody, repeated like a vamp, just pounding the
downbeat into the ground. It's hypnotic, it's
downbeat oriented, it's like Keith Jarrett:
It's basically rock.
I know I'm looking for an arguement here. When I've
told people similiar music is not jazz, I heard the
argument, "Well, it's not rock!"
"So that's what jazz is to you, anything that's not rock?"
"Duh . ." totally speechless. OK, thanks for your
thoughtful, considered argument.
Montreal Jazz Festival, are you familiar with Detroit-Montreaux jazz
festival? (Have I asked you this before?)
The Detroit-Montreaux jazz festival is a tradition begun after I left
Michigan (sometime after 1977). A jazzbo from San Francisco told me
about it on the UseNet jazz group (rec.music.bluenote). He was
surprized I'd never heard of it. I'm gonna try to catch some of it this
year, if I can wangle a trip to Michigan in September. It's held at the
"Hart Plaza" (whatever that is -- something they built or renamed after
I'd left).
Huh. You ex-Detroiters. Hart Plaza is an outdoor
amphitheatre at the foot of Woodward, on the
riverfront, between Cobo Hall and Ford
Auditorium.
The DM Jazz festival is too commercial and traditional
for me. You'll hear local geeks call it 'Montrose.'
I have a tape, however, from a decade ago, of the
truly wild performance of Griot Galaxy. This audacious
group sounds like Detroit's answer to Sun Ra . . sort of.
They disbanded shortly after this gig when the leader,
Farouk Z. Bey, suffered massive injuries in a motorcycle
accident. You can hear annoying chit-chat of the see-
and-be-seen crowd, and the clink of dinnerware at the
posh hotels overlooking the Plaza, slowly transmute
and grow to an animalistic frenzy as the moment nears
when Griot Galaxy takes the stage. After they blow
Detroit a new asshole everything is back to normal.
Unfortunately.
Speaking of jazz, I've been reading an interesting novel called
"Coming Through Slaughter" by Michael Ondaatje. (He won something or
other -- National Book Award? Booker Prize? Pulitzer? -- last year
for "The English Patient," which I've not read.)
"Coming Through Slaughter" is a novel only because it doesn't really
qualify as anything else. It's part history, part fiction, part
meditation. It's focused (pretty accurately) on the life of Buddy
Bolden, cornet player and jazz pioneer. Bolden's one of those
shadowy figures from the earliest days of the New Orleans jazz scene.
He started out playing in brothels in Storyville around 1900. (He may
appear in E.J. Bellocq's well-known "Portraits of Storyville," a
chronicle in photographs of life in the district at the turn of the
century.)
Many of those who heard him (including Louis Armstrong and King
Oliver) insisted he was incomparable, miles ahead of anyone else on
the scene in those days. Unfortunately, his emotional instability grew
worse with time, and in 1907 he was commited to an insane asylum,
where he died in 1931. Sadly, no sounds of him playing were ever
captured on record. (If there's a Holy Grail for jazz historians and
archivists, it would have to be the three wax cylinders he's believed
to have recorded in the early 1900s. There are glancing references to
them in the reminiscences of some of Bolden's contemporaries, but the
cylinders themselves have never been found.) Fascinating guy, real
interesting book. Anyways....
Let me know what you find out re: H. Cole.
-- Bill
|