June 10th, 2008
Space, Condensed
So I watched the first two hours of When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions, the hotly anticipated (and heavily promoted) documentary series airing on the Discovery Channel last night. And I was pretty darned excited about it. I’ve been a space nut since before I entered kindergarten. I can tell you where on the NASA timeline I was born (two weeks before Apollo XIII launched). I’ve heard the stories before, and I’ve seen a lot of the footage, but it didn’t matter: this is the tale of humanity’s first shaky steps off the planet, a turning point in the entire history of the species. A story like that cannot be told too many times.
Guess what? I hated it.
Okay, that’s too strong. I was entertained. I learned a few things. I saw a lot of film that was new to me. I’m sure it looks great in HD. But I was also deeply disappointed.
How can you tell the story of Project Mercury in 56 minutes (minus commercials)? Heck, The Right Stuff needed three hours. Or more to the point, how can you tell the story of the Mercury 7 without letting us see who they were? “John Glenn was the level-headed one” is not sufficient. Almost nothing was said about why these seven men were chosen from the pool of candidates, what training they went through, or how being America’s first astronauts and instant celebrities affected their psyches and their lives.
How can you tell the story of Mercury (or, for that matter, of NASA) without even explaining the space race, for crying out loud? Yuri Gagarin gets about 10 seconds, but without the context of the Cold War and the devastating psychological blow of Sputnik (which gets no mention at all), the mad rush to reach the Moon seems meaningless. JFK’s pledge to reach the Moon by the end of the sixties is mentioned, and we get a few “boy were we surprised” reactions, but again there is no context given. Why such a short window? What was the effect on NASA? On public opinion? What happened when Kennedy died (again, no mention of that event)?
Instead, we jump from mission to mission, with the bulk of the time devoted to whatever near-disaster was averted on each. That’s understandable; it is television, after all. But without context, how are people in the audience—especially young viewers—supposed to care?
The filmmakers conducted a lot of interviews, from Gene Kranz to Glenn to the big catch, Neil Armstrong. But rather than letting these people tell the story, they have hacked the interviews to ribbons, sound bites of a single sentence each, and intercut them with quick edits of original footage, bang-bang-bang-bang-bang, all linked together by tense narration and action-movie music. It’s non-stop, it’s exhausting, and it doesn’t do justice to the incredible achievement of the Mercury Program.
Project Gemini, the subject of the second hour, seemed to fare better. In particular, the segment on Gemini IV and NASA’s first spacewalk showed some real depth, as did the dual Gemini VI/VII rendezvous mission. But still there was crucial context missing. What happened in the period between Mercury and Gemini? Nothing, apparently. Was NASA on schedule? Was there opposition? How much did it cost? Why were the Gemini missions conducted with two astronauts, and why were such experiments as EVA, rendezvous, and docking considered so important? In short, WHAT WAS THE PLAN FOR REACHING THE MOON? The documentary leaves all these questions unanswered, leaving little but a Cliffs Notes reading of the flights themselves.
Towards the end of the second hour, I began to suspect that this series might really be about Apollo. Perhaps these first two hours were just preliminaries to the main event, something to be dealt with quickly, and now we’ll get to the real meat of the series. I’m going to cling to that, and hope the remaining episodes are more satisfying. If not, I guess it’ll be time to dig out my DVD copy of From the Earth to the Moon.
Recommended Reading: June 10, 2008
One of the great blessings of this age of blogs and RSS feeds and instant publishing is that we now have access to more information about our favorite subjects—and can get to that information more easily—than ever before. The flip side of this is that a “pleasure reading” list can pile up quickly without constant vigilance, to the point where catching up with our online friends becomes a chore, or even an intimidating mountain of work.
That’s the position I find myself in right now. After a couple of weeks of dealing with looming (or missed) deadlines, sick family members and other distractions, I opened up Google Reader today to find I had nearly 100 articles flagged for perusal (and potential blog posting), with hundreds of others just sitting around, completely unviewed. Yeesh!
So here are some of the things I would have told you about last week if I’d had it together…
HOMECOMING ON MUDDY GROUND
truthdig.com—May 27, 2008
Larry Blumenfeld, who has been an astute observer and critic of the situation in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, uses the celebrated return of the Neville Brothers to this year’s Jazz & Heritage Festival as a jumping-off point for a searing commentary. Blumenfeld looks at the impact of rebuilding efforts on public housing, the city’s changing political and cultural climate, and what “coming home” really means when three years later, the wounds have not healed.
-----
ESPERANZA SPALDING
csmonitor.com—May 30, 2008
I’ve been a huge fan of the young bassist/singer Esperanza Spalding ever since JazzTimes passed me a copy of her album Junjo for review back in 2006 (ironically, they never ran the review). If you aren’t hip to Spalding yet, this profile by Stephen Humphries of the Christian Science Monitor should bring you around. Spalding’s early career path has been nothing short of astounding, bringing high-profile gigs, a record contract, and even a faculty position at the Berklee College of Music, all in her early twenties. Her latest album, Esperanza has just hit the street, and she’s playing at Yoshi’s Oakland on June 12.
-----
JAZZ SURVIVORS
nytimes.com—May 25, 2008
Who says jazz players die young? The New York Times‘ Philip Lutz looks at a few of the many graybeards who, working largely in obscurity, play small venues in and around New York City well into their eighth or ninth decades, never quite finding fame but keeping the spirit of the bebop era alive.
-----
JAZZ BECOMES NEW MELTING POT
mercurynews.com—May 25, 2008
In this preview piece for the San Jose Mercury News, Richard Scheinin links several performances from the SFJAZZ Spring Season into a brief survey of the globalization of jazz:
“...the global dimension is also important because it allows jazz to keep moving in fresh directions. Increasingly learned in conservatories, the music, some would argue, has been losing touch with its African-American heritage, so tightly entwined with blues and gospel.... While those roots remain essential to the music, the infusion of new players from around the world is stirring the pot, adding new folkloric and rhythmic ingredients.”
June 8th, 2008
“No Cover, No Minimum” - June 6, 2008
Man, things have been crazy over the past week or so! While I dig out, here’s the playlist from Friday’s from installment of “No Cover, No Minimum” on KZSU-FM....
HOUR 1 (0600 - 0700)
Nik Bartsch’s Ronin - “Modul 41_17” - Holon (ECM)
Richard Underhill - “Morse Code” - Moment In Time (Stubby)
Tigran Hamasyan Trio - “Part 1: Homesick” - New Era (Blujazz)
John Zorn & Bar Kokhba - “Gediel” - Lucifer: Book Of Angels, Vol. 10 (Tzadik)
Tango Negro Trio - “No Te Mueras Nunca” - La Vuelta Del Malon (Felmay)
Aquiles Baez - “Buscando Caiman En Boca ‘e Cano” - La Patilla (Cacao Musica)
Abigail Washburn & The Sparrow Quartet - “A Fuller Wine” Abigail Washburn & The Sparrow Quartet (Nettwerk)
Tony Trischka - “Salt River” - Territory (Smithsonian/Folkways)
Garrison Fewell & Eric Hofbauer - “A Cajun Raven” - The Lady Of Khartoum (Creative Nation)
HOUR 2 (0700 - 0800)
Tin Cup Serenade - “Aunt Hagar’s Blues” - Tin Cup Serenade (self released)
Felicia Carter - “Louise” - Feather / Step Lightly (Alberta)
Forgotten Souls Brass Band - “Lil’ Liza Jane” - Gone But Not Forgotten (New Orleans Music Online)
John Ellis & Double-Wide - “All Up In The Aisles” - Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow (Hyena)
Virginia Mayhew Septet - “Just A Blues” - A Simple Thank You (Renma)
Avery Sharpe - “Big Mac (Bro. Tyner)” - Legends & Mentors (JKNM)
Hans Glawischnig - “Line Drive” - Panorama (Sunnyside)
Eric Mcpherson - “Misako” - Continuum (Smalls)
Kurt Elling - “My Love, Effendi” - This Time It’s Love (Blue Note)
HOUR 3 (0800 - 0900)
Fredrik Ljungkvist & Yun Kan 5 - “Badaling” - Badaling (Caprice)
Lionel Loueke - “Seven Teens” - Karibu (Blue Note)
Esperanza Spalding - “Cuerpo Y Alma (Body & Soul)” - Esperanza (Heads Up)
Charles Lloyd Quartet - “Sweet Georgia Bright” - Rabo De Nube (ECM)
Gachupin - “Las Armas Secretas” - Gachupin (self released)
Chicha Libre - “Popcorn Andino” - Sonido Amazonico (Barbes)
Thelonious Moog - “Misterioso” - Yes We Didn’t (Grownup)
Southern Culture on the Skids - “8 Piece Box” - Dirt Track Date (Geffen)
Tune in to the next show, Friday, June 13 (eek!) from 6-9am Pacific time. KZSU is at 90.1 FM if you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, or you can listen online at kzsulive.stanford.edu. We’re also in the “Radio” tab of iTunes (look under College Radio)!
May 28th, 2008
Another One Bites the Dust
It’s been a bad, bad year for smooth jazz fans.
The Baltimore Sun reports that local smooth-jazz radio station WSMJ suddenly dropped the format last week in favor of the more demographically friendly “rock alternative” and a morning shock jock. In recent months, smooth jazz stations have folded in New York, Washington DC, Houston and Denver. They’re dropping like flies.
I have mixed feelings about this. One the one hand, smooth jazz is… um… hm. “Abomination” is too strong a word. Let me consult my thesaurus… “atrocity"… “disgrace"… “horror"… “obscenity"… “outrage"… “evil"… “crime"… “monstrosity"… “anathema"… “bane"… Ooh! Good!
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, smooth jazz is the bane of many “real” jazz fans and practitioners, a form of pop music with a dollop of jazz flavoring that—thanks to clever marketing—millions of undereducated people have come to mistake with the music we love. Jazz is to smooth as black coffee is to a sugar-free decaf low-fat latte with a caramel shot. Sorry, but that ain’t coffee. Meanwhile, the players of smooth jazz sell millions of CDs and grow rich, while the best players in straightahead jazz (never mind the avant-garde) sell maybe a few thousand, and often remain obscure even to dedicated listeners. So I’m not going to shed many tears for these big-wattage, smooth-spewing radio stations, while real jazz radio languishes with inadequate funding and 500-watt transmitters at the far left of the FM dial.
But on the other hand, what about the fans? Why shouldn’t people go ahead and drink that sugar-free decaf low-fat latte if that’s what they like? And why shouldn’t they be able to listen to Michael Bublé and Kenny G if those are the sounds they dig? There’s no denying this stuff is popular. One could also argue that there’s a small but significant halo effect, where someone listening to smooth radio might hear a stray Miles Davis or Chick Corea track and be moved to explore.
It’s also hard to say whether the loss of smooth jazz is an opportunity for regular jazz radio or a harbinger of doom. After all, if smooth jazz can’t make it in these big markets without getting squirreled away onto some HD-Radio rider channel (as in Baltimore), what chance do Coltrane, Joe Lovano and Nick Payton have? My guess is that it won’t affect real jazz radio stations much one way or the other. The format names may be similar, but the audiences and expectations are completely different.
Which brings me back to the whole notion of “live and let live”. I may not care when a smooth jazz station dies, but I saw the frustration my wife went through when the only country station in San Francisco changed formats, becoming indistinguishable from half a dozen other rock outlets. It was just stupid. Why abandon a loyal audience and exclusive ownership of a whole genre to duke it out with all those other stations, which already had their own audiences? I imagine smooth fans are asking themselves the same thing now.
In the end, San Francisco got another country station. I’m sure smooth jazz will come back too (assuming terrestrial radio doesn’t curl up and die anytime soon), maybe on smaller stations, probably with a slightly different mix of artists, and perhaps—one can only hope—with a new name.
May 24th, 2008
Graphic Content
Since I should be working on the layout of Jazz Notes right now, but instead I’m goofing off, let me at least pay tribute to graphic design through some blog linkages I’ve been sitting on for a few days…
A Day in Brands
In an interesting twist on consumerist culture, Dear Jane Sample maps out a “typical Friday” entirely through the logos of products Jane interacts with (well, almost entirely). It’s clever, fascinating, and highly revealing. I don’t think I’ve ever had a Friday evening quite like that, but hey, more power to Jane. [found via Brand New]
R.I.P., Everything
Richard Watson, author of Future Files: A History of the Next 50 Years, created this extinction timeline for the years 1950-2050 [PDF]. Some entries are serious (Great Barrier Reef, extinct in 2030), others more tongue-in-cheek (Rocky films, 2032). It’s disappointing to think that we might have to deal with Paris Hilton for another 15 years before she finally falls into well-deserved obscurity, but at least we’re pretty much done with “mending things” ... oh, wait, that’s not a positive, is it? [found via DO]
Hosuton, I Think We Have a Cliché
My wife and I have a running dialogue going about trends in book cover design, which will have to be the subject of another post. But that conversation made this collection of book and movie between-the-leg shots even funnier. It is, as one of the pulp covers says, “Sweet Agony”. [found via DO]
RSS
Atom