Writer's Note: I have been reading the new books by Toni Morrison and Henry Louis Gates Jr., enjoying films such as A Dangerous Method and Tree of Life, and diverse music. However, this internet log, originally intended to focus on visual art, particularly on gallery reviews, is on hiatus...
In March some of the films I screened are: The Art of Getting By, The Contract, Cowboys & Aliens, Dream House, 50/50, The Guard, Harry Potter (Deathly Hallows, 1 & 2), Hell and Back Again, The Hunters, The Ides of March, Melancholia, as well as the first two seasons of Luther, featuring Idris Elba, and Todd Haynes’ Mildred Pierce, with Kate Winslet. I know George Clooney’s The Ides of March, based on the play Farragut North, has been called cynical, but I thought it was good at explaining how some of the regrettable compromises occur in politics: that financial, personal, and professional, as well as political, pressures exist and work on politicians, distracting them from high ideals. Many people do not understand why things are as they are, and this is one of the films that help to explain that.
In March some of the films I screened are: The Art of Getting By, The Contract, Cowboys & Aliens, Dream House, 50/50, The Guard, Harry Potter (Deathly Hallows, 1 & 2), Hell and Back Again, The Hunters, The Ides of March, Melancholia, as well as the first two seasons of Luther, featuring Idris Elba, and Todd Haynes’ Mildred Pierce, with Kate Winslet. I know George Clooney’s The Ides of March, based on the play Farragut North, has been called cynical, but I thought it was good at explaining how some of the regrettable compromises occur in politics: that financial, personal, and professional, as well as political, pressures exist and work on politicians, distracting them from high ideals. Many people do not understand why things are as they are, and this is one of the films that help to explain that.
Time moves quickly; and it is hard to believe that it is only days away from being April. The year has had its tumult. I have been focused on writing some music commentary, and have an idea for writing focused on significant African-American films, as well as a slow-growing fiction project—but have felt frustration regarding the professional reception of a completed work. The larger world has not been still or serene: the accidental death of singer Whitney Houston, the contentious and mind-dimming Republican primaries, the ongoing violence in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the street murder of a young black man Trayvon Martin are facts in the news, facts that trouble the heart.
I have just read Rick Moody’s On Celestial Music, his collection of rather long-winded, thoughtful, and impressively sensitive and wide-ranging music essays (he discusses Meredith Monk, the Magnetic Fields, Wilco, the Lounge Lizards, and Pete Townsend, as well as experimental music, spirituality, music standards, computers in music, and more). As well, I have begun reading Blackness in Opera, an essay anthology on classical, folk, and popular music, on opera, racial politics, and public ethics and image, edited by Naomi Andre, Karen Bryan, and Eric Saylor…I had wondered, at different times over a period of years, about the history of black music criticism, and recently passed on a query about this to the Center for Black Music Research, and received a response from a librarian there (Thank you, Ms. Flandreau); a useful list of references:
Historiography
Dougan, John M. “Two steps from the blues: creating discourse and constructing canons in blues criticism.” (Thesis: College of William and Mary, 2001)
Floyd, Samuel a., Jr. “Black music and writing black music history: American music and narrative strategies.” Black Music Research Journal 28:1 (2008) p. 111-121.
Garabedian, Steven Patrick. “Reds, whites, and blues: blues music, white scholarship, and American cultural politics.” (Thesis: University of Minnesota, 2004).
Maultsby, Portia K., Burnim, Mellonee V., and Oehler, Susan E. “Intellectual history,” In: African American Music: An Introduction. (New York: Routledge, 2006) pp. 7-32.
Radano, Ronald Michael. “Narrating black music’s past.” Radical History Review 84 (2002) p. 115-
Ramsey, Guthrie P., Jr. “Cosmopolitan of provincial? Ideology in early black music historiography, 1867-1940.” Black Music Rsearch Journal 16 (1996) p. 11-42.
Ramsey, Guthrie P., Jr. “The pot liquor principle: developing a black music criticism in American music studies.” American Music 22 (2004) p. 284-295.
Ramsey, Guthrie P. “Secrets, lies and transcriptions: revisions on race, black music and culture.” In: Western music and race, ed. Brown, Julie. (Cambridge: Cambrdge University Press, 2007). Pp. 24-36.
Ramsey, Guthrie P., Jr., and Angermueller, Rudolph. “Who hears here? Black music, critical bias, and the musicological skin trade.” The Musical Quarterly 85 (2001) p. 1-52.
Strong, Willie F. “Philosophies of African American Music History.” (Thesis: UCLA, 1994).
Wilkinson, Christopher. “A new master narrative of Western musical history: an American perspective.” In: De-canonizing music history. (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2009) p. 37-48.
Anthologies:
Brackett, David, ed. The pop, rock and soul reader. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Clark, Andrew, ed. Riffs and choruses: a new jazz anthology. New York: Continuum, 2001.
Conyers, James L., Jr. ed. African American jazz and rap: social and philosophical examinations of black expressive behavior. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001.
Koenig, Karl, ed. Jazz in print (1856-1929): an anthology of selected early readings. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2002.
Lornell, Kip, ed. From jubilee to hip hop: readings in African American music. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2010.
O’Meally, Robert G., ed. The jazz cadence of American culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
Perkins, William Eric, ed. Droppin’ science: critical essays on rap music and hip hop culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996.
Tracy, Steven C., ed. Write me a few of your lines: a blues reader. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999.
