Cecil Taylor, jazz pianist

Out to loyalty to a former painting professor’s good musical tastes, I keep trying Cecil Taylor. I think of him as a kind of analytical cubist jazz player. I recently picked up a used copy of Love for Sale (Blue Note, 1959) and have given it repeated listenings, which is not always the case with this artist. I recommend the title cut for those who are a little bit brave and curious. Love for Sale made me revisit my copy of New York City R&B (Candid, 1961.) “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be” is a hoot, including a brief and wonderful solo by trumpeter Clark Terry, of all people!

For those listeners interested in really good drummers, Dennis (or Denis) Charles is on the 1959 set, and Billy Higgins is on the 1961.

TASCHEN Monet

Taschen’s small-format artist monographs are amazing, aren’t they. Clean, friendly book design, and smart, accessible content, and outstanding reproduction quality set the bar very high for users of art books. Christoph Heinrich’s 2007 Monet is an excellent resource for readers with a casual interest in Monet, and it’s full of pleasant surprises for artists and scholars who have a more serious interest. I studied Monet in a graduate art history class, and I refer to Impressionism in a theory course, so Heinrich’s explanation of the Salon and Monet’s interactions with it provided me good reminders and new insights about the context of his beginnings as a French painter. (My bonus serendipity about this title is that I picked it up while reading through Zola’s The Ladies Paradise. The time period of Heinrich’s first chapter and Zola’s novel align precisely.) And the opening, verso, full-page reproduction of Studio Still Life, 1861, is gorgeous!

Wayne Shorter 1964 playlist

Taking cues from Ethan Iverson (The New Yorker, Aug 25 2018), I’ve assembled a short playlist from Wayne Shorter’s three Blue Note albums in 1964. The three—well-known to serious listeners and accessible to casual listeners—are Night Dreamer, Juju, and Speak No Evil. Iverson calls Shorter the “greatest living jazz composer,” and these sides are more than ample evidence for that claim. The backing musicians are all superb; Elvin Jones plays on every date, and I’ve made this claim before: Jones is at his finest with Shorter on Blue Note. I was raised on Jones behind Coltrane on Impulse!, but the Blue Note dates (with Shorter and with others) bring out a fully dimensional master.

Here’s my playlist: “Night Dreamer,” “Armageddon,” “Yes or No,” “Twelve More Bars to Go,” “Witch Hunt,” and “Infant Eyes.” (Left to my own I might have made a few different choices, but I really like what Iverson helped me to hear.)

Small Genius

I have long been a fan of David Small’s genius for picture book illustration. The much-awarded Gardener, 1997, demonstrates his exceptional gifts for: line-and-color technique, perfectly placed details and peripheral visuals, well-developed characters (especially grumpy Uncle Jim), and dynamic compositions. What the MacMillan Publishing website samples show are important narrative episodes, but what is not seen here are the two-page spreads in which triangular, spatial arrangements of narrative interests usually move from left to right. The Gardener is composed entirely of two-page spreads, most of them anchored by an accompanying letter. This particular book is a virtuoso display of linear perspective too, but it never gets in the way. Maybe that’s another highest compliment earned by Small’s genius—it never gets in the way.