Things that have changed
Page 170 The website address for the discussion Gays in Jazz has been changed and now reads http://www.najp.org/events/talkingjazz/transcript1.html
Things I’ve changed my mind about
Nothing major yet, although I’m still looking...
Things I never knew
And people and ideas recently discovered
Chapter 2 Jazz happens in real time, once
The phrase which forms the title of this chapter is one of my mantras but, as I write in jazzcontinuum, it may well be replaced by the slightly more enigmatic ‘jazz is like a banana - you eat it on the spot’.
Page 93 Reading a piece on Charles Ives on The Slate website I came across the following which I feel has some relevance to the way Ellington thought about his longer works:
‘When Ives resigned from his last church music-director job in 1902 and plunged into experimental work, for a time he abjured the old genres like symphony and sonata. "The nice German recipe," he growled. "To hell with it!" He invented his own kind of large work called a "set," an assemblage of independently written pieces arranged in terms of contrast and programmatic theme.’
From This American Composer, Why you should listen to Charles Ives by Jan Swafford.
Page 105 Brian Priestley points out that 'Blood Count' ‘probably had an arrangement fully written out by Strayhorn - especially as there's a theory that it was just a showbiz story about being composed in the hospital and it may have existed for some time before that.’
Page 225 Brian Priestley writes: ‘Regarding the 'description' of Harlem Air Shaft's alleged programmatic content, were you aware of the apparent fact (mentioned in the more recent RCA reissue notes for the Centennial 24-CD box or the 3-CD Never No Lament reissue) that, when it was done in the studio, it was logged as being Rumpus In Richmond? Last year I speculated publicly whether this was about Richmond, Yorkshire or Richmond, Surrey (joke!) and was informed by Ellington authority Steve Lasker that it was about Richmond, Virginia where they had some kind of racial incident in 1939. There's always something new to learn...’
Page 301 The Charles Ives quote referred to above also has some relevance to the subject of jazz form.
Chapter 14 Taking a Chance
Talking about complete composers: Henry Threadgill is a brief look at a composer whose views are similar to mine, but where the end results are different.
Links to other relevant writings
Some articles and thoughts on matters raised in the book are regularly added to jazzcontinuum
Chapter 8 Infinite Possibilities
The Shape of Jazz to come is a transcription of a discussion on the teaching of free jazz between Allan Chase, Ed Sarath and Graham Collier.
Chapter 10 It ain’t who you are, (it’s the way that you do it)
Is jazz America’s classical music? points to the way the phrase ‘jazz is America’s classical music’ is used almost indiscriminately by American observers as a lazy stick to beat off any European jazz pretensions. Included in the article is an extract from this chapter.
An earlier item entitled Saeta’s Influence speaks of the way some Italian jazz composers have managed to incorporate outside influences, such as classical singing, Gregorian chants and the spoken word, into their music, and how Saeta may have shown the way.
Part 5 Directing 14 Jackson Pollocks
Revealing Alternatives takes a closer look at two recorded versions of The Third Colour, one of the pieces discussed in this section.
A few bloopers that have come to light since publication
Page 15 Saxophonist and educator Frank Griffith points out that his name does not have a final ‘s’ as I have it in my notices of thanks to those who read the book in manuscript. My apologies.
Page 24 ‘Ornithology’ is cited as one of the many jazz tunes built on Rhythm changes, whereas, as any fule knows, it’s based on ‘How High the Moon’. My apologies to anyone I misled, and my thanks to critic Brian Priestley for pointing this out.
Page 170 Ken Waxman of jazzword noticed that we have misspelt Fred Hersch’s name. Our thanks to Ken for pointing this out, and our apologies to Fred for the mistake.
Page 179 Rest assured that we did read the book before sending it off to the printers but a gremlin must have crept into the type-setting room as there is a hanging ‘g’ and some white space on this page. Sorry!
Page 191 Small mistake with the form of the soloing chord sequence of ‘Django’. The A section is 12 bars long (6 bars repeated) not 16 as I said. Thanks again to Brian Priestley for pointing this out.
Page 194 The Charles Fox quote near the bottom of the page should read ’the sudden transformation of the unexpected into the inevitable’, rather than, as we had, ‘invitable’.
Page 218 The comment attributed to Gene Santori here was a mis-attribution of a comment quoted on page 171 by Grover Sales. As Brian Priestley said, ‘same initials different guy’.