Comments from the author
about things that have changed and things that he has changed his mind about,
as well as things he forgot to include, and people and ideas he has recently discovered.
Links will also be made to his blog and list of recommendations at jazzcontinuum.com.
General
Added August 2009
A page with click-throughs to more information about the books and CDs referred to in the text is in the process of being added to this site.
Introduction
Added June 2009
Page 15 In the first of what I hope aren’t too many discoveries of misspellings, 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.
See below for the second of what, we are told, is normally three typos unfound until after publication!
Chapter One Something borrowed, Something new
Added October 2009
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.
Chapter 2 Jazz happens in real time, once
Added April 2009
The phrase which forms the title of this chapter is one of my mantras but, as my jazzcontinuum blog of April 29th 2009, says, it may well be replaced by the slightly more enigmatic ‘jazz is like a banana - you eat it on the spot’.
Chapter 6 Thinking of a Better Way
Added June 2009
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.
Added October 2009
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.’
Chapter 10 It ain’t who you are, (it’s the way that you do it)
Added April 2009
A blog entitled Saeta’s Influence was posted on jazzcontinuum on April 23rd, 2009, which spoke 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.
Added June 2009
Following an item on Gianluigi Trovesi in the jazz blog at NPR I sent a comment to them which was expanded on in a blog on jazzcontinuum entitled How Long, oh Lord, how long? where, not for the first time, I attack the belief in some quarters that jazz has to be American to qualify as jazz.
…
That blog was referred to on the jazz,com website under two headlines I took exception to, which I expanded on in a subsequent blog, which was again commented on at jazz.com. Although I don’t agree with their stance, I’m pleased they’re paying attention!
Added August 2009
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.
Chapter 11 No More Blues?
Added August 2009
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!
Added October 2009
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.
Added April 2009
Page 216-7 My classic advanced arrangement - Paul Grabowsky’s ‘Strange Meeting’ from Ringing the Bell Backwards has been remastered and is now published by aao records in a new edition. The album was recently reviewed for Paris Transatlantic by my partner John Gill .
Added October 2009
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’.
NB: The website address for the discussion Gays in Jazz discussed on page 170 is misnamed in the notes (page 320). It should read ‘… jazz/transcript1’. Apologies for both mistakes.
Updated January 2010
The website address has been changed and now reads http://www.najp.org/events/talkingjazz/transcript1.html
Chapter 13 I hear a symphony
Added October 2009
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...’
Chapter 16 ‘Play a Rat Patrol Sound’
Added June 2009
Page 301 The Charles Ives quote referred to in ‘New Thoughts on Chapter 6’ above also has some relevance to the subject of jazz form.