Grachan Moncur III

At some point I'm going to do some lengthy writing about Grachan Moncur III, whose Evolution (1964) has been spinning around in my head pretty much non-stop for a couple of weeks now. But for now, just this:

I Tweeted .

See, as I was chasing down some leads on Mr. Moncur, I found out that he had played on an album by Jackie McLean...Destination... Out! (also from 1964). Not only played on, but wrote most of as well--3 of the 4 tunes. I knew this because of my good friends at Wikipedia and because I first listened to the album on YouTube, wherein the credits were given to reflect this fact. But then I went over to Spotify to see if they had anything else I should have a listen to, and for some reason I hit the link for Destination...Out!. Here's what came up:

Hmpf. I checked back on Wikipedia to make sure that I'd read the information there correctly, and found that I had. So I was pretty sure that Spotify had gotten it wrong. But, then again, I've caught Wikipedia in a couple of errors before (and yes, I corrected them; you're welcome), so I wanted to make assurance doubly sure. How to do that, though? Well, bright boy that I am, I went to eBay and found some copies of the Destination...Out! album for sale, and went through pictures until I found one of the back cover:

Mr. DeMille?

So there you had it. Being the fellow that I am, I felt a deep need to see this error corrected. Mr. Moncur deserves better treatment than this, you know? So I looked for a way to contact Spotify, and eventually decided that a direct Tweet was the best shot, so this:

God is in the details, brahs and tahs...so we've got to take care of the details, right?

No response yet, but here's hoping.

And 🗞 as it happens, over course.

Thinking about Ukraine, the pandemic, my marriages....

 

DDR: The Making of Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and his Masterpiece by Eric Nisenson

 

20 pages of introduction and stuff, then 236 pages of Book Proper for a total of 256 pages, also known as About 12 1/2 days' worth of reading on my DDR schedule...unless it proves to be particularly interesting, in which case probably a week. I was quite satisfied with Ashley Kahn's book on Kind of Blue...so much so that I'm now planning to read his A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album...but I also wanted more on Kind of Blue, so I found Eric Nisenson's book at the Louisville Free Public Library. (Thank you, LFPL.) And speaking of John Coltrane, Nisenson also wrote Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest, which (1) sounds like my 🍵 & (2) is not available via the LFPL, but is through the Internet Archive. So that might happen, too. Hmmm. This Jazz Unit's Syllabus is getting longer as we go, Professor Brother K. Yeah, sometimes you don't know how deep the hole goes until you climb in. 

Day 1 (Jazz Day 41 / DDRD 1,619) April 7, 2022

Woke up at 4 o'clock this morning with no hopes of going back to sleep, so I got up to start the coffee and on my way to the kitchen hit the cd player up. Was going to put in Evolution, since that album plays in my head pretty much all of the time these days, and it's a bit of a relief to hear it externally, but saw that there was already a cd in the chamber, so I just hit play. There were some faint piano notes, and just as I was thinking, "That sounds very pretty and delicate," I realized that it was Miles Davis's rendition of "Green Dolphin Street," which is another thing that runs through my head a lot. I'd left the second disc of the Ex-Wife Gave Me Shit For Buying This edition of Kind of Blue in the player. So I let it roll. It was a nice way to start the day. Also made me glad that I don't live in an apartment, since I didn't have to worry about disturbing anyone by playing Jazz at 4 am.

ANYway...read to page 40...which includes the 20 pages of Introduction and stuff, so 60 pages today. I don't think it's going to take 12 1/2 days to read this one.

When I first started reading, the thought crossed my mind that it might be overkill to read another book on this Miles Davis album. But it didn't take long for me to realize that Eric Nisenson was bringing a whole new game to the table. Check out this comment from the Introduction:

"...for me, Kind of Blue was one of the stepping-stones toward emotional maturity as well as simply another beautiful piece of music." (xi)

I enjoyed Kahn's book and got a lot out of it, but Nisenson is clearly a different kettle of fish. He brings a more personal and more philosophical attitude to Kind of Blue. 

He also does a great job of intertwining social history and attitudes into the narrative. For instance, this: "Jazzmen have often been characterized as 'eccentric' or even 'crazy.' But this is simply an expedient way for others to reject their insistence on individuality in a society in which conformity is the desired norm." (3)

Which might also be a way of understanding the pervasive drug addiction thing going on in Jazz, at least in the 40s. Reference this, Nisenson quotes Sonny Rollins as saying, "Using drugs was kind of a way for the boppers to express what they thought about American capitalist values." (37)

Nisenson also tells some stories about Miles Davis from his personal experience (he knew him for a period of several years), and tells a story about the young Miles who had to literally be pushed onto the stage by Charlie Parker because he was so fearful of playing on the stage.

Definitely enjoying this book. 

P.S. Also found an old library receipt in this book.

                                                                                                                                                               

Nothing earth shaking, of course, but I like finding stuff left behind in books which gives some indication of a previous reader's existence. In this case, the reader seems to have been walking a much more intense Miles Davis path than I am (or am capable of) doing, since s/he was reading a technical analysis of the music. I just checked, and it looks like the LFPL no longer has a copy of this book. 

Day 2 (Jazz Day 42 / DDRD 1,620) April 8, 2022

Read to page 90. Didn't really mean to. One of the things I really like about this book is that Nisenson is spending a lot of time setting up his actual discussion of Kind of Blue. He has spent a chapter each on George Russell, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans--which is where I currently am residing, and still has a chapter on Cannonball Adderley before we get to "The Sessions." And yes, there were two chapters on Miles Davis which preceded the George Russell chapter.

Speaking of George Russell...Eric Nisenson does an excellent job of showing how important this fellow was to the sound that Miles Davis created on Kind of Blue. And it wasn't until I was almost finished this chapter that it hit me: I didn't even remember Russell being mentioned in the Kahn book. So I went back and had a look. And I was wrong, George Russell is mentioned 11 times, actually. But most of those are just passing references, and though it's mentioned that he influenced Miles to some degree, there's nothing close to what Nisenson gives in his chapter on GR. So I went to Spotify and found New York, New York and listened to most of it. It wasn't really my thing, at least not at this moment when I can not seem to escape from the sound of Grachan Moncur III, but it was interesting, Big Band-y type stuff, for sure. And it had some familiar names...Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Max Roach. 

And I think that points out one of the big differences between this book and the Kahn one. Nisenson is not just more philosophical in his expressions, he's more philosophical by nature, so he can't talk about the sessions for Kind of Blue without first examining each of the key players and tracing their development before they came together to make this album.

And speaking of Coltrane, Nisenson thinks that Kind of Blue was the line in the sand for JC...that after this he was ready to make his Great Leap Forward (Jazz Joke: To take his Giant Step for Jazzkind), because his work with Miles allowed him to break away from the stuff he had been working on previously. (Which, so far as I can discern, was a super BeBop thing, a perfection of Charlie Parker's sound, something like that.) Of course, Nisenson puts it much more poetically than that. He suggests that Coltrane's intense and frenetic playing could be seen as "a saxophonist fervently seeking his salvation in chords, as if, should he be able to play every possible harmonic permutation, he might find the mind of God." (82)

That comes pretty close to the idea I've been playing with vis-a-vis the reason for human suffering, but since I've gone down that road previously, I'll just drop that line here for now.

Nisenson also made comments about a picture where a young (21 year old) Coltrane is staring in awe at Charlie Byrd, and of course I wanted to see that picture. (One thing that Kahn has going for him--and there's more than one thing, btw--is that he WOULD have given us that picture. This book, on the other hand, has no pictures at all. But hey, this is the 21st fucking century, man:

Those are some My Eyes Have Seen The Glory eyes, for sure.

You know, if I'm not careful...and I so rarely am...I'm going to finish this book in a couple more days. Well, no push, but if it happens, I just happen to have this Miles: The Autobiography on hand. Plus I just got a notification from the LFPL that they have A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album by Ashley Kahn waiting for me. So there's that. And that. 

Day 3 (Jazz Day 43 / DDRD 1,621) April 9, 2022

Read to page 123. No doubt going to read some more today, but so many ideas have filled up my head that I needed to pause and write them out.

Nisenson makes reference to Miles Davis' cruelty, especially towards women...and although he doesn't give any specifics here, I think it's significant that he finds the need to mention this...as well as give some examples of his cruel treatment of the musicians who played with him, and even going so far as to say that he hears cruelty in Davis' music. Nisenson definitely isn't approving of any of that, but he also does not reject Davis...or at least not his music...on account of it. That is something I struggle with, and is, in fact, the reason that I didn't want to read Miles Davis' autobiography. But maybe I'll try to get past that. Haven't decided yet.

Also, this: an artist "has only the truth of his own life to use as grist for his music. If he is a genuine artist, he will be able to use his own experience in the act of artistic creation regardless of the nature of that experience." (103) That's pretty intense stuff, isn't it? There's also the implication that a full spectrum of artistic creations would require a full spectrum of human experience...including the most abject degradation and abuse, wouldn't it? Once again I find myself circling around a concept of God and human suffering which seems in some senses to be the only reasonable cosmological explanation for "the troublemakers." *

Also interesting, Nisenson links the need for creative, individual expression to the stereotyping that occurs with black people.

This, for instance: "The reason these issues are so vital to blacks in this country is obvious. As a member of a stereotyped minority, an African American must answer the need to express one's selfhood; the need for freedom is equally obvious." (104)

That makes a lot of sense. If you're not treated as an individual, you might go out of your way to proclaim your individuality...whether that means giving yourself a "weird" hairdo, tattoos, etcetera, or whether it means finding a unique way to play a musical instrument or to write songs, stories, poems, and so forth. 

So, yeah. Got that out.

Oh, just one more thing. Nisenson suggests that Evans, Coltrane, and Adderley were all on the cusp of finding their own, personal styles when they joined Miles to create Kind of Blue. So you can see how that would contribute to the richness of the album...and also, perhaps, and I think this was Nisenson's implication, that the album was a catalyst for all three of these Jazz Giants.

Okay.

Later: Read to page 140, but had some challenges beginning with page 135. Some yahoo spilled ink on the top corner of the book at this point, and it pretty much obscures the writing in some spots all the way up through page 194. Check this out:

And that's one of the better pages...and while I was holding the book in direct sunlight. There were other spots where I just had to keep straining to make words out...and couldn't do it in some cases. Which is pretty frustrating. HowEVER...Internet Archive has come to the rescue. Check THIS out:

So at least I have a back up plan if I run into unreadable sections. Still, a shame that somebody did this to this book. What kind of idiot reads a book with a bottle of open ink next to it? I mean, this is way to much ink to have come from a leaky pen.

* In her superb song, "How Do You Do" from the Oral Fixation, Volume 2 album, Shakira asks God, "...and if you wrote the script / Then why the troublemakers?" 

Day 4 (Jazz Day 44 / DDRD 1,622) April 10, 2022

Read to page 170, and I tried to peer through the ink, but there were words I just couldn't make out, so I opened up Internet Archive and went back and forth from book to ebook for this morning's read. It was kind of frustrating. I should just switch to the ebook, of course, but I don't really want to do that for some reason, so we'll see how it goes. On the plus side, only 24 ink-stained pages to go. On the minus side, 24 ink-stained pages to go.

BTW, one of the things I love about Eric Nisenson's writing is that he says stuff like this: "It is of such lyrical splendor that the first time I heard it, I actually gasped." This was in reference to John Coltrane's solo on "Someday My Prince Will Come." 

So I dialed the tune up on YouTube and gave it a listen. I have to admit that I didn't gasp, but it was worth listening to, for sure. I was particularly struck by the piano part, which was played by Wynton Kelly, another Jazz guy who died way too young--at age 39, after an epileptic seizure.

On the other hand, Ashley Kahn definitely gave a lot of cool details about Kind of Blue that haven't appeared in the Eric Nisenson book. Of course, I've still got 48 text pages to go, so we'll see what happens, but I'm thinking that if you really want to get inside this album, then it'd be best to read both books...and if you only want to read one, it should probably be the Kahn book. It's not as intimate or as philosophical (both of which are things I like immensely), but it does deliver the goods.

Read some more...to page 190. So almost past the ink stains now.

Ran into a weird proofreading error on page 189:

So looks like tomorrow is going to be it for this book...a week earlier than predicted. I'll bet my page per day average is pretty high right now. Let's see: as of tomorrow, I'll have read 29,252 pages in 1,623 days...that's a smidge over 18 pages per day. I actually thought it'd be a bit higher than that, but still...not bad considering we're talking about rocking steady for about 4 1/2 years. Water on stone, man, water on stone.

Day 5 (Jazz Day 45 / DDRD 1,623) April 11, 2022

Read to page 236, aka The End. Other than the annoyance of the ink stains, this was a most excellent book indeed. For me it was a better book than Ashley Kahn's, though I would say it's well worth your time to read both of them, as Mr. Kahn brings some things to the table that aren't even in the kitchen for Mr. Nisenson. And that said, I have plans to read more by both of these fellows.

But next up, I think, is Miles: The Autobiography. I'm feeling very hesitant to take that plunge, but after reading two books about him in succession, I'd also like to hear his side of the story. With that in mind, here's something that Miles Davis said to Eric Nisenson which I think is worth remembering: 

"If you don't have anything to put into the world, you ought to get   out of it."

Mmm-hmmm.

DDR Day 1 to 1,000: 13,449 pages read

DDR Day 1001 to Day 2000:
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages 
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages

(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages
(12) The Pacific Trilogy: Pacific Crucible 23 days, 640 pages

(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages

(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods 31 days, 944 pages 

2nd 1K Sub-Total: 13,945 pages. So as of Day 578 of The Second 1,000 Days, I've already passed (by a substantial amount) the number of pages I read in all of the first 1,000 Days. Woo-hoo. 

(15) Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence 13 days, 304 pages

(16) Toward Jazz 18 days, 224 pages

(17) The Worlds of Jazz 13 days, 279 pages

(18) To Be or Not...to Bop 14 days, 571 pages

(19) Kind of Blue 4 days, 224 pages

2nd 1K Sub-Total: 15,547 pages. Grand Total: 28,996 pages. 

(20) Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and his Masterpiece: 5 days, 256 pages

(21) Miles: The Autobiography 445 pages

(21) A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album

(22) Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest

DDR: Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece by Ashley Kahn

 

Here's another book that has been sitting on my shelf for years, waiting for its moment to arise. 224 pages long, so probably just a little more than a week's worth of commitment at my current 20 pages per day rate, and then I guess I'm finished with my Jazz unit... though the more I think about it, the more I would like to read a little more into it. I'd especially like to read more about Lee Morgan, whose music I've been listening to with avidity, but even though there are a couple of books out there, none of them are available at the public library, and even though both are available for purchase at various places, none of the copies are in what I would consider to be my price range (less than $15). So this is probably it for Jazz, at least for now.

Note: The Notes on pages 206 to 217 sometimes include additional material (instead of just citations), so you might want to flip to the back to check them out every little once in awhile. There's no indication in the text of the book that there even ARE notes...a practice which always annoys me. I am much happier with books that use footnotes so that I can take them in in order and in bite-sized bits. Just in case you are of like mind, I'm putting this information, which I didn't discover until about 100 pages in, up top. No, no, thank YOU.

Day 1 (Jazz Day 37/ DDRD 1,615) April 3, 2022

Well, technically this would be Day 2, because last night I picked the book up, intending to just read the cover copy, and ended up reading through page 23. But I don't feel like complicating things again, so here it is.

As I was reading I started thinking, "You know, in this age of Super Deluxe Re-Issues, surely someone has released a boxed set version of this album." And...

Found a couple of different versions on Amazon, but buyer comments indicated that the sound was terrible and that the product was most likely a counterfeit. And very pricey, too. Found another version which was a Japanese release...which one review said wouldn't play at all, yet sold for $180. And found yet another version on Merchbar, whatever that is, for $110, which included

Gatefold media carrier holding 180gram single-LP blue vinyl (33 1/3 RPM) plus 2 CDs + 1 DVD

Perfect bound, 60-page 12”x 12” book

Memorabilia envelope

Large foldout poster

I got tired of trying to figure out the specifics of what each version included, though...when did Amazon get so stingy with details about albums?...so I went to Wikipedia and got this lowdown:

The original album included five tracks:

1. "So What?"

2. "Freddie Freeloader"

3. "Blue Green"

4. "All Blues"

5. "Flamenco Sketches"

There was a 1997 reissue which included a bonus track, an alternate take of "Flamenco Sketches," which was the only complete recording from the sessions not included on the original album.

There was a 2008 reissue which included a bunch of snippets--

7.	"Freddie Freeloader" (studio sequence 1)	0:53
8.	"Freddie Freeloader" (false start)	1:27
9.	"Freddie Freeloader" (studio sequence 2)	1:30
10.	"So What" (studio sequence 1)	1:55
11.	"So What" (studio sequence 2)	0:13
12.	"Blue in Green" (studio sequence)	1:58
13.	"Flamenco Sketches" (studio sequence 1)	0:45
14.	"Flamenco Sketches" (studio sequence 2)	1:12
15.	"All Blues" (studio sequence)

--plus a bonus cd which includes the only other five studio tracks recorded by the Kind of Blue Sextet--

1. "On Green Dolphin Street" Bronislaw Kaper, Ned Washington 9:50
2. "Fran-Dance" Miles Davis 5:49
3. "Stella by Starlight" Victor Young, Ned Washington 4:46
4. "Love for Sale" Cole Porter 11:49
5. "Fran-Dance" (alternate take) 5:53

--plus a live recording of "So What" (recorded at Kurhaus, The Hague, on April 9, 1960) 17:29.

That seems to be it so far as that goes...though there are versions of the album which included a remixed version of the original album and a dvd with 9 mini-documentaries. (See Milesdavis.com & Wikipedia for all of the details.) 

Well, after reading all of that, I was really anxious to get my hands on those alternate takes. I knew that I had a couple of copies of the album, but I wasn't sure which format or which release, so I went on a dig. Turns out, much to my surprise, that (1) I did not have a vinyl copy of the album and (2) I only owned one cd now. I know that I had two at one time, because I remember my (now ex-) wife giving me a half ton of shit about buying it because I already had the album. My version was that this was a special edition with extra tracks and that it came packaged with a Miles David t-shirt (which I still have, and which even went to Ireland with me a few years back).

And what can I say? I still have the album and the t-shirt, but the wife is long gone. (So stick to your guns, boys!)

ANYway...I anxiously looked at the contents of my Kind of Blue and was surprised and delighted to see 

Yep. Not only all of the outtakes, but the other (recorded earlier with he same group) songs as well. The only thing missing was the documentary stuff, which I didn't really care about anyway. So I'll be sliding these discs into the player later on today.

I also found out that there is another book dedicated to Kind of Blue available at the library--

                                       --so I put in a request for that. I might be extending my Jazz Days by a little bit if this all works out.

So there's that.

Read to page 56. Didn't really mean to, but it's not as much reading as you'd think since (1) the pages aren't text heavy and (2) there are quite a few pictures. I'm starting to think that this is going to be more of a five day book than a tenner.

There was a lot of discussion of Birth of the Cool (as we work our way up to Kind of Blue), so I found the album on YouTube and played it while I read. Turned out to be a good move, since the writing on this book is interesting and informative, but far less compelling than what I found in To Be or Not...to Bop, and having the "background music" helped to keep me focused. Although I have to admit that a couple of times I had to stop and just listen. I was surprised at how "old fashioned" this album sounded. It didn't seem all that removed from the Big Band sound to my (admittedly unsophisticated) ears. Not that that is a bad thing, just that I didn't expect Cool  to sound so jumpy and frenetic. 

I then read some comments on the YouTube video and discovered that what I'd been listening to wasn't the actual Birth of the Cool album, but live performances of the songs, so I went back into the breach. Couldn't find what I wanted on YouTube, so I switched over to Spotify. Which meant that I had to listen to some annoying advertisements, but at least I got The Real Thing...and it was good. 

There were a couple of stories in the pages I read today that I thought were particularly noteworthy. In one, Charlie Parker is giving advice on making mistakes while playing to young Miles. He tells Miles that if he makes a mistake he should repeat it two times, because then the audience will think he meant to play that. Hmm...I seem to have forgotten the second story. Might go back to find it. Might not.

P.S. Went to the library to pick up some stuff. Was drawn to the Biography section. Drawn to the Ds. Found Miles: The Autobiography.  Picked it up. Looked in the index to see if Lee Morgan was mentioned. Nope. Saw a reference to John Coltrane being fired. Read a little bit of that. Put the book back. Walked away. Came back. Pulled the book off of the shelf again. 

And now...

445 pages. And I'm wary of this tome, for sure. But maybe I'll take a little look at it, just see how the first few pages go.

Mmm-hmm.

Also, finally finished watching Bird (1988). I'm sorry to say that I can see why this movie lost $7 million (budget $9 million, box office $2 million). It's just a really bad movie...bad writing, bad acting (mostly from the two leads, Forest Whitaker as Charlie Parker and Diane Venora as Chan Parker), and bad directing. Plus there are far too many scenes inside cars, usually while it's raining. One highpoint in the film is Samuel E. Wright's portrayal of Dizzy Gillespie. Samuel, who has previously voiced Sebastian in The Little Mermaid, was spot on in his role as Dizzy, and was about the only thing that lifted this movie up into the "watchable" category for me.

Day 2 (Jazz Day 38 / DDRD 1,616) April 4, 2022

Read to page 81. 

On deciding whether to join up with Miles or Dizzy Gillespie, Cannonball Adderly said, "I figured I could learn more [playing with Miles] than with Dizzy. Not that Dizzy isn't a good teacher, but he played more commercially than Miles."

Which surprised me on a couple of counts. (1) Miles had expressed his dissatisfaction with the fact that he couldn't play like Dizzy and (2) Miles was much more commercially successful than Dizzy. Maybe even (3) after reading To Be or Not to...Bop I didn't see Dizzy as aiming at commercial success in his music. In fact, I thought he was the guy who was pushing the boundaries in creating BeBop, and that commercial success eluded him for much of his early career. Hmpf.

Also, I remembered the other story I wanted to recount from the other day. It was a comment by Sid Caesar about how in BeBop the band had a fifth member who played radar...and whose job it was to insure that the band never got to close to the melody. I thought that was pretty funny. 

You know, I'd kind of like to read a biography of John Coltrane. And maybe Bill Evans, too. The LFPL has several Coltrane possibilities, but no Bill Evans. Hmmm.

P.S. Oops, read some more...to page 103.

Day 3 (Jazz Day 39 / DDRD 1,617) April 5, 2022

Read to page 132. Forgot to mention that one of the most interesting things from yesterday's reading was a picture showing what the musicians were paid for the first session of Kind of Blue. Adderly, Coltrane, Kelly, and Evans were paid $64.67 apiece and Chambers and Cobb were paid $66.67--because Cartage was included for them. That first session, which lasted six hours (broken up into two sets) yielded three of the albums five songs--"So What," "Freddie Freeloader," and "Blue in Green." The second session, which lasted no more than 2 1/2 hours, accounted for the other two songs--"All Blues" and "Flamenco Sketches." Hard to believe that the best selling jazz album of all time was recorded in no more than 8 1/2 hours, over the course of two days, and yielded only one complete outtake...and that all of the songs on the album were the first full takes of those songs. Columbia got a lot of bang for their buck on this one, for sure.

Also interesting is the story that during the first session, unbeknownst to anyone at the time, there had been a problem with a motor on the master machine which caused the tape to record at a slower speed, and that all pressings of the album until 1992 (and the album was released in 1959) were not "right." I don't know what "a quarter-tone difference" means, other than that the sound was off a little bit, but that's what Kahn says was the result vis-a-vis Mile's trumpet...and presumably the other instruments as well. That's kind of a gigantic fuck up for such a famous and big selling album, ennit?

Yesterday I discovered that the Notes on pages 206 to 217 sometimes include additional material (instead of just citations), so I've gone back to read them. There's no indication in the text of the book that there even ARE notes...a practice which always annoys me. I am much happier with books that use footnotes so that I can take them in in order and in bite-sized bits. Just in case you are of like mind, I'm now going to transfer this information to the top of this post.

P.S. I started in on the Notes again, and ran across this:

What's that saying about a Bad Penny? Mmm-hmm. Anyway, I flipped to page 155 to see what there was to see, and saw this:

Which I thought was kind of funny, as I didn't think Hodeir rated the title of "historian." (And Wikipedia seems to back me up on this, at least implicitly.) 

Then I flipped back and finished the Notes, then started reading the other stuff...bibliographies and stuff...and lo and behold: 

So there it is.

Anyway, I read a little more text, too...to page 142. So it looks like tomorrow is going to do it for this one.

Fortunately, I just got a call from the library, and waiting for me even as we speak is The Making of Kind of Blue : Miles Davis and His Masterpiece by Eric Nisenson. (I decided I wasn't finished with this topic quite yet. And I always did like to get a variety of takes on things.)

Day 4 (Jazz Day 40 / DDRD 1,618) April 6, 2022

Read to page 178, but I'm just taking a little break now, and will mos def be finishing the last 22 pages of this book in a few. 

Picked up

from the library this morning, and yes, I am going to start reading it tomorrow. 

I also put Kind of Blue in the cd player this morning (the My Ex-Wife Mocked Me For Buying This edition) and gave it a good listen. The original album was pretty fantastic...especially "So What," which just settles into my brain and stays there. It even managed to drive "Air Raid," the opening track from Grachan Moncur III's Evolution out, and that's been taken up space for quite some time now, pretty much non-stop. The rest of the album was quite pleasing, but none of the other songs hit me as forcefully as "So What." 

I also enjoyed the outtakes stuff, especially since I had just finished reading about each piece. 

Speaking of reading...another thing which I found extremely interesting was that on the first pressing of Kind of Blue, there were a couple of mistakes on the cover copy. First off, the names of the two songs on the second side of the album where mis-identified, so "Flamenco Sketches" is listed first and "All Blues" is listed second, even though the songs are actually in the opposite order. Also, Cannonball Adderley is misidentified as Adderly. According to Eric Nisenson, about 50,000 copies went out with those errors, thus creating a collector's item. I checked to see what I could see re: this and found prices ranging from $171 for a really beat-to-shit looking copy to $2,000 for a copy which was still sealed. There were also some red herrings in there, so it's obvious that if you really want to get a first pressing of this album, you need to know what to look for. And what to listen for, too, I suppose, since all of these early pressing would also be at the wrong speed for the songs on the first side of the album.

Okay. Read to dive back in and finish off those last 22 pages.

And...yep. According to Kahn, Kind of Blue had sold over 5 million copies at the time of this book's writing. And in those last pages it hit me: this book was published in 2000. 22 years ago. So there's that. 

Well...the Eric Nisenson book was published in 2000, too, so maybe it won't take me any further than Kahn did, but I'm still not ready to let go of Kind of Blue, so I'm glad to be starting on it tomorrow.

Heh. That is unless I take a little peek at it tonight.

DDR Day 1 to 1,000: 13,449 pages read

DDR Day 1001 to Day 2000:
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages 
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages

(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages
(12) The Pacific Trilogy: Pacific Crucible 23 days, 640 pages

(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages

(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods 31 days, 944 pages 

2nd 1K Sub-Total: 13,945 pages. So as of Day 578 of The Second 1,000 Days, I've already passed (by a substantial amount) the number of pages I read in all of the first 1,000 Days. Woo-hoo. 

(15) Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence 13 days, 304 pages

(16) Toward Jazz 18 days, 224 pages

(17) The Worlds of Jazz 13 days, 279 pages

(18) To Be or Not...to Bop 14 days, 571 pages

(19) Kind of Blue 4 days, 224 pages

2nd 1K Sub-Total: 15,547 pages. Grand Total: 28,996 pages. 

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