[f_minor] John McLaughlin, Miles Davis, Glenn Gould's extra hands and fingers

[maryellen jensen]

hejsan y'all,

Our Bobmerk said 
"No one loves GG's keyboard albums more than I. But 
his flight from the concert stage and refuge in the electronic magic laboratory 
of the studio robbed his ultimate contribution of spontaneity. His obsessive 
pursuit of perfection (however achieved) robbed him of the courage to make a 
mistake in a concert hall filled with (music-loving) strangers. I said in an 
f_minor post once that the pursuit of perfection taints the music with an 
audible sterility."

I have been diddling about with the enormity of what Bobmerk's comment implicates and I am "d'accord" with what he is saying ; for a long, long time I have been weighing in on such considerations and let me please just quote something I saw somewhere: 

"Perfection has a darker side."

I think we all know or can at least intimate what that means.

 
For the rest of us there's this (or something similar):

Пора, мой друг, пора      
'Tis time, my dear, 'tis time. The heart demands repose.
Day after day flits by, and with each hour there goes
A little bit of life, but meanwhile you and I
Together plan to dwell ... yet lo! 'tis then we die.

There is no bliss on earth, there's peace and freedom though,
An enviable lot I long have yearned to know.
Long have I, weary slave, been contemplating flight
To a remote abode of work and pure delight.

(Pushkin — Nabokov)

As for the 10 fingers 2 thumbs performance in "Gattica" it's a case in point of taking "perfection" to mean "best" i.e.  'nec plus ultra' performance.

This (link below) is of the GG oeuvre - warts and all - which I will defend to my dying day, till my last breath:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAjsXl2P4T0

When has anyone ever stated what GG states here? 


Mary



From: bobmerk at earthlink.net
To: f_minor at glenngould.org
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2014 01:16:28 -0400
Subject: [f_minor] John McLaughlin, Miles Davis,	Glenn Gould's extra hands and fingers








Yeah, when Miles Davis picks a skinny young white 
boy from England (thanks Henry Corra!) to play guitar in his band (on Bitches 
Brew and other albums), this is a strong hint that the boy is a talented 
guitarist.
 
Jazz in our lifetimes has had a sad tendency to 
become Smithsonionized, lifeless, looking backwards rather than (as 
its first revoluionary instincts were) exploring the future of musical 
forms and styles. Probably one of the things that matched Davis and McLaughlin 
were that they were both explorers and experimenters -- they understood that 
jazz needed to explore and keep inventing, or it would sputter and wheeze 
and die -- in tuxedos and funereal attire.
 
Mahavishnu John's spiritual quest sprang 
technically from his need to master the rest of the world's stringed 
instruments. Like (Harrison mainly) the Beatles, Indian stringed 
instruments and musical forms clearly needed to be injected into serious 
Western music -- the way African elements had created jazz 60+ years 
earlier.  I'm convinced McLaughlin never 
cared if his experiments (fusion, symphonic pieces like "Apocalypse" with 
Tilson-Thomas and Jean Luc-Ponty) did not please music consumers (like Pat, who 
is wildly passionate and forward-thinking about music). I think 
McLaughlin just needs to keep exploring, experimenting. The Labeque duo 
piano compositions were a beautiful new direction, this time influenced 
by the south of France and the Mediterranean. I know I'll be eager to 
hear where he aims his experiments next.
 
As for GG's studio ability to grow extra hands or 
GATACA fingers ...
 
No one loves GG's keyboard albums more than I. But 
his flight from the concert stage and refuge in the electronic magic laboratory 
of the studio robbed his ultimate contribution of spontaneity. His obsessive 
pursuit of perfection (however achieved) robbed him of the courage to make a 
mistake in a concert hall filled with (music-loving) strangers. I said in an 
f_minor post once that the pursuit of perfection taints the music with an 
audible sterility.
 
Oh ... okay ... well, Pat can blame his own 
Switzerland on this, but yeah, the Mahavishnu music did go great with lysergic 
acid dyethylamide. The history of jazz, blues, rock and norty substances is 
ancient and so ubiquitous that you could write a master's dissertation on what 
20th century popular music would have been like without chemical 
substances. (There exists a remarkable tape of young John McClaughlin jamming 
all night with Jimi Hendrix.)
 
Sorry I've been a bit slow to respond to this 
thread, i'm getting cataracts removed and my typing and computer skills have 
been a bit compromised. But very soon

    I can see clearly now, 
the rain is gone
    I can see all obstacles in my 
way
    Gone are the dark clouds that 
have made me blind
    It's gonna be a bright 
sunshiney day!
 
        -- Johnny 
Nash
 
Bob
Massachusetts USA
 
 

 		 	   		  
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