My drummers

 I also like listening to drums as I am listening to jazz. In other words, I focus on the drums throughout rather than listening to the whole thing all at once. This is difficult, but it is necessary.  

The most admired drummers are those who are the busiest, who are constantly playing different ideas. I have dug those drummers too, but those who are more transparent, playing fewer ideas, might be preferable at times. Who hits that happy medium?  Perhaps it is Max Roach.  His solos are so well constructed, and his comping is so tasty.  

But, of course, the busy drummers are fantastic too, like Elvin, Tony, etc... 

Dream of Lorca monologue

 I was supposed to perform in a Lorca play, a short one (which on waking I realized did not really exist). I hadn't memorized it and was planning to use the script the whole time, though I had doubts about this. And was I supposed to do it in Spanish or English? We hadn't rehearsed at all, and the details about where and when it would take place were hazy.  The whole things was increasingly uncertain. A colleague from another university was supposed to come and do part of it with me, or have some panel discussion. The play would conclude with me doing a closing monologue. I realized I didn't have my script and also wasn't wearing my suit, which the part called for.  Did I have time to go home and get these things? 

The time had passed and the event did not occur as scheduled.  I was drinking limoncello with someone and when that was done he kept giving me shots of something else...  

3 strikes for Lovecraft

 I wondered about Lovecraft, having read very little and that very long ago.  From the perspective of today, it would seem he has three strikes, having read a few stories and short novel yesterday.  

The obvious racism behind a lot of it.  The racism isn't incidental, but hard-baked into his vision.  Sometimes it is merely implicit, but it comes out explicitly enough to be undeniable.  

The fact that it's genre fiction, not high brow stuff in the first place.  So then you don't have to balance out the racism with the fact that it's literature of the highest quality that happens to be racist.  

The prose itself is over-heated and a bit cringe-worthy.  He has a great lexicon, but the prose is always purple, and never settles down into a kind of normal writing.  Everything is fortissimo, fff, with very little dynamic range.  

Three strikes, and he is out. Yet there is something about the sheer force of his imagination that makes people want to read him (including me, this particular week).  

Dream of job interview

 I was invited to interview for a job, because of a "skill set" I had. I walked into a room on campus that was full of people. They began interviewing me, but mostly trying to sell me on taking the job. The interviewer was a middle-aged African American man, and maybe another woman too, of unidentified ethnicity. "Wouldn't you like to live in New York?" they were saying. The job had something to do with industrial espionage, I gathered, though this was not said explicitly. I wondered if I could be hired, if it was a KU job, because my retirement agreement says I cannot be rehired by the university. 

Obviously, this is a retirement dream, in which I am asking myself what I will do after I retire.  

My bass players

 "My bass players" is not the same as a list of the best bass players.  For whatever reason, I respond to some at a deeper level than others. I'm sure a jazz expert would say that Ron Carter and Ray Brown are among the best ever, and I agree with that, but I'm talking here about a few that resonate more with me. In no particular order: 

Paul Chambers. The shape of his lines, the way they ascend and descend. I think it is perfect for both early John Coltrane, before the quartet with McCoy Tyner, Elvin, and Jimmy Garrison.  

Oscar Pettiford.  I'm not as knowledgeable about him, but I do like the melodic invention and also the shape of his walking lines.  I particularly like his playing on Monk's album of Ellington tunes. 

Charlie Haden. The purity of his sound, the centeredness of his intonation. The note choice. What he brings to the early Ornette recordings, and also to collaborations with Pat Metheny and Keith Jarrett.  

Mingus. This is an obvious one, not only because of the power of his bass playing, but also because of his importance as composer and shaper of jazz music. 

Scott LaFaro.  For his work with early Ornette and Bill Evans.  

There are many others I think of as fantastically good, like Pederson, for his work with Peterson. Every bass player who has been chosen by someone like Miles or Bill Evans to play has got to be superb.  I've seen Eddie Gomez and he is great. 

What I like about the bass is that its function is so similar, so basic across a wide range of styles.  Even Haden playing with Ornette is still playing 4 quarter notes to the measure (most of the time!) or at least implying that pulse.  

I will listen to music repeatedly and focus on the drums, or the bass, or some other aspect of the music. 

Four or five pressures

 Higher ed in the humanities are not in good shape, especially in the humanities. I feel we are squeezed on all sides. 

1) Wokeness, defined here as self-parodic performative pseudo-progressive identity politics. This mindset narrows the scope of research and determines ideological positions from the outset. It leaves the humanities without a purpose of it own, and leaves it vulnerable to #2:  

2) The reaction against woke.  Okay, so you want to teach that there are a zillion genders? Then the state legislature will say you can't have gender studies at all. DEI must infuse every action of the university at a granular level? Then the legislature will say you can't have DEI at all. The right-wing reaction against woke is anti-intellectual in its motivations and it effects. I say this as someone who is no friend of wokeness itself (see 1).  

3) Economic pressures. Fewer student major in classics or want to study a less-studied language? Eliminate or gut those programs. Tuition is more expensive, while at the same time administrative costs rise, but not faculty salaries. There are more and more adjuncts. Athletics and big science make humanities budgets seem paltry in comparison. 

4) Cultural factors. There are fewer of those nerdy super-readers who are the bulwark of the humanities students. Maybe there were never that many of us, but students have less capacity to read large amounts of material.  

5) Technology.  The rise of Artificial Intelligence means you can write a mediocre paper on literature very easily. Students will use this to varying degrees even if told not to.  Then you no longer get the core of the humanities: engaging with intellectually challenging material through writing academic prose. The point of this is not the final result (the paper) but what has occurred in the student's brain. I always say it's like sending a robot to the gym to do your bench presses for you.  

Dream of Harrassment

 In this dream I told a colleague (chair?) that I had been accused of sexual harassment. He punched in the face and told me I was fired. Then another colleague punched me.  Neither very hard. Being fired didn't seem a big deal, because I only have a few days left to work. 

I was trying to sort out my possible guilt, but not until I was fully awake could I convince myself that I was in the clear.