Take Five: Celebrating difference
New (to me) music from the La's and Zbigniew Namysłowski, exploring Audre Lorde, remembering Ken Bruen and anticipating Stefon Harris
“Take Five” is posted each Friday, and offers five things I spent some time with over the course of the previous week. No criticism, no in-depth analysis, just a few things I think you might be interested in checking out. When the spirit moves me, I’ll post other things at other times.
1. The La's — ‘Fishing Net’
The lone album from the La’s has long been one of my favorites. It’s a near-perfect blend of pop smarts, youthful verve, and skiffling energy, with nary a misstep among its dozen tracks. You know it from the breakout track “There She Goes,” which was never a hit, but has become a ubiquitous presence in films when someone needs to soundtrack a scene of wistful longing. Other than knowing leader Lee Mavers was a bit of a perfectionist who seems he'll never follow up this now 35-year-old album, I didn't know much about the band. A recent episode of the Bandsplain podcast about the La’s rectified that, and I learned there are several unreleased tracks floating around on the web. It was like discovering a second album from the band, albeit in fairly terrible sound quality. The best of the bunch to these ears is “Fishing Net,” captured at a few early-90s live performances. I doubt we'll ever hear a proper studio version from Mavers, but it's nice to listen and think of what might have been.
2. Zbigniew Namysłowski Modern Jazz Quartet — ‘Piekna Lola, Kwiat Polnocy’
A recent post at Syd Schwartz's Jazz and Coffee Substack led me to Lola by Zbigniew Namysłowski’s Modern Jazz Quartet. This 1964 album by the Polish combo finds that American performers weren't the only ones making adventurous jazz in the '60s. Schwartz argues that the album shows Namysłowski wasn’t mimicking anyone, but rather was pointing the way to the robust European jazz scene to come. For me, it’s simply a good hard bop date with plenty of great soloing from saxophonist Namysłowski, very much of a piece with other mid-60s albums I love. It's not easy to find having never been issued in the U.S., with Polish and UK vinyl, a cassette reissue, and CD reissues from Poland and Japan from more than 20 years ago as the only releases one can acquire. It's not streaming, so the benevolence of YouTubers is the only way at the moment to check it out. It's worth the time. The musicians may look like a squeaky clean collegiate vocal group in the cover shot, but they dig in and swing.
3. Audre Lorde — ‘The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House’
I had the privilege of attending a ceremony noting the exceptional work of several women this week, and in addition to the awe I felt at being in a room with so many accomplished people, I came away with a greater desire to read Audre Lorde. Given our times, the late poet, essayist and activist is oft-quoted, and I have wanted to dig deeper than the quotes and aphorisms attributed to her. My library had a copy of her essay collection, Sister Outsider, and I found my way to a piece that was quoted at this week’s event, her famous essay, “The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House.” The title alone is a powerful reminder that in situations like those we face now, the status quo is not going to cut it as a response. But this piece about the need to celebrate difference points out that it is that difference that will provide the tools to move beyond it: “What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are used to examine the fruits of that same patriarchy? It means that only the most narrow perimeters of change are possible and allowable.” Later, she adds, “Difference is that raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged.” There is a lot of wisdom to be found here and in her poetry, and I intend to spend more time exploring as I think about ways we can counter the backward push we are facing.
4. Ken Bruen, RIP
You would never know it from the ultraviolence depicted in his novels, but Ken Bruen was an absolute sweetheart. Bruen, who died last week, was best known for his Galway-set Jack Taylor crime novels. His was a distinctive voice, full of chopped sentences, pop culture references, and local color, all with a hurley swung when vengeance was needed. But it was the humanity of his characters that made the books worth reading, the way Jack constantly wrestled with demons — within and without — and lived by a moral code that saw fit to punish those who needed it and protect those who needed it even more. That dichotomy was present in the author. He wrote violent books in part because he had led an at times violent life. But he was also the nicest man in crime fiction, always willing to lend a hand and pull someone else up. I can say that from personal experience from my limited time in that world. He took part in interviews for my fledgling website, Things I’d Rather Be Doing, provided blurbs for a couple of book projects of mine, and even contributed a short story to Grift, my short-lived crime fiction journal. I just read Galway’s Edge, which sadly seems will be his last. I would encourage who is intrigued by any of the above to check out an early book like The Guards.
NOTE: I salvaged two interviews with Bruen from Things I’d Rather Be Doing and shared them in a separate post for paid subscribers.
5. Stefon Harris — ‘Feline Blues’
For a few years in the 2000s, it felt like Stefon Harris was a local artist. The jazz vibraphonist played at Hancher, he performed at the Jazz Festival, he returned to Hancher by way of City High in a flood-necessitating shift. His musical output slowed in the past decade during which he also stayed away from our town. Now he’s back, or will be soon, and it's a great opportunity to revisit his work. I first saw him in 2003 at Hancher, a visit during which he also took part in a wonderful improvisational performance (that link takes you to a recording of the rehearsal) as his band backed a handful of International Writing Program poets as they read their work. That's the kind of amazing thing that happens in a university community when we support it and stand up for it. He’ll return for this year's Iowa City Jazz Festival, where he and his band, Blackout, will headline the July 5 schedule, and I'm really looking forward to seeing him. In the meantime, I’m revisiting some of his past albums, opting today for Black Action Figure, his sophomore outing from 1999 that may be his most satisfying, straight-ahead jazz release. “Feline Blues,” the first track, comes out of the gate at a fierce clip, Harris’s mallets dancing dexterously across the vibes as his combo races to keep up.
Muuwaaah...chef kiss for A.Lorde write up