Displaying news from 1 June 2004 to 1 July 2004.

mooron blaker's dozen - Posted on 2004-06-27 13:50:00

last night i saw the new film by michael moore called fahrenheit 9/11 [which, like mel gibson's the passion, [though with very differing primary audiences,] had gained a huge amount of free press [read: hype] due to the controversiality of the films] and was, as i usually am after watching a film by michael moore, utterly impressed by his crafty editing work, utterly shocked at the video and written documents he was able to get is hands on, utterly ecstatic that a film like this was actually picked up and shown in theaters, and utterly depressed at the implied ground-crumbling-under-our-feet view of the world that his films tend to point to.

like the passion, moore's new film is attended by two types of people. [this is obviously a generalization ["man, i hate all those people who generalize..."] but i do think that especially in america, fence-sitting as a legitimate way of approaching an issue [even temporarily,] has become a sign of weakness. [note george w. bush's success with many americans simply because he says things with with directness, no wishy-washy answers [assuming he has an answer], just a simple, direct [and often blatently wrong,] statement.]] these two groups of people include those who go to cheer on the concept of the movie, and those who come simply to disagree with the concept. with both the passion and fahrenheit 9/11 i don't think that the beliefs of those who attended will be changed one way or the other. more likely, beliefs will strengthen.

regardless, i respect moore for making the film, and hope that people who would not otherwise get involved in politics will get involved.


on a happier note, i had the pleasure of meeting saxophonist ron blake last thursday at jazz90.1FM. super nice dude.


also, as i mention in the last blog entry, i have been checking out some books by nicholson baker. i began with a true story called "U and I", a book about baker's obsession with writer john updike and in general, about the anxiety of influence. after that, i checked out "The Mezzanine", an amazing story of everyday life [the setting of the book is actually rochester's own midtown mall], and "Vox", a sassy and well written novel[lette] consisting of a phone sex chat between a man and a woman. recently, i've been thrilling to baker's collection of non-fiction called "The Size of Thoughts" which contains [among other things] an elegy for the card catalog, mcfee-like histories of fingernail clippers and punctuation, and a tracing of the word "lumber" through literary history. great stuff!

un/sticky situational|jazz fast|baker's does in - Posted on 2004-06-20 15:01:00

i figured since i haven't significantly updated in a bit, [and my current chunck of free time allows for it] now would be a good time.


one=the case of the marred mirror:
so after my radio show last thursday, i went out to my vehicle, which was parked in an endlessly weaving row of diagonals, unlocked it with my handy-dandy 'keyless entry' system, opened the door and located out of the corner of my right eye, as i settled into the grey driver's seat, a foreign plastic-type object, suspiciously placed in the passenger seat.
thoughts that entered my mind: what is this foreign plastic-type object, suspiciously placed in the passenger seat? did someone break into my vehicle while i was on the air, and place a foreign plastic-type object suspiciously in the passenger seat? if so, did they per chance hear a part of my show? if so, did they enjoy it? did they think the joke about the smell of the new bobby mcferrin record was funny? if so, was it because they had recently acquired [a word which suddenly looks even more foreign than the object that was suspiciously placed upon my passenger seat...] a copy of the record and had a similarly strong olfactory reaction?

no time to think. must. investigate.

within seconds, the truth came out: it was my rear view mirror. the glue, which for so long had held so strong the oft-taken-for-granted driver's tool, must've softened enough in the rochester heat that it couldn't take anymore and let the mirror go. what a freeing moment it probably was for the little mirror who's job it is, in effect, to be pushed around and stared at... fuckin heroic.


two=the jazz fast.
something about the rochester international jazz festival has always made me feel a little uneasy. maybe it's that i live right down the street from the eastman school of music, [my alma mater and the site of this year's festivus,] and seeing gibbs st [renamed, in a remarkable streak of creativity by the festival commitee "jazz street", for the week long festival] fill up with hordes of suburbanite jazz fans, each proudly displaying their $75, neck-lanyard held, rochester international jazz festival "club pass". don't get me wrong, seeing anyone on the streets of downtown rochester after 6pm on a weeknight makes me get a warm feeling, but the "festival atmosphere" applied to jazz?

due to a relatively busy schedule and not wanting to purchase the aforementioned "club pass" or pay for too many shows individually, i went to only one concert, over the course of the week: bobby mcferrin and jack dejohnette with brad meldau as their opening act. i was very excited, as all three are musicians i admire. a strange thing happened after mehldau played his set [consisting of two standard tunes, two orginals, and two pop covers] and the lights came up for a short intermission: i ran into an older friend of mine who's musical taste buds tend to lean towards the conservative side, who made some comment which used the words mehldau, liberace, candelabra, emotionless, etc. to describe the set we had just heard. more on this from mr. john pitcher, of the rochester democrat and chronicle:

"...very little of what [Brad, Bobby or Jack] performed actually sounded like jazz."

"...Mehldau seemed to have almost nothing original to say."

"his take on Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" was mostly pretentious."

it is interesting to note that it is often the same people, who when presented with a musician that is untrained [in the european classical sense], adventurous, pushing boudaries [or even just pushing people's buttons], will say things like "where was the melody? you couldn't whistle that! that wasn't swinging!", that will, when presented with a musician who is well trained [in the european classical sense], deadly precise, and playing "tunes" [i.e., tin pan alley classics; anything from the "great american songbook" [or even anything that wouldn't normally fall into that category, that happened to be touched by the midas-like hand of a famous practitioner of swing [read: Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton etc.]]], will respond [as the man did i met at the intermission of the mehldau|mcferrin concert,] "there was no emotion! there wasn't one swingin' not in that whole thing! i didn't feel a thing!", or as john pitcher so elequently states:

"[Mehldau's] rendition of Gershwin’s 'How Long Has This Been Going On' reminded me of the sort of faux blues pieces that such 20th-century composers as Virgil Thomson and Samuel Barber used to write in order to sound more American and less classical."

way to go pitch, way to go...
three=nicholson baker
i've been reading a whole lot of nicholson baker recently and loving it! more on that next time!

until then...

temptationals in you. - Posted on 2004-06-13 12:44:54

friday i had a nice opportunity to play with the temptations [actually only one of the original members is still alive, but the group still tours and sounds pretty damn good...] a very fun gig, lots of horns, and the temptation rhythm section was pretty burning.

it looks like the new respect sextet record will be titled Respect In You.
look for it in about a month or so!

NEW EMAIL ADDRESS!!!! - Posted on 2004-06-07 11:34:00

due to a ridiculous amount of spam, you can now reach me by email at:

josh a*t joshrutner d*o*t c*o*m

sorry to be so cryptic. thanks for your patience!!

distilled respect tastes better than regular respect. - Posted on 2004-06-01 20:25:43

so, the much anticipated respect sextet gigs have finally happened, and we're all the better for it. unfortunately, our lovely and [extremely] talented bassist malcolm kirby could not be with us for the trifecta of gigs, but his absence was covered by NYC based australian [of love and respect] matt clohesy. matt did an excellent job tuning into the group's complex inner workings and simple outer undoings within our limited [about 2 hours] of rehearsal time before the first gig in toronto.

the weather in toronto was cold and there were less people at the festival [, distillery jazz [directory style]] than i had anticipated/hoped, but spirits were strong, and hot dogs were expensive [i guess it was canadian money afterall]. the first night's gig [read: the "avant garde" gig] went very very well and was, after about five minutes of playing to the sound men, very well attended. the second night's gig [read: the "straight ahead" gig] was in a much larger venue, and was spotty in terms of audience, but i think a large portion of that had to do with the number of people that were there. the group sounded good, and headed home.

saturday night was the homecoming concert [of love and respect]. very few peopel showed up to these sets, however, we managed to get an incredible recording of the evening, and are in the process of preparing it for public release!

all in all, a great weekend!

until next time!

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