Friday, February 14, 2014

Crystalline Humor of Youth




Another jazzman from New Jersey, Trenton this time, another horn player who refined his style in the military, trumpet player Johnny Coles, is up in the earholes this morning.  I’ve been listening to him for a few days now.  I’ve got the 1963 disc “Little Johnny C”, the title tune blaring now on and I feel like I’m bouncing around in Lower Manhattan late for something and not really caring about it.   Allowing myself to imagine an early morning Lower East Side, the people, the traffic the early morning garbage, cutting under the bridge along Bialystoker St.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Coles

I’ve already hosted the brilliant pianist Duke Pearson, and the drummer turned attorney Pete LaRoca on DustyBrine before.  And I don’t know why I haven’t gotten around to discussing the majestic saxophonist Joe Henderson before, but I will sooner or later.  All those guys round out this disc to make it sound remarkably familiar to my ears.  It was three years before my birth, but something about the New York cool of that time just feels utterly unassailable.  And something about jazz’ ability to invoke New York City forever remains, 记忆犹新[1] .



There is a lovely obituary I found of the man, who passed in Philly in 1997.  The British press seems to treat our jazzmen with greater reverence than our own hometown press does.  Steve Voce writing for the Independent recalled an earlier discussion with Johnny Coles.  What a pathway through profundity that man navigated, from Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, and Earl Bostic, then to contributions on classic Gil Evans albums, Charles Mingus Workshop, a stint with Herbie Hancock, whose praise was effusive.  Years with Ray Charles orchestra, and time with the Duke Ellington’s orchestra as well.   Fascinating to read about what life was like inside that Ellingtonian university for a time, warts and all.

Shared the disc just now with my friend who I knew would love it and he did.  He lives in L.A.  And once we started in we just went on and on about how we missed New York. 

Looking over yesterday’s “Summary 140”,  I noticed a few things, firstly I was on the road for the majority of the time.  Shanghai and Shandong mostly.  I had to get myself an on-the-road VPN, as opposed to the one used in the home, so I could post, as this Google app is blocked in China.  At least eight of the musical contributions are from the 1960s.  Three more selections, within two years after, by 1971.  It is, and remains, I suppose, tera firma.  But I did get to spend time with at least three more contemporary jazz musicians and recordings from within the last ten years.   As usual a disproportionate usage of Wiki and the New York Times, which speaks to ease and familiarity and perhaps some intellectual laziness.

To that end, let me share two bits from other sources:  The first is a lovely article of dust-removed.  In a promising example of Zhong-Mei academic cooperation, Washington University of St. Louis professor T.R. Kidder a self professed “mud guy” was invited by Chinese researcher Liu Haiwang, to help with the dig in Henan at the SanYangZhuang site, a Han Dynasty village that was swamped in silt by a surge in Yellow River, some 2000 years ago.  With so little extant architecture left in China even from the Ming period, let alone the Song, Tang or Han, it is remarkable when the earth opens up, or is dug into as in this case, and yields the past with such clarity .  We don’t always see it here in China, but it is certainly there.

The second article was this was this piece by Franz-Stefan Gady, Senior Fellow at the EastWest Institute, who seeks to discredit the oft-used analogy of China’s rise with that of Germany in the late 19th century.  I’ve used that analogy.  I find it useful.  I think it was most forcefully employed by Edward Lutwak in his book which I’ve discussed, “The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy”.  So I’m glad to read someone challenge the truism.



What was most interesting about Lutwak’s take was the inevitable quality of Germany’s rise at that time and that if the Germans had just singled differently, strategically, instead of building a world class navy as they felt was their inheritance, their rise to economic preeminence would have been a fait a compli.  But because they invested heavily in military capacity, they sent a signal, which drew other erstwhile foes, like England and France together.  This seems apt for the China case. 

Mr. Gady’s point that no military analyst worth his salt sees even medium term realistic challenge from China for anything like global military dominance is well taken.  England had good reason to assume Germany might unseat them.  Instead, he suggests the case of late 19th century Italy, who were not about to unseat anyone, but were feeling boxed in and made investments to asymmetrically disrupt their immediate surroundings.  This, for Gady is the more accurate metaphor. 

An old friend just called, while I was trading IM’s with another old friend, the New Yorker in exile.  We’re all best of friends.  I conferenced everyone in together and we laughed and snickered and guffawed like idiots, talking about other long lost friends, for the first twenty minutes of the call.  I commented and I suppose its true that were I to be wheeled up next to them in the retirement community forty years hence, ears and mouths permitting, we’d all likely double over in the same gut-laughs at the same routines.  How precious the crystalline humor of youth.  Why does that laughter remain so potent?  Oddly, how rare, laughter can become, as we age and converse with new acquaintances, less and less intimately.




[1] jìyìyóuxīn:  to remain fresh in one's memory (idiom)

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