BAD RAP

Jazz drummer Max Roach's remark on music education and rap -- "People who voted for defunding of music education programs in public schools are getting what they paid for" -- drew comments. One reader wrote that the poet John Ashbery said somewhere: "The only thing worse than rap is French rap." Anybody know where? Another reader, the composer Charles Mac Dermed, wrote:

Were it my prerogative, I'd see to it that "GRUPPEN" by Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, a 21 min. symphonic piece for 3 full orchestras + supplementary percussion, was daily performed at noon in Union Square, S.F., during which performance streets surrounding Union Square would be barricaded against vehicular traffic and bicyclists could circle while the spatially distributed instrumentalists play.

As an underpinning for this institution of "GRUPPEN" concerts, the principle responsibility of the Bay Area schools would be to train musicians for this everyday occurrence. Sooner or later the mind of S.F. citizenry would be enlightened by exposure to this phenomenon. I can attest to the enlightening efficacy of this monumental work by Stockhausen. For me it is the supernal culmination of human culture.