This is an actual Craigslist item:
Apr 3 – Need a paper typed? Need a editor? -
Other Matters: Cloudy Days On The English Usage Front
May 3, 2010 By
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Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
This is an actual Craigslist item:
Apr 3 – Need a paper typed? Need a editor? -
Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion to Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.
The Complete Stanley Dance Felsted “Mainstream Jazz” Recordings 1958-1959 (Fresh Sound)
This nine-CD treasure chest contains dozens of the finest mainstream artists from a golden era. Stanley Dance, who applied the term mainstream to jazz, supervised the sessions for the British Felsted label. Johnny Hodges, Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins, Rex Stewart, Buster Bailey, Jo Jones, Budd Johnson, Dicky Wells, Billy Strayhorn; they’re all here, along with superb half-forgotten musicians like saxophonist George Kelly, guitarist Dickie Thompson and drummer Earl Watkins. Among the supporting players are young lions of the fifties Ray Bryant, Kenny Burrell and Ray Brown. The package includes Hodges in Strayhorn’s brilliant album Cue For Saxophone. The booklet has all of Dance’s notes, updated.
Brad Mehldau Trio, Ode (Nonesuch)
Mehldau has recorded lately as solo pianist, in duets with classical mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie Van Otter and with a large orchestra. Bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard join him in a stimulating return to trio playing. They are attuned to the pianist as if by ESP. He describes the title tune as “an ode to odes” and dedicates other pieces to figures in his personal and musical lives. Among those who inspired them are Michael Brecker, Kurt Rosenwinkel, the Jack Nicholson character George Hanson and Aquaman, but you needn’t know that to be moved by the virtuosity and joy of this music.
Mike Longo, To My Surprise: Trio + 2 (CAP
The trio is pianist Longo, bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Lewis Nash— a formidable New York rhythm section. With the addition on half the tracks of trumpeter Jimmy Owens and tenor saxophonist Lance Bryant, Longo takes the quintet through classic bop territory and beyond into modal country. If there were Oscars for Wilde titles, “A Picture of Dorian Mode,” would win. The adventurous playing on the track awards the listener. With trio or quartet, in standards or new Longo compositions, hard-charging or pensive, this is an album full of satisfactions, not least the lovely take on “In the Wee Small Hours” that ends it.
Thelonious Monk Live in France 1969 (Jazz Icons)
The video of Monk alone at the piano in a Paris studio is the jewel of the fifth Jazz Icons box set that many feared would not come. Taped with visual simplicity and excellent sound, he plays 12 pieces, all of them his compositions but “Don’t Blame Me” and a rollicking “Nice Work if You Can Get It.” Except for that exultant conclusion, the concert has an air of reflective, almost Brahmsian, gravity. His harmonies can be breathtaking. The bonuses—unedited documentary footage and an attempt to interview Monk—are curiosities. The music is essential.
Timme Rosenkrantz, Fradley Hamilton Garner, Harlem Jazz Adventures: A European Baron’s Memoir, 1934-1969
Timme Rosenkrantz (1911–1969) had royal Danish blood, but no royal pretensions, and when he came to the US in 1934, his garrulous charm made him fit right in. What attracted him here was jazz. He became a chronicler and friend of musicians from Louis Armstrong to Art Tatum to Lennie Tristano and dozens of others. He was a rounder and a storyteller, and he could write. His memoir, artfully edited by Fradley Gardner, is a chronicle of three decades when New York was the center of the jazz universe and Rosenkrantz was swinging through it.
Toots Thielemans, Yesterday & Today (Out Of The Blue)
Two CDs with thirty-eight tracks, most previously unreleased, follow Thielemans from 1946, when he was a 23-year-old guitarist with a Belgian swing band, to a 2001 harmonica performance of “What A Wonderful World” with pianist Kenny Werner. In the late 1940s and early ‘50s, when many European musicians were struggling with the style, Thielemans had a firm grasp of bebop. Playing through the decades with George Shearing, Hank Jones, J.J. Johnson, Elis Regina, Mulgrew Miller, Shirley Horn and a few dozen others, Thielemans is astonishing on both instruments, but it’s his harmonica that brings grins of joy.
Maybe that editor needs an brain.
… or an paper?
There’s an writer after my own heart.
Great! I needed a good laugh. I wonder how many takers the typist/editor gets?
What a idiot!
I work in the Quality Control department of a major US company. I choose to keep its name anonymous to slightly hide my embarrassment. Apart from my normal internal oversight responsibilities ensuring that our financial practices meet with SEC guidelines, I randomly review outgoing company correspondence and assess errors to the individuals who make writing mistakes.
Repeatedly, I find misuse of simple language, poor sentence structure, etc., and assign the specific error type and require that the individual make the correction and resend the letter. The most recent mistake I found involved the misuse of ‘was’ instead of ‘were’ in a sentence, and I immediately pointed out the ‘grammatical horror’ (a phrase I love that Gene Lees once wrote).
The offended party immediately challenged that there was nothing wrong with the sentence. My boss reversed my decision.
Her explanation was that I continue to expect a standard of professionalism that is unrealistic, that I cannot expect people who write business letters to be able to use standard English properly. It is too much for them.
Needless to say, it gave me a headache as I silently absorbed being put in my place. Another day in corporate America.
I’ll bet Gene Lees would have loved that.
A blog 4 u:
http://johnemcintyre.blogspot.com/
As Oscar Hammerstein II said (in Oklahoma!):
“It’s a scandal! It’s a outrage!”
P.S. all the exclamation points are his, not mine.
In his piece ‘PianoMorphosis – Money changes everything’ Bruce Brubaker uses this word: ‘surprized.’ I am sure he does not mean ‘over-awarded.’ It is not the correct spelling, which is with an ‘s.’ I note that there is the American ‘practice’ (in English a noun AND verb except in 16th Century usage; in the US, ‘practise’ which, correctly, was a 15th C. verb form ending in the sound of ‘..eyes,’ serves as both noun and verb). ‘Practise’ is not used in modern English. Other anomalies are, for example, ‘advice’ (noun in English, and not used in US, and ‘advise’ (verb in English used as both noun and verb in US). There are many other examples, some stemming from 15th and 16th century usage, but which can be confusing in modern parlance.
(To challenge old friend Tim, with Merriam-Webster’s backing: “practise” is not used as either noun or verb in the US, but is defined by M-W as “British for ‘practice.’” In common US usage, “advice” is the noun, “advise” the verb. We could get into the question of the collective noun in British English, as in “The Count Basie Band are coming to town,” versus the American English, “The Count Basie Band is coming to town.” Or, take past participles…please: “got” versus “gotten.” But, then, life is short. Let’s just listen to Count Basie. –DR)
Dear Doug, Yes I thought you or someone would challenge! It seems most of these examples are used, but I do note that sometimes ‘advise’ is used as a noun. Natch – back to Basie; I’ll put on my old vynil of ‘The Atomic Mr. Basie’ to clear my mind – and of course ‘it’ (correctly) ‘is’ the greatest. ‘Gotten’ is old West Country English; I have heard it in Dorset and Devon, when I was a kid. I am now listening to Hank Mobley with Wynton Kelly, a favourite. All the best.