Listenings

Ay, I suppose this will show my age — or, at least, how utterly disconnected and unhip my life has become in my dotage. For it happens that while perusing one (of the many) lists of the best albums of 2006 (like this one) I, indeed, did not recognize but one of the bands in the list.

It is worse than that: I spent a good deal of my listening time in Smithville, playing a 1997 CD reissue of a 1952 LP compilation of 78s released between 1927 and 1932.  That is: the Anthology of American Folk Music. I would almost recommend reading Greil Marcus’ Invisible Republic as you listen — if you can stomach the rambling style, odd organziation and idiosyncratical writing. If not, then at least take his clue, and continue on to the Bobster himself.

Now, while I won’t pretend to be deeply enamoured by the Basement Tapes per se (preferring, for the time being, John Wesley Harding and New Morning when I get cravings for some Dylan) this tome did make me seek out two albums that were released long after I stopped really following Dylan closely, namely Good as I Been to You and World Gone Wrong. Both very satisfying finds, I might add.

Continuing into the really weird America, this was also a year where I took another stab at listeting to Trout Mask Replica. It has some interesting features: small children will cover their ears, wifes will leave the room, milk will curdle (actually, I made the last one up) — and it still stands aloof from almost everything else. But let us surmise that the good Cap’n spent some time back in Smithville, too, once.

While nobody would claim that that endeavor has made it into the mainstream, it is interesting to note that some of the jazz from the early sixties that made traditionalists wince, suddenly sounds, well, almost non-controversial. Say, for example, one album that I spun a few times: Tomorrow Is the Question! Who would not be moved by the sheer beauty of Don Cherry’s playing on the second track here, Tears Inside?

Also, remarkably enough, Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall was a bestseller at Amazon for a long while (the universal critical acclaim was only to be expected.) It is grand, and moving, and thoroughly a joy.

Otherwise, other ancient stuff like The Use of Ashes (hard not to recognize The Jeweler as one of the best “pop songs” ever written), the Carter Family collection Wildwood Flower and I am a Bird Now (ok, so that one is not even old…)

In a bow towards the more familiar tastes, I would admit that Gnarls Barkley are not half bad, and that Thom Yorke did something very interesting this past year.