Three articles written by Ratzo Harris during the summer of 2012 in NewMusicBox inspired a lengthy dialogue between Ratzo and myself, and I am grateful to all involved.

Here are links to the articles, including my originally published comments published below each article.

Regretfully, at some point NewMusicBox decided to delete the dialogue between Ratzo and myself, his comments being at least as lengthy as my own. Now, I wish I had a copy of Ratzo's comments, too, but it never occurred to me that NewMusicBox would take such an unfortunate action, depriving readers of a dialogue that would appear to have been widely read by others at the time. It appears on a larger scale they have deleted all comments and dialogues between readers and authors, though I don't have time to verify this. But it does seem a curious decision, having comments and dialogues that were supported at the time (comments were evaluated before publication), including time spent by writers and readers composing and reading pertinent thoughts, later vanishing.

I've noticed something similar occurring at the New York Times, where they removed all comments from The 1619 Project at some point, despite these comments having been evaluated before publishing them, thus depriving writer's thoughts originally encouraged, only to vanish for whatever reason at a later time.

I'm glad to have taken a screenshot preserving how a comment I made responding to the music part of the project (my comment and the screenshot were fortunately preserved in an essay titled "I Do, Too") from over 350, many of which were highly astute and esoteric, was the only one to receive a NY Times Pick distinction.

A Michael Robinson comment responding to the music part of The 1619 Project was the only one from over 350 given a NYT Picks. All comments from the project were deleted at some point.

So, again, Ratzo's unfortunately missing participation in our dialogue reprinted below was something out of my control. His comments were both fascinating and voluminous.

One advantage is how I was able to add links to some of the artists named I subsequently wrote essays about as part of my Writings About Music.

Ideas presented in my dialogue with Ratzo were later developed for Into A Newborn Day: Words Inspiring Jazz (2014)

Our dialogue also led to my beginning an occasional correspondence with historian Timothy Snyder that initiated with my asking about conditions in Germany for Jews in the late 1920's. We had the chance to meet following a lecture Tim gave at a temple in Beverly Hills. Snyder once wrote, "Your continuing fruitful work amazes me!"

1. Festivities August 31, 2012

September 1, 2012 at 1:49 am

Michael Robinson comments, the lengthy dialogue between him and Ratzo having been deleted by NewMusicBox as mentioned above, including how Michael saved his personal comments, now reprinted here.

Thank you for this. Here are some more thoughts about Charlie Parker: I find it remarkable that perhaps the two greatest improvisers of the twentieth century, Charlie Parker and Ravi Shankar, were both born in 1920. Of course, Shankar is still performing today, while Parker left us in 1955.

A common misconception during his lifetime and continuing today about Parker is that he used heroin to enhance his music, even though the evidence shows that he only became addicted to morphine at the age of 15, which evolved into heroin use, while recovering from spinal injuries in a severe car crash that killed his best friend. There were no pain management doctors available for Parker to consult with to warn him of the dangers, or to assist in weaning him off the drugs.

Some of the most fruitful years of Parker’s monumental creativity and innovation remain undocumented because of the recording ban that took place between 1942 and 1944.

The Just Friends recording is miraculous, even with the sugary arrangement, yet I have long felt there is a recording of Just Friends that surpasses Parker’s in terms of improvisation substance, found on the Satori album by Lee Konitz, joined by Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland and Martial Solal.

My favorite recording of Lover Man by Parker, and one of the finest ballad performances in jazz history, is on the Swedish Schnapps album. I agree with Parker himself that the more famous recording of Lover Man on Dial is more about a physical collapse due to Parker’s inability to obtain heroin in Los Angeles, rather than a profound emotional insight.

September 5, 2012 at 7:06 am

Glad to learn that my words inspired you, as yours did for myself, Ratzo. I once asked the brilliantly insightful Kenny Burrell if he had ever met Parker, and if so, what he was like as a person. Burrell paused to reminisce, and his whole being warmed as he recalled how Parker was unusually supportive and enthusiastic towards young, aspiring jazz musicians, without an ounce of the competitive jealousy that most older musicians had for someone who might come along and steal some of their thunder.

Incidentally, I actually have a linkage between Parker and John Cage, who was born 100 years ago today, as you know. When I was an undergraduate, I attended a live performance of Cage’s Bird Cage, held in a vast student union hall, and being truly curious, I approached Cage while he was monitoring his piece, maybe even making some adjustments to his equipment, to ask if the title had any connection to Charlie “Bird” Parker. John was quite annoyed at my incorrect interruption, and responded with an emphatic “No.”

However, a few years later, Cage exhibited some of the same splendid humane qualities Burrell attributed to Parker.

While talking to an administrator at the Kitchen one day, I noticed Cage’s address on a paper on her desk, and when she walked away briefly, I instantly copied it down. Having read about how Cage felt obligated to young composers because of the way Schoenberg had treated him, I sent a letter requesting a meeting to share my music. John sent back a telegram right away with his home phone number, asking me to call, and we scheduled a time that turned out to be a brutally cold, dazzling sunny winter day. Somewhat nervous that I might give the mistaken impression of planning to stay a few days or more, I arrived at his Chelsea home dressed like an Eskimo, and carrying a large, bright red suitcase that was necessary due to the oversized scores I had at the time. At first glance, John was taken aback, but we ended up spending an entire afternoon discussing too many aspects of music to mention here, and I was charmed by his energetic, warm persona.

Happy Birthday, John, and I look forward to reading more of your thoughts on Bird, Ratzo.

2. A Bird Uncaged September 7, 2012

Michael Robinson comments, the lengthy dialogue between him and Ratzo having been deleted by NewMusicBox as mentioned above, including how Michael saved his personal comments, now reprinted here.

September 8, 2012 at 2:30 pm

It’s enjoyable trading some choruses bi-coastally with you, Ratzo. Here goes: My initial specific point is that the two greatest musical improvisers of the twentieth century, Charlie Parker and Ravi Shankar, were interestingly born in the same year of 1920, which those fluent in Chinese astrology will recognize as a year of the Metal Monkey.

In a purely musical sense, there are many striking parallels, including how they both transformed the very language of their traditions, jazz and Hindustani music, by virtue of melodic, rhythmic, technical and expressive means, and both influenced all the instruments in their respective musics, transcending the alto saxophone and sitar. In addition, both excel in slow music, ballads and alap, as well as playing at torrid tempos never navigated before.

When Bird was at his best, as a functioning addict, the improvisations were fresh and new every time. It was only when he was compromised by physical and/or mental trauma that he resorted to repeating himself. Perhaps there may even have been some social/economic pressure to repeat recorded solos on some songs, but calling Charlie Parker a composer instead of an improviser is akin to calling Michael Jordan a baseball player, which he did for one year, rather than a basketball player.

Now I wish I had an opportunity to Charlie Mingus about his oft repeated feelings on the Dial recording of Lover Man for a clarification. I originally approached the infamous take years ago with an open mind, readying myself for its purported greatness, and it has always fallen flat for me. I suppose if one were to have stuck thorns into Bird’s flesh while he was recording that would have resulted in a different sound as well.

When I learned subsequently that Bird felt the 1946 Lover Man was a greedy, insensitive, and even sadistic power play over his artistic wishes by the label, I felt vindicated in my aesthetic reaction. I went back and listened again today, and it’s still painful, like someone being forced, differentiated from emotional epiphany.

Don Funes, a gifted and innovative teacher, author and musician, once played The Torture Never Stops from the Zoot Allures album by Frank Zappa, and my first response was to ask if it was an S&M spoof, but Don insisted the song was about real torture, an opinion I subsequently agreed with as I listened more carefully, the difference being that the background vocalists were acting, unlike Charlie Parker, who was desperate for money, and not of sound mind when he was coerced to record Lover Man in 1946.

Leonard Altman, the eminent musicologist and arts administrator, after I told him of my meeting with John Cage, related the following story: Leonard went to see a performance that may have included dance, featuring Cage onstage slowing drinking an entire bottle of wine. Afterwards, Altman voiced concern to John that the extended run of the piece might turn the composer into an alcoholic.

I checked online, and guitarist Steve Dukes goes into detail about how John enjoyed alcohol as many do, including myself. Perhaps some others know the extent of Cage’s drinking, which I assume was social, and only required by that one piece.

Bird’s original Just Friends is one of his greatest improvisations, and that is why it is extraordinary that Lee Konitz actually surpassed it. I’m unaware of any other version of Just Friends that stands alongside these two recordings.

Bird’s rendition focuses more on stunningly penetrating, byzantine embroidery, with Debussy/Ravel-like splashes of dazzling melodic-harmonic color, articulated with a rhythmic sophistication that surpasses any classical composer of his time, rivaling Alla Rakha, and informed with mostly light romantic rasa. Konitz’s version, spurred on by the equally resourceful playing of DeJohnette, Holland and Solal, builds a living architectural marvel that one never tires of, including an Artie Shaw riff executed in a powerfully original manner, and a compelling narrative that rivals Beethoven.

This Just Friends is suffused with a gritty and soaring passion, exhibiting Lee’s unconventional yet beautifully calibrated and compelling timbre, which may be compared to Bob Dylan’s voice, who I’m sure Konitz loves about as much as Woody Allen: “Sorry I couldn’t make it to the Dylan concert. My raccoon had hepatitis.” (I am also a huge Bob Dylan admirer.)

Instead of attempting to emulate the African-American ethos, the predominant influence on jazz, Konitz follows his Jewish-American cultural instincts, greatly influenced by Artie Shaw, who is usually overlooked as an inspiration not only on Lee, but also on modern jazz in general, a huge untouched topic by itself. (Lennie Tristano, Benny Goodman, and Johnny Hodges are the more commonly cited influences on Konitz, who I once observed transcribing John Coltrane’s luminescent recording of Weaver of Dreams.)

Lee has pointed out that he frequently plays the music of Jewish composers, and its true that a high percentage of jazz standards come from them, a few of the most renowned being Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern and Richard Rodgers.

Konitz is famous for not sounding and improvising at all like Charlie Parker in any way, including tone, dynamics, articulation, phrasing, expression, and the very nature of his melodic and rhythmic orientation. The only thing they really have in common, other than an equivalent genius for creating within and transcending complex harmonic structures, is playing the alto saxophone. In fact, this is what Lee’s good friend, Charlie Parker, admired most about him. As Gary Foster stated, “Lee Konitz was an earthquake in the jazz world.” Even Horace Silver, despite a highly contrasted expressive bent, marveled at the manner in which Lee “played changes.”

Spontaneity is the essence of jazz improvisation, and no one in the entire history of jazz can match the level and quality of Konitz’s impossibly varied improvisations sustained from the late forties to the present, although several, like Parker and Coltrane, did so for a decade or two before their lives were tragically cut short.

Adding to the jazz triptych of Parker, Coltrane and Ornette Coleman mentioned in this article as being the most influential artists after swing, I would add Lee Konitz and Bill Evans. I believe the three most noteworthy improvisers in modern jazz are Parker, Konitz and Coltrane. I have long viewed Ornette Coleman and John Cage as profoundly influential and pervasive catalysts.

In addition to Just Friends, here are some other standards I believe Konitz recorded the ultimate versions of: Round Midnight (with Michel Petrucciani), Night and Day (with Red Mitchell), There Will Never Be Another You (with Kenny Clarke and Oscar Pettiford), I Remember You (with Elvin Jones), Windows (with Hap Galper), and Zingaro (with Peggy Stern).

Regarding Martin Rosenberg, I hope that he finds time to weave the unexplored element of Native American ancestry into his examinations of jazz. I am unaware of any research being pursued in this field.

September 9, 2012 at 6:15 pm

I somehow neglected to include Lester Young among the influences on Lee Konitz.

My apologies to Hal Galper for the careless typo. He inspired Konitz to create one of his finest albums, Windows.

Recently, as part of a not yet published interview with Jack DeJohnette, I had the opportunity to hear Chick Corea perform his composition, Windows, with Hubert Laws, Stanley Clarke and DeJohnette. It was the highlight of the two evenings I attended at Catalina Bar and Grill on Sunset in Los Angeles.

Out of curiosity, I researched the origin of Just Friends, and it turns out to have been composed way back in 1931 by John Klenner and Sam Lewis, both Jewish-American. John Klenner, from Germany, was the composer, and Sam Lewis, from Russia, was the lyricist. (I was going to make an obvious James Bond pun, related to the lyrics of Just Friends, until I realized that both Lewis and Klenner likely fled those countries for their very lives.)

September 12, 2012 at 4:56 am

Thank you for these eloquent elucidations, Ratzo. Here are some additional thoughts that spring to mind, even if I suspect that some of them qualify as preaching to the choir:

Many in the music and jazz communities overlook the crucial role played by Jewish Americans in the history of jazz.

Jazz, from roughly 1930 to 1960, is inconceivable without the musical forms used for improvisational settings that came from American song composers who possessed a genius for music equivalent to the musicians who extemporized upon their creative output.

A high percentage of these composers were Jewish-American, just as a high percentage of the pertinent improvisers were African-American.

Simply because a pejorative and mistaken word has been commonly used in the past doesn’t make if acceptable. “Tin Pan Alley” is no more adequate, respectful and accurate as a name for the timeless, perfect compositions wedded inextricably to jazz than “Bordello Alley” would be for the later.

“Jazz” itself is a great word, exotic and obscure, and I’m unaware of anyone who is offended by its actually original meaning, which I believe is sexual intercourse, a truly Hindu-like enlightenment where Shringara Rasa is the great mother.

My assertions about composers and improvisers in jazz are sweeping generalizations, of course, and there are myriad notable exceptions, including composers Billy Strayhorn, Fats Waller, Cole Porter and Jimmy Van Heusen, and improvisers Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Lee Konitz and Stan Getz. (The crucial origins and role of the blues in jazz has not been touched upon either.)

Last year, Anthony Tommasini, in The New York Times, took it upon himself to name the ten greatest Western composers who are diseased, placing Bach first, and Beethoven second, and one cannot resist engaging in similar speculations, as I have done, without doing any harm.

For myself, the placement of Bach and Beethoven, due to the overwhelming musical evidence, is the only real question, and the placement of any other eight composers is arbitrarily subjective. Right now, I would place Beethoven first, and Bach second, but in the past I would have concurred with Tommasini, and who knows what the future holds. (Most recently, I am awestruck by Machaut.)

I am very familiar with the artists you listed as possible alternate choices to Parker and Shankar, with the exception of Gismonti, who I look forward to hearing, but like Bach and Beethoven, I cannot deny the body of work presented by Parker and Shankar.

Ravi Shankar has been the subject of much jealousy and resentment in the world of Indian classical music largely because of his enormous success in terms of fame, yet it’s important to recognize that his intellectual, expressive and technical accomplishments are indisputable in India, or anywhere else, except, again, by those who envy him, or fail to comprehend his innovations, clinging to the past.

Myself, I could not begin to appreciate Shankar’s essence until I had been listening to other leading Indian artists for years, along with some study. Raviji is definitely a rarefied, developed taste whose true value is not immediately discernable, except on surface levels due to his remarkable charisma.

The point most people miss about Charlie Parker’s use of narcotics is that he did not take morphine and heroin to get high. Rather, he took these narcotics, beginning at the tender age of fifteen, to restore his equilibrium and sense of normalcy by relieving the excruciating spinal pain that wouldn’t allow him to even think straight following a catastrophic car crash.

It’s doubtful that this physical pain ever abated before Bird’s death, and even if it did, the psychological and physiological effects of these tragic events on someone who had not yet reached adulthood became the self-medicating, nightmarish reality he never escaped from due to the lack of proper medical advise and treatment in a racist society.

Describing the musical tone of Lee Konitz as “softer” is misleading. In fact, his tone was famous for being able to slash through the combined volume and force of the entire Stan Kenton Orchestra, which played louder than any previous big band. Lee’s tone is about as soft as a laser beam! Even in his earliest recordings with Lenny Tristano, Konitz burns like a white flame. More recently, I’ve heard Konitz perform live without a microphone, and he easily fills the space at every dynamic level over drums, piano and bass, something not many musicians are capable of doing successfully. (It is true that Konitz, like Shankar, is a developed taste.)

Many great jazz artists, including those of Italian and other ancestries, who happen not to be African-American, have sometimes been subjected to superficial and ethnocentric misunderstandings that serve no purpose other than to suppress and marginalize significant diversity.

Incidentally, my favorite jazz pianist has long been Bill Evans, but recently I have become enamored of Red Garland, and I would go so far to say that he now appears to be the main stylistic influence on Evans.

It’s wonderful to discover something new like this, and have the opportunity to delve into Garland’s output. Obviously, I was not ready to initially appreciate the profundity of Garland’s creativity, which flew over my head at first.

I am curious to consider Martin Rosenberg’s work when there is some free time, but my initial impression is that he needs to include the neglected element of Native American ancestry in his examinations of jazz.

Thanks for supplying the true birthplace of Sam Lewis, who it appears was descended from Russian Jews, and not actually born in Russia, as the source I read incorrectly listed. In other words, his parents likely fled for their very lives in the face of pogroms, as my grandparents did.

Regarding John Klenner, who you said emigrated from Germany by 1930, and thus had nothing to worry about, the Simon Wiesenthal Center states: “The aftermath of World War I created a threatening political atmosphere for German Jewry. Economic depression, radical nationalism, street violence, fears of communism and dissatisfaction with democracy drove many Germans towards fiercely antisemitic attitudes. Hostility mounted dangerously throughout the late 1920s.”

I will be glad to share the pun you enquired about if we happen to meet sometime, not that it’s anything so great. My guess is that we actually concur on most topics, but this format is not as fluid as a conversation.

In closing, I am puzzled why Konitz’s Kary’s Trance, perhaps my favorite jazz line of all, and related pieces by Lennie Tristano and Warne Marsh, are not played and taught more by jazz artists and educators. They collectively offer a unique insight and springboard into the art of pure improvisation. Perhaps they are simply considered too complex and difficult, but they are well worth the effort.

OK, one more question: I’ve never heard this story about John Coltrane and My Favorite Things. Can you please be more specific, including the names of the people involved, and who told you this story? It doesn’t sound credible to me that the song wasn’t the choice of Coltrane, but if it did go down as you described I suppose it was a fortuitous occurrence because it provided a perfect setting for Coltrane’s raga yearnings.

3. Whats in a Name? September 14, 2012

Michael Robinson comments, the lengthy dialogue between him and Ratzo having been deleted by NewMusicBox as mentioned above, including how Michael saved his personal comments, now reprinted here.

September 18, 2012 at 11:21 pm

Simply because one’s view may or may not be a minority opinion has little to do with the validity of that perspective. I will leave it to individual readers to decide whether or not the context of your use of the term Tin Pan Alley in a reply to my comments in the previous article was intentionally or reflexively dismissive.

This is not the first time I have been troubled by a commonly used word. Back in 1998, I wrote: “I find it offensive that the world’s tallest mountain is known by a recent Anglican name (Everest), when there are beautiful and ancient names in Tibet and Nepal for this sacred place. Chomolungma, meaning Goddess Mother of Earth, is Tibetan, and Sagarmatha, which represents a male god, is the name from Nepal, meaning Top of the Ocean, or the highest point on earth rising above the sea.”

As I suspected, you have no actual knowledge or evidence about the specific circumstances in which John Coltrane decided to record My Favorite Things. In fact, Ingrid Monson, the author of the paper you referred me to, “Doubleness and Jazz Improvisation: Irony, Parody, and Ethnomusicology,” states that Coltrane selected this composition by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein on his own volition.

That is not to say I do not have serious problems with the paper: Monson exhibits a highly ethnocentric and superficial understanding of My Favorite Things’ aesthetic value, not even mentioning the lyrics of the song.

At least three prominent jazz artists I know of, Miles Davis, Lee Konitz and Lou Levy, all regarded Italian-American vocalist, Frank Sinatra, as their favorite jazz singer. These opinions first came to my attention when during a lesson with Konitz following my freshman year of college, I asked him who he listened to for musical inspiration, and was astonished to hear him reply, “Frank Sinatra,” who up to that point I only associated with Strangers In the Night! (Sinatra famously and modestly preferred to refer to himself as a Saloon Singer.)

One of the reasons jazz artists admire Sinatra relates to his astonishing ability to extract the unique rasa of each song he interpreted, taking extraordinary measure of the lyrics, a ritual practiced by instrumentalists Lester Young, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, who concurred that lyrics were a window into the musical soul of a composition.

Regarding her paper that makes prominent mention of My Favorite Things, why does Monson consider it beyond the scope of John Coltrane’s omnivorous intellectual curiosity and knowledge to have attended a performance of the intensely moving show, The Sound of Music, or at least known the story the show portrays?

Myself, I feel that the monumental expressive power of Coltrane’s original recording of My Favorite Things is partly informed by an awareness of the unimaginable atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, a regime that ultimately threatens the children and adults in The Sound of Music.

The song, My Favorite Things, which Monson dismisses as sentimental and trite, movingly and exquisitely portrays the joy, wonder and naiveté of privileged Austrian children and their caretaker before they encounter a regime whose real life practices included throwing living children directly into ovens on a vast scale.

A few years later, John Coltrane, mourned and protested against the monstrous immolation of African-American children in his profoundly moving composition, Alabama.

Personally, I believe that the power and magnificence of Coltrane’s music was instrumental in bringing about a consciousness that empowered the Civil Rights Movement in America, and an end to the Vietnam War.

Rather than downplaying the importance and aesthetic value of predominantly Jewish-American composers and lyricists that combined with predominantly African-American improvisers while forging an intrinsic part of a prodigous evolving art form known collectively as jazz, I urge Monson and others to broaden their perspective, and thus avoid compromising whatever valid musical and sociological points they may have.

Another unfortunate omission in “Doubleness and Jazz Improvisation: Irony, Parody, and Ethnomusicology,” is the author’s failure to mention that the main musical reason Coltrane seized upon My Favorite Things was his recognition of its unusually dramatic and expressive movement from major to minor modalities within the context of a folk song-like utterance, providing a perfect medium for expressing the saxophonist’s fascination, love and obsession with the Hindustani raga recordings of sitarist Ravi Shankar, sarodist Ali Akbar Khan and shehnai artist Bismillah Khan, all from India. It was Bismillah Khan who influenced Coltrane’s unforgettable recorded use of the soprano saxophone for My Favorite Things, an instrument that Coltrane initially associated with Sidney Bechet.

In closing, I wish to point out, as Ravi Shankar has done, that the term “ethnomusicology” is inherently racist, as it assumes that one group is the norm, and everyone else is “ethnic.” One solution is to have the unfortunate word replaced by the original, all-encompassing “musicology,” which would help to erase the walls that divide us in life too.

Like Columbo, I have one more thought, and this is related to the song I originally commented on several articles ago: How wonderful it would be if the presidential election could simply be decided by how President Obama and Mitt Romney each rendered the challenging intervals of Just Friends. (I’m unfairly blaming NewMusicBox, a name I admire, for not being able to get this song out of my head!)

September 20, 2012 at 7:19 pm

Upon closer examination of the song, My Favorite Things, which previously I was referencing primarily by memory, the song is initially sung by Maria, a cloistered nun, who is considering taking a position as a maid for a wealthy family.

Later in the show, Maria reprises the song together with the children she came to care for. Wikipedia states: "The song’s main melody seems derivative of Edvard Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King, particularly in its repetitive simplicity and its minor-key sense of dread. Put simply, the melody conveys terror. The happy, optimistic lyrics – ”Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudel” – are just a counterpoint and cover-up to this undercurrent of fear."

As noted above, the song was written to be sung by a young woman scared of facing new responsibilities outside the convent. In the film script the song is repositioned, with Maria singing it to the von Trapp children during the thunderstorm; but the terror contained in the melody is still the dominant emotion. This interpretation is consistent with my supposition that John Coltrane was conscious of the menacing totalitarian context that engendered The Sound of Music and My Favorite Things.

While rereading the paper referenced, I did come across a brief mention of the lyrics for My Favorite Things, but in a continuing pattern of troubling obfuscation, Ingrid hones in on the stanza of the song describing the beauties of Winter – this is her home in the Austrian Alps Maria is singing about after all – something Monson suggests John Coltrane (and all African-Americans?) would have no affinity for. In fact, she states that John likely would have been rankled by use of the adjective “white” to describe snow and winter, as well as the word “cream” to describe the color of a pony. Presumably, Ingrid has no issue with “Raindrops on roses,” “Bright copper kettles,” “Brown paper packages tied up with strings,” and “Wild geese that fly with moon on their wings,” etc. But moonlight is generally light-colored, so perhaps that allusion is suspect to Monson as well. Following this logic, Coltrane’s famous ballad, Central Park West, most definitely would have excluded the park during winter when it snowed. Of course, there is an equal chance this transcendental composition was inspired by the park during winter, spring, summer or fall.

This is the first time I’ve heard the term “song-plugger,” and it truly is ugly and derogatory sounding. I am curious to know the name of the person, who McCoy Tyner is credited with vaguely recalling, originally gave a copy of My Favorite Things to the John Colrane Quartet while they were performing at the Jazz Gallery. McCoy is not certain about this sequence of events, and we still do not know for a fact whether or not John attended a performance of the Sound of Music, whether or not he heard a copy of the original album released featuring the Broadway cast, and whether or not he requested a copy of My Favorite Things, or recognized the song if it was brought to him unexpectedly.

Is it at all possible to assume that this unnamed person(s) made an intelligent decision when deciding that John might like the song? Would it be possible to find out the name of this person(s) so that proper recognition is given to someone who helped make possible one of the most influential musical events of the twentieth-century, the John Coltrane Quartet’s recording of My Favorite Things?

Shortly after the opening of The Sound of Music, Oscar Hammerstein, a creative genius whose songs in collaboration with Jerome Kern include All The Things You are and The Song is You, two cornerstones of jazz literature that inspired Charlie Parker to reach some of his loftiest heights, passed away. Softly As In A Morning Sunrise, which like My Favorite Things became one of John Coltrane’s greatest recordings, was yet another of his songs, written in collaboration with composer Sigmund Romberg.

September 22, 2012 at 12:24 am

It was fascinating to read this comment that serves to humanize a term I was unfamiliar with.

I have no doubt that Ingrid Monson has written insightful and important things about jazz, and I look forward to exploring her work. The comments I made here relate only to specified aspects of the paper brought to my attention.

September 24, 2012 at 7:27 pm

No doubt, part of what binds African Americans and Jewish Americans together, in art and life, is a native spirituality, and a history of shared oppression.

Back when I was giving programs, I was deeply moved when an African-American gentleman in the audience approached me afterwards, and told me he felt a strong affinity with the spirituality experienced beneath the surface of the music.

When I gave programs for disadvantaged African-American and Latino children in Pasadena, they were jumping up and down, dancing to a new musical experience with great joy.

During the years I lived in NYC, my favorite place was probably the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A favorite memory of that sanctuary was arranging to meet a friend, both an artist and model, in the vast lobby. Originally from Jamaica, she outshone all the priceless paintings and sculptures, standing out across the bustling crowd wearing a long, ivory-white dress set against her chocolate-hued skin. I was not so conscious of our diverse backgrounds until one day she told me she no longer wished to visit the Upper East Side because people stared at her in a manner bringing discomfort.

Hindus believe that humans are capable of becoming gods through repeated actions that benefit the oppressed, and I believe that John Coltrane, who named his son after Indian sitarist, Ravi Shankar, did become a god, or perhaps a saint, through musical offerings. (Coltrane’s birthday was yesterday.)

Getting back to the mundane, I would truly appreciate it if you can supply at least one specific example of “plenty of examples of racially-biased binaries that might inspire feelings of irony and might inspire Elgba-esque expression in the music of John Coltrane.”

Up to this point, irony is not a sentiment I associate with Coltrane, who seemed to function on a different plane, in any way, but I am open, and welcome the opportunity to recognize the concept if you can spare the time to elucidate.

- Michael Robinson, September 2012, Los Angeles

Reconstructing Ratzo's Reflexivity features more of Ratzo Harris and Michael Robinson trading thoughts.

Michael Robinson is a Los Angeles-based composer, programmer, pianist and musicologist. His 199 albums include 152 albums for meruvina and 47 albums of piano improvisations. Robinson has been a lecturer at UCLA, Bard College and California State University Long Beach and Dominguez Hills.