Microgroove continues John Corbett's exploration of diverse musics, with essays, interviews, and musician profiles that focus on jazz, improvised music, contemporary classical, rock, folk, blues, post-punk, and cartoon music. Corbett's approach to writing is as polymorphous as the music, ranging from oral history and journalistic portraiture to deeply engaged cultural critique. Corbett advocates for the relevance of "little" music, which despite its smaller audience is of enormous cultural significance. He writes on musicians as varied as Sun Ra, PJ Harvey, Koko Taylor, Steve Lacy, and Helmut Lachenmann. Among other topics, he discusses recording formats; the relationship between music and visual art, dance, and poetry; and, with Terri Kapsalis, the role of female orgasm sounds in contemporary popular music. Above all, Corbett privileges the importance of improvisation; he insists on the need to pay close attention to "other" music and celebrates its ability to open up pathways to new ideas, fresh modes of expression, and unforeseen ways of knowing.
Preface: Tympanum of the Other Frog xv
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction 1
One. On The Road, Into The Cul-De-Sac
Joe Harriott and Bernie McGann: Flying without Ornette 15
Michael Hurley: Jocko's Lament 21
Mayo Thompson: Genre of One 33
John Stevens: Unpopular Populists 36
Peter Brötzmann Tentet: Freeways 40
Steve Lacy: Sojourner Saxophone 49
David Grubbs: Postcards from the Edge 57
Voice Crack: From Nothing to Everything 67
Two. Exigeneses Of Creative Music
Milford Graves: Pulseology 71
Out of Nowhere: Deleuze, Gräwe, Cadence 79
Carla Bley and Steve Swallow: Feeding Quarters to the Nonstop Mental Jukebox 85
Misha Mengelberg: No Simple Calculations for Life 93
Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink: Natural Inbuilt Contrapuncto 109
Form Follows Faction? Ethnicity and Creative Music 116
Anthony Braxton: Ism vs. Is 123
Anthony Braxton: Bildungsmusik-Thoughts on Composition 171 129
Paul Lowens: Lo Our Lo 132
Clark Coolidge: The Improvised Line 136
Nathaniel Mackey: Steep Incumbencies 142
Sun Ra: From the Windy City to the Omniverse-Chicago Life as a Street Priest of D.I.Y. Jazz 153
Fred Anderson: The House That Fred Built 162
Three. Ululations And Other Vocal Stimulants
Sun Ra: Queer Voice 169
Jaap Blonk: Uncommon Tongue 170
PJ Harvey: Mother's Tongue 179
Aural Sex: The Female Orgasm in Popular Sound (coauthored with Terri Kapsalis) 182
Liz Phair and Lou Barlow: On Music, Sex, TV, and Beyond 194
Liz Phair and Kim Gordon: Exile in Galville? 205
Koko Taylor: The Blue Queen Cooks 212
Brion Gysin and Steve Lacy: Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permuted 217
Four. The Horn Section
Ornette Coleman: Doing Is Believing 233
Roscoe Mitchell: Citizen of Sound 244
Fred Anderson and Von Freeman: Tenacity 250
George Lewis: Interactive Imagination 258
Mats Gustafsson: MG at Half-C 264
Ken Vandermark: Six Dispatches from the Memory Bank 270
Ken Vandermark and Joe McPhee: Mutual Admiration Society 278
Peter Brötzmann and Evan Parker: Bring Something to the Table 285
Five. Track Marks
Oncology of the Record Album 297
Discaholic or Vinyl Freak? Mats Gustafsson Interrogates John Corbett 301
Twenty-Seven Enthusiasms: A Spontaneous Listening Session 308
A Very Visual Kind of Music: The Cartoon Soundtrack beyond the Screen 313
R. L. Burnside and Jon Spencer: Fattening Frogs for Snake Drive 322
Before and After Punk: The Comp as Teaching Tool 331
Raymond Scott: Cradle of Electronica 336
Six. Melodic Line and Tone Color
Peter Brötzmann: Graphic Equalizer 343
Albert Oehlen: Bionic Painting 347
Albert Oehlen: Mangy-A Conversation and a Playlist 352
Christopher Wool: Impropositions-Improvisation, Dub Painting 359
Christopher Wool: Into the Woods-Six Meditations on the Interdisciplinary 366
Sun Ra: An Afro-Space-Jazz Imaginary-The Printed Record of El Saturn 371
Seven. The Texture Of Refusal
Helmut Lachenmann: Hellhörig, or the Intricacies of Perceptiveness 379
Guillermo Gregorio: Madi Music 387
Experimental Oriental: New Music and Other Others 391
Afterword: A Concise History of Music 417
Grooving On: Selected Listening 423
Credits 443
Index 447
