33 1/3 Coninuum book series

the love one looked good.

Am looking forward to the Abba book. I like the fact that they're including a greatest hits record in the series.

Has anyone read any of the Genre series? I was reading this very good interview with Ashawnta Jackson, the author of Soul-Folk, and I didn't realize how many of these already existed.

oops: https://www.dontrocktheinbox.com/on-soul-folk-with-author-ashawnta-jackson

I've read the Krautrock and Death Metal ones, fine enough I guess, but as someone who spends a lot of time with those genres there wasn't a lot of surprises. I kind of feel like you'd get more enjoyment out of one about a new genre you might just be diving into.

I also had no idea how many there are now!

I read Death Metal, Trip Hop, and Shoegaze. The latter was probably the best of the three, more of an oral history format. I like the idea of the genre books, if one of them is really great I'd love to read it. So far all three were a bit less satisfying than I was hoping for.

xp yeah Soul-Folk is particularly enticing because I know nearly nothing about it, and according to that interview she mostly avoids discussing the most obvious exemplars.

Agreed on liking this as a general idea; I only read a couple of the album ones and didn't really love the format. Apart from Soul-Folk, I think the 70s Fusion, Minimalism, and SA Pop ones would be the most appealing to me. I wouldn't mind flipping through Tropicalia to see if there's anything I've missed.

I don't think I recognize a single one of the authors though, I must be really out of the music writing loop

He came from these really saccharine pop songs — that "Hundred Pounds of Clay" song is one of the worst things I've ever heard.

it kind of bums me out that she says this, especially after she had just been talking about setting aside our biases in terms of "authenticity." but, i don't want to derail too much, and several of the albums linked in that interview are favorites, so i might track this down

ok yeah I'd never heard that before and while I'm unlikely to listen to it again, I assumed based on that comment it was especially wretched rather than just a bit bland and not really my thing lyrically

regardless of how you feel about the song (i like it but get that it's not for everybody), he continued to play that song late into life. the idea that he had this early sellout period and later made his real artistic statements just doesn't track

ah gotcha (I don't know anything McDaniels)

but i don't mean to nitpick, which i get is annoying. "i love my niche genre in the correct way!" probably speaks to jon's point about getting more enjoyment out of something that's more or less new to you

i have a friend who's an old head who's kind of like that. (maybe that's what i'm turning into, who knows.) god forbid you mention Ken Burns' "Jazz" and you will get like a 53-point verbal essay on all the inaccuracies and misrepresentations and unforgivable omissions

lol it is hard to avoid that kind of thing as you age. on the more positive side, I think it's a good instinct to question "one of the worst things I've ever heard"-type statements

you can also just say “I have my issues” or “it’s ok” instead of launching into the 53 theses depending on your audience imo

tbf Ken Burns' Jazz does have a lot of misrepresentations and omissions. This isn't nitpicking - it does the music a serious disservice by towing the conservative Crouch/Marsalis line that the music was perfected in the early 1960s and the avant-garde, fusion etc were aberrations. It's taken years to undo that damage. Also the US centric liberal patriotism is a bit ick.

Enjoyed the Death Metal one. Wondering if a free improv one would be worth pitching, although John Corbett's Listener's Guide To Free Improvisation is hard to beat.

maybe something that focused on a British context would be more interesting/appealing? i would certainly love to read something like that from you

I never saw KB's Jazz and was always open to the late 60s stuff, but it still took me forever to listen to any jazz made after circa 1972. I still find the rest of the 70s as well as the 80s-00s to be a bit mysterious (hence my interest in the 70s Jazz Fusion book), though I've been slowly and haphazardly poking around the 70s plus I started paying a slightly more than dilettantish level attention to contemporary jazz at some point in the 10s.

A book on those uncool/uncanonized decades would be a huge boon for me; I dimly recall unperson might be working on something like this (perhaps more narrowly on the 70s)?

Non-US or UK-specific would def be of interest as well.

Kind of you to say so Budo Jero. I have considered a UK improv book/project, particularly one that challenges the London-centric narrative by looking at scenes around the country. Also things are changing - new voices, more diversity, interrogation of the established "Britprov" vocabulary and practices.
There's always a danger that country or region focused surveys can be reductive or essentialist, but books like Kevin Whitehead's New Dutch Swing are a good example of showing how the local is in dialogue with the international. So thank you - this has got the cogs rolling!

For all my criticism of KB's Jazz, it's definitely worth watching for the footage alone. And I totally get the idea of jazz after a certain period seeming quite mysterious, particularly when so much is left out of mainstream narratives. There are plenty of conservatoire students who can easily go through a jazz degree without learning about the AACM for example.

Lots of books that might help fill in some gaps. Michael Heller's Loft Jazz book did a good job of bringing the immediate post 1960s stuff together. Cisco Bradley's William Parker bio is a good follow on from that. And Paul Steinbeck's Sound Experiments is a really valuable look at key AACM recordings from the 1960s to the present day. Nate Chinen and Unperson's 21st Century jazz guides are also really valuable and set the ball rolling for further exploration.

I never saw Ken Burns’s take on jazz, which sounds like documentarian overreach on his part, but I hope it included a jazz version of the Ashokan Farewell song that played every thirty seconds in The Civil War

If you live anywhere near Minneapolis, awesome bookshop/ formerly awesome pizzeria (really sad they decided to end their in-house restaurant) Moon Palace is offering a free 33 1/3 book for every 2 you purchase. It might also be available via mail order, apologies for not knowing as I am amidst a work-related gathering and I wanted to get this info to y'all before the deal ends on Election Day. https://moonpalacebooks.com/lists/Lgj6gWpX8-8A

Oops, forgot to mention - use the promo code MUSIC

Essential books on jazz not covered by Ken Burns:

Amiri Baraka, Black Music
Valerie Wilmer, As Serious As Your Life
A.B. Spellman, Four Lives In The Bebop Business
George Lewis, A Power Stronger Than Itself
Michael Heller, Loft Jazz
Art Taylor, Notes And Tones

Many more, but those are a good starting point.