<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv=content-type></HEAD>
<BODY dir=ltr>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
<DIV>Dear Mr Pelletier et all</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Don’t get me wrong and this is not meant to be a personal attack but I do
believe this is called having an independent opinion based on facts. I don’t
want to give away Bob’s age but I reckon his observations are, erm, historically
well informed. I dunno much about Jazz but based on what I do know Brubeck has
been the source of debate among many Jazz afficionados for the reasons Bob has
pointed out. PC ? I don’t think so. Locking up 2 Jazz fans in a room and force
them to talk about Keith Jarret (cursed be his classical recordings) or Gulda
((cursed be his Jazz recordings) after talking about DB could also produce some
funny results for the same reasons I reckon, but such is the state of music that
we are allowed to have different opinions. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>On a GG related note to this strange subject:</DIV>
<DIV>Ohboyohboyohboy, next year will be the Wagner Bicentennial. (You know how
much GG admired the music of Wagner). Oh dear, that is going to be a “PC”
mudfest in no mistake.....</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Pat
<DIV
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none"></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt tahoma">
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #f5f5f5">
<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=promonde@aol.com
href="mailto:promonde@aol.com">David Pelletier</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, December 05, 2012 9:56 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=bobmerk@earthlink.net
href="mailto:bobmerk@earthlink.net">Robert Merkin</A> ; <A
title=f_minor@glenngould.org href="mailto:f_minor@glenngould.org">Discussion of
the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould.</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A title=f_minor@glenngould.org
href="mailto:f_minor@glenngould.org">Discussion of the Canadian pianist Glenn
Gould.</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: [f_minor] Take Five</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">
<DIV>Gee, how PC are you?<BR><BR>Sent from my iPhone</DIV>
<DIV><BR>On Dec 5, 2012, at 2:58 PM, "Robert Merkin" <<A
href="mailto:bobmerk@earthlink.net">bobmerk@earthlink.net</A>>
wrote:<BR><BR></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">
<DIV>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.19328">
<STYLE></STYLE>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype">Nil nisi bono de
mortuis.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype">Beyond his freakish finger span --
I think he could play a 12th -- Brubeck filled a very undistinguished niche in
jazz. He produced a "safe," unsurprising product that white college-educated
audiences felt comfortable consuming. It was also "television safe" because
with very few exceptions, USA commercial networks took decades to broadcast
African-American (Negroes in those days) artists. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype">(Only Hefner's "Playboy After Dark"
featured integrated or black jazz artists; it was a syndicated show never
broadcast in the racially segregated South.)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype">With his "revolutionary" and whack
time signatures, Brubeck's work was European//classically sophisticated -- but
soulless. He seemed to view improvisation -- the heart of jazz -- as a
slovenly embarrassment; there's not a measure of improvisation in his
super-selling breakthrough albums.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype">That's why saxophonist Paul Desmond
deserted the DB Quartet. He knew Brubeck wasn't playing jazz and never would.
Desmond and Gerry Mulligan were the only white contemporaries of Brubeck who
"got it," who seamlessly recorded with black artists.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype">I'm sorry to say that in the USA
1950s, genuine, historical-roots black jazz and R&B scared white
Americans. It was spontaneous, energetic, exciting, thrilling, and worst of
all, highly sexual, its sexual references only thinly veiled with puns and
jokes. That didn't matter until the 1960s, because none of the major recording
labels would touch black artists; their brilliant (and naughty) work got its
limited airplay and sales on "race" labels sold only in the black
ghettos.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype">Brubeck got all that airplay and
filled stadiums because his stuff wasn't very challenging, contained
references to respectable classical music, and didn't frighten white kids (or
their parents who snooped to hear what the kids were listening
to).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype">Brubeck didn't invent this niche.
In previous decades, Paul Whiteman (and no white man was more aptly named)
sanitized George Gershwin's jazz derivitives for white audiences, and in the
'40s Benny Goodman did the same. Goodman actually featured African-American
musicians in his band (I don't think Glenn Miller did).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype">It's easy to blame the big labels
and radio and television networks as the villains of this sad American
history, but it was the timidity and conformity of white consumers which did
most of the harm. (It was rock's "scholars" like the Rolling Stones, Eric
Clapton and the early Beatles who re-discovered historical African-American
jazz and blues for white audiences.) </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype">Europeans weren't so timid. During
the Nazi era, Germans (Berliners mostly) braved the concentration camp to
smuggle in black American jazz records, and during the Soviet era Eastern
Europeans would risk the gulags to listen to their beloved jazz. This was,
after all, depraved and decadent Western music.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype">I've often wondered if I'd have the
guts to risk prison to listen to my favorite music. But for decades thousands
did -- and I suspect in some "Great Firewall" places, people still
do.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype">Bob</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Palatino Linotype">Massachusetts USA</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=Kpapademas@aol.com
href="mailto:Kpapademas@aol.com">Kpapademas@aol.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=f_minor@glenngould.org
href="mailto:f_minor@glenngould.org">f_minor@glenngould.org</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, December 05, 2012
12:31 PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [f_minor] Take Five</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV><FONT id=role_document color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial>
<DIV>The passing of Dave Brubeck, 91 years old!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/chi-dave-brubeck-dead-20121205,0,7126256.column">http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/chi-dave-brubeck-dead-20121205,0,7126256.column</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Take Five!</DIV>
<DIV><A
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=faJE92phKzI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=faJE92phKzI</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>K</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></FONT><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">
<DIV><SPAN></SPAN><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
<HR>
<BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>