Books and Music

What music do you like to listen to while you read? What do you read while listening to music? Any memorable moments of synchronicity?

I went through a stage once where I listened to Pink Floyds "Animals" almost every day at a coffee shop near my apartment while reading Franz Kafka's Amerika. I also read Voodoo in Haiti by Alfred Metraux over the course of a few weeks while listening to nothing but a combination of PF's "Wish You Were Here," Tom Waits' "Rain Dogs" and Coltrane's "A Love Supreme." This was also around the time I got into straight espresso. I was just the most adorable pretentious twit you were bound to meet in that town.

Personally, I prefer the familiar for reading. Nothing too distracting. Jazz and classical (Bach's "Brandenburg Concertos" set the mood right for most kinds of classic lit) are good for me, though when I read ghost stories I tend to go with silence. Anything else ruins the mood.

lmao @ "adorable pretentious twit"

for music, it really depends what i'm reading. if i need to really concentrate to keep things straight, then i'm with you - listening to jazz or classical, or really anything that doesn't have lyrics will do me ok.

if i'm reading lighter stuff, i'll listen to just about anything - sometimes i even find myself singing along while reading.

I always used to keep the two things separate, but lateley I struggle to find time for either, so I have been combining the two a bit.

Sometimes I listen to classical music when I`m on the computer, but as I`m a bit heavy-handed on the keyboards, sometimes it seems a bit interruptive, if that`s a word. I do find it helps as I`m no big lover of computers. Generally I work on the computer, I punctuate that by looking at LT or adding/reviewing a book that I`ve read, and that`s it.

At present I`m reading vintage detective fiction pretty much to the exclusion of all else. Generally I listen to jazz, blues and/or reggae then, just because I have a vague idea that my favourite reading ought to be accompanied by my favourite music.

If I'm at home, I can't read and have music on in the background at the same time; I start paying attention to the tunes, whether lyrics are present or not. Oddly enough, though, when parked in a coffee shop, this phenomenon doesn't happen, as long as the music's not too loud.

It really ends up depending on a number of factor's: book subject (fact or fiction), the mental demands of the reading (generally applies to non-fiction), what's on my mind at the time, the time of day, my mood.

I did put on Scott Joplin, Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong's Hot 5's (and 7's) and the like while reading Doctrow's Ragtime. That was fun.

It sounds great. Funny hardly anyone on LT mentions jazz much (as compared with classical and rock/pop/indie etc). I would have expected a lot more interest.

Any other jazz buffs out there ?

Chet Baker's the best balm for a battered soul I know of.

I had a boyfriend about 20 years ago who tried to get me into jazz. It didn't take. I'm a rock and roll girl and a metalhead and so far no trend or other kind of music has made me abandon my roots.

Nick, I am definitely a jazz buff. Lately I've been listening to all three CDs of Wynton's blues cycle while I read. Also a big fan of Benny Carter, Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin Big Band, Joao Gilberto, Miles, Duke, many others. Also enjoy jazz group vocals such as Manhattan Transfer and New York Voices, but they tend to be distracting when I'm reading so I mostly listen to them in the car.

That`s all very cool. Funny how people differ - I listened to mainly rock and punk as a youngster, and it`s pretty much been consigned to the past for me, it just doesn`t interest me that much, and hasn`t for a long time.

As for my own choices - very keen on Nat and Julian `Cannonball` Adderley. Jim may know the older brother for his work with Davis and others. Lately I`m listening a lot to an album by drummer Panama Francis and his band The Savoy Sultans. He played in a lot of big bands, ranging from the `virtually forgotten` to the `known only to serious jazz buffs` to `still household names`. He also did session work with Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker, Ella Fitzgerald and others. He`s not well known in his own right over here at all, don`t know if you`ve heard of him ?

When my wife and I got married, the band at the party included a keyboard player, Bob Hudson who has four CDs out - the one I have is called Interplay and was released by Sine Records. Quite a few tunes associated with Duke Ellington and a quite adventurous assortment of other material.

The more I learned about music (and music history) the more I appreciated Jazz.
People don't realize that it is a wide open genre encompassing some divergent styles.
The several albums prior to 'Bitche's Brew' are some of my favorite Miles.
The Nils Landgren Funk Unit pays a fine tribute to Cannonball on Paint It Blue.
Contrary to popular wisdom I prefer Blue Train over A Love Supreme.
Ray Brown is the finest all around bassist in jazz.
Billie Holiday grabbed me by the soul when I was 16 and ignorant of that kind of music.
Duke amazed me with the orchestral possibilities of the style.
Bill Evans filled my heart, and Dave Brubeck showed his.
And on and on.
I find it very easy to enjoy these as well as the Ramones. Different music for different reasons. Liking one thing shouldn't preclude liking even its polar opposite.

Quite agree, I wasn`t espousing some sort of musical exclusivity - though it must be said most people don`t really have the time or money to explore different musical styles.

We have no very close live venues where we are now (Derbyshire, UK) - we used to have easy access to many (Nott`m). Within the Nottingham jazz scene there were two different broad strands - there were a number of groups of pub musicians influenced by Davis, Adderley etc who had been playing locally since the `60s, usually for a negligible fee of for free and holding down a day job. In most of the UK, any local live scene tends to be `trad jazz` and dixieland. There were for a time a number of youngsters studying jazz at a local college who would sit in with them or form their own bands. There was also a venue which put on more nationally-known artists, tending towardss the very cerebral and arty, but sometimes attracting acts like Barbara Thompson and Jon Hiseman.

I think most categories of music are basically catch-all phrases for convenience. There are certainly a range of quite different styles within reggae. And jazz, as you rightly say.

Big name acts are out of my price range. I can't justify dropping $100.00 to see Bruce, or The Police and having the only clear view be that on the big video screen.
However, we have a ton of local venues around here and I'll be seeing Dr. John on February 1st.

Anything with lyrics makes reading even something like the newspaper impossible for me. Even without lyrics, I'm synesthetic enough that most music will interfere with words I'm reading and I'll end up thinking I've read things I haven't, making following a plot pretty difficult. The only kind of music that works most of the time is minimal techno. The repetition dulls the music's meaning when I'm trying to keep it in the background. Some of the tracks on The Field's album From Here We Go Sublime is a recent favorite.

#10 nick: I have two of Julian's CDs, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy and Quintet in San Francisco. He always had interesting pianists, Zawinul and Feldman on those two.

#13 - Dr John - parial to the old Doc myself.You`ll have to tell us all how it turns out.

#15 - I think I have some tracks from those sets. A man who own a jazz shop once told me that the Adderleys were among his most consistent sellers, even after all this time. He did mention that some purists look down on them - a local musician, Tommy Saville, a confirmed Adderleyite, once mentioned something similar. Weird. I couldn`t really care about `in-crowd` elitism of any sort. Life`s a bit short for all that.

>9 Jim53: Jim - You mentioned three CD's in Wynton's "blues cycle." I've been a fan of Branford for a while, but I don't have any Wynton in my collection. You've motivated me to look into it, but iTunes has 55 of his albums available. Can you recommend where to start? Which three albums make up his "blues cycle"?

Nick, I have the Adderly Quintet (both bros. and Zawinul) playing Paris in '69 and there is some booing.

Philo, I discovered Winton live and then got what was then his current album, Black Codes... I know now that there was nothing special about this period except his obviously virtuosic playing. He was very much in thrall to Miles and Trane post-bop stuff; intellectual Jazz. Nothing wrong with it, but it was nothing new. However, the '80s wasn't the best time to push the bounds of Jazz.
He's a controversial guy, but you have to admire his determination to realize his creative ends, his immense talent, and the charitable work he has done. He and his father Ellis also did a neat little reintepretation of Peanuts (Charlie Brown) music.

#17 PJ: Wynton's "Soul Gestures in Southern Blue" cycle includes Uptown Ruler, Levee Low Moan, and Thick in the South. I can't really pick one that I like best or to start with.

#18 ML: I agree that there's nothing revolutionary about Black Codes and that period, but there are some great tracks nonetheless. For example, I love "Delfeayo's Dilemma." One problem with WM more recently is that he's exploring a lot of things, trying to integrate new ideas with his strong sense of tradition, so any given CD tends to have a couple of things that I really really like and some others that I don't really care for, or maybe just find unexciting. It's not that it's filler, I just don't care for all the different things he does. There are parts of In This House, on This Morning that are almost transcendent, and other parts that leave me cold.

I saw a great concert on the PBS beg-a-thon a couple of years ago with the whole family: Ellis on piano, Wynton, Branford, Delfeayo on trombone, Jason on drums, with a guest bassist. Included a fifteen-minute (I might be exaggerating, but not by much) "Struttin' with Some Barbecue" that featured several exquisite solos and a great reunion chorus.

My son, who goes to Tulane, is working on some Habitat houses in a project called Musician's Village, which Wynton and Harry Connick, Jr. have sponsored and promoted. It will feature a music center named after Ellis.