Ethan Iverson's second half of James P Johnson week, noting how familiarity with what was called "light classical" was normative in the jazz scene

There were more posts from Ethan Iverson on James P Johnson, so I wanted to get to those posts because they intersect with some of my own historic interests in the permeability of stylistic boundaries in practice in contrast to the pronouncements of theorists.

HT Ethan Iverson on a new biography that has been published about James Price Johnson., a few thoughts for a Saturday afternoon

https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/S/Speakeasies-to-Symphonies

https://www.amazon.com/Speakeasies-Symphonies-Genius-Johnson-American-ebook/dp/B0GCNYWJVS/

 

Of note, Iverson points out that Scott Brown seems to be the first to bring to light that James P Johnson and Thelonious Monk had a piano teacher in common:

 

https://iverson.substack.com/p/james-p-johnson-1

… Alberta Simmons also taught Thelonious Monk. According to Monk’s biographer Robin D.G. Kelley, Simmons frequently played Eubie Blake’s “Memories of You,” and this may be why Monk played “Memories of You” so often in later years. At any rate, the fact that James P. Johnson and Thelonious Monk actually shared a piano teacher is a wonderful detail. I believe Scott E. Brown is the first to bring this detail to light: one of many revelations from Speakeasies to Symphonies.

Parts 2 and 3 of Iverson’s little series of posts are …

https://iverson.substack.com/p/james-p-johnson-2

https://iverson.substack.com/p/james-p-johnson-3

Four moveable goalposts--four canards some musicologists and philosophers got from Theodor Adorno to use against the idea that "pop" can be "serious"

I have been thinking about this for a while but have not, as yet, written anything about the matter but I have been considering how defenders of tradition, or The Great Tradition, who may have all sorts of things about the timeless and transcendental nature of serious music (or "serious music" depending on your perspective) have four core arguments (or fallbacks) on why some music is more worthy of consideration than others.  Much as I love a lot of music that has been situated in the "tradition" I have not been able to avoid thinking about how there are four arguments against American popular song and dance idioms as "serious" music that were essentially formulated by Theodor Adorno that have been taken up by men who might otherwise vilify Adorno as one of the great villains of the 20th century where music, and specifically classical music, is concerned.

Without trawling through the half dozen books in which Adorno presented his canards, I'm opting at this point to merely present the canards themselves.  Specialists will most likely already know where they are found!