Since the title of this blog is a reference to jazz great Ornette Coleman and his white acrylic Grantham alto saxophone (i.e. a “plastic alto”), I should note that while traveling to SoCal for a brief business trip last weekend I was pleased to see a review of “THE OC’s” show at UCLA.
“Ordinary? Hah!: In concert at UCLA, Ornette Coleman demonstrates once again why he’s like no one else. His fans include one Flea” by Chris Barton.
I have to say that being old school and “high touch” that I much prefer having, as I do here, the actual clipping or tear sheet with a beautiful picture of the dude (by Anne Cusack) than to conjure it up via the internet only.
My “Plastic Alto” seeks to comment on the topic of modernity more broadly than Ornette’s considerable if confounding effect on the jazz world; here in the former Santa Clara Valley there is so much talk about how the element silicon has transformed the world, with its elemental role in information technology. I wonder about the simultaneous effects of other developments culturally — think Civil Rights, the Beats, Hippies, Cahier du Cinema, steroid use in baseball, hip hop, the continuum hypothesis — and secondarily “plastics” per se, in the context of their joking use in Mike Nichols 1964 film “The Graduate”. Also, I am undeniably commenting on my home town of Palo Alto; I acknowledge that some call it “Shallow Alto” to denigrate its supposed materialism and decadence; “Plastic Alto” the term riffs on that debate or reference — think “Stepford Wifes” if you will — but tries to stay on the positive or at least ironic or quixotic or malleable or plastic or something cognizant of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle or the red-shifting of the universe or Chaos Theory or The Butterfly Effect or Magritte’s “pipe” or Jung or Freud or Cage in the interim between performances of “4’32″” — I once entititled a jazz series “A Quantum Decoherence of Jazz” presaging this entry by ten years perhaps. Was I using Roger Penrose to sell Galactic? I also like to think of Todd Inoue’s glossing of Boots Riley’s use of the double entendre and threat “double click his icon.”
Maybe I would be better off just listening to Ornette. Or at least The Bad Plus. Either or.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 
Also, since I mention Santa Fe and Indian Market, I wish to at least mention the American Indian Film Festival here this week:
http://www.aifisf.com/aiff/2010/?fMenu=program
Congrats to Lisa Mezzacappa on kudos in Village Voice Pazz and Jop polls for best debut album, for release of such on Clean Feed, for playing Monterey Jazz Festival, for mention in Wedge’s recent post (about her drummer, Vijay Anderson), and for her hard work at the beautiful and so nearby Stanford University (arts programming). I met her via Beth Custer although she may not recall such. She plays bass and writes. She also I think was organizing a jazz series at Make Out Room in Sf which I was so fond of and proud of calling Make OUT series as in “out jazz” which probably went over the heads of everyone within earshot. “Out jazz” being a out of date name for “free jazz” or “avant jazz” or “new jazz.”
Shoot, I muffed my link.
Also, Forrest D Bryant of KZSU also reviewed her thing, her new thing.
http://lisamezzacappa.com/projects_quartet.html
and with Cherry on top
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wPbg3J8pDQ
Not sure if this belongs here or hopefully I will get around to write about Nina Simone and Eric Hanson directly but (filed under “Legends”) here is Eric Hanson’s essay for Williams College Magazine about his life with the singer:
Click to access Signature.pdf
With Lisa Fay Beatty’s sudden passing (a passing strange angel), I will put her Nina Simone story to the top of the pile. Better late than never.