Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss

OPEN LETTER TO ETHAN IVERSON ONE OF MY FAVS ALTHOUGH I SOMETIMES DIRVE HIM NUTS, RIGHT? DIRVE OR DRIVEL EITHER OR ETHER ORE

I am a former journalist turned concert promoter and record producer so it is always a thrill when someone I know or like is written up in The New York Times, still the paper of record.

It’s especially propitious if there is something good in there day of show — I produced 60 shows last year. I buy the NYT at Mac’s Smoke shop maybe 250 times per year, (plus I get it online).

I’d say that only a handful of times there is something great in the paper and I put it out at the box office table or show it to the artist, to get them especially psyched. 

I also remember very well that the day the papers said Obama was elected POTUS The Times also featured Mary Halvorson a guitarist I saw with John Tchicai in Philadelphia Ars Nova Mark Christman a couple years prior (and who else but Plastic Alto strings a meme: Obama-Mary-Halvorson-Mark Christman-Ars-Nova?)

So it was a mixed blessing to know of a positive new Ethan Iverson review in The Times but to read about it in his substack which is like a blog, and not see it organically in the paper itself first. Of his new Blue Note release “Technically Acceptable”.

And today for further reference or digression of more about ME ME ME and my memes and less about Ethan I bought four papers: NYT, WSJ, The Merc and The Chron. I never read more than five percent of what I buy.

I first heard about Ethan from June Omura, a dancer from Mark Morris Dance. I am not sure if I knew much about Mark Morris before I met Dr. Ellen Omura standing in line to meet Yo Yo Ma at a big box in SF. In 2000, or twenty four years ago.

Ethan was a co-founder of The Bad Plus. And was on the cover of Downbeat. More than once.

I have said, and it bears repeating, Ethan Iverson could win a MacFound Genius Grant just for his writing.

So I am thrilled to have onsale Ethan Iverson solo April 1, 2024 no fooling at Earthwise at The Mitch in Palo Alto, California with Marta Sanchez solo as the opening act or co-bill. Ethan as a trio is playing multiple shows at Joe Henderson Room (the Joe? The Hen?) SF Jazz end of March. Not the ides of March but the EIdes of March, perhaps. 

I admit I have barely metaphorically speaking scratched the surface of Ethan’s new Blue Note cd and I did not notice there was a piano sonata* on it. I don’t think I know what a piano sonata is beyond a song cycle. Or extended composition. By the way, I am trying to produce 8 or EIght days and nights of piano shows, mostly solo, at The Mitch and make less cruel thereby April. Hurry up keys, its time. Maybe that’s what I will call the series HURRY UP KEYS ITS TIME.

Duffy and daddy discovering together the new Ethan Iverson sonata which Seth Colter Walls says is high spirited and sturdy. *as above: despite the fact that it is nearly 16 minutes in duration and literally title “Piano Sonata: Allegro Moderato; Piano Sonata: Andante; Piano Sonata: Rondo: if you are reading here you may notice I sometimes say “And1” to introduce a footnote which is more Elgin Baylor than Errol Garner, peel me?

I knew Donald Burnham of dartmouth. By phone and buy letter. One verse players or teammates in cross country told me they thought it was funny when the movie came out about the drunker who had a homophone name to Don Burnham. Burnham was one of only two NCAA champions in the history of dartmouth key as a miler in 1936 and then Adam Nelson and shotput in 2010 or so. Donald, Burnham of dartmouth was Harry Hillman’s protégé. he became a psychiatrist affiliated with Walter Reed in Bethesda Maryland, but did not compete into the Olympics because the US boycott Hitler. Hillman boycott Hitler 36 but lawson Robertson, Hillman, buddy, or they were connected at the kneecaps went as a coach. 
I found two collectible pocketbook versions of the bases for the movie.

my wife thinks having a library is like playing bridge and I need to discard. 

bw

Spencer Jones of Stanford ate at the same restaurant as I last night, but I did not accost him nor shoot him; I did introduce this morning at Café Venice myself to Barry Eisler, the spine novelist, and told him that when I go to the bathroom, I am preparing to be jumped by spies, and how would I myself despite the relative lack of training for such confrontations; I’m slightly neurotic.

Victor “Kool A.D.” Vazquez: As a kid, I lived by a KFC in Hunters Point [San Francisco] that turned into a combination Taco Bell–KFC, I think, first, and then a combination Pizza Hut–Taco Bell–KFC after that, and I had always kind of tripped off it. It was kinda funny and bleak, like this manic, weirdly desperate-feeling late-capitalist lumping of brands, like a NASCAR logo collage vibe—that classic hollow American illusion of choice camouflaging a bland, toxic, junky, monolithic corporatism, a kind of P.T. Barnum snake-oil vibe, like, “Whatchu need, we got pizza we got tacos,” and finding yourself there in that no man’s land of empty promises, being stuck there, and kind of throwing up your hands like “Fuck it—we out here, I guess.”

I am enjoying a late breakfast at Ada’s Café at the Mitchell Park community center; I am not blogging about what actually had me up at 7:30. But it’s a hint if you know that Mike Mulcahy was once player of the year for the Cubberley cougars.. and JD Diepenbrock, an enthusiastic pickle ball player has a husband named Peter.

photo by our little Oaxacan Terry Acebo Davis

Yeah I’m in Palo Alto and I claim to be a lead out Luddite despite the fact that I’m using $1000 computer to compose this – – – and walking my little pooch Duffy, I could deposit his ounce of poopy where Lorraine Powelll Jobs and her $9 billion in inherited apple stock might smell it. Corner of Bryant and University whereas I live at corner of Bryant and Hawthorne, Scarlet L and all that. I read this book with James Melville Cox, I believe. Maybe you did too .
But I am somehow glad that there’s a B-side from Radiohead called Palo Alto. My blog by the way is called plastic Alto. Mark weiss dartmouth 86. I’m going to Sharks -Rangers hockey game next week tickets donated coincidentally or not by a dartmouth 81. I’m going to yell “fuck you dougay you’re ugly” because my cousin from dix hills once did.

for robert Christgau and D.R., C.R. —z’L

Jules at 36, Mark >>60: I am going to hang out at the bar at SFjazz for 90 minutes Saturday, January 20 from 6 PM to showtime and will buy a drink to anybody who knows the name of the director of the 1990s documentary about Julian Lage; I will upgrade that to a call cocktail to anyone who knows the exact name and geographic reference to the Dartmouth professor of documentary film with a similar name to the first guy. Mark Weiss Plastic Alto/ Earthwise/Lions With Wings