Joe Maneri as poet

[Nate Dorward]

A correspondent, ross priddle, recently mentioned he'd been reading a journal called Asemia--the lineup included Joe Maneri so I asked if it was indeed the musician. ross says:

Hello Nate,

thanks for the interest: ASEMIA is a collection of asemics (loosely) are you familiar with these? sort of pseudo-writings: calligraphic nonsense: they resemble chinese calligraphy some of them: or hieroglyphics: private languages or "no semanic content"

joe maneri is joseph gabriel esther maneri: boston microtonal society: is this the same one you know? what he has in here are "spirit poems" handwritten: here's a taste:

Flaull clon sleare
rouve clanslika
Flautell lunege
Blausodoh fleeka lasflowe
boompleh
.....


it's a nicely done book: 25 cm x 17 cm , perfect bound, unpaginated (but i'm guessing more than 50: maybe 75 pages) (6 mm thick)

get in touch with jim leftwich: xtant@cstone.net if you're interested in a copy

cheers,
ross priddle

Well, not sure that this publication will appeal to JCers but I thought the resident Maneri fanclub would want to know...!

[Sergio Zamora]

This stuff sounds much better when it's spoken by Joe than on paper.

Joe's middle name is Esther?

[Frisco]

He might've recited that one in Athens but it's hard to remember the exact words.

[Armando]

Originally Posted by Frisco

He might've recited that one in Athens but it's hard to remember the exact words.

One of my more memorable moments from ACME. The only sound in the whole place was coming from Maneri's mouth. It was so quiet in there, the audience so attentive and hanging on every word.

[Pete C]

I guess you had to be there.

[Armando]

Originally Posted by Pete C

I guess you had to be there.

Yes indeed.

[shrugs]

I'll take Joe's rambling/poetry over Mat's wife's dancing........

[Pete C]

I prefer dance to poetry at jazz concerts. With dance you can close your eyes.

[mke]

Here's one you can add to this.

[Sergio Zamora]

I was listening to a live recording of William Parker's Curtis Mayfield project, and it's great music, well played, and the singer (I think Leena Conquest) does a real good job. The only think that kinda messed it up for me was the spoken word artist who repeated the same four or five lines ad nauseam through each song. I don't know who the guy was. Parker should record this material for real, but either drop the spoken word or keep it to a minimum.

[shrugs]

Originally Posted by Sergio Zamora

I was listening to a live recording of William Parker's Curtis Mayfield project, and it's great music, well played, and the singer (I think Leena Conquest) does a real good job. The only think that kinda messed it up for me was the spoken word artist who repeated the same four or five lines ad nauseam through each song. I don't know who the guy was. Parker should record this material for real, but either drop the spoken word or keep it to a minimum.

Sounds like you have been lucky enough to escape any Parker/Budbill pairings.

[Nate Dorward]

I haven't heard Joe do this on any of his recordings (I don't have Tales of Rohnlief). Yeah, jazz+poetry can be painful stuff--I must confess that when I see a title like Songs for a Suffering World I immediately give a disc a wide berth--but I've a soft spot for out-there sound poets like Bob Cobbing, which I take it isn't so far from Maneri's poetry.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Nate Dorward

I must confess that when I see a title like Songs for a Suffering World I immediately give a disc a wide berth...

Maybe the title implies cause and effect.

[Nate Dorward]

Yeah, that was my first thought about that title. Probably just rancid shamanism or soapboxism. But FWIW Bill Barton (hey Bill!) put a good word in for it in Coda, so maybe it's not so bad.....

[chuckyd4]

I know the stuff that Maneri "read" into the mic at the ACME festival was much less legible (?!?!) than the lines quoted above - mostly vowel-like growls, etc.... I found it to be a very moving vocalization of what he does on the saxophone - one of the highlights of the whole festival to me. I personally was glad that there were no specific words to mess up the pure musicality of it - Cecil's ramblings are interesting, to name one example, but far less interesting, musically than what Joe was doing in his set with son Mat.

[Paul B]

I'm of the same mind as chuckyd4; Papa Joe's vocalizations are just that: sounds akin to what he plays on the horn. Calling it poetry is a stretch. He spoke to me on several occasions about his invented language, and I have no doubt that to him such a language has great meaning, and to some extent it can be integrated successfully into his music and thus reach an audience. But it is really another aspect of his musical technique, not something that stands up as text.

As for poetry and music, most of it is execrable. Lacy is one of the few to successfully set poetry to music (regardless of whether you like hearing Irene Aebi sing), and part of this is due to the formal way in which he treats the words, just as classical composers did. Plus, he has a knack for finding good poems--nothing too formal (i.e. no traditional lyric poetry) but poems that nonetheless stand on their own and yet work in the musical context. "Reciting" poetry to a jazz background can be tricky business--I admit I love the idea of it, and the image of beats pouring forth their souls in smoky cafes--though I imagine there are occasional successes.

Papa Joe, though, is in a class of his own.

Bye-ya.

[james harrigan]

Jazz plus poetry is one of those things that sounds like a great idea but usually isn't. One reason is that good poetry isn't improvisational, and the details of how it is read matter a lot. I don't know Lacy/Aebi's work, but by far the best jazz/poetry I've ever heard is by Luciana Souza. Her Poems of Elizabeth Bishop is a masterpiece, not least because she's a very intelligent writer-arranger and a remarkably good poet herself (though no Bishop, as she'd be the first to say). Her new Neruda is wonderful, too, though I haven't had a chance to sit down and really listen carefully yet.

[Sergio Zamora]

It seems that poetry accompanied by jazz would be a lot more successful than jazz accompanied by poetry

[iris]

I think you may be making a joke, sergio, but I did hear Kurt Elling read some poetry when he played duo with Fred Hersch at the Jazz Standard a while back as an intro to a tune. Fred played behind Kurt as to accompany the poem. I usually think Kurt can be pretentious with this stuff, but it was actually very moving and effective.

Another great setting of poetry, Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass". Fred Hersch

iris

[iris]

The poem was by Jelaluddin Rumi.

[Steve Reynolds]

nice to hear that my hero is doing well


we *must* attend, Mr. B - when the great Round One appears in the little club on Norfolk Street


nothing personal Iris, but whatever Kurt Elling might be doing has nothing to do with the great man's invenetd personal narrative











Get Ready to Receive Yourself

[Paul B]

Steve, good to see you back....If it takes a Maneri thread to draw you out, so be it--just glad to see you on the board again. Hope you got my e-mail. And yes: we'll go see the great man when next he's in town.

Still.........




Comin' Down the Mountain

[shrugs]

Get Ready to Receive Yourself

Holler Up, baby

[iris]

Steve, I was responding tp Sergio's posting "It seems that poetry accompanied by jazz would be a lot more successful than jazz accompanied by poetry"
This was an example of the latter. The postings prior in the thread were leading in this direction. I meant no disrespect to Joe having worked with him at NEC where he is highly respected as a microtonal improviser.
iris

[Sergio Zamora]

Originally Posted by iris

I think you may be making a joke,

Not quite joking. I think a poet accompanying his or her work with music while still focusing on the poetry is more likely to succeed than the converse. That's not to say it's not possible, but fitting text with concrete meaning into an abstract form such as music seems quite difficult.

[Pete C]

Re: Luciana Souza, I think that's a very different case, since we're talking about musical settings of poems, essentially jazz lieder. I think Souza's settings are extremely successful.

Some years ago I bought a bunch of cassette dubs from a NY poet's extensive jazz & poetry collection for a class I was teaching. Among the most successful, IMO, were Rexroth and Patchen.

[walto]

Hey, "Tales of Rohnleif" is fucking great, and the round man's "recitation" (or whatever it is) of Norse nonsense (or whatever that is) just makes it (IMHO) that much better! I dunno if it's poetry, but it's...you know...epic!!!

[MRS]

Rexroth is a minor god, no matter what the context.

[Derek Taylor]

Ditto to what Walt said. Rohnlief is one for the ages, but hearing the Round Man speak in his special tongues in person (as he did @ ACME) is on a whole ‘nother level.