Microgroove continues John Corbett's exploration of diverse musics, with essays, interviews, and musician profiles that focus on jazz, improvised music, contemporary classical, rock, folk, blues, post-punk, and cartoon music. Corbett's approach to writing is as polymorphous as the music, ranging from oral history and journalistic portraiture to deeply engaged cultural critique. Corbett advocates for the relevance of "little" music, which despite its smaller audience is of enormous cultural significance. He writes on musicians as varied as Sun Ra, PJ Harvey, Koko Taylor, Steve Lacy, and Helmut Lachenmann. Among other topics, he discusses recording formats; the relationship between music and visual art, dance, and poetry; and, with Terri Kapsalis, the role of female orgasm sounds in contemporary popular music. Above all, Corbett privileges the importance of improvisation; he insists on the need to pay close attention to “other” music and celebrates its ability to open up pathways to new ideas, fresh modes of expression, and unforeseen ways of knowing.
- Contents
- Preface: Tympanum of the Other Frog
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- One. On the Road, Into the Cul-de-Sac
- Joe Harriott and Bernie McGann: Flying without Ornette
- Michael Hurley: Jocko’s Lament
- Mayo Thompson: Genre of One
- John Stevens: Unpopular Populists
- Peter Brötzmann Tentet: Freeways
- Steve Lacy: Sojourner Saxophone
- David Grubbs: Postcards from the Edge
- Voice Crack: From Nothing to Everything
- Two. Exigeneses of Creative Music
- Milford Graves: Pulseology
- Out of Nowhere: Deleuze, Gräwe, Cadence
- Carla Bley and Steve Swallow: Feeding Quarters to the Nonstop Mental Jukebox
- Misha Mengelberg: No Simple Calculations for Life
- Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink: Natural Inbuilt Contrapuncto
- Form Follows Faction? Ethnicity and Creative Music
- Anthony Braxton: Ism vs. Is
- Anthony Braxton: Bildungsmusik—Thoughts on “Composition 171”
- Paul Lovens: Lo Our Lo
- Clark Coolidge: The Improvised Line
- Nathaniel Mackey: Steep Incumbencies
- Sun Ra: From the Windy City to the Omniverse—Chicago Life as a Street Priest of DIY Jazz
- Fred Anderson: The House That Fred Built
- Three. Ululations and Other Vocal Stimulants
- Sun Ra: Queer Voice
- Jaap Blonk: Uncommon Tongue
- PJ Harvey: Mother’s Tongue
- Aural Sex: The Female Orgasm in Popular Sound (coauthored with Terri Kapsalis)
- Liz Phair and Lou Barlow: On Music, Sex, TV, and Beyond
- Liz Phair and Kim Gordon: Exile in Galville?
- Koko Taylor: The Blue Queen Cooks
- Brion Gysin and Steve Lacy: Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permuted
- Four. The Horn Section
- Ornette Coleman: Doing Is Believing
- Roscoe Mitchell: Citizen of Sound
- Fred Anderson and Von Freeman: Tenacity
- George Lewis: Interactive Imagination
- Mats Gustafsson: MG at Half-C
- Ken Vandermark: Six Dispatches from the Memory Bank
- Ken Vandermark and Joe McPhee: Mutual Admiration Society
- Peter Brötzmann and Evan Parker: Bring Something to the Table
- Five. Track Marks
- Oncology of the Record Album
- Discaholic or Vinyl Freak? Mats Gustafsson Interrogates John Corbett
- Twenty-Seven Enthusiasms: A Spontaneous Listening Session
- A Very Visual Kind of Music: The Cartoon Soundtrack beyond the Screen
- R. L. Burnside and Jon Spencer: Fattening Frogs for Snake Drive
- Before and After Punk: The Comp as Teaching Tool
- Raymond Scott: Cradle of Electronica
- Six. Melodic Line and Tone Color
- Peter Brötzmann: Graphic Equalizer
- Albert Oehlen: Bionic Painting
- Albert Oehlen: Mangy—A Conversation and a Playlist
- Christopher Wool: Impropositions—Improvisation, Dub Painting
- Christopher Wool: Into the Woods—Six Meditations on the Interdisciplinary
- Sun Ra: An Afro-Space-Jazz Imaginary—The Printed Record of El Saturn
- Seven. The Texture of Refusal
- Helmut Lachenmann: Hellhörig, or the Intricacies of Perceptiveness
- Guillermo Gregorio: Madi Music
- Experimental Oriental: New Music and Other Others
- Afterword: A Concise History of Music
- Grooving On: Selected Listening
- Credits
- Index
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