Brooklyn Diasporist Newsletter | April 5, 2024
Hello again from the nascent springtime of New York City, where we just had an earthquake!
Item 1: A new live set of Alice Coltrane’s octet performing at Carnegie Hall in 1971 has come to light. Aptly named Alice Coltrane: The Carnegie Hall Concert, the two record set was released last month on Impulse! Records. Click here to find it streaming. Otherwise, you can buy the album (LP or CD) from Carnegie Hall or your local record parlor. It’s exciting to hear this music at that moment, when not only Ms. Coltrane but the entire membership at eirther the end or beginning of their journeys, depending on who you have in mind. Well-discussed in The Nation by the always erudite Marcus J. Moore.
Item 2: Wonderful piece in the London Review of Books on the fate of Tom Verlaine’s personal library and his own legacy. His was in many ways an enviable New York, one of cheap, fugitive housing, art, poetry, music, viable eccentricity. Sometimes it seems like Verlaine was among the last of a kind of truly 20th Century NYC artists. Instinctively devoted to the end. And he had a vast collection of books!
Item 3: Have you had a look at Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being? It’s an interesting book. It sits as comfortably as the maestro himself, triangulating among a personalized stoicism, a brush with Zen, and some practical keep-on-swinging advice. I find myself alternately exasperated and captivated by it in ways addressed in this article from The Atlantic.
Item 4: A plug for some personal stuff: Jaw box is playing the Best Friends Forever Festival in October in Las Vegas, NV. We’re taking the stage on Saturday, October 12th but the whole festival looks like serious business. We’re also playing a warm-up show in Lancaster, PA. Ticket and show info is available here.
Item 5: In other music news, my own New Freedom Sound has a record coming out this year. We’re shooting for a June release and so far it’s looking good. More on that as it develops.
Item 6: I’ve been writing about the ways Peter Gabriel’s music has influenced and served me over the years. I’m up to 1992 or so, with a little back and forth. Blog has a new look, too, which you might enjoy. Trying to keep it simple over there.
Item 7: "Often we receive grace without knowing it, and often we do not know it because when grace comes, we are already joyful or resilient or serene, or in another good state that grace brings." — Andre Dubus
————