More on Jazz and Good Writing

Firstly, consider this if you can get though the verbal labyrinths:
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/washington-diarist-carvin-the-bird#comments

Secondly me in commenting on "firstly":

"...Lots of spelling mistakes here--unforgivable.

Amidst all the convoluted, wordy dross, in which self satisfaction in an amusical idiot who, I bet, cannot read music or play an instrument--for an instance or two, consider, in order, amongst much more, this ponderousness and then this convolution:

"...as a serious art that is pledged, like all serious art, to the beauty of structure and the morality of structure..."

and

"... The writer, who seems to think that Mel Powell was the equal of Thelonious Monk, cites the "searing" opinion of the freelance philistine Terry Teachout that Marsalis propounds "an ideology in which race is a primary factor in the making of aesthetic judgments," and reports that "the racialist ideology has played out in a series of jazz programs [at Lincoln Center] based on the work of black players, composers, and arrangers...."

resides in such verbal sound and thunder signifying guess what, there are a few good things, in ironic analogue to the few diamonds in the Burnsian rough.

If my foregoing is wordy and convoluted, t'is intentionally so, in parody of the incredibly estimable--as in "taking the measure" of--Wieseltier.

For an intensely sharp contrast, consider the beautifully thoughtful, complex and knowing--can't stress that "knowing" enough, 'knowing" as in "musically knowing" among other things--essay and book review about, and loving appreciation of, Monk: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100111/yaffe/print.

Note Yaffe's prose: what a pleasure by comparison, clear and accessible, compelling attention in the service of incisive ideas. I can boil the verbal fat off Wieseltier's arguments and get them down to a few plain spoken sentences vexingly inconsonant with his cloudy prolixity..."