Episode #514: The Prime Rib for Breakfast Episode featuring Greg Proops

Utterly excellent choices of guest of late, and it is good to hear you all together again (sorry I missed the Philly performance, not sorry I never listen to PRESTON AND STEVE though apparently Todd Glass is on fairly frequently). This episode’s discussion touched on what comes closest to a beef I might have with Greg Proops (not terribly close), particularly given what a strong feminist he is (or pro-feminist, for those who don’t think men can be feminist per se)…his praise of the style of Miles Davis. Davis was flashy and often nattily dressed, it’s true, but (and this is off the point Proops makes but its nearby) Davis was also an enormous pile of Negative Energy…real prone to slapping around his womenfriends and Cicely Tyson during their marriage, incredibly full of himself and by no means above exploiting the slavish adulation he was given by too much of the jazz community to try to hurt or kill the careers of other musicians he disapproved of, such as Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman, and even John Coltrane after he quit working with Davis and started playing more in the “free” style that Davis liked to insist was “anti-jazz”…though when Davis’s ever more boring fusion bands started up in the late ’60s, they frequently played, at least at first, a kind of simplified version of free jazz. Entirely too many folks have given Davis a pass over the years because they apparently dig his ‘tude. And while Charles Mingus apparently could be at least as much hell to be around, I (probably hypocritically) tend to give Mingus a pass…in part because he never went slack, as Davis increasingly did (playing five notes in a given concert while the backing musicians vamped dully on…I exaggerate only slightly the experience of his last fusion bands), in part because Mingus came from a much less privileged background and didn’t get quite the same nepotism bump that Davis did (Charlie Parker being the first notable fan of Davis’s snotnosed attitude, apparently). People trying to act as if Davis’s hostility was what was most interesting about his life…or even his fashion sense, as opposed to the work where he was actually engaged and working his hardest. Proops doesn’t do that…but the folks who do may assume Proops is reinforcing their take.

And shoutouts to 2-year colleges, such as the College of San Mateo, whose former PBS station KCSM, now an independent public station and probably doomed to sale, was the one targeted by the censorious freaks who were offended that blues musicians used Naughty Language on the air in episodes of the series Martin Scorsese produced, THE BLUES, and got the Bush FCC to fine this underfunded station ridiculously…something the Obama FCC has done nothing to rectify (surprise!). A rich PBS station could’ve fought a lot harder…one owned by a community college has lots of bureaucratic as well as financial impediments (KCSM-FM remains a good jazz station). Meanwhile, I filled in some core courses and bumped up the GPA at a com coll where the campus paper began its run as THE PARTHIAN SHOT, and eventually devolved through THE P SHOT to THE PEASHOOTER by the time I was on staff.

Thanks for continuing to do this fine series.

Me too.