[Ed Price <edp@panix.com>: Re: gould the jazzman]

[Mary Jo Watts <mwatts@rci.rutgers.edu>]

Ed Price's message missed during the crash

-MJW
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Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 19:17:33 -0500 (EST)
From: Ed Price <edp@panix.com>
Message-Id: <199604050017.TAA21129@panix3.panix.com>
To: stephan@whoville.ucsd.edu
CC: f_minor@gandalf.rutgers.edu
In-reply-to: <199604032036.MAA08345@whoville.ucsd.edu> (stephan@whoville.ucsd.edu)
Subject: Re: gould the jazzman

stephan@whoville.ucsd.edu:
> Er, actually this was a mistake on the part of (I think) Baker's. They
>were referring to F. Gulda and jazz. This error was pointed out to Gould
>by someone and he replied something to the effect "Oh, is that still in
>there? I thought they had fixed that." (you can read about it in the
>Otto Friedrichs bio). The only existing snippet of Gould's jazz efforts
>is a bit of scat singing he did to illustrate the various instrumentations
>the Art of the Fugue has been tried out with. (in "the question of 
>instrument", sony video series)

if that counts :) there is also a bit of "rhapsody in blue" and some more
or less improvised ragtime in the "on the record / off the record"
documentary.  there are stories of gould improvising, eg on "abide with me"
and on the theme of some chopin polonaise or something (in friedrich's
bio), too bad there aren't recordings of that.

someone told me that gould played some charlie parker on the radio and
commented on it.  i have no idea if this is really true.  i would certainly
be very intrigued to hear this.

i don't really lament the fact that gould was not involved with "jazz"
because bach is just as good IMHO.  (gould argued that bach is "modern",
like schoenberg or whatever; i would argue that bach is "jazz", like
charlie parker or whatever...)  given his philosophy w.r.t. recording
vs. performing and composition vs. improvisation it's a little hard to
imagine gould fitting in to a traditional jazz context.  i do think it's
too bad he didn't compose more.

-ed