If you want to fool people into thinking you’re a sophisticated person, keep it simple. Otherwise, you’ll be exposed for what you really are: a common clod.
Let’s say you’ve assembled a huge library in a vain attempt to appear literate. It’s only a matter of time before some expert will notice that your bootleg copy of O.J. Simpson’s “If I Did It” isn’t even autographed in the author’s blood.
On the other hand, if your shelves contain nothing but a well-worn Bible, a battered copy of Shakespeare’s works and a complete collection of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips, you’ll be perceived as somebody who grasps life’s essence.
The same with movies. You may own every Adam Sandler film ever made, the original director’s cut of “Waterworld” and raw footage of Mel Gibson disemboweling Mayans and Jews. But you’ll never compete with somebody whose entire collection consists of “Apocalypse Now,” “Caddyshack” and raw footage of Mayans and Jews disemboweling Mel Gibson.
Food? At what point in a gourmet dinner do you want your guests to discover that cervelles de veau au beurre noir with braised nipplewort is just a fancy way of saying ox brains and thistles?
Mac and cheese, anyone?
Wine and aperitifs are supposed to be sophisticated, but once those you seek to impress learn that the ’78 Gundersheim comes from a place called Worms, and the after-dinner drink is something called “crusted port,” they’ll be thirsting for a cold Bud.
Painting? You could spend thousands on a Picasso of questionable authenticity, or you could take some crayons, draw a picture of a boat like the one Homer Simpson has on his living room wall, frame it in gilt and hang it in your salon. Tres avant garde.
Which brings us to music. A Time-Life collection of great classical themes doesn’t make you look sophisticated. It makes you look boring. If you want to be compared to Beethoven, find a K-Tel collection of hits of the ’80s at a garage sale. Like Ludwig, people will think you’re deaf.
Sophisticates own Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison album, Gram Parsons’ “Grievous Angel” and Willie Nelson’s “Red Headed Stranger.” They do not own a single CD by Garth Brooks or any other slug in a cowboy hat. For rock, the Nirvana box set is acceptable, but nothing newer. Or older. A couple of blues recordings are OK, as long as they’re by people who died in poverty a long time ago. World music? Best left at the coffee shop.
Most of the sophisticate’s collection consists of jazz. There are two reasons for this. First, jazz is the best make-out music. And second, assembling a jazz collection that will fool an expert is easy. All you need is a copy of the new “Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, Seventh Edition.” And a few thousand dollars.
Just having this book on your coffee table will make you seem sophisticated. It’s as thick as a Manhattan telephone directory and has a great photo of drummer Elvin Jones on the cover. If you spot one of your guests gazing at it, you can score sophistication points by saying, “That was taken during a ‘Trane session at the Van Gelder studio in Jersey.” Who cares if it’s true or not.
But the real reason you’ll want “The Penguin Guide” is because authors Richard Cook and Brian Morton have sorted through thousands of discs, most of them of interest only to fanatics, to discover the 200 or so albums that comprise their “Core Collection,” which they describe as “a balanced selection covering every strain in the music.”
That means it includes not only obvious choices, such as Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” and Dave Brubeck’s “Time Out,” but also the sort of stuff only a sophisticate would select, ranging from the best of the Roaring ’20s like Bix Beiderbecke’s “Bix and Tram” to the finest of experimental excursions like Sun Ra’s “Jazz in Silhouette.”
You want fusion? Try Weather Report’s “Mysterious Traveller.” Hard bop? Go with Art Blakey’s “A Night at Birdland.” Dixieland? The choice is “The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, 1917-1921.” Be-bop? Verve has a nice compilation called simply “Charlie Parker.” Free jazz? You can’t go wrong with Ornette Coleman’s “Beauty is a Rare Thing.”
One danger: It would be a rarer thing than beauty to find one person who liked all those recordings.
In the real world, somebody who loved the aggressive approach of Sonny Rollins on “Saxophone Colossus” and “A Night At The Village Vanguard” wouldn’t be caught dead with a copy of Vic Dickenson’s swingin’ “Gentleman Of The Trombone.”
If you dig the smooth sound of Wes Montgomery’s “Incredible Jazz Guitar,” you probably think John Zorn’s “The Big Gundown” sounds like background music for a rejected Beatles album. Anybody who’d own both Charles Mingus’ “Pithecanthropus Erectus” and Kenny Burrell’s “Ellington Is Forever, Volume 1” either has a highly sophisticated ear or a dead battery in his hearing aid.
Forget sophistication. The guide is essential if you just want to enjoy good jazz. The descriptions of the artists and albums are intelligent and concise. The rating system is easy to understand. The authors’ prejudices are simple enough to discern and reasonable enough to excuse. Once you’ve assembled the entire “Core Collection” and been universally acclaimed as a true sophisticate, you might even find yourself digging further into the choices made in this book.
Why, your cosmopolitan mind might inquire, is Thelonious Monks’ “Brilliant Corners” part of the core group, but not his four-star-rated “Live At The It Club”? How come John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” makes the cut, but his more accessible “Blue Train” doesn’t? Is it fair that Horace Silver gets in with “Blowin’ The Blues Away” and Hank Mobley doesn’t with “Soul Station”?
There’s only one way to find out. You’ll have to buy all the highly rated albums and compare them your sophisticated self. You’ll also want to add CDs by similar musicians, in order to achieve a more rounded sense of each genre. And it wouldn’t be a bad idea to beef up your supply of key influences on your favorite artists, so you can see how the traditions of jazz have evolved. This book makes all that easy.
Too easy. Even if you don’t like either Wes Montgomery or John Zorn (and I don’t), the guide is addictive. After a cursory thumbing through, I filled nine pages with albums I have to have, ranging from Clifford Brown’s “Quartet In Paris” to Art Farmer’s “When Farmer Met Gryce” to Shorty Rogers’ “The Sweetheart of Sigmund Freud” (just for the title).
Spend a hour randomly sampling the guide’s wonders, and you’ll find yourself transformed. You’ll be more knowledgeable. More inquisitive. More crazed in your quest for obscure albums by musicians who were never well-enough known to be forgotten.
Yes, I’m afraid that – like drugs, guns and television – “The Penguin Guide To Jazz On CD” can be misused. When that happens, you don’t turn into a sophisticate. You become a babbling idiot.
Like me.
[[tagline]] Al Diamon’s column appears monthly. He can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net, particularly if you have a copy of Kenny Dorham’s “Inta Somethin'” or some vintage Elmo Hope you’d like to get rid of.
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