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recent bookmarks from robertogrecoListen Closely to André 30002024-03-02T19:24:32+00:00
https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/andre-3000-interview/
robertogrecoandré3000 music 2024 flutes improvisation celebrity huntingtongardens overalls uniformshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:63689ccbfc67/CITY LIGHTS LIVE! Celebrating Sonny Rollins: with Aidan Levy in conversation with Ammiel Alcalay - YouTube2023-01-27T19:54:43+00:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvQFYg_ySvU
robertogrecosonnyrollins aidanlevy sanfrancisco jazz ammielalcalay 2023 music reading howweread howardzinn billmckibben environment environmentalism globalwarming citylights johncoltrane paramahansayogananda hazratinayatkhan mysticism johndonne williamjames noamchomsky socialchange 1950s maxroach improvisation capitalism race racism charlieparker theloniousmonkhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:bcd985063889/The importance of remembering everything but the music : NPR2022-12-20T23:09:21+00:00
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/16/1143379524/the-importance-of-remembering-everything-but-the-music
robertogrecoharmonyholiday 2022 via:shiraz music jazz oraltradition howwewrite howweread memory remembering retelling memorization secrets accuracy change improvisation adaptation unfinished writing readinghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:aa6d1b1f495a/The awful TRUTH about “No Trespassing" signs - YouTube2022-03-16T19:59:30+00:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdatu1OZbIs
robertogrecoalexisnikolenelson 2022 food foraging columbus ohio history race racism yaraelmjouie nature multispecies cooking trespassing notrespassing briansawers us uk hunting fishing slavery nutrition vegetables mushrooms labor law emancipation hunter-gatherers flavor improvisation wildfoodhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:f5ba207ce1f3/Black Thought On Rolex, Cartier And Being Early | Five Minutes With Tariq Trotter - YouTube2022-03-13T05:04:59+00:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD80u8w93wA
robertogrecocartier rolex watches tariqtrotter 2021 cartierroadster theroots time music improvisation paneraihttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:eaec08019bc8/An unfinished record of what cannot be recorded - by Harmony Holiday - Black Music and Black Muses2021-11-11T04:20:37+00:00
https://harmonyholiday.substack.com/p/an-unfinished-record-of-what-cannot
robertogrecoharmonyholiday 2021 jazz music performance livemusic ornettecoleman ninasimone felakuti georgeclinton sunra beyoncé leonardcohen gilscottheron prince michaeljackson improvisation context ceciltaylor billieholidayhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:e1bef1f19ab9/Collections | Search | Forms of Education: Couldn't Get a Sense of It | Asia Art Archive2021-09-25T19:56:15+00:00
https://aaa.org.hk/en/collections/search/library/forms-of-education-couldnt-get-a-sense-of-it
robertogrecoeducation teaching howweteach howwelearn learning art poetry greogrysholette eunsongkim pablohelguera dubasambolec mfanomfa shellyasquith bodeis administration highered highereducation thirdteacher roeerosen auroraharris tedheibert mohamedalifadlabi alternative altgdp beatrizsantiagomuñoz judychicago bisanhusamabu-eisheh diegobruno clarebutcher robertpaulwolff chusmartinez sezginpoynik audunmoretensen aeronbergman alejandrasalinas sondraperry nicolemaloof debt chriskraus martharosler walidraad irenaborić marjeticapotrč form formlessness unlearning unschooling deschooling class maification anti-knowing ideology disability margins pragmatism artmarket content boredom surprise canon ethnography observation hesitation fear improvisation pleasure aesthetics howwework sameness arteducationhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:1c0bd75e321b/Kameelah Janan Rasheed - No New Theories - Printed Matter2021-04-13T04:35:58+00:00
https://www.printedmatter.org/catalog/51106/
robertogrecokameelahjananrasheed 2019 learning unlearning practice poetry collage howwewrite improvisation journals layering citation alexispaulinegumbs emilydickinson samueldelany annotation blackness formhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:75e055e84454/How Ella Fitzgerald Turned Forgotten Lyrics Into One Of Her Best Performances Ever - YouTube2020-05-01T01:30:40+00:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU7R1w0aNF0
robertogrecoellafitzgerald scat performance jazz music 1960 canon improvisation quoting lyrics vocals vocalistshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:19a92a6e72dd/David Epstein on the Genius of the Self-Taught Musician | Literary Hub2020-02-11T21:03:56+00:00
https://lithub.com/david-epstein-on-the-genius-of-the-self-taught-musician/
robertogrecoautodidacts music amateurism autodidacticism davidepstein 2019 djangoreinherdt davebrubeck jackcecchini howwelearn learning unschooling deschooling improvisation creativity self-directed self-directedlearning attention inhibition self-censoring informallearning context children shinichisuzuki suzukimethod musicinstruction instruction teaching howweteach training rules adamgrant tigermoms range johnnysmith dukeellingtonhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:19fc25b4d108/Don’t leave jazz to the jazz guys | The Outline2020-01-30T06:20:40+00:00
https://theoutline.com/post/8604/jazz-guys-stereotypes-music-genre
robertogrecoI just think that people, when they say that they, you know, hate jazz, they just, they don’t have context, they don’t know where it comes from. Jazz was born in a little flophouse in New Orleans, and it’s just because people were crammed in there, they spoke five different languages, they couldn’t talk to each other. The only way they could communicate was with jazz.
This is a bit ridiculous, for one thing. People in New Orleans at the turn of the century were surely speaking English, French, Spanish, and Creole dialects, rather than carrying out conversations by blowing trumpets at each other. But cringier still is the shape this takes: a man lecturing a woman on a date about her lack of appreciation for a particular art form.
This is, unfortunately, a thing, one that particularly haunts women who play or listen to jazz. I once witnessed a first date at the Village Vanguard, the world’s most famous jazz club, where a man pointed at a picture of Joe Henderson and told his date it was Dexter Gordon. He then proceeded to sing her the bass line to Miles Davis’s “So What,” the first song on the first jazz album most people listen to. As Alexander Pope once wrote: “A little learning is a dangerous thing.”
***
My own interest in jazz grew in parallel to other kinds of music, and one of the things that has most confused me about the public perception of it is its depiction as something entirely distinct from different genres. Think of the way people ask each other, as part of a variety of getting-to-know-you processes, “what kind of music do you like?” People draw a variety of conclusions about your cultural background based on your answer, but if your answer is “jazz,” that seems to carry more of a connotation about your personality, like that you are a white guy who wears a fedora and calls people “cat.” It’s the type of thing you don’t list on a dating profile. An interest in jazz too often signifies the things it is depicted as in either Whiplash — a preening display of technical ability — or La La Land — a nostalgic fixation. It’s as though you admitted to being a Civil War reenactor, or worse, a snob. But for me, it’s never had anything to do with either.
Miles Davis’s 1959 album Kind of Blue — the one with “So What” — was probably also the first jazz album I heard, though I don’t remember the first time I heard it. There was a copy at my local library, and I do remember flipping past it many times. I began to recognize it as the token jazz album on Rolling Stone-type best album lists, but in the back of my mind, I thought, “that one is boring.”
[audio embed]
The first jazz album I liked was Grant Green’s 1963 Idle Moments, which I saw in the same bin, and chose for the unsophisticated reason that I liked the cover — a classic of Blue Note’s distinctive design. The 15-minute title track is like a film noir in miniature, and I’d never heard a vibraphone before, an instrument that sounds like a wisp of smoke in black and white. It’s played here by Bobby Hutcherson, and I started keeping my eye out for his name in lists of credits. Jazz was still a curiosity to me, but I began to browse books on it.
I chanced upon an outdated record guide, and flipped through it to check for names of artists and albums to look into. It was not a recommendation I remember but a warning: against saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman, whom the author deemed a ruiner of jazz. By abandoning conventional harmony, said the author, Coleman’s music had disrupted the decorum of jazz and released it to the wolves. Obviously, I had to hear it.
[audio embed]
I found his breakthrough 1959 album The Shape of Jazz to Come, back in those CD bins. The cover is almost a visual joke, with its declarative title laid out over a rather demure photo of Coleman wearing a nice sweater and cradling a saxophone — scandalously, for the era, made of cheap white plastic rather than the traditional brass. The music was a revelation — unpretentious, but startlingly unique, somehow belonging to both a city street and to outer space. I’d never heard anything like it, and still haven’t. I began to trace his music backwards, to Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, and it was only after I spent years with the accelerated density of bebop that the spaciousness of Kind of Blue made any sense to me.
***
In a recent article in Jacobin titled “In Defense of Kenny G,” the composer John Halle — whose bio states that he was “formerly on the faculties of Yale and the Bard Conservatory” — characterizes jazz fans as elitists, scornful of the masses who have rightly rejected jazz as an indulgence of the bourgeoisie. The article contains no meaningful defense of Kenny G, and Halle admits he is not making a case for listening to him, which seems to miss the point of music in general. But he argues that distaste for Kenny G among jazz fans, along with their preference for the music in the jazz canon, is an instance of contempt for the authentic culture of working people. This doesn’t really line up with the public perception of the music. In La La Land, after Sebastian offers his account of the origins of jazz, Mia responds, “What about Kenny G?” For many people, both fans and haters, Kenny G, sadly or not, epitomizes jazz.
One might ask why jazz is the target for this invective in the first place. As a college student, I once attended a performance by the jazz pianist Jason Moran, of the compositions of Thelonious Monk. Beforehand, I overheard a conversation with an administrator of the concert hall, who noted the interruption of their program of “serious music” with amused disdain. Our discourse is so hampered by polarized debates between Marvel movies and art films that it becomes easy to forget that such creatures do exist, and they often hold positions of power and influence. Jazz is still subject to the same objectification Amiri Baraka noted in his 1963 essay “Jazz and the White Critic”:
We take for granted the social and cultural milieu and philosophy that produced Mozart. As Western people, the sociocultural thinking of 18th-century Europe comes to us as a legacy that is a continuous and organic part of the 20th-century West. The sociocultural philosophy of the Negro in America (as a continuous historical phenomenon) is no less specific and no less important for any intelligent critical speculation about the music that came out of it.
What Halle neglects to note is that jazz has been a form of popular music, one linked to the social life of a community, for most of its existence. Even music meant for listening rather than dancing, like the bebop of the 1940s, had populist qualities — the era’s major innovator, Charlie Parker, spent some of his final recording sessions playing pop songs over orchestral arrangements, an approach closer to Kenny G than either acolytes or detractors of modern jazz might like to admit.
Inconveniently, jazz recurs in subsequent forms of American popular music as well. Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan are obvious examples, as were many of their contemporaries, from experimental rock groups like King Crimson to soul songwriters like Stevie Wonder. More recently, Kendrick Lamar’s now-classic 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly is, among other things, an experiment in making hip hop with a jazz methodology — contemporary jazz musicians like Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper, and Ambrose Akinmusire are all over it.
I have often heard jazz described by people who don’t like it as music where everyone is soloing at once, or something to that effect. This sounds unpleasant, if what you’re used to is guitar solos in rock songs — boring interludes where you temporarily stop paying attention. Jazz, at its best, is something entirely different. The difference between composed music and improvised music is a matter of timing.
[audio embed]
Last year, the guitarist Bill Frisell put out an album of duets with bassist Thomas Morgan, the second release from a weeklong engagement they played at the Village Vanguard. I treasure both albums on their own merits, but the most incredible thing about them, for me, is that I was there — on one of the nights they recorded the music that makes up the album, I sat in the room and heard it come into being. They played a version of Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” so exquisite that the moment it ended I wanted to share it with everyone I knew, and wished there was a way I could. In this case, I can. But better yet, this is an experience I can have again, and you can too. Jazz is a living music, one that exists in the real world in real time, and living, breathing musicians create moments of indescribable beauty every night.
It’s important not to be a jazz guy. But you don’t have to be one to listen to jazz.”]]>jazz music 2020 bosch shujahaider bluenote bluenoterecords stumptown georgeshearing samgaillard jonimitchell milesdavis johncoltrane charlesmingus jackkerouac dukeellington theloniousmonk homeland clairedanes johnmayer lalaland whiplash damienchazelle film television tv steelydan donaldfagen joehenderson dextergordon alexanderpope grantgreenornettecoleman charlieparker kennyg kindofblue johnhalle jasonmoran amiribaraka kamasiwashington robertglasper ambroseakinmusire thomasmorgan billfrisell harrybosch kingcrimson kendricklamar steviewonder timing improvisation discourse culture appreciation musicappreciation billystrayhorn villagevanguardhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:b50c9791f23c/Entrevista a Gastón Soublette - Parte I: La Sabiduría Tradicional - YouTube2019-03-30T21:25:37+00:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac9pat0lrwY
robertogrecogastónsoublette chile history mapuche science education philosophy culture religion civilization future art music tradition oraltradition oral orality diegoportales improvisation wisdom mexico precolumbian inca maya aztec quechua literature epics araucaria aesthetics transcendentalism myths myth arthistory 2015 perú learning belief christianityhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:e5cdc607bd7e/David Graeber - Syria, Anarchism and Visiting Rojava - YouTube2019-01-09T06:30:33+00:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqfoJvD0Ifg
robertogrecodavidgraeber syria anarchism anarchy rojava directdemocracy patriarchy capitalism anticapitalism antistatism democracy history cultofpersonality spain catalonia barcelona grassroots feminism ecology sustainability environment bureaucracy bullshitjobs economics self-governance iran iraq turkey kurdistan kurds activism defense hierarchy horizontality gender checksandbalances governance exploitation 2017 borders isis solidarity accountability projectmanagement administration organization freedom criticalthinking voice compulsion compulsory process power control consenus cv time sfsh tcsnmy openstudioproject lcproject listening slow voting morality politics efficiency rule improvisation ows occupywallstreet reason language evolution adaptability adaptation authority authoritarianism statelessness murraybookchin españahttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:477685ff91a9/26 | Black Mountain College — Do Not Touch2018-10-23T21:15:19+00:00
https://www.donottouchblog.com/podcast/black-mountain-college
robertogrecobmc 2018 blackmountaincollege bauhaus annialbers johndewey art arts education highered highereducation alternative experimental unschooling deschooling democracy horizontality evadiaz kateaverett history arthistory pedagogy lcproject openstudioproject form exploration liberalarts roberrauschenberg willemdekooning abstractexpressionism howwework discipline self identity johncage mercecunningham self-directedlearning self-directed learning howwelearn howweteach teaching vision cognition expressionism expression music dance buckminsterfuller technique chance happenings anarchism ego spontaneity unknown improvisation radicalism transilience northcarolina transience hippies communes integration jacoblawrence almastonewilliams outsiders refugees inclusion inclusivity openness gender rayjohnson elainedekooining karenkarnes dorothearockburn hazellarsenarcher blackmountaincollegemuseum susanweil maryparkswashington josefalbers charlesolson poetry johnandrewrice bmcm+achttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:38eff695fed6/An Interview with Fred Moten, Part 1 | Literary Hub2018-01-07T06:01:23+00:00
http://lithub.com/an-interview-with-fred-moten-pt-i/
robertogrecofredmoten interviews 2015 adamfitzgerald jacquesderrida tored collaboration poetry music jazz improvisationhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:8bff20ae7884/Books that have shaped our thinking – Nava PBC2017-05-29T20:24:47+00:00
https://blog.navapbc.com/books-that-have-shaped-our-thinking-5d8be6f505ee
robertogrecoThis covers, in great detail, the astounding ways that the models we make for the world end up influencing how we interact with it. This is incredibly relevant to our work: the data models we define and the way we classify and interpret data have profound and often invisible impacts on large populations. — Sha Hwang, Co-founder and Head of Creative
Decoded
by Jay Z
Decoded is Jay Z’s autobiography and describes his experience as a black man growing up in an impoverished neighborhood in NYC. In particular, there is a passage about poor people’s relationship to the government that changed the way I think about the perception of those government services that I work to improve. This book showed me that the folks we usually want to serve most well in government, are the ones who are most likely to have had profoundly negative experiences with government. It taught me that, when I work on government services, I am rebuilding a relationship, not starting a new one. Context is so important. It’s a fun, fast read and I used to ask that our Apprentices read at least that passage, if not the whole book, before starting with our team at the NYC Mayor’s Office. — Genevieve Gaudet, Designer
Seeing like a State
by James C. Scott
A reminder that the governance of people at scale can have unintended consequences when removed from people’s daily lives and needs. You won’t think of the grid, property lines, and last names the same way again.— Shelly Ni, Designer
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
by Susan Cain
Cain uses data and real world examples of how and why introverts are overlooked in American culture and then discusses how both introverts and extroverts can play a role in ensuring introverts get a seat at the table and a word in the conversation. — Aimee Barciauskas, Software Engineer
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
by Thomas Piketty
This book analyzes the long-term fluctuations in wealth inequality across the globe, from the eighteenth century to present. He exposes an incredibly important issue in a compelling way, using references not just to data, but to history and literature to prove his point. — Mari Miyachi, Software Engineer
Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
by Robert A. Caro
Our most underhanded president also brought us Medicaid, Medicare, and civil rights. Was Machiavelli so bad after all? — Alex Prokop, Software Engineer
Praying for Sheetrock
by Melissa Fay Greene
A true, close-up story of McIntosh County, Georgia, a place left behind by the greater Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. This is a story about the civil rights movement that shakes up the community in the 1970s, and this is also a story about burnout, and organizing, and intergenerational trauma. — Shelly Ni, Designer
The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care
by T. R. Reid
Reid explores different models for healthcare in nations across the globe. He’s searching for an understanding of why America’s system is comparatively so expensive and unsuccessful, leaving so many uninsured and unhealthy. There is a great chapter on Ayurvedic medicine which (spoiler alert) seemed to work for the author when he was suffering from a shoulder injury! — Aimee Barciauskas, Software Engineer
Creativity, Inc: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration
by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace
A very enjoyable and inspirational read about the history of Pixar from founder Ed Catmull himself. It delves into what sets a creative company apart and teaches lessons like “people are more important than ideas” and “simple answers are seductive” without reading like a typical business book.— Lauren Peterson, Product Manager
Thinking, Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman
The magnum opus of Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman is a psychologist but his Nobel is in Economics, and unlike other winners in this category, his win stands the test of time. You will be a much better decision maker after reading this book and understanding the two modes our brains work in: System 1 intuitive “fast” thinking and System 2 deliberate “slow” thinking. It is a beast of a book, but unlike the vast majority of (pop) psychology books, this book distills decades of groundbreaking research and is the basis for so many other psychology books and research that if you read this book carefully, you won’t have to read those other books. There are so many topics in this book, I’ll just link to the Wikipedia page to give you a flavor.— Alicia Liu, Software Engineer
Nudge
by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
This covers how sensible “choice architecture” can improve the decisions and behavior of people. Much of what’s covered comes from decades of research in behavioral science and economics, and has a wide range of applications — from design, user research, and policy to business and everyday life. — Sawyer Hollenshead, Designer
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
by Atul Gawande
This book is about how checklists can help even experts avoid mistakes. Experience isn’t enough. I try to apply the lessons of this book to the processes we use to operate our software.—Evan Kroske, Software Engineer
The Soul of a New Machine
by Tracy Kidder
This book details the work of a computer engineering team racing to design a computer. While the pace of work for the team is certainly unsustainable and perhaps even unhealthy at times, the highs and lows they go through as they debug their new minicomputer will be familiar to engineers and members of tight-knit groups of all varieties. The rush to finish their project, which was thought to be a dark horse at the beginning of the book, is enthralling and will keep you engaged with this book late into the night. — Samuel Keller, Software Engineer
Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software
by Michael T. Nygard
One of the best, most practical books I’ve ever read about creating resilient software on “modern” web architectures. While it may not be the most relevant with regards to cloud-based infrastructure, the patterns and processes described within are still very applicable. This is one of the few technical books I have read cover-to-cover. — Scott Smith, Software Engineer
Design for Democracy
by Marcia Lausen
From an AIGA project to improve the design of ballots— both paper and electronic— following the “hanging chad” drama of the 2000 election, comes this review of best practices for designers, election officials, and anyone interested in the intersection of design and voting.—Shelly Ni, Designer
The Design of Everyday Things
by Donald A. Norman
This is a classic for learning about design and its sometimes unintended consequences. I read it years ago and I still think about it every time I’m in an elevator. It’s a great introduction to a designer’s responsibility and designing in the real world for actual humans, who can make mistakes and surprising choices about how to use the designs you create. — Genevieve Gaudet, Designer
More recommendations from the team
• The Unexotic Underclass
• Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice
• Everybody Hurts: Content for Kindness
• Poverty Interrupted: Applying Behavioral Science to the Context of Chronic Scarcity [PDF]
• Designing for Social Change: Strategies for Community-Based Graphic Design
• Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels
• The New New Journalism: Conversations with America’s Best Nonfiction Writers on their Craft
• The Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times
• The Effective Engineer: How to Leverage Your Efforts In Software Engineering to Make a Disproportionate and Meaningful Impact
• Effective DevOps: Building a Culture of Collaboration, Affinity, and Tooling at Scale"]]>nava books booklists design education health healthcare sawyerhollenshed jayz susanleighstar shahwang geoffreybowker decoded jamescscott seeinglikeastate susancain introverts quiet thomaspiketty economics melissafaygreene civilrrights socialjustice creativity edcatmull amyallace pixar teams readinglists toread howwethink thinking danielkahneman government richardthaler casssunstein atulgawande tracykidder medicine checklists process michaelnygard software ui ux democracy donalnorman devops improvisation collaboration sfsh journalism kindness socialchange transparency participation participatory opengovernment openhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:ca18140cd564/CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts: David Hammons2017-02-25T05:46:49+00:00
http://wattis.org/view?id=4%2C368
robertogrecoBlack hair is the oldest hair in the world. You’ve got tons of people’s spirits in your hands when you work with that stuff.
[David Hammons. "Wine Leading the Wine," 1969. Courtesy of Hudgins Family Collection, New York. Photo: Tim Nighswander/IMAGING4ART.]
If Hammons is suspicious of all that is visible, it might be because the visible, in America, is all that is white. It’s all those Oscar winners, all those museum trustees, and all those faces on all those dollar bills. Some artists work to denounce, reveal, or illustrate racial injustice, and to make visible those who are not. Hammons, on the other hand, prefers invisibility—or placing the visible out of reach. He doesn’t have a lesson to teach or a point to prove, and his act of protest is simply to abstract, because that’s what will make the visible harder to recognize and the intelligible harder to understand.
If Duchamp was uninterested in what the eye can see, Hammons is oppressed by it—it’s not the same thing.
[David Hammons. "In the Hood," 1993. Courtesy of Tilton Gallery, New York.]
I’m trying to make abstract art out of my experience, just like Thelonius Monk.
For Hammons, musicians have always been both the model and the front line. When George Lewis says that “the truth of improvisation involves survival,” it’s because improv musicians look for a way forward, one note at a time, with no map to guide them and with no rules or languages to follow other than ones they invent and determine themselves. It forces them to analyze where they are and forces them to do something about it, on their own terms. Doesn’t get much more political than that.
Or, as Miles Davis once put it, “I do not play jazz.” He plays something that invents its own vocabulary—a vocabulary that is shared only by those who don’t need to know what to call it or how to contain it. And just as Miles Davis doesn’t play jazz, David Hammons doesn’t make art.
[David Hammons. "Blue Rooms," 2000 (installation view, The Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowkski Castle, Warsaw).]
I’m trying to create a hieroglyphics that was definitely black.
Hammons goes looking for spirits in music, poetry, and dirt. He knows they like to hide inside of sounds, lodge themselves between words or within puns, and linger around the used-up and the seemingly worthless. He knows he’s caught some when he succeeds in rousing the rubble and gets it to make its presence felt. Like Noah Purifoy, he ignores the new and the expensive in favor of the available. Like Federico Fellini, he spends his time in the bowels of culture and makes them sing.
[David Hammons. "(Untitled) Basketball Drawing," 2006.]
There are the materials that make the art—those are the foot soldiers—but there is also the attitude that makes the artist. Hammons has his way of thinking and his way of behaving, which is once again not something one sees or necessarily understands, but is something that makes its presence known, the way spirits make their presence felt. There will be some who won’t recognize it and others who do—and his work is meant only for those who see themselves in it.
Did you ever see Elvis Presley’s resume? Or John Lennon’s resume? Fuck that resume shit.
Ornette was Ornette because of what he could blow, but also because he never gave into other people’s agendas or expectations.
What matters even more than having your own agenda is letting others know that it doesn’t fit theirs. “To keep my rhythm,” as Hammons puts it, “there’s always a fight, with any structure.” The stakes are real because should you let your guard down, “they got rhythms for you,” and you’ll soon be thinking just like they do. And in a white and racist America, in a white and racist art world, Hammons doesn’t want to be thinking just like most people do. His is a recalcitrant politics of presence: where he doesn’t seem to belong, he appears; where he does belong, he vanishes.
In short: don’t play a game whose management you don’t control.
[David Hammons. "Higher Goals," 1987. Photo: Matt Weber.]
That’s the only way you have to treat people with money—you have to let these people know that your agenda is light years beyond their thinking patterns.
The Whitney Biennial? I don’t like the job description. A major museum retrospective? Get back to me with something I can’t understand.
Exhibitions are too clean and make too much sense—plus the very authority of many mainstream museums is premised on values that Hammons doesn’t consider legitimate or at least does not share. He is far more interested in walking and talking with Jr., a man living on the streets of the East Village, who taught him about how the homeless divide up their use of space according to lines marked by the positioning of bricks on a wall. Those lines have teeth. In a museum, art is stripped of all its menace.
[David Hammons. "Bliz-aard Ball Sale," 1983. Photo: Dawoud Bey.]
The painter Jack Whitten once explained of how music became so central to black American life with this allegory:
When my white slave masters discovered that my drum was a subversive instrument they took it from me…. The only instrument available was my body, so I used my skin: I clapped my hands, slapped my thighs, and stomped my feet in dynamic rhythms.
David Hammons began with his skin. He pressed his skin onto paper to make prints. Over the subsequent five decades, he has found his drum.
[David Hammons. "Phat Free," 1995-99 (video still). Courtesy of Zwirner & Wirth, New York.]"]]>davidhammons anthonyhuberman art jazz ornettecoleman milesdavis theloniousmonk material rules trickster outsiders artworld resumes elvispresley johnlennon insiders race racism us power authority jackwhitten music museums galleries menace homeless nyc management structure presence belonging expectations artists noahpurifoy availability culture hieroglyphics blackness georgelewis improvisation oppression marcelduchamp visibility invisibility souls spirits fellinihttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:ffc82a1d4ce8/Reimagining and Revisioning Making and Maker Education - YouTube2016-05-17T01:17:48+00:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BPpUfPlANI
robertogreconettricegaskins amonmillner debbiechachra 2015 making learning curiosity makercollege education howwelearn caregiving caregivers repair ursulafranklin technology behavior holitictechnologies prescriptivetechnologies autonomy control stem science engineering erasure johncoltrane improvisation math music grandmasterflash remixing hiphop pauloblikstein sylviamartinez equity fablearn julietwanyiri susanklimczak makers hackers repairinghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:a3f5ce63f0e5/Search results | Farm Hack2016-02-16T20:21:29+00:00
http://farmhack.org/tools
robertogrecofarms farming making adaptations hacking agriculture tools engineering architecture design tinkering invention inventing fabrication tweaking improvisationhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:7f3db12792c8/Life in the Garrison | The American Conservative2015-06-11T08:33:35+00:00
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/life-in-the-garrison/
robertogrecowhauden poems poetry futures utopia small presence attention slow scale improvisation local conservatiism christianity alanjacobs 2015 engagement everyday canon audenhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:dd454c5c8939/"Girlhood" Film review - Black Girls Talking2015-05-22T21:19:11+00:00
http://www.blackgirlstalking.com/essays/carefree-black-girls-interrupted2
robertogrecocélinesciamma film girlhood carefreeblackgirls 2014 power improvisation cecileemeke women gender blackness filmmaking fanta fantasyllahttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:0db91081cde4/“Faking It:” Counterfeits, Copies, and Uncertain Truths in Science, Technology, and Medicine :: Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, & Society2015-03-26T08:32:50+00:00
http://cstms.berkeley.edu/current-events/faking-it-counterfeits-copies-and-uncertain-truths-in-science-technology-and-medicine/
robertogrecovia:javierarbona faking fakingit trickster events 2015 imitation fakes impostors falsification manipulation copying counterfeiting quackery agnotology ignorance fraud science sociology knowledge forgery anthropology improvisation notknowing medicine creativity fabrication evidence truth josephmasco technology culture society academia ethics invisibility bullshithttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:97f5d9b44275/Lagos Wide and Close Online2015-03-07T22:03:56+00:00
http://lagos.submarinechannel.com/
robertogrecolagos nigeria via:litheland cities interactive urban urbanism storytelling documentaries improvisation risktaking networking megacities remkoolhaas bregtjevanderhaak africa 2001 olawolebusayo soundscapes 2004 2014 edgarcleijne silkewawro rikmeierhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:4c6b0accf7c5/Kenneth Goldsmith - Talks | Frieze Projects NY2014-08-13T03:29:56+00:00
http://friezeprojectsny.org/talks/kenneth-goldsmith/
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http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2014/07/07/140707crmu_music_frerejones?currentPage=all
robertogreco2014 brianeno sashafrere-jones music johncage marcelduchamp eriksatie scenius collaboration notknowing constraints rules obliquestrategies art process howwework happenings bryanferry improvisation generative possibility chance genius uncertaintyhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:e19508f53aec/pechaflickr2014-04-24T19:03:51+00:00
http://pechaflickr.net/
robertogrecospeaking improv improvisation pechakucha flickr random via:lukeneff pechaflickr extemporaneous presentations classideashttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:0c09a6540314/Mastering the Art of Sparking Connections2013-12-09T19:45:50+00:00
http://sparkcamp.com/sparking-connections/
robertogrecoevents sparkcamp amandamichel andypergam mattthompson amywebb planning values diversity improvisation comfort conferences discussion conversation howto loosely-joined intimacy publicity facilitation eventplanning unconferences experimentation perfection trust inclusion conferenceplanning accessibility inclusivity inlcusivityhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:77452f3da7ae/Jazz-Inspired Leadership: Change Observer: Design Observer2013-07-19T02:24:40+00:00
http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/feature/jazz-inspired-leadership/37947/
robertogrecoleadership change administration jazz improvisation planning adaptation uncertainty flexibility learning wandaorlikowski experimentation prototyping risk risktakinghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:d62a939df601/The Lowest Level: Pickup Soccer in America | The Other 872013-06-24T00:54:49+00:00
http://theother87.com/2011/04/03/the-lowest-level-pickup-soccer-in-america/
robertogrecopickup soccer futbol sports improvisation collaboration flexibility squishynotslick cv howwelearn learningbydoing adultintervention intervention 2011 ericbetts unschooling deschooling learning informality informal informallearning self-directedlearning footballhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:3019381f7c66/Ñongos: A Document of the Tijuana River's Improvised Housing Community | San Diego | Artbound | KCET2013-03-06T00:06:20+00:00
http://www.kcet.org/arts/artbound/counties/san-diego/nongos-tijuana-river-community-ana-andrade.html
robertogrecoñongos sandiego tijuana tijuanariver 2013 border borders housing improvisation marcoverahttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:ff1fc72ebe1d/Polyphony - Wikipedia2013-02-22T19:56:28+00:00
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphony
robertogrecoRather than being fixed works, they indicated ways of improvising polyphony during performance.]]>thinking music improvisation polyphony fixed via:litherlandhttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:e66114c06529/Improvisation, Community and Social Practice2012-09-11T05:34:09+00:00
http://www.improvcommunity.ca/
robertogrecoculture politics interdisciplinary socialpractice networks canada research art sound music socialchange improvisation via:litherlandhttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:ff73302feffa/What Bill Clinton Wrote vs. What Bill Clinton Said - Politics - The Atlantic Wire2012-09-06T19:10:31+00:00
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/09/what-bill-clinton-said-vs-what-he-wrote/56562/
robertogrecooratory publicspeaking delivery writing improvisation comparison speechwriting speeches billclinton dnc 2012https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:f94343704be0/Tino Sehgal: The fine art of human interaction | The Economist2012-08-16T06:27:28+00:00
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2012/07/tino-sehgal
robertogrecosituatedart constructedsituations improvisation anti-materialist materialism anti-market 2012 docmentation glvo performance happenings tinosehgal arthttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:42f8b9b1d62c/Andrew Zolli at NYU Reynolds/NYU Heyman Center, 4/18/12 - YouTube2012-07-13T19:56:48+00:00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmHT7NVpuUE
robertogrecoHow do we encourage jazz everywhere?
I do think jazz may save civilization.
]]>thinking improvisation systems via:litherland resilience resiliency redundancy wealth resource robustness jazz wealthdistribution systemsthinking 2012 continuity andrewzolli sustainability globalwarming climatechangehttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:38970620e547/Reading L.A.: The once and future Plaza, nature in the city - latimes.com2012-01-06T05:15:35+00:00
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2012/01/reading-la-nature-in-the-city-the-once-and-future-plaza.html
robertogrecoimprovisation density socal change transmobility personalmobility mobility future urbanism urban 2012 history books cities losangeleshttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:557952994f43/The Infinite Adventure Machine (prototype 01) on Vimeo2011-11-24T18:44:06+00:00
http://vimeo.com/27462214
robertogrecoapplications ios ipad storytelling stories writingprompts video improvisationhttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:246678ebd6a2/DesignCrossing: X-School... Reflections on the path2011-08-22T19:48:31+00:00
http://designcrossing.blogspot.com/2011/06/x-school-reflections-on-path.html?spref=tw
robertogrecoxskool johnthackara unfinished purpose community meaning doing improvisation 2011 experience conversation sharing designeducation education lcproject learning fightclub conferences unconferences workshops unworkshops openstudio openstudioproject openschoolshttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:7dd1f73d59f6/The Creator Of TED Aims To Reinvent Conferences Once Again | Co. Design2011-08-10T10:15:02+00:00
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1664704/the-creator-of-ted-aims-to-reinvent-conferences-once-again
robertogrecoeducation ted conferences dialogue saulwurman 2011 www.www improvisation vulnerability sageonthestage conversation collaboration collaborativeinquiry discussion tedtalks tcsnmy classideas dialoghttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:0de52deeba8c/TeachPaperless: I Am Not A Great Teacher [This rings so true. Shelly is me with hair!?]2011-07-27T02:18:30+00:00
http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/2011/07/i-am-not-great-teacher.html
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http://lab.cogdogblog.com/pechaflickr/?tag=school
robertogrecoclassideas pechakucha flickr mashup improvisation funhttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:740b3da8c843/The Shape of Design, a new book by Frank Chimero2011-03-05T18:59:24+00:00
http://shapeofdesignbook.com/
robertogreco
More than anything, it’s a book of suggestions to how we can make things that help us to live better."]]>theshapeofdesign books frankchimero design improvisation storytelling paradox craft delight kickstarterhttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:9e39d8569ec9/The Space Hackers are coming! - Dougald's posterous2011-02-01T19:07:30+00:00
http://dougald.posterous.com/the-space-hackers-are-coming
robertogrecodougaldhine postmaterialism postconsumerism spatial spacehackers hackers diy make making favelachic post-crisisliving cv opensource architecture squatters dropouts counterculture spacemaking unschooling deschooling alternative vinaygupta rayoldenburg ivanillich schools learning future sociability thirdplaces postindustrialism postindustrial capitalism marxism hospitals healthcare health society improvisation popup pop-upshttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:cf0c2f8a4aa5/Recipe: Malo's Ground Beef and Pickle Taco | At Home | The Public Kitchen | KCET2011-01-24T02:05:52+00:00
http://www.kcet.org/updaily/the_public_kitchen/at-home/-good-food-sometimes-comes.html
robertogrecorecipes food losangeles tacos improvisationhttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:fbca7e4620f2/Recipe: Malo's Ground Beef and Pickle Taco | At Home | The Public Kitchen | KCET2011-01-24T02:05:52+00:00
http://www.kcet.org/updaily/the_public_kitchen/at-home/-good-food-sometimes-comes.html#
robertogrecorecipes food losangeles tacos improvisationhttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:5a29b15de1ce/Publish. Now. — Satellite — Craig Mod2010-12-06T06:14:48+00:00
http://craigmod.com/satellite/publish_now/
robertogrecocraigmod presentations speaking planning conferences meaning change improvisationhttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:349067dc1159/running to stand still « Higher Edison2010-02-07T18:57:06+00:00
http://higheredison.wordpress.com/2010/02/07/running-to-stand-still/
robertogrecosylviamartinez curriculum learning constructivism shellyblake-pock education unschooling deschooling leaning tcsnmy tinkering iteration curiosity play experimentation make do passion knowledge remixculture remix culture improvisation remixinghttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:9d132d2d8a8c/A Robot Named Shimon Wants To Jam With You : NPR2009-12-23T06:23:25+00:00
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121763193
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http://www.urban-la.info/blog4/
robertogrecolosangeles research diversity culture architecture cities segregation fragmentation improvisationhttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:993eafdc428d/The only plan is to learn as you go - (37signals)2009-05-06T05:54:52+00:00
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1707-the-only-plan-is-to-learn-as-you-go
robertogrecotcsnmy planning business failure organizations management administration leadership innovation entrepreneurship learning improvisationhttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:6d09fbb9e5c0/Who’s Afraid of ‘Slumdog’ (and in love with the slums)? - Part II « Javierest2009-03-01T20:26:32+00:00
http://javier.est.pr/2009/03/01/who%E2%80%99s-afraid-of-%E2%80%98slumdog%E2%80%99-and-in-love-with-the-slums-part-ii/
robertogrecojavierarbona culture architecture urbanism cities favelas slums poverty construction squatters informal productionofspace elementalchile teddycruz improvisationhttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:45a0bb6787c3/Who’s Afraid of ‘Slumdog’ (and in love with the slums)? - Part I « Javierest2009-03-01T20:24:53+00:00
http://javier.est.pr/2009/02/25/whos-afraid-of-slumdog-and-in-love-with-the-slums-part-i/
robertogrecojavierarbona culture architecture urbanism cities favelas slums poverty construction squatters informal productionofspace improvisationhttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:631f5dead72c/Barry Schwartz on our loss of wisdom | Video on TED.com2009-02-19T05:56:38+00:00
http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html
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http://www.edutopia.org/randy-nelson-school-to-career-video
robertogrecopixar interesting interested learning cv portfolio tcsnmy failure experience careers creativity innovation collaboration education edutopia 21stcenturyskills communication instruction depth breadth 2008 advice design hiring howto business teamwork success failurerecovery resilience adaptability improvisation interestednesshttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:a14f08c20b47/Can Executives Learn to Ignore the Script? - New York Times2008-05-08T20:50:59+00:00
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/business/02unbox.html?ex=1362114000&en=4bad9009fb492546&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
robertogrecoinnovation learning business management leadership generalists risk experiments work creativity lcproject teaching brainstorming change alternative planning organizations improvisationhttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:6234995afc61/How to Speak Hip - Skeyelab Music2008-03-30T04:23:17+00:00
http://audio.skeyelab.com/howtospeakhip/
robertogrecohumor culture language hip history dialects speech speaking slang jazz audio howto tutorials spoken linguistics improvisationhttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:79c992b382c4/Conceptual Trends and Current Topics - The Way of Japan vs Any Way in China2007-11-29T00:28:23+00:00
http://kk.org/ct2/2007/11/the-way-of-japan-vs-any-way-in.php
robertogrecochina japan howwework ingenuity process uniformity perfectionism detail attention improvisationhttps://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:af0146e38531/