Author Archives: Jeff Xilon

The Jazz Chain – Link 5: Johnny Griffin

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It’s time to forge the fifth link in our Jazz Chain. This time our musician and band leader is Johnny Griffin, the tenor sax player from the last featured album, Wilbur Ware’s The Chicago Sound, and our focus is his debut album, Introducing Johnny Griffin.1Which is actually the 2nd recording session he led, but it was published before his true first stint as leader, Johnny Griffin. That album included both Wilbur Ware and Junior Mance, who played with Griffin on The Chicago Sound. Of course, this means we have now come to our first album to use the very common titling trope of using the Band Leader’s name.2The album which originally caught my eye as a possibility for this entry was 1978’s Return of the Griffin which combines both the SFF and band leader titling tropes, but it’s not the easiest to find, unfortunately. It won’t be the last.

Introducing Johnny Griffin – Johnny Griffin – 1957

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Weekly Fiction Rec Roundup 13

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If this week’s Round Up has a theme it might be best described as stories I don’t/can’t 100% understand.1Like all my makeshift, and always made in hindsight, themes this one does not apply to *every* story in the Round Up. That might sound like a pretty silly theme or one not to recommend itself too well, but it absolutely should not reflect on the stories or be taken as judgement on their quality.

The idea that all good stories should be universal, that they should somehow be of equal appeal, or equally accessible, to any reader is one I don’t believe in. Such an idea relies upon a belief in a universal common experience that is far more unhealthy myth than reality, and often a result of a failure, usually by people in societal majorities, to understand that there are experiences separate from their own. But, to paraphrase something I said in the 11th Round Up: If you’re going to read widely, and I think you should, you’re going to read things for which you aren’t the intended primary audience and which you may not “get” in the same way or to the same extent as someone who is. That’s OK. That’s good even. The world is so much more than our own familiar comfort zones, and so much better for it.

Now, on with the stories! Continue reading →

The Jazz Chain – Link 4: Wilbur Ware

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Time for our fourth link in The Jazz Chain. This time we’ve got an intriguing bassist for our consideration. Wilbur Ware, had a 30+ year career and in that time he recorded with some of the best and most interesting performers of the time including Sun Ra, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Lee Morgan and the great Thelonious Monk.1One of the albums Ware played on for Monk, Monk’s Music, is an absolute masterpiece, it’s not the feature album this week, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t recommend you make sure to give it a listen. An absolute all star lineup including Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins and others. Not to be missed! This album though, was the only album he led himself.2Though I’ve seen Johnny Griffin given equal billing in some releases most sources seem to agree this was Ware’s album.

The Chicago Sound – Wilbur Ware – 1957

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Weekly Fiction Rec Roundup 12

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I swear I don’t set out to find themes for these roundups. I guess it’s no surprise they happen though.

My process for making these lists is pretty simple: I pick a story and read it, if I like it enough to share it goes on the list. I try and get a story every day, but I’m most often hitting 5 a week.

Reading though, is, of course, a very subjective experience. Stories are not the static things we so often think of them as, but are more like conversations between the author and reader1Or creator and audience if we want to be inclusive of all kinds of stories.. Sure, only one person (the author) gets to do the talking in this conversation, but as readers we bring our own thoughts, feelings, current mood and other baggage to the experience. It’s why one person can love something another hates and why we can have evolving2Or devolving in some cases. relationships with stories we engage with years after our first experience of them: I rewatched the Matrix the other day and was able, for the first time, to see some of what it was saying, what it had always been saying, but I never understood when I watched it3Many, many times. years ago, about the trans experience. I rewatched some Seinfeld episodes today and cringed at the explicit rape culture jokes.

So, yes, it should come as no surprise that in a week that has had me4And, many, many others. wondering about how we live in a society, and indeed world, that seems doomed, possibly within our children’s lifetimes, that I might “click” most often with a certain kind of story. This is…a dark place to find oneself, a dark conversation to be having, but I feel like most of these stories fit in this conversation and while I won’t say they have answers5I’m not sure there are definite answers to the questions these conversations raise, only ideas and choices. I do think they’re good conversational partners for the week6Oh if only it were really just this week though, eh? so many are having. Continue reading →

The Jazz Chain – Link 3: Cecil Payne

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It’s time to forge the third link of our Jazz Chain. What’s a Jazz Chain you ask? Well, it’s still pretty new so I’ll briefly explain: I’m taking a tour through jazz history, one album at a time, and each week’s album is linked to the last by a musician. One week’s sideman is the next’s leader. We started with Art Blakey’s album Orgy in Rythym and moved on to Sabu Martinez’ Sorcery!. Now we’re taking Cecil Payne, who plays on Sorcery!, jumping ten years forward in time1Because the chain is not bound by temporal logic, only relationships. , and giving a listen to his album Zodiac.

Zodiac – Cecile Payne – 1968/1973

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Weekly Fiction Rec Roundup 11

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The Weekly Fiction Rec Roundup returns with it’s 11th installment. I’ve got five stories to share with you this week.There is a lot of despair and darkness in this week’s stories, in particular through our middle three selections that have such a similarity of feel that they could easily fit together in an anthology featuring dark stories of women protagonists who are perhaps uncompromising, perhaps a bit broken, perhaps even unlikeable.

Clearly I was gravitating to the uncomfortable in my reading this weak, though that should not be taken as any condemnation of these stories. We need stories of survival and struggle, both on personal scales and larger and these have it. We also have some interesting sci-fi and a moody, though not dark, not really, jazz-age fantasy to look at. Oh, and this will also be the first Roundup to use in-line notes1Because I tend to be mighty fond of adding parenthetical additions to my main point and I’m kind of liking using this system to both get to ramble on a bit and clean up my presentation., so there’s that.

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