Alice Coltrane’s solo music emerged phoenix-like after the death of her husband, initially in trio format, and gradually growing in scope, until it morphed into predominantly string and vocal devotional music. But that came later.
Ptah the El Daoud came after the trio recordings [[ASIN:B001KNQNG6 A Monastic Trio]] and [[ASIN:B005J6Q9WI Huntington Ashram Monastery]], and found her expanding the instrumentation and enlarging the group. barring a little clarinet on one track on A Monastic Trio it was the first time she returned to using horns, which she would soon move away from again later. But here Pharaoh Sander and Joe Henderson make a great ‘front line’, their flute-duo head on the ‘Blue Nile’, for example, being luminously beautiful. The album also has a lot of down-home blues in it, especially in the florid piano lines of the exquisite ‘Turiya and Ramakrishna’ and built into the very form of ‘Blue Nile’, wherein her beautiful shimmering harp takes over the more conventional role of the piano.
Some critics rather shortsightedly write Alice off as having merely carried on in the same vein as Coltrane had left off when he died. I can only think those critics aren’t really listening! The title track, rather than carrying on what ‘Trane had been doing at the end, revisits the rhythm section feel of his mid-sixties [[ASIN:B00006K06N A Love Supreme]] ‘classic’ sound, but with some of the ‘new thing’ vibe spread on top; but it’s on ‘Turiya and Ramakrishna’ and ‘Blue Nile’ that the real magic begins. If anything here could be said to be continuation of late ‘Trane, it would be the final number, ‘Mantra’. This latter is ok, but not as good as the two highlights.
So, not an entirely consistent album, but where it scores highest, it’s pretty much off the scale. It’s also an album of hers where the best tracks happen also to be pretty accesible, making it a good place to start your appreciation of the singular talent of Alice Coltrane.
I decided to treat myself to this very handsome edition of The Hobbit when I realised that, somewhere along the way, I’d lost my original much-loved paperback (so well-thumbed it was disintegrating).
One of the immediate reasons it recommends itself, apart of course from the de-luxe hardback format, is the beautiful use of Tolkien’s dust jacket design and illustrations. Tolkien’s visual additions to his story are just wonderful (and there are whole books dedicated to his art, even specifically his Hobbit art works), and his maps and the dust jacket design are, to me, fundamentally essential parts of the proper ‘full Hobbit’ experience. This really is a sumptuously beautiful edition, one that can be enjoyed and admired as much for its visual aesthetics as for its literary content, or the sheer unalloyed fun of reading it and inhabiting Tolkien’s imaginary world.
It’s interesting when children’s stories evolve naturally from a family context, as The Hobbit did, and as many children’s stories do (e.g. Jim Smith’s recently republished Frog Band stories). My original paperback LOTR carried a review on the back that very succinctly captured what Tolkien achieves in both the LOTR and The Hobbit, which is a fusion of the ‘epic and homely’, and it all really took off from here, The Hobbit.
Most fundamentally, especially with a modern film of The Hobbit looming, it bears repeating that the unique experience of reading Tolkien and imagining his world, it’s characters, landscapes and events, for yourself, that is the best and most magical and enchanting experience Tolkien’s ‘legendarium’ can offer. Far better, I feel, to read the book first and have that exquisite experience than to have someone else’s interpretation imprinted on one’s reading of the book.
In my review I’ve really only addressed this editions particular merits, writing as someone who knows and loves Tolkien’s works. If you’re someone who doesn’t know the story I won’t spoil it for you: whether young or old, or somewhere in between, the best thing you could do is simply buy and read this classic book, and approach it with the simplicity and innocence of childhood (and we all continue to carry something of that within us, no matter how else we might age). Tolkien wrote a miniature masterpiece in The Hobbit, and thereby embarked upon the creation of a whole imaginary world. Open the door, and follow Bilbo’s adventures, as ‘the road goes ever on and on’, you’ll be glad you did.
Excellent. As ever Zamoyski is, by and large, pretty pithily concise, nearly always managing to keep even the most serpentine and potentially dull intricacies of politics and administration sufficiently exciting to maintain interest. His narrative is partially pepped up by the colourful characters themselves, as well as by the rumblings of conflict and the creaking of bed springs.
Of the three Zamoyski titles I’ve read so dar (the others being 1812 and Warsaw 1920) this was the toughest: let’s face it, the Byzantine contortions and horse-trading of international diplomacy don’t make for light, easy, or even very stimulating reading. But the shambolic so-called Congress of Vienna was both interesting – or perhaps intriguing would be a more apt word? – and of course very important, so hats off to Zamoyski for rendering a readable English language account.
I disagree with the criticisms that the seamier aspects of this narrative, in particular the sexual stuff (there’s not as much of this as some reviewers imply), cheapen the account – they certainly make it more readable – or that Zamoyski, being of Polish extraction himself, gives either the Polish aspect of the story too much weight, or is otherwise off-balance in some partisan way. In fact he stays remarkably on-topic throughout, even sticking resolutely with the diplomatic threads through the 100 Days segment.
I believe I agree with his underlying idea that post-Vienna Europe was a doomed King Canute-like attempt to hold back (or ‘arrest’, in Zamoyski’s terms) the general direction of socio-political movement that had preceded the Napoleonic-era. And within this that Napoleonic Europe was, despite all the conflicts, a less retrograde entity.
Nearly all the central protagonists who comprise the ‘architects’ of the Congress, from Tsar Alexander via Wellington to Metternich, are reactionary ‘ancien regime’ types, and, as many contemporary observers noted, including some of the participants, appeared to be carving up the new Europe according to old interests, and just as self-interestedly (even more so, perhaps?) as Boney had, and yet with less consideration of the ordinary ‘souls’ over whom they ruled, and who they would reads like cattle during the Congress.
The only thing that ultimately united the major powers was fear of change driven from ‘below’. This stance underpinned not only their roles in the Napoleonic wars but also their pursuit of the peace: whether it was the mob-rule of ‘Jacobin’ France or the despotism of the Corsican ‘upstart’ Buonaparte, any and all perceived threats to their own supposed ‘legitimacy’ were to be crushed. Certainly they held up the enlightenment tide, but ultimately they failed to stem it.
From that vantage point, I feel inclined to join Hazlitt in reaching for the post-Waterloo wine to drown sorrows rather than celebrate.
Fascinating book about ‘a constellation of extraordinary individuals’.
Another archival review, from about a decade ago. Again, stimulated to post this now having just read Polymath, by Peter Burke.
The Lunar Men certainly were ‘a constellation of extraordinary individuals’, as Uglow herself concludes in her epilogue to this weighty tome.
It was reading widely about Charles ‘Origin’ Darwin, around the time of his bicentennial (2009), that lead, almost inexorably, to an interest in the Lunar group, with Stott’s book Darwin’s Barnacle sealing the deal, via the chapter on Charles’ grandfather Erasmus. Erasmus figures large in Uglow’s book too – something of a Titan, both literally and figuratively; a man whose interests (and physical girth) seemed to know no bounds! – and learning more about him is fascinating.
But then there are also the many other ‘Lunatics’: Boulton, Wedgewood, Watt, Priestley, Edgeworth, Whitehurst, Keir, Day and several others. Some of these others are very much Lunar Men, whilst others are just passing through their orbit, like American polymath Benjamin Franklin, or Joseph Wright (‘of Derby’) the painter. Whilst not strictly a Lunar Man, as such, Wright, like Franklin, nonetheless figures prominently in the book.
Some of these names will doubtless be familiar to those with a little general knowledge, Wedgewood for his pottery, Watt for his work with steam engines, Priestley for his politics as much his science, and so on. But the lesser known figures are often equally fascinating, from the fussy-in-love Rousseauian romantic and reactionary Day, to the perhaps a little hapless Withering, who gets into a scientific spat with Erasmus Darwin that reminds me a little of that between Dawkins and Gould in our own times.
Jenny Uglow
One of the many fascinating things about the many subjects covered in this book is how they all mesh together at a particular point in time: coming out of Enlightenment thinking, and based (for the most part) far north of London, they represent a growing blurring of old feudal social distinctions and an increased independence (of both mind and pocket), whilst their voracious quest for knowledge connects them to both emerging ideals of political and personal liberty, and the birth of industrialisation and commercialisation, which would simultaneously lift levels of material wealth, and increase ‘alienation’ and the dependence and insecurity of the working population.
Largely pro-liberty, despite the ties of the patronage system many of them cooperated in and profited by, they initially embraced the French Revolution, but as The Enclosures bit deep into the land, and Britain reacted against the threat of revolutionary and then Napoleonic Europe, various aspects of the Lunar Men’s interests fared unevenly: Wedgewood thrived, advancing industry through increased chemical and practical knowledge, and (like Boulton) bringing higher levels of finish to ever wider markets, whilst Boulton and Watt’s steam power quite literally boomed, in every possible respect. And of course Erasmus’ interests in evolution would be picked up and developed by his son, Charles, with epoch-shattering revolutionary effect.
But Day’s reactionary politics and Priestley’s libertarianism (his fate in relation to riots and ‘anti Jacobin’ unrest is rather sad) would both succumb to the strange mix of the pragmatic advances of capitalist industrialism (what Day, along with the likes of William Blake – Uglow uses the lunar theme to connect the Lunar Men’s reaching ‘so eagerly for the moon’ with Blake’s engraving mocking scientific hubris [the famous ‘I want, I want’ with a ladder reaching to the moon] – feared was the pollution of an English Eden by the ‘dark satanic mills’) with the great reversals to emancipatory progress which had looked imminent (Keir’s progressive optimism re the ‘diffusion of a general knowledge … [a] characteristic feature of the present age’ contrasting with the anti-intellectualism of Burke, who saw science as ‘smeared with blood … arrogant and uncaring’) resulting, at more prosaic levels, in setbacks to British liberal reform.
And all of this occurs at a specific moment, at a time when the gentleman amateur was perhaps more common as a leader in science than the professional or academic, and when events in Europe would have immense impact here in the British Isles, both strengthening our own imperial position – although it looked terribly insecure at the time, as America fought for and won its independence, causing the axis of our power base to shift from west (America and the west-indies) to East (India and the East-Indies) – and setting back the course of reforming liberal politics at home by many decades. All of which developments continue to inform our culture life even now. From our pride in Darwin to our troubled and alienated relationship with Europe. Re-posting this post-Brexit this aspect seems even more poignant. .
Many of those in this story were also proto-capitalists, as well as industrialists, making and sometimes losing fortunes, speculating with their investments. Erasmus Darwin had to earn his own living, as a doctor. His desire to publish much of his scientific work anonymously, and disguised as poetry, was influenced by a need to secure his reputation and private practice. His involvement as an investor in canal building, speeding the pulse of British industrialisation in a manner akin to the effect steam engines would shortly redouble, was what ultimately meant that Charles Darwin could work on evolution as a gentleman of leisure. Fascinating!
Vast in size and coverage – so big – like Erasmus at his dinner table (which had to be modified with a semi-circular cutaway), I couldn’t always fit it into my reading rest – this is a very interesting, informative and enjoyable book. Whilst I kind of wish it had been a bit leaner, given how much Uglow covers it’s understandable that it should be a bit of a mammoth.
This is yet another archival post (and there are many, many more to come!). Slightly updated on being transferred here. Probably first wrote this over a decade ago!? I was prompted to get it posted here having just read Burke’s Polymath. There seemed to me some overlap/relation.
The Darwin bicentennial (2009) got me reading much more about science, scientists, and all sorts of similar related stuff, for which I’m extremely grateful.
After an orgy of Darwin related reading and viewing, I felt I needed to broaden my horizons, so I bought this. It’s a real tour de force, and makes for very compulsive reading. I was barely able to put it down to perform basic functions like eating and sleeping.
My favourite chapters were those that featured the Herschels, William and his sister Caroline. I love the idea of the ‘Renaissance Man’ (or woman, for that matter), or polymath. In my own humble way I work in several fields, as writer, musician and artist. I make no claims to excellence in any of these fields, nor pretend to compare myself with people like William Herschel, who was an accomplished musician, composer and teacher, as well as becoming one of the world’s leading astronomers and cosmologists.
But I do find the energy and industrious enthusiasm of people like him, his sister, and many others detailed in this superb book, enormously inspiring. Reading about Herschel’s obsessive casting, grinding and polishing of his mirrors, the construction of his ever larger telescopes, not to mention the drama of Caroline’s own discoveries, or her terrible injury sustained whilst working in the dark (you’ll have to read the book to find out what happened, but it makes me wince just to recall it), was truly exciting.
When I was at school the sciences seemed extremely drab. The more I educate myself about science, the more I realise what an amazing branch of human inquiry it is. This book helps capture the vibrant energy, the multifarious voraciousness for knowledge and understanding – not to mention the wonderful state of awe-inspired humility, almost a sublime trembling, if you will, in the face of nature and our experience of it (this latter part is what the books subtitle conveys; a little melodramatic perhaps, but it does convey how exciting it all is) – that lie at the roots of scientific inquiry.
Well done Mr Holmes: I’ll certainly be seeking out more of your work!
As someone with many and varied interests myself, the idea of the polymath has always exerted a powerful fascination.
Having read books like The Age of Wonder (Richard Holmes) and The Lunar Men (Jenny Uglow), and stuff by or on polymath folk like Darwin, Newton, Kepler, William Herschel and others, my appetite for more knowledge of knowledgeable bods of this ilk is always strong.
So, on a recent visit to a favourite bookshop (that I’d not been to in about three years, thanks to Covid and other things), this caught my eye. I’m very glad I followed my instincts and bought it. I’ve been glued to it ever since.
What a cover! Further reading…
500 polymaths are covered from ancient Greeks like Eratosthenes, to Jakob ‘Ascent of Man’ Bronowski’s daughter, Lisa Jardine, who actually very briefly taught me, and a bunch of pupils from my VI form, many moons ago.
The biggest chapters are given over to different ‘Ages’, or eras, of polymathery (bagsy coinage of that word!). But the subjects are also considered by type – ‘fox vs hedgehog’ (read the book to find out what this means!), serial, cluster, etc – and character/habitat.
Such an ambitious and broad survey is necessarily brief in how it addresses its many individual subjects. But the daunting maelstrom of names, places, dates and so on, is leavened by the connecting or contextual materials.
Further further reading!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. And have learned of many more polymaths than I knew before. I’m also inspired to do lots of follow up reading. Always a good sign, in my books (so to speak!).
Perhaps inevitably some of the polymaths I expected to read about didn’t make Burke’s list. Here are a few I was surprised not to find: Napoleon (his name appears at least twice, but neither as a polymath, nor even in the index!), William Herschel (his son and grandson, however, are included!), Isaac Asimov, Arthur Koestler and … Stephen Fry!?
But the cast is huge, and dazzling. From those I knew, Hooke, Kepler, Wren, Leibniz, to those I didn’t, Pico, Comenius, Kircher the two Rudbecks, etc. And the book fizzes with the omnivorous hunger and boundless energy of its subjects. Educational, inspiring, hugely enjoyable.
Teresa suggested we watch this. I don’t know how long we lasted, maybe 15-20 minutes? Maybe a little longer?
What awful dreck! When I announced the fact that my bile was rising, Teresa concurred, and we bailed. I googled the film, and discovered it’s a Baz Luhrmann thing. That figures.
Luhrmann has the budget to employ decent actors and technicians, so there are aspects of the overall production that have skill invested in them. But the whole thing is so ludicrously fake, and piles on the ‘effects’ as if they alone will carry the film. They don’t.
We didn’t even get to meet Fatsby (we did see his brooding back!). And I can’t even be arsed to change that mildly amusing predictive typo. This bilge doesn’t merit the effort. Like so much modern culture, the actual Gatsby story has been gutted, and what we’re presented is naught more than shiny reflective surfaces.
In some ways this suits or somehow echoes the slightness of F Scott Fitzgerald’s story. But as the Robert Redford version showed, even a will o’ the wisp type parable of an age of illusion, can at least have feeling, even if not great depth. There is at least a dreamy whimsical quality in the ‘74 film, akin to the actual text. Baz just gives us loud garish tinsel.
And the music? The appalling anachronistic sounds are, to my mind, illustrative of a retrogressive and solipsistic slide, backwards into ignorance. Possibly a sign of our times?
Traditions in art have typically recast other times dressed up in styles of their own era when they are in their intellectual infancy. At some point we realise the past is a foreign land, and make the effort to faithfully evoke that – or to at least try and do so – in our arts.
But here everything is subjected to a kind of kaleidoscopic free for all, in which only the slickest design aspects, mostly the costumes, pass through the digital machine, buffed and polished, brilliantine and dazzling, in their glassy mirrored lack of substance.
Has Baz actually triumphed as a latter day alchemist? Inventing a material that is all surface, that has absolutely no depth or substance whatsoever?
Both his alchemical invention of a new material, and his taking the visual and sonic anachronisms to such gaudy heights, bespeak a pre-renaissance world of illusion. Perhaps this makes his films suitable for our era’s wilfully gleeful dumbing down?
As art historian Kenneth Clark said, in his terrific Civilisation series, when criticising the ‘heroic’ aspect of renaissance classicism, when all actors are reduced to the ‘beautiful people’, something is lost. This movie is populated by mannequin like ciphers – himbos and bimbos, I call ‘em – not characters, and feels more like an endless pop video than a story.
Communism has long been lambasted in the so called democratic west, in no small part for the overt and bloody ways that the social engineers of the state-fascist versions of that creed often brutally liquidated their intelligentsia. How ironic is it if Capitalism achieves the same ends via self-inflicted lobotomies?
As the cover blurb and preface point out, the Battle of the Atlantic was really a campaign, or lots of battles, skirmishes, and so on, rather than a singular event, like, say, the battle of Waterloo, or even Kursk.
Even whilst Britain endured the so called ‘phoney war’, conflict had begun in earnest from day one on the high seas. And it would only finally end, or at least the movement of the ships themselves would only end, after Germany had officially surrendered. This makes it the biggest and longest battle or campaign of the war, for the British/Allied forces.
Thus many individual battles fall within the scope of this superb single volume account of what is a truly massive subject. From individual convoy battles, known by their convoy names/numbers, such as the calamitous PQ17, to larger scale actions, like the Battle of the River Plate, all the way through to huge operations, from Pedestal to Overlord.
Dimbleby proves himself very adroit at that highly effective kind of contemporary history that zooms in and pans out from the micro to the macro, from the rolling brine-washed decks of individual vessels to fleet manoeuvres, and from housewives and lowly ratings to Admirals and world leaders.
Rather oddly, perhaps, given the aforementioned ‘whole war’ scope of the subject, the book is most detailed on the 1939-43 period, which actually takes the reader to right near the end. The remainder of the war, including D-Day is somewhat rapidly glossed over.
That is my only real gripe, re this otherwise utterly brilliant work (oh, a glossary would’ve been useful). And in a way it’s not even a gripe as such, as Overlord, Dragoon – the latter not even mentioned – etc, whilst connected, are outside of the remit of the books’ core subject.
That said, over the book as a whole Dimbleby doesn’t baulk at including relevant stuff from other theatres. So the political horse-trading aspects, and what was happening in say the Pacific or on the Eastern Front, figure in this extremely wide-ranging and gripping account.
As with any good book, this inspires further reading. I now want to read Dimbleby’s recently published account of Barbarossa (the Atlantic book is subtitled ‘how the allies won the war’; the Ostfront one, with a pleasing symmetry, ‘how Hitler lost the war’). I’m also keen, having read numerous hefty volumes on Hitler and Stalin, to read more on Churchill and FDR.
Anyway, this was a truly epic read. Brilliantly written, telling a fascinating and compelling story. Utterly superb, and very highly recommended.
I’m trying to fill out the online SEISS, #5, and top up my appallingly paltry earnings for this year. And my sorghum-stenches are pretty dire.
But ye aulde computer is running so awfully slowly, and loads of stuff just plain doesn’t work.
For example, trying to import photos from my iPhone (6S), using Photos, well… ’tis broke, innit!? First I was being a doofus, and wondering why my iPhone wasn’t launching photos, or appearing in photos when launched manually. The answer? It was plugged into a USB port that is charging only, and not actually connected to the iMac… Double-doh!!
So, once connected to the iMac, directly, it does appear, and it does launch Photos. Although Photos never finds the library I’ve specified, which is on an external hard-drive. I always have to manually select it, which is pain and a waste of time. Anyhoo, trying to import into Photos is either so slow, or simply doesn’t work!!! So I wind up having to do it using Image Capture, which means I might as well import all the photos/videos off my iPhone, as this way the Image Capture software doesn’t know what’s already in Photos and what isn’t.
I really need a new Mac! But I cannae afford one. And I’m finding the fifth SEISS application a real pain as well. Unlike the previous four, which were simplicity itself, this one requires one to supply more information, and demonstrate the loss of earnings. But, as with everything for me right now, that’s far from simple, as I switched from having an accountant – which I can no longer afford (been that way for years, just finally conceded to the facts!) – to filing online myself.
This album, from 1973, is so good that mere human verbiage cannot do it justice. It’s the kind of wonderfully obscure gem you may once have overlooked years ago flicking through vinyl somewhere, not knowing that your fingers had brushed their soul’s salvation (as I did with Valle’s album Garra – I could have had it for £4 on vinyl from Reckless in Islington!!).
I bought this album (and Vento Sul) from Dustygroove.com, in Chicago – after customs and UPS had finished with me I’d paid £70 for the two albums. So don’t balk at the price. This album is worth every penny. Amazon UK (so far) only offer this one import from the batch put out in Japan, which also includes remastered reissues of Garra, two eponymously titled albums (from ’70 & ’74), Mustang Cor de Sangue, Viola Enluarda and a few others.
The Music on Provisao do Tempo is a mix of jazz, bossa, funk and soundtrack textures. The two versions of Nao Tem Nada Nao (vocal then instrumental) are super mellow brazillian space funk, with mad analog synth noodling to boot! Tira Mao has a similar feel in the chorus, but the verses are more ambient, with lovely arpeggiated chords on guitar. Mentira is also a funky nugget, here you get brass stabs too – tasty cheese! The most downbeat and moody track is Samba Fatal (apt really), it’s brooding and poetic and utterly brilliant. It’s the only song that sounds like he wasn’t grinning like a brazillian buddha as he recorded the vocals: the album is dripping with honeyed good vibes.
The title track is a fantastic instrumental – traces of the Italian and french mondo-pop-sountrack lurk herein. The strings rise and fall chromatically in a Bond-ish manner. It should be observed at this point that the arrangements are simply superb – both rich and minimal at the same time. Every element placed perfectly. The organ stabs on the space-funk tunes mentioned earler are typical of the pared down approach. De Repente, Moca Flor is perhaps the smoothest piece – only the bubble-machine synth near the close to hint at the more baroque & freaked-out feel of the music Valle had just laid down on the fabulous Vento Sul album. Mais Do Que Valsa is a great slowly swinging 3/4 tune (valsa = waltz, obviously). The subtlety of inflection in the singing is a real treat. Fans of Fagen & Mike McDonald take note! Tu-Ba-La-Quieba is a slowly funky toon – beautiful falsetto vocals – Marcos is in fine voice throughout.
The band are the guys who became Azimuth, and they play superbly throughout, understatement being the key theme. Every song is utterly magnificent. In an era where so much music is bland pap sold like tastless sliced white bread, this album, like Shuggie Otis’ Inspiration Information is a piece of heaven on earth. Interestingly, as I thumbed through the booklet (only Japanese and Brazilian Portugese I’m afraid), I noticed that they namechecked Stereolab, The High Llamas, Shuggie and Tortoise – all stuff I also dig – cosmick! Nem Palata, Nem Gravata is a little like a more sophisticated version of early Mo’ Wax era Money Mark.
I came to this stuff from Valle’s smoother Bossa era stuff, also fabulous. And he’s still going strong! We love you, Marcos. What inspires someone to such great deeds? I don’t know, but I’m very grateful. As James Brown once said: “If you got any kinda soul, you gotta feel it!”
UPDATE – Since originally posting this review the lovely people at Light In The Attic record label have had the decency and good taste to reissue several of his best albums from the early 1970s. At present they are: Marcos Valle (1970, also sometimes known as Quarentao Simpatico), Garra (1971), Vento Sul(1972), and this one, Provisao Do Tempo (1973). All of which are now avbailable to us music lovers at far more reasonable prices than the only other legit CD source to date, the Jap imports.
