Northern Overexposure
  • Home
  • Musical Interludes
  • Blog
  • Contact Me

Blue Train

10/29/2014

0 Comments

 
I prefer Coltrane's Blue Train over A Love Supreme. It is an easier listen (to me). I know he was at different places and A Love Supreme is a later date. On a jazz forum, btf 1980 said if very well:

He was at different places when these albums were recorded, both mentally and spiritually, and that comes across in his composing and playing. Blue Train and A Love Supreme are apples and oranges, not just in sound, but in line up. Blue Train has 3 horns (Trane, Lee Morgan and Curtis Fuller) and that changes the dynamics and the relationship the rhythm section will have playing around them. A Love Supreme has Trane in his quartet, so he's the only horn. He has much more freedom, and is not constrained to share solos with other horns. The focus is on him solely, with his rhythm section playing around that.

Thematically, the mood and purpose of the albums will alter perceptions as well. I remember Gary Bartz saying that A Love Supreme is essentially a gospel album. He's right. Blue Train on the surface is a straight ahead, hard bop affair. However, it marks the beginning of Coltrane slowly shifting and implementing what is now known as Coltrane changes. He first did it on record on Blue Train. By the time A Love Supreme came around over 7 years later, he was a master of it and was a much more seasoned musician. Unless you understand the complexities of what Coltrane was doing, you're not really going to appreciate the growth in his playing from Blue Train to A Love Supreme.

Still, an easier listen and nice to kick back with on a cool fall evening!
0 Comments

The Gender Code

10/15/2014

0 Comments

 
This view of gender as performance was not only introduced by Butler but also West and Zimmerman (1987) in a journal article entitled, Doing Gender. The Cultural Studies Reader summarizes their work writing.

West and Zimmerman's definition of gender is a sociological one which relies on codes and conventions that are at the foundation of everyday activities. "doing gender" means to perform complex societal activities of perception, interaction and of micropolitics which define certain activities and pursuits and either masculine or feminine.

West and Zimmerman argue that gender is a series of traits nor a "role", but rather something which is performed, something which is "done" (hence "doing gender") in a continuing and context-related manner. Gender is established by mean of interaction and is displayed through it, and while appearing as "natural" it is in fact something which is created by an organized social performance.

In viewing gender as an accomplishment, its essence is diverted for intrinsic traits and features to something which is dependent on social interactions and contexts. Gender is also a result of institutionalized functions of society – indeed individuals are the one that are "doing gender", but they do it in the real or imagined presence of others.


Society, through media, particularly advertising, provides the codes by which boys and girls and men and women are taught to perform gender and conform to gendered codes. This is seeing most clearly in television advertising.  Sut Jhally below, The Codes of Gender, below applies the late sociologist Erving Goffman's groundbreaking analysis of advertising to the contemporary commercial landscape, showing how one of American popular culture's most influential forms communicates normative ideas about masculinity and femininity. Jhally draws extensively on Goffman's seminal work, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
0 Comments

    My Pensées

    The title of this blog is an allusion to the famous work of Blaise Pascal.  This blog represents the variety of my interests and thoughts on any given day and are  strung together, like Pascal's Pensees, in no particular order. I work in the field of mental health,  education, and human rights. I write and am a human rights advocate. I enjoy poetry, jazz, spirituality, politics and a potpourri of other interests that you will see reflected in this blog.

    Archives

    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.