G€Tl€ L865 P.O. Box 1305 Oak View. Calif. Jazzletter 93022 November 1987 Vol.6 No. t 1 _| i .___ Of Typos and Ojai the best anywhere. Browsing there is the best game in town. The struggle to eliminate typographical and spelling errors Oak View is a smaller town on the road between Ventura and from copy is without end. It has been eased by the computer, Ojai. We live closer to Oak View than to Ojai, and it occurred to which will catch major spelling mistakes, but the computer thus me that it would be more convenient to operate out ofthere than far cannot detect whether you wrote two when you meant too or the Ojai post office. And the Oak View staff and the postmaster, to, or there when you meant their, or here for hear. whose name by the way is Burt Reynolds, were wonderfully Sometimes the errors are small —- and not always, one helpful, so I moved the mailing to Oak View. But we didn’t move. suspects, accidental. In my newspaper days, we were reasonably , When last month I made up the renewal form, I told my certain that typographers made certain slips on purpose, because typesetter to just pick up the logo. He did, all right: the old one, some of them occurred time after time, and on newspaper after with the Ojai address. Which, fortunately, is still valid. But I newspaper. Little things like leaving the o out ofcount. In the old didn’t notice this massively obvious error until the entire issue days, the people on the sports pages were diligent indeed in the had been mailed. proof-reading hockey stories because of what the linotype boys The fact is that both addresses are operative. I prefer the Oak could do with the word puck. Some papers banned the word, View CA 93022 address. But ifsome ofthe mail goes to Ojai, well, which must have made it awkward for anyone covering hockey. after all, to heir is human. Curiously enough, some of the errors happen in large type faces, and still slip past proof-readers. When I was music critic of the Louisville Times, my opposite number at the Courier-Journal Letter of the Month -- the papers had the same owner — wrote a review on a performance by some singer whose name l’ve forgotten, to which T0 the Editor ‘ a copy editor attached the two-column headline Madame So- Dartmouth Alumni Society Magazine and-So Gives Charming Recital. The problem was that, by Your recent cover story on Jon Appletonwould seem to contain accident or otherwise, the i got left out of recital. It turned up in some jarring elements, particularly at a time when Dartmouth’s the paper. ' new president is emphagizing the importance of a liberal arts Sometimes errors are small. almost invisible, yet of education. _ _ - i considerable consequence. Singers and the Song is now out, and Never have I read such a gleeful account of people losing all those who ordered copies should have received them by now. employment, pianos disappearing from the American scene, If you haven’t or received an incorrect numbers of copies, please orchestras and bands disintegrating, and virtuosity rendered let me know. The book was proof-read about fifteen times. I still “meaningless”! And one of Appleton’s students writes, “You found two typos in it. A more significant error is that I said Hugo come out of his course wondering how Your Cheatin’ Heart Freidhofer’s scores were now at the University of Utah. They’re sounds on bagpipm.” What a wonderful culmination for a not. They're at Brigham Young University. I suppose I could musical education at Dartmouth College. drop a note to the University of Utah, telling them, “Ifyou get any Appleton concluded his article by saying that “educators must calls about. ” No, that wouldn’t be too cool. realize that the major difference between music today and that of Forgive me, please, those typos that creep into the Jazzletter. the last three centuries is that amateur composers have Which brings us to a goofthat occurred last month. A number unprecedented opportunities”and “musical technology has made of people have asked where Ojai is, and whether we had moved the search for virtuosity meaningless (who cares how fast and away to someplace else called Oak View. flawlessly you can play a keyboard instrument when a computer Ventura, California, is about seventy miles up the coast from can do it better?)." Putting aside the unforgiveable arrogance of (which, if you look at the map, means west of) Los Angeles. The these silly statements, one must recognize the attitude of the Ojai Valley is about eleven miles inland, due north - from amateur (and that of the punk and hard-rock genre) -—fast and Ventura. The town of Ojai, which has about six thousand loud make music better. residents, is at the center of it, surrounded by a great rim of Are we about to stop going to concerts to hear people like mountains which, during the winterrains, sometimes get snow on l-Ieifetz or Perlman give their interpretation of a musical work them. It lasts a few days at most, but it’s gorgeous while it does. because a computer can play itfaster?Three hundred years ofthe The valley is pretty, and peaceful, and the err — pardon me, air — development of the art of music is dismissed with the statement isclean. that “virtuosity is meaningless.” i S , I said in an early Jazzletter that it was a dull town, and boy did I And Appleton laments that our colleges do not provide hear about it locally. It is if anything even7d'uller nowitghan it was “electric” guitar lessons, on what he calls one of the “instruments then, despite an influx of movie people who keep quietly to of our time”. It should be pointed out that the “electric” guitar is themselves, as I do. lt’s a nice place to live, but who’d want to visit played the same as the acoustic guitar and if one aspires to play there? There is a festival of avant-garde classical music in May, like Segovia, electrification can't take the place of years of which attracts the likes of Pierre Boulez. It’s cultural glory is instruction and practice. Bart's Bookstore, an outdoor used-book emporium that is one of One personal asidejnto musical mathematics. It seems only 2 ,.) 5?. at I/»’.i,.¥€'.; .t_..».‘! 1;; _“>§i“l{3 j§e§jterday‘(a§tually§§ was 1938) that Glenn Miller tried to talk me suburban good looksstl3at§rnf%1l§~lead you to underestimate hi: iiito studyinggarringing and composition with Joseph More important, he aagf "and eager mind and a range of Schillinger Q7”arrive_d%in_New York annotgrcigthat he ’ z __ ___H,g ____,_ . .. j, _- W _;i;;'; -_ —_ ___ §9.1J!!I!€!!1S1.Qf.§l.!bieG£ rnatter that borders on the miraculous. eainduse nu'in‘61=?§i‘5 write better fugues than Bach. (The world Granted there is a staff in the background, providing him with has yet to hear one.) Tommy Dorsey, who was not careless with a notes on the people he is to interview and the subjects to be bU¢l<. Offered t0 pay for our lessons if Ax_el§tordal_1la_ndrl{would___ __jJdis_cus_se,d_. _But_eygen so his comprehension of the material, his augment our arrangiiigabilityby studying with the man. AX and ability to dig intoithe subject at hand -— whether with an actor or l said no thanks, Tommy’s band didn’t seem to suffer, and Glenn an athlete, a novelist, the secretary of state or the chairman of a Millsrfsbiggestinstmm¢.nta..1s.w§s@writt.~=.I1!n/ musicianstawhen senate committee — and his ability to follow it when the a Sqlifiw i conversation takes unexpected swerves, are amazing. He seems ‘ Apbleten,¢@rnp1éte1i*igfi§:¢$.th¢ié1;‘1fnft<:i@i=>.fiaiihlcfiiiifituy to:]'§n_o*wi'sports and literature as thoroughly as he does politics 1a syhttissillef 1’! ,db¢s=i?tw¢ik andjitheater and science. He’ll discuss a Supreme Court ruling ‘hit was/Lifiieiéliiéééf-‘*{i1! <,»‘![¢.<1i¢€ii§i1l? with the understanding in detail thatihe brings to a conversation diligéiiiljt’i§Q.iiii;§Qi,'l;s1fiqtflét.E2§t§2®i%il1?¢£i>ll§2§ about, say, the politics of oil. And he must spend all his waking "Be“‘i?ti“’t”B" ‘F§§$i.n§.?Yi¢ti;§fi§¥ hours boning up for the interviews he is about to do, four or five 29:? cg: of them in a row, on all manner of subjects, and with the same fir? ' -1 ‘go "H" orl£ar"J"‘6‘me Kérnf‘ " "“ astonishing command. i w.O 5j§%~ wnfigz-:8Resat we eifili 1.1]! I Hire eta} Recently he interviewed William Styron. As he got into iiféifli 5'r§§!§u writ lime: 10:25 aft?-sirgaam sill: see:-r elements of style in Styron’s novels, it was obvious that he knew " .b2ii:s;".': :i;'"i St_yron’s work. Assuredly Rose was not working from cue cards >521’? iaitmg E .e=1§1:~.aeqo am; aa;-3*2l_:;'~"":i;.*;-. =r;:-:-<5 Bari? 5% ‘;wi'§ prepared just (before air time by a research assistant. And when theyibotfi,got into the letters of Flaubert, one had the impression »tFhe~'~>lrrs0rnr1la@’9 €m(m:j_ thefntoo.The samejsort ofunderstanding was Musicians, by the nature of the worléifitfeie-ti ih'r$i1rgs.*l_r’i""tih‘i-:evidfentf .aiifinterv,iewi_withSaiuiljl Bellow; and another with early days oftelevision, at least in major cities, you could usually Réiifi-9fidiBurr-;T.Whie'ni Biirr.