Amagansett Star-Revue

STAR REVUE THE AMAGANSETT

There's nothing better than an apple plucked from a tree

Yes, the snake knew that, and Eve attested to it. The world's biggest religions start their stories right there in the apple orchard. But the Garden of Eden, or Utopia, was put out of reach for all of us, but we can still enjoy delicious fresh apples. Maybe that's its own utopia.

My mother was born in Europe, and must have picked apples in her youth. The picture over on the right is when I took her apple picking in New Paltz, which I would do with someone or other every October. She taught me not to pick the apple if it didn't come off the tree easily. When it falls into your hand without fuss, that's when it's ready. A piece of good advice I never forgot.

In those days I would pay around $12 for a very big bag which you could fill to the brim with apples. I would come home with three or four of those bags and then visit everybody I knew and parcel them out. In those days, many of the groups you'd meet in the orchard were Asian families. Those were the days when Koreans were taking over the NYC fruit business in NYC from the older Italians. They came to pick.

Over the years, apple picking morphed into kind of a northern Disneyland, with the top orchards adding petting farms, corn mazes, pony rides and anything they could think of to create a day that large families could make a day out of. The farmers were pretty much forced to do

by George Fiala

this because of the economics of the farming business.

The last time I took my daughter and her kids apple picking we also picked pumpkins, bounced on a giant bouncy thing, saw camels and peacocks, and oh, yes, picked some apples. Plus of course ate cider donuts and I think even pizza.

Jump forward a few years and I start this paper and write an article about turtles, which led me to Jamesport's Turtle Rescue of the Hamptons.

I did my interview in August, and when I left I made a right instead of a left and passed by an apple orchard. The gate was open and I drove in, but couldn't find anyone there. I was tempted to pick an apple or two, but I also know that sometimes if you steal fruit you could get shot.

I went back to Turtle Rescue after the last paper came out to leave them a bundle, and went back to check on the orchard (we are talking about Manor Lane in Jamesport), and lucky me, it happened to be the first day Woodside Orchards was open for picking. I drove up, parked and made my way to a little building called "The Apple Shed."

As in all orchards, you don't HAVE to pick, there are already picked apples in bags, ready to take home. And you can also get fresh cider, jams, donuts and apple pies that look delicious. I went up to the counter to get my apple picking bag.

Woodside is a family business, three

generations strong right now. The woman at the counter was the daughter-in-law of the founder, Bob Gammon. She told me that a one peck bag would be $20. When I pointed out that you could get a one peck bag of already picked apples for $18, she laughed and said that people fill up their bags to the max, which makes it really more than a peck. Not to mention the ones that get eaten while doing the work. Which to me was a very reasonable explanation and something I wanted to get into print.

I paid for my bag and walked up to the rows of apple trees that ready for picking that day, which were Gala and Jonamac, both red apples. The first row was just about picked clean, but there were plenty in the other rows and it didn't take long before my bag was over-filled, not to mention a few extra in my stomach. One thing I really liked about Woodside was that the main focus is still apples. No corn mazes or hay rides. However, there is a very nice yard with benches and play areas for the families come to make a day of it.

About 20 years ago, the family began a second orchard in Aquebogue, where they began a second business making hard apple cider. You can sample the different ciders they make at they built a cider bar in the yard.

Woodside will stay open for picking through November. Right around now is the time for the Golden Delicious and probably Fujis.

And PS - Jamesport at harvest time is worth multiple day trips.

In the middle is a family photo of the Gammon's, three generations of apple farmers. Woodwise Orchards was started in 1982, and by the end of that decade they were already producing prize-winning apples. (Fiala photos)

Mrs. Fiala in an apple orchard back in the last century. (photos by George Fiala)

The cider bar at Woodside Orchards

32 Winding Way

Amagansett, NY 11937

gbrook@pipeline.com

Editor & PublishEr George Fiala

FOR EDITORIAL, ADVERTISING OR EMPLOYMENT INQUIRIES, email gbrook@pipeline.com

text or call (917) 652-9128

Community Directory

Worship

Pizza

Amagansett Library

215 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-267-3810

Amagansett Public School

320 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-267-3572

Marine Museum 301 Bluff Road, Amagansett 631-267-6544

East Hampton Chamber of Commerce

44 Gingerbread Lane, East Hampton 631-537-2900

East Hampton Town Offices

59 Pantigo Road, East Hampton 631-324-4141

Southampton Hospital 240 Meeting House Lane, Southampton 631-726-8200

First Presbyterian Church of Amagansett

350 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-267-6404

First United Methodist Church of East Hampton

35 Pantigo Road, East Hampton 631-324-4258

St. Michael’s Lutheran Church

486 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-267-6351

St. Peter the Apostle Roman Catholic Church

286 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-324-0134

St. Peter’s Chapel

465 Old Stone Highway, East Hampton 631-329-0990

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Chapel

102 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-267-3080

The Jewish Center of the Hamptons

44 Woods Lane, East Hampton 631-329-6654

Fini Pizza Amagansett

237 Main Street, Amagansett 631-394-5654

Springs Pizza

841 Springs Fireplace Road (631) 907-4039

Golf

South Fork Country Club

730 Old Stone Highway, Amagansett (631) 267-3575

East Hampton Golf Club

281 Abrahams Path, East Hampton (631) 324-7007

Sag Harbor Golf Course

Barcelona Neck Road, East Hampton (631) 725-2503

Montauk Downs State Park

Golf Course

50 S Fairview Ave, Montauk (631) 668-5000

Tennis

East Hampton High School

2 Long Lane, East Hampton

Terry King Rec Center

385 Abrahams Path, East Hampton

Herrick Park

67 Newtown Lane, East Hampton

SPORTIME Amagansett

320 Abrahams Path, Amagansett (631) 267-3460

Does Quantum theory mean I might not be completely grown up?

Last month the NY Times published an article which said that the laws of physics, thought to be finalized with the work of Max Planck and others, might be under review again because of strange data that the James Webb telescope was send back to earth. Something about that galaxies that should be older are actually younger than the ones we thought to be younger than the older ones. Or something like that. It was an intriguing idea because so far as I knew, physics had always worked, both here on earth and out in space.

Robert Crease is a philosopher and science historian who teaches at Stony Brook. He was mentioned in the article, so I went out and ordered a book he wrote with a physicist that I understand was quite popular for a while. The Quantum Moment was published in 2012 and is subtitled "How Planck, Bohr, Einstein, and Heisenberg taught us to love uncertainty."

I'm in the middle of it now, and they write a lot about how scientific discovery are reflected in popular culture. In 1930 talking about uncertainty was in high vogue. Are things here, or there, or neither, or both? A cartoon they reproduce has a ticket seller telling his customers that they can buy tickets for Heisenberg's lecture, and he can tell them the time or the place but not both.

Going beyond Newtonian physics turned out to be a society changing event, as is everything that is once thought settled changes (think Roe vs. Wade).

I'm still not sure I even understand quantum theory yet. For example, if atoms are in a constant state of vibrating motion that we can never be sure about, how is it that you can have rocks that don't change for millions of years. Or even a table from the colonial days. How do they stay stable?

Time is something that I've been pondering about for probably my whole life. I remember the first time I was allowed to stay up for New Years. I was about ten. By then I was a big fan of radio, and I would love to tune in stations from other parts of the country. From places like Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Fort Wayne, Indiana. I thought it strange or at least worth thinking about, that an hour after we celebrated New Year's here on the East Coast, it hadn't yet happened in the Midwest. I tuned in to WOWO and heardmy second New Years of the night. Something else related to time has to do with growing up. I used to watch my dad sitting at the breakfast table spending at least a half hour every day shaving his face with his electric shaver. Only on rare occasions he would use a single edge razor blade, and he would come out of the bathroom with

Are you a septic system owner? Do you maintain your system? What are your concerns?

We are Sharon Moran and Mackenzie Gregg, a professor and student from SUNY-ESF in Syracuse, NY, and we’d like to hear about your septic experience for our research on septic system management. Our project seeks to learn more about how septic systems are managed in the area to help clarify any problems and what could be done to improve them.

Complete our brief online survey and enter to win a $50 gift card!

Scan the QR Code to access the survey directly, or click this link

Interested in further discussion? Join us for any of our upcoming focus groups:

Friday, October 13

• 10:30 am at Mattituck-Laurel Library

• 5:00 pm at Riverhead Free Library

Saturday, October 14

• 10:30 am at Rogers Memorial Library

Focus groups are not library-affiliated events

Please register if you are interested in attending by emailing us at nysepticstudy@gmail.com

Visit our website at www.nysepticstudy.org for more information.

his face covered with wadded up pieces of tissue to stanch the bleeding. By the time I started to shave they had come out with advanced technologyfirst the Mach 3, then 4, and finally the Mach 5—which I use to this day. I take about one minute to shave, and just about never bleed.

However, in the back of my mind I always thought that once I'd get to be a certain age, I would naturally revert to an electric razor, and be like my Dad. But now, I'm actually older than my father ever got to be, and no, electric shavers are still not in my future.

I also thought that once I grew up I would start wearing hats, the kind with the brims, like he did in the days I was growing up. I didn't really understand that it was a matter of style, I thought it was aging. The only time I wear a hat is a baseball cap on the golf course.

On my mother's side, I grew up listening to her listening to the Texaco broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera every Saturday. She absolutely loved it, and had her favorite singers and everything.

I always thought that part of growing up would mean that I would have to replace Hendrix with Pavarotti. When I got a little older I actually asked her to take me to an opera. I tried to like it, but couldn't.

Just today I bought tickets to see Liz Phair next month in Philly. It's ok to grow up different than your parents, at least in things like hats and music. I'm getting the idea, like probably most of you still reading this already know, that there really is no such thing as growing up. You do add things to your life, which is what's called wisdom and experience, but you are still basically the same person you were at twelve. Twelve being the age I became a Rolling Stones fan.

PS - their new album is coming out October 20. I can't wait!!!

George Fiala

Embedded in the sidewalk on Main Street is an iron plaque which reads: “Presented by the Ladies Society of Busy Workers 1932.” Although that marker is directly in front of the Amagansett School, it has nothing to do with that building. Instead, the plaque commemorates the very sidewalk itself…and the end of the road for those Ladies.

In 1902 the Ladies Society of Busy Workers—a common name at the time for charitable or civic-minded organizations—filed articles of in-

A Ladies Story

By Joe Enright

corporation in order to buy land in Amagansett for erecting and maintaining a public hall. Many cake sales and donations later, they built Miankoma Hall in 1903, using the local Native American word for “meeting place” to identify its new venue for the plays, concerts, dances, exhibits and many gatherings that would ensue.

Come the Depression, the Ladies sold Miankoma Hall and poured that money into a 3,800 foot concrete sidewalk along Main Street, Montauk Road and Atlantic Avenue.

But the Hall lived on in the hands of

the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, then the American Legion, and in 1945, it became the studio and residence of a renowned Japanese-American pianist, Tsuya Matsuki. Born in Salem in 1897, raised in Brookline, she won a scholarship to the London Academy of Music, and returned to the States to begin a lifetime of teaching aspiring teenagers to play more than chopsticks, first for top-line institutions and then as an independent instructor in Amagansett.

A local scribe, Christopher Walsh, penned a marvelous reminiscence of his 1970s lessons with Miss Matsuki on Miankoma Lane, describing her as “the most exotic being imaginable” (East Hampton Star, Oct 25, 2012).

Indeed, Matsuki was a strikingly beautiful woman, the product of a Japanese father and a mother of IrishEnglish heritage. Although she never married, she did have a lifelong companion: Nina Harter was the daughter of a Flatbush professor (Eugene Wendell Harter)–often described by the press as “America’s foremost Gilbert & Sullivan authority.” Nina and “Sue” (as Tsuya was often called), first lived together in the 1930s, in the Prospect

Park South home where Eugene died, not long after the three of them traveled together on a European operatic tour. In a remarkable coincidence, long before Nina and Sue would meet, Eugene chose Amagansett to premiere an opera he composed for the benefit of the Amagansett Field Club. Nina died in 1966 and was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery on Windmill Lane, a short walk from Miankoma Lane. In 1990, Tsuya Mitsuki shared the same gravestone with her lifelong friend.

Because the Clam Contest was rained out in September, I got a nice tour of the Life Saving Station instead

by George Fiala

On September 24 I left a newspaper convention in Boston and drove straight to the Clam Contest, via the ferry. There was not many people there, and I was told that because of a bad forecast, it had been postponed until October 8. But it was worth the trip, because a very friendly docent, Marika O'Doherty, picture on the right, gave me a personal tour.

These pictures show men practicing procedures to rescue ships (probably 100 years ago or so), Items found during a renovation that they still are not sure what they are, and the station itself, which has an interesting history including being moved to Bluff Road and then back. You have til the end of the month to visit, • Oct. 28 | 6 p.m. — Special presentation about the history of the rumrunners and the Coast Guard. Hours are Saturdays and Sundays, 11 am - 3 pm.

1920: Mitsuki’s Brookline HS Yearbook Photo

MIGRATION PATTERN OF THE PRETTY BIRDS AND AT LEAST ONE, SEMI-ENTITLED UGLY DUCKLING

I’m not sure many folk would still feel safe and warm on a winter’s day in LA, but when the leaves get brown and the sky turns gray, the high-tailing it out of town to warmer climes like Los Angeles, Miami, Todos Santos, Rincon and Santa Teresa is, as we all know, as real as the price of gas.

Aging, dying, wrinkles, hair loss, irrelevance, public speaking, a root canal procedure, $80,000 college tuition fees … the stuff that haunts many dreams … ain’t nothing compared to the question plaguing many Hamptonites like me this time of year: where shall I winter?

You ever sit in your toasty high rise in Manhattan in February and watch a construction site across the way and marvel at the workers in their hard hats, wearing what looks like only a hooded sweatshirt, carrying planks across scaffolding, their every breath a cloud of condensation, and wonder how the hell did these people get so tough? Those are the urban equivalents of Hamptonites who stick around this desolate spit in the winter. After having tried it myself … once … last winter … and having lasted only until Mid-January, I can say it’s rough, and only the hearty stock of body, mind and spirit need apply.

The shark fin gray that permeates the sky retreats to a 3:30 pm darkness. The cold joins hands with an ocean breeze that makes you want to howl like a loon at the thought that this place could ever be a summer paradise. Half of the restaurants and shops are shut down, leaves dance along the sidewalks of Main Street like ecstatic ghosts, and the fact that you can now see your neighbors’ homes, otherwise shrouded by dense foliage, provides no succor against the feeling of stark, savage aloneness.

I know, I know, I know … many of you dear readers love the winters out here, and I can’t wait to read the novel you

by Joe Caccamo

wrote, the walking sticks you carved, the sweaters you knitted, the AI robot you manufactured come May when you emerge from your basement, but allow me to caveat that I’m a single male with limited basement hobbies, and without a Swedish super model girlfriend or realistic equivalent to provide a full spectrum of warmth, I just can’t do this place in the cold. Again, I tried.

Last November, I had romantic visions of gaining enlightenment through isolation here, and getting welcoming nods from the local toughs bellied up to the bar at the Springs Tavern. By mid-January, I found myself in oneway conversation with the deer in my brittle front yard who looked upon me with gazes of equanimity that would make the Buddha himself moisten with pride. I felt on the verge of madness. I wussed out. I flew back to Santa Monica in late January where I woke up the next day greeted by a glorious sun that seemed to mock me for even considering anyplace else. Of course, the day after that, the marine layer came in and didn’t leave until September. (Hence, the new sobriquet for LA … “Seattle South.”) And then I encountered the Los Angeles people … in their Aviator Nation sweat-outfits and Nick Fouquet hats parading as designer spiritualists, and the hatelove (mostly hate) began again in earnest. F*%$ LA.

So, where’s a Bottom-Of-The-ThreePercenter, semi-bougie-ass dude to go? Where can he be warm and live the Endless Summer?

These are the options as I see them: Miami: I just threw up a $70 piece of toro sashimi from Nobu in my mouth. If I wanted to live in warm, expensive New Jersey, I’d just go to Manasquan and run a heat lamp while doing yoga in my neon spandex, and give my bank routing instructions to the Nigerian prince who has temporarily lost access to his wealth. No.

DelRay Beach: Afterall, everyone says, ‘oh, I love DelRay.’ It does have a surf break. It has restaurants and nightlife. It’s just far enough away from Miami. Oh, right … it’s as expensive as Miami (which is more expensive than NYC). No.

Palm Beach aka Republican National Headquarters. I own no white pants, I manage no hedge funds, I don’t think slavery was a good thing, the only Pulitzer Prize I’d ever want is the literature kind, not the blonde named Whitney dressed in Lily Pulitzer head to toe. Um, No.

Rincon: Awesome, Hawaii in the ‘70s meets Ditch Plains in 2023, except there’s no way I would get any real work done. A wonderful place to visit for a week or two, but for the entire winter? No.

Santa Teresa. Same as above. No. Aspen: Not warm, but a great place to demonstrate my fabulous wealth amongst other fabulously wealthy douchebags in their Kemosabe hats exceptin’ that I have no fabulous wealth and I can’t stand douchebags and I look terrible in hats, so … No. Mexico City: it’s the new kale which was the new broccolini which was the new brussels sprouts which was the new truffle French fries … so hot right now. Great art scene, great people, affordable, warm weather … except again, impractical because I have a job … that requires me to be in the United States. Sadly, No.

Lisbon: it’s the new Mexico City which was the new kale, which was the new brussels sprouts … just see above. No.

Tulum: it’s the rotted brussels sprouts smelling up your fridge. It’s as yesterday as 24 hours ago, a sad cliche of man buns, pelvis-first walkers and walking Sanskrit dictionaries. No.

Duh, New York City: While it puts a kabosh on the concept of the Endless Summer, it’s got decent culture and

opportunity for “social engagement” for a single man, and it’s close enough to Amagansett to enjoy the occasional bucolic winter weekend … But I swore I was done with New York City and its noise and filth and FOMO-frenetic assault on my sensitive central nervous system … And it’s goddamn expensive and it’s too much drinking and staying up until 3 am for no-good reason, and the screeching noise of subways and schlepping and schlepping and schlepping bags, bags, bags, and I feel like the oldest human being south of 14th Street, and I wanted a healthy lifestyle, a perma-tan, fresh green juice, a lower golf handicap, to stay in paddling shape, to not layer, to not have my shoulders hunched up against my neck bracing against a cold that used to reliably go away by May 1 but is now anyone’s guess. NYC … maybe, ugh. It’s fall and that’s where my head’s at … a big fat maybe. The water here is still warm as we complain about the latest heat wave, but Football is back (and so is the Sunday crowd at Best Pizza), the sun is noticeably setting lower in the sky, my irrigation man just emailed me to set an appointment to winterize the system, and so the specter of winter and the decision I have to make owns my frontal lobe like Djokovic owned Nadal.

Or perhaps I should just get myself a rescue pup and stay put here in Amagansett. I’ll name him Stephen, in honor of the Talkhouse, and in further honor of my brother’s late, great Husky companion, Steve the Dog. Brisk morning walks on the beach, warm nights in front of the fire place on my hands and knees rubbing spraying Folex carpet stain remover into pee stains on my expensive, customized sisal rug … Hmmmm, another maybe. Ugh. Be Here Now. Namaste.

Gimme Shelter Island

by Joe Enright

Max Planck, seemingly the only nuclear pioneer not portrayed in Oppenheimer, once railed against the stubborn orthodoxy of physicists by sagely observing, “Science changes funeral by funeral.” I’m sure Max – whose son was executed by Hitler – would agree that religious oppression changes martyr by martyr.

Take for instance colonial New England. The Pilgrims and Puritans who fled old England to populate Massachusetts in the 17th century were fundamentalist Anglicans who believed that the Church of England needed even further purification from the stain of Roman Catholicism. The monarchy disagreed and passed laws making public advocacy of their heterodoxy sort of life-threatening. And so the Puritans fled to the New World where they hoped to practice their heresy without fear of reprisal.

Enter the Quakers, who took heterodoxy to a whole other level. While the Puritans believed that churches, ministers, oaths and tithes were essential, the “Friends” were ultra-minimalists – just a quiet meeting house where they could congregate and contemplate, free from preachers, penance and collection baskets was all they needed, thank you very much. And so the Quakers fled to the New World where they hoped to practice their heresy

ments against these new ultra non-orthodox newcomers. Banishment didn’t stop them, so they cut off an ear when they returned. When ear-slicing didn’t stop them, they hung them. And that’s where Shelter Island comes in.

Indigenous people called Shelter Island “Manhansack aha-quash awamock” – an island sheltered by islands. In 1656, twenty-five years after Europeans arrived, it became a refuge for Quakers persecuted by the Massachusetts Bay Colony because the Anglo-Dutch

ing “bitter hate and scorn” for the Quaker, while novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne portrayed him as a man of “uncompromising bigotry, marked by brutal cruelty.” Truly a man of darkness.

But hanging a God-fearing mother of seven in the town square for defying legalized religious persecution would be called by today’s pundits “a bad look.” King Charles II agreed and decreed that the Quaker imprisonments and hangings cease forthwith.

Fifty years ago, a US District

family of Sylvesters who ran a plantation there were friendly with George Fox, the founder of Quakerism. The most notable refugee they sheltered was a convert from Puritanism, Mary Dyer, a hard-core recidivist sentenced to death in Boston but spared on the gallows only a minute after two co-religionists standing beside her had just been dispatched to the Hereafter. She was then resentenced to double-secret-ultra banishment.

without fear of reprisal.

Well, it there’s one thing heretics can’t stand, it’s new heretics that are more heretical than their own heresy. So the Puritans, emulating the monarchy they fled, passed law after law to purify their settle-

Mary’s time on Shelter Island included excellent contemplation which inspired her to decide, like Tom Petty, “I Won’t Back Down.” She sensed her reprieve on the gallows was just theater, an attempt by the Colonial hierarchy to show the populace how incredibly sensitive they were. So she unsheltered herself, returned to Boston, asking if the punitive laws targeting Quakers were still in effect. They were. She surrendered herself and was promptly executed in 1660, with Colonial Governor John Endecott cheering on his fellow yahoos. Endecott is described by even sedate historians as a hotheaded Puritan who, among his many deep thoughts, insisted that men should wear their hair short. Almost two centuries later, poet John Greenleaf Whittier characterized Endecott as “dark and haughty,” exhibit-

Court judge in Manhattan was so inspired by Mary Dyer’s decision to give up her life to protest unjust laws that he composed an opera to honor her courage. Richard Owen was a World War II vet, a former prosecutor, an opera buff and a lifelong Republican appointed to the bench by Richard Nixon. Prior to his work being performed during the 1976 Bicentennial, he observed: “Mary Dyer was a female liberationist who demanded the penalty for challenging an unjust law. The same was true of blacks demonstrating during the civil rights movement who peacefully demanded to be arrested in order to alert the public to similar injustice.” Famed music critic Alan Rich gushed in New York Magazine: “Supposing I were to tell you that a New York judge had composed an opera on a Bicentennial theme, with a juicy soprano role for his wife. And then, supposing I told you that Mary Dyer turns out to be a work of remarkable merit, and that, at its premiere, Judge Owen’s wife (Met soprano Lynn Owen) sang beautifully. Wouldn’t you be surprised?”

I briefly served as a probation officer in the Southern District during Judge Owen’s forty-two year tenure, which ended with his death in 2015. He oversaw the famous Mafia Commission trial, sentencing the Five Family mob bosses to what were essentially life sentenc-

es. But his favorite memory on the bench was questioning ex-Beatle George Harrison. Judge Owen would eventually decide that Harrison had “unconsciously plagiarized” the song “He’s So Fine” by the Chiffons (1963) when he composed “My Sweet Lord” (1970). Years later Owen recalled the trial to an Opera News reporter (Owen would eventually compose the libretto and score for nine operas): “I said, ‘Mr. Harrison, where did you get this theme?’ and sang it to him. He said, ‘Mind if I get my guitar?’ And for about fortyfive minutes, we sang to each other. The transcript is marvelous because it reads, ‘Witness Sings / Judge Sings.’”

The judge’s decision forced Harrison to pay the publisher of “He’s So Fine” for damages, but when Owen learned that Allen B. Klein (forever despised as ”the manager who broke up the Beatles”) had used his company, ABKCO, to buy the rights to the song, knowing that a big settlement loomed, he knee-capped Klein by reducing the initial award from $2.1 million to $587,000.

Paul McCartney (“You Never Give Me Your Money”) and John Lennon (“Steel and Glass”) each wrote disparaging songs about Klein, but an outtake version of a George Harrison tune was the most damning: “Watch out now, take care, beware of soft shoe shufflers, dancing down the sidewalks, pushing you in puddles, in the dead of night, beware of ABKCO.” Unconsciously echoing previous wordsmiths Whittier and Hawthorne, George’s song was called “Beware of Darkness.”

Mary’s time on Shelter Island included excellent contemplation which inspired her to decide, like Tom Petty, “I Won’t Back Down.”

Mary being led to her death in Boston

Judge Owen's wife, Lynn Owen plays Mary Dyer in her husband's opera.

Montauk’s Real Beauty Is in Its People

It was nearly 8 p.m. on a June night, but the sun had barely started to set at the Montauk lighthouse. Buttercream-colored clouds hung in a slightly overcast sky and birds coasted over the water in a blue haze. My three friends and I had stopped at the lighthouse after an early dinner, too excited about our weekend trip to return back to our room and too lazy to do anything else.

As we walked down one of the rocky trails to the shore, stopping to shake out the rogue Birkenstock pebble here and there, I was incredibly content. Laughing with my college friends, comfortable in our sweatshirts and denim shorts, snapping an admittedly embarrassing amount of photos; what more could a recent college graduate ask for?

It helped that I was back in one of my favorite places. My parents have owned a one-room condo in Amagansett since I was born, so the area has always felt like a second home. I was excited to be here with my friends, especially my friend Alessandra, a curly-haired brunette from the Bronx with an incredibly contagious laugh, who had never been to the Hamptons before.

We had been talking about the trip for months. The white sand beaches, the beautiful coastal weather, the restaurants and shopping in town. There was so much to love about Montauk.

When we reached the strip of beach at the bottom of the trail, we realized there was more than just the three surfers in sight at the top of the path — a lot more. At least twenty surfers were already

by Taylor Herzlich

suited up and treading water, with more on the way, carrying surfboards from their trucks in the parking lot.

“This is what I love about it out here,” said Alessandra, wistfully, as she says most things. “They really know how to live life.”

It was one of those throwaway dreamy sentiments that young women like ourselves say every time we get together. Although it did not hit me

munity. The small town life. Those surfers weren’t just a pretty sight on a nice Long Island landmark. They were a wide-ranging group of people who may have known each other their whole lives, or maybe who had never met, and now were surfing together, brought together by their hometown. People who got off work at 5 pm on Friday and drove straight down to the end of the island, a wetsuit in their bag and a board in their trunk. Kids in their twenties who grew up on the same block and texted each other to meet at the lighthouse because the weather was good that day. Parents who called their partners to let them know that they’d be home for dinner after a quick dip in the water.

at the time, what my friend said has stuck with me since. Although I’m certainly not a Montauk local, I am a Long Island girl who has been visiting the area every summer for most of my life. Alessandra had been there for less than 24 hours, and she had already gleamed the actual best part of Montauk: the people and how they make the most of their time. The com-

How had I been so blind to the small beautiful ways that Montauk and Amagansett residents made the most of their days? How lucky I was that weekend to spend time with a dear friend who lives in Montauk, and when we asked her what she wanted to do, she suggested parking outside the baseball field and watching the game. Pulling onto the grass (after a somewhat sharp turn), she squealed at me to turn off my headlights lest we draw attention to ourselves. With the windows down and Taylor Swift playing over the car speakers, we watched the game as she broke down who each of the players were. Men were divided into teams representing each local business in town, many of them with no relation to the employers on their jerseys, just guys who wanted to play for a team. It was easy to imagine life in Montauk, perhaps because I am from a similarly small-ish town, where ev-

eryone knows each other and if you’re tr ying to avoid someone, you can bet money that is exactly who you’ll run into.

We stopped by a pizza place that turns into a dive bar at night. My friend graciously sacrificed her own sanity, walking into a restaurant packed with every person with whom she had gone to high school. Guys and girls played pool and sat chatting in booths, while two men in their forties or fifties sat nursing drinks at the bar.

Now, I can’t help but notice how much of Montauk’s beauty comes from its people. During my last weekend there, at the end of tourist season, I grabbed dinner at a restaurant in town where the hostess wore sweatpants and there was only one other group of customers at a table. I sat outside in my own cozy sweatshirt, eating fried calamari and listening to crickets and the women crying of laughter next to me, and loved every beautiful minute of it.

A crash course on an intellectual giant

“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”

Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind

In today’s sharply divided political world, Hannah Arendt’s words, (in reference to the Holocaust) ring true. Arendt’s assertion that people are not inherently evil is an optimistic worldview–the real danger for us humans is in passivity and therefore, collusion. Like many, I follow the news regarding the war in Ukraine, but I haven’t done anything concrete beyond feeling compassion, empathy and sadness. I can easily identify how I feel about the war, but I haven’t taken any action. By Arendt’s definition, am I evil? As a westerner living in the relative safety of America, a world full of bombs, chaos and death is far enough removed from my daily reality for my inaction to continue indefinitely. There are no clear pressures forcing me to make up my mind to be good or evil. I’m just living life. Did Arendt identify inaction as

by Kelsey Sobel

the very issue with humanity?    Herberlein’s brief but thorough biography (2021) of the 20th century German Jewish philosopher, political theorist, educator and writer, Hannah Arendt, oscillates between factual and philosophical, superficial and cliche.  The last line of the book reads more like an inspirational plaque: “What can we learn from Hannah? That we should love the world so much that we believe change is possible, and that we should never give up.”

Despite the book’s shortcomings, I found myself engrossed. Heberlein, a Swedish philosopher, has clearly done her homework on Arendt’s influences: her secular Jewish childhood, lovers, extensive reading and her German homeland. Heberlein deftly brings to life the glittering intellectual circle of pre WWII Europe, and the many famous academics and artists who populated Arendt’s world throughout her lifetime.

Unfortunately, as strongly as the basic facts are presented, the flesh and blood woman, Hannah, remains flat

to readers. Her death, in 1975, at home in her Riverside Drive apartment at age 69, takes up a mere two pages of the book. Her funeral receives a measly two paragraphs. Small idiosyncratic details are limited to Arendt’s lifelong love of smoking and many vibrant friendships over the course of her life.

Throughout the biography, Heberlein dissects Arendt’s philosophies, drawing in scholarly influences like Kant and Kierkegaard while inserting paraphrased ideas or explicit excerpts from Arendt’s books. This results in the biography reading more like a textbook or a Phd dissertation than a compelling narrative. If you’ve never heard of Arendt, this biography is a crash course. More successful biographies like Joby Warrick’s brilliant  Black Flags or Jennifer Homan’s wonderfully detailed  Mr. B, paint vivid pictures of both men’s (Zarqawi and George Balanchine, respectively) internal and external landscapes, comprehensive portraits of each as individuals. Heberlein’s treatment of Arendt dances into the territory of

generalities, drawing readers away from illuminating personal details.  Several chapters are spent on the controversy regarding Arendt’s controversial remarks about Adolf Eichmann in her books, Eichmann in Jerusalem, but Heberlein doesn’t go much deeper into examining the backlash of this publication in regards to Arendt’s career or how Arendt internalized the criticism from the outside world. Although there are mentions of Arendt’s lifelong questions of identity due to her nonreligious upbringing, Heberlein skirts around the more pointed questions of Arendt’s Jewish heritage, leaving readers somewhat in the dark about what is one of the most influential aspects of Arendt’s life, and therefore philosophies.

Sadly, even the sexiest aspects of Arendt’s life get a clinical treatment - her on and off again affair with Martin Heidegger and her largely successful but open marriage to  Heinrich Bluecher are handled through a (continued on next page)

"I am from a similarly small-ish town, where everyone knows each other and if you’re trying to avoid someone, you can bet money that is exactly who you’ll run into."

Three laughing girls in Montauk

STAR SIGN OCTOBER FORECAST Julie Evans

Before we can fully understand the October astrology for each Sun Sign, we must go back and acknowledge the September 29th Aries Super Full Moon. I am writing this before the super moon rises and I see the potential for more seismic and weather related activity. Here on the East End, we had almost a full week of the remnants of an offshore hurricane swirling offshore bringing high wind and heavy rain. The planet could experience more extreme weather because this supermoon will act as a catalyst. Expect more seismic activity around the globe or here at home in the US. The Annular Solar Eclipse on

October 14th at 1:55 pm in Libra and the Partial Lunar Eclipse in Taurus on October 28 at 4:24 pm pushes this climate energy into the end of the year. I expect gold prices to rise as the government talks about new taxes.

SCORPIO - Happy Birthday! There is something going on around homebase. It is perplexing to you and you are not sure whether you should verbalize your growing feelings. Wait until the end of the month and keep cool as something may take care of whatever is bugging you. Put that stinger away as it could work against you in the end. Expect an energy boost during the last week of the month.

SAGITTARIUS - Throughout the month you will gradually become more seen by others in general. You might consider doing a review of your finances and especially any investments. Any under performers should be looked at with a critical eye. Do not speculate in cryptocurrency but hold only the winning investments. Medical technology could prove profitable.

CAPRICORN - The changes you have made inside yourself and in your environment are popular. But some are thinking about how far you will actually take it. You might want to consider the costs to you and others emotionally and financially. It may be time to put the lock back on the pocketbook before the costs drive you crazy. You are powerful right now and powerful people are around you

AQUARIUS - You may feel like screaming at someone or just feel overwhelmed at times this month. Take care and be kind, especially to yourself. Go get a massage. I would look for financial healing from midmonth onward. A transformation is on the horizon. Prepare plans for community events you are involved in for next year. Success is on the horizon.

mind and verbal acuity. Instead make them and yourself laugh, you charmer.

TAURUS - Sudden unexpected messages come your way this month. It could take the form of an expression of love or money. A windfall as a legacy may come in the mail. It is a good time to bring something or someone you love into your home. Perhaps a piece of art brings joy. Powerful people notice you. Expansion undertaken earlier in the year will contract and deserves review..

GEMINI - Keeping the children on course is the primary focus this month, however if you do not have any kids the focus shifts to your work. Creative endeavors are highlighted and will take your energy and your time. Be careful about jumping on anything that comes out of the blue and seems like a good investment.

CANCER - The Partial Lunar Eclipse will ping your moon worshiping sign. This may be the month to lay low. Everyone you work with is sensitive so try not to upset your boss or co-workers. You will be emotional so if you have questions that need answers, ask. But do not take the answers too personally. Everyone, it seems, is going through something.

LEO - Venus will finally pass entirelythrough your sign after a ninemonth visit. Review the Venus moments of the summer. Write them down because in eight years Venus will visit Leo again. Was it a love or a money issue that took up your time? Health issues for some were manifested. If there were health issues follow up this month.

VIRGO - Venus enters your sign now. Mercury will enhance your excellent communication skills more than ever during the first week. Look to turn your super ability to focus on communication and making all things beautiful. A new look may be in order or perhaps buy some gold coins. Look closely at any contract details.

ARENDT

(continued from page 7)

LIBRA - Happy Birthday! All relationships are under review right now. The Annular Solar Eclipse falls in your sign and acts like your own personal full moon enlarging your emotions. You are not the same person you were three years ago. Be careful of the tone and the words you use when speaking to partners of any type because it will be too easy to create wounds.

PISCES - The beginning of themonth focuses on your resources. Getting on target with your budget is essential. Try to take a deep dive into those mysterious expenses. Are they necessary or have you just forgotten them? Romance is often a distraction this month. Make sure that love is true and does not disappear in the fog. It is ok to create boundaries and the universe is encouraging you to do that.

ARIES - It is your nature to move forward with words as well as with your exercise regime. You may have had an injury to the body or the mind you are working on healing. Continuing on that path is important karmically. Do your best not to assault anyone else with that quick

“happy ending” to romantic love, the couple felt times were too tumultuous to start a family of their own - this might or might not be true but this is the only information audiences receive in regards to the couple’s childless marriage. Arendt’s mother, to whom she was quite close also emigrates to America but her role in Arendt’s life completely drops off once arriving in America, leaving me wondering, what happened to Martha?

Arendt’s decision to never have children isn’t explored in any nuanced detail, the author cites that despite Arendt’s view of children as the true

Heberlein’s obvious admiration and respect for Hannah’s bright mind does translate onto the pages, and

Heberlein’s excitement propels the biography forward through the denser passages of text. One of the most interesting aspects of Arendt’s life is certainly her intellectual loves - the development of her own theories and ideas in conversation with the many brilliant minds she came into contact with all in spite of being expelled from her homeland. The biography makes one nostalgic for a time period before social media platforms like X, devaluing our modern discourses beyond recognition.

As the Jewish high holidays conclude

this month, time spent thinking of lives lost, uprooted, forever and irrevocably changed during the Holocaust feel doubly important to honor and consider.  Most importantly, however, Arendt wanted us to think. As she wrote:  “There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking it-self is dangerous.”

If you know your rising sign or where the moon falls in your natal chart, you should read the forecast for that sign also. If you do not know your birth chart and want to know about the promise of your natal chart, I can be contacted at jevansmtk@gmail.com for a reading. My natal promise readings start at $100 for a half-hour and this month I am giving one free reading away to the first person who contacts me. Be aware and be kind! Look up, the stars are all around us! dry lens. Throughout the biography, Heberlein attests to the strength of Bluecher and Arendt’s marriage as a stabilizing force for both of them, yet seems to contradict herself by returning to Arendt’s unresolved feeling for the much older and known Anti-Semitic Heidegger.

In the spirit of Arendt, let’s all keep leading dangerous lives.

On Love & Tyranny: The Life and Politics of Hannah Arendt, by Ann Heberlein. Published by Pushkin Press

Who says a jazz band can’t play rock music? That question was implied, if not directly posed, within the lyrical permutations of Funkadelic’s 1978 “Who Says a Funk Band Can’t Play Rock?” Genre lines might be a bit blurrier 45 years later, but they’re still there to be crossed. Bassist Hannah Marks has worked for some highly regarded jazz bosses (Terri Lyne Carrington, Ingrid Jensen, Miles Okazaki, Marcus Printup, Nasheet Waits, Anna Webber) but her solo debut Outsider, Outlier (out on Out Of Your Head on Oct. 20, CD and download) draws heavily on the pop and rock she grew up with. On “(I Wanna Be Ur) 90s Dream Girl,” the first track and lead single, she remembers being a teen outfitted in denim jackets, Levi jeans and Doc Martens, humming Replacements songs while hiding her musical knowledge and skills so as not to threaten the boy she likes. It’s a pointed stick she waves. Her band can tackle the interlaced parts she writes and still kick up the dust, holding true to her indie rock passion. Some quieter moments recall Tori Amos, with singer Sarah Rossy gliding across octaves, but the songs are never simple. The “90s Dream Girl” video is the place to start, but the rest of the record is just as smart. And speaking of the Replacements, they were heroes back in the day but I fell off the wagon with 1985’s Tim. Friends continued to sing their praises, but I felt like they’d strayed. The 4 CD+1 LP (or download) reissue (Rhino, Sept. 22) vindicates me with a new mix of that album, pulling it closer to the raw sound of the previous Let it Bleed. Apparently, the band also wasn’t happy with the sound of their major label debut, produced by Tommy Ramone. I haven’t made my way through the whole set (65 tracks, 50 never released before) but I’m glad to hear Tim getting a new lease on life.

Guitarist Ava Mendoza lives in the demilitarized zone between prog and improv, playing instrumental music centered around her own stunning musicianship. The new Echolocation (CD, LP, download from AUM Fidelity Oct. 13) features what reads like a jazz line-up; the band, Mendoza Hoff Revels, is co-led with bassist Devin Hoff and includes saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and drummer Ches Smith. The opening cut, “Dyscalculia,” is available now and is a ferocious seven minutes. The title refers to a learning disorder that impedes the ability to understand numbers and math, but the strict meters belie any such claims. The rest of the album is just as alive. Revel in it.

solid half-hour party mix. The choice cuts bookend the set. “Souled Out” plays on Tropicalia while “Sleepwalker” leans toward heavy rock. It all adds up to immensely likeable crossover like what Herb Alpert used to do. And speaking of Alpert, his new one (Wish Upon a Star, Herb Alpert Presents, CD and download, September 15) is a pretty mixed bag, but there are at least a couple stream-worthy tracks (covers of the Carpenters’ “We’ve Only Just Begun,” Jerry Reed’s Smokey and the Bandit theme “East Bound and Down”).

to drugs, prescribed or otherwise. (If you’re looking to celebrate same, dial up NOBRO’s new shout-along “Let’s Do Drugs” from their forthcoming Set Your Pussy Free). Paige MacKinnon’s delivery on the ruminating “I Hope She Knows” is like a tough Chrissie Hynde ballad and “Side Stitch” makes for a dire ending. A couple older songs can be found on their Bandcamp and more, with any luck, are soon to follow.

Just in time for St. Martin’s Summer, or second summer, or whatever might best replace the more common term for a warm spell in November, comes Bite of the Streets by trumpeter Mac Gollehon & the Hispanic Mechanics (Nefarious Industries LP and download, Sept. 29). Gollehon’s long career includes time spent in big name Latin, R&B, rock in pop acts, including Hilton Ruiz, Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy, Chaka Khan, David Bowie and Hall & Oates. Bite shows aspects of all of that background in a half dozen instrumental grooves that make for a

Extended play. Going… Going… Gone! seems like a quick goodbye for a title to a debut record, especially by someone who has already played Lollapalooza and appeared on the cover of NME. Hemlocke Springs took the world by storm, or at least some corners of it, with “Gimme All Ur Love” last year and that track leads off the digital EP (Good Luck, Have Fun, streaming/download, Sept. 29) that collects seven quick synth-pop gems in just over 20 minutes. The multifaceted Springs was born Isimeme Udu in North Carolina to Nigerian immigrant parents and earned a master’s degree in medical informatics at Dartmouth this year. Her songs of anger and longing are infectious and the videos are hilarious. She’ll be in the movies before long. I don’t think she’s going away soon.

Out of Nashville comes the hard edge of Gloom Girl MFG, whose foursong debut Factory (Sign From The Universe Entertainment/Ingrooves streaming/download, Sept. 8) bristles with discontent and simmers with old-school hard rock energy. Again, the lead-off track is the winner. “Litterbug” merges environmental and existential crises. “My Brother’s Meds” attaches no romanticism

Celluloid Heroes. John Carney makes just the kind of sappy movies I fall for. I only discovered him with his last film, 2016’s Sing Street, about a young man trying to start a band to impress a classmate crush. His new Flora and Son premiered at Sundance in January, opened in U.S. theaters in September and is streaming on Apple+. Set (like his previous effort) in Dublin, Flora is about a single mother and her son both trying to write songs to impress their respective crushes. It’s kind of a paean to mediocrity and dead-end streets, but’s also about the power of music, especially for the (otherwise) powerless.

SUNDAY OCT 8

7 pm Talkhouse Trivia Night

FRIDAY OCTOBER 13

8 pm The Montauk Project

10 pm GBE & The Long Island Rhythm Experience

SATURDAY OCTOBER 14

8 pm Nancy Atlas, opener Daniella Cotton

10 pm Reservoir Dawgs

SUNDAY OCTOBER 15

7 pm Maui Fundraiser

FRIDAY OCTOBER 20

8 pm Roses Grove Band 10 pm Candy Shop

SATURDAY OCTOBER 21

8 pm Inda Eaton 10 pm LHT

FRIDAY OCTOBER 27

8 pm BOMBZR

SATURDAY OCTOBER 28 10 PM

Halloween Party w/Hello Brooklyn

Quinn on Books

Pollyannish Propaganda

James McBride's "The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store" reviewed by Michael Quinn

Two kinds of people live in Chicken Hill, Pennsylvania: immigrant Jews and Blacks. These two groups eye each other warily, thinking they have nothing in common. Neither is especially thrilled to be there. It’s a rundown place, cut off from working utilities by industrialized racist bureaucracies and choked by industrial pollution. Dumpy houses sit in muddy yards. Sewage pools in puddles on potholed streets. Yet this scrappy, scraggly, unlovely place is home for both of them.

This is the setting for James McBride’s latest novel, “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.” It’s a sweeping saga that traces the lives of a vast cast of characters over a long period. It’s about a small town, the people who live in it, and the unlikely bonds they form. It’s about their outward differences and their common bonds.

The story begins in 1972 when construction workers uncover a skeleton in a well. The action then moves to the 1920s, where we see the two places that give the town its heart. One is the vaudeville-type theater run by Moshe, a long-suffering Jewish Romanian refugee who discovers he can make money pitching shows to Black audiences. The other is the grocery store run by his polio-crippled wife, Chona. She extends a hand of friendship (and often free food) to everyone who walks through the grocery’s sagging front door.

When Moshe’s fortunes begin to rise, the first thing he wants to do is move. But Chona won’t hear of it. This isn’t only the place where she was born. It’s the place where she feels a sense of purpose. The daughter of a rabbi, she feels called to be of faithful service to the people around her, whom she thinks of as “neighbors with infinitely interesting lives.” She calls out the white politicians’ corruption and racism, writing angry letters to the newspaper about a parade led by the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

The town’s Black folks aren’t in a position to make waves. They just try to get by. They usually keep their troubles to themselves. But when Mosche’s righthand man, Nate, comes to him to hide his orphaned, disabled nephew Dodo from state officials, who want to institutionalize him, Chona agrees to harbor Dodo and protect him with a mother’s love. And it’s the ferocity of that love that inspires the community to come together when the real trouble begins.

By facing a shared crisis and setting aside suspicions about otherness, the town’s inhabitants locate deep-rooted commonalities, overcome superficial differences, and discover the power of community. No matter how hard circumstances outside our control make life for us, McBride seems to say, small kindnesses make a huge difference in how we feel about our lives.

It’s impossible not to admire the ambition and scope of McBride’s work here. Yet I can’t help but feel that he didn’t work from an outline so much as an agenda—a humanitarian one, but an agenda, nonetheless. Every “good” character is designed to be a mouthpiece for a message of hope. And the villains are so broadly drawn that they may as well be twirling their invisible mustaches. There is much detail in “Heaven & Earth,” but nuance? Not so much.

McBride is an accomplished, lauded writer, and that skill is on display here—but so is self-indulgence. Look elsewhere if you like a tight plot and a fast pace in the novels you read. This is a noodling, doodling story whose forward momentum drags under the weight of endless backstory. Over the course of reading, as McBride introduced yet another new character and another convoluted plotline, I dreaded turning the page. You will likely have a hard time keeping track of who’s who. But the worst part is, it doesn’t matter because it’s so obvious where McBride is heading with all of this from the outset. Despite everything else that he’s crammed into the novel’s nearly 400 pages, there’s still something missing—the element of surprise.

Delivering a message of hope is always a worthwhile cause. But in “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store,” it lands with the heavy thud of propaganda.

Jazz by Grella More Is Less

by George Grella

What does it mean to make an album in 2023? They’re still being made, Billboard magazine still tracks their sales, but just what is that thing itself, the album, and why are they made as albums?

The subject on this page each month is jazz, but these thoughts apply to all kinds of music, and are especially relevant to popular music. Still, it comes from all the jazz (and classical, metal, avant-garde, experimental, etc albums that come my way as a music critic) releases I hear, the majority of which just don’t make any sense as albums. When an artist feels they have enough good material, they put it together into a release. But what I’m thinking about is: why an album? Why these albums that come out? And again, what is an album anyway?

The very idea goes back to the record album (not the LP) which was literally an album that gathered together a set of 78 rpm discs. Since they couldn’t physically hold much more then three minutes of analog grooves on a side, anything from a set of more than one pair of singles to the famous 10-disc recording of Bruno Walter and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra playing Gustav Mather’s Symphony No. 9, in concert on the eve of the anschluss in 1938, came in a jacket that collected all the media, akin to a photo album.

Albums then, at first, were just something that held some music together, and they didn’t necessarily have to have the form of a symphony recording. Albums as we know them today are an implicitly coherent and self-contained package of music, and that came with the commercial development of the long playing record in the late 1940s (the technology had been around since the early 1930s, but the Depression curtailed commercial implementation). The first 12” microgroove vinyl LP, playing at 33-1/3 rpms, was the great violinist Nathan Milstein playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the New York Philharmonic, conducted also by Bruno Walter (shout-out Walter’s legacy, he was one of the great classical musicians of the 20th century and his artistry was essential to the rise of Columbia Records). Albums now could tell a story.

Pretty quickly, artists realized that they could integrate the music and the format (not just the two LP sides but cover art, liner/sleeve notes, etc) together so that not only did the pieces fit onto the disc, but the way the music worked together defined the album, and made it something deliberately different than the live music experience. That man meant concept albums like Frank Sinatra’s In The Wee Small Hours, and Max Roach’s We Insist! It meant Charles Mingus playing live in the studio as if it was a nightclub, complete with between-tunes patter (Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus on Candid). Miles Davis did something similar with his run of albums for Prestige with his John Coltrane Quintet; playing through with no edits or alternate takes and keeping the total duration around the same as a live set. Even revolutionary music like Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz was made with the LP in mind, with the duration under control and the music formed to make sense as an A and B side of a disc.

In retrospect, it’s easy to see that one of the key factors in the great LP era for jazz, from the mid-1950 s to the mid-1980s, was that the records were conceived and produced with the medium in mind. Albums like Mingus Ah Um and In A Silent Way are extraordinary

recordings and documents of music making because they were edited and sequenced to fit nicely into the durational limits of the LP (themselves defined by how many grooves could fit and be playable on a 12” disc). Later expanded CD reissues of both prove this, as original, unedited takes are longer and lesser, with stretches of so-so music that weaken the overall effect (it’s no coincidence that the great Teo Macero was producer for both, wielding judgement via a razor blade to get the best possible results onto vinyl). That also has a subtle point within, which is that even if the music was recorded from live playing in real time, these were made as recordings, with artists striving for the best possible take to be pressed.

There are still new albums coming out, but in the age of streaming services and digital downloads, there seems to be much less thinking about the purpose of putting music together as an album. Vinyl has made a comeback, and cassettes are still around and are a great medium when you don’t have any budget (they mainly seem limited commercially by how hard it is to find a decent, inexpensive tape deck). But our era is defined by the CD and digital media in general, and so many jazz albums have that in mind, often with an hour more of music.

An album is a limited set of music, with a finite duration that may or may not be physically limited by the medium on which it’s produced. A successful album is coherent within it’s entire duration, without superfluous music that diminishes that coherence wither through redundancy or simple nonsense. More music doesn’t mean better music. Mingus Ah Um is about 45 minutes and every moment is great. An album is only as good as its weakest moments—think about albums you’ve heard that have eight great tacks and two meh ones, and that let-down feeling that comes when it hits one of those—and Macero sliced away all the duller moments so that nothing is weak.

It’s a mystery to me what jazz producers do on many recordings. Albums come out that have 40-45 minutes of good music and 20-30 minutes that are bland,

awkward, dull. A recent release on one of the best independent labels, known for the stylish and innovative music they produce, is a two-LP set that would have been a fantastic single LP but that, stretch across a second disc and about 80 minutes total, looses all the sensuous grooves and enticing direction as it dissipates, via small doses, into vapidity. Through the first side, I was looking forward to playing it again, and once the last side hit, it was both bored and exasperated, wondering when it would end. The producer in this case was the artist—always a danger—and apparently no one suggested to them that maybe a single disc would have been better.

Listeners have some responsibility in this too. There’s something there about how we get conditioned to listen. The kind of discourse that goes on around books and movies about literacy in the medium could be applied to music as well, at how to listen. There’s a threshold to the time we can give to an astute listening, and that’s certainly effected by the experience of both a 22 minute LP side and a five hour playlist. The old formula of the Blue Note albums, which was a model for how to make an LP, has now given way to a formula that almost seems to accept a durational dullness. I see this in both the music people praise and the way audiences are at shows, taking in a kind of sluggish sense of grooviness (not groove) and seeming to crave it, like a soporific comfort is all that want. But this is jazz, baby! Jazz is about life, it should be sharp, vital, for moving not swaying, it has things to tell you. One of the amazing thing about music is how much intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional information can be found in the smallest amount of material, one note, one second. No other art form can come close to this. Don’t waste it.