REPEAT issue 04 by Jin Kil

table of contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TIME IS WAITING

INVESTIGATION INTO A SONNET

DEEP AND QUITE MODERN JAZZ

typographic sculpture about time

Undercurrent; Bill Evans, Jim Hall

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TIME IS WAITING TEXT: MATHUKUTTY MONIPPALLY PHOTOGRAPHY:

KYUNGJIN KIL

Johnsy expects all the remaining leaves to fall off during the next night of rains. When day breaks and the curtains are drawn back, however, she is amazed to find one recalcitrant leaf clinging to the vine on the wall. It bravely withstands a battering by strong winds the following day and night, too. That does the trick for Johnsy. It convinces her that she is not going to die. She asks Sue for soup and milk and for a hand mirror. Now she wants to live; she wants to paint. The following day the doctor gives Sue the good news that Johnsy is out of danger. He also gives her the bad news of old Behrman’s death. Behrman caught pneumonia because he was out in the cold, rainy night standing on a ladder and painting a leaf on the ivy on the wall across Johnsy’s window.

The last leaf is not a leaf at all. But it pulls Johnsy out of her deep

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‘The Last Leaf’ is one of O’Henry best stories and has a delightful twist in the tale. Young, struggling artist Johnsy is down with a severe attack of pneumonia and her best friend and roommate Sue nurses her with care. The doctor gives her the best that modern medicine offers, but Johnsy’s condition deteriorates. She is convinced that she is going to die soon and she knows when. Lying in her bed,she sees the ivy on the wall across her window and believes she’s going to die when the last yellowing leaf on the vine falls. Sue doesn’t know what to do to save her best friend. She mentions her predicament to Behrman, an old painter who lives on the floor beneath them. Johnsy expects all the remaining leaves to fall off during the next night of rains. When day breaks and the curtains are drawn back, however, she is amazed to find one recalcitrant leaf clinging to the vine on the wall. It bravely withstands a battering by strong winds the following day and night, too. That does the trick for Johnsy. It convinces her that she is not going to die. She asks Sue for soup and milk and for a hand mirror. Now she wants to live; she wants to paint. The following day the doctor gives Sue the good news that Johnsy is out of danger. He also gives her the bad news of old Behrman’s death. Behrman caught pneumonia because he was out in the cold, rainy night standing on a ladder and painting a leaf on the ivy on the wall across Johnsy’s window. The last leaf is not a leaf at all. But it pulls Johnsy out of her deep 6

conviction that she is going to die. We may find her belief silly. How can there be any link between a yellowing leaf falling off from an ivy vine during autumn and a person breathing her last? But the fact is that we are no different from Johnsy — we all have some such beliefs that we hold tightly and without questioning. Our beliefs are, of course, well-founded while others’ beliefs are laughable superstitions. We can readily punch holes in others’ beliefs, but we can’t see anything wrong with ours. However unreasonable it appears to the rest of the world, we cling to our behaviour shaped by such beliefs. Our politicians are at the forefront of those who organise their public lives around some such beliefs. They may swear in at the unearthly hour of 2.39 am because they believe that that is the most auspicious time to open a new momentous chapter in the history of the world. The strange behaviour of many famous sportsmen and women is common knowledge. During matches, Michael Jordan used to wear his university’s blue shorts under his Bulls uniform. Whenever Goran Ivanisevic won a match, he would repeat everything he did the previous day: eat the same food, talk to the same people, and watch the same shows on television. The power of such beliefs is so strong that, when a star sportsman is denied his lucky number or underwear, he may lose the game. That is why people who know about such beliefs make sure that there is no disruption so that the players can play their natural game and do well. When he heard about Johnsy’s strange belief, old Behrman poohpoohed it, but he understood its power. That is why he risked his own health to go up in the

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TIME IS WAITING

cold rain and paint a leaf. He framed his response in perfect alignment with Johnsy’s fears and expectations. If her belief was that with the fall of the last leaf she also would leave this world, a leaf clinging to the vine tenaciously and fighting the storm should persuade her to give up the thought of death and start thinking about the business of life. Behrman could save Johnsy’s life because she had made her belief known. The problem with the corporate world is that everyone pretends it is governed by reason and evidence. Many wonderfully competent and visionary corporate leaders may not reveal to anyone some of the beliefs that drive their actions because they are afraid of being ridiculed. Would a CEO let the world know that after an expensive transcontinental flight he returned home without attending a crucial meeting because he had forgotten to pack his lucky innerwear? The next time your boss doesn’t listen to reason and refuses to be persuaded, perhaps you may want to look out of the boardroom window for the last leaf. Or a hidden hand that stops him from doing what you want him to.

THE LAST LEAF BY O.HENRY O. ENRY

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TIME IS WAITING

material: White paper size: 5 x 7 x 3 inches

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AN INVESTIGATION INTO SHAKESPEARE’S SONNET TEXT: CLINTON HEYLIN

PHOTOGRAPHY:

KYUNGJIN KIL

Dirk Delabastita If mere curiosity is an indispensable incentive to any scholarly endeavour, its exact objectives and methods will largely depend on the research tradition that serves as its context, both positively in terms of available research results and theories, including the unspoken assumptions underlying them, and negatively in terms of its real or putative inadequacies. So far the specialists of translation have given only scant attention to the subject of this book.

Clinton Hetlin The study of Shakespeare’s sonnets is fraught with speculation, in part because we don’t know exactly when they were written or first circulated. Equally frustrating is the dearth of allusions in the poems that would link them to actual events. Heylin, an Elizabethan and Jacobean historian and biographer of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, is sensitive to the pitfalls of speculation, even if his own theories remain plausible but unproven. Nevertheless, his manner of throwing stones at shaky, influential theories is lively and down to earth. Heylin traverses some tedious terrain, keeping the reader curious. He does, however, occasionally bog down in turgid territory peripheral to Shakespeare’s authorship, especially when probing theories about who wrote “A Lover’s Complaint.” For the most part, Heylin artfully mines the drama inherent in the debate, working each turning point into his own plot point.

SHAKESPEARE’S MASTERFUL SONNETS WERE USHERED INTO THE WORLD AMID THE ANARCHY OF SHADY ELIZABETHAN PRINTING AND BOOKSELLING. CLINTON HEYLIN’S ENGAGING AND IRREVERENT NEW BOOK, SO LONG AS MEN CAN BREATHE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS, TAKES READERS INSIDE THIS EARLY 17TH-CENTURY MILIEU OF POETS, PATRONS, SCRIBES, AND THE RAMPANT BOOTLEGGING OF MANUSCRIPTS. 13

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IN HIS PITHY STUDY THAT SHOULD INTRIGUE BOTH ARMCHAIR SONNET ENTHUSIASTS AND PROFESSIONAL SCHOLARS, HEYLIN DEFTLY CHRONICLES CENTURIES OF SPECULATION ABOUT THE 154-POEM SEQUENCE’S NARRATIVE PATTERNS, “INTENDED” ORDER, AND WHETHER THEY SUGGEST THAT THE POET AND PLAYER FROM STRATFORD WAS BISEXUAL. Above all, the author probes why and how a popular playwright revered by King James’s court around 1609 would entrust private poems filled with potentially scandalous, homoerotic yearnings to an unsuccessful printer during a time when the Elizabethan sonnet craze had already passed. To Heylin, a clear reading of the evidence supports the view that the book containing Shakespeare’s sonnets and a narrative poem not written by Shakespeare, called “A

INVESTIGATION INTO A SONNET

Lover’s Complaint,” was pirated by Thomas Thorpe, who published it in a 1609 quarto edition. This happened when unlicensed publishing was the norm, since copyright belonged not to authors but to a “cartel of printers and booksellers.” In this context Heylin considers how the suspected bootlegger may have come to acquire Shakespeare’s sonnet manuscript. Some believe Shakespeare may have circulated his poems anonymously in small sections as early as

‘Dark Lady’ Sonnets” (Numbers 127–154), which have monopolized recent debate, are considered less polished. Heylin examines the view that Shakespeare wrote them to parody the actual sonnet form, citing “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun” as one of the best examples.

who may have written “A Lover’s Complaint.” In the book’s second half, Heylin charts Shakespeare’s growing reputation as a playwright, beginning when dramatist and biographer Nicholas Rowe released a six-volume edition of the plays in 1709. He chronicles the vagaries of two centuries of controversy about “the worth and subject matter of About the real identity of the the sonnets,” touched off by early “lovely boy” in “The ‘Fair Youth’ editors Malone and George Steevens, Sonnets” (Numbers 18-126), Heylin and later enriched by artist has much to say of interest to noncritics such as A.W. Schlegel, scholars. In the late 18th century, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, 1595 for a private audience. He when Edmund Malone compared Oscar Wilde, William Hazlitt, and undoubtedly revised some for contemporary editions of the sonnets W.H. Auden. posterity and abandoned others. with Thorpe’s early published Heylin’s look at the quality and sequence, critics realized that the Heylin is quite piqued by the structure of three sonnet sequences object of the sonnet speaker’s love turn of the debate since 1983 is especially useful for students of was a highborn young man. Later when Katherine Duncan-Jones, Shakespeare’s poetry. He explores on, William Wordsworth ushered editor of the Arden Shakespeare’s how “The Marriage Sonnets” (Numbers in the modern obsession with the Sonnets, challenged the prevailing 1–17) may have been commissioned Fair Youth’s identity. Heylin’s view that Shakespeare did not by the Countess of Pembroke to appraisal of evidence for and authorize Thorpe’s 1609 book. He convince her rakish son, William against the two likely candidates repeatedly snipes at DuncanHerbert, (the future Earl of for the poet/speaker’s affection— Jones for reviving the case for Pembroke and eventual patron of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of “authorization” without plausible Shakespeare’s King’s Men) that he Southampton, and William Herbert, evidence. Equally frustrating to must settle down and marry. “The the future Earl of Pembroke—is Heylin is the currently popular quite thorough. He concludes that idea that if Shakespeare authorized there isn’t sufficient evidence the 1609 book, the mysterious to call either the Fair Youth, but additional poem called “A Lover’s he suggests why Pembroke has the Complaint” must have been penned stronger claim. by the Bard as well. Heylin goes One of the book’s abiding concerns into exasperating detail to expose is how the sonnets came to be “a the flaws in this thinking, arguing secret subtext to the man’s plays” that Shakespeare not only didn’t for two centuries, until Malone support Thorpe’s sonnet edition, he published Plays and Poems in may have suppressed the book from 1790 and brought the sonnets into being reissued. Shakespeare’s canon. In particular, the book’s first half appraises The study of Shakespeare’s sonnets post-Restoration, Romantic, and is fraught with speculation, in contemporary views about the part because we don’t know exactly provenance of Thorpe’s sonnet when they were written or first manuscript, Shakespeare’s reaction circulated. Equally frustrating to Thorpe’s piracy, the scandal is the dearth of allusions in it would have caused, Thorpe’s the poems that would link them failed career, and rival poets to actual events. Heylin, an

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Elizabethan and Jacobean historian and biographer of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, is sensitive to the pitfalls of speculation, even if his own theories remain plausible but unproven. Nevertheless, his manner of throwing stones at shaky, influential theories is lively and down to earth. Heylin traverses some tedious terrain, keeping the reader curious. He does, however, occasionally bog down in turgid territory peripheral to Shakespeare’s authorship, especially when probing theories about who wrote “A Lover’s Complaint.” For the most part, Heylin artfully mines the drama inherent in the debate, working each turning point into his own plot point. For this reviewer, who has taught the sonnets in college-level British literature courses after being reluctantly weaned on New Criticism, Heylin’s study is a pleasingly sardonic crash course in four centuries of scholarship. For Shakespeare enthusiasts outside the academy, So Long As Men Can Breathe is a useful point of departure for a deeper study of the Renaissance book trade and the elegance of the sonnets.

INVESTIGATION INTO A SONNET

MY MISTRESS’ EYES ARE NOTHING LIKE THE SUN; CORAL IS FAR MORE RED, THAN HER LIPS RED: IF SNOW BE WHITE,

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WHY THEN HER BREASTS ARE DUN; IF HAIRS BE WIRES, BLACK WIRE I HAVE SEEN ROSES DAMASKED, R

BUT NO SUCH ROSES SEE I IN HER CHEEKS; AND IN SOME PERFUMES IS THERE MORE DEL THAN IN THE BREATH THAT FROM MY MISTRE I LOVE TO HEAR HER SPEAK, YET WELL I K THAT MUSIC HATH A FAR MORE PLEASING SO I GRANT I NEVER SAW A GODDESS GO,

18 INVESTIGATION INTO A SONNET

S GROW ED AND

ON HER HEAD. WHITE,

; LIGHT ESS REEKS. KNOW OUND:

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INVESTIGATION INTO A SONNET

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UNDERCURRENT, DEEP AND QUITE MODERN TEXT: BILL MILKOWSKI

PHOTOGRAPHY: TONI FRISSELL

22 DEEP AND QUITE MODERN JAZZ

JAZZ

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On a sunny autumn afternoon in Greenwich Village, a kindly looking gentleman with spectacles and white mustache leads a peppy little Shih Tzu dog around on a leash. Many of the residents in this charming neighborhood know him as a local. Workers at the Jefferson Market wave to him as he strolls by. To them, he’s the sweet, elderly chap with the twinkling eyes, quick smile and a dog named Django. To jazz fans, and especially guitar aficionados, he’s a giant--a revered elder who has played on a spate of historically important recordings.

BILL EVANS ( 1929 - 1980) IS KNO PIANO PLAYER, WHO BECAME FAM CREW THAT PLAYED IN MILES DAV WORLD TOP-SELLING RECORD. HI ARE TO BE FOUND EVERYWHERE A SOPHISTICATED BUT EASY-GOING

At home in his apartment on West 12th Street, Jim Hall is reminiscing about fabled sessions and legendary colleagues, many of whom have passed away. Black-andwhite pictures of himself with fellow guitarists Tal Farlow and Jimmy Raney line one shelf. On another shelf is a nostalgic photo of Sonny Rollins’ quartet in action, circa 1962, with a young Hall, Bob Cranshaw and Billy Higgins on the bandstand. Hanging on the wall is a framed photograph of Hall’s wife, Jane, dancing with Duke Ellington at the White House’s 1969 tribute to jazz. “I found out later that Duke disliked Nixon so much that he wasn’t even going to go to that thing,” Hall says. “He actually had booked another gig so he could sneak out, but I think his manager talked him into staying.” Looking back is not something that Hall is accustomed to doing, though on this afternoon he kindly obliges a writer. “I’m more involved in today,” he offers while settling into an easy chair. “My nostalgia is for the future rather than the past. I feel about the same as I would if I were a writer or a painter in that you want to allow yourself to grow a little bit every day. I like a lot of the things I’ve done in the past, but as I like to say, ‘The past is a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.’” At 75, Hall remains ever active and forward looking. The guitarist was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2004, and his career has spanned 50 years and includes stellar collaborations with legends like Rollins, Bill Evans, Chico Hamilton, John Lewis, Stan Getz, Paul Desmond, Gerry Mulligan, Ella Fitzgerald, Art Farmer, Jimmy Giuffre and Zoot Sims. “The age thing is funny,” Hall says while

DEEP AND QUITE MODERN JAZZ

JIM HALL , NOW 76 YEARS OLD, IS WESTCOAST OR COOL STYLE TRA AND LYRICAL. HE IS THE FATHER O GUITAR PLAYING SERVES AS AN E CORYELL, SCOFIELD AND METHEN 24

OWN TO BE AN VERY INTROVERT MOUS BY HIS PRESENCE IN THE VIS’ KIND OF BLUE ALBUM, THE IS RECORDINGS, MOST IN A TRIO, AND LOVED BECAUSE OF ITS G FORM OF JAZZ.

petting Django, who alternately sits in the guitarist’s lap and roughhouses with chew-toys on the floor. “Because I feel like, if anything, I have more to work with now than I ever did. I keep hearing more music. And I’m allowed generally to pretty much do what I feel like doing these days, which lately has been these freeassociation type of pieces.” That aesthetic is readily apparent on two stellar new releases that highlight Hall at the top of his risk-taking form. Duologues (CamJazz), recorded in September 2004 in Milan, is an encounter with Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi that ranges from aggressive romps like “The Point at Issue” and “Our Valentines” to introspective ballads like “Something Tells Me,” “From E. to C.” and “Dreamlogue,” which showcase the guitarist’s fragile, walking-on-eggshells elegance and penchant for melodic improvisation. Three free-form “Duologues” also showcase their remarkable spontaneous chemistry.

RIGHT: JIM HALL

Hall displays an even more provocative streak on the aptly titled Free Association with pianist Geoffrey Keezer. Brimming with spiky dissonance and inside-thepiano gestures by Keezer, and marked by intensive freewheeling abstraction throughout, this encounter with the former Jazz Messenger and Ray Brown sideman is a wild ride for both artists. “Geoff is a stunning player,” says Hall. “He’s a very progressive and wide-open musician. I think he was 18 when he played with the Blakey band, so he has that incredible time feeling, which he got from that whole Messengers experience. He doesn’t use any effects or synthesizers when we play together but he finds those things on the piano. He plays inside the piano or he’ll prepare some of the strings so they sound differently. He gets really creative.” From Keezer’s perspective, playing duets with Hall has been an invaluable learning experience. “We’d play and I’d accompany him in the manner that I thought was appropriate, and he would say, in just the nicest way possible, ‘Hey, Geoff, that was great, I dig what

LEFT: BILL EVANS

S A GUITAR PLAYER IN THE SO-CALLED ADITION. HIS GUITAR PLAYING IS SUBTLE OF THE MODERN JAZZ GUITAR AND HIS EXAMPLE TO OTHERS LIKE MCLAUGHLIN, NY. 25

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U I M O E

DEEP AND QUITE MODERN JAZZ

UNDERCURRENT’S BEAUTIFUL COVER IS TRAGIC, DRAMATIC, ONEIRIC AND MYSTERIOUS. BARRY J. TITUS’S ORIGINAL LINER NOTES READ LIKE EXTREMELY BAD WILLIAM BURROUGHS.

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you’re playing--but do you think that we could make a little more space, kind of thin it out a little bit?’ And I’d say, ‘Yeah, sure Jim, OK.’ So the next night I would thin it out as much as I thought it was possible to do but still feel like I was there. And again he would say, ‘Yeah, that was great, but I think we could find a way to just leave a little more space in the music.’ And I began to think, ‘Wow, if I leave anymore space I’m gonna just vaporize.’ But I would just leave even more space, and this process would go on night after night. And what I found out was I was able to create a lot more space in the music than I ever thought was possible. He’s certainly a master at that. “Playing music with Jim is a very

call-and-response passages and intricate contrapuntal lines. The dissonant extrapolation “Counter Transference” and the turbulent “Ouagadougou” (named for the capital city of the West African republic of Burkina Faso) show a penchant for pushing the envelope, which has kept Hall eternally young. And on “Furnished Flats” (the lone live track, recorded at Birdland), Hall reveals a towering influence in quoting from Charlie Christian’s “Seven Come Eleven” (a tune that he also covered on Jazz Guitar). On two pieces--a poignant rendition of Riyuichi Sakamoto’s gorgeous samba “Bibo No Aozora” and the title track--Hall displays the kind of delicate introspection and sublime lyricism that have become

BOTH EVANS AND HALL HAD INTROS HARMONICALLY ADVANCED STYLES ROOTS IN HARD-SWINGING BEBOP.

conscious process at all times,” Keezer says. “There’s no autopilot allowed, or even possible. Because if you autopilot for one second, you’ll just fall out of the sky and land in a smoldering heap. You have to really pay attention when you play with him. But it’s not so intellectual that the audience can’t get what we’re doing. When Jim plays he has that kind of command of people’s attention and energy. He reminds me of one of those martial-arts masters who can make people fly across the room without even touching them.” On the adventurous opener “End the Beguine”--which the guitarist previously recorded in 2001 on 12-string in a duet with Dave Holland on Jim Hall & Basses (Telarc)--and “A Merry Chase,” Hall and Keezer execute playful DEEP AND QUITE MODERN JAZZ

his trademark and influenced a generation of guitar players, including Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Bill Frisell, Mike Stern and Mick Goodrick. It was, of course, Undercurrent, Hall’s landmark 1962 recording with Bill Evans, that set the standard for piano-guitar duets. “With Bill, he had such a sense of texture and shape that I felt like he was inside of my brain all the time,” Hall says. “He liked me to play rhythm, for example, and as soon as I did that he would automatically stop using his left hand or use it really sparingly, because I guess he sensed that part of the texture was covered for the moment. I’ll listen to ‘My Funny Valentine’ [from Undercurrent] that I did with him once in a while. And I notice that if I get in trouble on my solo 28

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on that tune, because it was kind of a zippy tempo, I can just hear him bailing me out and leading me right into the next phrase.” Playing duets is clearly a setting that Hall likes. “Just like in any situation, it depends on the combination of people,” he says. “But you’re 50 percent of the combo when you’re in a duo, and in a lot of ways I prefer that to playing in a larger group where you just sort of stand there grinning for half the time. I enjoy playing in larger groups too, but duets are special. Bill Evans was a perfect duet partner. Geoff Keezer is an amazing player for duets. Scott Colley, who has become another key duets partner, is someone who listens so well and goes in any direction. And Ron Carter, of course, has such a strong harmonic sense that when I played duets with him I found myself listening to where he was going with the bass line and then I would build all my harmony stuff around where he was going with the chord progression. So I think it’s really a matter of listening and reacting. And it gets really intense with just two people.”

SPECTIVE AND S ALONG WITH

Hall is currently working on revamping a major piece for guitar and orchestra that he premiered last year at the World Guitar Congress in Baltimore. “It was supposed to be called ‘Peace Movements,’” he explains, “but I only finished one movement, so it’s ‘Peace Movement.’ I did that with the Baltimore Symphony, and I want to work on it some more now that

I’m home for a little while.” The dramatic 17-minute work, brimming with intricate counterpoint and dissonant harmonies, recalls his piece “1953 Thesis,” which Hall composed as his thesis while in college at the Cleveland Institute of Music--though he had to wait until 1988 to hear it performed, at a Town Hall concert documented on Jim Hall & Friends Live at Town Hall, Vol. 1 (Musicmasters). “Actually, the thing I just wrote for the Baltimore Symphony is in a way not as avant-garde as the thing I wrote in school more than 50 years ago,” Hall says. “That [older] piece really reflects my love of Bartok.” Meanwhile, Hall hints that a reunion with Sonny Rollins, who also turned 75 in 2005, is in the works. “We’re trying to hook up to do a peace concert together up near Woodstock,” he says, adding that he would have more to bring to the table in an encounter with Rollins now than he did back in 1962 when The Bridge was recorded. “I guess part of it is--having been allowed to express myself as a leader for so many years--now I feel encouraged to take things in the direction that I want to move in. I feel more capable, and I’m allowed to call on my earlier listening experiences--like electronic music and free-association pieces, Schonberg and things like that--but still keep it within an improvising mode. So I feel less constrained. I still love to swing, and I still love playing standards. And I still feel very positive and curious about things, musically and otherwise.”

OTHER THAN FOUR PIANO SOLOS FROM APRIL 4, 1962, THIS SET WAS PIANIST BILL EVANS’ FIRST RECORDINGS AFTER A HIATUS CAUSED BY BASSIST SCOTT LAFARO’S TRAGIC DEATH IN A CAR ACCIDENT. 29

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