Reviewed early in May 2024 thanks to Net Galley; official publication date 9/24.
Original review: Between Two Sounds: Arvo Pärt’s Journey to His Music Reviewed early in May 2024 thanks to Net Galley; official publication date 9/24.
Original review: Between Two Sounds: Arvo Pärt’s Journey to His Musical Language (2024) by Joonas Sildre, is a wonderful graphic biography of an quietly astonishing minimalist classical composer. In a world of increasing (maximalist) noise and terror, he calls us forth to get small, listen, be still. I am familiar with his story and music thanks to a friend, T, so I especially enjoyed it. I also am a proponent of less is more, except in my long reviews, of course.
Arvo Pärt is a (formerly Soviet) Estonian composer who, because of restrictions by the Soviet government, was discouraged from composing and performing what were perceived to be “modernist” (non-conformist) (classical) music, and religious music, so he also composed music for film and the stage. He was born in 1935 and is as of today 88 years old. This graphics biography highlights a turning point in the seventies when Pärt’s work turned more minimalist, his music focusing on the production of sound, or more pointedly, the moment a note is played, when there is that silence “between two sounds” which I take to be a constructivist principle, where the listener co-constructs the music. He was inspired by his secret exploration of early music from the Renaissance.
You never heard of him? From 2011 to 2018, and again in 2022, Pärt was the most performed living composer in the world, and the second most performed in 2019, after John Williams. The Arvo Pärt Centre, in Laulasmaa, was opened to the public in 2018.
The challenge in a musician's biography is of course that the illustrator must make an attempt to convey the sound on the page, and Sildre does this playfully, attempting to capture the passionate intensity of Part’s experience with sound and music. He leaves a lot of space on the page, in keeping with Pärt ‘s minimalism, for us to breathe and reflect with him.
“You must treat every sound as if it were a human soul.” “Sound exists. Man is a mediator, not a creator.” “Wisdom lies in reduction.” “You work on yourself and the composition follows.”
Renunciation, order, purity. Pärt heard Gregorian chants for the first time and it opened up avenues for him compositionally and spiritually. He was exiled for many years but was not really a dissident, and when Soviet rule finally ended, he and his wife returned to Estonia to live. I connect his minimalism with Thomas Merton’s Trappist vow of silence. And his creative impulse is a leap of faith as with Kierkegaard.
“Words are a relatively poor means of expression. I believe I have within me that which can conduct deeper matters.” “I know a great secret. But I only know it through music.”
I was reading Amy Kurzweil’s Artificial: A Love Story, and was contacted by the Disability Resource Center by my university asking me about my class tI was reading Amy Kurzweil’s Artificial: A Love Story, and was contacted by the Disability Resource Center by my university asking me about my class texts; they wanted to see if they would be compatible with their Kurzweil technology to help a disabled student have more success in the class. Kurzweil, hmm. Then I recalled I had read about Amy’s father, Ray Kurzweil, in daughter Amy’s book.
It’s hard to know what this book is about, exactly. Creativity? The drive to create? Family, a generation of creative people, clearly. Amy is a pretty well known New Yorker cartoonist and this is her magnum opus, a Big Book, a memoir/biography of her tech/AI inventor Ray, her grandfather, musician Fred/Fritz--A FredBot--and herself, a cartoonist.
Through AI and almost indecipherable journal writing, Ray is building a chatbot that writes in Fred’s voice, and he enlists his daughter, cartoonist Amy Kurzweil, to help him ensure the immortality of their family’s inheritance. Ray wants to live forever and he is actively pursuing this goal. Amy is helping him in various ways, including this book.
Amy worked some seven years researching her late grandfather, a gifted pianist and conductor, who died before she was born. Fritz Kurzweil and his wife fled Vienna to the United States after the Nazi invasion in 1938. The book doesn’t help you get to know Fritz very well--this would be the point of the chatbot version of him they are creating, I guess, but I doubt I would read? watch? It. I wasn’t that engaged with him or the project.
I think this is the size and scope and ambition of a graphic novel/memoir/biography that I and others would call a masterpiece, and it has everything but the kitchen sink in it, from family history, to the philosophy of identity to art/creativity to that vague subtitle about love (father love, primarily, though in general it feels more abstract than emotional).
The book is filled with favorite quotes, and great artwork, though I couldn’t help seeing the primary influence of another ambitious/obsessive cartoonist, Alison Bechdel, who also cataloged her family and her own life in various novels and comics. The initial image--a father on his back, feet up in the air, balancing his daughter on his feet--is a central image as well in Bechdel’s Fun Home.
It’s as rambling as most of my reviews, sort of OCD/ADHD, something it took her most of a decade (or more?) to complete. I was sort of overwhelmed by it; compared to Bechdel, who is also obsessive, it is less focused, it is like Amy combines the purposes of multiple books all in one book. As in: What ISN’T relevant to put in this book? It’s my magnum opus! I can’t say it sucks; I just wasn't as engaged with it as I wanted to be. I found myself putting it down a lot and doing something else, and it has been around this house for weeks. But it is worth taking a look at it for sure as I see many of you love it, god bless you. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it's that I found Kurzweil moderately interesting, but I am just not into AI. ...more
What is the moral to this story? What is the lesson to this tale? Some dogs are very faithful. They never leave your side. Some dogs ramble and run the roWhat is the moral to this story? What is the lesson to this tale? Some dogs are very faithful. They never leave your side. Some dogs ramble and run the road. They love you and then they’re gone.
One of several picture books I have read focused on the long and rich traditions of black American music, this time focused on Mississippi Delta Blues. Chris Raschka won illustration awards for his fabric-stitched on fabric and painted illustrations--so cool, definitely the highlight.
Because oI know and am interested in this music and so many of the musicians, I give this four stars, but kids would need a lot of scaffolding to appreciate the story. I guess the central narrative trope in the story is a missing yellow dog a kid goes all over the south trying to find (and doesn't!). Dog lovers beware!
Maybe you supplement it with some of the background in the appendix and play some of the music? That's the disadvantage, always with, a picture book about music, right? No music, no accompanying cd! I can see why some readers might give it fewer stars, judged from a children's viewpoint. But I liked it and if I was a librarian or parent of littluns I'd play Robert Johnson and Lead Belly and let them hear it....more
Evelyn Glennie is a world-famous Scottish percussionist I had (probably) never heard of, but this inspirational picture book highlights how she has acEvelyn Glennie is a world-famous Scottish percussionist I had (probably) never heard of, but this inspirational picture book highlights how she has achieved fame as a DEAF percussionist. A budding musician in a musical family, her hearijng began deteriorating when she was ten, and then she went deaf. She became interested in percussion because she could feel the rhythm, and since then persisted against possibly unsurprising resistance to her contention that she could do this. She plays barefoot to help her experience the full effect of the vibrations in all percussion instruments. She thinks of hearing as akin to touch, which is fascinating, and makes sense.
As a person now wearing hearing aids, I tend ot think of hearing loss as ONLY in deficit terms, but Glennie's story helps everyone including me think of the ways one can think of the possibilities a disability can create. Or, how adapting to it can help one in so many ways.
I listened on Audible to Jeff Tweedy read/talk us through one version of his life story, in about 90 minutes. No pretense, just a regular guy, a musicI listened on Audible to Jeff Tweedy read/talk us through one version of his life story, in about 90 minutes. No pretense, just a regular guy, a musician I maybe connected to more since he is from my town, Chicago. And I know he is written more about his life than this, but I honestly hadn't known lots of details. In this story he shares without apology his struggles with family, mental health and addiction, giving most of the credit for his survival to both music itself and his wife. He's very likable, very down to earth, honest.
In these Audible Original Words+Music productions the musician talks and sings stripped down versions of some of the songs he sees as important in his life and career. These versions from Tweedy feel very intimate, like he is in his living room, which is where he and his family shared music throughout the pandemic. If you like Wilco or Tweedy's earlier band, Uncle Tupelo, this is a must for you. ...more
Brooklyn’s Last Secret by Leslie Stein is Almost Famous with cartoony misfits with weird faces.. . or maybe, because it’s also played for some laughs,Brooklyn’s Last Secret by Leslie Stein is Almost Famous with cartoony misfits with weird faces.. . or maybe, because it’s also played for some laughs, it’s This is Spinal Tap but not a parody, and with maybe a touch more genuine warmth? Yep, it’s a band on the run, band tour, road trip, episodic-type story. I count 59 graphic novels and memoirs and picture books in my Graphic Novel-Music Goodreads category, including things like Anya Davidson’s Band for Life, Gipi’s Garage Band, Liz Perince’s Be Your Own Backing Band and they are all passionate stories of growing up (or never wanting to grow up) with music. Oh, yeah, and Jaime Hernandez’s epic Love and Rockets ode to eighties LA punk bands. So as a blurb says for the book, if you are or were in a band, or plan to start a band, read this depiction of a band tour of the US, driving, driving, driving, state by state, with friends.
The band is, as is Leslie Stein, from Brooklyn. Her bio says she does comics and plays guitar, so this story may just have a touch of auto-fiction about it? It’s light-hearted, funny, touching, a love letter to every band you never heard of on the road playing clubs to crowds they will never see again. Because they love music. No one does comics like Leslie Stein--panel-less, weird faces, lovely, inviting colors, odd, amusing. This is Stein’s first really long form novel, 296 pages. Maybe my fourth or fifth Stein book--fiction, memoirs, diary comics. I see that I missed a serious one from 2020, I Know You Rider, about issues pertaining to complex questions about whether to reproduce or not to reproduce. Maybe the band tour book is a deliberately lighter departure following that book. I liked this. ...more
An ambitious and passionate graphic novel that focuses on a young woman jazz trumpet player who learns what it means to "enter the blue" where the hisAn ambitious and passionate graphic novel that focuses on a young woman jazz trumpet player who learns what it means to "enter the blue" where the history of jazz music has resided at its best, a kind of mystical, in-the-zone place of creativity and imagination. When the girl picks up her instrument o try and find her comatose mentor in the blue, she meets her inspirational mentors from Monk to Art Blakey and others.
A nerdy jazz scholar (a stand-in for Chisholm himself, with a PhD in trumpet and clearly a jazz scholar) gives her a lot of the background for what it means to be "into the blue" for the most dedicated and coloring-out-of-the-lines jazz artists--a series of manic and amusing but also informative lectures. In addition to being about artistic passion, the book is also about the Blue Note Record label and all of its amazing artists....more
Apple Valley, California, in the late eighties, in the miserable desert.
I liked this memoir by James Spooner about coming of age in the eighties as a Apple Valley, California, in the late eighties, in the miserable desert.
I liked this memoir by James Spooner about coming of age in the eighties as a mixed race (black and white) teen in the late eighties. Small town, disaffected kids, mostly white kids, many of whom seem racist; many black kids seem like gangbangers. James moves to another outsider group, punks, including whites, blacks, all colors, moving to personally embrace a concept, a political movement he couldn't have named at the time, what became known as Afro Punk. The music, the vibe, to older generations seemed angry, chaotic, even nihilistic, and all these things were true of parts of the punk scene, but James identifies finally with a more useful political direction.
This book is 340 pages, detailing what life was like in James's small town, and also in many small towns across the world in the eighties, where the future laid out for young people seems bleak. Spooner takes time, too much time, imho, to establish the typical teen context, could have taken 1/4fewer pages, but in general it feels real and relatable. Inter-group squabbles, quick broken romances, lotsa partying and music dominate the teen scene. Some kids give up, some get addicted, some get violent, and some strive for something else.
Spooner's art is fine, sort of simple and visceral in keeping with a punk sensibility. I bet a lot of folks who grew up in similar circumstances around the would recognize themselves in this book, especially people of color who are minorities in small mostly white towns. I hear Spooner has a documentary on Afro Punk, too, that I might check out (though I am an old folk rock dude), because the intersection of race and punk is something that interests me. I just happen to be listening to two Audible musical story events that focus on racism and social change, one by Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and another by T Bone Burnett called Truth and Reconciliation, so I might finally like this book even better when I'm done with all this other work. At the moment I rate it 3..4,...more
I very much liked Rubio and Efa's comics biography Monet: Itinerant of Light, a few years ago, and I enjoyed almost as much their biography of BelgianI very much liked Rubio and Efa's comics biography Monet: Itinerant of Light, a few years ago, and I enjoyed almost as much their biography of Belgian born Romani-French jazz guitarist and composer Django Reinhardt, certainly one of the greatest guitarists of all time, who died at the early age of 43. This comics bio is fine, maybe a little cartoony, but colored beautifully, focusing on his early life. Maybe since it was kid-oriented it featured a bear and monkey that traveled with their family. It's too short, really, but a good introduction to his early life, and then there's a written bio that follows it (though it repeats some of the same information) with photographs, and references. The idea is to create an entertaining tale of his "gypsy" life. There's not much more than mentions of the music, however, one of the limitations of a comics bio.
The double entendre of the title: He was lightning fast as a guitarist, but he also badly burned his hand in a fire, recovering full from that (and the early threat of an amputation).
Here is a 9o second YouTube video, just a taste of Django playing with that also famous jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli, whom I heard in the late eighties when he was in his late seventies in Ann Arbor:
I had no expectations for this one, going in, though I have been reading a lot of pretty depressing books lately, and was happily surprised by the kinI had no expectations for this one, going in, though I have been reading a lot of pretty depressing books lately, and was happily surprised by the kind of romantic setting, and the elaborate tale: In 1933, there's a competition for young pianists, rich Julien and poor Francois, the janitor's son. One is brilliant, a prodigy, who plays with soul, and the other is technically proficient. The two emerge as Number 1 and 2; one heads for fame, the other to a kind of long struggle, but their fates are tied forever.
35 years later, one of them, the bitter victor, is interviewed by a young journalist, who tells the truth of his life. There's nothing really very surprising in the plot until a twist near the end, but it is really engaging and bound to be popular in this time of dystopia and despair. Accomplished, elegantly, by an emerging star of Portuguese comics, Filipe Melo and Argentinian Juan Cavia. I like the touches of magical realism in it: A step-father always seen as a goat, and flying pianos (when truly passionate music is being rendered by a pianist). I seem to be a sucker for winding, tragically romantic tales; who knew?! Oh, sure, we know this kind of story, maybe, from classic French films and novels, but why be so cynical? Why not just give in and embrace it?!
Oh! And the book comes with romantic sheet music of "The Ballad for Sophie" supposedly created by one of the story's pianists for this mystery woman of the tale, Sophie, here performed on the piano by one of the actual composers, Felipe Melo:
“When I did, I’m gonna know that I left something that my people can build on. That is my reward”--Nina Simone, 1969
A picture book biography of singer“When I did, I’m gonna know that I left something that my people can build on. That is my reward”--Nina Simone, 1969
A picture book biography of singer Nina Simone, born Eunice Kathleen Wayo, written by Traci N. Todd and colorfully and invitingly illustrated by Christian Robinson. It’s about a singer born in 1933 who became a civil rights activist during the Civil Rights era in the sixties. I really liked the story of her life, though it is weird the author essentially repeats the story in an afterword, and there is no list of her best songs. And I’d say it is maybe a little wordy for a children’s picture book, but that is in this case a kind of nit, since I liked it quite a bit.
I wanted to love this book that seems to be already much-awarded and nominated, published in November 2021. I, like millions of people, think Jimi wasI wanted to love this book that seems to be already much-awarded and nominated, published in November 2021. I, like millions of people, think Jimi was one of the best and most inventive guitarists of all time, who died early, as many great musicians did in the sixties, at 27. And these biographies of musicians always give me a chance to sample their work. And it already has a high rating on Goodreads, with several breathless reviews I skimmed before writing this, so I write this review with some trepidation.
The book is written by Charles R. Smith, a biography in verse/song, spanning his whole life. It is illustrated by Edel Rodriguez really colorfully. Kids will like the color, and adults who survived the sixties will recognize what the publisher says is “acid-tinged” “psychedelic splendor.” I like that. I also like some of the backmatter, including a select discography, and the timeline of Hendrix's life.
What I didn’t like? Jimi Hendrix was a musical genius, a terrific writer, so you are taking on a real challenge when you write about a genius songwriter in song:
Let me tell you a story, a story 'bout a boy, who became a man, a git-tar man, named Jimi.
I just don’t think the quality of the writing is very good. It’s way too long, especially for a children’s book, with way too many words for a children’s book or any illustrated project. I liked the idea of the book, the conception, but thought the execution lacked. And a personal essay from the author at the end is about the connections between Jimi and Charles which, since I don’t know the author, seems sort of inappropriate, elevating the status of the author to the level of the subject.
And it’s not written with a kid audience in mind! So I give the writing two stars (because I did learn a few things I didn’t know about Jimi), and I liked the lively, colorful illustration. It’s an attractive book.
Like a bird on the wire Like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried in my way to be free Like a worm on a hook Like a knight from some old fashioned booLike a bird on the wire Like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried in my way to be free Like a worm on a hook Like a knight from some old fashioned book I have saved all my ribbons for thee
I am a life long fan of Leonard Cohen, so I was excited to read this, and I can't say I didn't enjoy it, but it feels like a smorgasboard of tastes/events/people, not adding up to a greater understanding of the man or his art. The appendix features all the famous people he met/worked with/slept with, reminding me of Richard Thompson's Beeswing, a fan gift, ooh, Sandy Denny! Oooh Mick Jagger, and in this book it is ooh, Joni! Ooh Rebecca DeMornay. We get more of a glimpse into all the women he slept with than his music.
The book opens with him at the end of his life, then we flashback periodically, but in the flashbacks we just skim the surface, it's an intro: Oh, Phil Spector was so crazy! He slept with Janis Joplin. I am not saying I still didn't like it, all of it is interesting to me on some level. And I love Philippe Girard's artwork a lot, actually, and this translation by Helge Dascher and Karen Houle seems excellent. But if you want to really know more about him, dig deeper, there's a good documentary, and listen to the music for a few decades, of course, but start with the early stuff.
Oooh, this is so good! Why didn't I hear y'all raving about this when it came out a couple years ago?! This is a graphic memoir with a focus on music Oooh, this is so good! Why didn't I hear y'all raving about this when it came out a couple years ago?! This is a graphic memoir with a focus on music and its relationship to the development of Pierre's twenties identity, including lots of break-ups. She's a musician, so that's central to her life, traveling around, performing, writing (mostly break-up) songs, performing, in and out of relationships with various men, but it is also specifically about mixtapes as the site of the now forty-something Pierre's sort of archaeological dig into her own life.
I really like how Pierre shares the lists of songs on various key mixtapes she makes for would-be boyfriends, old friends, family and how she analyzes her life through those choices. One turning point for her in her life occurs in 1994, when she listens to Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville and Hole's Live Through This, as she sees for the first time that someone else's music can speak directly to her own experience. Then throughout the book women musicians seem highlighted, though, interestingly enough, in the acknowledgements to key musicians she lists Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, Neil Young, and then one woman, Gillian Welch.
As a person who for decades made and gave away my own mixtapes, you had better believe I was digging through old musty boxes for those (now unplayable? Hey, maybe I can find a cassette player at a yard sale this summer!) mix tapes. Who was that guy, and how do my fave songs reveal who I am? More mellow, acoustic stuff for me, for sure. I always liked to dance, but there is almost no dance music on this stack of tapes. Folk, blues, Dylan, CSNY, James Taylor, Van Morrison, Motown.
Anyway, fun book with some deeper mining with therapists's help, of Pierre's emotional struggles. I think this is a completely relatable book, though I especially think she is speaking to younger women in lots of exploratory relationships, trying to figure her younger self out, inviting us to join her in reflecting on our own relationship choices. One of my fave graphic works I have read this year. ...more
A graphic biography/history of a seventies all-Native-American rock group called Redbone that weaves back and forth between the group and the Native AA graphic biography/history of a seventies all-Native-American rock group called Redbone that weaves back and forth between the group and the Native American history they became associated with. In the US they are known as a “one hit wonder” group because of this song,
which, when I played it, was named by teenagers in this house within six or seven notes as having been featured in a Guardians of the Galaxy film, which I now have have also re-viewed, as a result. This is what happens if you live in a house with teenagers: “We have to watch it, bruh, right now!”
It--the book--is pretty disjointed, kind of like the fan scrapbook it essentially is, but if you know little about twentieth century Native-American history you get sort of introduced to these important political events. In other words, the authors sort of assume you know about these things--the occupation of Alcatraz from 1969 - 1971, Wounded Knee in 1973. But Redbone was part of that history, and so we see a little into how they fit into AIM (American Indian Movement) and the protest at Wounded Knee.
The art work is also sort of patchwork, usually panel-less, then suddenly paneled, then not.moving around, ending with growing up; I like the coloring, and maybe the best thing I can say about the art is that it feels a little, like I said, like a scrapbook, where you get to meet Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, see billings for concerts; a kind of colorful, energetic dreamscape from a son and a fanboy (the creators) where you don’t dig too deeply into the band as people, but get to admire their political commitments.
This book is a love-fest, honoring these guys who were not so popular in the US as they were in Europe, and particularly in the Netherlands (!?). For instance, this song hit number one on the Dutch pop cheats and didn’t even chart in the US:
I was reminded when I read it of Sherman Alexie’s Reservation Blues, which is a novel/homage to the connections between Native American rock, the blues, and political commitments. The novel follows the story of the rise and fall of Coyote Springs, a rock and blues band of Spokane Indians from the Spokane Reservation who meet American blues musician Robert Johnson.
Anyway, Redbone is good, fun, especially if you like comics stories about (what now seem as) obscure rock bands. The distinctive thing here is that they were Native American and politically committed. It’s for me a three star book that I bump to four to encourage people to learn about the band, listen to some of the music, and delve into the history. ...more
Each year my family reads all the Goodreads-award-nominated picture books. Wild Symphony, written by Dan Brown (yes, that Dan Brown of the DaVinci CodEach year my family reads all the Goodreads-award-nominated picture books. Wild Symphony, written by Dan Brown (yes, that Dan Brown of the DaVinci Code) and illustrated by Susan Batori, is book #17 (of 20) of 2020. It’s kind of reminiscent for me of Disney style and purpose, the making of all that music for Silly Symphonies and so many great animated films. You can download music here with the book, composed by the author. Because Brown is best known for code-cracking, he includes a code throughout this book.
Hank (14): 3 stars. I like the code that he includes, which my two neighbors (five and eight) discovered when I was reading it to them.
Harry (15): 2.5 stars. I also like the letter code, though I admit I did not figure it out. I like the front pages with all the instruments depicted and named.
Tara: 3 stars. Even though I dislike rhyming books, I thought this was pretty good. But don’t put the stupid morals at the end!
Dave: 2 stars. Not wild, as promised, with flat rhymes and cornball characters. The story had no sense of originality to it. Will only be purchased to read by older adults, grandparents, who know and already have made Mr. Brown rich by buying all his DaVinci books, because this would not be a choice of most little kids, I think....more
Each year my family reads all the Goodreads-award-nominated picture books. Sweet Child of Mine, written by (rock and roll stars) Guns and Roses and ilEach year my family reads all the Goodreads-award-nominated picture books. Sweet Child of Mine, written by (rock and roll stars) Guns and Roses and illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin is book #19 (of 20) of 2020. It’s a song by Guns 'N' Roses which may be about Axl Rose’s daughter and how much he loves her, a very popular song that the publishers say is “one of the greatest reflections of love ever created.”
Hank (14): 3 stars. I liked the art better than the words.
Harry (16): 3 stars. My first instinct when I was reading this was that you could sing to it. Then my Dad told me that it was a song by Guns ‘N’ Roses! [that moment when your sixteen year old kid reveals that he has never heard of Guns 'N' Roses, but that's a joke, since I have never played their music once in this truthfully]
Tara: 3 stars. Kind of sweet.
Dave: 2.5 stars. Vanilla art, kind of sweet; if you are a fan of the group it looks like it is the story of rock star dad adoring his daughter, but it is a father-daughter book. I am too old to actually know what this song sounds like, wasn’t a fan when they came into superstardom, but I didn’t think it is a great set of lyrics. It may indeed be a great song, I dunno. Don’t hate me, fans, but I thought the publisher was kind of overselling the song in that quote above, though all fans with kids (who are soon to become grandparents) will have to own it....more
I happen to have read two graphic novels in a row that are both about music and are wordless. At a glance, they couldn’t seem more different; one is BI happen to have read two graphic novels in a row that are both about music and are wordless. At a glance, they couldn’t seem more different; one is Bix, by Scott Chandler about Bix Beiderbecke, a Davenport, Iowa pianist, cornetist and composer, one of the most influential musicians of the 1920’s. Bix didn’t talk much but communicated largely through his music. Loud, by Maria Llovet, takes place in a strip club with punk/rock music; it’s too loud to talk, one presumes; again, most of what you “hear” is music.
So both books are what I would call “art” comics (where formal, compositional elements seem to be foregrounded more than anything else), even “poetry” comics (where as with lyrical poetry, the comics foreground the juxtaposition of images as it is constructed--no, composed is the word at least as it pertains to these music books). Bix is a narrative, a biography of a quiet musician, but it proceeds as Loud does through images, the totality of which are. . . musical. But the effect is cool, dark, jazz, elegant. Impressive cartooning.
Loud has a narrative, and something dramatic at the end happens, but the narrative is not really the point, I think. The book is a series of images, that add up to. . .. music, but not jazz, but rather loud punk music roaring through the bar. In Loud we meet strippers, a pedophile looking for a young girl, a sadistic dominatrix, a divorcing middle-aged woman, two hitmen, but they swirl around in the drug and alcohol and music and nude dancing. “What’s going on” is more a sum of images than a story, though all the drama does lead to a conclusion, one that maybe fits the Tarantino-esque violence of punk more than jazz, but both feature deaths.
Llovet’s artwork is formally impressive; look closely at the formal progression of panel to panel, which is how comics speak, and you can see that it teaches a lot about how comics work to create a vision. Comics usually wed words and images. Both use words sparingly--Bix through one scene where his wife tries to get him to talk about his family; in Loud Llovet uses words for sounds, like bow, bum--those drums and bass throbbing-wob, crash, and a couple word bubbles throughout, but neither need words to help us understand what is going on. Impressive cartooning.
PS: I have family in Davenport, where each year they sponsor a race, "The Bix" and where the Bix Beiderbecke Museum is located:
I happen to have read two graphic novels in a row that are both about music and are wordless. At a glance, they couldn’t seem more different; one is BI happen to have read two graphic novels in a row that are both about music and are wordless. At a glance, they couldn’t seem more different; one is Bix, by Scott Chandler about a Davenport, Iowa pianist, cornetist and composer, one of the most influential musicians of the 1920’s. Bix didn’t talk much but communicated largely through his music. Loud, by Maria Llovet, takes place in a strip club with punk/rock music; it’s too loud to talk, one presumes; again, most of what you “hear” is music.
So both books are what I would call “art” comics (where formal, compositional elements seem to be foregrounded more than anything else), even “poetry” comics (where as with lyrical poetry, the comics foreground the juxtaposition of images as it is constructed--no, composed is the word at least as it pertains to these music books). Bix is a narrative, a biography of a quiet musician, but it proceeds as Loud does through images, the totality of which are. . . musical. But the effect is cool, dark, jazz, elegant. Impressive cartooning.
Loud has a narrative, and something dramatic at the end happens, but the narrative is not really the point, I think. The book is a series of images, that add up to. . .. music, but not jazz, but rather loud punk music roaring through the bar. In Loud we meet strippers, a pedophile looking for a young girl, a sadistic dominatrix, a divorcing middle-aged woman, two hitmen, but they swirl around in the drug and alcohol and music and nude dancing. “What’s going on” is more a sum of images than a story, though all the drama does lead to a conclusion, one that maybe fits the Tarantino-esque violence of punk more than jazz, but both feature deaths.
Llovet’s artwork is formally impressive; look closely at the formal progression of panel to panel, which is how comics speak, and you can see that it teaches a lot about how comics work to create a vision. Comics usually wed words and images. Both use words sparingly--Bix through one scene where his wife tries to get him to talk about his family; in Loud Llovet uses words for sounds, like bow, bum--those drums and bass throbbing-wob, crash, and a couple word bubbles throughout, but neither need words to help us understand what is going on. Impressive cartooning. ...more
The debut novel by Pimienta about Beatriz, whose grandfather has passed but whose soul inhabits a guitar. She has to release him from this, and to accThe debut novel by Pimienta about Beatriz, whose grandfather has passed but whose soul inhabits a guitar. She has to release him from this, and to accomplish this she has to complete his favorite song. In the process she develops a real obsessive passion to do this song perfectly, but finally learns to give up this perfectionist streak and become a collaborator with the band. The art is very expressive of the great music from the author's hometown of Mexicali. ...more
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