Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

/I i.-* jC 'True Grit Dog of the South Charles Portis (Knopf) By Lehman Stiles Entertainment Editor America as a country seems particularly fond of the state of being on the road. All the country songs, all the movies about rambling loners point out a restlessness, a continual longing, not for security but for motion. In his novel The Dog of the South, unaries Fortis, autnor of True Grit, sends yet another loner out on yet another Quixotic quest, commenting on the American fascination with the highway and revealing in the process much more than he possibly intended. For this is a weak novel; the loner is a sketch v lininsnirina ? j y ? vr*" ---o character, the journey is jerky and unrevealing. Yet Portis communicates with effective subtlety, and while the 1; featured 01 By Dale Smoak Gamecock Staff Writer Ira Sullivan is not a household name in jazz. He left Chicago in the sixties and moved to Miami, a city with virtually no jazz scene at the time. Sullivan helped to change that, but recognition of his talents has been slow. This is due in part to the fact that musicians of many talents often escape categorization. Sullivan, on Peace (Galaxy GXY-5114), plays trumpet, flugelhorn, flute, alto flute, and tenor and soprano saxophones. j] Album Review j| Sullivan's multi-instrumentalism is not a gimmick. His is the type of musical personality that needs all the horns he plays. Doubling amone wooHwinH nlauprc C ? ^ is nothing new. Rare, though, is the musician proficient on instruments from both the brass and woodwind families. Sullivan is. Sullivan is on tenor for Cole Porter's "I Get a Kick Out of You," which is taken verv fast His fi#?rv ? ~ - x" duet with drummer Billy Higgins is fluent and inventive despite the tempo. Sullivan's soprano work is showcased well on guitarist Joe Diorio's "Gong." His lovely flute highlights "Vento Bravo." On Horace Silver's "Peace," Sullivan opens on flugelhorn, switches to wm:"* tenor for lliSi SiPrnnH caIap - ^viv/, (illV4 OUIVM on flute before ending. This dazzling display of talent is completely justified by the musical quality of his contributions on each horn. My only complaint is with "Send in the Clowns," a dreadful treatment of a dreadful song. The slow and, I suppose, tender treatment stays very close to the melody mrougnoui, reminding mo of the many sentimental treatments of the song by talk-show singers. Sullivan's only contributions are melody statements on soprano and trumpet. Diorio shares the solo spotlight with Sullivan, playing fine solos t hroughout < execpt t he aforementioned "Clowns") After ;i long Hiatus, .Sullivan Has born recording lately. I hope (hat this album w i J J make a larger public aware of the talents of TrVi SriMivan >urney is hi ' author's r reader recognizes the weak points of the novel, he also recognizes *u_ i 1- ? uicti uic uwk generates an aimosphere that conveys meaning well. One feels the force of this novel without ever seeing whence it originates. The plot centers on Ray Midge, whose wife has run off with her first husband (and Ray's Ford |Book Review j n. fl Torino) to the British Honduras. Ray takes off in hot pursuit, thinking that "I was already cuckolded but I wouldn't appear so foolish, I thought, if I could get my car back without any help." That Ray is pursuing the car and not the wife is not lost on the reader as a further indication that mobility is more desired than stability. And that sentiment lies at the azz talents n new LPs Henry Threadgill is another multi-talented musician. He is a member of Chicago's A ACM, the remarkable musical cooperative whose members include Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell and other vital musicians of the seventies. Threadgill's X-75, Volume One, lArista Novus AN 3013), showcases both his compositions and his playing. Threadgill uses the unusual combination of four reed players f imiiiwp ^ a r /vmmr (doubling), wordless voice and four basses. His uses of the instrumentation are resourceful and imaginative; Threadgill's alto saxophone, flute and bass flute moves, dances and swirls around Amina Claudine Myers' vocals in various combination with the other lines. Although the texture gets dense at times, identifiable time is usually forthcoming from the bass section. "Celebration" opens with bowed basses (including a piccolo L ? ml ? ? uass>. inis lovely section has a folk theme running throughout which remains after the basses switch to pizzicato and after the entry of Myers and four flutes (piccolo, flute, and alto and bass flutes). "Fe Fi Fo Fum" starts as a sort of medium tempo bebop tune and is in a countable four-four, remaining so even after the texture becomes extremely dense. One of Threadgill's solos (on alto saxophone) has him adopting a first-sax-lesson sound a la Roscoe Mitchell and has gotten funnier to irn; eacn listening. There are two other memorable compositions from Threadgill on the album; it is really impossible to cite highlights and useless as well, for the quality here is consistently good. The music is at times very complex and requires careful and repeated listenings to hear it well. It is strikingly l., ? : r.. i 4 * - in-<illMIUl ai llITieS. Threadgill is on a par with other major AACM composers such as Braxton and Leo Smith. His playing hero, taken with his past work, has shown him to ho one of the most promising young saxophonists on the scene today. His new album is certainly one of Mt<?'Modhighlight" r?f 1070 ? ?? ighlight of lew novel heart of this novel: people are noi aware of life unless they see ii relatively, moving along with it joining in the strange, wonderfu dance. A great many "college novels" express this thought: th< brash individual revolting against the security of suburban life. It is z credit to Portis that his book is ai all interesting, faced with this glu' of sameness. Portis' writing, though, is constantly under nar nnnrpp Mrs. Midge's first husband, is oi course an important character, bui he is unbelievable, and his unreality haunts the book. Portis prose style is stark, journalistic; not a good style to use in a novei that dwells so upon the subtleties ol plot. Portis needs often to em phasize or subordinate; his plol runs together into one long event. Fn "In South Texas I saw three int first was a tiny girl, maybe ten j 1965 Cadillac.She wasn't going v passed her, but still she was cr with her head tilted back and her 1 little hands gripping the wheel. "Then I saw an old man walk strip pulling a wooden cross b mounted on something like a j spoked wheels. I slowed down lettered sign on his chest: 'JACKS BUST.' "I had never been to Jacksonvil the home of the Gator Bowl and I boom town, taking in an entire c< thing. It seemed an odd destina nilrfri w w ?,,U^ pugi mi. x cnaiicc may ut: IUI S(J some bargain he had worked out! just a crazed hiker. I waved and wishing him luck, but he was inte and had no time for idle greetings and I was convinced he wouldn't b I?- $1?? off I | HAVE \ ! ? l ROCK - J 0 I 1 BUDOITi A < 1 SPECIAI Hi i tioo * *w m &\ ? ME I 1 ; However, that is usually the way t that such journeys happen. And i this is themysteryof The Dog of the t South, that Portis has conveyed t meaning even in his swmina prosaic inadequacies. If the main ; character is shallow, is not the true , sojourner a mere blur to the lives F he passes? t Novel after novel throughout > literary history has portrayed the ' individual going off in search of , fame and fortune; i.e., his own I identity. The disturbing thing F about The Dog of the South is that Midge is not looking for anything t beyond his beloved Ford Torino. Thp stnn0P thincrc that hannon tn 0? B" """v "J'l'V-" vvr im 'Dog of the Sou eresting things. The "The third intere: /ears old, driving a bed trucks all piled ery fast, because I cantaloupes. I wasf uising right along, bottom ones werer mouth open and her weight, exploding juice onto the high ;ing up the median curved surfaces. Tc ehind him. It was far in my mathemai *olf cart with two knew now that I ne io read me nana- would never be a i IONVILLE FLA OR made a B in Static when I withdrew fi le but I knew it was best was one called had heard it was a else hated it becai aunty or some such memorize but I love tion for a religious tried to explain to L me terrible sin, or being pulled and c< with God, or maybe and sheared but h< I called out to him, kind of thing came, ;nt on his marching way those people dc l-llO c* f tif no KmioIf o ?1 ? . mo oiljj waa ui li\ ciuu t'uuiuil I UO ust. suggesting the presc Regular Priced Abumi MfE GOT A SELECTI Iff-OUTS!! >ut off print - hard AZZ rrom CLASSICAL . BACK TO on all Re; ff Albums & Ta 1 Per Cu ^ ? - - JU ?0<M? *o Sop "?cord f 2500 D Phon< him are lost on him; nothing especially pleases or shocks him. This practiced literary distance is unneeded in a first-person novel like this; Midge seems almost catatonic in the face of everthing from a strangely abortive love affair to a full-blown hurricane. The Dor of the South is far from being well-written or important, but it is thought-provoking. Its very in adequacies tell much about the American folklore of the road. Portis takes us on that road ; he is a poor guide, but beneath his words we hear the current of real meaning of life in motion running strong. > th' sting thing was a convoy of stakehigh with loose watermelons and imazed. I couldn't believe that the l't being crushed under all that and spraying hazardous melon way. One of nature's tricks with >pology! I had never made it that tics and engineering studies, and I ;ver would, just as I knew that I lavy pilot or a Treasury agent.I s but I was failing in Dynamics nm tho fiolH TV-? n r>Al T lilrrvrl I W... vi.v 11VIU. 1 11V VUUkOC 1 11IVCU Strength of Materials. Everybody use of all the tables we had to d it, the sheared beam. I had once )upree how things fell apart from impressed and twisted and bent i wouldn't listen. Whenever that he would always say - boast, the > - that he had no head for f igures things with his hands, slyly jnce of finer qualities." i-Tapes ? ? ? ? i ON OF J I HI I ? i to find LP's) S J > Mc <?" ?? wp 1 o ^^99 ? Jm up tS ? B SCHOOL I l i. Priced ? ' IF pes with Ad. | istemer ; ft. 8, 1979 ! m m is & Tapes i I ???ker Blvd. la, SX. 29206 \ 5 788-0800 J I mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mtm mm mm m