Bass Cathedral (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780811217200)

Los Angeles, October 1982: Molimo m'Atet, formerly known as the The Mystic Horn Society, is preparing to release its new album Orphic Bend. The members of the jazz ensemble--Aunt Nancy, Djamilaa, Drennette, Lambert, N., and Penguin--are witness to a strange occurrence: while listening to their test pressing, the moment Aunt Nancy's bass solo begins a balloon emerges from the vinyl, bearing a mysterious message: I dreamt you were gone.... Through letters N. writes to a figure called Angel of Dust, the ever-mutating story unfolds, leaving no musician or listener untouched.Bass Cathedral is Mackey's fourth volume in his ongoing novel with no beginning or end, From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate. Thought balloons morph into mute-stereoptic emanations; N. encounters a master mouthpiece-maker; Drennette leaves Penguin dateless; Lambert's kicking it around with Melanie--much is abuzz but something else is happening to the ensemble. The music seems to be living them. N. suffers cowrie shell attacks and they are all stranded on an Orphic Shore. Socio-political forces are at play or has this always been the essence and accident of the music's resilience? And Hotel Didjeridoo must be resurrected, but how? Myth spins music spins thought spins sex--Mackey's post-bop boxless box set is, as the Utne Reader wrote, "Avant-garde literature you can love: an evolving multivolume novel of the jazz world that plays with language and ideas the way Thelonious Monk plays with flatted fifths."

Author: Nathaniel Mackey
ISBN-10: 0811217205
ISBN-13: 9780811217200
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Language: English
Published: 01/01/2008
Pages: 224
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.28w x 0.60d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 11/26/2007 pg. 30
New York Times Book Review 02/24/2008 pg. 25
New York Times Book Review 03/02/2008 pg. 26
NY Times Notable Bks of Year 12/07/2008 pg. 9