Comments on: One Night in Birdland

By: neuroshrink

neuroshrink — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 17:20:54 +0000

There’s a track that I think records Monk having one of those “moments.” I believe it’s “The Man I Love” off Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants (memory hazy on this). When it is time for Monk’s solo, he starts playing the main theme at about half speed, and then sort of tapers off and stops playing until a sax comes in to sort of give him a nudge/suggestion. I had always thought it was Monk being kind of musically perverse, but maybe it was a bit of disordered thought. I think that’s also the record where you can hear Monk arguing with other players at the beginning of one of the tracks.

By: Clifton Wiens

Clifton Wiens — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 13:14:41 +0000

Great post. As for other songs about stays in mental institutions – yes there are many others. James Taylor’s “Knockin Round The Zoo” is about his stay in McLean’s. “Hotel California” is rumored to be about a friend’s stay in Camarillo, it of the Parker song.
The rock genre is replete with songs about mental illness, if not about mental institutions. “Brain Damage,” by Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett); “Manic Depression” by Jimmie Hendrix; Warren Zevon’s ouvre is replete with songs about mental collapse, rehab, and so forth. (Think “Detox Mansion,” “Excitable Boy,” “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.”)
And speaking of Bird and jazz, I highly recommend, if you haven’t read already, Geoff Dyer’s imagined accounts of the lives of several jazz musicians (based on their bios), “But Beautiful.”
Cheers, Clifton @cliftonwiens

By: Lesath

Lesath — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 01:43:57 +0000

You may be interested in the album “Electro-Shock Blues” by Eels, which contains several songs about psychiatric treatment and commitment to mental hospitals, although as far as I know they’re in reference to the singer’s sister’s life and not his own. It’s also just an amazing album all around — poignant, haunting and funny.

By: David Griliopoulos

David Griliopoulos — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:25:32 +0000

by good fortune, i listened to the cracking song ‘used to be in evil gazebo’ by half man half biscuit this morning, from their album ‘trouble over bridgwater’. i think it’s on spotify, though there’s a live version at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPX7aOv7vqg

By: Hugo

Hugo — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:12:18 +0000

I don¬¥t know if this interests you in any way, but there is this CD, Diagnose: Lebensgefahr (band name) – Transformalin (album name), which supposedly is a therapeutic/rehabilitation album suggested by the ward he (Nattramn) was institutionalized. It¬¥s a quite bizarre experience and not an easy listen, but interesting none the less. There¬¥s not much information on the web that I could find to substantiate this claims, and they have taken down most the information from their main site and put on some weird stuff. Here¬¥s what I¬¥ve got:
http://www.myspace.com/diagnoselebensgefahr
http://diagnoselebensgefahr.com/
http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=8476 (Nattramns ex-band)
The album is on some torrents/blogs for download e.g. bunalti.com