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Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America
Essays examining American society discuss such topics as the Central Park rape, the cultural significance of authors Don DeLillo and Amiri Baraka, and the music of Miles Davis, and Wynton Marsalis
285 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1992
26 people are currently reading
1,408 people want to read
About the author
Greg Tate
35Ìýbooks65ÌýfollowersGreg Tate is a music and popular culture critic and journalist whose work has appeared in many publications, including the Village Voice, Vibe, Spin, The Wire, and Downbeat. He is the author of Flyboy 2: The Greg Tate Reader, Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America, and Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience, and the editor of Everything But the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture. Tate, via guitar and baton, also leads the Conducted Improvisation ensemble Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber who tour internationally.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
August 7, 2020
Saw him on a Miles documentary and pulled this one off the shelf. Omg I had no ability to appreciate this text as a 20-yo. Just like Miles' 70s albums which the author has me ready to tackle. Eternal
May 8, 2019
Not everything here is perfect and sometime Greg Tate is a smarter rather than clearer writer when unadornment would serve the asubject and the argument better. But reading "Flyboy" you realize you are in the presence of a genius, a voice reaching down from the cosmos unlike any you have ever heard. And so you forgive it when its once-in-a-while too twisted or loud or muffled or sharp. Because when it is quiet, you are better for having heard it, better for your listening and it makes you want to be better too.
November 27, 2022
«ÌýAll that can steady you is the spine of cultural confidence and personal integrity.Ìý»
«ÌýTo be a race-identified race-refugee is to tap-dance on a tightrope, making your precarious existence a question of balance and to whom you concede a mortgage in your mind and body and lien on your soul.Ìý»
«ÌýThe idea that the human brain first began functioning in Europe now appears about as bright as Frankenstein’s monster.Ìý»
«ÌýNegative gesture can be just as important as positive thrust.Ìý»
«ÌýTo be a race-identified race-refugee is to tap-dance on a tightrope, making your precarious existence a question of balance and to whom you concede a mortgage in your mind and body and lien on your soul.Ìý»
«ÌýThe idea that the human brain first began functioning in Europe now appears about as bright as Frankenstein’s monster.Ìý»
«ÌýNegative gesture can be just as important as positive thrust.Ìý»
March 16, 2022
Other than the Central Park 5 essay (which, who could blame Tate at the time, but yEESh), this is so, so good and so full of pitch-perfect cultural criticism that is both jocular and genius, appreciative and critical. Rest in Power!
October 26, 2021
Good read.. hard to relate to the first half of the book but still an interesting read. Black art will always be the most influential.
May 17, 2024
In New York at the Savoy a white woman asks me don't I think Sunny is just like Bob Marley. I'm feeling Irie so I am cool.
"This is different music from a different world."
"Yes, but don't you think he could get on MTV with this stuff? Do you watch MTV?"
"Try not to."
"Why is that?"
"Why? Because it's racist. There's never any black acts on it. Shit, Michael Jackson can't even get on MTV."
"Yes, but this is so different from mainstream black pop. I think young white suburban kids could really get into it. I mean, don't you think he could be like Marley?"
"I don't think we know yet what Sunny's impact is going to be."
"Oh, but I think I do! I think young white kids are really going to get into this stuff. You know, you should really try to be more visionary in your thinking."
I want to tell her I don't give a fuck if young white kids get into Sunny Adé but she whirls around and is gone. And so there, once again, stands one more black man stewing over what some white person thinks."
"This is different music from a different world."
"Yes, but don't you think he could get on MTV with this stuff? Do you watch MTV?"
"Try not to."
"Why is that?"
"Why? Because it's racist. There's never any black acts on it. Shit, Michael Jackson can't even get on MTV."
"Yes, but this is so different from mainstream black pop. I think young white suburban kids could really get into it. I mean, don't you think he could be like Marley?"
"I don't think we know yet what Sunny's impact is going to be."
"Oh, but I think I do! I think young white kids are really going to get into this stuff. You know, you should really try to be more visionary in your thinking."
I want to tell her I don't give a fuck if young white kids get into Sunny Adé but she whirls around and is gone. And so there, once again, stands one more black man stewing over what some white person thinks."
June 6, 2022
JUNE
by
Finish date: 05 June 2022
Genre: Essays
Rating: B
Review: Flyboy in the Buttermilk (ISBN: 9781501136979)
#20BooksOfSummer22 "Flyboy in the Buttermilk" by Greg Tate an American writer, musician and long-time critic for The Village Voice 40 collected essays 1981-1991
by
Finish date: 05 June 2022
Genre: Essays
Rating: B
Review: Flyboy in the Buttermilk (ISBN: 9781501136979)
#20BooksOfSummer22 "Flyboy in the Buttermilk" by Greg Tate an American writer, musician and long-time critic for The Village Voice 40 collected essays 1981-1991
Read
February 14, 2023As a collection of what I think Greg Tate does best (usually music and art criticism, with a bit of straight-up theory talk on the side), I think I might actually prefer Flyboy 2. But this is also worth checking out (if you can find it - it's been out of print for a while now unfortunately), especially for "Yo Hermeneutics!", one of his best cultural/philosophical analysis pieces by way of book review. And the music writing is great, as usual. RIP.
December 3, 2016
Read this a loooooong time ago. I wish there were more writers like Tate today: a unique stylist who can stretch across and make sense of purt-near all the arts. But I have to remember: we still have Tate!
September 13, 2018
A very good selection of essays on contemporary Black America.
October 4, 2018
At first, I thought it might be dated. After I was done, I was a changed gotdamn man.
January 20, 2022
A stunning collection of essays on race and America. Sad to see how much of this is still relevant and on point 30 years on.
March 17, 2022
Nobody wrote about music and culture like Greg Tate.
April 12, 2022
Maybe the 1980s were more interesting than they appeared during that dreary decade.
April 19, 2022
Stunning. This review does a better job of describing my thoughts than I could have: /review/show...
July 16, 2023
Greg Tate wrote that the Miles Davis Quintet was practicing particle physics. They operated at a higher order of frequency. There was action painting and automatic writing but their achievement may've been greater. It's close to modern poetry--singular voices, abstractions wondrous and strange, defamiliarizing "the standard." They were the epitome of style. Miles tugged his ear and walked away like so what. Teenager Tony Williams grew a mustache. Herbie Hancock channels the hants of Debussy and Ravel. Shorter came in from Morocco. Tate's essays on "Electric Miles" and George Clinton allowed me to listen through the voodoo polylayers and love the mess.
Read
May 17, 2010Early 90s anthology of author's articles, columns, etc. So far, seems like man is poised perfectly to tell you about some stuff you don't know regarding African American music in the early '80s. Author drinks free on me for telling it like it was RE: art ghetto-ization of avant-garde jazz (two beers for stumping for Agharta when jazz guys were politely looking the other way when it walked into the room), African Americans' early reactions to contemporary African music, the possibility of mainstream rock music made by black people, and shit-talking with George Clinton. Dude won't shut the hell up about Jimi Hendrix, but maybe dudes needed to be talking about Jimi Hendrix in 1982,'3,'4 & '5. If so, he's got it covered. Behind it all are the nascent rumblings of a hip-hop takeover and I'm doing a pee-pee dance waiting for that shit to break.
December 13, 2021
I thought this was a great read. It achieved that rare feat of not only informing me but it also revealed to me artists, such as Basquiat, who, to my everlasting disgrace, I had only a scant knowledge of. It has also led me in the direction of new reading. Any book that can achieve these feats not only deserves the rarity of 5 stars from me but also warrants investigation by you.
June 23, 2008
Exhilarating, Tate's jazzy/hip hop wordflow essays on the NYC funk/hip hop scene of the late 80s and early 90s is a real time capsule-- an emerging post colonial sensibility wrestling w/ older African Am cultural nationalism and identity. Includes a moving essay on Basquiat.
October 15, 2012
Flyboy in the Buttermilk by Greg Tate
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Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on
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