Over-nite Sensation, Zappa's Breakthrough

 OVER-NITE SENSATION

ZAPPA’S BREAKTHROUGH

Frank Zappa was already a phenomenon when, in September 1973, an album appeared that was completely different from anything he had made up to that point. OVER-NITE SENSATION is not generally regarded as his most important work, but it does mark the beginning of a series of highlights in his career. This is the fourth contribution by Wim Bot and Peter de Ruiter to a series in which groundbreaking albums or concerts from half a century ago form the common thread. Earlier articles dealt with Hendrix’s brilliant live performance of Machine Gun, L.A. Woman by The Doors, and the groundbreaking debut album by Roxy Music.

Thirty years after his premature death from prostate cancer at the age of 52, Frank Zappa (1940–1993) remains a controversial figure, with a large and loyal following on the one hand and people who consider him arrogant and overrated on the other. But above all, there are many people who have little affinity with his music.

Zappa’s music can really only be understood if you know that he saw himself primarily as an American composer, rather than as a rock star or guitarist. A composer who often conducted his own band on stage. And American: his work, full of complex rhythms — Zappa began as a drummer — was inspired by virtually every American musical tradition, from his idol Edgar Varèse (1883–1965), the avant-garde French-American composer, to doo-wop, rhythm and blues and jazz. His lyrics are full of wordplay and references and can only be fully understood through a profound knowledge of popular American culture. The result is a completely individual musical universe. As percussionist Ruth Underwood, who was a friend of his, put it: “What kind of music is that? Classical? No. Rock? No. Jazz? No. It’s Zappa.”

The album lasts less than 35 minutes, but with OVER-NITE SENSATION Frank Zappa took a surprisingly new direction. It was a break with his earlier albums. There are none of the long, experimental soundscapes from the early Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention period, such as the twelve-minute The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet from the debut album FREAK OUT! (1966). There are no full-side, cabaret-like performances such as Billy the Mountain from JUST ANOTHER BAND FROM L.A. (1972), performed by The Mothers with the much-praised Turtles duo Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (Flo & Eddie).

Nor is there chamber jazz such as on Zappa’s second solo album HOT RATS (1969), or the exuberant big-band jazz-rock of WAKA/JAWAKA (1972) and THE GRAND WAZOO (also 1972). No: seven relatively short, intense, punchy, fairly accessible and, for their time, crystal-clear recordings in a funky and jazzy rock idiom, packed with musical ideas. And ideas were something Zappa had in abundance from the very beginning of his tumultuous career.

Part of the rock press reacted extremely negatively to the album. Rolling Stone critic Arthur Schmidt was annoyed by its obsession with sex and called Zappa a “spent force.” Journalist Robert Christgau focused solely on the lyrical and musical irony and missed the “serious material.” And Briton Charles Shaar Murray wrote in New Musical Express that the album contained charming songs decorated with all kinds of musical attention-grabbers, “but it is certainly not one of Zappa’s most convincing efforts.” Later, he also criticized Zappa’s vulgar commercialism compared with his early albums.

In the Netherlands, reactions were mixed. Limburgsch Dagblad found the album a major disappointment; De Tijd thought it much more popular and understandable than was usual for Zappa; NRC Handelsblad spoke of “lots of jokes, lots of sex, lots of brilliant music,” while Trouw described it as pleasantly chaotic. The most extensive and nuanced review was by pop critic Elly de Waard in de Volkskrant on 8 September 1973, an article unfortunately not included in her substantial and attractive collection Het jasje van David Bowie (2015). De Waard considered OVER-NITE SENSATION better than the jazz-rock albums WAKA/JAWAKA and THE GRAND WAZOO, which she regarded as dull. Instrumentally, she found the new album virtuosic, although too complicated and heavy in its execution, but her final conclusion was that it was highly surprising.

Zappa’s fans were considerably less divided and embraced the album immediately. It also earned Zappa a substantial number of new fans. Before OVER-NITE SENSATION, he had been mainly popular in the alternative scene from which he himself had emerged. Only the jazzy HOT RATS had enjoyed wider popularity. OVER-NITE SENSATION remained in the US charts throughout the year and reached number 36, higher than Zappa had ever reached before. Songs from the album were performed live on every tour and became audience favourites. Thus I’m the Slime was still being sung loudly by young and older fans during son Dweezil Zappa’s last visit to the Netherlands in 2019.

OVER-NITE SENSATION was Zappa’s seventeenth album since his debut in 1966 and his first-ever gold record; by the time of his death in 1993, the tally had reached no fewer than 62. That amounts to more than two albums a year. When he was not on the road, he composed day after day, from early morning until late evening, kept going by large quantities of coffee and cigarettes. Drugs were not allowed in Zappa’s home and were not tolerated in his bands either; drug use was grounds for dismissal.

ZAPPA DEMANDED A GREAT DEAL FROM HIS MUSICIANS — NO DETAIL WENT UNHEARD

Musically, too, Zappa demanded a great deal from his musicians. No detail escaped his attention and he could sometimes be almost dictatorial. But what an incredible output. After his death, another 63 albums have been released, many of them live recordings and boxes of studio sessions. Most of these posthumous albums are mainly of interest to hardcore fans and add little to the work Zappa released himself. One exception is the three-disc album FUNKY NOTHINGNESS, released that summer, featuring some great performances of Chunga’s Revenge and surprisingly new material.

Zappa’s albums are characterised by the frequent use of tracks that flow into one another. His entire body of work is regarded as a unity through a “conceptual continuity” that he called “Project/Object,” with numerous musical themes, fragments of lyrics, ideas and characters continually returning. Each album was therefore part of a larger project and, naturally, material for Zappa scholars to interpret.

Permanent Injury

OVER-NITE SENSATION represented a comeback after a personally difficult period for Zappa. On 4 December 1971, his equipment caught fire during a live performance at the Casino in Montreux, Switzerland — an event that entered the history books in particular because of its reference in Deep Purple’s song Smoke on the Water, about the smoke hanging over Lake Geneva. Footage of the event can be found on YouTube. The fire was caused by the carelessness of a member of the audience and cost Zappa $50,000.

Six days later, at London’s Rainbow Theatre, he was pushed from the stage by a jealous audience member, resulting in a temporarily paralysed arm, a broken leg and a damaged larynx. He suffered permanent injuries: one of his legs was shorter than the other, something that is referred to in the songs Zomby Woof and Dancin’ Fool. The following year, from his wheelchair, he made the predominantly instrumental albums WAKA/JAWAKA and THE GRAND WAZOO with jazz musicians, featuring Ainsley Dunbar’s unparalleled drumming. He toured with both a large and a smaller line-up performing this material. The posthumous live releases from these tours sound less convincing than the studio recordings, incidentally. Above all, they demonstrate how magnificent the production was. For true Zappa fans, they rank among his very best albums.

Mothers

At the end of February 1973, Zappa began touring with a colourful group of musicians who left their mark on his sound during these years and whom we also hear on OVER-NITE SENSATION: master keyboard player George Duke (who had already played with the earlier Mothers featuring the Turtles), percussionist Ruth Underwood, her husband and multi-instrumentalist Ian Underwood, bassist Tom Fowler, his brother Bruce on trombone, Ralph Humphrey on drums, and violinist Jean-Luc Ponty. Sal Marquez was added on trumpet for the album.

This line-up of The Mothers, later supplemented by second drummer Chester Thompson and singer/brass player Napoleon Murphy Brock, who replaced Marquez and Ian Underwood, is regarded by Zappa fans as the best ever — better than The Mothers of the 1960s and the bands from the late 1970s onward.

When the album appeared, Zappa himself remarked:

“The instrumental combinations, the richness of the sound is so strange. The way the songs are delivered, the violins are above or below the chord, the clarinet is in the middle, sometimes alternating with the trombone, and the upper part is usually determined by the marimba or percussion. The drums often play the melody along with the rest. All of this is accompanied by a harmonic line or by doubling the marimba line on a synthesizer. In short, there are many complicated parts that are continually doubling — rhythmically and in other ways.”

Guitar Solos

Anyone who wants to witness how this process took shape and how subtle the instrumentation is can see and experience it in the episode of the documentary series Classic Albums (2007, also available on DVD) devoted to OVER-NITE SENSATION and APOSTROPHE (’), with a starring role for percussion wizard Ruth Underwood on her amplified electric marimba.

In the quotation above, Zappa does not mention his own impressive guitar solos — six in total, all razor-sharp and much less extended than the often overly long solos in his later work. They demonstrate just how great he was as a guitarist, and in our view he deserves a higher position on lists of the greatest guitarists of all time than the 22nd place awarded to him by Rolling Stone magazine in 2011.

Zappa did not see himself as a guitarist who wanted to impress with technical virtuosity, but as a composer who also played guitar. Characteristically, his solos are a collage-like mixture of composition and improvisation, influenced by the rhythm of words and by melody. Guitar Player magazine therefore compares his solos to symphonies, because they build on the melody.

Whatever else may be said, Zappa’s guitar sound is unique and instantly recognisable. He himself said:

“I’m there to play compositions. I want to compose instantly on the guitar. I want to change chords or a harmonic climate and I want to build a composition in the moment that has meaning, that opens up possibilities, that goes somewhere nobody else wanted to go, that says things nobody else wanted to say, that represents my musical personality, that has an emotional content that appeals to people who want to hear that kind of material.”

Songs

OVER-NITE SENSATION opens with the catchy uptempo melody of Camarillo Brillo, with horns, a complex rhythm section, driving drumming by Ralph Humphrey and Zappa’s unmistakable voice, which had become lower as a result of the accident in London. That voice is a major element of the album’s overall sound.

For non-Americans, the references in the lyrics — “is that a real poncho? / mean is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?” — are rather cryptic. Sears is a department store and is contrasted here with something authentically Mexican.

According to Zappa himself, the song is about a particular type of Californian hippie woman with “cartoon hair,” a kind of Afro hairstyle, and an interest in the occult (“She had a snake for a pet and an amulet”); the narrator enters her house and has sex with her.

I’m the Slime is a satirical attack on the dominance of television in the United States and on the all-powerful, intrusive commercial culture. Zappa delivers it in a compelling, impressively low and monotonous voice, as if in a television commercial, creating a fine symbiosis between form and content.

The grimacing face of Zappa on a television set from which slime is dripping is more or less the central motif of the intriguing album cover. The same image was also introduced during the live performance on the television programme Saturday Night Live in 1976.

The iconic album cover was designed by Dave McMacken, who had previously been involved in, among other things, the cover of the double album 200 MOTELS (1971). Zappa asked him to create a realistic design in a so-called “Dutch Master” style, in which all the objects depicted would form part of a larger story. The result was a genuine painting which, although it took several months to arrive, certainly did not disappoint.

The larger story becomes visible when the cover is unfolded. It is an ingenious, surreal-looking composition of a painting in a frame depicting a mirror in an overcrowded hotel room. In the mirror we see a two-headed, moustached road manager, a sturdy brown boot and some underwear (belonging to McMacken), a split-open grapefruit from which dirty juice is flowing, posters, an empty McDonald’s cardboard box, a voltmeter, the Hand of God, which may or may not be replacing a light bulb, a road map of Florida, an organic-mechanical arm driven by a bicycle pedal, complete with muscles and blood vessels, and a hand taking a cigarette from a packet, a glass ashtray and, finally, the television screen with Zappa’s grimacing face, a black-and-white digital print of Rare Meat, taken from the striking cover of 200 MOTELS.

Slime drips from the television, making its way onto a table in the hotel room. Zappa and his band members spent endless amounts of time in hotels and motels, where he wrote many of his songs. All in all, the cover depicts an “over-nite sensation”: an impression of a touring rock band’s Holiday Inn hotel room, filled with sexually charged symbolism, including the grapefruit that was used to provide the crew with an “over-nite sensation” — a roadie’s delight. The bizarre, overcrowded picture frame also explicitly depicts sexual acts.

Perhaps the song Dirty Love refers to such an “over-nite sensation.” It begins with a repetitive riff, contains two Zappa solos and ends, after much panting in the background, with an example of dirty love: oral sex performed on a poodle. The lyrics also include lines taken from commercials for dog food.

To mark its fiftieth anniversary, the album is receiving a deluxe edition in early November: a box containing four CDs and one Blu-ray Audio Disc, with previously unreleased material, alternative versions, live recordings, essays, etc. The box is also being released in a vinyl edition with digital extras.

The first side ends with the crazy Fifty-Fifty, sung by Ricky Lancelotti, who could imitate perhaps a hundred cartoon voices in one minute. His singing borders on the hysterical. The middle section of the song consists of an extraordinary succession of three solos. George Duke starts out on the magnificent pipe organ at Whitney Recording Studio, followed by Jean-Luc Ponty on baritone violin, which he makes sound like a wind instrument. Zappa himself finishes with a vicious guitar solo. Lancelotti then comes back in, while Humphrey and Fowler drive the song towards a spectacular ending with the horns.

Zomby Woof, the first song on side two, is musically the most complicated track on the album, full of unexpected twists and subtle sounds, something of an obstacle course for the musicians. Lancelotti also handles the vocals on this song, which refers to a three-hundred-year-old werewolf. One of the passages was played by the musicians in the studio both forwards and backwards. Zomby Woof ends completely unexpectedly with a kind of thud.

The funky Dinah-Moe Humm is about a woman who, quite audibly, reaches orgasm while watching her sister having sex as well, with an important role for a tool in the form of a pair of zircon-encrusted tweezers. At one point we hear:

“I got a spot that gets me hot / But you ain’t been to it / ’Cause I can’t get into it / Unless I get out of it.”

The album credits do not tell us who was responsible for the backing vocals. Suzanne Piet wrote in De Tijd at the time about “a black female chorus.” But it really was none other than Tina Turner and The Ikettes (Linda Sims and Debby Wilson). Ike Turner had forbidden their participation — for which Zappa paid $25 an hour — from being mentioned.

Tina and The Ikettes can be heard on five of the songs on OVER-NITE SENSATION. In the years that followed, audiences would always call for Dinah-Moe Humm as an encore; musically, however, it is actually the least interesting song on the album.

The final song on the album is another audience favourite, Montana, an absurd country-and-western parody about someone who plans to grow dental floss in that northern state, drives around on a small pony and harvests the floss with — once again — the decorated tweezers.

Zappa clearly had something about dental care. On side three of 200 MOTELS we find the utterly idiotic, Varèse-influenced Dental Hygiene Dilemma, while the cover of UNCLE MEAT features a huge set of teeth.

Montana contains a blistering guitar solo on Zappa’s Gibson SG (“This solo has everything in it I want from life,” said Sifa Graffiti of the video-review duo Sight After Dark), followed by an absurd interlude with Tina Turner and The Ikettes (“I’m pluckin’ the ol’ Dennil Floss / That’s growin’ on the prairie”) and an unforgettable outro with singer Kin Vassy (“Yippy-Ty-O-Ty-Ay!”).

When Tina Turner proudly played the interlude to her husband Ike, pleased that she had pulled it off with The Ikettes, he said, “What kind of crap is that?” and walked away.

Sexist or Sarcastic?

The lyrics on OVER-NITE SENSATION are material for music critics and historians, cultural philosophers, psychologists and linguists. You can see in them an extraordinarily misogynistic, adolescent obsession with sex, always viewed through male eyes, in which women are reduced to objects.

You can also interpret the lyrics as one great ironic commentary on American society and its inhibited attitude towards sex, which forms part of the dominant consumer culture in all kinds of conscious and unconscious ways. This latter approach was developed by Ben Watson in his massive and heavy-going analysis, full of sociological Marxist jargon, Frank Zappa and the Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play(1994).

It is clear that an album with lyrics like these would lead to controversy today, not only among conservative Americans — with whom Zappa himself frequently clashed — but also among the progressive “woke” community.

In the second half of the 1980s, Zappa became embroiled in a dispute with the conservative forces of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), led by Tipper Gore, the wife of Senator and Vice President Al Gore. This group campaigned for a system of stickers on albums warning about dangerous and obscene lyrics for young people.

As a libertarian free thinker, Zappa wanted nothing to do with such paternalism. He appeared at a congressional hearing and spoke out against every form of censorship. Zappa would not have been Zappa if he had not used the hearing in a composition: Porn Wars, a Synclavier composition on the album FRANK ZAPPA MEETS THE MOTHERS OF PREVENTION (1985).

Zappa himself always stressed that he wrote the lyrics for his own pleasure, nothing more and nothing less. What makes OVER-NITE SENSATION such a great album is not so much the lyrics themselves, but the way the words form a whole with the music rhythmically and metrically. Everything fits perfectly.

That is why many of Zappa’s compositions can be sung as well as played by different instruments. That does not mean that the lyrics were unimportant, packed as they were with references, symbols and images from American society. Zappa’s lyrics are never personal; even when written in the first person singular, they are never about his own emotions. Zappa is always the observer, the satirist.

The songs that are most personal, and therefore also the most moving, are about his youth and the studios where he began: Village of the Sun, Cucamonga, Joe’s Garage.

Duke and Underwood

OVER-NITE SENSATION marks a new phase in Zappa’s career. Shortly afterwards came APOSTROPHE (’) (1974), the superb live double album ROXY & ELSEWHERE (1974), and ONE SIZE FITS ALL (1975). Songs such as the Yellow Snow Suite, Echidna’s Arf (Of You) / Don’t You Ever Wash That Thing, and Inca Roads rank among the very best things he left behind.

The DVD recording of ROXY & ELSEWHERE shows how much fun Zappa and his musicians were having in this particular configuration of The Mothers. You can see him sitting on stage, smoking and enjoying himself. The film also shows clearly how important George Duke and Ruth Underwood were to the overall sound.

Duke, a powerhouse on electric piano, learned to use the synthesizer and to sing while working with Zappa, and as a jazz musician he brought a swinging funky drive and an additional capacity for improvisation.

The classically trained Ruth Underwood (born Komanoff) had played with Zappa since UNCLE MEAT(1969). As a student at the Juilliard Conservatory in New York, she attended a concert by the early Mothers; she had the feeling that Zappa’s compositions had been written especially for her (“This music was made for ME.”).

A conservative teacher at the conservatory did not appreciate her playing the song Oh No on the piano. Underwood is one of the greatest admirers of Zappa’s music. In Alex Winter’s 2020 documentary she testifies to this and plays a deeply moving piano version of Zappa’s impossible composition The Black Page together with drummer Joe Travers.

And in the aforementioned Classic Albums documentary she plays the breathtakingly fast marimba solo from St. Alphonso’s Pancake Breakfast once again (“Three mistakes, one for each decade I haven’t played it.”).

However good and tight Zappa’s later bands were, they never reached the fantastic, apparently loose level of the line-ups featuring Duke and Underwood, both of whom can be heard on dozens of albums.

The Balance

How should the fascinating personality of Frank Zappa, with his enormous musical legacy, be understood? According to his biographer Barry Miles, as a bohemian, a natural outsider, with the conception of the artist as a romantic genius.

Zappa embraced irony and satire and was often cynical: about politicians, television evangelists and commercial mass culture, but also about hippie culture and drug addiction. He had no interest in intellectual debates.

Ultimately, his motto in life was the one expressed in the song Packard Goose from JOE’S GARAGE(1979):

“Information is not knowledge.
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not music.
Music is the best.”

For us, the period of Zappa’s career that began in 1973 with OVER-NITE SENSATION and more or less ended in the late 1970s is unquestionably his very best.

We saw Zappa and his band shine in Rotterdam on 28 September 1974, in an almost sold-out Sportpaleis Ahoy, six days after the concert in Helsinki that was immortalised on the second volume of the series of live recordings YOU CAN’T DO THAT ON STAGE ANYMORE.

The burning cigarette tucked between the guitar strings had something magical about it.

But truly unforgettable was the moment when, in the middle of an impressive guitar solo, Zappa completely unexpectedly and at lightning speed came to lie down on the stage. For perhaps ten seconds at most he continued playing on his back, then, in one fluid movement, sprang back onto his feet just as quickly and resumed the guitar solo.

The concert was in any case very special and unusual for this tour, because after the interval Zappa mainly improvised extensively on guitar.

OVER-NITE SENSATION remains, fifty years after its release, an album of great stature that stands solidly from beginning to end and never becomes boring for a second.

Wim Bot and Peter de Ruiter

With thanks to Erik Verhoef, musician and guitar teacher.

Originally published in Dutch in Music Magazine Heaven, autumn 2023

Here I am with my friend Rob and Dweezil Zappa

Miles-Pat-Joni. Twee concerten en een album

Op dit moment werk ik samen met mijn neef Peter de Ruiter aan een bespreking van het album Hejira van Joni Michell uit 1976. Het is ons achtste gezamenlijke stuk voor muziekblad Heaven over albums die 50 jaar geleden verschenen, na stukken over Hendrix, The Doors, Roxy Music, Zappa, Robert Wyatt, Genesis en Dylan. Dat stuk verschijnt later dit najaar.

 

Tijdens het schrijven gingen mijn gedachten terug naar de laatste editie van North Sea Jazz, die ik zoals een aantal jaren gebruikelijk bezocht op zaterdag. Ik zag daar We want Miles, een groep alumni van Miles Davis onder aanvoering van bassist Marcus Miller, die optrad vanwege het honderdste geboortejaar van Miles Davis. Ook zag ik het optreden van gitarist Pat Metheny met het Brainteaser Orchestra, onder leiding van Tyn Wiebenga, die het album Bright Size Live uit 1976 samen integraal uitvoerden tijdens een uniek optreden. Daarbij was een glansrol weggelegd voor saxofoniste Kiki Sprangers.

Miles Davis en Pat Metheny hebben beiden een interessante relatie met Joni Mitchell. Met haar album Hejira continueerde zij haar ontwikkeling van folk tot een sterk jazzy eigen muzikaal idioom. Mitchell werd beïnvloed door Davis en met name door diens elektronische album In a Silent Way uit 1969. Ze noemde de asmosfeer daarvan “astraal”. Op North Sea Jazz speelde de band een indrukwekkende medley van In a Silent way en opvolger Bitches Brew. In het imposante oeuvre van Miles Davis worden beide albums samen met Kind of Blue tot de absolute hoogtepunten gerekend, ze staan ook aan de basis van de jazzrock uit de jaren zeventig. De muzikanten op de albums spelen daar ook een hoofdrol in; Wayne Shorter en Herbie Hancock werden later ook innige muzikale vrienden van Mitchell.

 

Bright Size Life is het eerste album van Pat Metheny, die inmiddels een groot aantal albums op zijn naam heeft. Het is net zoals In a Silent Way en Hejira een album dat ademt, waarop ook de stiltes tussen de subtiele, melodieuze tonen van Metheny’s jazzgitaar belangrijk zijn. Metheny speelde niet op Hejira, maar in de fantastische band die op het live-album Shadows and Light uit 1980 te horen is. Op Hejira speelt wel de bassist Jaco Pastorius in een adembenemend samenspel met Mitchells stem. Zijn zoemende fretloze bas is ook te horen op Bright Size Live, het werk van een trio. Pastorius, tragisch vroeg overleden, maakte ook deel uit van de Shadows and Light-band. Wat Miles was voor de trompet was Jaco voor de bas: een echte vernieuwer.

Ik genoot van beide optredens en luister sindsdien vaak naar In a Silent Way en Bright Size Live, albums die ik allebei aanschafte. Het zijn albums die ik koester, net als Hejira, dat ik beschouw als een van de grootste kunstwerken van de afgelopen eeuw.

De tragiek van Enest Mandel. Biografie van een spraakmakende revolutionair marxist.

Bespreking van Jan Willem Stutje, Ernest Mandel. Rebel tussen Droom en Daad 1923-1995 (Houtekiet/Amsab-Isg: Antwerpen/Gent 2007).Uit: Kritiek, Jaarboek voor socialistische discussie en analyse, 2008.

Toen ik in 1977 lid werd van de Vierde Internationale zei de historicus Fritjof Tichelman tegen me: ‘We staan allemaal op de schouders van Ernest.’ Zo voelde dat ook. Binnen de organisatie van Leon Trotski, die tegenover sociaal-democratie en stalinisme het revolutionaire marxisme verdedigde, was Ernest Mandel (1923-1995) de absolute politieke en intellectuele leider. Maar ook buiten de Vierde Internationale was Mandel een gerespecteerde marxist. Daarvoor zorgden zijn welbespraaktheid, enorme eruditie, debatvaardigheid, onbekrompenheid en zijn grote productiviteit. Voor de generatie van mei 1968 ontwikkelde hij zich tot de belangrijkste Europese socialist van na de Tweede Wereldoorlog.

Jan Willem Stutje, die eerder een omvangrijke biografie schreef over de CPN-leider Paul de Groot, schreef een 475 pagina’s dikke biografie over Mandel: *Ernest Mandel. Rebel tussen droom en daad 1923-1995.*¹ Stutje schrijft in zijn voorwoord het leven en werk van Mandel ‘vrank en vrij’ te willen onderzoeken en daarbij te beoordelen ‘wat het waard is om behouden te worden, en wat als achterhaald moet worden verworpen’. Hij besteedt zowel aandacht aan het theoretische werk van Mandel als aan zijn niet aflatende inzet voor de Vierde Internationale; daarbij betrekt hij ‘persoonlijke en emotionele ervaringen van dat leven [die] historisch relevant zijn’. Zijn terechte vertrekpunt is: ‘Mandel behoorde tot het slag socialisten dat in de tweede helft van de twintigste eeuw zeldzaam was geworden. Hij was een theoreticus die zijn wetenschappelijk werk opvatte als deel van zijn revolutionaire activiteit. Een engagement dat hij vanaf zijn vroegste jeugd in het raamwerk van de door Leon Trotsky opgerichte en geïnspireerde Vierde Internationale gestalte gaf’ (p. 10).

HISTORISCH RELEVANTE PERSOONLIJKE GEGEVENS
Voor mensen die het werk van Mandel in de breedte kennen en zelf op enig moment actief waren in de Vierde Internationale, zoals ondergetekende, bevatten vooral de delen over Mandels persoonlijke leven en achtergrond de meeste nieuwe en vaak verrassende gegevens.
Zo typeerde Mandel zichzelf als een ‘Vlaamse internationalist van Joodse herkomst’. Stutje schetst een bijzonder fraai beeld van vader Henri en het milieu waarin Ernest opgroeide, met het vanzelfsprekende geloof in het socialisme en de discussies met politieke vluchtelingen uit Duitsland. Al op vijftienjarige leeftijd sloot Mandel zich aan bij de Vierde Internationale – in 1938, het jaar dat deze officieel werd opgericht. Zo komt Ernest naar voren als iemand die letterlijk opgroeide met de ervaring van 1917, van de Russische revolutie en de hoop en teleurstelling die daarmee verbonden was.
Opmerkelijk is de passage over de eerste keer dat Mandel tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog wist vrij te komen uit Duitse gevangenschap. Stutje maakt aannemelijk dat Ernest door zijn vader met een fors bedrag is vrijgekocht en dat Ernests versie dat hij zich uit de Duitse auto kon laten vallen en vluchten op zijn minst niet de hele waarheid was.
Stutje besteedt ruim aandacht aan Mandels vriendschappen met beroemde socialistische activisten en denkers als Roman Rosdolsky, Ernst Bloch, Rudi Dutschke, Che Guevara en Perry Anderson. Binnen het milieu van de Vierde Internationale belicht Stutje de vriendschappen en kameraadschap met Abraham Leon, Ernst Federn, Michael Raptis (Pablo), Sherry Mangan, Charles-André Udry en François Vercammen. Door de beschrijving van deze vriendschappen kleurt Stutje het beeld van het internationale linkse milieu van na de Tweede Wereldoorlog in.
Ook de vrouwen in Mandels leven komen aan bod in Stutjes biografie. Nieuw voor mij was zijn grote liefde voor Micky Traks (eind jaren veertig/begin jaren vijftig), die onbeantwoord bleef en leidde tot zelfbeklag. Tragisch is het beeld van zijn Duitse vrouw Gisela Scholz, met wie hij in 1966 trouwde. Scholz werd ook zeer actief in de Vierde Internationale, maar was depressief en overleed in 1982. Volgens Stutje was Mandel niet in staat gebleken de relatie met Gisela volwassen te maken, hij probeerde in zijn leven het irrationele en gevoelens buiten te sluiten. Ongecompliceerder – maar door de kameraden minder begrepen – was de verhouding met de lerares en pianiste Anne Spimont, met wie hij in 1983 hertrouwde en die tot zijn dood bij hem bleef.

HET WETENSCHAPPELIJKE EN THEORETISCHE WERK
Het werk van Mandel verscheen – en de verleden tijd is hier werkelijk op zijnplaats – in meer dan veertig talen, in oplagen van honderdduizenden exemplaren.
Stutje vat alle belangrijke werken op een toegankelijke en adequate manier samen en plaatst ze in de ontwikkeling van Mandels denken. Belangrijk zijn uiteraard zijn economische hoofdwerken over de marxistische economie (Traité d’Économie Marxiste) en over het kapitalisme na de Tweede Wereldoorlog (Der Spätkapitalismus), de twee grote studies die tevens zijn bekendste werken zijn. Ook de werken over de historische ontwikkeling van het economische denken van Marx (La formation de la pensée économique de Karl Marx), en over de lange golven in de economie (Long Waves of Capitalist Economy) passeren uitgebreid de revue. Gelukkig behandelt Stutje ook de buiten de Vierde Internationale minder bekende, maar minstens even belangrijke politieke werken van Mandel: de diepgravende interviews over de geschiedenis van de arbeidersbeweging en revolutionaire strategie in Revolutionary Marxism Today; de beknopte maar briljante samenvatting van Trotsky’s denken in Trotsky, A Study in the Dynamic of his Thought; de originele en uitgewerkte analyse van oorzaken en verloop van de Tweede Wereldoorlog in The meaning of the Second World War en het scherpe essay The role of the individual in history: the case of World War Two, waarin de rol van het individu in bijzondere situaties in schijnbaar onmarxistische mate benadrukt wordt. Ook het buitenbeentje in Mandels oeuvre, zijn boek over de detective¬roman (Delightful Murder), is niet aan Stutjes aandacht ontsnapt.
De aandacht die Stutje aan de verschillende titels besteedt is over de gehele linie evenwichtig. Vooral het boek en het essay over de Tweede Wereldoorlog krijgen terecht veel aandacht. In deze historische studies toont Mandel een intellectuele rijpheid die niet in al zijn werk aanwezig is. Meer aandacht had Stutje mogen geven aan Mandels studie over de concurrentie tussen de VS en Europa – nog altijd een zeer actueel thema!

DE POLITIEK VAN EN BINNEN DE VIERDE INTERNATIONALE
De uitvoerige passages die Stutje besteedt aan het werk van Mandel binnen de Vierde Internationale, met al zijn ruzies, scheuringen en curieuze randfiguren, is voor niet-ingewijde lezers waarschijnlijk het minst interessant. Uiteindelijk is de Vierde Internationale in al zijn verschijningsvormen altijd en overal een marginaal verschijnsel gebleven, zonder wezenlijke invloed op de loop der geschiedenis. De historische betekenis ervan is beperkt en is gelegen in de niet aflatende strijd tegen het stalinisme en in de steun aan de koloniale bevrijdingsstrijd. Voor Mandel was de Vierde Internationale net als voor Trotsky een levenswerk. Stutje behandelt vooral de grote onderwerpen: het ontstaan van nieuwe stalinistische regimes in Oost-Europa, de intredep¬olitiek, Algerije, mei ’68 in Berlijn en Parijs, de opkomst en ondergang van Solidariteit in Polen, de val van de Muur en de ineenstorting van het stalinisme. Ontwikkelingen die minder eenvoudig binnen het interpretatiekader van Mandel en de Vierde Internationale passen, zoals de val van de sjah en de opkomst van Khomeiny en het islamfundamentalisme en de volkerenmoord in het Cambodja van Pol Pot, krijgen daarentegen weinig tot geen aandacht.

Opvallend afwezig in zijn beschrijving van de geschiedenis van de Vierde Internationale en de rol van Mandel daarin is de ‘turn to industry’ van het begin van de jaren tachtig. Toen duidelijk werd dat de beweging van mei ’68 over zijn hoogtepunt heen was verdedigde Mandel op aandrang van de Amerikaanse Socialist Workers Party (SWP) een politiek die erop neerkwam dat de leden die in de Europese secties actief waren – hoofdzakelijk (ex-)studenten – in de traditionele industriesectoren moesten gaan werken. Het kostte de Vierde Internationale vele leden, die niet begrepen dat hun open en kritische organisatie haar toevlucht moest zoeken tot dergelijke leninistische paardenmiddelen. Het ontbreken van deze cruciale politieke beslissing is merkwaardig, want op diverse plaatsen in het boek stelt Stutje dat Mandel vaak niet volledig voor zijn eigen opvattingen ging en zich binnen de Vierde Internationale bij een compromis in de leiding – in het geval van de ‘turn to industry’, bij de wensen van de SWP – neerlegde. Zeer uitgesproken geeft Stutje deze kritiek op pagina 258: ‘… iedere opstandige gebeurtenis bevestigde de juistheid van het perspectief. Was de zaak in het slop, een balans werd zelden gemaakt, voor zelfkritiek hield hij zich gesloten, liever ging hij over tot de orde van de dag. Deze ongeduldige adolescentenhouding hielp hem afstand te bewaren tot sleutelproblemen, tot een realiteit, die te weerbarstig was voor analyse en prognose. Maar het hielp hem ook zich in te beelden dat hij geestverwanten kon behoeden voor demoralisatie en het gevaar af kon wenden hen kwijt te raken.’
Vanaf de jaren tachtig ging het bergafwaarts met de Vierde Internationale en Stutje schetst feitelijk een tragisch beeld van de laatste jaren van Mandel. Zijn gezondheid liet hem in de steek, binnen de Vierde Internationale nam de jongere generatie het over en kwam hij geïsoleerd te staan. Hij moest toezien hoe het stalinisme viel zonder dat er in de verste verte een links alternatief ontstond. Hiertegen hield het overoptimisme van Mandel geen stand. Het leidde tot de volgende pessimistische ontboezeming: ‘De crisis van het socialisme is voor alles de crisis van de geloofwaardigheid van het socialistisch project. Vijf generaties socialisten en drie generaties arbeiders waren overtuigd dat het socialisme mogelijk en noodzakelijk was. De huidige generatie niet meer’ (p. 308).
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CONCLUSIE
Mandel was een bijzonder mens, die velen heeft geïnspireerd, zoals wordt aangetoond door de recensies van mensen die niet tot de Vierde Internationale hebben behoord (Bart Tromp, Hubert Smeets, Piet Piryns en Paul Depondt). Jan Willem Stutje heeft een mooie biografie … met belangstelling voor de recente geschiedenis van de socialistische beweging en het marxisme zou moeten lezen.
Als biografie is Stutjes studie zonder meer geslaagd. Jammer is wel dat het boek compositorisch te veel een aaneenschakeling van losse paragrafen en hoofdstukken is, waarin de rode draad soms verdwijnt achter details die niet altijd even relevant lijken. Minpunt is ook dat het een traditionele geschiedenis van bovenaf is, waarin de indruk die Mandel legde op ‘gewone’ activisten binnen de buiten de Vierde Internationale niet in beeld komt. Is Stutje ook geslaagd in zijn ambitie om uit te zoeken wat waard is te behouden en wat achterhaald is in Mandels erfenis? Het antwoord daarop kan wat mij betreft niet bevestigend zijn. Aan een kritische beoordeling van het wetenschappelijke en theoretische werk komt Stutje niet echt toe. Wel constateert hij terecht dat Mandel een synthetisch denker was, die als econoom geen school heeft gemaakt (p. 320).
In zijn slotbeschouwing gaat Stutje vooral in op Mandels spreekwoordelijke roekeloze optimisme. Niet voor niets citeren alle recensenten de anekdote over zijn bezoek aan Italië vlak na de Tweede Wereldoorlog, toen Mandel dacht dat de muuropschriften ‘Viva Internazionale’ op zijn politieke beweging sloegen, terwijl het natuurlijk om de voetbalclub ging. Die anekdote is zo mooi, dat ze verzonnen had moeten worden als ze niet waar zou zijn. Stutje haalt Michaël Löwy aan, die schrijft dat Mandel roekeloze optimisme vooral gebaseerd was op een antropologisch optimisme: het gebod om in verzet te komen tegen onderdrukking en het geloof in emancipatie van de mensheid. Stutje gaat zelf een stap verder en schrijft dat in de jaren tachtig een historisch tijdperk ten einde kwam, waarin ook de sociaal-economische structuur, de samenstelling en het bewustzijn van de arbeidersklasse veranderde. Hij vraagt: ‘Ligt niet in het herhaald uitgesproken geloof in de onaangetast gebleven objectieve kracht van de arbeidersklasse de grondslag van de roekeloosheid?’ (p. 325).
Het antwoord van Stutje op die retorische gestelde vraag blijft in de slotbeschouwing zoekend en tastend, binnen de ideologische kaders van het marxisme. Een antwoord zou ondubbelzinnig zijn: ja, in dat geloof in de arbeidersklasse en de onderschatting van de dynamiek en het aanpassingsvermogen van het kapitalisme en van de verworvenheden die de arbeidersbeweging binnen het kapitalisme kon bevechten, liggen de beperkingen van Mandel en zijn traditie. Zijn betoog begon en eindigde met wat historicus Eric Hobsbawm ‘de korte twintigste eeuw’ noemde: de eeuw die begon met de Eerste Wereldoorlog, en de hoop op de bevrijding en na de nachtmerrie van nazisme en stalinisme eindigde met de val van de Oost-Europese regimes en het verdwijnen van het socialisme als reëel maatschappelijk perspectief op enige afzienbare termijn.

Links naar documenten die relatie hebben met de posts

Hierbij een aantal links naar documenten van mijn hand die betrekking hebben op de posts in dit blog:

Fiets

Fietsdenken 1 https://www.fietsberaad.nl/getmedia/1009ce3d-90b7-4fb4-8450-35c308d24c43/Fietsdenken.pdf.aspx?ext=.pdf

Fietsdenken 2 https://www.fietsberaad.nl/getmedia/b485346a-46bb-43b8-a750-228cf03bc4bd/Fietsdenken-2024_1.pdf.aspx?ext=.pdf

In deze twee verzamelde stukken onder meer recensies van het Recht van de Sterkste van Marco te Brömmelstroet en Thalia Verkade en over het proefschrift van Jan Henk Dekker over een eeuw fietsbeleid.

Boek over 50 jaar Fietsersbond met slothoofdstuk samen met Esther van Garderen is downloadbaar via https://www.fietsersbond.nl/nieuws/vele-eenzame-fietsers-maken-een-vuist/.

Geschiedenis Nationaal Fietscongres: https://www.nationaalfietscongres.nl/nieuws/20220512-jublieumblog-wim-bot.

Terugblik werk als lobbyist Fietsersbond in het Spaans: https://ciclosfera.com/a/esto-si-es-amsterdam-entrevista-wim-bot-lobby-bicicleta-paises-bajos

Revolutionair-socialisme

Mijn boek over Sneevliet en het illegale Marx-Lenin-Luxemburg Front is hier te lezen: https://www.marxists.org/nederlands/bot/1983/fascism/index.htm.

Het vervolg daarop over het Comité Revolutionaire Marxisten (Generaals zonder troepen) is online te lezen in het Engels: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/holland/dutch01.htm https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/holland/dutch02.htm

Bespreking van biografie Ernest Mandel door Jan Willem Stutje: zie https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/preview/4731644613625184297/4410724296147833219 GroenLinks

Bespreking Pluche van Femke Halsema: https://www.wetenschappelijkbureaugroenlinks.nl/artikelen/halsema-en-een-deemoedige-les-voor-de-toekomst

Afscheidsrede Delftse gemeenteraad: https://delft.groenlinks.nl/nieuws/afscheidsrede-wim-bot

Stuk voor De Helling van Wetenschappelijk Bureau GroenLinks over Gyorgy Konrád, Cyrille Offermans, Oost-Europa en antipolitiek: https://dnpprepo.ub.rug.nl/10308/19/GL%20De%20Helling%20jrg-3%201990.pdf, p.24-32 (inclusief reactie Offermans).

The art of cycling policies. Keynote spoken at Rimini, Velo-city June 19 2026

Thank you very much. So, Wim Bot of the Dutch Fietsersbond is a veteran Dutch advocate and he would like to give us an overview of the many valuable insights garnered from all the editions he's attended over the years. Wim, the floor is all yours. Yes, thank you very much. And as we are all tired, I've decided to do my speech by heart. I hope it will work out fine. I have to stand here. And it's true, I think, that during this leadership we have had very interesting and good sessions on vision, advocacy and political leadership. Do you agree that we had good sessions this week? [applause] And in fact, vision, political leadership and advocacy have been a permanent feature of all those Velo-city's I visited. The first one was in 2009 in Brussels. And in my keynote I will focus on some of the most memorable sessions on these subjects I heard and reflect a little bit on their relationship.

And the first one that comes to mind is JanG ehl in Copenhagen in 2010, telling his story about livable cities and designing for people. And here's a famous quotation by him. And he was very important in the change that took place in Copenhagen during the decades. And here we see the famous example of the pedestrianized Ströget.

Then we had Gilles Penelosa also two times. First time in Sevilla in 2011. And he explained his vision of the 8 to 80 attitude, stressing that change could take place in every city and that the miracle was not to ask what city can do for cycling, but what cycling can do for your city. A very important approach.

Then we had Marco Te Brömmelstroet in Arnhem Nijmegen in 2017. I think the first keynote speaker to really dive deeper into the language and the concepts we use of motornormativity, although it was not named that way in 2017. And he criticized also the concept based on speed and flow and promoting a totally different approach based on social interaction and streets seen as public interaction. So I think that was also very important.

And when we come back to Gilles and Penelosa, I would like to stress that vision can also be very effective. But both were invited by the city of Rotterdam. Rotterdam was rebuilt as a car city after World War II. And they spoke to the urban planners, this is Penelosa during a visit in Rotterdam, and the city really changed its politics and now adopts the concept of the city lounge.

And when we come back to Marco Te Brömmelstroet, very famous is his comparison that car drivers act like geese in formation and cyclists behave like sparrows in a swarm. And that has been a very powerful comparison, very successful also in social media. And I think we can conclude that after Marco's keynote in 2017, there has been much more attention for language and concepts in the Velo-city's. And especially in this one, with the fantastic tribunal we had this week.

And then we had event Meredith Glaser, who built further I think on the concepts of Marco, stressing that change is not a technical intervention but a social one, calling upon us to act, to just do what we have to do. And that has been to dance with the system, which is also I think a very powerful metaphor.
A session we also cannot forget for even two times was by Carlos Moreno on the 15-minute city. And he now became, attacked very viciously, and became a scapegoat of the radical right. But I think what was interesting in his concept was that the concept of the 15-minute city is not just meant for the center of a city like Paris, but also for the periphery and the banlieues. So that was for me an eye-opener, and it explains the strength of this concept. Then we know that vision is not enough. We also need leadership.

And this is my old boss at Fietsersbond Esther van Garderen, and she was warning politicians for the last time here: put your money where your mouth is.

And fortunately enough, we have had very good leaders, like Jeannette Sadiq-Kahn from New York, who was also twice at Velocity. And, you know, she began to construct bike lanes using pilots and temporary interventions. And she was working very steadily on a plan she had in mind, which was a very strong concept, of course.

I think the same thing is now being built up around Elke van den Brandt in Brussels, who was also at Velocity, and is also meeting very heavy opposition. And I think it's important in Brussels that the reduction of speed, so 30 kilometers, is the core of the change they are putting through.

And this opposition we also saw, of course, in Ghent. Filip Watteeuw was also twice at Velocity, explaining his ideas of a circulation plan in Ghent, which was, by the way, also already promoted 50 years ago in the Dutch city of Groningen, with very much success. But he received many death threats. And what he said at Velocity was, I only got applauded on the day I introduced the circulation plan. I would have liked to have that support a bit more before.He also said, we always know who is against our proposals, but we never know who is in favor of it. And here we see the opposition as it was made visible by actors during the Ghent bike parade. So that was a very good part of that bike parade, I think.

Another leader I found very inspiring was Burkhard Jung from the city of Leipzig. And here he is standing beside Filip Watteeuw, because Burckhardt explained in very wise terms, I think, the need to understand our citizens and also to understand their worries, their sorrows, their opposition. And we are discussing this in relation to bikelash. But he did this in a very wise and convincing way, in my opinion.

And we also can note that we need sustained political leadership. Let me quote the example of Sevilla, which organized a very good Velo-city in 2011, but afterwards the election was lost to a right-wing city government and all the cycling programs were paused.

So sustained political leadership is very necessary. And then, besides vision and leadership, we need strong advocacy, role models, strong organizations. And we see many of those in the Velo-city'st too. This is the map that was used by Stein van Oosteren, who spoke in Lisbon. They were able to unite the many cycling organizations in Paris and then they were able to use this map as a powerful focus, too.

And inspiring figures are also people like Amanda Ngabirano from Uganda. [applause] I don't know if she's here. But also Daniel Guth from Brazil. People working in very difficult circumstances. Although here it's not that difficult. Amanda is a fellow city, Sevilla, in 2013, speaking to some other advocates.

And even more inspiring thinking, I think, was Shannon Galpin, who was in Arnhem Nijmegen. She wrote this book on how she organized women's cycling in Afghanistan under the Taliban. And I think she was one of the first keynote speakers stressing the relationship of the bicycle and emancipation of women. And we can also conclude that after that edition, the role of women at Velo-city became much more important, including the network women in cycling and all that goes with it. [applause]

I want to end with some reflections on the relationship between those three aspects. Because they always operate in a different situation, in different phases of strength. And we must understand and analyze that relationship in order to be able to know what we can do.

And for that it's also very necessary to analyze the broader field of mobility and the broader field of society and trends taking place. And I've always been impressed at fellow city by speeches, by speakers like Philippe Cist, Karin Vancluysen, and Kevin Mayne, who always were able to sketch those broader dimensions. For me, very useful.

And we must understand that we never operate in a void. Always in a specific situation. And that's why I use the term the art of cycling policies. Here we see one by the famous Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in Rotterdam. But after yesterday evening, it should have been a Brompton with shoes on. Also, the art of cycling.

But the art of cycling is to decide which steps you can take towards the realization of your goal. And I think this is much more based on intuition than on scientific model. And the art is to frame your message in a little bit different way, to change the related weight of your arguments.

And I think, I must say, I was inspired by... We are now in the country of Antonio Gramsci, one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century. [applause] But we have to operate as if we are in a long-term war of position, in which we have to gain hegemony. We have to build alliances. And we must gain cultural influence. And it takes a long time. We have to realize that.

And we have just had a discussion on bikelash. And I think we are living in a very contradictory situation at the moment. Bikelash and the rise of the radical right on the one hand, and cities leading in the transformation on the other hand.

And I think it's really a very complicated dialectic. And to solve this, we have to act with optimism of the will, as Gramsci said. And I think this also means especially to involve citizens actively in the politics we propose, to support the politicians leading the transition, and to defend the positions of cycling with courage, determination and confidence.

Very important. And for this, it's absolutely necessary to realize that we must defend democracy and the democratic rights of democracy organizations. Otherwise, we cannot achieve anything. That was my message to you Velo-citizens, thank you. [applause]