Mister Ross is always a thorough and surprising scholar who is also flat out fun to read. Every time I read Ross, I never know how much is his schtick and what is sincere. No one needs to announce listening to Coltrane's Ascension while eating breakfast to have creed (but that happened in an Orange County rag decades ago). They insist we must also like.
I either like it or I don't. And that is a LOT of music in the like column. But I am not paid to "work" for music. Be that as it may, I listen to a lot of Bartok, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Varese ... some modern is fun, much is not.
It's culturally bigoted to insist that we must like 20th century -- or any period of western music. I bet a lot of people digging on Varese and later era composers are haters on the Late Romantic period. "Too thick, too syrupy" they would complain. Then don't listen. My Dad is not insisting, but he loves it to no end.
