Onetime boxy Toyota / WED 6-28-23 / Saxophonist who pioneered modal jazz, to fans / Classic collection from the magazines Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction / Fabric derived from wood pulp / Stereotypical shout-out on a jumbotron

Constructor: Matt Fuchs and Victor Sloan

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: animals in things — familiar phrases that involve animals being "in" things, represented visually by said animal crossing said thing:

Theme answers:

• PARTRIDGE in a PEAR TREE (3D: With 14-Across, first (and last) gift of a seasonal song)
• FROG in one's THROAT (10D: With 15-Across, cause of some hoarseness)
• SNAKE  in the GRASS (30D: With 38-Across, hidden traitor)
• ANTS in one's PANTS (35D: With 42-Across, source of restless anticipation)
• BEE in one's BONNET (58D: With 62-Across, persistent little obsession)
• CANARY in the COAL MINE (44D: With 59-Across, harbinger of danger) 

Word of the Day: modal jazz (43A: Saxophonist who pioneered modal jazz, to fans (TRANE)) —

In musical parlance, the word “mode” simply means “scale”; it is often used to describe a scale other than major or minor. Our present-day major and minor scales derive from the “modes” of medieval music, which in turn derive from the music of ancient Greece. Modes were used as a resource by some relatively modern classical composers like Debussy and Bartok, who felt the need to go beyond traditional major/minor tonality. In the 1950s, jazz musicians also began to work with modal approaches.

The term “modal jazz” refers to improvisational music that is organized in a scalar (“horizontal”) way rather than in a chordal (“vertical”) manner. By de-emphasizing the role of chords, a modal approach forces the improviser to create interest by other means: melody, rhythm, timbre, and emotion. A modal piece will generally use chords, but the chords will be more or less derived from the prevailing mode. [...] Miles Davis, always a trend-setter in jazz, utilized this approach in his composition “Milestones” (1958), on the album of the same name. The structure of this tune is AABBA. The A sections are based on the G dorian scale; the B sections are based on the A aeolian scale (see “The Classical Modes,” below).

His next album, Kind of Blue (1959), is the definitive example of modal jazz, and was a pivotal moment in the evolution of jazz. [...] 

The modal approach was pursued further in subsequent recordings by Miles and by other jazz artists. John Coltrane’s work in the 1960s with pianist McCoy Tyner advanced the modal concept in an intense, even spiritual direction (e.g., his albums My Favorite Things, Impressions, A Love Supreme), and deeply affected the subsequent development of jazz. (Peter Spitzer, jazzstandards.com)

• • •

It does what it does, and then it keeps doing it. This seems like a clever concept, but it played really flat, and knowing the concept made all subsequent themers easy to uncover, and since the themers all ran in two directions, knowing the themers made whole sections of the puzzle easy to uncover. So it was a bit like a child's game, but instead of "What sound does the cow make?" or whatever, it was "What's the froggy in? What's the birdy in?" Etc. I cannot fault the execution–it's very theme-dense, and the fill holds up reasonably well under the circumstances. I also like, or at least don't mind at all, that the answers aren't perfectly symmetrical, or that the connecting words in the phrases are not all the same (i.e. "in a" "in the" "in one's"). The grid has been built specifically to isolate the themers into their own little sections, their own little habitats, and then each section has been carefully constructed around its themers. This is why you have such a segmented grid (those NE and SW corners are particularly dramatically cordoned off). So it's all very neat, but it was all very same-same, and ultimately very simple. I am impressed that they found enough animals in enough things in enough familiar phrases to make this one work out. A CAT in the CRADLE would've been remarkable (especially if you could've worked SILVER SPOON into the grid somewhere), and WOLF in SHEEP'S CLOTHING would've blown my mind. Maybe that's the issue I'm having—none of these animal phrases were big or bold. They were all very ordinary, with nothing rising to marquee-level material. [side note: I know CAT / CRADLE wouldn't have worked because of specific phrasing, just let me enjoy the song]

Was worried about the fill at first, especially with 1-Down being A-PAT (!?!), which is about as terrible a partial as I can imagine under any circumstances ever (1D: Pit-___). I also have no idea what ALPINISM is, but I'll take the puzzle's word for it that it's a mountain-climbing sport. Sounds like a lifestyle, like NUDISM, but OK, "sport," fine (now if NUDE ALPINISM is your thing ... well, respect). By the time I got to SPIT AT, I'd grimaced at least three times at the fill, and by UAR it was up to four. But grimacing mostly ceased after that. INSIDE MAN and GOES BROKE gave the puzzle some life, and the Alanis clue made me smile remembering the time in the mid-90s when NPR had an English professor on to talk about what, precisely, was—and was not—IRONIC about the putative examples of irony in the song "IRONIC." Oh my god, I just confirmed that this radio spot actually happened! I can't find a recording, but here's the description at NPR's site (The president of the MLA! 1997! I can remember exactly where I was standing in my girlfriend's kitchen when I heard this, LOL, memory is weird):

Weird to go to the boxy bygone car for an ordinary word like SCION. Maybe editors knew this was gonna play way, way too easy and they needed a speed bump or two. Four "AT"s today seems particularly bad (AT SEA AT LAST SPIT AT GRABS AT). Like ... that's a lot of "AT"s. Even if you don't care about two-letter words, that is a lot of "AT"s for a non-"AT"-themed puzzle. Yeesh. I don't know if I loved either EUROAREA or STYLE TIP, but I thought they were at least original- and inventive-seeming, so that's something (63A: Currency zone whose members include Finland and Malta + 65A: Advice on a fashion blog). 

Anything need explaining? The TAT clue was very clever, I thought (18A: Parlor decoration, for short) (a decoration you get on your body, not ... I don't know, a Tiffany lamp or decorative ashtray or something). Ooh, [Flat sign] definitely held me up for a few seconds for sure (TO LET). I was looking for a musical flat, or maybe a sign that your tire (tyre!) had a flat. I guess the "flat" part means that the phrase "TO LET" is primarily British (their version of "For Rent"). You can't argue with the clue at 45A: Noted seashell seller? SHE definitely does sell them. Down by the seashore, I hear. I've never seen her, but people talk about her a lot. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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