Larry Kart's jazz book

[Joe G]

someday I will tell a nasty Zappa story about him and the AEC.

Tell us a story Uncle Chuck!

[Chuck Nessa]

As I said Joe, someday.

[AllenLowe]

NOW! (pleeeeeaaaaaaase)

...don't make us beg -

[AllenLowe]

Zappa was a complete control freak, and really didn't pay the band very well - he did very well with his publishing income over the years and ended up dumping that first band, which was probably his best - still, I love the music, and there has never been anyone remotely like him in the US - I remember seeing him at Columbia University, 1968. I was all of 14 and it was quite a fantastic experience. One think I've always believed is that, as contemptuous as he acted toward mainstream rock and roll, he really loved the music. That night at Columbia he introduced Sam the Sham in the audience, brought him up, and did a letter perfect version of Wooly Bully -

Edited January 18, 2005 by AllenLowe

[Big Al]

Wow.... can't wait to get to that part of the book. Heck, I'm still way back in the "Generators." -_-

[JSngry]

Crank harder!

[Big Al]

Crank harder!

(Took me a few minutes there.... )

[JSngry]

Good things come to those who wait.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Like a 10% tip from the jerk at table 3?

Mike

[Lazaro Vega]

I've been jumping around in the book....Yeah, Larry, it reads exactly like that: the verisimilitude of looking through the window at a Hurricane. Believe it!

Zappa's last tour, nearly if not last concert, came to Muskegon, Michigan. Jazz from Hell. His guitar solos that night created sounds in shapes as opposed to "lines." Oh, there's a trapazoid. For real. He only came to Muskegon because of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. He said so from the stage. At that time the Muskegon Chronicle was the only paper the criminal in Jesus' name was speaking to. Zappa asked in allusion to Jim Baker, "What is it that creates such a person? Is it the air, maybe the water, or is it just THE DIRT?"

The band, which included the Fowler Brothers and some wicked bad ass mallett players, played "Stolen Moments."

By the way, guys, have your ass examined. Zappa should still be with us. (He died of prostate cancer if I'm not mistaken. If not, forget the previous literalism).

Did you catch his allusion to the Fascist Theocracy in the Crossfire clip? How prescient was that?

[AllenLowe]

yes, he died of prostate cancer - and, somewhat ironically given his stern opposition to drug use, Zappa was a heavy smoker -

[johnlitweiler]

Chuck, what does the AEC say about Zappa? Somewhere Zappa said that the AEC set a fire inside a concert tent in Belgium or France.

[johnlitweiler]

Dang, this new computer sends e-mails before y'r finished writing them.

About rules and breaking them and avant-garde -- the musician's need to play outside is what's important. Express yourself, Von keeps saying. Steve Lacy, who started as a teen-aged swing-dixie musician, gives a great description of breaking through to outside musical expression in Improvisation by Derek Bailey. The most pertinent thing said on the subject may have been by Ornette: teaching Cherry and Haden to play with him in the 1950s was a case of teaching them to be more confident in themselves.

While I'm rather inclined to agree with Allen, etc. about organizing solos to develop or at least reflect themes, there are always brilliant disorderly people like Paul Rutherford (at least in Discreet Harm of the Bourgeoisie), Bailey, Bennink to prove us wrong. But maybe total disorder is another kind of thematic improvisation.

Jazz In Search Of Itself is a wonder. Great to learn from. In about every article Kart points out something fundamental to the subject that I never noticed before. That's a great unsentimental style of writing; as a neighbor says, reading him is like listening to the music again. But, I think, freshly. Much as I admire writers like Giddins and Francis Davis, they drop out about where Kart digs in.

[jlhoots]

Write on, Mr. Litweiler, write on.

[AllenLowe]

I agree with John, and would add that, while I personally tend to prefer certain kinds of approaches to open soloing, that I would not reject less conventionally organized solos - I have heard Joe McPhee, eg, play many times in a manner which is much different from, say Ornette; the good improvisor creates his own frame of reference. I like the concept of noise and pure sound, but I also feel that many of the possibilities inherent in it have been played out. Where I object is in the confusion of mannerism with style; I also have the sense that the avant garde has now defined it's own brand of cliches (it's been, lets face it, almost 50 years since this approach was first clearly defined);The burden of the improvisor is to say something new within these new kinds of confines. I also have issues with length of performances, and the inability of many musicians to self edit -

[Christiern]

Allan: "I also have issues with length of performances, and the inability of many musicians to self edit."

I have seen that as a major problem over the past 40 years.

[johnlitweiler]

Just read a thoughtful, intelligent review by David Bloom of Kart's book -- it's on the Chicago Tribune web site, in the Books section. (from the Tribune on Sunday, Jan. 16)

[Big Al]

Just got past the two articles about Ellington's "The Sergeant Was Shy." I have to stop reading this book right now, for fear of spending a lot of money I don't have on music I shouldn't be getting right now!!!!

[JSngry]

You can always get more money (hopefully...).

But lost time is not found again.

Read the book, buy the music, and have a better (musical) life for the duration.

[Lazaro Vega]

From the Chicago Tribune

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NONFICTION

An impressive, edifying anthology of jazz criticism

By David Bloom. David Bloom founded Chicago's Bloom School of Jazz in 1975. He has just released a CD, "Duende," co-written with Cliff Colnot

Published January 16, 2005

Jazz in Search of Itself

By Larry Kart

Yale University Press, 342 pages, $35

When jazz saxophonist Johnny Griffin was asked the meaning of "improvisation," he replied, "the excitement of not knowing." That may sound perplexing coming from a major jazz artist. A musician at Griffin's level certainly sounds like he knows what he's doing and what he's going to do. But that's the beauty of great jazz: searching for truth in the moment. And it's ironic that the greater the player, the less he knows, beforehand, about where he is going.

That's what drew veteran jazz critic Larry Kart--and many of us--to the music in the first place. The premise of Kart's book, "Jazz in Search of Itself," is that jazz is, among other things, " `a form of self-enactment in sound.' And the music provides us with any number of instances of the need to keep writing openly and honestly in the book of life."

Kart has amassed an impressive collection of his reviews and interviews, originally published in Down Beat magazine and the Chicago Tribune (where he was a critic and editor) over his 40-year career, as well as liner notes and other commentary. Kart reveals edifying and interesting insider information on more than 70 jazz musicians, singers and composers. These range from the familiar (Griffin, Billie Holiday, Sonny Rollins, Tony Bennett, Stan Getz and Sarah Vaughan) to some of the more obscure players known only to jazz aficionados (Herbie Nichols, Al Cohn, Tina Brooks, Hank Mobley and my old bandmate, Chicago's own Wilbur Campbell).

Amplifying Griffin's quote on improvisation, Kart makes a strong argument that all great jazz has the quality of newness--whether you're listening live in the moment or years later. He quotes music historian Carl Dahlhaus:

" `Newness is also an aesthetic factor. . . . What is seemingly most transient--the quality of incipient beginning, of `for the first time'--acquires a paradoxical permanence. Even half a century later it can be felt in almost undiminished form, and as an immediate aesthetic quality at that."

That's why, when you listen to a John Coltrane record, his playing sounds like he just discovered what you are listening to right now, some 40 years later. The sound of musical discovery can never be dated or dull.

Kart never shies from questioning popular notions, as in his effective article distinguishing trumpeter Wynton Marsalis' virtuoso technique from the qualities demanded for inclusion in the pantheon of jazz. (I found it interesting that in his interviews with Marsalis and with guitarist Pat Metheny, I felt more heart and sincerity from their words than I do from their music.) In "The Marsalis Brothers Further On," a 1984 review of a performance by saxophonist Branford Marsalis (Wynton's brother), Kart writes, "What Coltrane left behind was not a `hip' style but a drive toward ecstatic transcendence; and when Marsalis fiddles with Coltrane's techniques while he holds the implicit emotion of the music at arm's length, the results can be distressing." Kart not only delivers an incisive critique of Branford Marsalis' musical effort, but in doing so he describes a generation of jazz musicians who are excellent instrumentalists but who don't maintain the urgency, intensity, emotional commitment and individuality necessary for them to be included in the pantheon of jazz innovators. Unfortunately many of these players use their technique to hide their feelings rather than to show them. Their music may wow you, but it will never move you.

Kart's reviews of Mobley, Campbell and some of the other unheraldeds are respectful and interesting. It is refreshing that he awards some degree of justice to the many fabulous players who may not have been innovators but were high second-tier players and have received little or no press recognition. One minor criticism: I don't feel Kart places McCoy Tyner in the right echelon. Tyner not only influenced thousands of piano players, he was perhaps the last major piano innovator. His numerous masterful solos on Blue Note recordings as leader and sideman, and his brilliant playing with Coltrane, show he was on the cusp of first-tier jazz greatness.

In jazz writing it is easy to get carried away with romantic images while giving short shrift to analysis and intellectual scrutiny. In his essay "The Jazzman As Rebel," Kart traces the mythologizing of jazz musicians as "[r]enegades, rebels, outsiders, outlaws" back to the notions that "jazz is a `noble savage' phenomenon whose practitioners break all sorts of musical and social rules in order to let some fresh air into our overcivilized world" and that the jazz musician is "a darkly romantic hero, a descendant of Shelley and Keats who wears social rejection as a badge of honor."

Kart mixes a strong historical awareness with insightful observations about aesthetics and the psychology of jazz players. His writing is well-referenced and reverential. He doesn't mask an unadorned love for the music and the musicians, but he is no sycophantic pushover. Indeed, it is clear that in interviews Kart could only have brought out the musicians' feelings, confessions and astute observations by making his interviewees confident that he was, in a way, one of them. The result is sort of a de-deification that highlights the pure humanity of highly revered jazz artists with such skill that even those who haven't yet heard these musicians will be able to relate to their soul.

As a jazz educator, I found it particularly interesting to read Kart's commentary on the movement of the jazz scene from the street to the classroom over the last 40 years. In the book's final piece, "Jazz Goes to College," Kart visits classes at two of the most prestigious jazz schools in the U.S. and concludes that jazz can, indeed, be taught. But, he writes, "if, as Coleman Hawkins said, the mechanical aspects of the music can be taught, is its nonmechanical side also open to instruction?"

That's a fundamental question. Can you teach emotion, creativity, imagination, curiosity, individuality or point of view? Kart says no. He quotes Tom McKinley, composition and jazz instructor at the New England Conservatory: " `Those who have succeeded will always tell you the same story--that they lived and breathed what they believed in, even if they had to go through some pretty hard times.' " And Kart beautifully illustrates the external and internal forces that can sabotage the making of jazz.

Kart observes, however, that jazz innovation has slowed in the last 40 years, compared to the art form's first 60 years. With the passing of the great jazz players--and with seemingly no new innovators to step into the masters' shoes--it is questionable if anyone will create a similar aesthetic impact, as opposed to a commercial or public-relations impact.

"Jazz in Search of Itself" deepens a reader's respect for and appreciation of jazz players, their lives, their search and what their journey can teach all of us. Kart makes an undeniable case that the defining characteristics of great jazz are the overpowering emotional commitment, imagination and, above all, vulnerability of musicians who regularly--and always in the moment--wear their emotions on their sleeves. It's a primer not only for jazz lovers but also for anyone who wants to live his or her own life as an individual. All it takes is to embrace "the excitement of not knowing."

[Larry Kart]

A nice (and long, more than 2,000 words!) review that was posted yesterday at All About Jazz:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=16236

[John B]

Larry,

I ordered a copy of your book last night. I am really looking forward to digging in!

[JSngry]

A nice (and long, more than 2,000 words!) review that was posted yesterday at All About Jazz:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=16236

Dude, why can't you learn to love Bill Evans?

[AllenLowe]

When I read Larry's work I sometime feel the way pianists who listen to Tatum feel - it makes me want to give up the pen for reasons of gross inadequacy -

[JSngry]

Pen envy?