Jump to content

They Got A House Music Show On KNTU Now!


JSngry

Recommended Posts

In The House

Guess it's been going on for over a year, but I just heard it a few months ago. This cat plays the good stuff too!

Here's hoping that the "jazz studies" types take a lesson and learn what swing is really all about. Sticks up the collective asses is not conducive to good swing. No matter how "sophisticated" the stick might appear, it's still a stick, and it's still up their ass.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd be interested to hear it. I listened to a lot of house & house-influenced rock circa 1989-93--I don't say that in the spirit of "been there, done that," but some of the modern house-influenced jazz I've heard has sounded pretty dated. It's certainly one of the directions jazz might be taking and even should be taking, though I'm never in favor of lame beats. (Er, rhythmic or literary! :g ) I mean, I think we'll always have the "classic" jazz format in terms of instrumentation, just as we still have string quartets and orchestras... and it will be represented to some extent in small clubs, etc. That's also still what I love to listen to most. But I've thought for a long time that "jazz"--jazz in the sense of a living, growing music--will surely not be your dad's jazz, so to speak--and will just naturally be incorporating turntablism, etc. into its sound. It already is, with varying degrees of success. So far Monday Michiru hasn't quite clicked for me the way she has for Jim, but I think I understand the aesthetic way she's struck out in, and I can understand why that way excites Jim. OTOH pokin' a stick up folk's asses is likely to make 'em dance, but maybe not in the manner that you intended. ;)

I'll try to catch that show Sunday night while I'm on vacation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, a lot of the house-influenced jazz I've heard has been lame. They don't give it up to the pulse the way they need to. Either that, or they haven't figured out how to make the machines really groove like the best house cats have. Whatever.

What I've definitely gotten over is my esthetic objections to using "machines" to make "non-electronic" music. Hell, unless you're a singer, you can't make music w/o using a machine of some type (and the argument could be made that the vocal mechanism is itself a machine, so...). If you gotta get it out of a case, or put it together, or plug it in, or do anything other than just use what you were born with, it's a machine. Period. The problem for me has been that the machines (mostly the drum machines) haven't felt natural. Well, now either the technology's advanced, or the programming skills of the users have advanced, or both have advanced, to where you can lay down a serious groove using machines. No, it doesn't "sound real", but it feels real, and that's all I'm looking for.

Myself, I think that the problem that "jazz" is going to have with all this is that the music's gotten so hung up on certain prideful and inflated notions of "tradition" and shit that even those who make a sincere effort are going to have subconscious blockage against letting go of it, and that's going to come out. Tradition is good and all that, but it's like inherited money - the further away you get from the person who actually earned it, the more it becomes a hindrance to finding your own self. Claims of "entitlement", for whatever reason, fall flat to me when all I hear as a result is second-hand glories filtered through third-hand lives played for fourth-hand audiences. That shit can go on indefinitely (and no doubt will), but... no thanks. I mean, it's all good, really it is, but no thanks. Nothing personal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A show on House Music is good news?.... I guess I'll leave the stick up my ass. :D Jim...ahhh...do you even LIKE jazz anymore? I get the idea that jazzbos gotta broaden their horizens, but isn't this more of a personal quest for Sangrey?

Hell yeah it's good news. Damn near everything that passes as "dance music" on commercial pop/R&B radio is prefab, soulless, grooveless bullshit. This shit is the real deal, real dance music, made by and for an audience who knows the difference. I've played a lot of gigs for championship-level "push dancers" (and some pretty damn good salsa dancers w/Latin bands) and have learned that real dancers have a feel for the subtleties of groove that most people, including a lot of musicians, don't. So any exposure for real dance music for real dancers is a good thing. Real always beats phony.

Funny thing, though, how many jazz musicians are outright repulsed by the notion of playing dance music, or of dancing in general. I understand all too well the disgust that comes from playing lame music for lame dancers, but tell you what - when the real shit happens, it's beautiful in a way that few things are. It's almost spiritual. Hell, it probably is spiritual. But we don't even give ourselves the chance to go there, at least in part because the opportunities are so rare. But I wonder how many of us wouldn't take advantage of it if the opportunity came along. What -we're "jazz musicians" and "artists", and by god, you're supposed to LISTEN to us, show us RESPECT and keep your asses in your seats at all times? FUCK that!

I think that too many, far too many "jazz musicians" today are actually sociophobes (is that a word?) at root, and intentionally make music to keep themselves seperate from anything resembling "normalacy" as far as human interaction goes. That's a far cry from just being who you are and if it's different, it's different, big deal, we can still party. And then, these same people who none-too-subtly give out the vibe that they don't want to be liked by any but a select few have the nerve to get bummed and pissed off when that's exactly what happens (a certain quartet in Dallas comes to mind... :w ). It's nuts, I tell you, literally unsane! Yet it's the rule more often than not.

"Average people" are far more sensitive to the vibes a player gives off than generally given credit for. You can play the most horrendous shit with a good vibe and it'll be liked. You can play the hippest shit with an aloof vibe, and it won't be (other than by similar people, of whom there really aren't that many). Well hey - why not play hip shit, deep shit, and give off a good vibe about doing it? Why is that such a difficult proposition? Do you want to actually reach people, or do you want to prove something about either them or yourself? Or about both?

Sure, there's always going to be some dumbasses who simply refuse to get it because they're convinced that what they know is all that matters. But they're the doppelgangers of the players who just as simply refuse to give it because they're convinced that what they know is all that matters. Music is nothing without spirit, and the same notes played with a good spirit is totally different music than the same notes played w/a bad one. It may sound the same, but it won't feel the same. I'll tell you what - if all I can have is an audience who responds only to feelings of superiority, I don't want an audience. If I can't get an audience with at least some people who don't know shit about what I'm doing but get a good feel from the music, then I'd just as soon not play. Becasue I feel that my music is a source of joy for me, and that joy is a blessing, and that blessings are meant to be shared with everybody, including strangers. And I see too many of us not wanting to talk to strangers. That's good advice for a six-year old, and there you have the whole thing in a nutshell right there.

Do I "even LIKE jazz anymore"? Would I be going off on this tangent if I didn't?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, totally unfamilair to me. What's the deal?

They belong to the somewhat pretentiously titled genre "IDM" (intelligent dance music). Wikipedia sez:

Many describe Autechre's music as cold and austere, whereas others perceive a warmth and sentimentality that touches even the most cerebral pieces. Much of Autechre's music has a strong focus on complex rhythm, driving percussion, and meticulous sequencing. Often unusual rhythmic loops repeat and change incrementally, with the music constantly in transition. Sometimes patterns are set against one another, implying several time signatures at once. Later work has been notably experimental and abstract, in contrast to the more club-friendly and conventional early 1990s releases.

Reactions to their music have varied. Many of their tracks contain complex or chaotic rhythms and close harmonies which some hear as random and noisy. Fans of their recent work tend to find the value of their music to lie in its unique fusion of rhythmic and melodic elements, percussive noises being tweaked to sound like they have pitches, and clustered, often inharmonic synthesizer patches implying numerous melodic lines and chord structures simultaneously. A recurring element in Autechre's work is the use of extremely short snippets of sound to create a fragmented, grainy effect.

I have one of their albums, Tri Repetae++. It's excellent.

Edited by Guy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Autechre and other 'IDM' music is cool, but to me not quite the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of electronic artists that play 'groovy dance music for the people'. :D

The stereotypical 'four-to-the-floor' house beat is so ubiquitous over here that I've pretty much grown tired of it over the years, but there's still lots of interesting stuff happening in electronic music.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The stereotypical 'four-to-the-floor' house beat

Which we refer to as...

boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The stereotypical 'four-to-the-floor' house beat is so ubiquitous over here that I've pretty much grown tired of it over the years, but there's still lots of interesting stuff happening in electronic music.

Yeah, that took some getting used to, but I got over it by A) finding some stuff that actually didn't have it (or where it was more subtle) and B) focusing more on what was happening above the four-to-the-floor. That's where the real action is!

Then again, maybe what I've been listening to isn't stereotypical "house". I keep popping up against the term "dance underground" when checking out new stuff that I like, and I still don't know if that's supposed to mean that house itself is still considered "underground" or if there's a whole subset of dance musics being made that run counter in one way or another to the stereotypes.

Either way, the one thing I've known from the git-go is that this is not music that's intended for "serious listening". It's made to purely be felt, and to be moved to. I'm asking myself if that quality automatically precludes having something else included, some "musical substance". I've heard plenty of things to suggest that it doesn't, although nothing fully formed as much as I'd like for it to be. But I'm thinking that that's not a "problem" with the music itself as much as it is the people who are making it, or more to the point, the people who aren't making it.

Why shouldn't seriously musical erudite people make seriously musically erudite dance music for serious dancing? Why aren't seriously musical erudite people make seriously musically erudite dance music for serious dancing? Other than a few cats like Eddie Palmieri & Monday, I hear cats that are mostly on one side of the fence or the other. Is it that they can't, or is it that they don't want to?

Either way, I see a problem with that. I'm not one who believes in feeding the mind and starving (or even under-feeding) the body, or vice versa. The former macrobiotic in me still screams the need for BALANCE. And like the man said - the bigger the front, the bigger the back. Anything else just ain't right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The stereotypical 'four-to-the-floor' house beat

Which we refer to as...

boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-boots-and-PANTS-and-

I love it....there's a drummer I play with a lot whose idea of a "funk" beat is boots-and-Pants. <_<

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Funny thing about this music - I'm finding that even though it's not meant to be "listened" to, I get into it a lot more when I do listen closely. The rhythmic overlays are often quite involved (and varying), and if I don't get past the underlying steady 4 (when it's there - in broken beat, that's not an issue), I don't get to that layer of the music. Of course, once you get into that layer, it's easy then to just let go and fly, but you gotta get there first. Not being an active dancer (yet...), that means listening, and closely, even though I suppose you're not "supposed" to go at it that way.

So much for preconceptions and "conventional wisdom"...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 11 months later...

No, totally unfamilair to me. What's the deal?

They belong to the somewhat pretentiously titled genre "IDM" (intelligent dance music). Wikipedia sez:

Many describe Autechre's music as cold and austere, whereas others perceive a warmth and sentimentality that touches even the most cerebral pieces. Much of Autechre's music has a strong focus on complex rhythm, driving percussion, and meticulous sequencing. Often unusual rhythmic loops repeat and change incrementally, with the music constantly in transition. Sometimes patterns are set against one another, implying several time signatures at once. Later work has been notably experimental and abstract, in contrast to the more club-friendly and conventional early 1990s releases.

Reactions to their music have varied. Many of their tracks contain complex or chaotic rhythms and close harmonies which some hear as random and noisy. Fans of their recent work tend to find the value of their music to lie in its unique fusion of rhythmic and melodic elements, percussive noises being tweaked to sound like they have pitches, and clustered, often inharmonic synthesizer patches implying numerous melodic lines and chord structures simultaneously. A recurring element in Autechre's work is the use of extremely short snippets of sound to create a fragmented, grainy effect.

I have one of their albums, Tri Repetae++. It's excellent.

Been listening to Tri Repetae++ and Confield for the whole week. Wow! Autechre is the discovery of the year for me and it became sort of difficult to listen to music I used to like before I found out about Autechre.

Second Peng :crazy: (had to listen to that one repeatedly), Eutow :wub:, Clipper :excited:, Cfern :wacko:, damn I'm so excited about this music. Whoaaa!

:crazy:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And the show that prompted this thread has been off the air for a while now. Don't know if the host moved away, or if it was a decision by KNTU, but now there is no good house/dance music on the radio here, period. And that's about the only genre of music about which that can be said.

Dance underground indeed!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...