Profile of Flutist Nicole Mitchell

[chitownjazz]

One of Chicago's free weeklies, The Reader, this week has a cover story profile of Nicole Mitchell by Peter Margasak. It's online, along with color photos of the black-and-whites in the print version, here.

Edited August 4, 2007 by chitownjazz

[.:.impossible]

Thanks.

[alocispepraluger102]

Thanks.

fine article.

thanks

[JSngry]

Nicole Mitchell...what is right about today's "jazz".

Would that there were more like her in more places. But alas...

I couldn't halp but notice this:

While still at Oberlin she’d landed sponsorship for a research project on house music through the Ford and Mellon foundations.

Hmmmmm.....

[JSngry]

More & more, it's women who are making the music that satisfies me the most.

I think that, by and large, guys have sorta played out their "thing" & that it's time to shut up, pay attention, let go, and learn something.

It takes a real man to do that.

[clifford_thornton]

Great article.

I saw her and David Boykin a few times when I lived in Chicago, and wasn't impressed. Wonder where my head was then?

[Larry Kart]

Great article.

I saw her and David Boykin a few times when I lived in Chicago, and wasn't impressed. Wonder where my head was then?

Based on what I've heard, right where it should be. She's certainly OK but a bit travelogue-ish for my tastes.

[clifford_thornton]

The duet with Hamid Drake on Bindu started me thinking I should get more of her stuff, but it hasn't yet come to pass because of prior experiences.

Edited August 6, 2007 by clifford_thornton

[relyles]

Great article.

I saw her and David Boykin a few times when I lived in Chicago, and wasn't impressed. Wonder where my head was then?

Based on what I've heard, right where it should be. She's certainly OK but a bit travelogue-ish for my tastes.

What does "travelogue-ish" mean?

[jlhoots]

Great article.

I saw her and David Boykin a few times when I lived in Chicago, and wasn't impressed. Wonder where my head was then?

Based on what I've heard, right where it should be. She's certainly OK but a bit travelogue-ish for my tastes.

What does "travelogue-ish" mean?

I second that question.

Edited August 6, 2007 by jlhoots

[Larry Kart]

By "travelogue-ish" I mean that the music often strikes me as overtly pictorial/illustrative in mood, like the soundtrack for a travelogue, and not as concerned with what might be called "language principles" as I would wish. That is, if one's goals are dramatic/illustrative and the "plot" elements/what is to be illustrated are more or less pre-determined, then you'll be making musical choices more on the basis of what will tell on those fronts, which however tasty your ear might be will often be stuff that you and your audience already know/recognize/associate with the moods involved. For an Ellington, of course, a whiff or more than a whiff of the programmatic/illustrative often drove him to the compositional heights, but in my experience that's uncommon among composers (Berlioz might be another one of those). I guess the difference is that with those two the presence of external drama/program fired their musical imaginations as much or more than anything else. But IMO that's a rare thing.

[sheldonm]

By "travelogue-ish" I mean that the music often strikes me as overtly pictorial/illustrative in mood, like the soundtrack for a travelogue, and not as concerned with what might be called "language principles" as I would wish. That is, if one's goals are dramatic/illustrative and the "plot" elements/what is to be illustrated are more or less pre-determined, then you'll be making musical choices more on the basis of what will tell on those fronts, which however tasty your ear might be will often be stuff that you and your audience already know/recognize/associate with the moods involved. For an Ellington, of course, a whiff or more than a whiff of the programmatic/illustrative often drove him to the compositional heights, but in my experience that's uncommon among composers (Berlioz might be another one of those). I guess the difference is that with those two the presence of external drama/program fired their musical imaginations as much or more than anything else. But IMO that's a rare thing.

...huh?

[Larry Kart]

OK Mark -- To exaggerate a good bit, if you're writing some music that's meant to accompany images of Snidely Whiplash behaving like Snidely Whiplash or a lush tropical paradise being all lush and tropical, you're probably going to be drawing on a more or less agreed upon stock of sounds that suggest such things, which usually doesn't lead to or allow much room for significant musical invention. I'm not saying that Mitchell's music is all that way or that simplistic, but as tasty as her ear is and as technically gifted as her flute playing is, for my taste I hear too much upfront programmatic thinking in her music. YMMV.

[ghost of miles]

George Handy's name has been mentioned--here or elsewhere--in such a context. But the name that sprang into my mind was Raymond Scott... and not because his music was adapted by others for cartoons, but because he himself called it "descriptive jazz," and because it does seem visually evocative in its rhythm, instrumentation, etc. (Which is quite possibly why it was so attractive to those scoring cartoons.)

Great post as always, Mark.

[T.D.]

So a question: what other jazz composers might be said to write program music with success?

To some extent, Freddie Redd?

[Larry Kart]

So a question: what other jazz composers might be said to write program music with success?

MS

I was going to say Mingus, but I'm not sure about that for several reasons. First, that side of Mingus is pretty heavily indebted at times to Ellington's example. Second, Mingus's use of/susceptibility to mood or moodiness, while often quite dramatic, dosn't often seem programmatic to me; rather, it's as though the drama element is often quite personal, even dreamlike. There is no external "key" or point of reference, other than the sometimes Ellingtonian sensuous lushness; Mingus is dreaming up his own dramas.

Bob Graettinger?

[Niko]

just the record i am listening to at the moment (and all the time) but Prince Lasha / Sonny Simmons "The Cry" sounds like a success to me and and it is a collection of songs which are all very explicitly about someone or something (does that count as program music)...

from the liner notes: "Green and Gold" was conceived as a musical blend of these colors, the first half of the work is gold and the second half, green. They represent the colors of the African landscape to Lasha, "based on the great names in the past, Bird, Chu Berry, Clifford Brown, Richie Powell, Charlie Christian - all the outstanding musicians who passed before we were even present." Simmons adds, "We're communicating with them as we play." "Red's Mood", "a free mood based on the blues", is named for a tenor sax virtuoso, Red Connor of Fort Worth, who died several years ago etc.

(i love these liner notes)

[relyles]

I'm not saying that Mitchell's music is all that way or that simplistic, but as tasty as her ear is and as technically gifted as her flute playing is, for my taste I hear too much upfront programmatic thinking in her music. YMMV.

This actually answers a follow up question I thought about asking. I interpret the above to mean that you respect her flute playing and may be willing to hear her in other settings such as in Frequency with Edward Wilkerson Jr. or as a sideperson, but her conception for her own music, i.e. the Black Earth Ensemble, does not entirely move you? For what it is worth I do enjoy her music, but I can see where you can find her music to be "travelogue-ish" to use your original term.

[Larry Kart]

I'm not saying that Mitchell's music is all that way or that simplistic, but as tasty as her ear is and as technically gifted as her flute playing is, for my taste I hear too much upfront programmatic thinking in her music. YMMV.

This actually answers a follow up question I thought about asking. I interpret the above to mean that you respect her flute playing and may be willing to hear her in other settings such as in Frequency with Edward Wilkerson Jr. or as a sideperson, but her conception for her own music, i.e. the Black Earth Ensemble, does not entirely move you?

Exactly.

[jlhoots]

I like the Indigo Trio CD. Anybody else??

[AllenLowe]

thanks, Larry, for posting your original: "By "travelogue-ish" I mean that the music often strikes me as overtly pictorial/illustrative in mood, like the soundtrack for a travelogue, and not as concerned with what might be called "language principles" as I would wish. That is, if one's goals are dramatic/illustrative and the "plot" elements/what is to be illustrated are more or less pre-determined, then you'll be making musical choices more on the basis of what will tell on those fronts, which however tasty your ear might be will often be stuff that you and your audience already know/recognize/associate with the moods involved. For an Ellington, of course, a whiff or more than a whiff of the programmatic/illustrative often drove him to the compositional heights, but in my experience that's uncommon among composers (Berlioz might be another one of those). I guess the difference is that with those two the presence of external drama/program fired their musical imaginations as much or more than anything else. But IMO that's a rare thing. "

on the money, as usual - lately I've been trying to formulate a more specific rationale for a lot of music that I am finding dull and problematic; "formalist" is the word I've used, though I once got labeled "Stalinist" for using it (the Soviets used to use the charge of formalism as a way of quashing art that wasn't simple and realistic and representational). I mean something far different (I hope); there are certain kinds of music/composition/performance these days in which the performer has decided that the way to a creative means of expression is primarily through an exploitation of formal elements - as though form can be detached from content, as though the style or means of expression is independent of the intellectual content or the ideas or the deeper structure of the work (in another area, someone who comes to mind immediately is Kubrick, whose later worke, from 2001 on was, IMHO, terrible) - I'm not sure if I am making myself clear enough, but I find it troubling/annoying/boring when an artist finds a means of expression within an art form - say, for example, in music, the drone - and thinks this mere discovery is enough - that it is sufficient to just repeat the gesture in order to make art. Or, to just improvise in an open or free manner; or to just use a scale; or to just use noise. Those are all useful elements, but they can be fed into a computer and looped an-nauseam; the performer/composer is supposed, to my way of thinking, to be a mediator, someone who takes these ideas as form or technique and part of a larger whole in which elements are co-dependent,and orders them in a way that makes the whole into a work of art - and, there is a difference, to my way of thinking, between mannerism and style, between gimmick and idea, which is obscured by a lot of the very amateurish music I hear, particularly in the "alt music" field, in the little alt performance spaces where I've heard a lot of such things -

this does not rule out certain kinds of random and free expression - but without a larger means of organization (and I am very open about what those means can be) you have a very dead-end kind of formalism, I think. Things are repeated over and over in uninteresting ways, cliches are masked by advocacy of formal experimentation and by attacks on those who would even question the expression, as though the very questioning of such things, the very act of holding them up for critical consideration, is an attack on freedom of will and freedom of expression -

and that is my speech for today on why there is so much music in the world I do not like -

Edited August 7, 2007 by AllenLowe

[B. Clugston]

I like the Indigo Trio CD. Anybody else??

I saw them in concert last month. Excellent stuff. I hadn't heard of Harrison Bankhead before and I was really impressed with what he brought to the music.

[Lazaro Vega]

Perhaps Maria Scheinder's music, according to the descriptions in her new CD, have a visual/emotional narrative driving her organization of sounds, though she surrenders great chunks of the story line to the improvisors in the orchestra.

[Larry Kart]

Perhaps Maria Scheinder's music, according to the descriptions in her new CD, have a visual/emotional narrative driving her organization of sounds, though she surrenders great chunks of the story line to the improvisors in the orchestra.

Haven't heard the new one yet, but I cared much less for the last one than for the first two, in part because the sense of pictorial moodiness being in the driver's seat was so strong there.

[JSngry]

thanks, Larry, for posting your original: "By "travelogue-ish" I mean that the music often strikes me as overtly pictorial/illustrative in mood, like the soundtrack for a travelogue, and not as concerned with what might be called "language principles" as I would wish. That is, if one's goals are dramatic/illustrative and the "plot" elements/what is to be illustrated are more or less pre-determined, then you'll be making musical choices more on the basis of what will tell on those fronts, which however tasty your ear might be will often be stuff that you and your audience already know/recognize/associate with the moods involved. For an Ellington, of course, a whiff or more than a whiff of the programmatic/illustrative often drove him to the compositional heights, but in my experience that's uncommon among composers (Berlioz might be another one of those). I guess the difference is that with those two the presence of external drama/program fired their musical imaginations as much or more than anything else. But IMO that's a rare thing. "

on the money, as usual - lately I've been trying to formulate a more specific rationale for a lot of music that I am finding dull and problematic; "formalist" is the word I've used, though I once got labeled "Stalinist" for using it (the Soviets used to use the charge of formalism as a way of quashing art that wasn't simple and realistic and representational). I mean something far different (I hope); there are certain kinds of music/composition/performance these days in which the performer has decided that the way to a creative means of expression is primarily through an exploitation of formal elements - as though form can be detached from content, as though the style or means of expression is independent of the intellectual content or the ideas or the deeper structure of the work (in another area, someone who comes to mind immediately is Kubrick, whose later worke, from 2001 on was, IMHO, terrible) - I'm not sure if I am making myself clear enough, but I find it troubling/annoying/boring when an artist finds a means of expression within an art form - say, for example, in music, the drone - and thinks this mere discovery is enough - that it is sufficient to just repeat the gesture in order to make art. Or, to just improvise in an open or free manner; or to just use a scale; or to just use noise. Those are all useful elements, but they can be fed into a computer and looped an-nauseam; the performer/composer is supposed, to my way of thinking, to be a mediator, someone who takes these ideas as form or technique and part of a larger whole in which elements are co-dependent,and orders them in a way that makes the whole into a work of art - and, there is a difference, to my way of thinking, between mannerism and style, between gimmick and idea, which is obscured by a lot of the very amateurish music I hear, particularly in the "alt music" field, in the little alt performance spaces where I've heard a lot of such things -

this does not rule out certain kinds of random and free expression - but without a larger means of organization (and I am very open about what those means can be) you have a very dead-end kind of formalism, I think. Things are repeated over and over in uninteresting ways, cliches are masked by advocacy of formal experimentation and by attacks on those who would even question the expression, as though the very questioning of such things, the very act of holding them up for critical consideration, is an attack on freedom of will and freedom of expression -

and that is my speech for today on why there is so much music in the world I do not like -

Ok, and agreed (if perhaps less vehemently, I got less and less time for vehemence about music these days, then again, that's just me...) but what does that have to do specifically with Nicole Mitchell?