Was there any racial tension in Jazz between the East Coast and the We

[AndrewHill]

I was wondering if anyone knew/knows if there were any racial tensions in jazz between the two coasts between say 1945-60. My main objective is to try to analyze the potential issue from the perspective of Critical Race Theory which is three pronged: 1) race realism, 2) race essentialism and 3) race constructionism. I know that there were racial tensions on the West Coast between blacks and whites, such as the issues Art Pepper discusses in Straight Life , and there were obviously racial tensions between blacks and whites on the East Coast, such as when Miles Davis was assaulted by a white police officer in front of a club he was playing at in August 1959, and obviously, there were white musicians on the East Coast and black musicians on the West Coast, but what I really want to know is if black musicians from the East Coast played on the West Coast and were subject to racial tensions and vice versa for white musicians playing from the West Coast on the East Coast; in other words, did black musicians from the East Coast collide with white musicians from the West Coast that resulted into some form of racial tension. This "tension" can take place on either coast, or anywhere for that matter. And this racial tension does not have to be limited to just musicians; thus, it could also be between black musicians from the East Coast playing on the West Coast and audience members/record producers/promoters, and the same with white musicians from the West Coast playing on the East Coast and audience members/record producers/promoters. Thus, I'm seeking verification that this may have happened and also recommendations for resources, books, and articles.

In other words, do I have a topic idea?

Thanks in advance,

HG

Edited to add another idea.

Edited October 6, 2007 by Holy Ghost

[Teasing the Korean]

You may want to check out Gene Lees' book on racism in jazz. I don't always like Lees as a critic - there I times that I think he comes off like an embittered blowhard - but I give him credit for writing a book that addressed this issue.

[Larry Kart]

I was wondering if anyone knew/knows if there were any racial tensions in jazz between the two coasts between say 1945-60. My main objective is to try to analyze the potential issue from the perspective of Critical Race Theory which is three pronged: 1) race realism, 2) race essentialism and 3) race constructionism. I know that there were racial tensions on the West Coast between blacks and whites, such as the issues Art Pepper discusses in Straight Life , and there were obviously racial tensions between blacks and whites on the East Coast, such as when Miles Davis was assaulted by a white police officer in front of a club he was playing at in August 1959, and obviously, there were white musicians on the East Coast and black musicians on the West Coast, but what I really want to know is if black musicians from the East Coast played on the West Coast and were subject to racial tensions and vice versa for white musicians playing from the West Coast on the East Coast; in other words, did black musicians from the East Coast collide with white musicians from the West Coast that resulted into some form of racial tension. This "tension" can take place on either coast, or anywhere for that matter. And this racial tension does not have to be limited to just musicians; thus, it could also be between black musicians from the East Coast playing on the West Coast and audience members/record producers/promoters, and the same with white musicians from the West Coast playing on the East Coast and audience members/record producers/promoters. Thus, I'm seeking verification that this may have happened and also recommendations for resources, books, and articles.

In other words, do I have a topic idea?

Thanks in advance,

HG

Edited to add another idea.

Agree with EDC's first response. Would add that if you proceed, it's a topic that needs to be handled with the utmost care and scrupulousness, if only because the answer on the face of it is such an obvious "yes" that the need to properly sort out (and as they say these days "contextualize") the nature of that "yes" may well beyond the powers of any or most living human beings. In particular, the phrase "racial tension." Were racial tensions causal here or were they in large part the result of stylistic/economic/social divergences between (some) West and East Coast that did more or less line up along racial lines but did not, at least initially, do so because of "racial tensions" but because of different attitudes and opportunities? I know that, in this context in particular, "attitudes" and "opportunities" are not neutral terms, but, again IMO, one needs to proceed with great care and scrupulousness here. Otherwise, you might end up like those guys who say that the be all and end all of the '60s jazz avant garde was racial protest, to which is added the further flat claim that white listeners who said that they liked that music were really motivated by racial guilt. If you think that's nuts, that's the position of prominent Brit critic Stuart Nicholson.

[AndrewHill]

I first want to add that this is meant to be a completely respectful inquiry. If I'm asking for too much,or if someone finds this out of the scope of this forum, just let me know, and I'll take the topic down (how do you do that?). I realize that its a very involved, complicated, deep topic. I just thought I'd pick the brains of those in the know, since I didn't live in that era and I'm not terribly familiar with the topic at hand. And I certianly don't want to do anything but handle this topic with care and respect. My intention was not to start a controversial thread or to start an argument. I was Just wondering if anyone knows if this really went down i.e., within the context that I want to approach it, and if there's any literature on the subject.

Thanks again,

HG

Edited October 6, 2007 by Holy Ghost

[montg]

Rather than address racial tensions per se (which are generally found everywhere and at anytime, notable exceptions proving the rule), it's more interesting, I think, to see how racial (mis)perceptions influence the development of the music. The primitivist assumptions of early jazz critics (African American artists are untutored noble savages, playing hot jungle music) is an interesting topic, for instance. I wonder to what extent John Hammond (and others') dismissal of 'Dukie's' long form compositions were motivated by an implicit assumption that Dukie should stick to hot rhythm numbers and leave the euro stuff to the classically trained. and so forth.

[AndrewHill]

Thanks everyone so far for your repsonses.

[Larry Kart]

I first want to add that this is meant to be a completely respectful inquiry. If I'm asking for too much,or if someone finds this out of the scope of this forum, just let me know, and I'll take the topic down (how do you do that?). I realize that its a very involved, complicated, deep topic. I just thought I'd pick the brains of those in the know, since I didn't live in that era and I'm not terribly familiar with the topic at hand. And I certianly don't want to do anything but handle this topic with care and respect. My intention was not to start a controversial thread or to start an argument. I was Just wondering if anyone knows if this really went down i.e., within the context that I want to approach it, and if there's any literature on the subject.

Thanks again,

HG

I would say that, yes, "this really went down," with the caveat that I don't trust anyone's published views of what really did go down (that is, any published views that I'm aware of -- and by "views" I don't mean testimony, which obviously is one key component to be weighed/sorted out here, but attempts to put together sorted-out testimony, economic/social/poltical factors and, of course, the evidence of the music itself). The only views that I trust, these cropping up mostly in conversation over the years, are Terry Martin's, Chuck Nessa's, John Litweiler's and my own. A good starting place is something that Litweiler did publish in his "The Freedom Principle":

"A more literally detached emotionality [than that of the Tristano circle] arrived with the West Coast jazz inspired both by Tristano and Miles Davis's 1949 Birth of the Cool nonet, a muted scaled-down big band. The relaxed, subdued atmosphere of West Coast jazz had a healthy acceptance of stylistic diversity and innovation, but it also accepted the emotional world of pop music at face value; even original themes are treated like more hip, more grown-up kinds of pop music. In bop's freest flights it could not escape reality, but these Califorians were not aware of the conflict of values that was the source of bop."

To this I would add, that the literal and figurative influence of the Stan Kenton band was crucial here. Literal in that so many West Coast figures had passed through the Kenton band; figurative in that their time there fed both their "progressive" impulses (which Kenton encouraged) and their taste for subdued subtleties (a reaction in part to the Kenton band's tendency to be brassy-blatant and rhythmically heavy-footed).

[ghost of miles]

HG, in addition to the words of wisdom and cautionary caveats offered by Clem and Larry above, you might also want to check out Art Taylor's NOTES AND TONES, a book of roughly 30 interviews or so that AT conducted with other African-American musicians. Been awhile since I read it, but some of what's said there might help you with your project. Publication date is 1977, but iirc many of the interviews were conducted in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

[Larry Kart]

HG, I'm assuming that you already are familiar with a good deal of so-called West Coast jazz and know in your gut how you feel about it, aesthetically and otherwise (i.e. do you find it attractive, affected-precious, necessary, a mere symptom of other extra-musical stuff, etc.). I don't mention so-called East Coast jazz in this respect, because virtually everyone here is more or less drenched in that style of jazz of that period, while West Coast jazz was (and still tends to be) a somewhat more marginal or isolated taste. In any case, I bring this up because if you aren't already very familiar with West Coast jazz and know how you feel about it, getting those things straight seems to me like the first thing you need to do. In particular, you need to do that because when you encounter either direct testimony or views that implicity dismiss West Coast jazz for mingled social and aesthetic reasons, you need to weigh that against your own assessment of its musical and emotional nature, weight, and value, and, to the degree that is possible, your own awareness of how much that assessment of yours is or is not conditioned by your own lived "context." For instance, to take an extreme but not unrepresentative case, back in the day Horace Silver famously referred to West Coast jazz as "faggot jazz," as though the delicacy of much West Coast jazz was merely and essentially effete and thus both aesthetically and morally offensive (and/or, if you will, threatening) and further that, in Silver's view, a vitally masculine and black music was being corrupted and stolen by commercially successful white opportunists. If such rhetoric (taken one way or the other or any old way you choose) prevents you from detecting the value, such as it is, of the music of Silver and that of, say, Shorty Rogers or Jimmy Giufffre, then I think you need to go back, rewind, and begin again -- because no theories, no views, that fail to give the music itself a fair shake are worth a bowl of spit. It's tricky, for sure, but it can be done and has to be done.

Edited October 6, 2007 by Larry Kart

[ghost of miles]

Re: what Larry said, Ted Gioia's West Coast Jazz is, I think, a fairly good start to the subject. Obvious to say, too, but I'll say it anyway, that West Coast/East Coast was not quite the white/black divide it's made out to be. How do, say, Curtis Counce or the Montgomery Brothers fit into the picture? (Not to mention early Charles Mingus.)

Also worth checking out is Central Avenue Sounds, an oral history of jazz in Los Angeles, particularly the sections on the amalgamation of the black and white musicians' unions.

[Larry Kart]

Re: what Larry said, Ted Gioia's West Coast Jazz is, I think, a fairly good start to the subject. Obvious to say, too, but I'll say it anyway, that West Coast/East Coast was not quite the white/black divide it's made out to be. How do, say, Curtis Counce or the Montgomery Brothers fit into the picture? (Not to mention early Charles Mingus.)

Also worth checking out is Central Avenue Sounds, an oral history of jazz in Los Angeles, particularly the sections on the amalgamation of the black and white musicians' unions.

Gioia is OK on facts up to a point, not so hot at all IMO on views, but then, again IMO, almost nothing published is that I'm aware of. If you do check out Gioia, bear that Litweiler quote in mind and see if they sound like they're talking about the same music. If not, I'd go with Litweiler and realize that Gioia is wearing blinkers and/or just lacks background and imagination. "Central Avenue Sounds" is essential for testimony, but that's not all or enough.

[ghost of miles]

I'm a big fan of John Litweiler and like that quote, but will have to disagree on Larry's assessment of Gioia--he's a musician and did several years' worth of interviews and research on the book...IMO he has plenty of background on the subject. Both he and Litweiler are worth reading, on said topic and beyond. Larry's right that you need more than testimony, but if I'm understanding your project correctly, you're less interested in establishing some sort of aesthetic worth of either West Coast or East Coast jazz than you are in examining the racial tensions that these "definitions" caused in the music world. Obviously there isn't a single text that's going to provide you with all of the answers or even all of the questions--I think on this forum that generally can go without saying. But hopefully what everyone's suggesting here will give you some good entry points into a topic that, as Larry says, needs to be handled with the utmost care and scrupulousness.

Edited October 6, 2007 by ghost of miles

[Larry Kart]

I'm a big fan of John Litweiler and like that quote, but will have to disagree on Larry's assessment of Gioia--he's a musician and did several years' worth of interviews and research on the book...IMO he has plenty of background on the subject. Both he and Litweiler are worth reading, on said topic and beyond. Larry's right that you need more than testimony, but if I'm understanding your project correctly, you're less interested in establishing some sort of aesthetic worth of either West Coast or East Coast jazz than you are in examining the racial tensions that these "definitions" caused in the music world.

I'm saying that there's no way you can get a good fix on the question HG says he wants to examine unless you have or can get a good fix on a whole lot of other things about the nature of this society and its history that Litweiler understands and that Gioia, musician though he be (have you ever listened to a Ted Gioia record? -- I have, God!), has little or no clue about. To repeat and amplify, HG's subject is about as peculiarly fraught as an aesthetic-historical subject could be. Also, again to repeat, unless you've established in your own mind (having taken into account your own "context" as best you can) the aesthetic worth of West Coast jazz, examining the racial tensions that the "definitions" of West Coast or East Coast jazz caused in the music world would be about as pointless as discussing the McCarthy era without having arrived at an opinion as to whether McCarthy's accusations were or were not sound. Finally, to say that it was "the definitions" of West Coast or East Coast jazz that caused racial tensions in the musical world is at once backasswards and sideways. The musics were different to some significant degree, by and large; and those differences were noted and remarked upon at the time by musicians, fans, and journalists from both musical and social perspectives. Yes, at a certain point, perhaps an early one, the familiar journalistic "sheep versus goats" routine played a good-sized role in all this; but the differences were real and came first -- and/or the journalistic "sheep versus goats" routine was for the most part a function of those actual differences. The "definitions" (however imprecise they may gave been) were not free-standing entities cooked up by behind-the-scenes jazz Machiavellis.

[AndrewHill]

In any case, I bring this up because if you aren't already very familiar with West Coast jazz and know how you feel about it, getting those things straight seems to me like the first thing you need to do. In particular, you need to do that because when you encounter either direct testimony or views that implicity dismiss West Coast jazz for mingled social and aesthetic reasons, you need to weigh that against your own assessment of its musical and emotional nature, weight, and value, and, to the degree that is possible, your own awareness of how much that assessment of yours is or is not conditioned by your own lived "context."

Thank you Larry for your insightful posts. I guess, I can't say I "dismissed" WC jazz per se, But I definitely did not take listening to WC seriously until much later. I do like West Coast jazz quite a bit now (mostly due to Blue Note's WCC) but for different reasons than East Coast jazz. My first real exposure to jazz music was through the ranks of Vince Guaraldi in my jazz club in middle school, yet I found myself gravitating more towards Trane and Dolphy as a black friend on my block played tenor sax (I played bass clarinet) and we used to jam (just him and I) for hours at a time. I really didn't return to West Coast jazz and give it a serious listen until my early 30's, long after listening to "East Coast" (scare quotes, to denote that I really don't like to bracket it like that) jazz. But I appreciate and like West Coast jazz for what it is, and that my assessment is my own and not from outside influences. Looking back, I think I liked Trane and Dolphy more than Vince Guaraldi because they just seemed more exciting than me. I suppose that WC jazz may appeal to an older or mature listenining audience (as I found myself doing as I got older) because of its "cool" appeal and laid back approach (for the most part).

[AndrewHill]

Again, thanks everyone for your posts, I really appreciate everyone's contributions and I'm reading everything you guys have to say very carefully.

HG

[AndrewHill]

Rather than address racial tensions per se (which are generally found everywhere and at anytime, notable exceptions proving the rule), it's more interesting, I think, to see how racial (mis)perceptions influence the development of the music. The primitivist assumptions of early jazz critics (African American artists are untutored noble savages, playing hot jungle music) is an interesting topic, for instance. I wonder to what extent John Hammond (and others') dismissal of 'Dukie's' long form compositions were motivated by an implicit assumption that Dukie should stick to hot rhythm numbers and leave the euro stuff to the classically trained. and so forth.

Actually, you raise an interesting perspective here that I didn't consider before. Thanks.

[AndrewHill]

Re: what Larry said, Ted Gioia's West Coast Jazz is, I think, a fairly good start to the subject. Obvious to say, too, but I'll say it anyway, that West Coast/East Coast was not quite the white/black divide it's made out to be. How do, say, Curtis Counce or the Montgomery Brothers fit into the picture? (Not to mention early Charles Mingus.)

Also worth checking out is Central Avenue Sounds, an oral history of jazz in Los Angeles, particularly the sections on the amalgamation of the black and white musicians' unions.

Right. Ornette recorded on the West Coast for Contemporary before moving to Atlantic and Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy were from the WC too. Same goes for Pepper Adams from Detroit. Those are elements that I definitely have to consider.

[JSngry]

"A more literally detached emotionality [than that of the Tristano circle] arrived with the West Coast jazz inspired both by Tristano and Miles Davis's 1949 Birth of the Cool nonet, a muted scaled-down big band. The relaxed, subdued atmosphere of West Coast jazz had a healthy acceptance of stylistic diversity and innovation, but it also accepted the emotional world of pop music at face value; even original themes are treated like more hip, more grown-up kinds of pop music. In bop's freest flights it could not escape reality, but these Califorians were not aware of the conflict of values that was the source of bop."

This has long been a sticky quote for me because as much as I understand it and agree with it, I also find the presupposition that "the emotional world of pop music" was/is a fixed/limited quantity to be...problematic. It's seems to be saying that the emotional world of Nelson Riddle = that of Gordon Jenkins, that of Nat Cole = that of Johnnie Ray, or that of late-Columbia Sinatra = that of mid-period Capitol Sinatra. That simply is not true, unless one is incapable of discerning differences past a certain point of one's own preset parameters, and although I do not know JL personally (or at all for that matter), I seriously doubt that he is that much of an unfunctioning piece of offal.

Yes, he qualifies it with "more hip, more grown-up", but the underlying assupmtion is that the emotional world of pop music is ultimately fenced in, like a ranch. Ok, I know that's true from one perspective, but from another, the conundrum of so much pop music is it's built in ability to be a tabula rasa to any and all who hear it. The same song/record can stir deep & powerful feelings in one person and be a mere annoyance to another. Which reaction defines the "reality" of that song/record? They both do, and although that is true of any/all subjective experiences, the assumption that it is less true of pop music (or that it is only true to a fixed point) sounds like one made by somebody who for wahtevr reason prefers to not listen to a lot of pop music for anything other than, at best, pleasant diversion. Which is certainly ok, but it goes to the point of one person's opinion being just that, and proceed accordingly, ok?

Now, as that pertains to WCJ, yeah, ok, as a rule, the stuff is definitely "lighter" in both sound and (my perceived) intent, but to say that "these Califorians were not aware of the conflict of values that was the source of bop." might be taking things a little too far. It is quite possible that some of them, especially Mulligan, who was East Coat all the way and did some respectable hanging there before coming west, did understand at least some of this at more than a superficial level, but just did not find it a personally relevant source of musical inspiration/creation.

This then enters into the realm of "informed choice" (the degree of informedness will no doubt vary on a case-by-case basis) rather than true ignorance (willful or otherwise), unless you want to come at it like the only way to truly "understand" something is to accept it 100%, and my, what a tangled web of slippery slopes that soon becomes, true as it nevertheless is. That then goes to the point of what you get out of anything is going to be directly proportional to how ready/willing/able (and/or with all) yoou are to accept an encounter with it on its own terms. And most of us, myself included, have found places out there that just do not connect, and whose "fault" is that, if anybody's? I doubt that there is fault, and I doubt that the existance of these places even after an examined "stripping away" of potentially distracting personal "prejudices" is a problem.

For me personally, a lot of WCJ is irritatingly pleasant. But I'm not going to go off and say that the people who made it are less "deep" than those who make music that I respond more favorably to, nor am I going to not allow for the possibility that there are ears/souls/minds who can here the same stuff that bugs me and be nobly elevated by it to do the same nobly elevated stuff that I feel when I get inspired by things that get to me, nobly elevated things like being a good/better/best person in thought, word, and deed, and if that no doubt means radically different things to radically different people, well, what's the alternative, really?

I certainly accept the notion of a universal consciousness, but that is not to say that said consciousness is homogenized or otherwise uniform in nature. It is merely to say that universiality exists in spite of itself, and that "same" and "identical" can be two totally different things.

Edited October 6, 2007 by JSngry

[ghost of miles]

I'm saying that there's no way you can get a good fix on the question HG says he wants to examine unless you have or can get a good fix on a whole lot of other things about the nature of this society and its history

Where is that in dispute? You're singling out suggestions that I made to HG and admonishing him/me not to leave it at that, as if I were saying that certain books were the be-all and end-all to this subject--all I said was that Gioai's book was a fairly good start to the subject, and suggested that he take a look at CENTRAL AVENUE SOUNDS as well. I assume that nobody on this board is dumb enough to think any one book could wrap up such a topic, but if we're going this route, then, please, dear God, make sure that Gene Lees' book is not the be-all and end-all of this subject as well.

that Litweiler understands and that Gioia, musician though he be (have you ever listened to a Ted Gioia record? -- I have, God!), has little or no clue about.

All respect to John again--I have FREEDOM PRINCIPLE and recommend it to people, but when it comes to West Coast jazz, Gioia devoted an entire book to the subject. I don't see the huge gap that you see in the two writers' comprehension of the contexts/issues/whatever you want to call them, but when it comes to a deeper, more comprehensive view of WC jazz, I'm at a loss to understand this brusque dismissal of Gioia. And whatever his talent or lack thereof as a musician, he understands that side of the music from a player's perspective. I say this not to impugn John but because you've compared TG unfavorably to him on the terms of "background," and that strikes me as a bit odd. I'd find it a bit odd if I leaped into a discussion and said, "Don't trust John Litweiler on free jazz--trust Ted Gioia." I think both can be trusted on West Coast jazz, but split the difference and all that.

To repeat and amplify, HG's subject is about as peculiarly fraught as an aesthetic-historical subject could be. Also, again to repeat, unless you've established in your own mind (having taken into account your own "context" as best you can) the aesthetic worth of West Coast jazz, examining the racial tensions that the "definitions" of West Coast or East Coast jazz caused in the music world would be about as pointless as discussing the McCarthy era without having arrived at an opinion as to whether McCarthy's accusations were or were not sound.

Again, of course, but your earlier post seemed to be saying, "Now, don't go disliking West Coast jazz just because Horace Silver said it was 'faggot music.'" I haven't even presumed to know what HG's take on West Coast jazz was/is, and of course understanding the music is essential to helping explain what the racial tension was about, but you're already injecting an established value into the discussion--"West Coast jazz was of aesthetic worth, no matter what Horace Silver or some other musicians may have said about it because they were economically/socially/whatever threatened by it." I do presume HG is intellectually sound enough not to be swayed by inflammatory statements like Silver's.

Finally, to say that it was "the definitions" of West Coast or East Coast jazz that caused racial tensions in the musical world is at once backasswards and sideways. The musics were different to some significant degree, by and large; and those differences were noted and remarked upon at the time by musicians, fans, and journalists from both musical and social perspectives. Yes, at a certain point, perhaps an early one, the familiar journalistic "sheep versus goats" routine played a good-sized role in all this; but the differences were real and came first -- and/or the journalistic "sheep versus goats" routine was for the most part a function of those actual differences. The "definitions" (however imprecise they may gave been) were not free-standing entities cooked up by behind-the-scenes jazz Machiavellis.

I'm not blaming the differences or the debate on "behind-the-scenes jazz Machiavellis" or some sort of bizarre conspiracy-think... yes there were differences, but your remark "The musics were different to some significant degree, by and large; and those differences were noted and remarked upon at the time by musicians, fans, and journalists from both musical and social perspectives" is partly what I was alluding to when I said "definitions." Chet Baker vs. Miles Davis, obviously completely different, right? Or are they? Is Sonny Clark West Coast or East Coast? Harold Land? Ornette Coleman? Hampton Hawes? Yes there were differences, but they were codified early on and taken at face value, and to some extent I think the resulting images were a product of marketing and media representation. The whole term "West Coast jazz" is, I think, a simplistic misnomer that brands a scene that was much more diverse than what the term has come to mean. No, no sinister cabal of jazz writers gathered to concoct a purposefully divisive presentation of the music, but these definitions by "musicians, fans, and journalists" did indeed contribute to the racial tension that ensued. If that came across as fingerpointing, my regret for the miscommunication.

I also have to take issue with the implied downgrading of "testimony." Yes, you can't take what musicians say for the historical record at absolute value or distill all your judgments from that. But I'm generally inclined to give more credence to what jazz musicians say about an issue like racial tension in the music marketplace than I am to jazz writers, DJs, collectors, fanboys, water-carriers or what have you. To take NOTES AND TONES for an example, there are obvious problems with that book--AT asks leading questions, etc. But it also offers one of the first extensive documents of black musicians speaking frankly about racial matters in the music business. So I read it with the proverbial grain of salt, but there's much of value to examine there, particularly if one is pursuing a project like HG's.

HG, I hope this disagreement is helpful or thought-provoking or otherwise of some assistance to you. If I have any other suggestions I'll PM them to you. I'm no jazz Machiavelli, but I do think that everybody has their own set of blinkers.

Edited October 6, 2007 by ghost of miles

[ghost of miles]

Excellent post, Jim. BTW Art Pepper is a great case-study of somebody who (in my mind) throws the West/East Coast dichotomy into a bit of a bind. He played with Kenton, he played with Benny Carter, he played with Hampton Hawes and he played at the Lighthouse. It does undermine the last sentence of Litweiler's quote, which perhaps is the kind of definition--as I chose to call it--that just comes off wrong to me, and is emblematic of the thinking that's shaped perceptions about West/East for the past 50+ years.

Edited October 6, 2007 by ghost of miles

[Larry Kart]

"A more literally detached emotionality [than that of the Tristano circle] arrived with the West Coast jazz inspired both by Tristano and Miles Davis's 1949 Birth of the Cool nonet, a muted scaled-down big band. The relaxed, subdued atmosphere of West Coast jazz had a healthy acceptance of stylistic diversity and innovation, but it also accepted the emotional world of pop music at face value; even original themes are treated like more hip, more grown-up kinds of pop music. In bop's freest flights it could not escape reality, but these Califorians were not aware of the conflict of values that was the source of bop."

This has long been a sticky quote for me because as much as I understand it and agree with it, I also find the presupposition that "the emotional world of pop music" was/is a fixed/limited quantity to be...problematic. It's seems to be saying that the emotional world of Nelson Riddle = that of Gordon Jenkins, that of Nat Cole = that of Johnnie Ray, or that of late-Columbia Sinatra = that of mid-period Capitol Sinatra. That simply is not true, unless one is incapable of discerning differences past a certain point of one's own preset parameters, and although I do not know JL personally (or at all for that matter), I seriously doubt that he is that much of an unfunctioning piece of offal.

Yes, he qualifies it with "more hip, more grown-up", but the underlying assupmtion is that the emotional world of pop music is ultimately fenced in, like a ranch. Ok, I know that's true from one perspective, but from another, the conundrum of so much pop music is it's built in ability to be a tabula rasa to any and all who hear it. The same song/record can stir deep & powerful feelings in one person and be a mere annoyance to another. Which reaction defines the "reality" of that song/record? They both do, and although that is true of any/all subjective experiences, the assumption that it is less true of pop music (or that it is only true to a fixed point) sounds like one made by somebody who for wahtevr reason prefers to not listen to a lot of pop music for anything other than, at best, pleasant diversion. Which is certainly ok, but it goes to the point of one person's opinion being just that, and proceed accordingly, ok?

Now, as that pertains to WCJ, yeah, ok, as a rule, the stuff is definitely "lighter" in both sound and (my perceived) intent, but to say that "these Califorians were not aware of the conflict of values that was the source of bop." might be taking things a little too far. It is quite possible that some of them, especially Mulligan, who was East Coat all the way and did some respectable hanging there before coming west, did understand at least some of this at more than a superficial level, but just did not find it a personally relevant source of musical inspiration/creation.

This then enters into the realm of "informed choice" (the degree of informedness will no doubt vary on a case-by-case basis) rather than true ignorance (willful or otherwise), unless you want to come at it like the only way to truly "understand" something is to accept it 100%, and my, what a tangled web of slippery slopes that soon becomes, true as it nevertheless is. That then goes to the point of what you get out of anything is going to be directly proportional to how ready/willing/able (and/or with all) yoou are to accept an encounter with it on its own terms. And most of us, myself included, have found places out there that just do not connect, and whose "fault" is that, if anybody's? I doubt that there is fault, and I doubt that the existance of these places even after an examined "stripping away" of potentially distracting personal "prejudices" is a problem.

For me personally, a lot of WCJ is irritatingly pleasant. But I'm not going to go off and say that the people who made it are less "deep" than those who make music that I respond more favorably to, nor am I going to not allow for the possibility that there are ears/souls/minds who can here the same stuff that bugs me and be nobly elevated by it to do the same nobly elevated stuff that I feel when I get inspired by things that get to me, nobly elevated things like being a good/better/best person in thought, word, and deed, and if that no doubt means radically different things to radically different people, well, what's the alternative, really?

I certainly accept the notion of a universal consciousness, but that is not to say that said consciousness is homogenized or otherwise uniform in nature. It is merely to say that universiality exists in spite of itself, and that "same" and "identical" can be two totally different things.

First, what JL pretty clearly means (if I can speak for him) is the mainstream (or recently mainstream) pop music of that time that was in the process of becoming a bit "classicized" if you will and of course could be subjected to that classicizing process, a la Sinatra's Capitol LPs with Riddle and Mel Torme's with Marty Paich. That is, songs from the "Standards" era and performances of those songs in which both the musical and lyrical content of those songs is at once accepted wholesale and either deepened (a la Sinatra) or "carbonated" with bubbles of jazzy sophistication (a la Torme). Your "fenced in, like a ranch" is a good way to describe what was going on there; I would say, though, that that fencing-in process was, at least at that point, fairly natural and arguably fruitful; much less so, we might both say, a bit later on. We're not talking, then, about Lefty Frizzell et al. on the one hand, or "Shrimp Boats Are Coming" or Doggie in the Window" on the other, or R&B, or for that matter, Sarah Vaughan or Dinah Washington, who transformed all or most that they touched in a "conflict of values" manner, whether they meant to or not.

BTW, you say that for you "a lot of WCJ is irritatingly pleasant." I think I know what you're referring to by that, and it seems to me that you're pretty much confirming there the gist of what JL is saying. That is, what in the pleasantness of WCJ do you/could you find irritating other than some sense that that pleasantness is in part and in some ways evasive or too partial or too cute in reference to some other music and the sense of reality that it embodies and communicates?

[JSngry]

I don't understand the (seemingly) casual dismissal of Gioa's book. I thought it was very good myself, and I second the recommendation.

[JSngry]

BTW, you say that for you "a lot of WCJ is irritatingly pleasant." I think I know what you're referring to by that, and it seems to me that you're pretty much confirming there the gist of what JL is saying. That is, what in the pleasantness of WCJ do you/could you find irritating other than some sense that that pleasantness is in part and in some ways evasive or too partial or too cute in reference to some other music and the sense of reality that it embodies and communicates?

I'm just saying that it "evades" hitting me in a way, "partial" or otherwise, that I find fulfilling relative to the sense of reality that I know, not that that it is evasive, or partial, or cute relative to some other reality that I know either partially or not at all. In that/those other reality/realities that I know partially at best, that music might well have been stirred thoughts and emotions that I am not qualified to comment on with any sense of authority.

Which is not to say that I like it any more, even in theory. I don't, not even a little, and I have no compunction about saying so. But I will say with at least an equal lack of compunction that my world is not the world, my perceptions are not the perceptions, and that my reality is but a part of the reality.

I'll also say that pretending otherwise is more about self-validation than self-realization, which to me seems to be the type of "selling short" in life that it proclaims to aver in music.

If that gets a rise out of you, thank Ironyized Yeast.

Edited October 6, 2007 by JSngry

[Larry Kart]

Again, of course, but your earlier post seemed to be saying, "Now, don't go disliking West Coast jazz just because Horace Silver said it was 'faggot music.'" I haven't even presumed to know what HG's take on West Coast jazz was/is, and of course understanding the music is essential to helping explain what the racial tension was about, but you're already injecting an established value into the discussion--"West Coast jazz was of aesthetic worth, no matter what Horace Silver or some other musicians may have said about it because they were economically/socially/whatever threatened by it." I do presume HG is intellectually sound enough not to be swayed by inflammatory statements like Silver's.

If you thought that's what I was saying there, then either I failed to communicate or you failed to understand -- or both.

This is what I wrote:

"For instance, to take an extreme but not unrepresentative case, back in the day Horace Silver famously referred to West Coast jazz as "faggot jazz," as though the delicacy of much West Coast jazz was merely and essentially effete and thus both aesthetically and morally offensive (and/or, if you will, threatening) and further that, in Silver's view, a vitally masculine and black music was being corrupted and stolen by commercially successful white opportunists. If such rhetoric (taken one way or the other or any old way you choose) prevents you from detecting the value, such as it is, of the music of Silver and that of, say, Shorty Rogers or Jimmy Giufffre, then I think you need to go back, rewind, and begin again -- because no theories, no views, that fail to give the music itself a fair shake are worth a bowl of spit."

My point was that if a musician as undeniably gifted as Horace Silver (and one who was not inherently contentious or snarky, which Horace is not -- this I assumed was fairly common knowledge) could make a statement such as this, that was fairly striking evidence in itself of how broadly and deeply Silver's segment of the jazz world felt that " the delicacy of much West Coast jazz was merely and essentially effete and thus both aesthetically and morally offensive (and/or, if you will, threatening) and further that ... a vitally masculine and black music was being corrupted and stolen by commercially successful white opportunists." OK so far? What I then say is not that Silver is right or wrong about what I think his statement amounts to but that no matter how you take what he says, the value of WCJ " such as it is remains -- "remains" both in the sense that it exists such as it is (regardless of my opinion of it or anyone else's) and (paradoxically perhaps, in the light of what I've just said) also remains to be determined by each of us. "Such as it is" here doesn't mean that the "aesthetic worth" of WCJ is necessarily high or low or what all -- it means what I just said. And in no way did I mean that Silver's remark was merely a function of his feeling threatened by WCJ. It wasn't his kind of thing, musically or emotionally. That he chose to dismiss it in the terms that he did certainly put, and was meant to put, the supposed lack of masculinity of WCJ front and center -- and this, again, from someone who is known to be pleasant, fair-minded human being.

[umum_cypher]

The fact that the issue's 'fraught' only makes it more ripe for investigation, doesn't it? ... for obvious reasons The Sources, printed or speaking, won't help much, but there's bits and bobs here and there:

Down Beat, 28/12, 8 June 1961, p. 19-22. 'Inside the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, Pt 1', Don DeMichael

Nat Adderley: “The thing that involves this whole movement – the soul music thing – could be construed as a racial thing. It can be very well construed that way, and a lot of people construe it to mean that if you got soul, or to have soul, you’ve got to be a Negro. … [t]here were a whole lot of guys – a whole lot of good Negro musicians who weren’t working very regularly when the vogue was the cool west coast sound, because everybody who was cool and west coast was white. So you get a thing 10 years later that is a big commercial gimmick, soul music, and everybody involved in it is colored. So naturally you get a thing back … the way [the "musician in Harlem" is] looking at this thing is, 'They didn’t say anything about the west coast music – they let the cool music run for 10 years. Now we got something to go; we got soul music. And finally, I’ve got a job. I can work in the clubs, and already, they’re trying to kill it.'"

[the they is critics, of course]