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BECAUSE many-- not all-- of ya'll aren't judging "music," you are CONSUMERS of marketing product, from AOL Time Warner to NPR to Borders, etc... thus-- i point out again & again-- the radically disparate amounts of media attention given any of the jokers Tejas mentioned (i'd rather give up "music" altogether than be forced to pretend even one of those clowns have anything to offer, including the absurdly overpraised & inane Lovano-- once you know where he gets his hats, who could possibly give a fuck?)

Your making assumptions. I don't have a problem if you call me ignorant or a dipshit/douchebag (not that you did). I do have a problem with you calling me a consumer that doesn't think about what he puts in his ears, eyes or down throat.

I saw the guy twice before I bought a record and he won me over by playing his ass off and respecting the history of Jazz. I may not support deserving artists that never got on my radar but don’t accuse me of not putting in an intelligent thought process for whom I do support.

Thanks.

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well, some of us take jazz as seriouly as we take politics, and think that the same rigorous intellectual standards should apply -

Yes, there is a reason Val Wilmer titled her book so: it is as serious as your life.

I'm going to disagree. Artists wish that jazz or popular culture mattered as much as politics, but that doesn't make it so.

Despite the fancy critical schemes we can build up, discussions or arguments about humanities seem to always boil down to tastes and preferences, relativism rules not absolute standards. Since this is how I view things, I come to the board for information on concerts or releases mostly and critical arguments are fairly low on my list, though they can be interesting when put in perspective. However, the eloquence of the argument is what is interesting, not the vehemence and certainly not the fairly boring and predictable piling on that we see so often.

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I don't think Clem or Sangry or Allen (well, maybe Allen) are saying jazz as a whole is "boring." I think that they are saying that certain approaches aren't that compelling and are getting maybe more positive verbiage at the expense of, you know, stuff that's got more conviction to it.

But you also gotta remember that those guys (and a lot of others here) have been listening to (and in some cases, playing or recording) this music longer than some others of us have been alive or at least following jazz. If I had been, you know, buying Coltrane LPs when they came out, would I be paying any attention to Vandermark? Probably not. That's not to say KV doesn't have conviction or can't play, it's just that he's certainly another notch from where somebody like Coltrane was (duh). And the scene now is pretty goddamn different. I mean, we work with what we got - and though I would've enjoyed living back in "the day" (some aspects of it anyway), I am perfectly happy experiencing the life I've experienced. It just happens to be a more fragmented culture and jazz is, well, clearly in a different state than 40 years ago. I would not say it's broken, though.

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well, some of us take jazz as seriouly as we take politics, and think that the same rigorous intellectual standards should apply -

Yes, there is a reason Val Wilmer titled her book so: it is as serious as your life.

I'm going to disagree. Artists wish that jazz or popular culture mattered as much as politics, but that doesn't make it so.

It depends on whether you consider jazz analogous to art or to pop culture.

I spend time with a Bill Dixon or a Lee Morgan record like I do with a Barnett Newman painting, not like I do watching Talladega Nights.

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"Despite the fancy critical schemes we can build up, discussions or arguments about humanities seem to always boil down to tastes and preferences, relativism rules not absolute standards"

that's fine for you - notice we don't attack those of you who have that particular perspective - just realize that to me (and not just to me) music isn't simply as serious as life, it is life - strangely, as I have gotten older, virtually nothing else interests me besides the occasional novel, the JFK assassination, and some other politics - and those other things, much as they interest me, remain external. Music (and not just jazz) has become like another appendage, for better or for worse.

I'm not crazy, btw, about relativist arguments; by this standard Kenny g = Josh Redman; it's just a matter of personal preference; as a a perspective, it will get you in trouble - I mean, why crticize Cheney? he has his perspective, I have mine -

Edited by AllenLowe
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I've always claimed that Reid Anderson was the gem in The Bad Plus. I've enjoyed his playing and writing on more than a few occasions. Super nice guy too.

As far as Redman goes, I've never regarded him with much more than a shrug. People like playing it safe when it comes to their listening and Redman is unlikely to push anyone out of their comfort zone. That's what many Americans look for in their art so it should be no surprise that he does well.

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Sensitive Artist

by John S Hall

I am a sensitive artist.

Nobody understands me because I am so deep.

In my work I make allusions to books that nobody else has read,

Music that nobody else has heard,

And art that nobody else has seen.

I can't help it

Because I am so much more intelligent

And well-rounded

Than everyone who surrounds me.

I stopped watching tv when I was six months old

Because it was so boring and stupid

And started reading books

And going to recitals

And art galleries.

I don't go to recitals anymore

Because my hearing is too sensitive

And I don't go to art galleries anymore

Because there are people there

And I can't deal with people

Because they don't understand me.

I stay home

Reading books that are beneath me,

And working on my work,

Which no one understands

I am sensitive...

I am a sensitive artist...

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not long ago I was reading a book of Richard Gilman's critcism and he expressed an admiration for art that, to paraphrase him , predicts the next thing we will think, the next gesture we will be making; it tells us what we will be doing and thinking next - and this is a perfect description of Coltrane, Ornette, Bud Powell, Louis Armstrong - but not of Josh Redman. and more recently I was reading Marshall McLuchan who, interestingly enough, says much the same thing about important "new" media - such media tell us not necessarily what we already know is "happening", but the effect of of events, the next thing that those events will lead to, the next ideas and gestures that will be made in response to those events, before those gestures are even made.

this is a very high and difficult standard for art, but it is a necessary standard; without it, things would just, well, come to a stop -

Edited by AllenLowe
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as I have gotten older, virtually nothing else interests me besides the occasional novel, the JFK assassination, and some other politics...

My young nephew just read this thread and remarked, "Why such vitriol for these masters of post-innovative jazz?" :unsure:;)

Damn, that kid needs to get laid, like...last week!

:g :g :g :g :g

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and I think that poem is unfair; I don;t know of any serious student of any art form who is truly like that - it builds on a "type" that itself is virtually non-existent -

Hey...I ain't pointing a finger at anybody. I just happened to think of that poem and decided to post it.

....still think it's a dang funny poem.

.

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My young nephew just read this thread and remarked, "Why such vitriol for these masters of post-innovative jazz?" :unsure:;)

Damn, that kid needs to get laid, like...last week!

It is very sad, Comrade Jsngry. He was involved for a long time with an attractive young lady, but they recently terminated the relationship. From what he has told me, the breakup can be attributed to post-innovative coition. -_-

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not long ago I was reading a book of Richard Gilman's critcism and he expressed an admiration for art that, to paraphrase him , predicts the next thing we will think, the next gesture we will be making; it tells us what we will be doing and thinking next - and this is a perfect description of Coltrane, Ornette, Bud Powell, Louis Armstrong - but not of Josh Redman. the next ideas and gestures that will be made in response to those events, before those gestures are even made.

this is a very high and difficult standard for art, but it is a necessary standard; without it, things would just, well, come to a stop -

Allen and everybody else.

Are there any doors left to open or new paths to be blazed that haven't already come before?

Jazz is funny in that you have to have to be able to be create something new yet your judged by the past and how/if you play something from the past.

Seems like you are criticized either by going to far off or staying to close. Even Ornette and Hank M had their critics back in the day.

Edited by WorldB3
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Jazz is funny in that you have to have to be able to be create something new yet your judged by the past and how/if you play something from the past.

Seems like you are criticized either by going to far off or staying to close.

No. One can create valuable, compelling and spirited music that is in the tradition of what came before while not being beholden to it. That can occur without the bells and whistles of "newness" (that rarely we hear until much, much later).

Here's a review of the new release by the Empty Cage Quartet that I wrote. It's an excellent little record that may not be "jazz' Great Savior" but it proves that that really is not the point. (Review reprinted from Bagatellen).

EMPTY CAGE QUARTET - STRATOSTROPHIC

Clean Feed 103

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary year of Ornette Coleman’s breaking onto the recording scene – albeit with pianist Walter Norris in tow on Something Else!!! (Contemporary, 1958). Though he wasn’t the first jazzman to proffer a music liberated from chordal constraints and make the pianoless quartet de rigeur, he was certainly the most notable for it, in a group with trumpeter Don Cherry and a number of bass/drum teams until his first exit from the scene in 1962. By now, however, it’s fair to say that the pianoless quartet can be relatively free from Ornette baggage. From the Ted Curson-Bill Barron unit of the mid-60s to Jeff Arnal’s Transit, there are innumerable ways to approach this format. Los Angeles’ Empty Cage Quartet (formerly known as MTKJ) is yet another variation on the instrumental theme.

A cooperative made up of four of Los Angeles’ busiest young improvisers, reedman Jason Mears, trumpeter Kris Tiner, drummer Paul Kikuchi and bassist Ivan Johnson, their earlier recordings on Nine Winds as MTKJ belied an influence, perhaps regional, of the John Carter-Bobby Bradford Quartet, one of the earliest aesthetically post-Ornette units but made up of two of Ornette’s contemporaries. With 2006’s double-disc release on pfMentum, Hello the Damage!, they were reintroduced as Empty Cage.

Perhaps the name change signified a moving away from earlier influences; “Again a Gun” finds Tiner and Mears stating the onomatopoeic theme over the sharp rat-a-tat of arco bass and percussion. Tiner’s trumpet is hot and brittle, and his phrasing combines fleet, boppish runs with fat smears and Don Ayler-esque multiphonics. Mears enters with his alto in tart keening cries as they collectively declaim – sonically, the horns might be most invigorating in tandem, their unison and collective lines a shattering affinity. They dart and jab in trio with Kikuchi’s towel-dampened chatter, as Johnson’s fingers pluck and shade an essence of forward motion. At other times, their head statements ache with pathos. A simple scalar theme characterizes the tense place-holder of “Feerdom [sic] is on the March,” their poise in the face of explosiveness palpable.

In fact, though three of the eleven tracks on Stratostrophic are over the ten minute mark, most of the cuts are rather short, almost programmatic statements of mood that wouldn’t sound out of place in a free-improvisation version of Gelber’s The Connection. Stitched together, rousing freebop and subtonal explorations would surely form an interesting suite. Though much can be made of Tiner and Mears’ brilliantly-paced lines (brassy bravura paired with bent, dervish-like clarinet work), Kikuchi straddles an interesting line between Philly Joe licks and Paul Lovens kitchen-sink, while Johnson’s concentrated propulsion is as much investigative as it is kinetic. Stratostrophic is a powerful statement from what’s clearly one of the West Coast’s foremost ensembles.

Edited by clifford_thornton
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Jazz is funny in that you have to have to be able to be create something new yet your judged by the past and how/if you play something from the past.

Seems like you are criticized either by going to far off or staying to close.

No. One can create valuable, compelling and spirited music that is in the tradition of what came before while not being beholden to it. That can occur without the bells and whistles of "newness" (that rarely we hear until much, much later).

Here's a review of the new release by the Empty Cage Quartet that I wrote. It's an excellent little record that may not be "jazz' Great Savior" but it proves that that really is not the point. (Review reprinted from Bagatellen).

Thanks, will pick that up when my emusic credits renew next month.

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not long ago I was reading a book of Richard Gilman's critcism and he expressed an admiration for art that, to paraphrase him , predicts the next thing we will think, the next gesture we will be making; it tells us what we will be doing and thinking next - and this is a perfect description of Coltrane, Ornette, Bud Powell, Louis Armstrong - but not of Josh Redman. the next ideas and gestures that will be made in response to those events, before those gestures are even made.

this is a very high and difficult standard for art, but it is a necessary standard; without it, things would just, well, come to a stop -

Allen and everybody else.

Are there any doors left to open or new paths to be blazed that haven't already come before?

Jazz is funny in that you have to have to be able to be create something new yet your judged by the past and how/if you play something from the past.

Seems like you are criticized either by going to far off or staying to close. Even Ornette and Hank M had their critics back in the day.

I think sometimes we see novelty just for the sake of novelty, and that generally doesn't work out that well.

Some of the cultural crossing stuff comes off better than others. I have generally not liked the rap/jazz cross-overs (Jason Moran's The Bandwagon is so-so, Soweto Kinch's A Life in the Day of B19 is a bit better but I still wouldn't listen to it that often, and these are to me the best of the bunch).

I have liked Vijay Iyer and Rudresh Mahanthappa a lot more where they play jazz that draws on their Indian heritage. To me this kind of cultural fusion can work well, and is one of the few new paths that isn't a creative dead end.

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