Do the Math: Iverson Interviews Wynton...

[AllenLowe]

creative music always survives because it's like breathing to the musicians that make it - no credit should be given to Lincoln Center, however. Because it is done primarily without subsidy or any other reasonable economic support - now, see my previous post in re: whether or not the so-called progressive non profits are any better than Lincoln Center - there are many notable exceptions, I am sure, but in my direct experience they tend to look down at the independent musician; they will use him or her for small programs here and there but when it comes to major support/money/festivals they will be consigned well to the bottom of the bill. Where I live is particularly bad, but the one guy who does something tends to ignore me (yes, maybe a good thing; just posting that before somebody else does); but when he asked me what I'd been doing and I told him about my trip to NY to record with Matt Shipp, he said (and I quote exactly): "He was playing your compositions?" He was genuinely surprised; he figures if I'm any good, why do I live in Portland (I've wondered this myself)? but his attitude is NOT unusual in my experience -

[papsrus]

... as a listener, my ears (and my wallet) tell me there is plenty of creative music being made today.

Yes, there is, thank the Lord. But how is any of this "maybe even partly because of -- Marsalis and JALC"? None of that creative music IMO is related to anything Marsalis and JALC have done in musical terms.

Or do you mean that in the face of the b.s. "success" of Marsalis and JALC, some people decided that they had to take care of the business of the business part of their relatively small but at best musically genuine scenes much more assiduously than they would have done before? Maybe so, but by that token you can justify almost anything -- like maybe Grendel was the best thing that ever happened to place where Beowulf hung out.

I suppose I was thinking both in a broad sense of those people who are first introduced to jazz through Marsalis and who are bound to venture beyond the confines of neoclassicism to eventually support more creative musics, as well as those networks of musicians and listeners and clubs that arise out of necessity precisely because they are excluded from JALC. The organic response to institutional suppression.

A loose train of thought, admittedly.

[AllenLowe]

there's a bit of trickle down theory involved - as in, people will listen to Wynton, fall in love with the music and become crazed jazz fans and start buying JR Monterose CDs - doesn't happen, unfortunately, just like in the original trickle down theory. A rising tide lifts all boats only if you have a boat; otherwise, to quote Jackie Presser, "you fuckin' drown."

Edited December 20, 2008 by AllenLowe

[Alexander]

There's a lot of real insider sarcasm about white people, some of these old guys sing about being hungry and being talked to by food ("I Heard the Voice of a Porkchop") and of being treated unequally in the court system.-

"I heard the voice of the porkchop say 'Come unto me and rest!'"

[JSngry]

There's also a part of me that wonders (well, wonders less and less, actually) how much "creative music" is first and foremost about "self" with little or no consideration about how said "self" fits into any type of community, musical or social. And I say this as somebody who has been involved in quite a bit of "creative music" that has been very much been decidedly unconcerned with too much beside "self", be it self expression, self definition, self pride, self awareness, anything except how to be economically self-sufficient w/o getting some kind of sponsorship, be it something as "big" as grant money or else something as localized as finding a club owner who'll give you a place to play even though he loses money when you do.

More and more, a part of me is saying that this is all bullshit, that if all you're do is playing for yourself, then you really don't deserve to get any support from anybody but yourself. Now, that doesn't mean that I've gone over to the side of the Unprincipled Whore (although I will play their gigs and take their money when the need arises), but there seems to have been a growing notion that "creative" = "wholly unfamiliar" that ends up creating a blanket excuse for a lot of cats who don't get heard just because, well, there's no real good reason for them to get heard besides that they are "creative" in the sense that, no, you've not heard anything quite like this, but no, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's important to too much of anybody besides the cat(s) doing it.

And really, the fact that it's gotten this intellectually "complicated" to be a "creative musician" tells me that something is fundamentally out of whack. It's not just that we live in an increasingly dead pop culture with short attention spans. I mean, there's still lots of joy going around in peoples lives, lots of creativity elsewhere (even if it's micro-scale, "local", it's still the impulse at work), lots of life in the world today. I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, since, unless you're entirely self-sustaining, you gotta have "sponsors" of one kind or the other, be it patrons or an actual audience, maybe it's not such a bright idea to seek patronage outside of "the real world", that to start thinking about actually cultivating a real audience in order to provide support, instead of always having to depend on the kindness of strangers is a smart thing for a creative musician to do. Not that A Free Jazz Tribute To Kenny G or anything like that suddenly becomes a palatable undertaking, but if the notion that "creative" is a state of being and not just a "musical concept" is true (and I believe that it is), then hey, there gots ta' be a way, if there is still an audience to be had for music that is not designed to be fully integrated into a totally mobile, fluid lifestyle in which everything information-related (and indeed, music is information, god help us if it ever ceases to be!) runs as part of a continuous stream to be accessed in bits and pieces as needed.

And that's a huge if....

[Alexander]

Just to bring this up in regards to Wyton's "hip-hop is the new minstrelsy":

I've been reading and listening to a lot of stuff lately regard blackface and it seems to me that one of the most enduring images was of the grinning, perpetually happy and deferential "darkey." It seems to me that if hip-hop is coming from anyplace, it's coming from the same angry rejection of that image that people like Miles and LeRoi Jones (among many others) were doing. I mean, the image of the threatening "angry black male" is certainly not one that was seen on the minstrel stage. Sure, blacks were depicted as gambling, drinking, and carrying razors, but there was no sense of a threat. Not to say that whites didn't harbor anxieties about slave uprisings and later of race riots, just that those tropes were not dealt with in minstrelsy.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

There's also a part of me that wonders (well, wonders less and less, actually) how much "creative music" is first and foremost about "self" with little or no consideration about how said "self" fits into any type of community, musical or social. And I say this as somebody who has been involved in quite a bit of "creative music" that has been very much been decidedly unconcerned with too much beside "self", be it self expression, self definition, self pride, self awareness, anything except how to be economically self-sufficient w/o getting some kind of sponsorship, be it something as "big" as grant money or else something as localized as finding a club owner who'll give you a place to play even though he loses money when you do.

More and more, a part of me is saying that this is all bullshit, that if all you're do is playing for yourself, then you really don't deserve to get any support from anybody but yourself. Now, that doesn't mean that I've gone over to the side of the Unprincipled Whore (although I will play their gigs and take their money when the need arises), but there seems to have been a growing notion that "creative" = "wholly unfamiliar" that ends up creating a blanket excuse for a lot of cats who don't get heard just because, well, there's no real good reason for them to get heard besides that they are "creative" in the sense that, no, you've not heard anything quite like this, but no, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's important to too much of anybody besides the cat(s) doing it.

And really, the fact that it's gotten this intellectually "complicated" to be a "creative musician" tells me that something is fundamentally out of whack. It's not just that we live in an increasingly dead pop culture with short attention spans. I mean, there's still lots of joy going around in peoples lives, lots of creativity elsewhere (even if it's micro-scale, "local", it's still the impulse at work), lots of life in the world today. I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, since, unless you're entirely self-sustaining, you gotta have "sponsors" of one kind or the other, be it patrons or an actual audience, maybe it's not such a bright idea to seek patronage outside of "the real world", that to start thinking about actually cultivating a real audience in order to provide support, instead of always having to depend on the kindness of strangers is a smart thing for a creative musician to do. Not that A Free Jazz Tribute To Kenny G or anything like that suddenly becomes a palatable undertaking, but if the notion that "creative" is a state of being and not just a "musical concept" is true (and I believe that it is), then hey, there gots ta' be a way, if there is still an audience to be had for music that is not designed to be fully integrated into a totally mobile, fluid lifestyle in which everything information-related (and indeed, music is information, god help us if it ever ceases to be!) runs as part of a continuous stream to be accessed in bits and pieces as needed.

And that's a huge if....

Thanks from Bev and me, Jim.

MG

[AllenLowe]

re Alexander's comments - it has been theorized, and is probably accurate, that the minstrel depiction of blacks as comically incompetent was indeed part of the white way of dealing with fears of dark skinned people, by making them seem child-like. It also help allay fears of miscegenation and to justify racism and oppression, as though saying, look, these people aren't smart enough to be truly free or equal -

Edited December 20, 2008 by AllenLowe

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

[***] ....Perhaps today's jazz neoclassicists ought to ponder these words from composer-critic Virgil Thomson. Distinguishing between an “objective” music in which one can “represent other people's emotions” and a “music of personal lyricism”(which would seem to be the kind of art that jazz is)...

I may be missing your point, Larry, but it seems to me that jazz HAS to be both at the same time. It has to represent the community and ALSO to be a personal expression. Failure to do both together leads, on the one hand, to ivory tower-ism and the need for a charitable grant and, on the other, to Najee and Gerald Albright. In both cases, the musicians rely on suits for their income - different kinds of suits, I'll agree, but one kind's no better than the other.

But there always was - and I think still is - a wide variety of musicians doing both, from Trane to Gator Tail, Von Freeman to Gloria Coleman (to ensure that those still around aren't missed out ). These musicians were/are all a part of their community and their voices are both their own and the voice of the community. But, as Thompson said, there's no prescribed way to do it. Gator is no more right than Trane; Von no more right than Gloria.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

re Alexander's comments - it has been theorized, and is probably accurate, that the minstrel depiction of blacks as comically incompetent was indeed part of the white way of dealing with fears of dark skinned people, by making them seem child-like. It also help allay fears of miscegenation and to justify racism and oppression, as though saying, look, these people aren't smart enough to be truly free or equal -

I've heard that, too, and it sounds extremely plausible. And also accounts in large part for WM's distaste (perhaps a stronger word is needed here) for minstrelsy.

But your side is right too, because it's ambiguous, as Jim said. But there are some very interesting parallels that have just occurred to me with modern behaviour in Africa under present day corrupt, incompetent and oppressive governments (but also the colonial governments). Faced with what apparently cannot be changed, people have developed their own agendas and have largely opted out of the state. It has helped, for example, that no border in Africa can be policed, so smuggling has become the normal mode of trade. And in other fields, similar solutions have been and are being found. And there are signs that it is beginning to be found that there can be (economic and other) development without government (Somalia seems to be in the lead).

MG

[AllenLowe]

I think Larry means something else by "objective" music; I think he's talking about music that exists as a separate entity, almost as an "object de art" to be viewed in a distant and detached way - but I'll let him expound on this if he's out there -

[JSngry]

...Trane to Gator Tail, Von Freeman to Gloria Coleman (to ensure that those still around aren't missed out ). These musicians were/are all a part of their community and their voices are both their own and the voice of the community.

And see, that's another thing about Jazz Today. Used to be that it was, at root, a neighborhood music, not just socially, but economically. Cats came up playing in neighborhoods, then advanced to playing in other neighborhoods, onwards and upwards. But now, where's the neighborhood musics? Hell, where's the neighborhoods, period? The last musical breakthrough was (arguably) hip-hop, and it definitely began as a neighborhood muisc. And already then, the DJ was the primary musician (or "musician" if it pleases the room...).

I remember the scene when I was at NT back in The Previous Century. Lots of idiocy, some hipness, no real radicalism, in short the Best Of Some But Not All Possible Worlds, but above all, their was a neighborhood feel to the whole scene. Cats all knew of (and more often than not knew) each other, all different types would hang out at each others' gigs, show up at parties and shoot the bull, all that. And then when I went out of Denton & into Dallas to check out the world of Red Garland/Marchel Ivery/James Clay, that was waaaay different in a lot of respects (obviously), but not in the fact that the scene was still neighborhood based. No matter who came in or went out, the neighborhood (neighborhoods, actually, geographically speaking, but more than a few faces stayed the same no matter what, just as more than a few changed...) was the nexus of all activity..

Now...again, where are the neighborhoods themselves? Whole 'nother world now, whole different set of paradigms goin' on. Anyplace can be, hell, pretty much is, a neighborhood today, but that kinda makes it hard to pin down something specific in terms of what time downbeat is...

Which leads me again to wonder - are "we", the "creative jazz musician" trying to put something out there that is built for a place (literally & figuratively) that no longer (or barely) exists anymore? God forbid that we lose our creativity and our desire to use it, but maybe what we're doing with it is pretty much doomed to fail, like a badass typewriter that is the greatest the world has ever known - but is still a typewriter. Sure, there'll always be a bit of a market for it, but....

Nurture the kids, I say. Let them do it their way, but never let them not know, and never make them feel that they have to know. Because the kids get all this shit, they were born into it. The worst thing we can do to them is to make them think that they gotta do it like it's always been done and the best thing we can do is to encourage them that,, yeah, hell yeah, it does gotta be done.

Edited December 20, 2008 by JSngry

[Larry Kart]

[***] ....Perhaps today's jazz neoclassicists ought to ponder these words from composer-critic Virgil Thomson. Distinguishing between an “objective” music in which one can “represent other people's emotions” and a “music of personal lyricism”(which would seem to be the kind of art that jazz is)...

I may be missing your point, Larry, but it seems to me that jazz HAS to be both at the same time. It has to represent the community and ALSO to be a personal expression. Failure to do both together leads, on the one hand, to ivory tower-ism and the need for a charitable grant and, on the other, to Najee and Gerald Albright. In both cases, the musicians rely on suits for their income - different kinds of suits, I'll agree, but one kind's no better than the other.

But there always was - and I think still is - a wide variety of musicians doing both, from Trane to Gator Tail, Von Freeman to Gloria Coleman (to ensure that those still around aren't missed out ). These musicians were/are all a part of their community and their voices are both their own and the voice of the community. But, as Thompson said, there's no prescribed way to do it. Gator is no more right than Trane; Von no more right than Gloria.

MG

Thomson is talking about something else altogether, as I understand him. But first let me put his whole quote back up:

Distinguishing between an “objective” music in which one can “represent other people's emotions” and a “music of personal lyricism”(which would seem to be the kind of art that jazz is), Thomson goes on to explain that “you can write or execute music of the most striking evocative power by objective methods, but you cannot project a personal sentiment you do not have. If you fake it knowingly, ; and if you fake it unknowingly, you are, merely by deceiving yourself, attempting to deceive your audience. Naturally, experienced persons can teach the young many things about the personalized repertory. But there is no set way it must be rendered, and any attempt to impose one on it takes the life out of it.”

My understanding is that what Thomson means by an “objective” music in which one can “represent other people's emotions” is a music that is some essential ways dramatic -- like all opera and oratorios or Beethoven's Egmont Overture or Strauss's Don Juan, or Sibelius's Finlandia or his Tapiola, or Debussy's Le Mer and his piano pieces or Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, etc., etc. -- but in which the emotions being conveyed and evoked are not essentially personal to the composer but represent what the characters are feeling or the mood of the more or less dramatic situation/story/external states of mind being portrayed. A "music of personal lyricism," on the other hand, is just that, a music in which one has little doubt that the sentiment being expressed is that of the composer/player. From Schumann on, examples abound, and in jazz it is the norm, though not with every performer -- a figure like Jelly Roll Morton or Coleman Hawkins, not so much or not as directly; a figure like Ben Webster or Lester Young, very much so. And as Thomson says, you cannot "project a personal sentiment you do not have" (by "project" here, I think he means "dramatize" for consumption by others -- i.e. you must transmit it "directly" ("it" being the personal lyrical sentiment) because you yourself feel it. If you don't feel it but have mustered the "objective" means of representing that sentiment that is the expression of another person, you're either knowingly faking or unknowingly deceiving yourself.

To bring this back to jazz terms, think of (off the top of my head) Harold Land. As with most talented jazz musicians, he has a readily identifiable style or styles (the way he played changed some over time), but one always felt that what Harold Land played essentially was Harold Land. Now if you were influenced by Harold Land in the course of your own development as a man and a musician, that would be one thing -- his self and soul reaching out to your self and soul, or probably vice versa. But if you chose to take the forms of Land's personal lyrical self-expression and, for whatever reason, re-create them objectively and more or less externally, without placing your own self on the scales or in the mix, you might be precise as heck with those objective externals, but you will be "dramatizing that which should be transmitted directly" -- either by Land himself or by a you who has put his own self in the balance.

I know -- these terms and this talk is probably getting too verbally vague to be of much use. Bur it's the best that I can do right now.

[John L]

Throughout the history of jazz, there have always been strong traditionalist movements intent on preserving the purity of existing structures, and those movements often obtained positions of strong influence in the jazz establishment. But that did not prevent a critical mass of talented and ambitious musicians from pulling together and moving ahead. So what is the difference now?

The difference now is that the "traditionalist movements" aren't just part of the stream now, they are pretty much the entire river.

And the public is ok with that, since there's other things going on in other musics and other lives that cover those bases for those who want them, and that those who both produce and consume the music of the "traditionalist movements" don't have any real need for. When the public wants adventure, or exploration, or counter-mainstream, or even just to dance all night long, they've got other places to go for that. When they want to celebrate The Grand Tradition, they've got the niche market of jazz. And truthfully, that suits most everybody, including a lot of musicians who don't really have either an interest in or a clue about reaching out to an audience, especially a changing one, just fine.

All you gotta do is look at today's marketplace. Look at all the independent releases that fall outside the formula. A handfull of people buy them, a handful of articles get written, and a handful of gigs get booked and played. The cycle repeats itself every so often, enough that alternative circuits exixts. But there's no chance in 98.7% of hell that this will ever be anything other than what it is, because of the lack of a holistic scene where these musics and those musics can be viewed as part of the same family instead of Real Thing vs Some Other Thing.

Times have changed one way, the music in another, other musics in other ways, and the marketplace in yet another. There's not a helluva lot going on in jazz that's in sync with that.

Jim, I agree. The point that I was trying to make in my post is that the jazz river had already broken apart into numerous streams well before Wynton came along. The Wynton-led movement was largely about consciously recreating the river. I agree with most others on this thread that the artistic results of this endeavor ended up being rather disappointing. What I don't think is fair, however, is to postulate that there was big beautiful and healthy jazz river until Wynton et al came along and took a big shit in it.

The issue brought up of the Lincoln Center establishment depriving other jazz artists of gigs due to their draining of non-profit or foundation budgets is an interesting one. I am rather skeptical, however. If we hypothetically imagine an evolution of jazz to the present without Wynton or the Lincoln Center, the more likely outcome, in my opinion, is that most organizations subsidizing American music would have forgotten about jazz completely.

[Uncle Skid]

The Wynton-led movement was largely about consciously recreating the river.

This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Vonnegut's A Man Without a Country, graphic artist Saul Steinberg:

There are two sorts of artists, one not being in the least superior to the other. But one responds to the history of his or her art so far, and the other responds to life itself.

Probably a gross oversimplification, but to me, Wynton is a great example of a (virtuoso, for sure) response to the history, where artists like Ornette Coleman, Roscoe Mitchell, and Anthony Braxton are the latter.

[JSngry]

Throughout the history of jazz, there have always been strong traditionalist movements intent on preserving the purity of existing structures, and those movements often obtained positions of strong influence in the jazz establishment. But that did not prevent a critical mass of talented and ambitious musicians from pulling together and moving ahead. So what is the difference now?

The difference now is that the "traditionalist movements" aren't just part of the stream now, they are pretty much the entire river.

And the public is ok with that, since there's other things going on in other musics and other lives that cover those bases for those who want them, and that those who both produce and consume the music of the "traditionalist movements" don't have any real need for. When the public wants adventure, or exploration, or counter-mainstream, or even just to dance all night long, they've got other places to go for that. When they want to celebrate The Grand Tradition, they've got the niche market of jazz. And truthfully, that suits most everybody, including a lot of musicians who don't really have either an interest in or a clue about reaching out to an audience, especially a changing one, just fine.

All you gotta do is look at today's marketplace. Look at all the independent releases that fall outside the formula. A handfull of people buy them, a handful of articles get written, and a handful of gigs get booked and played. The cycle repeats itself every so often, enough that alternative circuits exixts. But there's no chance in 98.7% of hell that this will ever be anything other than what it is, because of the lack of a holistic scene where these musics and those musics can be viewed as part of the same family instead of Real Thing vs Some Other Thing.

Times have changed one way, the music in another, other musics in other ways, and the marketplace in yet another. There's not a helluva lot going on in jazz that's in sync with that.

Jim, I agree. The point that I was trying to make in my post is that the jazz river had already broken apart into numerous streams well before Wynton came along. The Wynton-led movement was largely about consciously recreating the river. I agree with most others on this thread that the artistic results of this endeavor ended up being rather disappointing. What I don't think is fair, however, is to postulate that there was big beautiful and healthy jazz river until Wynton et al came along and took a big shit in it.

The issue brought up of the Lincoln Center establishment depriving other jazz artists of gigs due to their draining of non-profit or foundation budgets is an interesting one. I am rather skeptical, however. If we hypothetically imagine an evolution of jazz to the present without Wynton or the Lincoln Center, the more likely outcome, in my opinion, is that most organizations subsidizing American music would have forgotten about jazz completely.

No, it wasn't all big beautiful and healthy. But it was flowing more rapidly, and with more currents, than it now is.

And yeah, ok, some of this is simply jazz not keeping relevant to the technological impact on society (and by that I don't mean "electronics" nearly as much as I do a more sensory evolution). But - the environment of the times was such that any such rexponse/evolution was not only hampered, it was adamantly discouraged, and actively/aggressively disparaged. Whether this would or wouldn't have gone down like it did w/o Wynton is purely speculative, sure, but the point is that it did, and now here we are.

It might have been anybody (considering the political climate of the time, it might well have been inevitable). But it was Wynton, and even if he personally is just an accident of history, a totally random soul who fell into a position of historical inevitability, hey, shit happens anyway, and if you did it, you did.

He broke it, he bought it, and now, afaic, he can have it. It's irreparably tainted, and I think those of us who want better can have it, just elsewhere.

[John L]

No, it wasn't all big beautiful and healthy. But it was flowing more rapidly, and with more currents, than it now is.

...and I would attribute that not to the absence of a Wynton-type figure, but to the remaining presence of a huge number of inspired jazz artists who came up in the environment of 40s, 50s and early 60s.

[Larry Kart]

... The issue brought up of the Lincoln Center establishment depriving other jazz artists of gigs due to their draining of non-profit or foundation budgets is an interesting one. I am rather skeptical, however. If we hypothetically imagine an evolution of jazz to the present without Wynton or the Lincoln Center, the more likely outcome, in my opinion, is that most organizations subsidizing American music would have forgotten about jazz completely.

Toward the end of this long but IMO very interesting 2005 interview with Marty Khan:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=16904

there is much chapter and verse info on "the Lincoln Center establishment depriving other jazz artists of gigs due to their draining of non-profit or foundation budgets" and a number of related topics.

P.S. Even if you find Khan hard to take, mosey on down to toward the end of the interview to the parts I mentioned above.

[JSngry]

No, it wasn't all big beautiful and healthy. But it was flowing more rapidly, and with more currents, than it now is.

...and I would attribute that not to the absence of a Wynton-type figure, but to the remaining presence of a huge number of inspired jazz artists who came up in the environment of 40s, 50s and early 60s.

And then what happened? All of those people died all at once?

[John L]

No, it wasn't all big beautiful and healthy. But it was flowing more rapidly, and with more currents, than it now is.

...and I would attribute that not to the absence of a Wynton-type figure, but to the remaining presence of a huge number of inspired jazz artists who came up in the environment of 40s, 50s and early 60s.

And then what happened? All of those people died all at once?

Not at once, thank God.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

[***] ....Perhaps today's jazz neoclassicists ought to ponder these words from composer-critic Virgil Thomson. Distinguishing between an “objective” music in which one can “represent other people's emotions” and a “music of personal lyricism”(which would seem to be the kind of art that jazz is)...

I may be missing your point, Larry, but it seems to me that jazz HAS to be both at the same time. It has to represent the community and ALSO to be a personal expression. Failure to do both together leads, on the one hand, to ivory tower-ism and the need for a charitable grant and, on the other, to Najee and Gerald Albright. In both cases, the musicians rely on suits for their income - different kinds of suits, I'll agree, but one kind's no better than the other.

But there always was - and I think still is - a wide variety of musicians doing both, from Trane to Gator Tail, Von Freeman to Gloria Coleman (to ensure that those still around aren't missed out ). These musicians were/are all a part of their community and their voices are both their own and the voice of the community. But, as Thompson said, there's no prescribed way to do it. Gator is no more right than Trane; Von no more right than Gloria.

MG

Thomson is talking about something else altogether, as I understand him. But first let me put his whole quote back up:

Distinguishing between an “objective” music in which one can “represent other people's emotions” and a “music of personal lyricism”(which would seem to be the kind of art that jazz is), Thomson goes on to explain that “you can write or execute music of the most striking evocative power by objective methods, but you cannot project a personal sentiment you do not have. If you fake it knowingly, ; and if you fake it unknowingly, you are, merely by deceiving yourself, attempting to deceive your audience. Naturally, experienced persons can teach the young many things about the personalized repertory. But there is no set way it must be rendered, and any attempt to impose one on it takes the life out of it.”

My understanding is that what Thomson means by an “objective” music in which one can “represent other people's emotions” is a music that is some essential ways dramatic -- like all opera and oratorios or Beethoven's Egmont Overture or Strauss's Don Juan, or Sibelius's Finlandia or his Tapiola, or Debussy's Le Mer and his piano pieces or Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, etc., etc. -- but in which the emotions being conveyed and evoked are not essentially personal to the composer but represent what the characters are feeling or the mood of the more or less dramatic situation/story/external states of mind being portrayed. A "music of personal lyricism," on the other hand, is just that, a music in which one has little doubt that the sentiment being expressed is that of the composer/player. From Schumann on, examples abound, and in jazz it is the norm, though not with every performer -- a figure like Jelly Roll Morton or Coleman Hawkins, not so much or not as directly; a figure like Ben Webster or Lester Young, very much so. And as Thomson says, you cannot "project a personal sentiment you do not have" (by "project" here, I think he means "dramatize" for consumption by others -- i.e. you must transmit it "directly" ("it" being the personal lyrical sentiment) because you yourself feel it. If you don't feel it but have mustered the "objective" means of representing that sentiment that is the expression of another person, you're either knowingly faking or unknowingly deceiving yourself.

To bring this back to jazz terms, think of (off the top of my head) Harold Land. As with most talented jazz musicians, he has a readily identifiable style or styles (the way he played changed some over time), but one always felt that what Harold Land played essentially was Harold Land. Now if you were influenced by Harold Land in the course of your own development as a man and a musician, that would be one thing -- his self and soul reaching out to your self and soul, or probably vice versa. But if you chose to take the forms of Land's personal lyrical self-expression and, for whatever reason, re-create them objectively and more or less externally, without placing your own self on the scales or in the mix, you might be precise as heck with those objective externals, but you will be "dramatizing that which should be transmitted directly" -- either by Land himself or by a you who has put his own self in the balance.

I know -- these terms and this talk is probably getting too verbally vague to be of much use. Bur it's the best that I can do right now.

Thank you Larry.

I did, at the time, when Land, Frank Foster and a number of other musicians got "Coltrane retreads" think that they were doing just that; taking Trane's personal self-expression and recreating it. But after a while, I realised that they were only taking on the methodology but still being themselves. And, of course, this is what young musicians DO. The difference re Trane's ideas is they affected a lot of already mature musicians.

MG

Edit: And now, in the light of that, consider this interesting thread about Obama's speechwriter

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...c=48741&hl=

MG

[John L]

... The issue brought up of the Lincoln Center establishment depriving other jazz artists of gigs due to their draining of non-profit or foundation budgets is an interesting one. I am rather skeptical, however. If we hypothetically imagine an evolution of jazz to the present without Wynton or the Lincoln Center, the more likely outcome, in my opinion, is that most organizations subsidizing American music would have forgotten about jazz completely.

Toward the end of this long but IMO very interesting 2005 interview with Marty Khan:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=16904

there is much chapter and verse info on "the Lincoln Center establishment depriving other jazz artists of gigs due to their draining of non-profit or foundation budgets" and a number of related topics.

P.S. Even if you find Khan hard to take, mosey on down to toward the end of the interview to the parts I mentioned above.

Thanks, Larry. That was an interesting read.

[Larry Kart]

Jim -- Is that the Bluebird of Happiness?

[JSngry]

It's the Christmas Blue Jay!

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=48625

[Fer Urbina]

(I don't have regular access to the internet at the moment, so apologies for replying to old posts.)

For a lecture I did on Wynton on 2006 I did a lot of reading on and by Marsalis, as well as Crouch, Murray and Ellison. I totally agree with Allen re: the almost paradoxical relationship between Ellison and the others, which surprised me too while reading Ellison, and I also got the impression of the ideas and arguments getting shallower with each step (downwards) in the Ellison-Murray-Crouch-Marsalis ladder. From my personal experience I'm very sensitive to anything remotely resembling utopian pasts, and arguments like "black people invented jazz, therefore they understand it better" are IMHO wrong and almost insulting, and with Wynton I always have the impression he's reinventing the past in a way that is just silly and, being no specialist like Allen, it just doesn't read right (too simplistic, too straight forward, too much in line with WM's pre-set ideas).

This

"this is the way it is" case closed I will not listen to anything you say.

is just amazing.

As for WM calling Allen an "academic", knowing Mr. Lowe a wee bit, I honestly though Allen was joking. It IS true that there is no worse insult for him than that.

F

Edited December 23, 2008 by Fer Urbina