Feedback on My NY Jazz Column...New To The Board!

[7/4]

I think the critic's job is to look under the radar - a difficult thing, to be sure, but much more rewarding.

This is true.

...

[papsrus]

O.K. - now that we're all "making nice", I don't care for the "music" of Boney James & Dave Koz.

If you want to help women in jazz, write about Ingrid Jensen, Matana Roberts, Anat Cohen, etc., etc..

I'd love to know what she's up to. Kind of slipped off my radar the past year or so.

A little something from July 29, 2009...Matana Roberts

Actually, this link is quicker:Matana Roberts

Thanks. I guess I meant, what she's been up to performance/recording-wise. Interesting post though. Appreciate it. I seem to recall her web site lay dormant for long stretches. Can't blame her for that. But I'll check it out.

[RDK]

Welcome, Carole! Just don't interview Kenny G - or don't tell us about it if you do - or all bets are off!

[PHILLYQ]

O.K. - now that we're all "making nice", I don't care for the "music" of Boney James & Dave Koz.

If you want to help women in jazz, write about Ingrid Jensen, Matana Roberts, Anat Cohen, etc., etc..

On my list as well as Esperanza Spalding, Deborah Weisz. Keep this list coming...especially the diamonds in the rough that may right now being overlooked. It's really about all of them and all of you, and what you will bring to the table.

Hello Carole and welcome to the board. Samantha Boshnack is a very good female jazz player. She's in Reptet and plays with our own Johnny E.

[PHILLYQ]

in my opinion there is indeed a problem when one considers writing about jazz as a platform for helping musicians promote their cds and concerts - this makes a newspaper's arts section into more of a promo sheet than anything else. I happen to think that not only the music but musicians' reasons for producing it are often more complex and more interesting than this - at least for some of them. To view it in this narrow a fashion is to close off too many important people. It's like ignoring James Joyce because he's not on the best seller list; by this measure, we would never hear of Kafka, Bruno Schulz, etc because they fall under the radar. I think the critic's job is to look under the radar - a difficult thing, to be sure, but much more rewarding.

Hi Allen:

I am not coming to this from the perspective of a critic. That's my deal...its more about information, opinion, debate, interviews, etc. That's what I was trying to explain in the beginning. I am trying to get to a lot of those artists "under the radar." That's why I wanted to do the page.

Carole,

If what you're looking to do is to shine a light on artists that don't get much play I wish you well. Folks here could supply you with many names deserving more ink etc.

[thejazzchick3]

Welcome, Carole! Just don't interview Kenny G - or don't tell us about it if you do - or all bets are off!

Not even on my list! You got it baby!

[Jim Alfredson]

I put Dan's original post through the G.O.T. 'E.M. (Gould Ornery Translator of Emotion Machine) and it produced this:

Hi Carole! Welcome to the board! Your enthusiasm is appreciated, but if you're writing articles solely about artists such as Boney Fucking James [sic] and Dave Koz, you probably won't find much interest here. This community tends to focus on more "traditional" areas of jazz and considers smooth jazz an abberation (with exceptions, of course!).

Perhaps with your position as New York Jazz Examiner you can visit such fine establishments as Smoke to hear Eric Alexander and Smalls to here Ian Hendrickson-Smith.

Good day!

In all seriousness, welcome Carole and I'm sorry your first encounter here was so rude. There are a lot of strong personalities here and I'm trying to foster more civility on the board after letting things "run free" for quite some time. Stick around and let us know what you're up to and if organissimo (my band) is ever in New York perhaps we can hook up.

[thejazzchick3]

O.K. - now that we're all "making nice", I don't care for the "music" of Boney James & Dave Koz.

If you want to help women in jazz, write about Ingrid Jensen, Matana Roberts, Anat Cohen, etc., etc..

On my list as well as Esperanza Spalding, Deborah Weisz. Keep this list coming...especially the diamonds in the rough that may right now being overlooked. It's really about all of them and all of you, and what you will bring to the table.

Hello Carole and welcome to the board. Samantha Boshnack is a very good female jazz player. She's in Reptet and plays with our own Johnny E.

Reptet is crazy!!! Like I said, I have a thing for horns! Love it. Samantha is on my list !

[thejazzchick3]

I put Dan's original post through the G.O.T. 'E.M. (Gould Ornery Translator of Emotion Machine) and it produced this:

Hi Carole! Welcome to the board! Your enthusiasm is appreciated, but if you're writing articles solely about artists such as Boney Fucking James [sic] and Dave Koz, you probably won't find much interest here. This community tends to focus on more "traditional" areas of jazz and considers smooth jazz an abberation (with exceptions, of course!).

Perhaps with your position as New York Jazz Examiner you can visit such fine establishments as Smoke to hear Eric Alexander and Smalls to here Ian Hendrickson-Smith.

Good day!

In all seriousness, welcome Carole and I'm sorry your first encounter here was so rude. There are a lot of strong personalities here and I'm trying to foster more civility on the board after letting things "run free" for quite some time. Stick around and let us know what you're up to and if organissimo (my band) is ever in New York perhaps we can hook up.

Thanks so much. That was hysterical!!! I have been a character actress in the big leagues for a while now...I am used to it. I would love to hook up! I am getting great feedback. Lots of people already on my list of "must contact." I get bombarded with press kits and promo material. I really do want to lift up the artists that don't have a lot of support and give them a voice. I just started 3 weeks ago! I am trying to write between 4-6 columns a week while handling my acting career. That's not including the venue/club hopping and CDs that are being sent to me every day. I'm lovin' it, but it's a lot. I might need a little time to get around to everyone.... Thanks again...I will be leaning on folks here from time to time, and I hope people won't mind. So far, I think people have been very welcoming...for the most part!

[marcello]

Your original question was about artists under the radar, and that's very admirable, but almost all jazz artists are under the radar!

I honestly don't know where to start.

Let's see...what about the Strickland brothers Marcus and E.J.?

They both have new recordings out now.

Then there are the Rodriguez Brothers Robert and Michael.

Young guys ( under 30) and great players.

[Christiern]

Having been Goulded many a time, I am glad to see the mask come off in this thread. No, I'm not back, but I do peep through the cracks. Rest assured, newcomer, many have felt that venom before you—some leave, some ignore. Both approaches work. My ultimate solution—it really works!

Happy birthday, Lon!

[Aggie87]

Having been Goulded many a time, I am glad to see the mask come off in this thread. No, I'm not back, but I do peep through the cracks. Rest assured, newcomer, many have felt that venom before you—some leave, some ignore. Both approaches work. My ultimate solution—it really works!

Not much of a welcome there, Chris.

And just my opinion, but blogs don't really serve the same purpose as a board, nor are they as interactive. The topics are limited to what the blog owner wants, not what all of the board members want to create/discuss.

[Jim Alfredson]

There is some seriously weird behavior being displayed in this thread. Time for some clean-up.

[Van Basten II]

Man, i always arrive after the riot has been cleaned up.

Anyway welcome aboard Carole, regarding female players, among those not mentionned worth checking out, Christine Jensen (Ingrid's little sis) and Nicole Mitchell are gals that are worth checking out.

[Soulstation1]

I bet

TJC3 likes the Yankees

LOL

[Ken Dryden]

I do find it odd that anyone would react to a newbie's posts with obscenity, even if he/she disagreed vehemently with them.

Carole, I would recommend that you spend more time looking to profile veteran jazz musicians who aren't getting wide exposure, as well as new artists. To give you an idea, when I was in New York City in late July for a few days, the artists I heard included Lee Konitz (well, he obviously isn't lacking for exposure, though there are newbies who don't know about him yet know David Sanborn, etc.) with a promising young pianist named Dan Tepfer (they have a new duo CD out on Sunnyside), along with guitarist Paul Meyers, guitarists Jack Wilkins and Gene Bertoncini (both of whom have been around for decades, though I bet there are a number of Examiner readers who aren't familiar with them, along with a talented young pianist/vocalist named Champian Fulton, who for my money, is far more interesting than several singing pianists who get extensive coverage these days.

My two cents.

[JSngry]

Many in the jazz community have a visceral dislike for “smooth jazz.” They believe that the early 1970’s mixing of the genres of rhythm and blues and jazz with the introduction of electronic and commercial sounds such as the electric guitar and the soprano sax led to the watering down of “real” jazz.

Yeah, I haven't read this thread, so I don't know whose quote that is, but it is so terrbily wrong in so many ways that I hope if it's somebody here in this thread that they don't take it personal when I say that infact it's pretty much bullshit. I'll gladly and freindly go into detail later today when I'm not at work, but it's nothing personal to call bullshit where it exists, and that quote right there is bullshit.

For one thing, "electronic and commercial sounds such as the electric guitar and the soprano sax" is a big "WTF are you talking about?" point... but htere are others.

Not taken personally...just a composite of what a number of people I have been interviewing have said. But, that's why I reached out on the board....to get a broader perspective and not the myopic view...bullshit, perhaps....but that's what the discussion is about. That's really WTF I am trying to open up. Please go into detail later. I would love it!

Ok, I'm home, here's the deal, phrase by phrase. Keep in mind that this is just a reaction to those two sentences, not anything else you've written here or there (which I've yet to read).

Ok...

Many in the jazz community have a visceral dislike for “smooth jazz.” Yeah, pretty much true. Perhaps even understated.

They believe that the early 1970’s mixing of the genres of rhythm and blues and jazz with the introduction of electronic and commercial sounds such as the electric guitar and the soprano sax led to the watering down of “real” jazz. Here's where it goes off track.

First of all, who are "they" - the jazz community or those who have a visceral dislike for "smooth jazz"? It doesn't matter, really because it's just not a true, valid connection. Plenty, plenty of people who had no real problems with early "fusion" or the soul-jazz of the late 60s/early 70s can't stomach smooth jazz.

Second of all, the implication is that "smooth jazz" is an outgrowth of fusion or jazz-rock or whatever you want to call it - and it's not. Smooth jazz's immediate predecessor was the "quiet storm" music of the late-70s. It was "jazzy", but in no way was it jazz, nor did it claim to be until some radio executives figured out that an instrumental pop version of a, say, Anita Baker tune might sell so many copies marketed as pop, but 10x # of copies if you called it "smooth jazz", something that set it apart from regular instrumental pop/R&B/Quiet Storm, etc. The history of the coinage of the "smooth jazz" term is fairly well documented if you care to look for it.

Third, as one of the many people I know who dug both early "fusion" or the soul-jazz of the late 60s/early 70s, as well as a great deal of "Quiet Storm" music and who can't stomach the vast majority of smooth jazz, I can tell you that my revulsion towards the latter is entirely a matter of the spirit & the execution of the music, nothing more. As a musician who's been around the industry a little bit, I know that the whole smooth market has unwritten rules about tempo, grooves, harmony, instrumentation, stage presence, everything, and these rules are every bit as narrow as are those for commercial C&W, which is to say that if any content at all seeps out from the product (and occasionally it does), it's an act of subversion in the face of the marketplace!

So you see, talking about "the early 1970’s mixing of the genres of rhythm and blues and jazz with the introduction of electronic and commercial sounds..." as if that is where smpooth jazz comes from is not grounded in any reality whatsoever. Now, if you talk to some really old or some really young ideologues who think that Jazz is The Pure Voice Of The One True God or some such, then yeah, there ain't no room for even the slightest deviation. But those people are just as blind to historical reality as those who know absolutely nothing. Hell, we'd be on more solid ground talking about the separation of R&B and jazz than we would be the mixing of it, so firmly intertwined at the root have they been for so long, and not just because so many great R&B records were made/played by players with solid jazz backgrounds... And the whole "commercial" thing, geeezz, what a red herring that is...back in the day, Gene Ammons used to get dissed for being "commercial" or for being "too R&B" and he's far from the only one... there always been a portion of the jazz audience who wants their music to never really be shared outside of their own little special group of insiders...but that has nothing to do with smooth jazz unless you but he notion that smooth jazz is jazz, which it's not, not 99% of the time. It's instrumental pop. So for a jazz fan to bemoan the popularity of instrumental pop claiming to be jazz is like a meat lover bitching about veggie burgers being popular by them claiming to be burgers...there's a certain visceral satisfaction, but very little, uh, common sense.

What is true is that there were two types of "fusion" in the 70s - one which brought more rock into the mix, and one which brought more R&B into the mix. Occasionally, as with Miles, you had music that did both (and then some), but Return To Forever & Grover Washington both can be said to have mixed "the genres of rhythm and blues and jazz with the introduction of electronic and commercial sounds" but those two musics are so fundamentally different in so many fundamental ways as to even imply that they can be lumped together is just not right. But - The R&B-influenced jazz came from the soul-jazz of just a few years before, and it definitely had an impact on the Quiet Storm music shortly after. But it did not become Smooth Jazz. If you're looking for one missing link, try George Howard (all but forgotten today?) who at the time sounded as "jazz-like" as Helen Reddy, but who today sounds like a veritable refuge from Mintons relative to most of the smooth pack. So, sorry, Soul Jazz to R&B Jazz to Quiet Storm to Smooth Jazz best summarizes the movement of the audience than it does the actual music. so as long as the discussion is about the music, and not the audience...check out Kenny G(orelick) with Jeff Lorber, and then listen to him once he went to smooth - there is a discernible decrease in "jazz influence" (such as it is), which, is, I think, exactly the point...Funny how Dave Sanborn (who really is a great player) kinda slipped off the smooth radar once all his imitators came along - doing a greatly simplified and codified imitation of a truly original voice with no small "jazz influence"). The less "jazz influence" the imitators showed, the higher the profile they got!

Fourth, "the introduction of electronic and commercial sounds such as the electric guitar and the soprano sax led to the watering down of “real” jazz...please! Electric guitar, firmly entrenched in so called "pure jazz" for decades. Soprano sax, quite common in New Orleans music (see Sidney Bechet, a.o.), less so during Swing & Bebop (although see Johnny Hodges & Charlie Barnett), but Steve Lacy, John Coltrane, & Wayne Shorter brought it back big time in the 60s, and in nothing even remotely resembling a "commercial" style (although Trane's "My Favorite Things" was a true jazz hit, it is in no way even a preternatural predecessor to smooth jazz).

So, the notion that "jazz fans" don't dig smooth jazz because it contains elements of R&B and instruments like electric guitar & soprano sax is just not...grounded in reality. Yes, you can find plenty of jazz that does contain elements of R&B and instruments like electric guitar & soprano sax that "jazz fans" do like - and that "jazz purists" will detest (as they will damn near anything that steps outside thier highly codified notions of what is and isn't "real" jazz). But that is an entirely different issue than why "smooth jazz" is so nearly-universally detested by "real jazz" fans.

Now hell, maybe none of this matters. Maybe you're writing for an audience that doesn't know Hank Mobley from Hank Kimball. Maybe they's got their copies of The Ten Essential Jazz CDs Of All Time and that's it as far as their interest in the lineage and legacy of the music goes. Ok, fair enough. From what I've skimmed, your aim appears to be to get people interested in the now more than the then, and again, fair enough. But you can do that and still speak truths instead of half-formed generalizations that take one form Column A, one from Column B, mix in some water and BAM, out comes some Conventional Wisdom that is actually neither!

Like I said, nothing personal, I sincerely wish you well, and welcome, and all that, for real (not feeling particularly warm and fuzzy right now, but honestly, I do mean that). But still - bullshit is bullshit, and I call it because I care enough about all of it (including somebody who certainly appears to be trying to do something good) to not just let it slide. There's enough of that as it is, no mas, por favor!

Edited August 5, 2009 by JSngry

[Bright Moments]

I do find it odd that anyone would react to a newbie's posts with obscenity, even if he/she disagreed vehemently with them.

i have to agree with ken - i think that dan was pretty heavy handed in his first post and then had no way to save face. sometimes the best way is to say i'm sorry, not for the message - but for the way that it was presented.

my two cents.

[seeline]

I have to say that I thought I'd seen it all when I (along with several other people) was banned from another jazz board for so-called "disrespectful" behavior, but the hostility shown by some posters in this thread is just as bad - if not worse - than that was, and every bit as unwarranted.

It really is enough to make me reconsider whether I'll continue to post here - absolutely not meant as a slam at Jim A or any of the mods.

I think there's a baseline for civility, especially when the people posting are supposed to be old enough to know better than to attack out of sheer pique (or whatever).

It's very unfortunate all around.

Edited August 5, 2009 by seeline

[7/4]

I have to say that I thought I'd seen it all when I (along with several other people) were banned from another jazz board for so-called "disrespectful" behavior, but the hostility shown by some posters in this thread is just as bad - if not worse - than that was, and every bit as unwarranted.

It really is enough to make me reconsider whether I'll continue to post here - absolutely not meant as a slam at Jim A or any of the mods.

I think there's a baseline for civility, especially when the people posting are supposed to be old enough to know better than to attack out of sheer pique (or whatever).

It's very unfortunate all around.

Dan has been a problem for years.

[jlhoots]

I have to say that I thought I'd seen it all when I (along with several other people) was banned from another jazz board for so-called "disrespectful" behavior, but the hostility shown by some posters in this thread is just as bad - if not worse - than that was, and every bit as unwarranted.

It really is enough to make me reconsider whether I'll continue to post here - absolutely not meant as a slam at Jim A or any of the mods.

I think there's a baseline for civility, especially when the people posting are supposed to be old enough to know better than to attack out of sheer pique (or whatever).

It's very unfortunate all around.

I presume it's O.K to say that you're not fond of the music of Boney James & Dave Koz.

It's the way you say it that's the issue.

Is that correct???

[Rooster_Ties]

Dan has been a problem for years.

Yes, and no.

Personally I think Dan has his better phases, and his worse -- his ups and downs. So too have a number of us here. (I started to name names, but that would have really gotten weird -- so I'll just say that hopefully you know who you are -- and even if you don't, the rest of us sure do ( ) -- and maybe I should count myself in both camps ).

I don't have an easy solution -- 'cept to say that if the most difficult behavior was curtailed, and/or at least softened a little more often than not -- then this place would probably NOT have as many periodic ups and downs (nor as many headaches for our good host Jim).

Think a little before you post, people. I'm no saint, but one of the best things I've done in recent years is stuff I *haven't* posted.

And for the record, yes, I'm defending Dan (who has a long history with us here, and even "before here") --- while at the same time, I am pissed at him taking the "welcome committee" to new heights depths.

Edited August 5, 2009 by Rooster_Ties

[seeline]

It's the way you say it that's the issue.

Is that correct???

I thought I was clear in my previous posts - yes.

[JSngry]

Could we have some guidelines for expressing dislike then, please? I'm afraid I tend to go with the old "say what you mean, mean what you say" approach, and I'd hate to hurt anybody's feelings by doing so, especially a woman's.

[seeline]

Oh c'mon Jim, I think you're messing with my posts for no good reason.

The point is: there's no reason to act hostile.

Edited August 5, 2009 by seeline