I Cannot Make this stuff up: from a Book I am Reading

[Larry Kart]

gotcha, and yes, Sherrie Tucker in particular has committed grave crimes against jazz (haven't read the Gennari, based on your prior comments).

Oh, you've got to read the Gennari; it's a hoot, though no doubt dangerous as hell if it becomes the version of things that gets passed down through time, as might well be the case.

So would you say the Gennari book would be an entertaining read, assuming that I consider myself able to take things (historical or factual) with a dose of salt where needed and have derived a certain amount of pleasure out of reading several of Hugues Panassié's books too (by taking them not at all as the Gospel but as a source of what one MIGHT think about this or that musical development without the reader having to agree with it at all)?

If I recall it correctly, the Gennari book at once amused, appalled, and frightened me because of its drive to cast just about every jazz writer of note before the advent of the so-called New Jazz Studies movement (of which Gennari is a part) as an openly or inherently exploitive and/or gravely blinkered figure. My copy of the book is littered with angry/incredulous responses in the margins, and while I don't have the time to go through the thing and reproduce the highlights here, this is one of my favorites, in part because I know Dan Morgenstern. Dealing with Morgenstern's background and political evolution, Gennari writes:

"Morgenstern -- whose Polish-born Austrian father was an anti-Nazi journalist blackballed by the Third Reich -- grew up in a Scandinavian social-democratic environment [i.e. Denmark, but could Denmark during WWII under Nazi occupation, which is when the young Dan lived there, be accurately described as a social-democratic environment?], supported Henry Wallace's Progressive Party in 1948 and flirted with early 1950s Leftist organizations. After attending Brandeis University in the mid-1950s ... he settled on on a Left-leaning liberalism shared by [Gene] Leees, [ira] Gitler, and many others in jazz circles, splitting the difference between the bedrock businessmen conservatism of a Stan Kenton and the pink-shaded dissent of a Dizzy Gillespie or a Jon Hendricks."

I hardly know where to begin, but the implicit snottiness of "settled on" is nice (the enlightened likes of Gennari clearly know better about these things), while the final "splitting the difference between the bedrock businessman's conservatism of a Stan Kenton and the pink-shaded dissent of a Dizzy Gillespie or a Jon Hendricks" is just nuts, both in terms of whatever Stan Kenton's overt or implicit political-social beliefs actually were (a tricky subject to be sure, but "bedrock businessman's conservatism" doesn't come close IMO) and also to the degree that it implies that Dan, caring about where Kenton stood in those respects, somehow split 'the difference" between that stance "and the pink-shaded dissent of a Dizzy Gillespie or a Jon Hendricks."

I see in the margins that I wrote at this point, "Is he [Gennari] writing about a man or a bug?" That is, why isn't Dan -- a man of great intelligence and broad experience, etc. -- given credit for having lived his own life and having reached his own conclusions.

[JSngry]

why isn't Dan -- a man of great intelligence and broad experience, etc. -- given credit for having lived his own life and having reached his own conclusions.

Because today's battles are about ownership, and ownership is all about defining, not spotlighting and encouraging.

This is what happens when enough people die. Pretty soon critical mass is reached and even the still-living are up for grabs.

[John L]

Heh heh.

One of the funniest parts of the (If I remember correctly) Gary Giddens book on Louis Armstrong was a quote of (I believe) Tony Bennett, who had attended a dinner with the Queen of England together with Louis Armstrong. He said that Armstrong pulled out his Swiss Kriss and when the Queen asked what it was, he said something like, "That stuff is good for you, Queenie! Get it all out!"

[Larry Kart]

why isn't Dan -- a man of great intelligence and broad experience, etc. -- given credit for having lived his own life and having reached his own conclusions.

Because today's battles are about ownership, and ownership is all about defining, not spotlighting and encouraging.

This is what happens when enough people die. Pretty soon critical mass is reached and even the still-living are up for grabs.

Exactly.

One of the most awful things about tyrannies, I reckon, is not only that one has to submit by and large to the sheer power of those in power but also that one must accept (if and when this becomes an issue) the tyranny's typically detailed false supporting claims that the power the tyrant has come to exercise is rational and righteous. They want both your bodies and your souls.

[JSngry]

Yeah, but they'll settle for your money.

[Larry Kart]

Yeah, but they'll settle for your money.

Some will settle for that, but the hardcore ones of recent times (the 20th Century is still recent time to me) definitely wanted both soul and body -- soul as much as body or more so.

[JSngry]

To them, getting your money is proof that they've gotten your soul, & truth be told, I don't know how wrong they are in thinking so, given all the Marketplace Militancy there is these days...

When buying stuff is at least as much, if not more, framed in terms of "showing support" than it is giving fair value in return for fair value, then lost/gained $$$ probably do = lost/gained souls.

[Larry Kart]

To them, getting your money is proof that they've gotten your soul, & truth be told, I don't know how wrong they are in thinking so, given all the Marketplace Militancy there is these days...

When buying stuff is at least as much, if not more, framed in terms of "showing support" than it is giving fair value in return for fair value, then lost/gained $$$ probably do = lost/gained souls.

At the risk of offending Hans, the two major tyrannies of the 20th Century that I had in mind were Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, both of which craved/needed both the bodies and souls of their victims, and neither of which was inclined to stop what they were up to once they got their hands on their victims' money or other assets. Instead, that those victims had any such assets was further proof of the ideological seamlessness/righteousness of those regimes' drive to victimize their chosen targets. A circle of malign and, so some shrewd historians believe (and I agree with them), essentially "redemptive" fantasies. That is, without the belief that destroying those whom those regimes chose to destroy was a transformative, utopian policy, the legitimacy of the whole shebang was gravely in doubt.

[JSngry]

Oh. I was just thinking about the ownership of the past of music going forth, not trying to rule the world.

Although, I suppose that once you own the cultural memory, anything's eventually possible, so killing it before it spreads is not a bad idea...and that means not buying into the hype, literally or figuratively.

Good luck on that one, though...that genie's done left the stable.

[Larry Kart]

Oh. I was just thinking about the ownership of the past of music going forth, not trying to rule the world.

Not all tyrannies are murderous in deed, but most tyrannical thinking/feeling is murderous at heart. That's why stupidity alone doesn't seem (at least to me) to fit the cases we've been talking about on this thread (e.g. Hersch and Gennari). These are people who in the name of power or control or some such are out to more or less expunge the life out of specific human beings -- and vividly alive human beings, too.

[Christiern]

Leigh Whipper, the venerable black character actor ("Ox Bow Incident," etc.) described for me Bessie Smith's departure from a Carl Van Vechten party.

"Just as Bessie Smith was about to leave, Mrs. Van Vechten, a lady of short stature, raised herself on her toes and threw her arms around her neck. 'Get away from me,' shouted Miss Bessie, throwing her arms out in such a way that the poor lady fell to the floor. Then Miss Bessie turned to make her exit, and as she did that, she declared for all to hear, 'I ain't never heard of such excrement!'."

[JSngry]

Oh. I was just thinking about the ownership of the past of music going forth, not trying to rule the world.

Not all tyrannies are murderous in deed, but most tyrannical thinking/feeling is murderous at heart. That's why stupidity alone doesn't seem (at least to me) to fit the cases we've been talking about on this thread (e.g. Hersch and Gennari). These are people who in the name of power or control or some such are out to more or less expunge the life out of specific human beings -- and vividly alive human beings, too.

Yeah - and they'll gladly charge you to watch them do it.

Just as the "guardians of the culture" will sell your own life back to you first chance they get.

How it all ends up is them - be they the tyrants or the guardians (and as always, who is who gets defined by who's winning at any given time) - owning you by how they define you and your world. Once they can define your world, they can define your place in it. And your place is always going to be to serve them. I'm kinda like...own yourself and only yourself, and then do business accordingly. anyting else....I get suspicious it of pretty quickly these days. Somebody be wanting something of mine for some reason other than just to be friends...

Who funds these clowns, anyway? None of them could - or would - do it for free, I'm sure,

[Larry Kart]

Who funds these clowns, anyway? None of them could - or would - do it for free, I'm sure,

Well, they're funded up to a point or in some sense by the academic institutions for which they work, but I don't think they do this kind of stuff for the money, which is minimal (at least as far as books like these are concerned), but for power and/or the sensations and aura thereof -- to inflate the goiters of their own self-esteem, their sense that they are properly reshaping a "discipline," revising/rewriting the history of a living (or once living) art.

[paul secor]

I don't know if it's still the case, but it used to be that university academics had to publish in order to keep their jobs or, if they had tenure, to keep their place in the academic society they inhabited. I don't think it mattered all that much if what they published was real or not - just so they got it out there.

[JSngry]

...their sense that they are properly reshaping a "discipline," revising/rewriting the history of a living (or once living) art.

Well, there you go - people trying to own the dead so they can rule a kingdom of zombies. For real.

I don't know 'bout y'all, but I just don't/won't/can't fuck with this shit. It's not right, it's not healthy, and there's no happy endings involved in any way in trying to engage it.

Just...walk away. Let the zombies eat their own, and go find a good party somewhere.

Edited August 29, 2011 by JSngry

[Larry Kart]

...their sense that they are properly reshaping a "discipline," revising/rewriting the history of a living (or once living) art.

Well, there you go - people trying to own the dead so they can rule a kingdom of zombies. For real.

I don't know 'bout y'all, but I just don't/won't/can't fuck with this shit. It's not right, it's not healthy, and there's no happy endings involved in any way in trying to engage it.

Just...walk away. Let the zombies eat their own, and go find a good party somewhere.

But knowing what I know or think I know about the jazz past (particularly the good-sized chunks of it that I've actually lived through), I can't walk away from it for several reasons. First, because in general (and I don't recall who came up with the phrase), I think of history as "the queen of disciplines." To sit still while stuff is erased or rewritten for what seem to me to be essentially venal reasons ... not while I have a breath left. Second, it still seems to me to be a living art -- very much so -- and a good party, too. No doubt there are good parties, and bigger good parties, elsewhere (I've certainly attended a few), but at age 69 I don't feel much like switching, and not because I'm prone to nostalgia. To me, both Jelly Roll Morton and Cecil Taylor (and many other people, right on up to this moment) are still among the living.

[JSngry]

Well, of course they are, but...they're also "properties" up for grabs. And people like us, who have no interest in them in that way, we are not at all relevant to those whose only relevance is to see them that way, as means to another end. And the history of the world is that eventually, the ones who want to own lives rather than live them win. If not while you have a breath left, then after you don't. It's all but inevitable.

The joke's on them, though, because what they think they own and what they actually own are two different thing. What they really want to own can never be owned, not like they want to own it, because it refuses to be owned. The very thing that they try to own is so often that which they try to stamp out in their time, the life, the spirit, the...everything that makes people do different things just to get away from all that bullshit. And they do get rid of a lot of voices, but they never kill that spirit, because that spirit is life and they are death. Life always wins over the long haul, even if we ourselves can't always haul it long enough to get it there.

Somebody will. Somebody always will.

[Chuck Nessa]

You guys need to relax and listen to some music. The folks you rail about don't give a fuck.

[JSngry]

And they don't mean a fuck either, not as far as I'm concerned. But Larry's my friend, and I'm trying to talk him down from this bad trip he's about to go on.

He'd do the same for me, I know. We actually talked on the phone once, so I know!

[johnlitweiler]

why isn't Dan -- a man of great intelligence and broad experience, etc. -- given credit for having lived his own life and having reached his own conclusions.

Because today's battles are about ownership, and ownership is all about defining, not spotlighting and encouraging.

This is what happens when enough people die. Pretty soon critical mass is reached and even the still-living are up for grabs.

Exactly.

One of the most awful things about tyrannies, I reckon, is not only that one has to submit by and large to the sheer power of those in power but also that one must accept (if and when this becomes an issue) the tyranny's typically detailed false supporting claims that the power the tyrant has come to exercise is rational and righteous. They want both your bodies and your souls.

Well said, gents. Gennari's book about jazz-criticism history is all about power and he doesn't notice or care that there are values in this music we love. He wrote about a peripheral subject, irrelevant to jazz and to jazz appreciation. Sometimes the power-obsessed jazz academics seem like too many hogs fighting over a too-small trough with not enough swill to go around. OTOH Hersch seems to have picked a genuinely worthwhile subject to write about, even though others have already researched it--I hope the rest of it isn't as awful as Allen's excerpt.

Jim, at least when revisionists impose their programs/propaganda upon the still-living, the still-living can fight back. As George Lewis did in his AACM history.

Fortunately, we have nothing to fear from the likes of Gennari. The most sophisticated tyrants get our souls by nourishing our bodies and distracting our attention (bread and circuses) from their violence against freedom. As in present-day China. That's why Rick Perry is such a trip, the times are right for an American demagogue.

[David Ayers]

So bad writing on jazz = Nazism?

OK, just so as I know.

[Larry Kart]

You guys need to relax and listen to some music. The folks you rail about don't give a fuck.

Chuck -- Wait until someone writes something grossly inaccurate if not mean-spirited about, say, your role in recording Roscoe and others (if that hasn't already happened). If I know you, your response won't be to relax and listen to some music.

[Chuck Nessa]

You guys need to relax and listen to some music. The folks you rail about don't give a fuck.

Chuck -- Wait until someone writes something grossly inaccurate if not mean-spirited about, say, your role in recording Roscoe and others (if that hasn't already happened). If I know you, your response won't be to relax and listen to some music.

Over the last 40+ years I have been attacked by white folks saying I'd been duped by black musicians and by black folks saying I was screwing black musicians.

[Larry Kart]

You guys need to relax and listen to some music. The folks you rail about don't give a fuck.

Chuck -- Wait until someone writes something grossly inaccurate if not mean-spirited about, say, your role in recording Roscoe and others (if that hasn't already happened). If I know you, your response won't be to relax and listen to some music.

Over the last 40+ years I have been attacked by white folks saying I'd been duped by black musicians and by black folks saying I was screwing black musicians.

Yes, I've heard you compared to Herman Lubinsky.

[Mark Stryker]

why isn't Dan -- a man of great intelligence and broad experience, etc. -- given credit for having lived his own life and having reached his own conclusions.

Because today's battles are about ownership, and ownership is all about defining, not spotlighting and encouraging.

This is what happens when enough people die. Pretty soon critical mass is reached and even the still-living are up for grabs.

Exactly.

One of the most awful things about tyrannies, I reckon, is not only that one has to submit by and large to the sheer power of those in power but also that one must accept (if and when this becomes an issue) the tyranny's typically detailed false supporting claims that the power the tyrant has come to exercise is rational and righteous. They want both your bodies and your souls.

Well said, gents. Gennari's book about jazz-criticism history is all about power and he doesn't notice or care that there are values in this music we love. He wrote about a peripheral subject, irrelevant to jazz and to jazz appreciation. Sometimes the power-obsessed jazz academics seem like too many hogs fighting over a too-small trough with not enough swill to go around. OTOH Hersch seems to have picked a genuinely worthwhile subject to write about, even though others have already researched it--I hope the rest of it isn't as awful as Allen's excerpt.

Jim, at least when revisionists impose their programs/propaganda upon the still-living, the still-living can fight back. As George Lewis did in his AACM history.

Fortunately, we have nothing to fear from the likes of Gennari. The most sophisticated tyrants get our souls by nourishing our bodies and distracting our attention (bread and circuses) from their violence against freedom. As in present-day China. That's why Rick Perry is such a trip, the times are right for an American demagogue.

I have trouble with this line of thinking because the implication is that Gennari's subject itself is out of bounds because it's "a peripheral subject, irrelevant to jazz and to jazz appreciation" and that he apparently doesn't get that "the values in this music that we love." Sorry, but exploring the history of criticism of any art form is a completely relevant topic in enlarging our understanding of the way that art form has developed and its relationship to the larger society. Just because Gennari may have done a poor job doesn't mean that the job wasn't worth doing well.

Moreover, it seems disingenuous to me to complain that Gennari's book represents the overreach of power-obsessed jazz academics when wielding power, intentionally or unintentionally, benignly or maliciously, carelessly or meticulously, is on at least some level an issue in almost all criticism. Certainly musicians have always complained about critics in the same terms that you are complaining about academics -- they don't understand the music or its values, all they want is power, they're failed musicians, bitter, impotent, etc.

I'm not saying that there aren't particular problems with certain kinds of jazz academics and that those problems may not be magnified in the context of contemporary discourse/marketplace about the music. But the answer is not putting some subjects off limits. The answer is to try and create a better breed of academic, to encourage and celebrate more and better-written books and to call bullshit whenever and wherever we see it.

Edited August 30, 2011 by Mark Stryker