JSngry Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 (edited) Branford is saying that the Europeans need to feel that the music is something they too can do, not that Europeans have a hard time grasping the full humanity of black people as being something to not be judged in terms of how white people feel about everything. Subtle but meaningful difference, in my mind. Branford would probably get to that if he got pushed into it, but it's not his opening statement. Cecil, otoh, wants to save everybody the time and trouble of waiting for it to get to that point. Branford might be right for "the times", but Cecil is probably right for all times (unless and until all these times change to some other times). Perhaps relevant quote from James Baldwin: http://books.google....trinsic&f=false White Americans find it as difficult as white people elsewhere to divest themselves of the notion that they are in possession of some intrinsic value that black people need, or want. If "they" "reject" (or at least don't rush to embrace) "us", why...how can that be? Do they not see how worthy we are? Do they think that they are better than us? Everything gets viewed through the lens of "me/us" being the center of everybody's universe. The assumption is that it is true for me, therefore it is true for all. The notion that one can be basically different without surrendering full/essential equality of legitimacy is still a difficult one to grasp in a lot of places, and not just in the area of race. Edited December 8, 2012 by JSngry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnlitweiler Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 Warne Marsh didn't sound like multitudes, he sounded like Warne Marsh. Do you want your artists to sound like multitudes? And as for white alto players... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 Do you want your artists to sound like multitudes? What does a multitude sound like, anyway? Do I want to listen to a French choir comprised of 37% hardcore rednecks singing Swahilli text being conducted by Bobby McFerrin on a recording produced by Shinichi Osawa? Well, yeah, maybe I do. But not without an awareness and appreciation of what it is I'd be hearing - and not hearing - by doing so, as well as what claims are being made by and for all concerned. Otherwise, everybody's just getting pimped for ego gratification. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertoart Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 Warne Marsh didn't sound like multitudes, he sounded like Warne Marsh. Do you want your artists to sound like multitudes? And as for white alto players... Yeh, Warne Marsh. So how many White Tenor players in the times this panel took place can be compared to the 'multitudes' of Black Tenor giants then. Obviously I'm talking about multitudes in terms of critical mass not derivation. Marsh and Tristano etc.al were an anomaly compared to the all cultural expression of Jazz as a Black music language. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 Do you want your artists to sound like multitudes? What does a multitude sound like, anyway? Do I want to listen to a French choir comprised of 37% hardcore rednecks singing Swahilli text being conducted by Bobby McFerrin on a recording produced by Shinichi Osawa? Well, yeah, maybe I do. But not without an awareness and appreciation of what it is I'd be hearing - and not hearing - by doing so, as well as what claims are being made by and for all concerned. Otherwise, everybody's just getting pimped for ego gratification. And not just that, but the resulting product would likely suck because of that exact reasons. But it might sell like a redhot motherfucker precisely because of so. And then everybody feels better by changing nothing except what they think they feel, as opposed to what they know, and what they don't know, and what they really feel when they're trying their best to not feel it. The only way that "universal humanity" can come to exist is by recognizing that there is no such thing. If you can see it, it's not there. So stop looking, and let it be there. "Universal" and "self" consciously co-existing, fully aware of each other? Probably not? World gone wrong if thought to be so. But feeling good! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertoart Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 Branford is saying that the Europeans need to feel that the music is something they too can do, not that Europeans have a hard time grasping the full humanity of black people as being something to not be judged in terms of how white people feel about everything. Subtle but meaningful difference, in my mind. Branford would probably get to that if he got pushed into it, but it's not his opening statement. Cecil, otoh, wants to save everybody the time and trouble of waiting for it to get to that point. Branford might be right for "the times", but Cecil is probably right for all times (unless and until all these times change to some other times). Perhaps relevant quote from James Baldwin: http://books.google....trinsic&f=false White Americans find it as difficult as white people elsewhere to divest themselves of the notion that they are in possession of some intrinsic value that black people need, or want. If "they" "reject" (or at least don't rush to embrace) "us", why...how can that be? Do they not see how worthy we are? Do they think that they are better than us? Everything gets viewed through the lens of "me/us" being the center of everybody's universe. The assumption is that it is true for me, therefore it is true for all. The notion that one can be basically different without surrendering full/essential equality of legitimacy is still a difficult one to grasp in a lot of places, and not just in the area of race. I suspect Marsailis is retreating back onto the fence the further this clip goes. He makes the point about European audiences, re-Coltrane and Brecker, but he surely was also meaning any audience faced with the reality of Coltrane's social cry as opposed to Brecker's tenorisms. And don't forget there are still people claiming Brecker was critically neglected because he was White (believe it or not). Re Euro-pean-ess/Whiteness and 'something they can do'. The meaning is probably closer to 'something they can participate in and influence on their own terms'. Anywhere in the Western World (including America) this hardly seems an issue now. When was the last truly all-Black intersubjective Jazz movement? - the Loft scene/Harmolodic Seventies, and the New Lions Marsailis early Eighties. although I suppose some will be glad to say this was all falsely propped up by White Critics with an ideological agenda.The Loft scene became the Downtown scene - whose legacy has chiefly been to free Free Jazz from an essential African American Aesthetic into an Avant-Noise Improv one, where White musicians can now participate 'on their own terms'. Who are the sentinels/beneficiary's of this movement - Zorn/Douglas/Vanderwhatshisname/Ribot/Frisell etc.al. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 I suspect Marsailis is retreating back onto the fence the further this clip goes. Well, yeah, there you go, exactly. Cecil and retreat do not exist in the same universe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Nessa Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 LOL! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnlitweiler Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 Warne Marsh didn't sound like multitudes, he sounded like Warne Marsh. Do you want your artists to sound like multitudes? And as for white alto players... Yeh, Warne Marsh. So how many White Tenor players in the times this panel took place can be compared to the 'multitudes' of Black Tenor giants then. Obviously I'm talking about multitudes in terms of critical mass not derivation. Marsh and Tristano etc.al were an anomaly compared to the all cultural expression of Jazz as a Black music language. And Marsh, Tristano, Pepper, Bix, Trumbauer, Pee Wee Russell, W. Breuker, J. Adasiewicz, etc. etc. express Jazz as their own musical languages. Xlento!, as Hank Mobley might say. Nobody is denying that jazz was originally, and remains in terms of expressive, etc., aspects, a basically African-American tradition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Nessa Posted December 9, 2012 Report Share Posted December 9, 2012 Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllenLowe Posted December 9, 2012 Report Share Posted December 9, 2012 my feeling is that if you chalk it off to experience, well, then, as I said, everyone would sound like Bird. But beyond this I tend to agree with Robbe-Grillet, who complained that bad fiction put too many layers of metaphor between the writer and what he was writing about - same with the sociolohy of experience, Artists create their own, alternative histories which transcend their own times and lives. Does not mean that those lives and times don't effect them - just means that ultimately it's irrelevant, because what they produce is either worthy or it's not. It's not improved by our knowledge of their color or their lives. Just more layers for the academics, I think. and of course Dizzy Gillespie told me once that the ONLY alto player who, in his opinion, captured "the rhymic essence of Bird" was Dave Schildkraut, who was white and Jewish (and btw, in my opinion, an influence on Coltrane). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertoart Posted December 13, 2012 Report Share Posted December 13, 2012 Warne Marsh didn't sound like multitudes, he sounded like Warne Marsh. Do you want your artists to sound like multitudes? And as for white alto players... Yeh, Warne Marsh. So how many White Tenor players in the times this panel took place can be compared to the 'multitudes' of Black Tenor giants then. Obviously I'm talking about multitudes in terms of critical mass not derivation. Marsh and Tristano etc.al were an anomaly compared to the all cultural expression of Jazz as a Black music language. And Marsh, Tristano, Pepper, Bix, Trumbauer, Pee Wee Russell, W. Breuker, J. Adasiewicz, etc. etc. express Jazz as their own musical languages. Xlento!, as Hank Mobley might say. Nobody is denying that jazz was originally, and remains in terms of expressive, etc., aspects, a basically African-American tradition. They don't express Jazz as their 'own musical languages', they express the musical language of Jazz with their own voices or accents, the language is the key thing, the voice or accent the individual thing. It's also more than 'in terms of expressive etc., aspects'...it is down to notes, scales-diminished, melodic minor.. harmonic substituitions etc. From where did this musical thinking and structures emerge? From dominant musical thinkers from Black bands and communities. As far as Free Jazz, there was no Free Jazz in Europe before Ornette, Coltrane and Ayler. Derek Bailey or no. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertoart Posted December 13, 2012 Report Share Posted December 13, 2012 (edited) my feeling is that if you chalk it off to experience, well, then, as I said, everyone would sound like Bird. But beyond this I tend to agree with Robbe-Grillet, who complained that bad fiction put too many layers of metaphor between the writer and what he was writing about - same with the sociolohy of experience, Artists create their own, alternative histories which transcend their own times and lives. Does not mean that those lives and times don't effect them - just means that ultimately it's irrelevant, because what they produce is either worthy or it's not. It's not improved by our knowledge of their color or their lives. Just more layers for the academics, I think. and of course Dizzy Gillespie told me once that the ONLY alto player who, in his opinion, captured "the rhymic essence of Bird" was Dave Schildkraut, who was white and Jewish (and btw, in my opinion, an influence on Coltrane). This is so much bullshit. If your talking about great, good and less good players, maybe you have a point. But that is to also sidestep the facts of the creation, sustenance and development of the musical language as a whole. It can't be reduced to an argument about 'this speaker was a better speaker than this other speaker'. To deny the social and intellectual context of their (musicians) times, is a fake out for people who want to push some regrettable agendas. Unfortunately the history of Jazz can provide a lot of enticing social and creative worlds for some Academics to attach their Historical projections into, but it doesn't deny the even more regrettable need to fight against misplaced revisionism. As for Schildkraut how much of an influence was he on Coltrane. A GREAT BIG ONE or a somewhat less tangential one. I suppose we can also say Slominsky's scalular phone book was a big influence too. Edited December 13, 2012 by freelancer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertoart Posted December 13, 2012 Report Share Posted December 13, 2012 LOL! Can you expand this to maybe three words at least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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