Alex Hoffman: "Why I think Wayne Shorter Sucks"

[JSngry]

I liked his own stuff, actually, in a "small" "stay within yourself" kind of way.

It's kinda like having a nice garden for your own enjoyment in a corner of your back yard. Something you can apply your focus to and get desired results that please your personal esthetic.

Good for you, right?

But.

[CJ Shearn]

You are right, it is fine in that retro hard bop "stay inside" way, there are records like that I enjoy quite a bit. Like that Eric Alexander "Alexander the Great" (the only EA I feel I need to own) or that "Warner Jams vol. 1" record. But Hoffman's thing doesn't replace the realness of Tina Brooks where you hear his experience all the way thru his horn. It's like an actor playing a person with cerebral palsy cannot replicate the experience I have of really living it every day.

[Big Wheel]

Perhaps the NYU program Hoffman is a graduate of does have a very strict view on what's "correct" in jazz, I have no idea.

Doubtful; the program used to be run by Bob Parsons, a very Jim McNeely-esque arranger. The current faculty does not suggest it either, although it's probable many of the biggest names are on there for show and they spend very little time actually teaching NYU students.

I was being tongue-in-cheek with the harmonic analysis but really, you can make just about anything function "properly" if you know enough substitution tricks. Which is what I love about both science and jazz - how students learn through a process of constantly scrapping everything they learned before to accommodate the complexity needed to cope with the real world:

In chemistry you first learn that electrons spin around a visibly big nucleus (the Bohr model) and they're in spherical "shells" or energy levels.

No, actually there's a cloud of electrons around a miniscule dense nucleus and the shells are just probability spaces determined by crazy quantum mechanical math

You start by learning there's something called a "double replacement reaction" and then you get to organic chemistry and realize that it's much more subtle, it's just some reaction between a nucleophile and electrophile and real chemists don't even care about what happens to half the products (except as it applies to how to get rid of them)

You learn that pressure of a gas increases with decreasing volume....oh, except when it doesn't

And then you get to biology and realize that there's still an "order" there, but all the math in the world will not be enough to model a typical real-life system properly because it's just too complex

In jazz you start by learning triads and basic 7th chords

Except if you want to play real bebop, then you better find some hipper voicings and add extensions

The chords should use stacked thirds...unless you want to play like McCoy Tyner, then it needs to be fourths

It's supposed to swing...except when it isn't

The blues has 12 bars. Except when it has 8. Oh, sometimes it can have 44. Or 16.

McCoy Tyner's harmonic ideas are "acceptable" and allowed in this order. Are Andrew Hill's acceptable? Are Don Pullen's?

Bird's ideas on form are the ones you should follow. Why are Ornette's ideas on form not? Why not Cecil Taylor's?

It's one thing to say you should probably know what you're doing before you play an Andrew Hill voicing with a natural 11th and a sharp 11th on the third bar of Girl From Ipanema. It's quite another to say that a whole conception is invalid. Although as someone pointed out in the comments on Youtube, it's plausible that Hoffman just hates Osby and Shorter because they were his judges in the Monk Competition and he didn't make the top 3, and has invented a bunch of nonsense as an ex post justification for his anger about it. Really, Steve Coleman doesn't understand Bird? Steve Coleman has learned more about Bird than possibly the entire jazz education movement put together.

Edited June 8, 2013 by Big Wheel

[CJ Shearn]

Yeah, that's incredibly funny to say Coleman doesn't know Bird, or it's like saying Cecil Taylor doesn't know Earl Hines, Powell or Monk. Those guys know the tradition they choose not to play that way. Then theres the other guys who know the tradition like Kirk Whalum and Rick Braun, they just choose not to play straight ahead, opting for the $$ playing smooth jazz. Thank you for that explanation though

Edited June 8, 2013 by CJ Shearn

[danasgoodstuff]

Although as someone pointed out in the comments on Youtube, it's plausible that Hoffman just hates Osby and Shorter because they were his judges in the Monk Competition and he didn't make the top 3, and has invented a bunch of nonsense as an ex post justification for his anger about it. Really, Steve Coleman doesn't understand Bird? Steve Coleman has learned more about Bird than possibly the entire jazz education movement put together.

I think we have a winner!

[7/4]

It's not about if you win or not, it's how you play the game.

[colinmce]

I feel sorry for this guy. On multiple levels.

[Steve Reynolds]

I feel sorry for this guy. On multiple levels.

I didn't listen.

No reason to listen to that belief system.

It is suffocating on so many levels.

[JSngry]

But Hoffman's thing doesn't replace the realness of Tina Brooks where you hear his experience all the way thru his horn.

I'd not want to call into question Hoffman's "realness", because obviously it's very real to him what he's doing.

Plus, I don't think you it's necessarily "fair" to expect anybody to project (for example) Tina Brook's realness these days, because that specific reality hardly exists anymore, if it does at all. So then you gotta look at it like, "playing the music I love for the reasons I believe in" and as far as that goes, hey, no problem. That's what you should do, right?

My problem is, dude, hey, have at least half a clue about where you are relative to where everybody else is and realise that at best you're swimming against a damn high tide with a damn strong undertow, and really...you say "Fuck Wayne Shorter" right now and not expect pushback and a lot of people wondering wtf you're talking about and why and you're not ready with any kind of answer except vulgarity and lack of triadic mastery and all that kind of shit? That's just "not ready", not musically, but "professionally".

Again, it's a nice backyard corner garden, and yeah, good for him on that, but... Fuck Wayne Shorter? With whose dick, exactly? The nice backyard corner garden dick?

Gotta have more dick than that if you gonnawanna Fuck Wayne Shorter. Sorry.

[robertoart]

Does Wayne Shorter really have a lack of 'triadic mastery'? Didn't he make up for it in other 'more relevant for the times' ways back then?

These guys and gals (it's probably mostly guys with this kind of consciousness), that have the benefit of a 'very' late twentieth century 'wholistic Jazz Education' are such a bunch of wankers.

[7/4]

But Hoffman's thing doesn't replace the realness of Tina Brooks where you hear his experience all the way thru his horn.

I'd not want to call into question Hoffman's "realness", because obviously it's very real to him what he's doing.

Plus, I don't think you it's necessarily "fair" to expect anybody to project (for example) Tina Brook's realness these days, because that specific reality hardly exists anymore, if it does at all. So then you gotta look at it like, "playing the music I love for the reasons I believe in" and as far as that goes, hey, no problem. That's what you should do, right?

My problem is, dude, hey, have at least half a clue about where you are relative to where everybody else is and realise that at best you're swimming against a damn high tide with a damn strong undertow, and really...you say "Fuck Wayne Shorter" right now and not expect pushback and a lot of people wondering wtf you're talking about and why and you're not ready with any kind of answer except vulgarity and lack of triadic mastery and all that kind of shit? That's just "not ready", not musically, but "professionally".

Again, it's a nice backyard corner garden, and yeah, good for him on that, but... Fuck Wayne Shorter? With whose dick, exactly? The nice backyard corner garden dick?

Gotta have more dick than that if you gonnawanna Fuck Wayne Shorter. Sorry.

[CJ Shearn]

I guess so, that formulaic approach is very real to him. You're right, maybe Tina was a bad example, and that shows my own relative youthful inexperience. I guess for Hoffman and players with his ideals the formula of this chord must relate to this chord and this note must relate to this note, but as a listener and a fan, and a historian of this music it doesn't do anything for me, his mode of thought. That statement is a bit contradictory because there are pieces with technical concepts as the main goal that I dig, such as some of Lyle Mays' pieces for example.

Edited June 9, 2013 by CJ Shearn

[robertoart]

Tina Brookes is a good example for authenticity in his own time and place. So not a bad example at all. Criticising past jazz masters (even if they are still alive and playing), for technical shortcomings - or different areas of focus - seems a bit silly from this vantage in time. l mean where does it end.... Pharoah Sanders can't arpeggio run Giant Steps.....Archie Shepp can't play as well as Michael Brecker....James Blood Ulmer can't really play changes....Does anyone really agree with Mingus about Ornette anymore?

[robertoart]

Alex is a pencil neck geek.

I can't get past 21.20minutes. He's starting to freak me out.

He seems scared and weird.

Like a zombie Woody Allen.

Doesn't this guy understand the music is more than 'maths'.

Has Barry Harris never gotten over the inside/outside dichotomy? And this guy is taking his disgruntlement as gospel?

Edited June 9, 2013 by freelancer

[Larry Kart]

Afraid I can't watch or just am not up to it right now. The intro alone, plus the way Hoffman looks ("Like a zombie Woody Allen" is good) creeps me out.

Also, if that's Sacha Perry on piano on Hoffman's video, his obtrusively busy, nervous-guide dog comping makes me want to scream. Actually, Barry Harris himself, given all his other virtues, was often not a helpful accompanist back in the day, in the same manner, though in Perry's case (if that is Perry) it's like somebody selling halitosis.

[CJ Shearn]

I don't think so, freelancer, it is just math and systems to him. Another guy he dissed was of course, Pat Metheny (although not in this video) I would love to see Pat school him on harmony, and he'd give the guy a lesson on bebop, anybody would. I also read Hoffman assaulted a guy at a gig b/c he didn't like what the guy was playing. I think if I had a chance to see him at Smalls', I'd pass. He also places Bix above Louis, which is bizarre. When he plays bop/hard bop it's formulaic. When I hear Steve Davis, Jim Rotondi play that stuff, it feels real, they truly love that stuff. Steve Davis has a massive record collection and he loves that stuff. When Bird, Dizzy, Hank, Horace, and Tina and Sonny and everyone played that stuff, it was real, and that's why it touches me as a listener. Yes, that is Sacha Perry, Larry. Everyone in that vid just looks stiff, uncomfortable and they give off a forced "this is what we think cool is" vibe

Edited June 9, 2013 by CJ Shearn

[Larry Kart]

Places "Bix above Louis"? I would think that here we all could agree that Louis is Louis and Bix is Bix. Among other things, aside from the coincidence in time, I see nothing inherently rivalrous or competitive about their playing. It's not even like Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, where at least there's the excuse of the latter coming along afterwards with a significantly different approach.

[CJ Shearn]

Right, I don't see any competitiveness in Bix or Louie either. The unfortunate thing about race relations in our society at that point in time was that Louis was Bix' hero and they could not really play together, at least that's what's stated in the "Keeping Time" anthology of jazz writings. It seemed to me a bit strange to put Bix' aesthetics over Louis, which is what Alex did. I've read he's said the blues scale is "the biggest lie" among other things, he's criticized Branford for not ID'ing correctly certain swing to bop era saxophonists in a blindfold test. My brief research on Hoffman shows he makes outrageous statements which serve little purpose other than to gain attention to him.

[Larry Kart]

Well, there was that Branford blindfold test where he couldn't identify and/or misidentified Lockjaw, whom one would think was the most identifiable tenor saxophonist on the planet. But as odd and amusing as that glitch was, given some of Branford's remarks about The Tradition, I wouldn't build a whole edifice on it.

[bertrand]

I wondered about the Monk competition theory as well, although I did not know this sniveling millennial punk also had an axe to gring about Osby as well who was also a judge, which seems to buttress this theory.

Someone who knows him (this asswipe is from the DC area) said it's not about that. For me, the burden is on Hoffman to prove that it isn't because it sure smells that way. Until then, I will happily espouse this theory.

Bertrand.

PS: I'm guessing that Hoffman will not be proposing himself anytime soon for the Washington/Baltimore Wayne Shorter 80th birthday celebration.

[JSngry]

I remember when Mathew Shipp said something along the lines of Herbie Hancock should just get out of the way or something like that (don't have the exact quotes handy), but the point was just that Herbie was an old cow eating all the grass in the pasture and the young cows were tired of not having a pasture of their own because of this one fatfuck cow. That I can get, a certain frustration that yeah, Herbie was great in his time, but really still now why?

There's answers for that, too, but those are not at all bad questions or an unreasonable motivation for asking them.

But this guy is just all shut up you can't play, you're bullshitting, you're making the world an uglier place, just STOP IT, and ummm...well be that as it may be in your mind, just...have the courage of your convictions to live in your own world and all this other stuff that so...rankles you, well ok, it rankles you. Your rankling is duly noted. Now go home and wait for those who have been compelled by your alternative vision to come to your world. And stay the hell offa Facebook.

Next..

[CJ Shearn]

Yes, that's the blindfold test I was talking about, sometimes nailing people about minutiae is just not important. Funny I said that on a board all about minutiae!

[robertoart]

I remember the Shipp statements. I took them as a complaint about artistic complacency as much as anything. And provocative for good reason. Anyone bemoaning Wayne Shorter for 'taking a line for a walk' is probably missing out on a lot of creative understanding (and fun). All artistic disciplines achieve some of their best moments when the unconscious takes over.

[bertrand]

There was some movie with Matthew Shipp where he was saying 'fuck Bud, fuck Monk'. At the screening, a piano player said that he took deep offense to that considering what Bud and Monk had to go through to get their art out there. This was enough to make me decide that I will never listen to Shipp.

I know some musicians from the Tristano school and they seem to have their reservations about expressing emotion in music. They don't go around saying 'fuck Wayne Shorter, fuck Bud, fuck Monk'.

Bertrand.

[robertoart]

There was some movie with Matthew Shipp where he was saying 'fuck Bud, fuck Monk'. At the screening, a piano player said that he took deep offense to that considering what Bud and Monk had to go through to get their art out there. This was enough to make me decide that I will never listen to Shipp.

I know some musicians from the Tristano school and they seem to have their reservations about expressing emotion in music. They don't go around saying 'fuck Wayne Shorter, fuck Bud, fuck Monk'.

Bertrand.

He was probably making a point about the 'in the tradition' movement that has made such a great contribution to fucking up the music.