white englishman explains Coltrane '66

[Guy Berger]

Is 'turd' now an acceptable response to any board member who posts something you don't like?

Is Dyer a board member? I don't understand where this comment is coming from or why it's relevant.

[paul secor]

I have to shake my head when I read comments from Dyer (and others) saying that John Coltrane had reached a dead end in his music. Some even are even foolish enough to speculate where Trane's music might have evolved. Music, like any art, is an ongoing process, and that results of that process might be a mystery even to the creators. I wonder whether John Coltrane had any idea where his music would be in ten years when he was playing with Miles in 1956. In early 1967, he may have had no idea where his music might go.

John Coltrane kept searching until the end of his life and his music is there for us to hear. All we can do is listen and take whatever we can from what he offered us. For Dyer (or anyone, for that matter) to say that Coltrane had reached a dead end in his music is presumptuous at best, and ignorant at worst.

[Larry Kart]

What particularly pissed me off when I looked again at Dyer's piece was this:

"The fact that things fall apart does not mean that they can’t keep going, especially given the huge freight of history that the music and its revolutionary promptings and trappings is, at this point, obliged to bear. On that note, one wonders about Yeats’s claim that the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Trane is as passionately intense as ever. Did he lack conviction? Maybe the Yeatsian opposition is false and passionate intensity covers up or disguises a deeper lack of conviction." [My emphasis]

​What a piece of "culture vulture" b.s. this is, as though dragging in that hoary Yeats quotation settles anything. Also, do you think that Dyer did actually "wonder" what he says he did? What he did instead, I think, was remember that Yeats quotation (easily done), see a way to work it into a faked-up discussion of late Coltrane and thus pin a "O, how literate a fellow am I" badge on his chest, that probably being the real goal of this little enterprise. Yuck.

[Big Beat Steve]

What he did instead, I think, was remember that Yeats quotation (easily done), see a way to work it into a faked-up discussion of late Coltrane and thus pin a "O, how literate a fellow am I" badge on his chest, that probably being the real goal of this little enterprise. Yuck.

Happens often in circles of the "learned" who are all out to publish, publish, publish ... Use specific buzzwords that will get you (fairly easily calculable) write-ups and acclaim from a certain circle of critics who will then acknowledge your intellectual insight ...

[B. Clugston]

The article has a pointlessness to it: written by someone who neither understands the music or makes any effort to understand the music. Name-dropping Yeats and Adorno tries to distract from the fact the article is 11 paragraphs of "I don't get it..."

[danasgoodstuff]

The article has a pointlessness to it: written by someone who neither understands the music or makes any effort to understand the music. Name-dropping Yeats and Adorno tries to distract from the fact the article is 11 paragraphs of "I don't get it..."

exactly!

[JSngry]

It's not like if you don't like it, you don't get it, but there's a way to communicate that you don't like something and nevertheless get it. Making sweeping generalizations with no bearing in fact and putting up pseudo-quasi authority appealings, like hey, see, I don't feel bad about turdifizing, they did it too, that is not that way.

This guy is like, oh, Om & Interstellar Space & Kulu Se Mama & Live at The Vanguard Again, all the same thing. Well, no. So not the same thing.

[MomsMobley]

It's not like if you don't like it, you don't get it, but there's a way to communicate that you don't like something and nevertheless get it. Making sweeping generalizations with no bearing in fact and putting up pseudo-quasi authority appealings, like hey, see, I don't feel bad about turdifizing, they did it too, that is not that way.

This guy is like, oh, Om & Interstellar Space & Kulu Se Mama & Live at The Vanguard Again, all the same thing. Well, no. So not the same thing.

exactly, that's why I threw out the Philly stuff. if this clown wasn't entirely fronting, picking up some $$$ and another NYRB byline, he could actually do something useful and place the concert in context of Coltrane's bio, Coltrane as southern born, northern raised U.S. Navy veteran whose intense tutelage, intense exploration beyond that, a unique assimilation of virtuosic chops & methodical, radical examination of what "jazz" music can be qua structure (including some notable compositions of his own) & sound...

returns to Philadelphia, Temple University, one of the public universities of Pennsylvania in heart of black & blackening north Philly etc... There's ** A LOT ** to explore there even w/o foreshadowing imminent death. What was Coltrane trying to communicate & to whom? Returning to Philly is different than another night at the Vanguard is different than Tokyo etc.

If Dyer researches, thinks about these things & still comes out unmoved or even antagonistic, alright, FINE-- anyone can disagree-- but...

in arrogance & ignorance both he's done none of that, nor, plainly, is he even capable of simple taxonomic description, thus the weak attempts at diversion, conflation of all those albums you cite above & more.

Be hilarious-- & telling-- if NYRB had done a double review; assign it to Dyer and, say, Greg Tate or John Szwed, who was in Philly then or shortly would be, and see what happens.

And if they assigned or accepted the pitch from Dyer knowing his ah, "peculiar" limitations as listener/HACK, the question becomes WHY? Just play the song, John, don't get 'uppity' like some of these other...

Edited October 20, 2014 by MomsMobley

[JSngry]

...and never mind how all the lazy people focus on the "spirituality" of the "late" period and totally ignore the math, of the music which was very real, very specific, and very purposeful. You very seldom hear, yeah, Trane started exploring the links between consciousness and mathematical representations of same, you only hear about how Trane freaked out, started tripping and seeing god, and then finally dissolved himself into one giant Lost Squawk.

Ayler, maybe. Maybe. But Trane, no, not even close.

And don't even get me started about how Pharoah is so often heard as just a noisemaker trying to keep the energy up. No, Pharoah was using some very specific "extended" techniques with his instrument, and doing so in a very controlled fashion. The energy whas the end, not the means. But a lot of people won't deal with what was involved in the actual means, Hey, passion, squeals, Adorno, etc. Pick one from Column A, two from Column B, throw in a beverage, and voila, there's your "response to the music"

All indeed very "white" responses to "black" realities and mechanisms. Not racially/genetically, but in terms of cultural conditioning and a self-limited expectation-based evaluating process. Of course, we're all limited, but you'd think that recognizing one's limitations would either stir the pots of curiosity or else compel one to isolate one's self in the interest of sticking to what one knows to be true in the way that one knows it, in either case, humility in the face of the new and/or unknown. But apparently there's no market for either one of those options these days, it's all about, hey, I know some things, so here I go out into all of them. Latch on to certain elements that do indeed resonate more or less "universally" and then conclude that you've got it all figured out, and when you come up against something that indicates otherwise, find the fault in the thing, not in your possibly un/under-developed sense of what that thing might really be, and then turdificate all over the place for the benefit of people who know even less about what everybody knows than they do about what some people know, and are theretofore unwilling, unable, and uninterested in calling bullshit, because oh well, you know how "some people" are, they assume that if you don't like what they like that they're feeling superior to you, not that their disdain for your dislike is quite possibly not based on your liking or not, but simply on your display of whether or not you have even a basic understanding of what it is that you are not liking displaying an ignorance-based certitude of limitless arrogance. OF COURSE you have a basic understanding, EVERYBODY does, right?

As used to be said back in the day, motherfucker, PLEASE.

[JSngry]

Ok, just once, somebody do a review that says, hey, I know that these are sincere, serious people making sincere, serious music, and I respect them on those terms. But whatever their means or ends are, there's nothing here that I can latch on to, or even makes me think I might want to. Sorry, but I pass, and good luck to all for whom that is not the case.

That's the kind of person to whom I would say, well then, if you're that personally honest about why you're turned off, let's talk about something else and see what you have to say about what does turn you on, because that sounds like it might damn well be a fun conversation. Nobody likes or gets everything, dig, but what you do like/get, if you speak to it with real feeling and personal insight/perspective, hey, I love it when that happens! Same with what is not being liked/or gotten. Vomit in the bathroom. ok. Conversate with some integrity. Because it's all opinion once you get past the technicalities. So demonstrate some integrity in your positives and I can respect your negatives. Hello, Stanley Dance.

But all these clueless narrative synopsis posing as anything other than turdalism, no, that is not fun, not at all.

[Larry Kart]

Oh yeah, I read this drivel a little while ago. Ugh.

Max Harrison and Richard Williams are/were both very estimable jazz writers. I don't know Jack Cooke.

Younger than Harrison and Alun Morgan, Jack Cooke was one of the mainstays of the Jazz Monthly crowd. His contributions to "Modern Jazz the Essential Records" are excellent. He had terrific insights into hard bop and never stopped listening.

[Steve Reynolds]

Brian Morton (co-Author of Penguin Jazz Guides along with the late Richard Cook) is a excellent writer on this music.

I single him out as it has always been mysterious as to which if the two wrote what or liked what, etc.

Reading Morton's contributions to POD have me remembering that voice within the jazz guides that I read all those years ago.

Among many of the positive aspects (unless less one wants to focus on the negative of those guides - they skewer soul jazz and never gave the time of day to Gene Harris or whoever - and they are Brit centric?!?!?) that I gained from reading these guides intensely for years is that they were not in the deification business.

They had the audacity to give 5 stars to BOTH Ascension *and* 50th Birthday Concert.

(That second recording is an Evan Parker release with the two great long standing improvising trios - both recorded in 1994 on the same night - issued on Leo)

And when I first saw the labels Soul Note, Black Saint, Leo, FMP, SLAM or hatART listed - and being new to jazz, I started to treat listening to those records just as I did to Impulse, blue note, riverside, contemporary or prestige.

What a gift

On the subject above, the skewering of Late Period Coltrane was once commonplace. At least today, it's a more minority viewpoint.

Today when the old dead end, killed jazz, don't get it, all sounds the same, just squealing, blah fucking blah diatribe happens, at least now many of the responses veer towards statements including turd or whatnot.

See above

Thank Jah for that - thank these boards for some of that.

Thank the above posters for that.

Edited October 20, 2014 by Steve Reynolds

[johnblitweiler]

Dyer's "But Beautiful" emphasizes that he considers jazz a pathology and jazz musicians are people who make him feel comfortably superior. This Coltrane rubbish of his makes me want to take a bath.

[JSngry]

[clifford_thornton]

Is 'turd' now an acceptable response to any board member who posts something you don't like?

neither a turd nor the writer (nor article) can be polished. Seems appropriate to me.

[David Ayers]

Casting around for discussion of this review, I find that, as in this thread, people take the opportunity to be far more robust in attacking Dyer than they are in making positive points about the music in this recording. The consensus seems to be that Dyer does not address the fact that this is communal music making (which must I think mean that people are selected to play based on their membership of some community rather than on other criteria) but not much is articulated about the music except to single out Coltrane's parts as in some ways 'good'. It seems easier to troll Dyer than make strong claims about music. Why the vituperation?

[Big Beat Steve]

Maybe because the "accepted attitude" in some circles was/is that it is a strict NO-NO for HIM to comment on that music?

Or why that name calling?

As for why no uniformly strong case seems to have been made for that particular performance in this debate, maybe some Trane experts will weigh in?

That said, citing Yeats and Adorno, etc., is of course B.S. in ANY such writing. Unfortunately it is an attitude that we over here had had to become accustomed to when it comes to "advanced" (German) scribes writing about "advanced" (not even necessarily free) forms of jazz. That eternal search for respectability and higher levels of art; I guess ... Slinging buzzwords around trying to accomplish that "goal" seems to be ineradicable.

[Guy Berger]

Casting around for discussion of this review, I find that, as in this thread, people take the opportunity to be far more robust in attacking Dyer than they are in making positive points about the music in this recording. The consensus seems to be that Dyer does not address the fact that this is communal music making (which must I think mean that people are selected to play based on their membership of some community rather than on other criteria) but not much is articulated about the music except to single out Coltrane's parts as in some ways 'good'. It seems easier to troll Dyer than make strong claims about music. Why the vituperation?

I haven't heard the recording in question, though I do like a lot of "late" Coltrane, but it's certainly possible for it to be simultaneously true that (A) the recording is "not great" (or even "not good"!) and (B) Dyer pooped out a turd.

Also - and I can't believe I didn't make this point pre-edit - there is a WHOLE OTHER THREAD DEDICATED TO THIS RECORDING in which people say positive stuff about it, whereas this thread is dedicated to Dyer's review. Ergo your observation.

Edited October 22, 2014 by Guy

[Larry Kart]

Casting around for discussion of this review, I find that, as in this thread, people take the opportunity to be far more robust in attacking Dyer than they are in making positive points about the music in this recording. The consensus seems to be that Dyer does not address the fact that this is communal music making (which must I think mean that people are selected to play based on their membership of some community rather than on other criteria) but not much is articulated about the music except to single out Coltrane's parts as in some ways 'good'. It seems easier to troll Dyer than make strong claims about music. Why the vituperation?

The vituperation is because Dyer used this one recording to build a IMO specious case that late Coltrane as a whole, and Free Jazz in general, had by 1966 more or less proved itself to be a musical train wreck.

[David Ayers]

Ok I guess I don't know Dyer's writing so didn't see the review as part of a campaign maybe. I read the DB review which others did not like, but I thought reasonable in that it explained the occasion - as Dyer did not - but expressed reservations about the product without disdaining late Coltrane. I'm not sure Dyer's piece is that disdainful though. I think you can see maybe what he thinks through the lines, but he is inserting elements of objectivity in terms of the journalistic lexicon of free jazz. More to say but work to do.

[Larry Kart]

Ok I guess I don't know Dyer's writing so didn't see the review as part of a campaign maybe. I read the DB review which others did not like, but I thought reasonable in that it explained the occasion - as Dyer did not - but expressed reservations about the product without disdaining late Coltrane. I'm not sure Dyer's piece is that disdainful though. I think you can see maybe what he thinks through the lines, but he is inserting elements of objectivity in terms of the journalistic lexicon of free jazz. More to say but work to do.

From Dyer's piece:

"Or perhaps it [the Temple recording] just makes evident what was harder to grasp in the intoxicating frenzy of the moment: that free jazz had run its course—come up against its limits—while the course was still being run and the limits breached. The fact that things fall apart does not mean that they can’t keep going, especially given the huge freight of history that the music and its revolutionary promptings and trappings is, at this point, obliged to bear. On that note, one wonders about Yeats’s claim that the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Trane is as passionately intense as ever. Did he lack conviction? Maybe the Yeatsian opposition is false and passionate intensity covers up or disguises a deeper lack of conviction."

That's not dismissive, bordering on disdainful? "The fact that things fall apart..."? In 1966? Hello, Art Ensemble, for one of many.

[David Ayers]

Not with you on reading of 'the' , but regardless of that I don't see the piece as much more than a shorthand intended for the NYRB general reader. So just atmosphere I tend to think. I guess I assume this kind of writing has little influence so I don't get too intent on it. That said there is discussion of late Coltrane to be had. There are perhaps quite a few passages that are what they are of course but don't work too well.

[Big Beat Steve]

What would make me wonder is what makes Dyer think Coltrane lacked conviction (seeing that he was so "passionately intense").

Which makes me, in tun, wonder what purpose this Yeats statement could serve there at all. Because to me it seems, then, that not only this "Yeatsian oppostion" is false. As a very minimum it seems irrelevant in THIS context and Dyer's turnaround of intensity (allegedly) covering up conviction would be just as off.

I am not nearly familiar enough with Trane to pass any sort of judgment but I'd believe anytime that he was very convinced of what he did or attempted to accomplish and believed in it. Regardless of whether this particular performance would rank high among his musical achievements or not.

... but regardless of that I don't see the piece as much more than a shorthand intended for the NYRB general reader. So just atmosphere I tend to think. I guess I assume this kind of writing has little influence so I don't get too intent on it.

A dangerous thing to do, making such sweeping generalizations for the "general public" (who just might pick up that very statement as a "fact" to be repeated elsewhere in a most inappropriate way), and I can understand that this is galling to those who believe in the music and know the finer details of it.

Edited October 22, 2014 by Big Beat Steve

[paul secor]

Casting around for discussion of this review, I find that, as in this thread, people take the opportunity to be far more robust in attacking Dyer than they are in making positive points about the music in this recording. The consensus seems to be that Dyer does not address the fact that this is communal music making (which must I think mean that people are selected to play based on their membership of some community rather than on other criteria) but not much is articulated about the music except to single out Coltrane's parts as in some ways 'good'. It seems easier to troll Dyer than make strong claims about music. Why the vituperation?

I haven't heard the recording in question, though I do like a lot of "late" Coltrane, but it's certainly possible for it to be simultaneously true that (A) the recording is "not great" (or even "not good"!) and (B) Dyer pooped out a turd.

Also - and I can't believe I didn't make this point pre-edit - there is a WHOLE OTHER THREAD DEDICATED TO THIS RECORDING in which people say positive stuff about it, whereas this thread is dedicated to Dyer's review. Ergo your observation.

Casting around for discussion of this review, I find that, as in this thread, people take the opportunity to be far more robust in attacking Dyer than they are in making positive points about the music in this recording. The consensus seems to be that Dyer does not address the fact that this is communal music making (which must I think mean that people are selected to play based on their membership of some community rather than on other criteria) but not much is articulated about the music except to single out Coltrane's parts as in some ways 'good'. It seems easier to troll Dyer than make strong claims about music. Why the vituperation?

The vituperation is because Dyer used this one recording to build a IMO specious case that late Coltrane as a whole, and Free Jazz in general, had by 1966 more or less proved itself to be a musical train wreck.

Ok I guess I don't know Dyer's writing so didn't see the review as part of a campaign maybe. I read the DB review which others did not like, but I thought reasonable in that it explained the occasion - as Dyer did not - but expressed reservations about the product without disdaining late Coltrane. I'm not sure Dyer's piece is that disdainful though. I think you can see maybe what he thinks through the lines, but he is inserting elements of objectivity in terms of the journalistic lexicon of free jazz. More to say but work to do.

From Dyer's piece:

"Or perhaps it [the Temple recording] just makes evident what was harder to grasp in the intoxicating frenzy of the moment: that free jazz had run its course—come up against its limits—while the course was still being run and the limits breached. The fact that things fall apart does not mean that they can’t keep going, especially given the huge freight of history that the music and its revolutionary promptings and trappings is, at this point, obliged to bear. On that note, one wonders about Yeats’s claim that the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Trane is as passionately intense as ever. Did he lack conviction? Maybe the Yeatsian opposition is false and passionate intensity covers up or disguises a deeper lack of conviction."

That's not dismissive, bordering on disdainful? "The fact that things fall apart..."? In 1966? Hello, Art Ensemble, for one of many.

What would make me wonder is what makes Dyer think Coltrane lacked conviction (seeing that he was so "passionately intense").

Which makes me, in tun, wonder what purpose this Yeats statement could serve there at all. Because to me it seems, then, that not only this "Yeatsian oppostion" is false. As a very minimum it seems irrelevant in THIS context and Dyer's turnaround of intensity (allegedly) covering up conviction would be just as off.

I am not nearly familiar enough with Trane to pass any sort of judgment but I'd believe anytime that he was very convinced of what he did or attempted to accomplish and believed in it. Regardless of whether this particular performance would rank high among his musical achievements or not.

... but regardless of that I don't see the piece as much more than a shorthand intended for the NYRB general reader. So just atmosphere I tend to think. I guess I assume this kind of writing has little influence so I don't get too intent on it.

A dangerous thing to do, making such sweeping generalizations for the "general public" (who just might pick up that very statement as a "fact" to be repeated elsewhere in a most inappropriate way), and I can understand that this is galling to those who believe in the music and know the finer details of it.

I think that all of the above answer David's posts very cogently.

[clifford_thornton]

Yeah, that's the thing: whether or not one "likes" this recording (or any recording) doesn't matter if the artist's conviction comes through. There are things I don't particularly "like" or "get" that I completely respect and feel no reason to denigrate.