Artist's Lack of Fashion Sense Interfering with the Music

[Teasing the Korean]

This sometimes happens to me with late-70s and 1980s records by aging jazz artists.  The lack of fashion sense will be a stumbling block on the path toward appreciating the music.  Bad fashion choices by the artists are sometimes exacerbated by hideous graphic design choices on the LP covers.  I just think, how can someone who dresses so badly make good music? 

By contrast, I love the fact that Ornette Coleman's quartet on the cover of This is Our Music looks like a ska band. This record was a perfect introduction to Ornette's music for this very reason.  

It seems that it all started to go to hell in the late 1960s, but things got particularly bad in the post-disco era.

Does this ever happen to you?  

[Larry Kart]

No, it never happens to me.

Oh wait -- Al Hirt's fashion sense impeded my appreciation of his music.

[Teasing the Korean]

Oh, that's bad!

I should add here:  Wynton Marsalis dresses nicely, but I do not like his music and have no interest in him. 

[JSngry]

Had a buddy tell me once that the cool thing about John Abercrombie was that he was always photographed in wrinkled clothes but they were always GOOD clothes.

s

[Brad]

Should we call this thread “clothes make the (jazz) man”?

[paul secor]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Had a buddy tell me once that the cool thing about John Abercrombie was that he was always photographed in wrinkled clothes but they were always GOOD clothes.

s

 

Reminds me of Don Meredith's comment about Frank Gifford when they were broadcasting - something to the effect that Gifford was the kind of guy who looked good in cheap clothes.

[Bill Nelson]

Or as 'Tonight Show' guest Dolly Parton said to Johnny, "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap."

[Gheorghe]

I don´t really know who is Al Hirt , but even if I hate to say dumb things like that, nevertheless I look at the picture and think he doesn´t look like a jazz musician.

About musician´s fashion, well I think it started in the late 60´s early 70´s that musicians didn´t want to wear ties anymore. No problem, but when aged musicians tried to wear "hippy look" I think it looked funny. But most american musicians have and had taste and dressed well. You can look sharp with casual wear, but also with tuxedo, if you know how to feel the way the thing you wear.

The worst thing in my youth was that guys in Europe thought they must look sloppy and shabbily dressed. It was almost a no go in Europe to wear a suit and a tie when playing in a jazz club. Now I think it is different. The few left who dig jazz, think that a great music like jazz need´s "style"  so that you take care what you wear.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

It's Hirt's SMILE that's the problem, I think, not his clothes.

 

MG

 

 

[Gheorghe]

in my earlier posting I wrote I don´t really know who is Al Hirt. Now I´ve googled him. Well maybe I know better now why I wasn´t really aware of him, he sure must have been a good player and in the way he did what he did and made his money, but maybe because it was not like the way I feel and hear the trumpet and think I can tell from their sounds who´s playin, let´s say Diz, Fats, Kenny, Miles, Brownie, Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd, Chet Baker, Freddie Hubbard, Don Cherry, Woody Shaw and all of those I admire.....

About fashion that´s the topic here , I think all of those whom I mentioned looked sharp and dressed well. Maybe Chet Baker in later years not so, maybe that was this european pseudo hippie look , I never understood why he wore those ugly sandals, ...... but if he wasn´t lost somewhere, he played wonderful stuff until the end.....

[Big Beat Steve]

13 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

This sometimes happens to me with late-70s and 1980s records by aging jazz artists.  The lack of fashion sense will be a stumbling block on the path toward appreciating the music.  Bad fashion choices by the artists are sometimes exacerbated by hideous graphic design choices on the LP covers.  I just think, how can someone who dresses so badly make good music? 

...
It seems that it all started to go to hell in the late 1960s, but things got particularly bad in the post-disco era.

Does this ever happen to you?  

Exactly. Except that in my case it is the very early to mid-70s, mostly in the case of blues and R&B men who'd had their heyday in the early 50s or thereabouts. These cats looked really sharp in their prime in the early post-war years but the 70s funk back alley garb in garish colors hung on ageing elderly gentlemen? Ouch ... Some of them may still have been going strong musically by the 70s but others tried to update their image and music in a contrived way that was just painful to watch (in the case of their outfits) and hear (in the case of their funked-up music). Johnny Otis tried to serve a noble cause with his Blues Spectrum records but not all of them IMHO were successes - and they were the better ones. Then there were other recordings that did not do the aritsts a real service. Though I understand that they tried to grab another bit of the action and "stay with it" later on.
As for their "fashion sense", no problem with Johnny Guitar Watson loking sharp in the 50s AND in the 70s in the styles of the times - but Charles Brown and others?
There WERE others who managed to look much more dignified in their later years (e.g Buck Clayton). But probably the early to mid-70s were a bad time to look decent for almost anybody.

And yes - the hideous "art"work of many LP covers of the 70s did not help matters.

The one below was particularly awkward. Photo totally out of tune with the contents, and if it had not been for the fact that I was aware of this group at the time (1976/77 or so)  and knew some of their 50s tunes and for some brief hints in the liner notes that these were the original recordings from the 50s I would have given it a pass (I had been licked before with records that turned out not to be reissues but re-recordings). Reissues of those doo-wop groups were very thin on the ground over here at the time but even so I literally had to force myself to look beyond the cover to shell out for it. Like with many reissues from that era.

As for Al Hirt - incidentally, I was aware of his music from a very early phase of my collector's life but never was overly interested. His clothing would not have put me off, though ... (Gheorghe might understand the following) he actually just looked like an older brother or uncle of our Bill Ramsey (a G.I. who stayed here after his service from the mid-50s, made his mark as a pop singer on the German scene and more of less was the first to do out-and-out novelty songs of a livelier sort but also was a fairly good jazz and blues singer who a.o. appeared at the 1957 Jazz Festival in Sopot (Poland) which was released on a Muza 10" LP. He made his presence felt on the German jazz scene later on) and other acts in that vein. And for US jazz fans - considering the times, where's the fundamental difference betwen Al Hirt and the loud plaid outfits worn at times by the Les Brown band in the 50s? And Hirt certainly looked less silly than Acker Bilk (which may not be saying much, admittedly ).

In short, wearing such garb as a gimmick is one thing (that you may like or not) but wearing garish stuff in all seriousnes (like in the case of many 50s R&B singers turned old yet trying desperately to stay "in tune" is something quite different again ...)

 

 

Edited August 2, 2018 by Big Beat Steve

[JSngry]

[Dan Gould]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

OK this is pretty strong in the Herbie Mann "Once Seen, Can Never Be Unseen" (Clothed division) category.

[HutchFan]

The back cover of Dave Liebman & Richie Beirach's Forgotten Fantasies from 1976:

Attire so bad that it's almost charming.

And, since Forgotten Fantasies is one of my all-time favorite records, more proof that "you can't judge a book by it's cover" (or back cover).

 

 

3 hours ago, JSngry said:

The worst thing about this photo of Phil is that the get-up seems like a costume.  It's not him. He's just trying to "get with the times."  Other people -- like Miles -- could've pulled this off.  Not Phil.

Later in the 70s, Woods' clothes seemed much more natural, less costume-like.

The floppy hat.  That's Phil.

Edited August 2, 2018 by HutchFan

[felser]

[JSngry]

[Big Beat Steve]

3 hours ago, JSngry said:

You're approaching one certain (non-attire) Herbie Mann album cover FAST.

[clifford_thornton]

[kh1958]

27 minutes ago, Big Beat Steve said:

You're approaching one certain (non-attire) Herbie Mann album cover FAST.

For the love of God Montresor...

[king ubu]

Totally not how @Gheorghe describes it around here ... maybe the posh places that had Griffin and Foster and Moody while I was in my teens would have hosted elegantly dressed audiences - but I could not afford paying ~50€ per set in the mid/late 90s ... and to this day when I end up in such surroundings, I have a hunch that at least half of the crowd is there for the social event and/or for distinction - to be seen by whom they desire to be their kin.

Real, dedicated jazz crowds frequenting the not-so-posh places too, will dress like Tony Makaby does on stage 

Edited August 3, 2018 by king ubu

[sidewinder]

Henry’s Geography teacher socks and sandals pass muster !

[Gheorghe]

Socks and sandals......a no go..... well at least Chet Baker wore sandals but no socks. Great remark "'Geography teacher socks"..... never heard that, but it fit´s . Reminds me of the way teachers dressed when I went to high school.....

[Dave James]

                                          PLAID TO THE BONE

 

Edited August 3, 2018 by Dave James

[duaneiac]

2 minutes ago, Dave James said:

                                             PLAID TO THE BONE

 

Wasn't Paul Desmond's proposed title for his never written memoirs How Many of You Are in the Quartet?  The question would seem appropriate here.

 

[joshuakennedy]