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Coltrane, Jazz aesthetics, etc.


Dr. Rat

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I've posted a couple of old articles by John McDonough (from Downbeat and Wall St. Journal--don't tell them!) on the station message board http://wnmc.org/forum/messagedirectory/9842.htmlColtrane articles.

I'm new here, so I don't know if this has been kicked around before, but I am interested in reading what others think about jazz aesthetics.

I don't think responses like, say, "John McDonough must be deaf" are particularly interesting, because all you are doing is registering your allegience to the opposite camp--you are just running up the flag.

Saying "just listen to the music and you'll see" is equally uninteresting because the other camp can say (and does) precisely the same thing.

So, the question is, are there intelligent ways to discuss the issues McDonough brings up? And can we come to a better understanding of what's going on in jazz and what ought to or could be going on in jazz through a discussion like this.

My own suspicion is that a lot of jazz fans and even musicians are pretty naive on the subject of aesthetics. What I've heard a lot of is "this is good" or "this is cool" defined strictly on the basis of "what me and my friends have come to identify ourselves with socially." In other words, discussions of musical aesthetics devolve quickly into different camps running up the flag because music is the flag.

I'd like to think it can be a lot more than that.

Anyhow, if you'd like to give McDonough a read and comment, I'd be interested to read what others have to say,

-eric

PS. I didn't want to take the responsibility of reposting this copyrighted material here, but if someone else wanted to, I'd say it was fair use, especially if this message board is not searchable by webcrawlers.

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McDonough once compared "The Queen's Suite" to the work of Henry Mancini. He's not deaf, he just lives in a world totally different than mine. For me to debate his points would be futile, because our realities are not the same. He's comfortable in his, as I am in mine.

More than that leads nowhere. Fast.

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Aesthetics is one of those interesting areas of philosophy in which the epistemology ultimately boils down to a personal position within an only slightly larger personal community based on myriad factors that are often beyond individual analysis. Aesthetics, as a philosophical pursuit, is a wolf in wolf's clothing-- beneath the guise of good, clean fisticuffs it is really an irresolvable debate about foundationalism vs, relativism (irresolvable at least in the practical sense, though linguistically such issues can be resolved ve redefinition and expansion of what we consider "real" ala Russell's set paradox and Cantorian set theory) and the bugaboo of closed systems of "proof."

So in the end, aesthetic discussion really *is* all about clashing beliefs based on personal response, and while there are more intelligent and precise ways of saying "listen to the music" there is often very little chance that it will make any practical difference... finally any position is indefensible on absolute grounds unless you are going to argue from some religious, divine, or metaphysical grounds of communion with either some higher power, form, or the spirit of art itself.

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Aesthetics is one of those interesting areas of philosophy in which the epistemology ultimately boils down to a personal position within an only slightly larger personal community based on myriad factors that are often beyond individual analysis. Aesthetics, as a philosophical pursuit, is a wolf in wolf's clothing-- beneath the guise of good, clean fisticuffs it is really an irresolvable debate about foundationalism vs, relativism (irresolvable at least in the practical sense, though linguistically such issues can be resolved ve redefinition and expansion of what we consider "real" ala Russell's set paradox and Cantorian set theory)  and the bugaboo of closed systems of "proof."

So in the end, aesthetic discussion really *is* all about clashing beliefs based on personal response, and while there are more intelligent and precise ways of saying "listen to the music" there is often very little chance that it will make any practical difference... finally any position is indefensible on absolute grounds unless you are going to argue from some religious, divine, or metaphysical grounds of communion with either  some higher power, form, or the spirit of art itself.

No, I doubt we'll settle the foundation question here.

But I don't think it's necessary to answer any absolutely thorough skepticism in order to discuss aesthetics. The question is whether we can find sufficient points of agreement to have a discussion.

The trouble with the attitude of "he's got his world, I've got mine and there's no point in discussing it" is that it drastically reduces the importance of music itself.

I like pigeons. Other people don't like pigeons. It doesn't matter.

I think Coltrane was genius whose work expresses transcendant truths about life. Other people think Coltrane is (and I am) a peurile fraud or a misguided naif. It doesn't matter.

These two staements aren't the same. I think music does matter in a way that pigeon fancying does not.

We don't need ultimate foundations for the difference to exist, just a level of consensus.

--eric

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The trouble with the attitude of "he's got his world, I've got mine and there's no point in discussing it" is that it drastically reduces the importance of music itself.

I don't think so.

If I choose ignore the writings of John McDonough it may diminish your view of me (if you are aware of it), but does not concern the music at all.

This reminds me of drunken, late night dormroom discussions.

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The trouble with the attitude of "he's got his world, I've got mine and there's no point in discussing it" is that it drastically reduces the importance of music itself.

I don't think so.

If I choose ignore the writings of John McDonough it may diminish your view of me (if you are aware of it), but does not concern the music at all.

This reminds me of drunken, late night dormroom discussions.

It's kind of funny that when people discuss totally inane things badly, no one seems to care, but trying to disuss anything serious (well or badly) always inspires someone to compare the discussion to a late-night dorm-room conversation.

Anyhow, ignoring John McDonough is one thing. Saying that a disagreement you have with him is of no real significance is another.

I can ignore McDonough because he's an idiot and can't see the truth I can see; the truth which I might then relate to thee.

Saying we have opposite views and that both those views are all well and good says something about the object of the disagreement. It says it is insignificant.

We can avoid the dorm-room problem by a) not being drunk yet; and B) having a bit of care in writing and interpreting.

--eric

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it is really an irresolvable debate about foundationalism vs, relativism

only relativists would think it's irresolvable, right?

People develop through three epistemological stages:

CHildren are absolutists who beleive they are right and set out to prove it.

Next stage is relativism, where beleifs are denigrated to the level of opinion

third stage is sometimes termed "evaluativism"--here, while the possibility that one could be ABSOLUTELY right in beliefs about aesthtics is dismissed, there is an acknowledgement that EVIDENCE exists that provides a rationale for some beleifs being better than others.

In short, one assumes there are grounds for arguing that Coltrane played the soprano sax better than Kenny G and, further, there are grounds for saying that the belief "Coltrane is better than KG" is closer to the truth (better justified?) than the beleif "KG is better than Coltrane".

Anyway, I deal with college students all the time and I'm sick of hearing them say that the garbage they listen to is "art" or "just as good as jazz or whatever".

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Only relativists ADMIT that it is irresolvable, the rest lapse into approaches I already mentioned :)

I'm not arguing against discussing the music-- that's why I come here! But it is no surprise that such discussion almost inevitably at some point come to a difference of opinion that can't be negotiated. As I said earlier, the idea is to talk about it a more intelligent and precise way.

WNMC nails it in his last post, though I'm not entirely sure he meant it the way this relatavist would interpret it :)

"Evaluatism" is just another sort of anti-foundationalism. This idea is, of course, at the heart of aesthetics, and precisely what I was alluding to when I spoke of "community" -- being a relativist, however you want to cast it, doesn't throw out the concept of value (unless carried to absurd extremes) because we live in a negotatiated world in which we have to ascribe (and ascribe to) value systems.

But short of constant arguing about "the truth as I know it" one has to know when to fold them and know when to run. Educated, experienced, good listeners can disagree about the value of a particular musician's work or a particular song or solo and many times those disagreements will not be subject to change by learning more (an implicit foundational assumption) as if such learning is uncovering some truth that is the same for all of us.

That's what makes the debate fun. I was only semi-objecting to the apparent notion that if we just talked more INTELLIGENTLY, then we wouldn't have such disagreements...

I like being in a community where someone can say Bill Evans' piano playing is cold and sterile (not me, I might hasten to add) and they don't get smacked upside the head or banned. And due to confluences of circumstance, community, and user-created norms, such a listener might never change their mind no matter how much they hear or learn about him.

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epistemology ultimately boils down to a personal position within an only slightly larger personal community based on myriad factors that are often beyond individual analysis

because we live in a negotatiated world in which we have to ascribe (and ascribe to) value systems

Chris, are you a Wittgensteinian? :D If so, we got something in common (other than jazz)!

My main concern is when relativism becomes an excuse for not trying to critically evaluate one's own beliefs.

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Saying we have opposite views and that both those views are all well and good says something about the object of the disagreement. It says it is insignificant.

It says no such thing.

What it says is that I don't have time to waste with bullshit games or endless (as in no matter how much you do, there's always more to be done) navel-gazing (not that I don't do it, but I keep it to myself as often as possible as a public service...). I came to my opinions about music through both my personal experiences and through intereaction with others, including some of the McDonough camp. I have strong beliefs, and I feel no compunction about expressing them when I see fit, but doing something like trying to refute the points of a man who sees his points as irrefutable is not how I see fit, and I've been reading McDonough long enough (try 30+ years, and you got guys here who have KNOWN him longer than that...) to know that that's what the deal is with him. Whether or not he actually believes it or not, I don't know, and I don't really care.

Bottom line for me - I'm through with heading down dead-end streets that lead nowhere ;) just so I can comfort myself with the sense that my beliefs have been "examined". I'm getting to the age where "examination" means rubber gloves and K-Y, dig?

Rather than being insignificant, music is TOO important to me to let somebody with unchangeably opposite beliefs stick a finger up my ass. I know the type, and they don't always use K-Y. Or gloves. Or fingers...

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Chris, are you a Wittgensteinian? :D If so, we got something in common (other than jazz)!

My main concern is when relativism becomes an excuse for not trying to critically evaluate one's own beliefs.

The Tractatus rocks, baby ...

I agree with you... the fallback to relativism is too often a cop-out, and that is my concern also-- well, that and all this talk about KY and finger examinations, which also has me a little edgy :)

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The trouble with the attitude of "he's got his world, I've got mine and there's no point in discussing it" is that it drastically reduces the importance of music itself.

I don't think so.

If I choose ignore the writings of John McDonough it may diminish your view of me (if you are aware of it), but does not concern the music at all.

This reminds me of drunken, late night dormroom discussions.

It's kind of funny that when people discuss totally inane things badly, no one seems to care, but trying to disuss anything serious (well or badly) always inspires someone to compare the discussion to a late-night dorm-room conversation.

Anyhow, ignoring John McDonough is one thing. Saying that a disagreement you have with him is of no real significance is another.

I can ignore McDonough because he's an idiot and can't see the truth I can see; the truth which I might then relate to thee.

Saying we have opposite views and that both those views are all well and good says something about the object of the disagreement. It says it is insignificant.

We can avoid the dorm-room problem by a) not being drunk yet; and B) having a bit of care in writing and interpreting.

--eric

Are you getting credit in some undergrad class for this thread?

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Well, the point isn't to change McDonough's mind. I really don't care about him. I haven't met him and he can live out his life entrapped in the most embarassing possible delusions for all I care. Though some of the people who have known him for 30 years might care, I'm satisfied leave the personal salvation of John McDonnough to someone else.

And no, I'm not getting undergrad credit (or even graduate credit) for this discussion.

Rather than changing McDonough's mind or college credit, what I'm getting at here is this: people like McDonough make an argument, essentially that people who are big fans of music like the late Coltrane stuff he critiques are not repsonding to the music so much as they are positioning themselves socially, and the "difficulty" of the music is obscurantist: it works to assure that not just anyone can gain entre to the in-group.

Stuff like "A Love Supreme," he argues, is nothing but an instrument of modern cultural tribalism.

Now what I wonder is whether there is a response that can be articulated to this point. I've never seen a very good one. Usually people just roll their eyes and make a few comments to the converted about how impossibly cool Interstellar Space is.

In other words, the usual response to the critique is to act out its characterization (caricature?) of avant-garde jazz fans.

While I have the utmost respect for concerns about swollen prostate glands and how these might take precedence over other things, I'd point out that the embrace of the unexamined is the prevailing attitude amongst this country 18-year-olds, not navel-gazing. I know because I spend a long time teaching them: they generally aren't interested in thinking very much about anything at all: "I love The Real World, I've examined my TV Guide, I know when it's on, and that's all the examination I need."

We can just change some of the proper nouns and we have an American motto that's good for all ages and all in-groups!

--eric

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Rather than changing McDonough's mind or college credit, what I'm getting at here is this: people like McDonough make an argument, essentially that people who are big fans of music like the late Coltrane stuff he critiques are not repsonding to the music so much as they are positioning themselves socially, and the "difficulty" of the music is obscurantist: it works to assure that not just anyone can gain entre to the in-group.

Stuff like "A Love Supreme," he argues, is nothing but an instrument of modern cultural tribalism.

Now what I wonder is whether there is a response that can be articulated to this point. I've never seen a very good one. Usually people just roll their eyes and make a few comments to the converted about how impossibly cool Interstellar Space is.

I'm sure there are people who are interested in the works of particular artists, authors, or what have you, because they are thought to be interesting and important by a particular community of some sort. I first checked out A Love Supreme because my guitar teacher at the time told me I should listen to as much Coltrane as possible. I suppose that since I admired my mentor, I was more inclined to try to like that music than if someone I didn't respect said the same. I ended up liking it just fine; although it doesn't assume a religious-like importance in my musical or social life.

My point here is that although initial interest in free jazz or any other "difficult" artform might be a result of hanging with a certain crowd, how absorbed a person becomes in that form over the long haul will be determined by the value of the work itself and that individual's emotional, spiritual, and intellectual responses. Unless that person is a goddam sheep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I like Interstellar Space, and hate The Real World. Am I cool or what??? :g

(I mean the album and the tv show, not the actual places!)

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I have a hard time discussing late Trane with anybody who doesn't "like" it yet refuses to acknowledge and/or is unable to recognize the musical/techinical principles involved, which are not insignificant. That's at least as "unexamined" an attitude as those who swoon at it in faux (or genuine) ecstasy. I have little use for either, although on a gut level, both are honest enough reactions.

If we want to play "attack the fan", that's like shooting fish in a barrel. If we want to discuss a "difficult" music, let's discuss the music itself on its own terms. Break down the techniques, their application and execution, where they "came from" and why they're being put to use. I don't see McDonough (or Crouch, or Doug Ramsey) doing that. What they're doing is essentially saying that their negative response to it calls into question others' positive response. For some reason, they, and their accolytes, seem to feel that such an attitude deserves a response and that failure to respond somehow makes their negative reaction more valid that others' positive reaction.

I seriously doubt that McDonough is equipped to have a discussion based on objective analysis of the music, which is why I find his comments (and similar comments made by similarly "equipped" people) to so much "so what".

The usual response to a position such as mine is "well, so you're saying that if you're not a musician, then your opinion is invalid?". No. All I'm saying is that if you want to attack or affirm the music on grounds other than your own personal affinity for it, or lack thereof, have the tools at your disposal to do so. And don't confuse having a negative reaction with being superior to having a postive one. If you don't have a least a basic objective understanding of what it is you're having a reaction to, then yes - all opinions are equal. "I like it" is as valid as "I don't like it". Getting visons of Utopia from a music is just as valid as getting visions of a chaotic hell. Attacking either vision is meaningless (and futile) if the attack is going to be on some vauge grounds of "esthetics". If you want to "bump it up a notch" in terms of critique, analysis, etc., have the specific tools to do so. If you don't, get off your muthafukkin' high horse, dig? All the intellectual masturbation in the world doesn't hide the fact that if you don't understand what it is you're debating, it's still masturbation (and it amazes me how some folks can stroke and stroke and NEVER come).

Nearly all music, including that of late Trane, has some very specific technical and organizational principles involved besides "emotion". This is something I seldom see critics of late Trane acknowledge, much less deal with. In fact, I've never seen it, at least not to my knowledge. The closest has been those who criticize those who would follow in the path of late Trane without first getting a grip on some fundamental techinical knowlege and skills, which is sound enough advice, but is really no more "wise" than advising a beginning driver not to try to drive like Richard Petty until they learn how the brakes work...

Even with a knowledge of the technical aspects of the music, it still comes down to whether or not you "like" the results. Although, it's been my experience that the more an individual understands the music of late Trane in technical terms (or at least terms relevant to a stylistic/cultural/whatever "technical evolution"), the more prone they are to liking the music in at least "general" terms. But I don't know everybody in the world, so I guess that's just a gut reaction on my part, which means...

OM might be Rolling Stone, brownies made with clarified butter, but INTERSTELLAR SPACE is definitely not TV Guide.

Game Over.

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Look, I've known McDonough since 1966 and don't like him. I argued with him for a couple of years. Then I noticed he always had a "superior attitude". The only time I saw him discard it was in the company of Benny Goodman and Benny made him carry his bags. :lol:

WNMC show up here touting a discussion using JM pieces as a starting point - fine and dandy but WNMC makes a point of repeatedly insulting anyone not wanting to play his game. Go back and read his posts.

If WNMC had not repeatedly used denigrating terms for others, I might have played but enough is enough. He might have learned something from us if he had not "started on the mountain-top". This attitude is why I treated him as a child.

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This is such an "OLD" argument! It has been the basis for a lot of the conflicts between musicians of different styles and diciplines as well as listeners. There are those that wish to work with only heaviy notated and written charts and those that want entirely "freeform". Coltrane doesn't easily fit into either of these catagories because there exists elements of both in his work. The same can be said of Miles as well as the generations of musicans thet followed.

I would be curious if this critic had the same things to say about a "song-stylist" vocalist. Tranes playing evokes images of the human voice. Sometimes he is just singing the notes straight and other times he is emphasizing certain diction and at other times he may laugh or weep. Yet the strength of his music is not solely in the emotional expressions. He thinks very abstractly on his feet. Like Miles, he pushes the boundaries of where the different plastic elements of the music can go without losing sight of the core.

Tehnically this is a form of improvisation, but like most jazz greats from that era onward, it is more than simple improvisation. It bends, it dissects, reassembles into different structure, someties returning but never letting the listener completely lose sight of what it came from. An analytical cubist painter does much the same thing with a visual form, yet the result often looks too crude. With Coltrane, there is almost always a very smooth grace to even the most invasive procedure (sorry about the flowery rhetoric in the last sentence, it's the only way I can think to describe it.)

I have been a student of West African music and the dense polyrhythms

that exist in that music. I hear some of the same things happening in Coltranes music. Bop jazz by it's nature is polyphonic.But Trane's music very often includes polyrhythms on the top line (something that was always just the rhythm section's job in the past). Sometimes he'll double phrase within a passage, sometimes he'll wait for two passes of the other lines before completing a phrase and occassionally just when you think he's out there getting lost, you hear that he's creating a phrase that will take several measures to cycle.

Hardly primitive! Yet at no time is there any snobby elitist attitude in his music (maybe among some of his fans).

Aesthetics are not things carved into old pillars, they are ever evolving. John Coltrane died 37 years ago (about a mile from where I am right now AAMOF) . His music is now studied and taught in schools all over the world. It has become an aesthetic that has influenced a couple of generations of younger musicians. The argument in McD's article is the kind of things that were written over 40 years ago by conservatory musicians and critics. They don't apply to us in 2004.

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