Simon Weil

The problem with doing psychological analysis is just the same as doing musical analysis or anything else - getting it right. All the guys who have been misdiagnosed should warn us of that - sometimes on purpose, like in the USSR's take (you're a dissident = you're nuts) - look at someone like Janet Frame. You start playing around with this stuff and you'd better damn well know what you're doing. Sure it's interesting, but interesting is a pretty close step to salacious when it comes to public discussions of an artist's psychology. Also the juxtaposition of natural selection and genetic passage of psychological traits rings muffled alarm bells. Or is it just mice? Quick, where's my pocket Freud? Simon Weil

Well, I haven't been bored that long - but the last 3 or 4 years have been dreadful, in my opinion. But, I have the feeling that's so right across the cultural board, film art, wherever you look. I can't but see that as a cultural thing in the wider sense- i.e. to do with Society as a whole. If you ask me this is what you get out of the rule of the market - dumbing down run riot and practically nothing new on the horizon. Sure you get dotting the i's crossing the t's kind of innovations in art, but then the market can sell that as "cutting edge". The whole environment is so conservative right now, that anything that really is cutting edge will get sat on by the Ben Ratcliffes of this world. Unless of course you don't care. Simon Weil

Well, the outline does make it sound interesting/worth buying. My sense of it, from reading the text, is that he's too theory-derived rather than intuition-derived (now I'm going to get shot). What I mean by that is he's got his bunch of theories - and is forcing his facts into them somewhat. Not to say that there aren't valid insights (even substantial ones) to be had by applying those particular theories to this particular situation, just that there's a sort of discipline to just how much theory you apply. My sense is the deconstructive element in Euro-Free is core and exists in and of itself. His ideologically charged theories construct it as a response to America. Reading between the lines. Simon Weil

Armored ( or amour-ed?). Simon Weil

Said by Frank Zappa. He also said "Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny". Which make Jazz criticism somewhat like: Enough to drive you round the (U) bend. Simon Weil [My son the doctor! Oy veh]

I guess you're asking if people have been sent pre-publication copies - which I haven't. It does sound interesting, so thanks for bringing it our attention. I mean there's a need for an English-language history of post-Ornette European Jazz. I mean that's a really big area. Simon Weil

My experiences in Jazz fit with de Tocqueville. Simon Weil

Reading Fox, Harrison and Thacker in the Essential Jazz Recordings was really important for me early on. Do you know if any of the old fox BBC spots is available on the internet? I'd love to hear him on the radio. --eric Well, there's some Charles Fox interviews available here - I haven't actually listened to them online, but I seem to remember liking the Art Blakey (may even have it on tape) one (it was ?an hour plus when broadcast). Quality critic. Good broadcaster. Simon Weil

Sontag was clearly a fine mind. I never took to what she wrote because her sensibility somehow seemed at odds with mine (the extracts above are like that) - but you have to respect her (at least I do). And I felt I had lost something when she died. Simon Weil

Critics are mediators. They mediate between the general public and the musician. And they're not just any old middle-man, they do add value - or at least they have the potential to add value. Like many other people, I absolutely depended on critics to tell me what was worth listening to when I came into the music (in my case, Charles Fox, broadcasting on the BBC was the guy who made all the difference). This can be just the received wisdom about certain recordings, but it also includes sound judgement about new developments - a key role for the critic (If there are no new developments, that's another problem). I.E. You need critics if you're just starting IMHO. But you get to a certain stage where you more or less know what's what in Jazz (or at least what you're interested in) - and then the value of the critic changes. Now he really has to be capable of telling you something new - or of letting you hear something in a new way. It is at this stage, and in this way, that the critic can "add value" for the experienced jazz fan - i.e just about everyone here. This is the stage at which, strictly speaking, one doesn't "need" critics - but one's experience is nevertheless capable of being substantially enriched by them. The other factor is to do with pride. I'm sure most people here have the thought that they could do better (or at least the equal) of many published Jazz critics - So it pisses people off to have to treat critics as though they were something special, dignified by the title "critic", or a byline in a paper, or whatever. Now I'm not a big fan of our current crop of critics (understatement), but the people who criticise them (which of course includes me) should think about their motivations too. With all due respect. Simon Weil

I like that line from Primary Colors where the Kathy Bates character points at (the beauty of) the moon and says "But it's only reflected light". That's how I look at the Jazz critic - the source of (reflected) light on the music. Do we need the moon? Nope. But when the sun is down it's the source of some light. Simon Weil [in the movie Kathy Bates plays a, very effective, political fixer for a Clinton-like presidential candidate. You can look for a parallel to critics in that as well - who, in the ideal, do everything to further the music that they love.] Edit: I confess to feeling that a role for the Jazz critic is to introduce the music to the outside world - but that, because of a pronounced anti-intellectual trend in Jazz, one of the avenues for that is cut off.

I do think "intuition" (or instinct or whatever) is a valid concept for these sorts of discussions. For me, it's linked with the creative facility. I'm not claiming to be profoundly creative, but in terms of having ideas - sometimes they will just pop into my head intuitively. I've also taken pictures and then walked off, knowing intuitively that I've "got" it. And those have been my best shots. To me it's like a magical facility. I guess it's to do with giving your imagination free rein. But, historically, it can also be an extremely destructive one. The Nazis intuitively, instinctively "knew" that the Jews were evil.... It taps into the unconscious, one's fantasies - dreams - but also one's nighmares. That's what the Romantics say, and I agree. Simon Weil [Don't know where this fits in with Martin W. - Except that he had a whole bunch of good ideas that just seem to appear.]

I think you're simply mistaken if you believe that Jazz is now quite often "fodder for intellectual speculation". The two leading modes of Jazz appreciation (that I can see anyway) are aestheticism - i.e to do with the beauty of the Jazz form (the leading critic for this is Whitney Balliet and he has several followers of varing distinction. And a lot of no distinction) - and the sort of technical appreciation of the music (which can be to do with nailing down dates, times etc - or to do with technical exegisis of the music). You can get aestheticism which tends to the intellectual - and you're correct to say that Murray does this. In other arts - e.g. visual art, music, literature - this combination of formal appreciation and intellectually deep discussion can and has produced classic criticism. And, I would argue, you need that combination to produce criticism that really does justice to an art. But it doesn't happen very much in Jazz. Martin Williams is the best we've got at it. You can take a guess at why that might be. My guess is that Anglo-American society is simply not very good at producing intellectuals. Indeed it's not very friendly to intellectuals in general. Perhaps we might hope that Afro-American society might be better at it. I hope so. But, so far, Murray and the rest seem to fit into that mold - by being not very good as intellectuals. I would repeat, the problem for Jazz is not over-intellectualization, it's that the intellectuals we've got haven't, as a rule, been much good. But you need to be able to tell the difference. Simon Weil

Thanks Clem! Jive is a more succinct way of putting it. I'd compare the Civil Rights thing to Jazz as a great human achievement - that's the one obvious place (for this UK white guy) where American blacks have operated on the highest level. Indeed changed the world. I mean I really relate to guys like Bayard Rustin. My personal feeling is it needs changing some more. Yeah, Martin W. did write kind of square. But a lot of that's books and covers. I am particularly struck by what Larry said about his generosity to those coming up. You've got to have a decent soul for that. You know what I'd like? New black criticism of 60s Jazz. Simon Weil

Yeah sure. It's what Larry said. It's just fun to think - about Jazz, about life, about everything. But you want other people to enjoy your fun. Oftentimes they don't. Simon Weil

No, it's not impossible. It's very easy, in fact, to avoid something that is not there. I'm not in the least bit "anti-intellectual". I am, however, too much anti-"overly-intellectulal", and I am VERY anti-making the intellectual one's first level of response to this music (or any art). Although, if you just can't help yourself, I guess it's ok... Any time you profess a preference for a gut level response over an intellectual one at the same time as a desire to return to a time "when jazz was just what it was...because that's just what it WAS" you're going to make me worry. And for the record, I don't think Jazz suffers from over-intellectualization, I think it suffers from people who are no bloody good at intellectualization. Marsalis isn't an intellectual, he just spouts stuff he's got from Crouch and Murray (and he says he gets all his stuff from them). Crouch ain't an intellectual, he's a thug dressed up as an intellectual. And how do you know that? Because, when he's under intellectual pressure, he thumps people (the real man comes out under pressure). Murray is the closest thing that lot's got to an intellectual. But, actually, he's a filing clerk dressed up as an intellectual. All these nice little ideas he's got from other people, lined up in his nice neat little system in which he thinks he's "solved" the world. And what a lifeless little system it is. If he was any damn good as an intellectual, throwing all those ideas together would produce sparks, would produce life, new ideas that live. But it doesn't. It's like Marsalis' music. Murray drops names. That's a part of what he does that brings him in line with the non-Lincoln Center no-damn-good-at intellectualization guys in Jazz. They kind of flatter you with the names they drop. But do they really understand the intellectual atmospheres they're getting into? Nope. This, I think, is what Clem was getting at when he talked about Giddins et al. You need people who are sound intellectually (e.g Larry, Martin W). Simon Weil

It's impossible to avoid the anti-intellectual trend in this. So OK...Once upon a time Jazz as a whole was not burdened by all these damn fool intellectualizations. That was before Ellington got take seriously as art by those European critics. But they began in 1919 with Bechet being reviewed by Ansermet, and being set in a historical context (as the beginning of an art). Basically you can't separate the idea of Jazz as an art from the desire to think about it - which Jim so laments. Because, to think about it as an art is to say it is on more or less the same level as the highest human pursuits - as making a difference in the world as a statesman, or as a heart-surgeon or whatever. This is why Jazz is "As serious as your life". It is natural that one wants to think about these pursuits, set them in context, learn from them what one can. Because, in them, one finds what it is to be truly human. So it's natural that one should want to think about jazz. But, historically, this has a particular resonance. It's a racial resonance. Blacks were regularly denied the right to be fully human (Still are in many parts). They might thus NOT contribute on the highest human level. To discuss Jazz as an art is to articulate, implicitly, a belief in blacks as fully human. Historically, that is part of the reason it matters to think about Jazz in this way - and have this sort of discourse. Martin Williams does a riff on Bechet which kind of leads to this stuff. Simon Weil P.S. I also don't think we need any arguments for dumbing down debate in this day and age.

Don't know how that fits in, but here we go... I had one of those recently where I told my dad about his dad in the process of unravelling what he thought about me - and it went in. Because my father's father died before he (my dad) had truly had time to set himself right about that relationship, he had always been up in the air about it. That's a pretty standard thing apparently - that the parent finds out about his parent through the child. What this means is that - to take it wider - you need to be part of living history for past historical judgements, judgements made too close to the events to be fully resolved, to be revamped and set in their correct context. If the Jazz child but only lives in the past (cf Wynton), living history stops and so does this resolution/setting in context process. Martin Williams only half understood the avant-garde. Simon Weil

The guy was a close to a Great Jazz Writer as we've got, but Great this or thats are out of fashion these days, as well as the writing style that goes with that position. Also he was an intellectual (not perhaps a great one, perhaps that was his flaw) - and to some that equates to "stick up the butt". For me, he's flawed with the highest level of content of any Jazz writer. But I'm biased 'cos I love him. Simon Weil

"She can fix my plumbing any day or night With that joyous organ, fine and right."

Well, on the one hand, I'm not keen on the moral arm-twisting. But on the other, this all links in to whether you consider Jazz a "serious" music or not - as in: Or: And from Ayler: "Serious" is an integral part of the music IMHO. Simon Weil

Happy birthday you re(a)d (+white and blue) devil. Simon Weil

Ah, wonderful. Bend it, shake it, anyway you want it. Simon Weil

Well Wynton is the one who thinks he's at war: And here are a few shots he's fired in his little war: Seems like Wynton does a pretty good job of constructing himself as a hate figure (and I could go on). Course if he was suddently abducted by aliens (perhaps Free Music loving ones), the problems he represent wouldn't go away. He is a symbolic figure to a large extent. My personal feeling is that his time is up, in terms of being a central figure in Jazz - and we don't know what comes next. Yet. Simon Weil

Well...Murray and Ellison were actually contemporaries - and indeed pretty close friends (There's a book of letters between the two, edited by Murray - doesn't have any of the jazz as democracy stuff as far as I can tell). So they probably influenced each other. The thing about Ellison is he never took an overtly political position - in the sense that Murray, Marsalis et al have - of being involved with an ongoing campaign. Thus he always (I am reliably informed) rejected Marsalis's efforts to get him involved (i.e. identified) with the Lincoln Center. This may just have been that he was canny or it may be something else. I don't think you can doubt he was an influence on these men, but he wasn't schmuck enough to get involved with a political agenda which could easily become a liability in the way people remember his art. He's also never quite explicit about equating Jazz and Democracy. Simon Weil