Simon Weil

If it ever does become a problem to post copyrighted news reports (it is mostly news reports that get posted), I'm sure there'll be warning. Probably lots of warning. Law suits cost money and warnings don't (really). But if Jim feels easier without this material here, I have no problem letting it go. I mean, Organissimo provides us a fine place to post - and if we can do something in return, sure. Given the babe thread, this seems kind of moot though. Simon Weil

I know the first "proper" Jazz record I got was A Love Supreme, and I'm wondering if that is because (at least in part) Coltrane's whole thing was a quest. Like my whole interaction with Jazz is a quest - and the thing spoke to me out of that. So, maybe that is part of why Coltrane is so popular in general. A Love Supreme as a cornerstone of the Jazz quest. Simon Weil

Well, as a thread, i.e. a nice fun bit for discussion there was nothing wrong with it. But as I tried to point out here: If I take "Cornerstones" as part of the way we seek to bring people into Jazz, then it's not an entirely constructive approach. I'm saying that because "Cornerstones" is, as far as I can see, part of how Jazz tries to bring people in (100 essential LPs etc). I.E. I think there is a deeper issue underlying this thread, about whether our current ways of bringing people into Jazz are that effective. I mean one only has to look at Wynton Marsalis, symbol of Jazz now, with his canonic "Important Records That Are Good For YOU" approach, to see it in operation. And he's not allowed to be symbolic without that having some resonance in Jazz at large. I suppose what I'm getting at is that, if the experiencing of Jazz, for the fan, is kind of a quest (which it seems to be for a lot of us), maybe Jazz might make better connections with the public at large by aiding people to make their specific quest rather than going with the more impersonal "These Records Are Good For You". To get deadly serious (not the intent of this thread, I know)... Simon Weil

Of course there is a certain tension between turning people onto Jazz and giving them recordings central to the History of Jazz. And when I capitalize History of Jazz, I mean to imply that there is a certain didactic element in that which people may not appreciate so much. Kind of "Here is an important record, listen to it". I've never been much good at turning people onto Jazz (I was much better at turning people onto Rock), perhaps that's because the thing is so much like a spiritual quest to me, listening to it. Very personal. Just occasionally I will hit upon a good record, because I know the person and sense that this would be the thing for them (e.g. an Akura Dixon record for my sister in law). Kind of Blue is the obvious record for this sort of thing, and I have been successful with that. Partly it's a great record - but I think it also speaks to us now. Being the biggest-selling Jazz record means it is THE cornerstone record of Jazz in a certain way. But I think the peculiar melancholy of it is something that may not play so well at other times. Billie Holiday is another like that. Hot Fives and Hot Sevens is universal, for me. Simon Weil

'Course, if it doesn't come I'll probably owe you $24.15... Simon Weil

The Mary Parks story does ring true to me. I can see him smashing his horn over the TV set. That's the image that stays with me. I think there's a truth in it. No matter what the precise details of Albert's motivation. Simon Weil

The $24.15 one on Gemm is from Mundo in Japan. I bought a copy of Cosmic Music for about the same from a dealer in Japan via Gemm a couple of years ago. I think it was Mundo. Took maybe 10 days to the UK. Simon Weil

This is a very good record. You won't regret buying it. Have A Little Faith is good too, but not this good. Simon Weil

Well, it may be that for this anniversary issue, they wanted big names as far as the eye can see, in every direction and all the nooks and crannies as well. MAJOR ISSUE, SELF-IMPORTANT, BIG NAMES ONLY As it were... Simon Weil

I think this name recognition thing is a big factor in magazines (as in culture in general). In the 90s, I got an article accepted for a Jewish magazine, only for the editor to change. The article, of course, did not appear. The new editor changed the "vibe" of the mag towards a slicker approach and the next editor went all the way. Now all the contributors are "names" of one sort or another - and to prove it, little bulletin resumes of who they are is given at the top of each article. It seems like, in a certain way, they're selling on name-dropping: "Look I read an article by Lewis P. Levi...." Doesn't matter about the content, look at the list of names.... There still is worthwhile stuff in it, but blaaagh... Another variant on the culture of celebrity. Simon Weil

I'm guessing it means that by having Nora etc, Bluenote have prevented the EMI top brass looking at the whole record label as "niche and underperforming". That "niche and underperforming" phrase hit me as well. I mean, talk about encapsulating the difference between having the top brass being accountants or decision makers of some other sort. They don't seem to observe that, from the point of view of a musician, underperforming is someone who doesn't get out and play enough. They might as well be talking about a line of frozen peas. Nora J is outperforming on her studio efforts. Simon Weil

I think that's the point. It's not a test, it's an illustration of how we actually read. Simon Weil

3. How embarassing. I think the explanation is right. In that I skim-read it for F's..and skimmed right over the "ofs". Mind you I was always bloody useless at English. Didn't speak till I was 3. Oh, there's that number again. It took a real effort to find the last F too. Simon Weil

I agree with a lot Clifford Thornton's post - i.e. a lot of the basic characterizations. But....There is a kind of discontinuity between denying "progressivist" notions (which is what Post-Modernism does) and being avant-garde, in that you can hardly be at the front of something that doesn't believe in moving forward. I guess, at this stage, avant-garde more or less means whatever is the Dangerous New Thing in Art just now. Still, I'm inclined to think that 60s Jazz avant-garde and early 20c visual art avant-garde did do something irrevocably shattering, which our current avant-garde doesn't. Basically they discovered a new world. Simon Weil [but I'm not familiar with the ICP so maybe I'm missing the point.]

The speed of change in Jazz - I mean from inception ca 1900 to avant-garde ca 1965 - is amazing. I guess I'd say that the first 20+ years of that maybe fit the post-modern paradigm, in that the forms of Jazz seem to flow in and out of other black forms. That feels kind of related to what you're saying. I do think that once the heroic soloists get going, with Armstrong and Bechet, then that breaks the paradigm, in that post-modernism seems to question the very idea of heroism in art. Another thing is that Jazz isn't, in general, about the finished work of art - You don't paint your masterpiece and stick it on the wall and have people come and admire it - which is what Modernism art revolves around. It is a performance art (obviously) - Once a solo is played it's gone. But "performance art" as generally understood, is a description of a particular post-modern form of visual art - where people watch this process happening, and then it's gone. Yeah, I think impermanence is a significant aspect of Post-Modernism that appears in Jazz. I guess that's what you're getting at, in part. Actually Sun Ra probably does have pastichy kind of postmodern elements in him (I also don't know him that well, but that's how it seems). I think there was irony in there. But I think Mingus is kind of like the post-impressionists. I mean, I remember going to the Van Gogh centenary exhibition in Amsterdam and seeing the massive crowds and being amazed they could go for something with quite such blazing colours and disturbing content. But the thing was it was all contained within, more-or-less comprehensible, form. All the distortions and colour were understood as expressionistic devices the artist had used to articulate his inner struggles. So I think Mingus is like that, in that he uses all sort of expressionistic extentions of familiar Jazz forms - and people can grasp that and run with it, whereas they can't really grasp Cecil Taylor, who came after. I think there is irony in Mingus, for sure. But it's a heavy, barbed weapon with (I guess) a political agenda. Post-Modern irony is different, kind of lighter, without that sort of belief.... Yup there is pastiche in Mingus too... I think Wynton is Post-Modernist and doesn't know it. Irony is pretty alien to him. So he does pastiche and eclecticism and doesn't know that it's that. My sister used to work for a marketing organisation, and she once got this project to devise some campaign or another. So she and her co-workers came up with these different styles for the campaign. They devised two which they thought would be OK, and then, just for fun, devised a third which was like a pastiche of all the various "classical" styles they could think of - and called it "classic" as a kind of in-joke with their client. They weren't seriously thinking of doing a campaign with their joke classic style...Trouble was....The customer decided their "classic" style was just great, not realising it was in fact a spoof. It demanded that my sister and her mates do the whole campaign in classic style. And they had to do it. I think there is something in styles of once it's played (out), it's gone. Simon Weil

Well, thanks for saying that Chuck. I do appreciate it - and, indeed it is true the reason I was on the BNBB and now here is because Chuck suggested it. I wasn't trying to be insulting. I wasn't really even sure where Chuck was coming from. I guess I'd say my sense of humour has been stripped away from me in the intellectual threads by all the flak that I've taken over the years. I mean my general sense of humour remains, but in these threads I've just taken so many sideways comments and digs and what have you - some of which I dare say appeared humourous to the posters - that, well I'm touchy and aggressive and tend to expect the worst. So that's about it... I felt threatened because I respect Chuck and reacted aggressively. Simon Weil

Well there's Modernism and there's Modern. I mean Modernism is a period of art history. Just to talk about visual art because I'm more familiar with that - starts maybe with the Impressionists mid 19th century, goes on to the Post-Impressionists (late 19th C) and then Cubism, Abstract Art, Expressionism etc ca 1900-1914. And that last period would be, for me, classic avant-garde visual art. People like Ayler and Cecil Taylor I associate with that 1910-14 period in art, kind of dealing with the same sort of problems in Jazz as Picasso et al dealt with in visual art - basically moving further and further away from standard forms. I guess Hill would be Modernist but not avant-garde in that way. There's a whole lot of stuff I wrote about Cecil Taylor and Picasso in this thread. But I'm not really up on what these terms mean in a wider perspective. Simon Weil [Edit: I always associate Mingus with Post-Impressionism, kind of like Van Gogh or something. So I guess Bop would be the first Modernist Form in Jazz - equivalent to Impressionism. I'm not sure where Andrew Hill fits in, though.]

I just have had very poor experiences being intellectual on Jazz boards. Simon Weil

Well, actually that's how I felt. Undercut is how I'd put it. Simon Weil

I know. That's what happens with most people in Jazz. Drives me up the f...ing wall. And then you get the needling and the flak and all the rest. Which is why I don't write about it, in general. I know the score. You get put off. I'm getting fed up with being put off though. Simon Weil

This came up on the Coltrane list earlier today: Yum, yum. Simon Weil

Larry, he was devising his style in 1961, before the counter-culture existed. So, if he was generating his style intellectually (as I believe he was, as I think he was a black intellectual), then you have to wonder about where he got his ideas. He was steeped in Christian ideas - and he might have got this stuff from that (he approaches finding God in music very much in the way a medieval mystic would look for God). But, on the other hand, there is a souce where he says he was studying Arabian music in 1961 - and these neo-platonic ideas exist in that and would have been accessible to him if he really was studying it. The point about doing it like this is that if you say counterculture, people just say that was a bunch of drugged-out unthinking hippies - and therefore it helps the cultural politics associated with the avant-garde as chaos line. If you can reasonably assert that it goes back to (or has legitimate associations with) recognised important intellectual sources, that problem evaporates. And also, you get to compare him with Kandinsky. But you have to have a taste for this stuff, which I do(obviously). It's just fun for me. Instead of playing with musical ideas, playing with intellectual ones, turning them round, seeing how they fit. I just love it. But I want to get it right. Simon Weil

It's not arbitrary. In my opinion Ayler is ultimately drawing on neo-Platonic ideas, as in Plotinus, or William of Ockham. Basically he's looking for God in music. But God is a hidden entity who is not articulated in ordinary, rationally accessible forms. So you have to go beyond these forms, and, in an act of faith, discover Him in the zone into which you have ventured. This is very like Kandinsky's approach to art (ca 1913-4) - and they are entirely parallel figures. Kandinsky as a key progenitor of abstraction in Avant Garde Painting and Ayler as the same in Jazz. In both cases they believe themselves to be creating an art for a new Millenial Age of spiritual perfection. One which never arrived, though their Art did accompany - and likely on some level reflects, revolutionary changes in their respective societies. I think Ayler was akin to the Kandinsky of Jazz, in other words. Simon Weil

I just thought there wasn't any point in Nicholson's reviews. It's like there was nothing there. My personal feeling, reading them, is that he just doesn't really have proper, deep critical faculties - I mean wasn't able to hear anything new for himself in the music and put it out there. But I think he's not the only "modern" critic like that. There's an awful lot of writing which is just rewriting received opinion. That's what I think Nicholson does. He may be a better biographical writer. Simon Weil

Snap! I was at the concert as well. The most memorable moment (for me) was Nico playing alone with her harmonium (assuming she was playing that). I saw quite a few things there, living in London and being a rock fan at the time. Which ones, however, have largely disappeared into the mists of time. The last time I went past it, maybe 10 years ago, it looked pretty derelict. Simon Weil