Simon Weil

Well, it might just be that the UK press has decided to have someone to thump and the BP is elected. This year there seems to be an excess of pissed-offness floating about in the UK. My theory for knife crime here. Simon Weil

This is a book by a black intellectual. it's packed with ideas. when I flicked through it, I felt not spoken to. It might speak to you, however. Well, largely not spoken to. Simon Weil

I actually think that Ascension is a portrait of America (not Black America, note) in the mid-60s. My feeling is that what differentiates late period Coltrane from early/ier is scale (the oomph of it); a lack of a sense of closure (which gives the music a sense of difficulty - compare to Love Supreme et al for a sense of resolution); and pain (the screaming of the music so characteristic of Pharoah Sanders et al. There is always pain in his music but it becomes much more explicit). The vast energy of Ascension gives me the sense of nationwide scale. I don't know, just overall, the greatness of the music consists in that; its absolute refusal to take anything other than the most difficult route - and the sense of "all human life is here under duress". Lack of closure is the problem/opportunity. Simon Weil

Right, I think it's the same aesthetic - the difference is between (IMHO) a more abstract version of it and a more visceral one. The aesthetic itself goes back to Ascension which is visceral. I think the point about Sanders is probably right, given that he's the source of so much of the "screaming oomph" that powers Coltrane's later years. There's actually an interesting quote in Kofsky where JC says he's the source of the "strength" in his 1966 band whereas previously it had been Elvin Jones. I'm not sure about the studio effect in that Ascension, Om and Meditations (1965) are visceral. In one way, the visceral recordings are more emotionally demanding than the abstract ones - just in terms of weight - the screaming kind of wears you down. But in another, that same screaming can prove cathartic, providing a release. So ya pays your money... Simon Weil

Ya' know...there's just so many levels and layers of wrong in that.... Yeh your right. Big silly generalisation. I remember reading it in Wire years ago. Can't even remember the source article or the context actually. Thanks for pulling me up on that. Well, it's a glib Wire-ism. I always kind of felt such generalisations did a disservice to the idea that cultural or social issues can play out through the music. Yet Jazz itself is a subculture which fuses and merges into the cultures around it, so it's quite logical that such play should exist. This subculture has changed in quite significant ways over the years. From a relatively small number of musicians, largely black, playing a popular form at the start, there's now a pretty large number of musicans, world-wide of numerous ethnic backgrounds playing something widely conceived of as an art - with a large-ish scale educational/institutional spread as well. Anyway... For a start, you wouldn't get that degree of institutionalisation if Jazz was "just" a popular form - so plainly the music and the surrounding culture do/have interacted. And you could go on like this. But I'd also like to throw in this quote, which I first heard in the Kenneth Clark series "Civilisation" nearly 40 years ago: Ruskin I still think this has validity. Simon Weil

Simon and I share an admiration for Ayler but from almost opposite perspectives. I think it is possible - in fact, necessary - to discuss Ayler from within the jazz tradition in the same way one might discuss Sonny Rollins. And I think it is impossible to explain what happened in jazz after 1964 or thereabouts, particularly with saxophonists, without reference to Ayler, who I think is the most important influence after Trane, both chronologically and substantively. Further, I think that influence plays out like the influence of, say, Dexter Gordon or Ben Webster and it does not lie outside of the boundaries of what we understand to be jazz. Ed is right to say we come at this from differing perspectives. But I would offer that they are complimentary rather than opposite or nearly so. My basic question is always "how profound is this?" rather than does "how does it fit into the history of Jazz?" So then my answer is Ayler's in the same league as Modernist art greats - e.g. Matisse and Kandinsky. But, further than that, I happen to know Kandinsky's art pretty well - and Ayler's relationship to his art, his philosophy of it if you will, is absolutely parallel to Kandinsky's. So much so that I feel Ayler is trying to do within Jazz much the same that Kandinsky was doing in visual art. The basic idea, common to the two of them, is that one has to transcend the usual forms to find God. That God is in some sense hidden. This idea starts with the neo-platonists (just about 2000 years ago) and ramifies through Christianity (e.g. the mystics) and Islam and ends up in all sort weird and less than wonderful people today. Kandinsky probably gets it from Theosophy and Ayler may have got if from Arab music (which he was studying in 1961, at the period he as forming his style). So my argument is that Ayler was trying to do in Jazz was Kandinsky was doing in art - find a new form in order to find God - and that his form of Jazz parallels Kandinsky's innovation in art, that is it is a form of abstraction. But that, contrary to what the critics say, it is a real form and not just chaos. For, as with Kandinsky, one can find a form behind the standard forms and still exist. The problem is I don't really know Gilmore well enough (also I don't have the Bley record). It's just that I don't respond to him in the way I do to Ayler. I've got the biog, and remember it as being not very enlightening. I realise that this is not very scientific, but it seems to me that Ayler was this other thing. AA says there's a line of influence you can trace back to Illinois Jacquet and that this comes out in Pharoah Sanders (and presumably others including Gilmore). He also suggests that R+B players had a profound influence on him. But I think he transcends this line as well as being part of it. So, sui generis in that. Simon Weil

Well the point about subsidy raises some issues. Cause when the language of the music is so far removed from that which you will naturally acquire through osmosis, you've gotta go to school to learn it. Seriously who that's at the mercy of street life and an insecure home environment has got the time and inclination to 'learn' 251s and "coltrane's' superimpositions over them. you want to relate and express yourself in something far more immediate and urgent. I remember reading a jazz musician saying once that 'the whole world was singing the blues these days and that a rapper has the blues so bad he can't even sing anymore, he's just got to speak'. The poetry of Coltrane is so far back in the distance. I think that hits on something true - the idea that effectively, the black ghetto "has the blues so bad he can't even sing anymore, he's just got to speak". And then the line about Coltrane's poetry being past. It's like no poetry after Auschwitz. Or the line about not being able to express ultimately what went on the Holocaust. All these are part of the same spectrum - with the more horror you're confronted with the less able you are to express it - like all the lyricism goes out the window, or indeed, one can't make jokes about it. Like things become more and more unspeakable. Maybe I'm misreading you, but Fire music/venting seems to imply a diminished value to a certain sort of black 60s-70s expressionistic playing. That is this music was, in part, only venting. That basically there were no useful forms to be extracted from it, drawn upon, built on. I don't agree. On the other hand, I think rap, on some level, is only venting. It's just a vehicle for rage, in that way. It's true to say that much out expressionist 60s music we're taking about had rage in it. But the rage seems to be part of a spectrum of emotions. In rap it's the emotion. So I would distinguish between the rage of the 60s - when there was still hope of getting out of the ghetto - and now, when one is in the ghetto for life, knows it and is enraged. The reason I think that rap has become popular (= commodified) is because, since the 70s, all the things we used to believe in have gone out of the window. To be believe that there is nothing worth believing in is to be hip, to be Post-Modern. And that's what rap is really about, not believing there's any point, being enraged about it. I think 60s black expressionistic music still retains a feeling of hope - and is connected to deep expression of the concerns of the ghetto. I don't think that it is venting at all. But to hear those deep concerns would put the wider audience - in America, in the world - on the road to doing something about that. In my view that's why it hasn't become popular. "There are ghettos everywhere, including in everyone's head" (Albert Ayler 1966) It's universal. Simon Weil

There was an area of sort of sub-fusion playing which was looked down on. It was kind of wishy-washy. But then I was just coming into Jazz and wasn't so sure of my views. It contrasted with 60s Miles and Coltrane. I'm not sure now either - for a different reason. So much of Jazz seems to revolve around discussions of who's in and who's out. The first conversation I ever heard about Jazz was these two middle-aged guys sagely stating that Tony Oxley couldn't swing - and remember that as actually them being "knowlegeable" gatekeepers who were "qualified" to say what was and wasn't Jazz. I.E. They were in and Oxley (and anyone else who couldn't understand their conversation - e.g. me) was out. Having said that I do think DP has a point - there were specific people I avoided. And I had him down as someone who was there in the 70s - based on his trawl through the Gary Burton records. I really like early Betty Carter. Simon Weil

The meeting of Ayler and the spoken-word occurred forty years ago during that melding of politics , poetry and avant-garde jazz known as the Black Arts Movement . Arguably , that movement wouldn't have had the meaning it did without the political foundation . By contrast , for whom would contemporary Ayleresque rap have 'real meaning' , given the lack of a galvanizing , unifying , political consciousness today ? I think Ayler knows about ghettos in a universal way - that is he knows about the existential despair that exists in them. But he also knows something else universal, about how to transcend them. This gives his music that characteristic flavour of both despair and joy held in some kind of fugitive balance. I think it transcends the moment of the 60s and the poetry and politics of that time so that the meaning has to do with universal truths that speak to ghettos of all times and all places. So fuse it with (=speak to) rap (with it). Simon Weil

That matches my own very limited experience in Bloomington & Indianapolis--it still retains a following, but mostly among older listeners who grew up in the 1950s, 60s, or 70s. Also have very limited radio-demographic evidence to back this up, but there seems to be more of an African-American audience--younger, anyway--for smooth jazz rather than straightahead/classic. Yup, based on my probably even more limited experience in the UK, that's where I think it is. In terms of people shopping who've I've talked to. It is kind of depressing when you get some black guy(or gal) in the Jazz section and then all they're interested in is smooth. I'm just wondering if the smooth Jazz listening is kind of the obverse of Rap in that (for me) one is the music of the hopeless ghetto and the other is the music of people who want to block out and think everything is fine. The thing about the avant garde appealing to young people, I think has to do with the chaotic world we live in, and a desire to find a way through the chaos. See, I think the avant-garde of the 60s is the music of a society in flux - the black society on the cusp of (semi-)inclusion. And, then, it's about (on some level) the myriad different ways that society might go forward, only it's couched in sound. Now we're in dead trouble across the world - stuck for ideas as to how the world is to go forward. My view is that this music (the avant-garde) allows, in some sideways and deep way, people to think about these ideas, to find new ideas - and that's why it appeals. Especially to young people, who need to think, to set themselves on the right (or a right) path through the chaos. I still intuit that rap coupled to Ayleresque playing would have real meaning. Simon Weil

This is a great post by Ed. Still, although I don't know a lot about Gilmore, nor really about Pharoah - and my knowledge of Coltrane is also not so great, I do think I have some insight into Ayler. I think he was sui generis. It's like an eruption of something or other into Jazz. I don't think this fits into any complex intertexual narrative you may make of Jazz, but rather invokes forces that are right on the edge of human expressibility - and, for this reason, have trouble fitting into any text. Anyway, in a while, I'll write my Ayler article and be more specific. Simon Weil

OTOH Monk was already 30 the first time he set foot inside a studio for a leader date... the Blue Note/Prestige/Riverside period captures him in his thirties and early 40s. Exactly. The music WAS fresh (in the historical sense) on the Blue Note and Prestige recordings. On the Riverside recordings, not so much. Whether it was fresh (in the musical sense) is obviously up to debate. "Thelonious Monk is often called "inimitable" and for him the word seems completely justified." Martin Williams 1967 "Even the worst enemies of the man known as "The High Priest of Bebop" [Monk] are forced to admit that he is, after all, a remarkable fellow. It has become fashionable to think of him as a greatly overrated musician, something of a charlatan, a mystic whose very mysticism is calcluated to conceal a rather prosaic flaw: poor musicianship. That is utter nonsense... I'll finish by saying that in listening to Monk, the same advice applies as is given to fans of traditional jazz, on hearing bop for the first time: forget what you know, don't compare - listen. Monk is likely to be as jarring a departure from Dizzy Gillespie as Dizzy is from Louis, and yet he may hit you right away. An open ear is a wonderful thing." Paul Bacon: " The High Priest of bebop: The Inimitable Mr. Monk" 1949 in The Thelonious Monk reader ed van der Bliek pp57, 62 And from Martin Williams again, surely one of the key commentators on Monk: "...although [Monk] has been heard from for years, [he] has been listened to probably more attentively than before...Almost anyone knows that Monk is supposed to be one of the founders of bop. Undoubtedly he made important contributions to the style, but it should be clear by now that this strikingly original musician has been working on all along is something different..." Notes to Atlantic 1278 1957 [Monk/Blakey] "Brilliant Corners...is so full of suggestions about the future of jazz that one may well despair of their assimilation." Jan 1958 And finally: "Thelonious Monk learned to explore and develop an original and unorthodox musical talent. And he endured years when his music suffered neglect and even disparagement. Neither of these things is easy, and especially not for an American. The Monk was signed to a major record company, and his appearances began to draw crowds, and he was faced with perhaps the severest test of all - success, personal popularity, the problems of facing an audience, night after nigh, the problems of sidemen and of keeping the right group together. Many a popular artist (and many a fine one), faced with the recognition he has awaited, is tempted to relax, admire his laurels, and pause now and then to count the house. And during the years of success there were indications that Monk was all too willing to coast a bit too. The Jazz Tradition/Williams New and Revised Edition 1983 p168-9 Williams notes that it was Monk's 1957 engagement with Coltrane at the 5 Spot which turned to corner for him in terms of public recognition. It's interesting that we're now having this discussion about Monk's technical playing, given that line about poor musicianship. I think that Williams is on fire in his Monk criticism. Simon Weil

Well, there's a kind of verve - a spark - on his Riverside recordings, which I don't hear on his Columbia's. I mean, there's a thing that happens with young people - say people around 22 - where everything is fresh and new to them. Like there's this whole world of potential. And then, after a while, they settle down - and that newness goes. Because what is potential has eventually to be realised. So this is how I feel about Monk. Up to the Columbia period he is bursting with ideas - not just in terms of playing, but in terms of group concept, composition, whatever. After that, he settles down. No, that doesn't mean he stops being creative, just that he stops being creative in the global, earthmoving, jazz-changing way he was before. There's something of the concert pianist about his technique on the Columbias - to do with knowing his style so well he now gets especial pleasure in the nooks and crannies of its perfection. Maybe it's to do with knowing he's a Jazz Great. Simon Weil

I understand and believe me, I don't like to lose data. But as I explained, this is the very first time we've lost any posts. Stick around... re-post your thoughts... you'll be happy you did, I guarantee. Of course, it's never quite the same the second time around. If it's not exactly like a Jazz solo, still most of these posts are written on the hoof - and you lose the freshness. I mean, like it's fun to write the first time, because you're telling yourself - as well as others - what you feel. But the second time, you already know. And then there's the element of clarifying in your mind - I mean, the whole process of writing (in general), makes you work out exactly what you do think. Here it is, in front of everybody, I'd better make sure this is what I think, as it were. Of course, these considerations apply to computer crashes as well as site outrages - and, for this reason, people do back up documents. When I was on rec.music.bluenote, I used to store all the material that mattered to me for fear google/usenet access would go belly-up. What about the more general issue of losing material? There is one aspect, which I suppose I could broach. When bluenote disappeared their board, all that wonderful stuff posted there, went phoooeee. Clearly no bulletin board is forever, but it would be nice to know that the data we've got here still might still be available when and if.... I think Jazz historians of the future might be interested in it. Simon Weil

Great to have you back! It was on google, as Jim suggested. Don't know how long for, though. So I'll take the liberty: I found it at:printer-friendly Gary Burton Not sure how long this link will last as google tends to refresh pages. Simon Weil

Well, if you actually go back and look the "shop talk" was started by impossible in response to post of mine. So I felt justified in responding, as it were, to that response. What set me off was the use of that word "important". I had said that Burton was historically important as a progenitor of fusion, impossible came back with he was very important as a technical innovator on vibes. Behind that was a general view that the technical is over-valued in Jazz and a general feeling that people beat you over the head with their technical knowledge rather than use it to enhance your enjoyment of the material. You use the word graciousness, which hints at the kind of religious significance technique has in Jazz - and I think indicates it is being overvalued. Mastery of technique leads to craft. There's a difference between a craftsman and a priest. Or an artist. Simon Weil

I think that, ideally, it's the content that presents itself to the artist first, who then must strive to master the techniques required to adequately express that content. That's what I think, but in the discourse about Jazz, it seems like the content gets lost oftentimes. I mean it's there, but people seem not to talk about it. It's like they're embarassed to talk about it. C'est vrai. .... I want to apologize to impossible. It wasn't like his post deserved that response (well, maybe a little) but I wanted to get that thing off my chest and...The thing about me and technique is I never see the point in learning about technique unless: 1) I've got something to say (content above) 2) This is the form for me 3) People are going to listen That presents me as a performer (in the widest sense) - and I do see myself like that, as a person with things to say. See, when Rostasi says, if you learn about technique then you'll be able to understand all that deep stuff, it doesn't really interest me. This is the kind of passive listener approach - and I'm not that. I'm a writer who's rather frustrated. This is because I feel people are equivocal about me - this is number 3 in the list. This is why I don't learn about technique (except in the very limited ways that matter to me) because it's a considerable effort of time, money and life energies and I don't feel I'm going to get a pay-back. One has to pick and choose what one commits to (especially at my age). I think people need to think about the point about ghettoisation, though. Simon Weil

Burton is also extremely important as a vibist, developing a four mallet grip different from other four mallet players' techniques, allowing for more power in the secondary mallets. The Burton grip now seems to be the most popular four mallet technique for vibraphone. It's just, as a non-player, these technical aspects seem less important. I mean, evidently, you can't produce the music without a specific from of technique and the skills to back it up. But, when you listen to the music, how does that impact? I did know, somewhere, that he's a key innovator on vibes but I guess I accidentally on purpose forgot it. But I suppose what I'd really like to do is get musicians to move out of their comfort zone and, when they assert a technical innovator's historical significance, indicate how that plays out in the experienced sound. I guess I'm really thinking about the visual arts, where you get critics who are both technically acute and wise to the content of a form - and are able to connect up the two. So that the inexperienced reader is able to see "Wow, yes that bit of technique leads to that bit of content". I mean fusion evidently (or I think) involves a change in content, but I'm not sure about the change in technique from 2 mallets to 4. So I, as anon-musician, struggle to see (in my own terms) why I should be so excited by the innovation in technique. I know I'm working against the standard view of Jazz history here - which is written, primarily, in terms of technical and formal innovation. But I think that tends to lead to a ghettoisation of Jazz, with only the technical and formally competent able to discuss the form. If some effort was made to translate the formal and technical innovation into its effect on content, I think that would make for a more average-person friendly discourse. If only because the content, the vibe, the mood of a piece is what he most of all experiences. It's this whole thing of "if you're not a musician, you won't understand..." which pisses me off. [Rant over] Simon Weil

But, then, I'm not such a great fan of Carla Bley. Genuine Tong Funeral is not a record I like, but I do think (or maybe sense) that it works, has content, whatever. I keep feeling I'm missing the point with Bley. I'm with Freeform83 apart from that. I like Gibbs. But, yeah I think you are right - Burton interprets Gibbs better. Simon Weil

Historically Burton is important as one of the prime progenitors of fusion. He's had loads of interesting musicians of that ilk pass through his bands -e.g. Coryell, Metheny (who basically got his start with Burton). I think you've got to give it to him for that. Whether you think any of his albums are particularly outstanding is another thing. I personally really like his Jazz-country light fusion aesthetic (those 60s-early 70s RCAs) which then morphs into something more heavy as the 70s goes on (and he joins ECM). I'm not such a fan of his duet (I only know Crystal Silence) and have not been terribly moved by his non-fusion stuff. A lot of stuff Donald Petersen says I agree with, and a lot I don't. I think the thing that doesn't work on Throb is the guitarist - Burton has generally been very lucky with guitarists (see above), but also with bassists (Swallow's rubberised thing is amazing). In the Public Interest is a Gibbs record with Burton soloing - and maybe my favourite Gibbs. I think the New Quartet record is real fun. I don't much like the live RCA record either, but apart from that you can pick or choose from amongst 60s and 70s records DP mentions and not go that far wrong - though, as I say, the aesthetic morphs. I suppose, looking at this, Burtons RCA's have to be one of the core sources for Bill Frisell's country-fusion aesthetic - also not liked by some (many?). In short, I think Burton's real achievement is in fusion. Simon Weil

This is one of those threads that's guaranteed to create conflict. Bit like the over-rated/under-rated threads or the Cuscuna thread we had recently. 'Nough conflict in the outside world in my opinion. I mean, unless you're actually trying to do something real that is. Simon Weil

What's wrong with Yurup is what's wrong with (practically) everywhere else. It's got a centre of nothing. I mean that's OK while you're making lots of money. But if that stops, you'll be in big trouble, for there's nothing to fall back on. And, even if that doesn't stop, these societies are strangely dessicated with very little really new happening in terms of culture. You just can't go on like that, IMO. Sooner or later the whole thing falls in on itself if a society doesn't renew. I can't speak for Italy, but in the UK just about everything has to be tested for market friendliness before it's produced. That is just about the most conservative concept possible and accounts for the extreme lack of new ideas (also IMO). People need to wake up to the fact that market economics is really bad for new ideas and without new ideas a society dies. Even if it's making loads of money, it still dies. In fact there's probably a trade-off between extreme competetiveness and production of genuinely new - and thus threatening to the majority - ideas. Anything that's threatening to the majority is not going to be produced by the mega-concerns which now dominate the culture industries. For all of these are driven solely by the desire to make money. To say we're better than them (pick your them) does not make us fine. Simon Weil

Mine doesn't look like that either. I don't think we're quite there yet. Going the right way about it, though. Naah. The physical fact of Europe plus all the money that's made here mean something. But I'm not sure that without some bright new ideas we're not going to end up like that. Thanks for saying they were deep, Ubu. Simon Weil

Who am I? Why am I here? Does anybody care? No, don't answer that... What is a European? What are we here for? Do we even exist? I mean, apart from physically occupying this spot to the East of America, the North of Africa, the West of Asia and mentally occupying the spot of has-been old-Empires, I don't know what this is. Looks like I should have overslept. Mr ex-Rip Van Winkle. Simon Weil

Just to get it straight, I much preferred Larks Tongues to Inner Mounting when they came out. But now, I don't know. I just find the kind of reduced technique reduces the suprise in the record - in this way IMF (!) is much closer to Jazz, and that was really my point: to indicate that it had that Jazz flexibility/surprise which LTIA lacks. Fripp strikes me as strong in the conceptual/writing department but, well, I know where the next trick's coming from after 30 years. I do feel its thrill's kind of worn off - and I think (now) that it's because it came more from more attitude than from passion. That said I totally agree with you about technical players, can maybe see where you're coimg from with Hammer and agreed with you about "Alien" (whoops wrong thread). The keyboards on LTIA are like effects, though. Not with Hammer. Simon Weil