Hot Ptah

It's difficult to imagine Ben Webster being interested in the cognitive and embodied underpinnings of music.

Jim, I am missing your point? Why would they either read it or not?

I also wonder about Amhonu Davis. it puzzles me why it would be a bad thing if an article is published about a jazz artist.

I agree that he is on a high level of artistry. Iyer would have been lauded if he had begun his career in the early 1970s

I have seen Iyer live, and heard several of his CDs. I think he is an excellent composer and pianist, and that he has an original approach which is very interesting and thought provoking. I think he is easily artistically worthy of a New Yorker piece, all other factors notwithstanding. If there are some statements in the article which seem slightly overblown, I think that is in the grand old tradition of magazine article writing. I don't really understand why this would be controversial.

I saw DeJohnette in concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in January, 1981. With Jack were John Purcell, Chico Freeman and Peter Warren. It was an outstanding concert.

Jack's ECM albums from "Untitled" through "Album Album" do not have the classic ECM sound to them. That was an era when ECM was releasing albums by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Lester Bowie, and other artists far removed from its initial (and current) typical style.

I have noticed over the last 15 years or so that many articles and essays about jazz, especially in general circulation media, have been written in a way which assumes that the reader knows nothing about jazz. This article is not the worst of that genre, to be sure. For example, in the late 1970s, an article about Dizzy Gillespie would not start out by identifying him as a trumpet player, and an important jazz musician, with some general explanation of what jazz music is all about. Now, that type of article in a daily newspaper might very well contain that very basic information.

Great! I am in. I am looking forward to it!

Allen, I don't see any huge promotional machine behind Kamasi Washington. I have never seen his CD in any Barnes and Noble, Wal Mart, Target, or any other brick and mortar store. He is on the list of Top Albums of the Year on some online blogs and webpages, but that it about it. All of my jazz loving friends around the United States who are not on the Organissimo board, had never heard of him until I mentioned him recently. What huge promotion are you talking about? I am quite sure that if he was booked to play in Kansas City, that he would draw less than 50 people. He is not a widely known artist, at all. He has never been mentioned once in our Kansas City daily newspaper. Also, Allen, what "consensus" are you pushing back against? As far as I can tell, fewer than twenty people have written about him online, or named his album to their Top Albums of 2015 Lists. Who notices those lists anyway? I know that I never read them. Mostly he is completely unknown, except maybe in his hometown, and among a tiny circle of online bloggers. I think that you are firing a cruise missile at a flea.

Allen, what happened to allowing a younger artist a chance to develop? Maybe Kamasi Washington's next album willl be better. I don't understand your need to crush the guy in print at every opportunity. As far as I know, Kamasi did not arrange for the reviews and audience for his album. He has not given arrogant interviews designed to inflame people's passions like a Trump. So why the animosity? I read reviews daily that I strongly disagree with. Films, books, music, which I don't think much of, get positive reviews. It has never occurred to me that I must mount a one man campaign to "set the record straight" at every opportunity. No one is going to read or remember what we send out in pixels, in the infinite online data stream.

Allen, I am still asking, do you find Kamasi Washington and "The Epic" more than just unworthy of the degree of attention that it is getting? Do you consider it to be a menace, which needs to be fought, and condemned in print as often as possible, as one would condemn an avowed racist? You used the Trump comparison in your earlier post here. It would be possible if one did not like the music, to make no comment about it, or to say "I'll pass" once. But I have observed that you have written quite often here, and on Facebook, regarding your rather deep antipathy for Kamasi Washington and "The Epic." What makes him, and this album, so much worse than any number of other albums and artists who have come along in the past several years?

I don't think it follows. However, I have noticed on the online music boards which I read, including some other than this one, that certain members will seem to delight in negatively commenting on virtually any new release. as a seeming kneejerk reaction, a default response. Other members will offer a more detailed, thoughtful explanation of why they find some new releases lacking in merit, and why other new releases are more meritorious in their view.

Daniel A, I am sending you a Private Message about this.

I have seen the following live: Elvin Jones, Max Roach, Louis Bellson, Art Blakey, Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette, Paul Motian, Billy Higgins, Ed Blackwell, Andrew Cyrille. I would put Jack DeJohnette up there with any of them. He would be tied for #1 as far as I am concerned. He is not a boppish drummer. That is not what he does. I love his drumming on his albums Special Edition, New Directions, Untitled, Inflation Blues, and Album Album, and on McCoy Tyner's Super Trios, Timeless (with John Abercrombie), Pat Metheny's 80/81, and many more.

So if I understand what you just wrote Allen, you find Kamasi Washington and "The Epic" to be not just underwhelming compared to the praise and attention they have received. You find Kamasi Washington and "The Epic" to be offensively terrible, on the level of moral outrage that you would feel about an avowed racist?

It is intriguing to me. When I play "The Epic", I hear a pleasant enough, but somewhat slight, album. It's almost an easy listening album in spots. I like the piano solos, and the trumpet and trombone solos, although I recognize that they are not up there with the greatest works of all time. Some of the melodies are pleasing, if not legendary. So I do not understand why masses of young people attend his concerts, and why the album ends up on Top 10 Lists in national publications. Not Top 10 jazz lists. It is on Top 10 music lists period. I do not understand why people have written so enthusiastically about it. I have read more than one account of people being very enthused upon initially hearing the album. Really? Where is all of this positive enthusiasm coming from? Allen, I also do not understand why you muster up the energy to be repeatedly very negative about it. "The Epic" does not seem to be strong enough to warrant such attention. To me, it is like writing repeatedly in several different places online about how mayonnaise really irks the heck out of you. Really? Who can get so worked up about it? It's too neutral to become one's constant target, from what I can perceive. What am I missing about "The Epic", and Kamasi Washington, that make people feel such strong emotion, both positive and negative?

Esperanza Spalding is an interesting comparison. To my knowledge, she did not inspire the sort of strong emotion (positive and negative) produced by Kamasi Washington and "The Epic." What is there about Kamasi Washington and "The Epic" that gets people so stirred up, both positively and negatively? :

Yes, I noticed that too. There is something about Kamasi Washington and "The Epic" that generates emotion, whereas Vijay Iyer does not. I was trying to avoid comparisons to Wynton and the emergence of the young jazz revivalists, as that was a planned, ideological agenda for jazz. I think that "The Epic" and Kamasi Washington are not part of any planned agenda. I used Chico Freeman's "Spirit Sensitive" as a comparison because like "The Epic", it was just another album. What if it had caught fire commercially as "The Epic" has? I also wonder why Kamasi Washington has generated animosity, when to my knowledge, he is not an offensive or polarizing personality. If he was an arrogant know-it-all, I could see why he would rub people the wrong way, but to my knowledge, he has never said a disrespectful word.

I have been thinking some more about this. If Chico Freeman's low key album of standards on the India Navigation label, "Spirit Sensitive", released in 1979, had resulted in massive commercial popularity for him in 1979, with platinum level record sales, sold out appearances in large rock venues, favorable articles in mainstream media, listings in the Best of All Albums in All Genres for 1979, and much favorable attention among young listeners, that would have been comparable to what has happened with "The Epic." In both cases, there is a young saxophonist who has put out a pleasant, all right, but not all-time great, album. What would the reaction have been in 1979 if Chico Freeman had enjoyed that great fortune after releasing "Spirit Sensitive"? Would jazz musicians and critics have been glad for him, rejoiced in his inexplicable great fortune, commented on how he is an up and coming musician with hopefully better things to come? Or would have the jazz world been negative about him and his album, pointing out his limitations as a saxophonist and expressing the view that his album was not that great? Or would there have been some of both? I am just using Chico Freeman and "Sprit Sensitive" as an arbitrary example of what I am thinking about. For this hypothetical, one could plug in any other young saxophonist who had released a pleasant, accessible album at any time.

I think the discussion is "here's a kid playing around with something we care deeply about and we either do or do not approve of what he is doing with our sacred art form. We are either all right with him doing what he is doing or we find it lacking. We are either offended or gratified by the fact that the kid is very popular and getting media attention and sales out of his playing around with what we hold so dear."

I think that conversion is unlikely People will find the music themselves, however they get to it. i love the phrase "ludicrously sized collection." When I was 14 my great desire in life was to own a ludicrously sized collection of music. I did it. How many can say that they fulfilled their dream?

Excellent points Jim. I am not sure what you meant by your references to Charles Lloyd and James Newton. I had thought about the 1960s popular Charles Lloyd in relation to Kamasi. Both were/are popular and connected with young audiences in an unexpectedly successful way, while playing music that is "really jazz", if not the heaviest jazz of all time. Both were/are not the best soloists in their group. I am not referring to the Charles Lloyd of recent years now. i am not sure that I understand your reference to James Newton. From "Paseo Del Mar" on the India Navjgation label on, I think Newton was at a higher level of serious artistry, and much less popular, than Kamasi. I must be missing your point.

Excellent questions ep1strOphy. My personal theory is that jazz artists of great merit have received so little publicity, so little money, so little genuine, thoughtful critical acclaim, and so few gigs, for so long, that whenever someone else receives any of the above, the jazz artists of great merit explode with frustration, in a fury of negativity. I can easily understand how they would feel that way, and react that way. i think that unless a 22'year old emerges full blown as if from the forehead of Zeus, fully developed on an artistic level of John Coltrane at the time of "A Love Supreme", the jazz community will be negative at this point. Having wandered in the desert for 40 years, only the promised land will suffice.

Here is an earnest Pitchfork review of Matthew Shipp: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19713-matthew-shipp-ive-been-to-many-places/ In fact, if you type Matthew Shipp into the search function on Pitchfork, you come up with reviews of many of his albums. Here is a review of a Cecil Taylor album on Pitchfork: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20505-the-complete-cecil-taylor-in-berlin-88/ On the other hand, searches on Pitchfork for Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, and Allen Lowe, come up with nothing. I have not tried to find how many jazz artists have been reviewed on Pitchfork.