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ep1str0phy
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Posts posted by ep1str0phy
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Feel like a Puritan in saying this, but for me the blues and guitar virtuosity are virtually contra-indicated.
According to what standards, though? For one thing, it's hard to gauge where individual expressivity ends and the articulation of an accumulated lexicon of techniques, ideas, etc. begins. Even if the "truest" blues prioritizes any number of elements above virtuosity--and maybe we are talking traditional Western virtuosity, which emphasizes control, precision, and tonal/timbral cleanness (none mutually exclusive)--the most well developed music that gets categorized under the blues genre is extremely technically advanced on its own terms--or, at least, music of that ilk requires the development of some serious physical and intellectual muscles to replicate.
Obviously, "replication" is not the point--unless you're a re-creationist, which even guys like Green, Bloomfield, and SRV are, to various extents (which would explain why any number of Bluesbreakers guitarists could be considered virtuosic in a "classic" sense, since they've mastered things that have already existed). So even if virtuosity is not necessarily the aim in creating something as unheralded and intrinsically expressive as Blind Willie Johnson, that music becomes virtuosic after the fact by virtue of defining the idiom. I mean, it's all really occidental, but it's true.
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Chiming in with an opinion, since I went through a period of extreme Clapton hero worship in my first couple years of playing electric guitar--a period succeeded by a feeling of distaste at even the slightest echo of blues rock histrionics in own playing (followed by the subsequent/current period of aesthetic consolidation in which I had to, whether by want or by force, come to terms with the genetics of my own coding). It's now difficult for me to listen to Clapton of any vintage, but I can apprehend why his most original work is at all instructive. I actually got into jazz via Cream, since Jack Bruce's own hero worship of Ornette Coleman carved a number of inroads to free jazz.
Not speaking to the current project, per se, but I've found that it's a pretty common thing ("out in the world" and not just here) to bash Clapton wholesale for the sort of excess and tastelessness that other folks (both less celebrated 60's blues people and especially any number of blues-informed acts of subsequent years--from Zeppelin and Sabbath on down to Guns N'Roses and Joe Bonamassa, for heaven's sake) seem to get off easy for. Not a criticism--more an observation. I fell out with Clapton after catching him live... he's in the past few decades codified his sensibilities and substituted what adventure there was for a level of professionalism that doesn't really serve the roughhewn-ness of his source material.
That being said, it's absolute bullshit to call out Clapton on total unoriginality. It's plain that he was never a sui generis player, and laaaaarge swathes of his discography from the early days on down are endlessly indebted to the usual suspects. IIRC, the solos from "Strange Brew" are basically note-for-note paraphrases of Albert King (I think the solo "proper" might be ripped from "Crosscut Saw"--it's been a while). Clapton picked up the Les Paul because of Freddie King. There are a long list of more specific phrasing debts Clapton owes (owed) to Otis Rush, BB, and what have you--yes.
But--Clapton's chief period of experimentation was a consolidation of and extrapolation on things the black American bluesmen had pioneered. It was a matter of pairing these ideas up with velocity and intense volume--in a way dissimilar to, say, Buddy Guy or even Hendrix--that made Clapton's old idiom really recognizable. There's a reason that the Cream version of "Crossroads" is deified, and that's because it is cutting shit--fast and deadly precise. It's an objective truth that it's as technically challenging as the heaviest work of Bloomfield and Hendrix. This is not "aping"--it's synthesis and metamorphosis, in a way analogous to Trane with Pres but, naturally, not as liberating or aesthetically effective.
The biggest "mistake" Clapton made in his career was to frame his abilities in terms of his forebears. Clapton would not and will not ever cut Buddy Guy, the Kings, Hubert Sumlin--to say nothing of Robert Johnson, Skip James, etc.) (all amazing players who I ultimately find more satisfying than Clapton)--because he's second to that party. IClearly, this is something Clapton wanted to do--and he's been amply rewarded, financially, several times over for it--but the self-inflicted comparison is extremely unflattering and has done extreme retroactive disservice to the things Clapton did interestingly. I think that SRV was more capable of meeting the masters on their own terms, but I don't think he was any better at doing what he did than Clapton was at doing "his thing" when his thing was something that existed and was nourished.
By the way--Jack Bruce's first couple of proper solo albums--Songs for A Tailor and Harmony Row--are only marginally informed by the UK blues rock hoopla and easily the match of/better of, IMO, any other left leaning rock of the era. These are absolute classics with amazingly subtle, intelligent songwriting and musicianship that get lost in the endless Cream bashing.
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RIP. I'll give "Deep Dark Blue Centre" a spin, too.
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EXACTLY. People will always operate at different levels of development, but--at least in the circles I circle and center--it's difficult to question commitment. Practice is good, of course, but it takes courage and conviction to even attempt to treat this as a lifestyle these days. As serious as your life and all that.
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I honestly think that Rosenwinkel's words have more to do with noticing a lack of commitment and practice in apparently professional situations than they do with genre or style. What compelled Rosenwinkel to call lord knows who out, who knows. None of these problems are inherently new, though I do agree that it's useful to reevaluate one's own performance praxis every so often (i.e., are these arrangements clear? Have we worked out how to end a song cleanly? Do we know these changes well enough to open it up and not get extremely lost?)
What does suck is couching one's sentiments in salacious language and assuming that people won't take it the wrong way. People have FREAKED OUT because the very notion that "jazz sucks" (regardless of the intent of that message) opens up any number of wounds and insecurities. Rosenwinkel's tweets have forced people to voice opinions--often negative--intrinsically connected to their own respective beliefs, rather than calling on people to address any overlying problem or mass cultural concern. One thing is for sure: this whole thing right here--this is not the way to solve any problems.
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He was on a Sunn O))) album for heaven's sake. I of course enjoy many of his more canonical/"classic" performances (especially with Mwandishi), but I think my favorite Priester may be the work he did for the Postcards label in the 90's. Summit Conference is as solid a free jazz album (emphasis on the jazz, because the swing feel is wild but extraordinarily present) as anyone has released in the past couple of decades.
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As a Bay Area musician, this loss hits hard. The older generations of jazz musicians, including the handful of truly generous and insightful drummers that have hung around from the salad days of bop, free, and beyond, often take an active role out here. It's all one big generational story, and I'm sad to see Marshall--as one of the really big lights--pass on.
One album of his (not really as a sideman--more as a co-leader) that I've always really loved--but can't really find mention of anywhere--is the Improvising Artists album Almanac (with Mike Nock, Bennie Maupin, and Cecil McBee). The band is the match of any post-bop or straight ahead ensemble operating in those waters (whatever those waters were) in the late 60's, and Eddie plays spectacularly.
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I actually just saw a video of (comedian) Louis CK paying tribute to George Carlin--and we're talking about two romantics who often couch romanticism in cynicism, or rather two very earnest stage personalities that are nonetheless extremely aware of the incendiary and being incendiary. What struck me was how much admiration CK had for Carlin as a craftsman and trailblazer--not just for what he said, but for what he did and the fact of his doing it. I've been thinking about this, and the very present realities of being a jazz musician, performer, person, etc. right now (and, being relatively young, scrambling is part of what I've come to understand as reality), I'm honestly proud to be making music right now with the people I make music with in the way that I do with the legacy that I'm a part of. Considering everyone here is either/both a musician or a music admirer, I'd be remiss in failing to articulate just how much the existence of this board, its contrasting realities, and its ultimate optimism mean to me.
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I was only half-joking up above when I asked KR to name names. I seriously don't understand where he's coming from or what he's getting at. Does he really mean that many of the jazz cats out there are bad/sucky at what they do - and even then I don't know if he's referring to new recordings or some guy tickling the ivories in a super club - or is this another sweeping condemnation of Kenny G and his smooth jazz ilk who clutter up some radio stations' "jazz charts?" If he's referring to Dave Koz or Boney James - two guys that my brother-in-law, for example, would name if asked to name some modern jazz musicians - then yeah, I might agree with him.
The allaboutjazz thread on this mentions that Rosenwinkel made some followup posts (that I referenced above and didn't realize were missing from a lot of the conversation). The important one:
"Trane never sucked, because he always cared. period. anyone who really cares about his own music is gonna be fine. im not talking about odd meter players, etc. im talking about musicians who think its enough to just blow and not listen to the people they are playing with, people who think its enough to have one rehearsal or no rehearsals for a record date that includes complicated original music, or a gig for that matter. i mean sometimes you have to work within the framework of peoples schedules etc, and you get cats that can handle it.Im not saying be innovative, im saying just please make sure your own music doesnt suck, thats all. thats an admonishment to CARE MORE. and im saying: if you dont CARE, then do something else, because i see alot of musicians in Jazz who think that the littlest bit is enough, and they go in front of people and play in bands that sound like crap because people are trying to impress and arent listening, or people are writing music that makes no sense and doesnt sound good, etc. im sorry if i sounded negative, but i did get your attention and i agree with Mike Boone that sometimes you gotta call it like you see it and make a statement that might get people riled up but in the end people are talking about important stuff. im just saying to everyone, us all, myself included just a reminder: Care about your music and make sure it doesnt suck. I made an album on Criss-Cross that i did think sucked and guess what- i didnt put it out. i will never put out anything that i think is not the highest quality that i can do, and not only that but that i feel is actually worth putting out, to bring some good music into the world. im not trying to say you suck or this guy sucks, or that im better than this guy, bla bla bla. im saying to all of US: CARE MORE, and my tone was strong because i was thinking about how many times i see musicians who are representing jazz to audiences and "the world" who arent taking care of business, and sometimes these are even older very famous people too who dont seem to care enough anymore to even tune their instruments. its not just young people or students."
It makes the argument sound strikingly abstract and not at all artist specific, which is interesting. But then these charges can be leveled against basically any genre and style (which is what a lot of folks have been getting at).
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I like your attitude!
But whereas Burno was definitely repeating the tired trope of "real jazz is swing and blues, etc.", it's hard to know, at least only from the quoted Facebook post, whether Rosenwinkel was sneering at non-mainstreamers or at mainstreamers who aren't good enough for his high standards.
Why is that tired? What endeavor in art or life can get anywhere or be worth a damn without the basics?
Tired in terms of jazz neoclassicism--that is, only jazz that uses swing and blues in a traditional sense can be considered "real." Moldy figism. Even the discographies of many of the proponents of neoclassicism contravene this notion, but Burno's assessment hews dangerously close to "play nice hard bop" (rather than the interpretation I'd favor, which is "do your homework first and foremost").
On another note, Rashied Ali stresses (in one of his final interviews) the value of going back and learning stuff like "Scrapple from the Apple." This can be read in one way as just another instance of a classic avant-gardist turning conservative in his older age, in another as a man who has been to the moon and back stressing the importance of fundamentals. Again, there's something to be said for craftsmanship in any vocation.
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Rosenwinkel does make one really crucial point, and it reminds me of this:
Ten Things Jazz Musicians Can Learn from Pub Rock Bands
I can definitely relate to the notion that jazz benefits from rehearsal, practice, and craftsmanship (attention to orchestration, arrangement, solo order, album/set programming, etc.). A lot of music doesn't happen this way, and I think it's important that, whatever one does, he/she attempts to uphold the standards of his/her own craft. I've definitely considered walking off stage for a well paying gig once or twice (my respect for the bandleader and a desire to recoup my ridiculous gas expenses preventing me from doing so)... when the music isn't happening--and when you could have clearly done something about it ahead of time--it's disrespectful to everyone and everything involved.
Rosenwinkel's music isn't my flavor, but I do admire the attention he pays to his own craft. Granted this, "creative music" requires a balance of craft and, well, creativity. I find it interesting that a great number of the major league commentators on this topic (not here--I'm talking about the de facto mainstream) insist on upholding historical standards of excellence while simultaneously creating music that is often debilitatingly beholden to other peoples' concepts. There's a difference (though, obviously, an overlap) between music that is proficient and music that is worthwhile, and I'm not convinced of the value of "non-sucky" music when said music is (in general terms) a retread of the lost Miles Quintet--or the Jazz Messengers--or Tony Williams Lifetime, etc. That subject has been drilled elsewhere...
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Speaking of obscure John Stevens, those trio albums with Trevor Watts and Barry Guy (No Fear, Application Interaction And...--not Amalgam proper, but similar) are amazing--some of the most muscular free/post-free music ever recorded--but grooving. It's striking how someone so throughly involved in formulating a new language with the SME was able to juggle so many different projects and stylistic detours.
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pousal abuse, rape, and the like are not about sex or sexuality. It's all about power, control and violence.
And sex isn't, at least in part and/or sometimes?
That's what I mean. It's not about sex and sexuality in the strictest sense, but the treatment of sexuality, the apotheosis of masculinity and macho in the jazz culture--isn't this stuff also tied up in power, control and violence? Again, not the whole story, but these things are interwoven.
As for Gaga and cohort--there's some stuff that might be best addressed in the Rosenwinkel "jazz sucks" thread. It is pretty notable, however, that this time around the "old guard" is criticizing neophytes not so much for aesthetic reasons but rather for social conventions like insularity, arrogance, and a lack of historical perspective. For my part, I can't really imagine coming up in jazz (or even improv, at this point) without the knowledge and encouragement of one's forebears (spent waaaaay too much time around some of the "old guard"--which is really just the guard--to think otherwise), but what does it mean when a lot of the guys on the street aren't even playing/battling on the same court anymore? That is pretty bleak.
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ok, i'm conviced! sex has nothing to do with music.
We're arguing in circles, at least insofar as a massive heap of arguments have been made in favor of why this is a worthwhile topic.
Disagreement is good--it means people give a damn. I'm of the mind that an artform is genuinely irrelevant when it ceases to respond to the exigencies of the culture at large, and that's a big reason why jazz holds such a small market share (of an already small market) right now. New jazz studies (addressed, obviously, in a different) thread has been trying to superimpose contemporary race, gender, sexuality (etc.) studies on music from the 50's for years now, but this is like seeing a black and white film in color. The exigencies of the culture have to have a natural outlet in the music, otherwise the music doesn't serve its social purpose (maybe the academic, aesthetic, historical, yes, whatever...).
I'll take jazz as a listening habit any day of the week, but the erudite commentators of today are listening to Odd Future and Kreayshawn because all that jive is at least connected to what's happening to the masses right now. It's been over 50 years since 1960! Jesus, in the past decade--9/11, Prop 8, Obama--what the hell does jazz have to do with the world we're living in? I'll even take an abstract relationship to the times, for whatever that's worth--which is why, musical value being debatable, I'm all for Iyer, Mahanthappa, Lehman, Mostly Other People... Again, disagreement is good, but if the conversation isn't even worth having (for any number of the arguments made above), then shit. The advanced artform of jazz is behind Lady Gaga in addressing issues of contemporary sexuality.
As for what Moms said--my first thought was that we have a thread called "Sexiest Album Covers." And the conversation didn't shut down the last time we talked about spousal abuse in the Max Roach household, or Miles's history of abuse--this is all stuff tied up in sexuality.
(Edited after seeing Jim's post!)
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On a more serious note, I see that a few people have referred to homosexuality as a sexual "preference", and then proceed to question how this could influence their artistry. While sexual activity can reflect individual preferences, we're talking about sexual "orientation" here, i.e., the point from where one begins, a basic and inherent aspect of one's identity, a fundamental part of a person's sense of self. Consequently, one doesn't have to "play gay", "compose gay" or "arrange gay" for their sexual orientation to be a part of the music they create. It is, simply, who they are. I find it both sad and amusing when heterosexuals try to identify or judge the "gayness" of an individual's work. "Breeders" simply don't have a clue, and they call homosexuals "queer".
Yes--preference is a poor choice of words, and I agree with the notion that identity is a point of origin in work (and not necessarily something that has to be explicit to "be there"). As a Filipino-American improviser, for example, I'm often quizzed about the degree to which my music is Filipino--to which I say it just is, because I was born that way and I'm making the music. I don't need to paint a flag on my forehead or playing along to tinikling for this to be the case.
On another note, however, I've always understood "queer" as a self-identifying term in the GLBT community, of only because my GLBT friends have used that term as a self-descriptor. I never meant to use it as an epithet, mind you.
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I'm still not sure how an instrumental musician's "straightness" or "gayness" influences his or her music. I'm not saying it doesn't, just that I don't understand how it does. Would someone be willing to take a run at that?
Well, to clarify my thoughts a bit--I don't think it's a one-to-one correlation. That is, my being a straight dude doesn't necessarily make my music "straight," because the idea that music is intrinsically gendered/sexualized (or even racialized) is extremely contentious (considering that those values are difficult to quantify--or are we measuring testosterone content by bpm?). People have historically tried to prove that such a correlation exists (ex. Bill Evans's music being less muscular and somewhat effete--i.e. "white" versus, say, Bobby Timmons's "black"), but how do we attribute ethnicities, sexualities, etc. to sound?
What can be quantified are how social factors influence the quality and existence of the music making itself. If I live in a culture where I (person A) cannot safely, or even legally, collaborate or cultivate a friendship with person B, that music cannot happen. When/if the music itself happens, it is possible that in programmatic content the music is informed by the opprobrium of the intercultural collaboration (as it is in many cases of "interracial" South African jazz created during apartheid--e.g., the Blue Notes). However, it's more often the case that social factors seemingly peripheral to the music (sexuality, race, etc.) comprise an important component of the narrative of the music--that is, the circumstance in which the music did or did not come to be. Again, it is not necessary to understand this narrative in order to enjoy the music--and by all means, turn yourself off to it if so inclined--but the narrative is there and did happen to these musicians we know and love. Sometimes it affects these musicians' careers and lifestyles, in which case it's perhaps as relevant an area of discussion as, say, the fact that Coltrane observed a sort of abstract monotheism/spirituality. (How many times have we recounted Trane's battle with heroin and his subsequent state of grace? Why is this or is this not relevant toward the understanding of his music?)
To frame this conversation differently, what if we had been discussing matters in terms of race and ethnicity? (I'm not necessarily a believer that race = sexuality in terms of social stigma or import, mind you--but these are both and/or have been topics of peril and contention in jazz circles and elsewhere.) This field of discussion has been plowed deep, deep into the ground, but I think it would be difficult to argue against the fact that the narrative of, say, Archie Shepp's life has been influenced by extramusical factors, whether or not his music is intrinsically "black." Little visible gay/queer jazz has been as visible with its politicism as Shepp's has been with afrocentric concepts, but what about music like Ornette's--surprisingly unpolitical in any explicit sense, but which people are nonetheless inclined to look at with reference to the social and aesthetic phenomena of the 50's and 60's? Why does it matter in some cases and not others?
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Social factors can be relevant insofar as they affect whether or not the music was produced at all. We can lose a musician like Rhames (and, obviously, his music) due to the stigma against his lifestyle (albeit a step indirect--I wish someone knew more about Rhames, because odds are dying the late 1980's in your early 30's due to AIDS-related causes has something to do with lack of treatment resulting from social pressures, etc.).
Musicians can and often do lose opportunities to play (record, gig, etc.) due to the apparent opprobrium of coming out. This isn't always the case--Gary Burton still does what he does and to much fanfare--but it's enough to suggest that there's a deficiency in the way we treat sexuality as a factor in determining whether or not an artist is worthwhile in one sense or the other. Or, rather, it's because we happen to be weighing so much on factors like sexuality as a determinant of quality/viability (i.e., "gay people cannot play masculine music") that sexuality becomes something that needs to be addressed. Anyway, prejudice is itself a "relevant social factor."
And, as someone noted above, this is the age old question of whether or not "external" factors are relevant in understanding the music. As Lark mentions, you don't need to know the background to enjoy the music. But let's frame this in a way that is now less explosive (that is, not in gender or sexuality terms)--when I interviewed Louis Moholo-Moholo a while back (that is, spoke with him on the record), he made pains to articulate that the music of the Blue Notes was a sort of fighting music--something meant to undermine and by the very nature of its existence combat Apartheid. This psychology may or may not have informed the actual inputs into the music (that is, Chris McGregor may or may not have been sitting there arranging "MRA" thinking that he was fighting the Boer), but it's clearly how Moholo-Moholo wants the music to be perceived. The social connection becomes part of the narrative--hell, in the Blue Notes' case it's nearly the genesis of the narrative--and ignoring it is analogous to trying to mentally erase Nazism from Casablanca because Nazism makes you uncomfortable.
Granted, not all art--or even not much of it--is as explicit as the Blue Notes' in the way that its social import interacts with the music. Rhames did not necessarily make "gay" music, but it was music made by a gay man (in the same way that the Blue Notes' was made by a mixed race group contemporary to Apartheid). The point is that understanding how social elements interact with the music can, in addition to other things (and to the exclusion of others), go a long way toward explaining how music turned out the way it did and turns out the way it does (or, for that mater, does not).
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So, to return to your question, Ubu, I just wanted to point out that the bi-sexual card is often dealt by people who—consciously or subconsciously—are in denial.
Emphasis on "often" and not "exclusively" (or even, necessarily, "most of the time"). The phenomenon you're discussing 100% exists, but it's definitely not the full picture.
I'm curious--are you reading Miles's sentiments as being a piece with this culture of denial, or as an avowal of genuine bisexuality/queerness? I actually don't know much about Miles in this respect, so I wonder if this is an instance of a musician defining his sexuality on his own terms (rather than one in a long string of inside/outside the closet/"hint, hint" incidents).
Glad we're having this discussion. I've missed the heavy discussion on this board--there's serious brainpower and wit here.
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Not judging, just saying... if Oscar Peterson was gay, he did a pretty good job on the other side of the fence - 4 wives, father to seven children (at least). First time I heard that one.
Having babies and marrying multiple times is not at all unusual, especially when one considers Peterson's environment and the fact that we only recently have woken up to reality.
I am currently compiling a list of jazz musicians who might possibly be straight. Please bear with me.
Don't want to continue this much further, but I am trying to understand the terms here. Valerie above says that some of these musicians must be bi-sexual, which would seem to be accurate (assuming there's any merit to some of this, which I'm beginning to doubt quite frankly, and no, I'm not in denial). But Chris, stay with me here, you're saying that if someone is married to a member of the opposite sex for 50+ years (whether one marriage or several), dies married to a member of the opposite sex, fathers children, but also has relations with members of the same sex, that person's not bi-sexual; they're strictly gay??? This is a bridge too far for me.
i understand it like this: someone who openly has relationships with both males and females, a few months or years of this, then a few of the other, is bisexual - someone who leads a "double-life" being straight, married and all to the outside and while having more or less secret same-sex relationships for fear of whatever should not really be considered bisexual... just like a jazz musician isn't a ... musician as well just because he played a great timpani solo on an album of ... music...
I'm not in denial mode or morally shocked or anything... and I don't mind discussing these questions.
I asked Chris the very same question that John Tapscott rose again - however he seems to ignore it. So...
Niko's explanation makes sense, but my point still is: it can be multi-faceted. You can be married, have affairs with people of both sexes... bi-sexuality exists. I quickly had the impression Chris was in denial-mode regarding bi-sexuality and found that a bit weird, but I guess I'm out of here now.
I think it's crucial to note that, beyond the fact that bi-sexuality as a phenomenon (i.e., sex with both men and women) exists, bi-sexuality as a self-identifier is a very real thing. Reducing the conversation to a gay/straight dyad undermines the notion that many in the GLBT community do understand sexuality as more of a spectrum than a duality (and identify themselves at various points within--and not necessarily at the extremes of--that spectrum). This is actually a huge issue in contemporary sexuality--I've heard firsthand accounts of queer folk (self-identified as such) coming into tension with gay self-identifiers due to the fact that said queer folk are perceived as living in a non-committal, liminal space (i.e., get with the revolution). All this does is diminish the agency of people that do genuinely feel various degrees of attraction to both sexes, which is in its own way just as disenfranchising as perpetuating jazz's latent (or overt homophobia.
On a different note, and keeping in mind I know very, very little about Arthur Rhames, I think it's interesting that Rhames's otherwise surprisingly detailed (for a relatively obscure musician) wikipedia entry completely omits any mention of homosexuality--especially considering his death at a relatively young age--in the late 1980's--due to AIDS-related illness. One of the more pointed passages in the liners to that Soundscape album that came out a while back was Vernon Reid acknowledging that (paraphrasing here) getting to know Rhames helped Reid "get over" his own homophobia. Obviously, Rhames's sexual orientation is totally incidental to whether or not the music moves you, but it's difficult not to see how the early death of this musician with remarkable potential was inextricably linked to the problematic nature of AIDS treatment/recognition/awareness. That's a very clear and relevant reason to discuss homosexuality in jazz.
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You can teach ideas, concepts, etc., but you can't teach sensibilities--not in a way that gets to your core. The best sort of pedagogy brings out who you are, rather than gives you instructions regarding what you should do.
Music academics who play music aren't necessarily academic musicians. Braxton wrote the Tri-Axium writings. George Lewis is intensely involved in the academic sector of music. Evan Parker can put on his analytical hat and assemble an interesting historical narrative for Euro free improv. Fred Frith is a tremendous student and teacher of improvisation and modern composition. If not in a strictly "academic" sense, guys like Ornette or Muhal possess serious, deeply thought internal philosophies. Granted, these are "older" guys, but it goes to show that the intellectual and the musical (or even the experimental) can take equal priority without rendering the music stilted or stiff.
I actually think it's kind of difficult to play any sort of creative or experimental music in a post-60's climate without having some sort of philosophical or conceptual understanding of what your'e doing--even if this is not overt/on paper/something you'd care to put into words--it could just be "felt." There are tons of intensely intelligent young musicians who don't make a point of marrying their intellectual selves with their musical beings--and that's fine--and it's also not the only way to live.
The fact that guys like Lehman and Iyer--and Tyshawn Sorey and a number of others--are so overt about making the intellectual underpinnings of their music clear makes me think that this is how they want to be perceived. (The critical word their being want.) We can create our own narratives in a post-postmodern environment--maybe that's what these guys are doing? On a certain level, hoping that Lehman turns into Braxton might be missing the forest for the trees--this is Lehman's story--and it might not be as intrinsically appealing as Braxton's (which is sort of how I feel about it)--but it's a story, nonetheless.
This is also kind of besides the point, but guys like Braxton and Ornette have some deep spiritual sentiments going on--these sentiments inextricably connected to their respective musics. Braxton might be considered intellectual for the nature of his vernacular, his tendency to theorize, and his involvement with a brick-and-mortar institution, but he's not academic in the same way that Lehman and Iyer seem to be. Braxton's philosophy seems to issue from his personal identity/feelings, whereas much of the personal philosophy that, say, Iyer has revealed to the world (I'm not saying that that's all there is--just the stuff that he's brought to the fore) is tied to actual academic standards of research, composition, and thought.
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I can see that. Isn't this how a lot of music press operates--the very nature of being at the event makes you late to the party?
If this is the case, then I can name a ton of really worthwhile parties going on right now. Grossly under-attended, yes, but just as worthwhile as--if not more worthwhile than--plenty of events I've been to as of late.
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All I'm saying is that I don't know how much of the "stiffness" really is stiffness, and/or how much of it is just a place/way to feel that contrats with old notions of "swing". I guess that I'm enjoying it means that the latter is how I perceive it, but that's about as subjective as you can get, eh?
The real thing, though, is this - are the non-marketing aspects of M-Base music starting to come out and into the "mainstream"? That would be very cool afaic. M-Base was marketed waaaaay before it was ready, I think, but the musical and conceptual concepts, they were right on time, and more or less still are.
I have a related impression of the current school of mainstream-progressive NY players. It's been a solid 40+ years since the inception of the AACM and the beginnings of European improvised freedom, which can be understood--with some validity--as endgames to certain strains of creative music. Granted that--or, rather, from a different perspective--everyone making music is really just making music, and artists will not be unresponsive to external stimuli (which continue to exist even if all avenues of aesthetic evolution appear unlit). I don't see these new-ish musics as unswinging per se--or even, really, as a "tightening up" of long liberated structures. I think these folks (and I play around/with/sometimes am one of these people, in terms of Bay Area counterparts) have simply grown up far enough away from when swing/no swing was synonymous with an inside/free dyad--and also have lived and loved any number of divergent 20th century arts, whether they be the spectralism Lehman loves so much, alternate hip-hop, electronica, Mortan Feldman or whatever--that it isn't a question of does it swing so much as how it moves.
That being said--and funny there's talk about swiss kriss in the other thread--I think the "loosening up" side of the mountain is often still a bit more fun to listen to and engage with than the "hard beats" side. It's great hearing some of these guys play with Braxton, Threadgill, Mitchell (and Coleman, for that matter, considering M-Base as well as the AACM seem to be spiritual forebears of this movement) as the "old" cats can elicit a degree of surprise and chaos that it seems difficult for younger guys to intuit these days.
Weird side note--it's still open/free/outside/avant/progressive/whatever music, but part of me feels like the general rigidity of this/the under 50 crowd of musicians has to do with a weird adaptation of the exigences of "jazz life"--the idea that virtuosity, the presence of logic, and general (and I know this is out of date rhetoric at this point) modernist vertiginousness are not only prized values but also elements by which we can measure the creative success of things. That is, if we're living in a post free environment and everyone can do whatever they want, some degree of technical stricture is necessary to determine whether or not something is "good." The old school AACM guys and, hell, Ornette or Steve Coleman don't seem to care as much--they're virtually immune to criticism when it comes to the "people who care"--so those giants' musics are looser and more concerned with adventure and dialogue.
Now this: if a guy from this younger crowd can come forward with both the virtuosity and cultural perspective of a Lehman and the I-don't-give-a-shit-what-anyone-thinks-ishness of a Roscoe and the sheer wiliness of an Ornette, I'll buy a ticket to that party.
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When I was doing reviews there, that was pretty much the gist of it. Anyone can do it, regardless of knowledge or credentials. If you did it often enough (or maybe even if not--I'm not certain), you entered a sort of pool for review copies--hence reviews for more esoteric/obscure modern releases (the stuff of pro reviewers that may or may not have received notice otherwise).
That being said, the site "hosts" some very legit reviewers from time to time. IIRC, that was the context within which I first read anything of Clifford's--and he's nothing if not completely knowledgable about the music.
Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton Play The Blues
in New Releases
Posted
Now I'll be the last person to defend Marsalis in and of himself, as I'm a fan of neither his music nor his ethos. I mean, I've at times had a violent, violent aversion to his shit.
But isn't this lambasting the dude on false premises? At the very least, I'm a little wonky on the specifics of the criticism. If it's merely to say that Wynton had/has nothing to say with all his bluster and technique, then I get that--and if it's a matter of calling him out on hypocrisy (especially in light of the Art Ensemble deal, with Wynton weakly decrying the AECO for bringing in 20th century Western influences even while trumpeting all these straight up Eurocentrisms), I get that, too.
But if its a matter of taking issue with how Wynton's playing comes down to a sourcing of elements of the Western virtuosic repertoire/lexicon, isn't this the case with tons of stuff? Or rather, aren't the boundaries elided in even the greatest players? Coltrane is the obvious counterexample, what with his study and application of Hanon and Slonimsky and harmonic dedication (to the end) to sequences and specific harmonic patterns. Trane obviously found a non-Western (hell, non-Eastern--maybe "pan" or "cosmic") method of rationalizing all of these elements into his ethos, and all of that technique was married to tone, adventure, and an element of timbral tightrope walking, but you can't abstract all that from his thing--that was a crucial element of what made him "him."