JSngry

Maybe so, but anybody who considers - or champions - one at the expense of the other is, dare I say it...wrong. Both are quite real enough on their own terms, and their intersection and divegence along the way is ultimately much more "true" than looking at them as either/or entitites.

Well, for somebody who (rightfully) resents people imposing their theories on your tastes & opinions, you sure seem to be doing the same to others. Which, ok, that's cool, just own up to it as such. You got a "theory" just as much, if not more, than anybody else. One thing, though - projecting your percieved notions of other peoples' "theory" is borderline offensive when you don't get it right. And in several places here, you've not gotten it right, in fact, it's been dreadfully wrong here and there. You complain about it being done to you, and you should, I'm just saying...at some point, almost everybody I know likes what they like just because they like it, not becuase it gives them something to construct social theories and cottage empires and intellectal conceipts around.

Oh, people never did that before the late 18th century. My bad. And please - I recommended Frank Hewitt for god's sake...so what is it - do I fetishize the Great Man or do I revel in The Obscure? Or if I do both, what "ideology" do I now advocate? I think there's an agenda here against perceived agendas... no wonder the dead ends...

Well, if you want to argue that there have never been any Great Men (ooops....great men) or Great Women (great women), then that's pretty much a willful ignoring of reality then, isn't it? Same thing as if one were to argue that the Not-Do-Great Mean & Women made no distinct impact either. That's silly too. But have there been Ggreat Mmen Aand Wwomen? Of course there have been! I'd think that only a fool would argue otherwise.

I mean real-time definition, not definition by historians...if Lester Young had just hit upon a few wacky phrases and sounds, that would have been that. But no - he discovered, and then he defined. all in real time, And what he defined then stood up as a new reality all its own. "New" in and of itself..asks the question "now what?" If it doesn't answer its own question, then...some other time, maybe. Or not. Robert Johnson, Bird, Varese, etc. it wasn't just that they were new, it was that they were new and provided their own dfinition of what their newness was, That's when you know you got a bad motherfucker to deal with - when they discover and then define, all in one package.

fwiw - my own Personal Style (if I am allowed to be so bold as to have One) is to capitalize words or phrases when i feel that a little Mockin or Tweaking of A Concept That Should Be Taken Seriously But Not THAT Seriously is being mentioned...kinda like Irrational Fear Of Tastemakers, or Something Like that...

I think that's where you and I are coming from a very different direction - the capitalisation of Shivers and the Broader Unknown remind me of Stanley Crouch's use of the term Swing in his liner notes for Wynton Marsalis Except that I doubt that Crouch had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he did it,,,or almost laughed out loud once or twice while typing... I mean, Dude...er...dude...relax sometimes, ok?

The Lydiot The Vidiot The Video Village Bus

I've got all the LPS - did the CDs add anything, of do I already have it all.

Not just discovery...that can lead to a fetishism of all things "new"...but discovery and then definition...a discovery really doesn't "mean" anything until it's defined - not in terms of language, but in terms of context to its time, place, people, all that good stuff. Definition ultimately creates meaning (and that will hold true across the evolutionary lifespan of an idea, or style, or people, or...anything) Which is not to say that definition and discovery combined are necessary to produce enjoyment, as Bev points out, there is certainly a place for the simple hearing of music well-played, something that defines itself as nothing more than music being well-played by and for people who enjoy well-played music. ...god help us if we lose the ability to at least appreciate that, and for some people, that is it for them, game over, end of story, and lord knows that's fully legit...but....some other people are wired to get the shivers first and foremost, sometimes exclusively, from the whole discovery/definition thing, and those people could no more make shit up to justify their position than a man can pee on top of a woman's pee and make little pee-babies. They call it as they hear/see/feel it, same as other people who feel other things equally primally. Put them all together, figuratively and literally, and you get a pretty lively dynamic, anything but settled, but always something real going on, and if reality is not always pretty, it is always real! Of course, as with everything else, there are pimps and whore, scoundrels and charlatans, those who can fake it really well. But that's where the learning of life comes in, learning how to better discern who's who & what's what, and that learning never ends. Never.

Seems a bit of a broad brush there to me...there are those whose Shivers come from hearing the intangible feel of the Broader Unknown being discovered (to one degree or another) in real time. No matter waht else you wnat to say about a style that is being played 4 or 5 or 25 generations later, I don't think you can say that that "thing" is still going to be there. In fact, the verynotion of "upholding a tradition" pretty much runs counter to that. Sure, there's individual discovery going on in that the players are often discovering it for themselves, but that's much more a "technical" issue than anything else... Whatever else is subjective (and lots is), I don't think that that saying that somebody like Lester Young was in the process of defining something that was heretofore undefined is too terribly anything but objective. Now, all Shivers being equal (including Charlie Shivers, highly underrated, he), the shivers that come from that particular dynamic should be respected just as much as those that come from hearing somebody play something well, discovery or defining or whatever be damned. "Assembling the evidence" would seem to imply that people are making stuff up, saying that Lester Young was doing something that he wasn't, and as long as that "something" is confined to the actual process of invention (and dimension, come to think of it), then...there he was doing what he did, right? And the Shivers that come from experiencing that reality are just as real as the ones that don't, ok? To imply that all the people who feel it like that are just making it all up inthe service of some nebulous nefariousness is kinda...wrong, at least as wrong as implying that people who don't feel it like are all Lost Souls.

that happens when people are all going at it in real time on a one-at-a-time platform... c'est la board!

Again..."stage presence" is not - not even one iota -what is being discussed. And I'm not an arbiter of anything. But I ahve seen up close and personal how and why many different people play what and how they do, and...it's not all the same, and it's not all as "benevolent" as one might assume, and it's not about "the money" far more often than one might think... Now, anybody who wants to reject outright the notion of music having a "spirit", or even "spirits", hey, our discussion is over right now, becuase we're at a dead end. Otehrwise, I'm not specifically attributing anything to anybody in particular, I'm just saying...people know the The shiver is there to be had and that knowledge is power. and like all power...well you know. A response to Big Beat...

Yeah, why would they? Dude, we MUST play poker together sometimes...

What I'm talking about has everything to do with the playing and nothing to do with stage presence! Believe me, everybody plays what & how they play for a reason(s), and not everybody who sounds like they care about you really does. More often than one might consider possible, it's just the opposite... That's built into the "jazz is important" attitude, only...the world is so much smaller now than it was when it was only "jazz" that had to butt up against/into the Consciousness Of What Is Important. So as the world continues to shrink...more things gonna have to get into there, definitely, which means more learning, and ain't THAT a drag!

Pimps can Change The World too...in fact many have. I mean, we all enjoy getting played sometimes...wouldn't much fun if we didn't. Just remember, though, that overconfidence is something a good hustler looks for...makes the game SO much easier.... Get your game any where and any way that works. Just know what your game is...and who's wanting to play it with you.

It's not a question of preferences, really it's not. It's a question of awareness, of knowing where you are. I don't think that anybody would argue that it's a bad idea to know where you are at any given time & place, right? What you're talking about is what you do while you're there, and on that, yeah, absolutely, follow your bliss. I mean, running around naked is really cool, but there's a big difference between doing it in your back yard and doing it down the middle of an intersate highway, ya' know? Ain't nobody gonna tell me not to run around naked, but it would much behoove me to know where I am while I'm doing it. Who among us, the sane and sensible and dedicated to not getting fooled (again or otherwise) can seriosuly argue against that? That's all I'm saying.

Ah, but....there are always going to be those who know where that perfect place is and do it non-beneovelently..."civilians" might not want to consider this (which is why they're al;ways the targets!), but...not all "beauty" is beautiful...cynicism is ugly but necessary lest one get all flipper-headed...but too much cynicism is just as bad as not enough....always a balancing act, and some days are better than others... Put another way - a lot of musicians (hell, people in general, but for the sake of this discussion...) are pimps at heart, with audiences being eyed as new talent to turn out and new johns to do tricks on. Disbelieve that at your peril, for real.

I don't think anybody's questioning the validity of the Shiver Test, but some might feel that, overall/long-term/whatever, that not all shivers are equal... I mean, yeah, ok, there's stuff that gives me The Shivers that I know is not Great Music in any way, shape or form. But, hey - I can live (and live well) with that because I've reconciled myself that Great Music & The Shivers only sometiomes intersect...some people call them "guilty pleasures", which is a term I reject, if only becasue I really don't feel guilty about it. But I will subscribe to the notion of "enlightened pleasures", because, hey, standards have been set, and hopefully we set standards for ourself, standards that know the differnece between that with personal appeal and that with more broader import. Which is in no way to suggest that the wholesale swallowing of The Official Line is called for. Anything but. The Official Line is formualted by and propogated for the indocrination of a very specific set of values intended to establish & maintain a very specific set of social rules. And...later for all that, ya' know? Still, to say that Bird ultimately "matters more" than Cannonball is not to disparage the work of Cannonball, nor those who enjoy him, nor even those who prefer to listen to Ball over Bird. It's just a way of looking history in the eye and realizing that Bird was one of the People Who Changed The World Musically and Cannonball wasn't, at least not to the extent Bird was. But if there is to be honesty in all of this, it must also be accepted that Cannonball had a type of popular/populist impact outside of the purely musical that Bird didn't, and that that matters too, and that that matters too. And you gotta admit that Richie Cole or Eric Alexander matter to those whom find what they do appealing and/or satisfying. Thing is - the degree of "matters" and the degree of "satisfaction" can be fairly evaluated on a micro- and a macro- platform, not always "objectively", but a failure to do do is just that - a failure. Hell, everything matters, which is why it's probably a good idea to look at the bigger picture and the smaller one parts of a whole, not as two entirely different holes to fall into and never be able to climb out of. We're all limited to one degree or another, and always will be, but...that's really not an excuse for....moving ourselves along, and if one can find a way to continuously refine one's macro- and micro- visions, then one is probably doing all that can be done to resist falling into the trap of compacency, which isn't all that bad in and of itself, but...in and of itself is never where it stays.

Also not sure that "genius" & "failed attempts" are mutually exclusive qualities. Also not sure that "genius" really exists as a noun... Am sure that although I've got some Braxton work that I've played once and filed away, he engenders more love than many whose works I listen to more often. Love may not be all you need, but it's a far sight better to have it than not. In a results-driven society, what is there to be said for the impetus & inspiration behind the effort that creates the results? Not enough, I think!

well, you can play "what would have happened then if", or you can play "what would happen now if" depends on what you want to play, eh?

You mean Sacred Steel?

Especially if Art Blakey is in the room!