JSngry

Cowboys v Ravens as well. Not...going....well....

You just thought you weren't talking about music... RIP. I was just talking in another thread about the importance/end of the neighborhood aspect of jazz, and here this comes. Jim, you were blessed to have had the experience.

And see, that's another thing about Jazz Today. Used to be that it was, at root, a neighborhood music, not just socially, but economically. Cats came up playing in neighborhoods, then advanced to playing in other neighborhoods, onwards and upwards. But now, where's the neighborhood musics? Hell, where's the neighborhoods, period? The last musical breakthrough was (arguably) hip-hop, and it definitely began as a neighborhood muisc. And already then, the DJ was the primary musician (or "musician" if it pleases the room...). I remember the scene when I was at NT back in The Previous Century. Lots of idiocy, some hipness, no real radicalism, in short the Best Of Some But Not All Possible Worlds, but above all, their was a neighborhood feel to the whole scene. Cats all knew of (and more often than not knew) each other, all different types would hang out at each others' gigs, show up at parties and shoot the bull, all that. And then when I went out of Denton & into Dallas to check out the world of Red Garland/Marchel Ivery/James Clay, that was waaaay different in a lot of respects (obviously), but not in the fact that the scene was still neighborhood based. No matter who came in or went out, the neighborhood (neighborhoods, actually, geographically speaking, but more than a few faces stayed the same no matter what, just as more than a few changed...) was the nexus of all activity.. Now...again, where are the neighborhoods themselves? Whole 'nother world now, whole different set of paradigms goin' on. Anyplace can be, hell, pretty much is, a neighborhood today, but that kinda makes it hard to pin down something specific in terms of what time downbeat is... Which leads me again to wonder - are "we", the "creative jazz musician" trying to put something out there that is built for a place (literally & figuratively) that no longer (or barely) exists anymore? God forbid that we lose our creativity and our desire to use it, but maybe what we're doing with it is pretty much doomed to fail, like a badass typewriter that is the greatest the world has ever known - but is still a typewriter. Sure, there'll always be a bit of a market for it, but.... Nurture the kids, I say. Let them do it their way, but never let them not know, and never make them feel that they have to know. Because the kids get all this shit, they were born into it. The worst thing we can do to them is to make them think that they gotta do it like it's always been done and the best thing we can do is to encourage them that,, yeah, hell yeah, it does gotta be done.

There's also a part of me that wonders (well, wonders less and less, actually) how much "creative music" is first and foremost about "self" with little or no consideration about how said "self" fits into any type of community, musical or social. And I say this as somebody who has been involved in quite a bit of "creative music" that has been very much been decidedly unconcerned with too much beside "self", be it self expression, self definition, self pride, self awareness, anything except how to be economically self-sufficient w/o getting some kind of sponsorship, be it something as "big" as grant money or else something as localized as finding a club owner who'll give you a place to play even though he loses money when you do. More and more, a part of me is saying that this is all bullshit, that if all you're do is playing for yourself, then you really don't deserve to get any support from anybody but yourself. Now, that doesn't mean that I've gone over to the side of the Unprincipled Whore (although I will play their gigs and take their money when the need arises), but there seems to have been a growing notion that "creative" = "wholly unfamiliar" that ends up creating a blanket excuse for a lot of cats who don't get heard just because, well, there's no real good reason for them to get heard besides that they are "creative" in the sense that, no, you've not heard anything quite like this, but no, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's important to too much of anybody besides the cat(s) doing it. And really, the fact that it's gotten this intellectually "complicated" to be a "creative musician" tells me that something is fundamentally out of whack. It's not just that we live in an increasingly dead pop culture with short attention spans. I mean, there's still lots of joy going around in peoples lives, lots of creativity elsewhere (even if it's micro-scale, "local", it's still the impulse at work), lots of life in the world today. I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, since, unless you're entirely self-sustaining, you gotta have "sponsors" of one kind or the other, be it patrons or an actual audience, maybe it's not such a bright idea to seek patronage outside of "the real world", that to start thinking about actually cultivating a real audience in order to provide support, instead of always having to depend on the kindness of strangers is a smart thing for a creative musician to do. Not that A Free Jazz Tribute To Kenny G or anything like that suddenly becomes a palatable undertaking, but if the notion that "creative" is a state of being and not just a "musical concept" is true (and I believe that it is), then hey, there gots ta' be a way, if there is still an audience to be had for music that is not designed to be fully integrated into a totally mobile, fluid lifestyle in which everything information-related (and indeed, music is information, god help us if it ever ceases to be!) runs as part of a continuous stream to be accessed in bits and pieces as needed. And that's a huge if....

The difference now is that the "traditionalist movements" aren't just part of the stream now, they are pretty much the entire river. And the public is ok with that, since there's other things going on in other musics and other lives that cover those bases for those who want them, and that those who both produce and consume the music of the "traditionalist movements" don't have any real need for. When the public wants adventure, or exploration, or counter-mainstream, or even just to dance all night long, they've got other places to go for that. When they want to celebrate The Grand Tradition, they've got the niche market of jazz. And truthfully, that suits most everybody, including a lot of musicians who don't really have either an interest in or a clue about reaching out to an audience, especially a changing one, just fine. All you gotta do is look at today's marketplace. Look at all the independent releases that fall outside the formula. A handfull of people buy them, a handful of articles get written, and a handful of gigs get booked and played. The cycle repeats itself every so often, enough that alternative circuits exixts. But there's no chance in 98.7% of hell that this will ever be anything other than what it is, because of the lack of a holistic scene where these musics and those musics can be viewed as part of the same family instead of Real Thing vs Some Other Thing. Times have changed one way, the music in another, other musics in other ways, and the marketplace in yet another. There's not a helluva lot going on in jazz that's in sync with that.

I can semi-guarantee you that if there were gigs (and a buzz about them) that the issue of repertoire would become a lot more pressing. As it is now, it's either all original "projects"/bands where you expect/hope/pray that people will show up because you're offering them this glimpse of CREATIVITY AND ORIGINALITY that will grab their souls and get the Right With God (been there, done that, for several decades, and boy wasn't THAT ongoing set of non-profit ventures fun! actually, it was...) or else essentially jam gigs where you show up to give the people what they come to hear (see above), in which case, hey, why bother getting too hip and representing? Best to just put on your minstrel shoes and do the Jazz do. There are of course exceptions, and Chicago seems to be a city with a scene built on them, but "the norm" is not particularly vigorous right now, and damned if I can see what will make it so again, not this far into things.

What basically happened is that this "notion" was used to facilitate a power grab by those who had influence (and those who had access to influence), who then put their people front & center in "the industry". Then, whatever luck/success was had in terms of introducing/selling "jazz" to the public was had with these guys representing, which means that a lot of people got introduced to jazz as a basically fixed set of "styles" of music instead of an ongoing evolutionary life form. Anything/everything else pretty much had the oxygen sucked out of its room. Now, there are those who would argue, and not without a fair amount of merit, that the whole 4/4 Swing With A Touch Of Latin & Gospel style(s) of jazz was destined to become the popular norm, just because that's what most people can relate to, if they can relate to anything about jazz at all. Fair enough. But now it's being presented and received as an artifact, a fixed quantity, rather than as something living and growing. I mean, that's ok if you like that kind of thing, but a lot of us don't. Fortunately, the last few years have seen an upsurge in various "counter-jazzes", but the whole scene is so fucked up now, so dysfunctional & fragmented, that I'm afraid it's pretty much Game Over as far as ever again having a jazz scene with a lot of different vital things happening all at once in an even semi-viable economic arena. People now know what jazz "is", they either like it or they don't, and outside of a small network of freaks and geeks, they really don't have any interest in anything that contrasts and compares. Time to move on, I say, see what else can be put to use to get a/the message across, but I'm not necessarily in anything even remotely resembling a majority on that one. But imp, the whole Marsalis/Crpouch/Murray/L@LC thing really has killed jazz in order to save it, and to my nose, the stench of death (which is most assuredly not the same as the aura of ghosts, holy or otherwise) gets just a little stronger with each passing day.

Oh yeah - Esther Phillips - All About Esther. Whether it's a jazz album or an R&B album depends on what song is playing, but that's the only way to tell the difference, and that is all you really need to know, no?

I was rather taken by Devorah Day's Light of Day a few years back, but it doesn't seem that that many others were. But hey. Strong Seconds on the Patty Waters You Thrill Me disc as well. Some of that stuff is as cut-to-the-quick real as it can get. Sarah Vaughn - Swingin' Easy This is what Sarah did, done about as well and as unencumbered as she ever did it save for maybe some of those Musicraft sides. Billie - All Or Nothing At All At the end of the day, this is the one I keep coming back to. The fifth? Whatever is handy (and right) at the time, when the time comes, if it does. some good people already mentioned, too many others not to narrow it down to just one.

Very nice! Ya' know, if the various Gospel shows on KNON are any indication, there's still lots of this stuff happening on a "local" level. And from the plane of the functional, you know, the "what this music means to me spiritually" place, I'm sure it fills the bill quite nicely. But from a more "objective" musical plane, it just doesn't sound the same. It sounds good and everything, mind you, but there's that level or two of distance... Not that that's necessarily "important", depends on what you're looking for... Anyway, yeah, it's good to hear stuff like this while it's still out there to be heard. That era is indeed gone, and its remnants should not be taken for granted. Thanks for sharing.

Perhaps the narrative of minstrelry will get a reconsideration/redirection when the perceived ending of the story changes...

Flo is cool and all that, but it's the other lady that makes me laugh. Brilliance!

That Progressive.com commercial with "big tricked out name tag" Flo (Stephanie Courtney). I mean, we're talking facial gestures & body language to rival Chaplin. And yes, I'm serious. I have no idea who Stephanie Creel is, I mean I just found her name by doing some targeted Googling, she doesn't appear to be anybody I should know (nor does Stephanie Courtney, but I see that she came out of the Groundlings, so there's a good lineage there, right?), but DAMN, this Monica Creel chick cracks me up every time I see this commercial.

How's Flo? I don't know. I just got back from a vaudeville show! Seriously, I've not heard the album, just seen the album at DG. But apparently, Flo was Ella Mae Morse's siter,, the former Mrs, George Handy, Mrs. Al Cohn and composed classical music besides being Intimate with Smoky... http://people-vs-drchilledair.blogspot.com...handy-cohn.html

The thing he did with his daughters (The Braith Family singers, is how I think he billed them) is the eptiome of this, I think.

aka The Zapruder Sessions...

Btw Allen, nice discussion we're having.

Word. I mean, I'd pay $20.00 or so for a regular 33 1/3 RPM LP Record Album of Genuinely Good Quality if the source material is really all that. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Yeah, but with the Target of browsers... That counts for something, doesn't it?

And I think it should be recognized, and in some ways is beginning to be. I mean, you see a little, a very little, "coming around" on Stepin Fetchitt even, who was a lot more, uh, "problematic" than the type of things you're bringing up. But yeah, these were lives, human lives, and they were lives not without a good amount of compelling "life-ness" (sorry....). They are indeed African-American tales, and as such, American tales. Atention must be paid where and when it is viable. To not do so is, as you say, an insult, degrading. I would only state, just as opinion, not as attack, that Wynton (or even "Wynton", I'm lovin' my "" today...) is not the route through which this should go, or is going to go, hell, could go. best intentions notwithstanding. Never has been, never will be. There's too much ambiguity (even minstrelry at it's "best" was not completely without its..."issues", right?) that can never be resolved without agreeing to let it be unresolved. And I really don't see any other way of that happening aprt from a wholesale "post-racialization" (hate to keep using that term, but it seems to fit both this subject and these times right now...) of America (hell, the world, really, France & Japan in particular have percieved (in some wuarters anyway...) historical/cultural... "positions" regarding the "romanticizing" of the whole minstrel mojo as it pertains to ongoing "Black Music", so it's really not just America...) , and that is going to require a willingness to let go. Wynton's thing is, has been, and probably always will be, the antithesis of that, of letting go and just letting the ambiguity be what it is. His thing is all about putting it in a bottle, calling it what he wants it to be, and selling it to people who want nothing else besides what is in that bottle. Sure, you got interested (and disinterested...) bystanders, but the core audience is there to buy what's in that bottle, because dammit, they know that it'll cure all their ills. Cure them so well, in dfact, that they gotta keep coming back for more... Braxton somewhere called (or compared, not sure which) this whole Wynton/JLC mindset the New Minstrelry or words to that effect. The irony is striking, don't you think?

http://www.dustygroove.com/item.php?id=vss...p;ref=index.php

So, if Barnes & Kress are "Smoky", does it follow that Handy is "Intimate"? TMI, as the kids say....

What's the deal w/this Google Chrome, and why should I not continue my sneaking suspicion that Google is trying to become, like, the Wal-Mart of the internet?

... any discussion not specifically set up to address the specific issue, is pretty much doomed to be perceived as talking about the "benefits of segregation to African-Americans" or some such. Yeah, you can have the discussion, but not anywhere, not at any time, and definitely not with just anybody. It requires a nuance of perception, depth of knowledge, and perhaps most importantly, a consensual clearness/cleanness of conscience that just ain't gonna be found in a random sampling of Americans, if you know what I mean. While I'm guessing you are right here, Jim, and understand I am speaking as someone who is very much on the low end of the learning curve on all this, I might err on the side of assuming that the topic was approached thoughtfully. Furthermore, one might hope WM's awareness of the topic would rise above that of a random sampling. But your larger point is well taken. The story of Wynton Marsalis, at least from my POV, is one of reasonable hopes repeatedly not being met... And all I meant by all that about context of discussion and such was that I don't think that the interview was set up to be specifically about this particular subject (which is not to imply that Allen planned an "ambush" of him or anything). It just came up as part of the normal questioning, and Wynton di what he's pretty much always done, spout thoughtless dogma (as opposed to thoughtful, well-reasoned dogma, I suppose...) I'm just saying that the number of people who could spontaneously have a thoughtful, spontaneous, even halfway informed discussion about the reverberations of minstelry (and "minstelry") w/o relying on the dogma as a shield are really not that many (and I'm sure as hell not one of them, at least on the informed part, as I know just enough to know that it is indeed a complex, deeply layered and nuanced area). That Wynton is definitely not one of them does not at all surprise me.

There might be some difficulty in keeping the bad connotations and restoring ambiguity. One doesn't easily facilitate the other -- which might point toward the heart of the matter. Dunno. I'd think that keeping the bad connotations would be 1/2 of the very definition of ambiguity, the other half being that there was also some good (or at least "non-bad" elements as well?