JSngry

Which is not to say that everything, or even the majority, or even 1% of this massive outpouring of content is what you and I would probably consider "deserving", just that the always finite resources available to possibly get it over, really over, are more finite and more concentrated now more than ever. I mean hell, you can't even hear the good, innovative dance music on the radio anywhere that I know of. It's either clubs or mixes circulated "underground". And that's music that at least in theory has the potential to be really "popular". What the hell chance does jazz that doesn't fit the prevailing archival mode have? Club dates is out, and sanctioned underground circulation of non-historical material is still a far-fetched idea for too many jazzfolk (fortunately, that's beginning to change). No, this is a music still by and large dependent on old-school business and musical models, so whatever gets out there goes through those channels if it's to get past a certain level. Hopefully the day when the curtain is lifted and the wizard exposed is coming, and then we can all get about doing what comes naturally, but the situation must be recognized before it can be changed. And I'm hearing too many voices here not willing to recognize it.

But are you saying that lasting Reagan-fallout has not been accompanied by lasting Marsalis-fallout? Or that there has been no lasting fallout from either? If so, that does not compute... No, I'm saying that I can't see comparing historical figures in times so radically different (1961 vs. 1981--or 1967 vs. 1981, for that matter) and roughly presenting an equation that says, "Look at all this good guy did, vs. what this bad guy did or didn't do." You & I may prefer the cats that Trane got signed to Impulse to the Young Lions Wynton got signed to Verve, Palmetto, or whatever... Ok, once again, that was not what I was doing! I was responding to some people who said that Wynton as leader/figurehead/spokesman/whatever of jazz thru his Lincoln Center gig had not had an impact on the jazz landscape, which I feel is total nonsense. So I set up a hypothetical "what if?" scenario where Trane undertook the somewhat the same task and speculated as to probable outcome based on provable deeds up to that point. It was indeed a silly game, and I as much as said so myself, but it's sole intent was to show that, yes, the role of "the face of jazz" or whatever does indeed have impact, and that implications otherwise are ignoring some pretty basic realities. Again, as with KB's misinterpretation, it's not about what anybody "should" or "shouldn't" so with any power they get. It's about the fact that such power does indeed exist, and that it can - and most certainly is and has been - used. That's a point that some of the posts here lead me to believe is not universally understood/accepted, and I want to correct that, if for no other reason than that such misunderstanding only fuels acquiesence past a point of healthiness. At least that's what I think... Maybe, like Reaganism it's a generational thing. If all/most of what you know is life post-Reagan, then it's really hard to understand just what a fundamental shift that entire trip was, as well as how fundamentally it shifted the game forevermore (one could argue quite convincingly, I thnk, that the major flaw of "liberalism" has been it's naive expectancy that some day things would go back to being like they were pre-Reagan. Uh-uh. Not gonna happen. Ever. And people are finally starting to come to grips with that.) With jazz, hell, unless you grew up with the music, it's unlikely that if you're going to truly remember things as they were pre-Marsalis if you're too much this side of, say, 40, maybe even 45. But anybody who was around in jazz in a practicing manner from between, roughly, 1975 thru 1985 will almost certainly tell you that A) things definitely did a 180 during that time (for better or worse will depend on who you ask); & B) Wynton Marsailis was ceraintly "the face" of it all, even if only as a figurehead. (and again, for better or worse...etc.) Note that this 10 year window is distinctly beofre the creation of Lincoln Center. The perceived "problem" here did not begin with Lincoln Center. Far from it. But it the creation of Lincoln Center definitely gave the "problem" (or, if you dig it, the "solution") the means to dig in for the long haul, wait out the oppositition, and just keep on keepin' on w/o fear or worry of any serious potential for overthrow of its industrial hegemony. Nice work if you can get it.... Now, if that's all/most of what you know in terms of the "jazz landscape" and how/why things get promoted and respources allocated, all this bitching and moaning about how it fucked everything up might well seem like a bunch of crying over spilt milk and/or sour grapes which to some extent it is. And if you like the outcome, it definitely will seem like that. And yet... it seems wrong to me to go into the future without a clear understanding of why the present is as it is, which means understding that whos/whats/whys of the past. And that's where the fundamental dislike of Wynton Marsalis - a dislike that goes further and deeper than simply a dislike of his musical work and/or his simple outspokeness - comes in. Because we saw the whole game change right in front of our eyes, and we know what his role was. We know that he wasn't the only one, or even the instigator at the very beginning. But we know that he got hip to the trip real quick, that he played along at every step of the way, and that he was all too willing to build his empire on his terms first and foremost for his benefit. And to paraphrase Richard Pryor, even if we can someday come to forgive (and that day ain't here yet for me), we ain't never gonna forget. If some of y'all can, hey, beautiful. If some of y'all don't know any different and/or don't want to know any different, fine. Everybody does their own dance. But please please please don't anybody try to convince me that the "Marsalis Effect" on jazz has been neutral, or that it has become neutral. Because that, dear friends, is just so much bullshit. If you don't want to know how sausage gets made, if all you wanna do is eat them yummies up and think to yourself (as do I when eating a patty of my favorite), "What a Wondeful World!", that's your perogative. Just don't try to convince somebody who does that it's not an ugly process, ok?

Including one hopes...

But are you saying that lasting Reagan-fallout has not been accompanied by lasting Marsalis-fallout? Or that there has been no lasting fallout from either? If so, that does not compute...

Well, I'd also like to say that I agree with your "it is what it is, let's just get it done" POV, although if you're trying to convince me that "getting it done" now isn't an exponentially more daunting task than it used to be for reasons of which Marsailis-ian institutionalizing is but one (albeit a significant one), then I'm afraid that your irresistable force has just met its immovable object.

You paint a rather sunny picture of what it takes to get over/through these days, and 10-15 years ago, it would have been fair/accurate, at least in terms of it still being a fair fight. But saince then, due to a lot of factors of which Wynton/LC is but one, the market for "jazz" that posits itself as such has pretty much come down to old farts who don't want anything past what they already know, no matter hip it may really be (Aric's phobia about middle-aged bald guys w/beards is not at all misplaced! ) and people who want their music uncompromised in any form, no matter what the implications to the artist are for doing it like that. Either way, it's a case of GIMME WHAT I WANT OR ELSE I'LL STAY HOME. And out of those two options, only the first is really growable, because as more and more people -including teen-aged girls! - become middle-aged bald guys w/beards who have had all that fast and loud rock stuff they can handle and now they're older and smarter, and hey, it's nice to have a little CLASS for a change, well hey - there's your ticket, literally and figuratively. You say that "...going out and playing the music that they love to play..." is all that should matter. Ok. Let's say that you're making music that falls outside of the popular (meaning both audience and "business") perception of what jazz "is" (and make no mistake that popular perception of today has been very much shaped by 25+ years of Marsaillis-ian Neo-Con Conning...). Where you gonna play? Where you you gonna get a gig? What are you gonna get to help you along? Club dates? HA! They inevitably want "atmosphere", not music, no matter how much even the"best" of them protest to the contrary. Concert series? HA! They want butts in seats, period. Regional tours? HA! See above. Media penetration? HA! You gotta have a buzz before you can have a buzz. Catch 22, same as it ever was. And yet there was progress at a level that no longer exists. Some of that is the inevitablity of the form itself running out of steam as a matter fo course, but some of that is the result of systemic/institutionalized circling of the wagons that lets it be know in no uncertain terms that what we got is all we need, and who knows how much gets squashed before it even gets started by that sort otr mentality, how many impulses intuitively don't go there because the message is sent and received that no, don't EVEN think about it? Yeah, it's always been a tough row to hoe going outside the "mainstream". And "whining" about the current difficulties in light of past difficulties of a far more blatant nature is obscene. But that's neither my point or intent, which is this - a viable portion of the resources that used to be there that were willing to take a chance on shit that they didn't know too much about but were willing to give the benefit of the doubt on the simple grounds that letting the shit be heard and letting the people make up their own minds and that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and that ain't a bad thing are all but gone today, at least on anything resembling a growable - and that's a key word right there, growable - scale. Yeah, you can still get into one of the many local/regional subsets that hustles its butt off just to make it happen where they are, but that's it. Period. End of story. It wasn't always so (and to deny the parallel between what's happened in jazz post-Marsailis & what's happened in America post-Reagan is to very much miss the point, I think). There used to be at least a chance, a slight chance, that the confluence of events would allow for some sort of "breakthrough". I mean hell, Rahsaan was viewed as a freak and a sham by a large portion of the jazz "establishment" in his day, but there were enough people who felt/knew otherwise (and for a disperate # of reasons, not all of them necessarily benevolent) that he got to keep going until finally he got over and was taken "seriously" by at least some at at least some level by the "jazz establishment". and of course, now that he's dead, he's Loved By Millions & his catalogue is A Valuable Cultural Asset. Of course. Can you really see something like that happening today? I mean, even if the talent/impulse existed (and I'm neither here nor there on that one, depends on if I'm having a good day or not), can you see the "jazz industry" as it exists today actually allowing for something/somebody to have the career path that Rahsaan Roland Kirk did from within the existing business structures doing what he did the way he did it? If you can, I applaud your optimism. But damned if I can share it, because damned if I can see where there's cause for it. I can, however, see endless high $$$ "tribute" concerts featuring "sanctioned" "talent", established and "new" alike, well, well into perpetuity. But for some reason, that just doesn't bring a smile to my face.... Really, it doesn't.

I fully expect that post to be deleted by the moderator btw...

I saw Barry Bonds buttfucking Nancy Reagan with a baseball bat that had a swaztika on it while snorting coke off of a 12 year old boy's erect penis and getting sucked off by Good Speak. This was in the Giants locker room in 2005, and all the while he was shouting "Say Hey, bitch! I gotcher Louisville Sluggger right HERE!" (Y'all gotta try harder! :g :g )

My bad then, and thanks for the correction! :tup :tup Do recordings exist? That was my point of reference, & I've not heard any. My Trane "collection" is pretty deep in that regard, but not having gone into the dime/bit-torrent world, no doubt there's some/lots of material that I've missed out on.

Record sales, yeah, no doubt. But gigs? I dunno... as gigs get to be less and less club/community-based and more and more "institutional" in both nature and sponsorship (a trend that has in no ways reached its peak, I'm inclined to think)... the Marty Khan thing is spot-on, I think. Of course, pockets of resistance exist, and thrive, at least for now. Wal-Mart hasn't completely destroyed American retail. But I am not optimistic that that's in anyway going to mean growht & expansion of same as time marches on, especially as "jazz" recedes deeper and deeper into the public perception as a music of "historical significance", which is, of course, playing right into what the LC crowd wants/needs to furhter its own surivial needs. Which is why I stongly suggest that "jazz artists" not looking to function in the LC perceptual mold of what jazz "is" start looking elsewhere, outside the "established jazz world" for both audience and business support. You're playing against the odds either way, but at least when you look outside, you got the chance of actually encountering people who appreciate your "different-ness" instead of...not appreciating it. Also, that those entities attempting to sponsor/promote/whatever such music from within the "jazz world" of today start seriously marketing the objects of their affections to "non-jazz" audiences. Because that scene - the "pure jazz" crowd - is getting more and more into the LC mold everyday. So forget about 'em and let's get this shit going someplace else, ok?

Well, wasn't the "Kulu Sé MaMa" whole operation supposed to raise funds for Juno Lewis' "Afro-American Art Center"? In that album's liner notes, Nat Hentoff writes just that. And Juno Lewis says in his "poem" that "Coltrane moves in that direction... A man who knows (that) directions for the future depend on how we artists of today cut the road". I mean that someone had been toying with the "institutional" idea of a jazz art center for quite a long time, and that Coltrane had already been spotted as the right man to convey such institutionalizing energies. Just my two cents. Not at all a bad point. My only wonder is when/if Trane would have "crossed over" into outright corporate sponsorship, which would/has turned the whole thing into something else altogether than the grassroots, "doing it by ourselves, for ourselves" thing that this was looking like at that time. Who knows?

And GTW/FWIW - I am firmly of the belief that anybody doing any kind of "new" jazz should look for their audience/business model/preofessional handling outside of and away from the established "jazz" ones. Because like it or not, the Lincoln Center "game" has all but become THE "jazz game" in terms of business, and with the resources it has, what remains that runs counter to that is facing an uphill stuggle with questionable chances of success. It's Wal-Mart. It's all about access. And if you don't fit "their" mold (or can't be made to fit for their own ends - as witnessed by Wynton's sudden "recognition" of Ornette's true brilliance), then I say you're better off not even trying. Look elsewhere, forget about labels and see what's out there for you outside the cave. Case in point - Quartet Out's two best received gigs (and I'm talking madcrazycrazymad love being shown) were at an alternative rock club and a St. Louis inner city elementary school where all the kids had heard was rap/hip-hop. We'd play "jazz" rooms and people would get nervous and shit. :g :g Point is - the LC-type "jazz people" and their power structure only want one type of music and musician, and they will not let anything other than that one type into their circles. So if you ain't about 100% or more of their thing, abandon hope, all ye who attempt to enter there. A lot of alternative rock & rap/hip-hop people are into jazz the way that a lot of older, back in the day, potential "business partners" were - they like it/love it far more than they understand it, and they will throw some money at some of it. My advice is to go there for what you need in terms of money/business support, just don't let it sway your music in a non-organic manner (easier said than done, although at this point in time, if you're not at least a little influenced just through cultural osmosis then LC might be just the place for you! ) But anyody expecting to find a jazz business model from within the jazz world that is able to successfully evade the LC machine - either directly or in copycat form - is, I'm afraid, hopelssly deluded. Look - what "we've" always been about is improvisation, sometimes for grins, sometimes because our life depends on it, sometimes at any # of points in-between. What "they're" about is stabiltiy and a lack of discomforting change, of setting it up and raking it in into perpetuity. "Improvisation" as selling-point rather than lifestyle. Can't have it both ways, so once you choose, know who your friends are and where you might be able to get some assistance along the way.

Yes, but clearly from different points of view. There is Art, which serves the interests of the ruling classes - that's Wynton. And there is art, which doesn't - perhaps that's Gator Tail, as a personal example. The ruling classes can afford to support Art with big money. That's what they've done. The rest of us HAVE to support art with our little bits of money. Because, if we don't, it dies. And that's what happened. It's all our fault, audience and musicians - but particularly musicians, who should lead the audience, but who were themselves led by the vision of Art (promulgated by who?) to the big money. MG Well yeah, ok, I got that part of it. But I do think that there was another part of it that pretty much unambiguously implies that until these bloated pigfucks get shrunk back down to size (or eradicated altogether, which is probably the same thing) that there's no end in sight. Other than The End, which I'm more than ready to allow is here past the point of no return. I am ready to move on, and am doing so. But I still got my roots in this old game, and not all roots pull up as easily a others, if indeed they ever do. Now, what I'm hearing some people saying is that this all would have happened anyways, that the music had evolved/devolved to a point where all that was left was either an ongoing set of sub-sub-genres and/or the picking of the various corpses' bones into a run it up the flagpole good ol' AMERICAN JAZZ version of the walking dead, and that where we are now is where we had no choice but to be, given the inevitability of historical forces and all that. I'll not argue too vehemnetly against that, but I can't support it either. Too many variables as to what could have happened along the way, too many possible/potential intersections between "real jazz" and popular culture that didn't happen because "real jazz" don't go there no more except on its own necrophilliac terms, too many possibly "genius" types - real or faux - that might have gotten over some hump in at least terms of public exposure to at least be a part of the overall dialogue but didn't because the seed captial was going elsewhere, too many local gigs that could have turned some corners dried up as people started wanting their "jazz" to sound, and just as importantly, look a certain way, just too many things in genreal that didn't happen that may or may not have actually happened for me to conceed "inevitability". Good news - Internet & digital DIY makes/is making "institutions" obsolete (literally or relatively) in terms of "finding" an audience. Bad news - After you find it, what do you do with it other than provide it w/more digital content w/o that macroinfrastructure of old skool promotion, venue, and captial infusion that you still got to have to get to that "next level"? And into whose hands has the lion's share of this power gone? Yep. And that's what I read.

The Marty Kahn interview Larry posted says precisely that. MG Did we read the same article? I read it like JALC found a set of circumstances that could have been resolved any # of ways and created their own resolution, and not without some acquiesence from those harmed by it. A big, big problem behind all this - and one that is clearly deliniated in that article - is that the "money people" (who are quite often clueless dillitantes in the first place) now have "a place", if not "the place" to put their money if/when they wnat to do something "culturally hip". Some of y'all might think that that's really not that big a deal, that the real music never has gotten the money in the first place, that the best shit has always been undergrond and still is, blahetcblah, and you're right - up to a point. But what you're overlooking (and whether or not you can be blamed for this no doubt varies on a case by case basis) is that macroeconomically, the "underground" is being/has been pushed so far undergorund that it's at the point of truly being buried. I mean, you can only claw your way so far towards the surface on your own. Think about it like this - in the 60s, the "face of jazz" for people looking to be "hip" was John Coltrane. Now, directly or indirectly, Trane used his "vibe" to make things more "open" for a lot of peole who otherwise would not have gotten to the front sidewalk, never mind in the front door. Look at all those Impulse! sides - does anybody here think that Bob Thiele would have done all that shit completely on his own? Hell no. Or that the whole October Revolution/New Thing scene (and all that evolved from it) would even been considered at the level it was without the explicit/implicit (as the individual cases may be) support of Trane? If Trane would have made an effort to institutionalize his vision the way that Wynton has (and if he would have had the gift of BS that Wynton has to convince people - including himself - that doing so would be a good thing), would "Wynton" have even existed? Let's take this a little farther (and significantly hypothetically) - if Trane had done what/how Wynton has done, and on the scale he's done it, things like AACM. BAG, Euro-jazz, ECM, fusion (especially in it's early, raw, "radical" form", would have faced an entirely different cultural and economic landscape to go up into/against. Any "fringe" music begins entirely underground, and how far it goes from there depends on how much non-undereground "backing" (either financially or otherwise) it gets, up to and including, at a level of importance that is usually inversely proportional to it's actually "knowingness". the various levels of "institutionalized" backing. And once that backing is comitted to an ongoing proposition, it takes a helluva lot - usually a "moral" scandal of the basest and vilest level of unjustifiability - to pull it away. Other than that, hey, it's good for the duration. Ok, y'all are smart people, so extrapolate that out- if Trane had what Wynton has done, and as Wynton has done it, a lot of stuff that we've come to take for granted might well have not gotten too far off the ground. And the reality is that A) Trane was not like Wynton in any way & B) Trane died in 1967. So that's not the reality. But the reality is that Wynton has done what he has done, and he has done it as he has done it. Anybody who's been actively involved in the music at any level beyiond "casual fan" since the late 1970s knows that when the "Young Lions" thing hit, that there was a "Big Chill" effect that was not at all dissimialr to the effects of Reaganism on the rest of society. All sorts of things, some good, some not so good, and some not yet determined, found their marketplace/potential marketplace all but gone as the "money people" found what for them seemed a "sure thing" - "real jazz" that NOBODY had to "think about", so clear was the image and content. Hey, if I'm a clueless motherfucker looking for self-validation as a "progressive supporter of American Arts" and this shit comes along, well HELL YEAH I'm throwing down with it, because it's playing to every clueless cliche that my clueless ass has about anythng and everything involving what it is that I think I'm wanting to be all about. And 25 years later, those clueless simps have got to feel very good about putting their money where they did. Hell, they've built a fucking EMPIRE in the old-school Euro mold, with one cat as the frontman for a rigid, unyielding, narrow definition of what "is" is, and by god, so shall it e. The money is there for it/them, and everybody else, hey, get your own if you can find it, and if you can't, oh well, too bad, you must not be worthy then. Find yourself some little people with some little money and play your little games with them. It's always been that way to a certain extent. But never in my lifetime has the "big money" been so tied up in one place, and never has that big money been so uniformly tied up in so rigidly myopic a perspective. Do I blame/fault Wytnon for taking the money? Of course not. Get it while the gettin' is good I've always said, and always will say. But do I blame him for what he's done with the money/power/influence.whatever he accumulated/been granted as a resutlt? Of course I do. How do you not? Even if he is a puppet, he's a puppet of his own making and of his own choosing, and look what his puppet strings have done. They've created a slow strangulation of the rest of the music, that's what they've done, and if that's not assassination, then fuck the Enblish language as a means of effective communication. Did we read the same article?

Especially if you're in the habbit of rubbing it on your gums...

I saw him on tenor in1981 at Sweet Basil (iirc) in a Tito Puente "Latin Jazz All Stars (ditto) band that also had Andy Gonzalex, Jorge Dalto, John Rodriguez (of Tipica 73, with whom I had also heard Rivera), and another percussionist, a cunguero, whom I regretfully do not remember. They smoked all night long. Any presumtions that this was going to be a "sunny" Latin-Jazz date went out the window from jump, as the opening tune was a descarga that went on for about 20 minutes. Gonzalez & Dalto were zoning out into '65 Trane area harmonically, all the while keeping the clave, and Rivera dove in and shook the house with some mighty powerful playing - earlier comments about his big sound nail it. None of this highly/narrowly focused "New York Tenor" sound for him, no. He played it the way I like it - big fat full sound that fills the room and your soul and whatever else you got on hand. Everybody played like this all night - I was directly in front of Rodriguez - like, front row table in front, and let me tell you what - all this "more cowbell" jokery mocks the true dignity and power of what that simple piece of metal is capable of in the hands of a master like John Rodriguez. Believe it. it was not a "Tito Puente with Accompaniment" gig, it was a "Tito Puente Hire Cats To Kickj His Ass Up Another Notch And Loves Every Second Of It" gig, and I was luck to have stumbled across it after waiting at Town Hall (iirc 3) will-call for a couple hours hoping in vain for a ticket to open up for an SRO Cecil Taylor gig (still haven't seen Cecil live, and I'm getting kinda nervous about that nowadays....) Anyway... Mario Rivera could play. dammit. I heard it myself, and I'm here tellin' it.

Hey - we're alive. Don't ever forget that.

Who else could it be? That feel, that sound, that pulse, is Max' and Max' alone.

Institutionalizing of European Classical Music has made it healthier and more vital now than it's ever been in it's mutli-century history. No reason to think that jazz won't reap the same benefits for the same reasons. Something to look forward to, that is! Yeah, "assassin" is probably the wrong term. Let's substitute "necrophilliac sodomizer" instead. Two words are better than one, especially if that's how you get paid, or get paid to project. Y'all can have all of it y'all want. Me, if I'm gonna spend time with dead people, I wanna make sure that they're fully dead. I'll be there soon enough my ownself, so until then, give me the livliest life, the richest heritage, and don't nobody come 'round me who's confusing concerts with seances.

And still be overpaid!

Ok, it's really not about bullshit getting all the bread. That's par for the course and has been damn near forever. It's about how this ain't jazz no more. This is now "America's Classical Music" in the worst possible way at every possible level. And FUCK THAT. End of story.