Rabshakeh

I've been watching Ken Burns' universally beloved TV series 'Jazz' for the first time. The first episode of the series is all about New Orleans. It is portrayed as both a microcosm of America and as a unique city in its own right: a melting pot, Storyville, Caribbean and Deep South influences meeting in a mixed urban environment, French history, riverboats, Congo square, creoles, brass bands, Buddy Bolden, etc. etc. All of this is said to explain how New Orleans 'gave birth' to jazz. This is not a personal conceit of Burns' (even if Marsalis, his main talking head, does have a horse in the race). This is well-known and widely-rehearsed jazz historiography. I would be interested to know forum members' views on the question: did jazz originate in New Orleans, and in what sense do we mean that? Clearly, there must be something there. For example: - A large number of the most important early jazz musicians were from New Orleans: The Original Dixieland Jass Band, King Oliver and Louis Armstrong among them. - There are other examples of New Orleans musicians who were not in Chicago or New York at the time (and so not part of any network that Oliver and Armstrong might have been in). One example is Jelly Roll Morton, who pointed to New Orleans' geography and its proximity to Cuba to explain its importance. - When the hot jazz enthusiasts travelled to New Orleans, they discovered a reasonably substantial number of old timers who had played the music. When interviewed, many of them recalled the early days of jazz. On the other hand, much of the story, as it is told, looks suspect or retrospective. - Riverboat mythology pre-dates jazz. - The role and historiography of the figure of Buddy Bolden looks immediately suspicious. Likewise the interviews with old timers, which appear to have often been compromised with leading questions or by the interviewees' own desire to secure their own importance. - Hard to tell what was played in Congo square, but one would have assumed it would have been something like the diasporic musics of the Caribbean and Brazil. If it was directly connected to jazz why do we not see evidence of it in the intervening period or in surrounding Louisiana musics? (or perhaps we do?) - It might have just been an accident of small networks or of who got recorded / who had a hit. - The early centres of jazz on record were in Chicago and New York, not New Orleans. This is notwithstanding widespread recording of southern musicians (including African American musicians) pre-Depression (even if those musicians had to travel). Why are there New Orleans blues records from this very early period, but not jazz? (although the sample size is maybe too small to generalise). As I think it through, it occurs to me that plenty of music genres do derive from traceable geographies, but not always in the same way, and sometimes it is quite complex. Equally, some genres' well-known geographic origins are a matter of myth-making or misunderstanding. Taking some examples that are hopefully constructive (my readings only - could be ill-informed): - Reggae: Reggae came from Kingston in the late 1960s. Gradually emerging in a discernible way from the increasingly localised forms of gospel and R&B. The reasons for its stylistic emergence are not as apparent: perhaps a combination of American pop forms with a local substrate (as examples see recordings of maroon music or Jamaican country gospel), combined with local tastes and record industry practice on a small island. All evolving over a couple of decades. Or maybe the legend that Fats Domino kept cutting out over long distance radio really is true. Clearly reggae did emerge in Jamaica and nowhere else (unless I am very ill informed). Despite flourishing local scenes elsewhere, Reggae has never really left Jamaica, and the island remains the centre of the genre and deeply associated with it. Reggae nonetheless spreads associated ideas like sampling, toasting, DJs, bass culture and dub that are enormously influential everywhere. - Hip hop: Hip hop emerged in New York. It emerged in a scene that was small enough that it was possible to identify the borough (I am reliably informed that it was not Queens), and some key early figures. Clearly, breakbeats, sampling, rapping and graffiti all pre-existed hip hop and had wider geographic spreads. But hip hop as we know it is different to other uses of those elements, and it did not emerge anywhere other than New York in the mid-to-late 1970s, even if there were comparable local scenes in other US cities (e.g. in Washington DC). However, I think (possibly wrongly) that parts of early hip hop: 'electro' may have arisen in New York in parallel to the early hip hop scene and then been absorbed. Once hip hop comes into existence, it quickly becomes widespread, but New York remains it's centre for a decade, only gradually losing its dominance. - Punk: Punk is a very traceable but complex example. Grass roots and local groups playing raw R&B or early rock and roll-inspired music were widespread from the 60s to the mid-70s in every geography, from the American Mid-West to Singapore. If that is punk then punk is not the product of any one local scene. But the modern understanding of punk emerged in one of two scenes (which you point to as being ground zero of punk depending on where you are from): Manhattan or West London, in roughly 1975-77. Whatever these two scenes actually created (and much of it seems to have been a matter of attitude or fashion rather than music) then quickly takes root in other territories as part of a wider turn away from 60s/70s styles (not just musical). A multitude of regional scenes flourishes. - Blues: Blues emerges over several decades, all just outside of historical view, in forms that are widely diffused across the American South. In that sense, it is not a scene from any particular region. Early records of blues musicians are made almost everywhere and with musicians from all kinds of cities. Blues is, however, very closely identified with the Mississippi delta among casual music listeners. This is (to my understanding) probably ahistorical; a reflection of the linked facts that some influential later Chicago players came from the Delta and that, out of the numerous earlier styles, Delta Blues was the most prized style among some of the most influential blues fans from later generations. This has not stopped numerous books and documentaries from claiming that the Blues comes "from the Delta". - Free Jazz: A surprisingly large number of major players in early free jazz come from Fort Worth, including Ornette Coleman himself. But I don't think anyone in their right mind would say that free jazz originated in Fort Worth. Rather, what we are seeing here is social networks: musicians, isolated in a different environment, seeking out friendly faces from back home. - Heavy metal substyles: Heavy metal (in the modern sense) emerges as a generalised movement in Britain and crystallises in reaction to punk in the late 70s. It then starts getting harder and faster, becoming what was/is sometimes known by various broadly applied names like 'thrash metal', 'black metal', 'death metal' or 'speed metal' (depending on where you are looking). A substantial number of those bands were based in California, in either LA or Oakland. "The Bay Area" can stand in for "thrash metal 1982-87" to a metalhead of my era. However, no one claims that the thrash metal style "originated" in LA or Oakland. Instead it was a core component of a geographically widespread part of a wider arms race in metal. In contrast, "black metal", as now understood, clearly did emerge in Oslo in 1990-1992, among a tiny group of horrible teenagers who viewed themselves as harking back to earlier forms of thrash metal ("black metal", using the term in its original wider sense; they were thinking particularly of German and Scandinavian bands from the same chronological wave as the earlier Oaklanders), which they regarded as having been side-lined by slicker forms of metal, like the death metal being produced in Florida at the time. - Bebop: Mintons is regarded as 'year zero', and in some ways it is, but the story is more complex than is told. During the swing era various styles emerge across the US that we might discern as recognisably "bop" or "proto-bop". The Mintons group then codifies certain practices (some of which are quite short-lived within the genre's own life) and provide the style with talismanic young leaders and a sense of generational shift that brings it into perceived existence as a separate genre or style. In that sense, bebop does emerge out of Mintons. I think that the narrative espoused for the emergence of jazz in texts like Ken Burns' jazz is effectively similar to what we see for hip hop: various pre-existing elements are combined in a scene that is specific to a city (with key early names identifiable), in a way that simply does not exist in other cities, and is then disseminated rapidly outside of the early geographic area of development. It is not the story that we see for e.g. punk or bop or even black metal, where there are more or less local crystallisations of very widespread developments; or for reggae, where the genre was created local but remained local. The biggest difference from all the above is that almost all of the evidence for jazz in New Orleans is secondhand: what we see is a reflection back from something that happened in New York and Chicago. I am not really informed enough about whether there are other types of proto-jazz or parallel-jazzes or post-ragtimes that might have existed separately. Was Stride a parallel development? What about the notoriously "jazzy" blues style of cities like Memphis? I vaguely recall that in one of Allen's books, he mentions that a record of something similar to jazz was recorded in (I think) St. Louis in the very short period between the collapse of ragtime, the beginning of the commercial record industry and the recording of the ODJB in Chicago. Are there other examples? So, what do we mean when we say something like "Jazz originated in New Orleans"? Interested in other forum members' views.

This seems to mention that the Manne tracks used to be separate. What were the Art Pepper tracks on?

Jim Hall really did look younger as he aged.

The idea that there is another 400 unreleased hours of Wynton Marsalis making trumpet sounds then saying “that’s America” makes me salivate.

Did the additional interviews and footage ever get released? Also, is that Joe Goldberg crit still available? I've tried google but can't find it. edit: Typos amended

Art Pepper / Shelly Manne – Pepper Manne Does anyone know the story behind this one? I had assumed it was a Shelly Manne does Afro-Cuban record. Is it just a half and half or are these reissues? There seems to be very little info out there.

Joe McPhee Featuring John Snyder and Makaya Ntshoko – The Willisau Concert Ken Nordine Featuring The Fred Katz Group – Word Jazz I guess that this was something of a model for Tom Waits.

Oscar "Papa" Celestin – 1950s Radio Broadcasts

Don Pullen – Plays Monk

Bill Dixon -Papyrus Volume II

Jason Moran – From The Dancehall To The Battlefield Re-visiting this one to see if feelings have changed. They haven't really. I am still split on it, roughly 50/50. The opening "Now, listen to teacher" introduction still grates very badly for me, and the first LP has what seems to me to be a few rather lifeless or overly academic readings of classics. They remind me a bit of the Jazz At The Lincoln Center big band records. I think that the version of "Darktown Strutter's Ball" at track 5 is one of the worst offenders, particularly the gimmick of the pre-war hokum stick percussion. Then the second LP seems to me to brighten up. By the final side I really enjoy it. The iterations of the group that have been put on the second LP seem to swing more, and play with a bit more juice. It seems alive. I also really enjoy Moran's own compositions on the record, including on the first LP. I might have preferred it if the first LP was just him playing between JRE's and Co's compositions and his own, as he does on "Bailin' The Jack", the second track. Presumably it wasn't recorded in order, so hard to tell why there is such a stark divide. I'm streaming, so don't know whether there is any particular logic to the sequencing. Maybe I just enjoyed the record more the further I got from that opening monologue. I am still of the view that it overall amounts to a Major Work, whether I like it all the way through or not. I would not be surprised if it is well remembered and becomes regarded as one of the more important jazz records of the early 2020s. Edit: I should add as context that pre-war American 'roots' music is the music that I have probably listened to most in my life, and my reaction to the record may reflect personal anxiety. I spent enough of my university years giving glazed-eyed spittle-flecked lectures about how listening to the Mississippi Sheiks holds the key to understanding the birth of rock music to bewildered peers who had been hoping to just get stoned and listen to Pink Floyd, to have some residual anxiety about this stuff. Post script to Edit: I was probably wrong about the Mississippi Sheiks. Don't skip track one of Wish You Were Here. It's the best bit.

Really looking forward to listening to this one: Jason Adasiewicz - Roscoe Village: The Music Of Roscoe Mitchell There's a lot of jazz musicians being styled as "composers" these days, but very few who I think deserve the name as much as Mitchell (with apologies to two other more prolific and well known "composers" from the early AACM). Adasiewicz is a great player, and Mitchell's writing for percussion is particularly strong, so very exciting news. I would really love to see more of these.

I enjoyed that. A lot of it touched on already here, but nice to read something so in depth. Was it conducted by email?

BYG style free jazz seems like quite an unexpected style to be widely available, particularly in a world where basic Blue Notes were not.

Dave Koz – Saxophonic

Alan Silva, The Celestial Communications Orchestra – The Shout: Portrait For A Small Woman

I know he's thriving (and long may he continue as he is doing) and that people here love him. I was spinning a Houston Person record myself yesterday, so I am one of them. But I had not realised that he received a big marketing push. My assumption had been that he had been a mid level Prestige roster member in the 60s, and then was rediscovered as an elder statesman in the 80s/90s. I hadn't realised that he got a label boost in the 1970s. Regarding Richie Cole, it makes more sense. His records are all over the bins. I remember a recent trip to Minneapolis where it sometimes seemed, from the second hand shops, like the only records jazz fans had bought had been Phil Woods, Richie Cole and Spyro Gyra. Even over here in London you can pick them up easily. There had to be a reason why he's everywhere. I like Richie Cole more than the others on this forum, probably because I was not there to witness it at the time. The saxophone playing is obviously réchauffé, but he had that wider concept of mixing it up with the vocalese and a fair bit of humour. I think the Madness records have aged into interesting forgotten curios. Nothing I'd list in my top 50, but I think that he's an interesting part of 1970s jazz (less so 1980s). Anyway, interesting on Bowie. As a general question, how visible to the average jazz fan was that Paris 1969-1971 period when the BYGs and America records were recorded? Did those records make it over at all? If not the records, the critical reputations? Or did it come with and based on what got reissued by Arista? I am a child of the 1990s CD reissue and early 2000s blog eras, and it is hard for me to imagine how e.g. Anthony Braxton's or Archie Shepp's or even the Art Ensemble's careers would have looked without that period.

Thanks! (Also didn't know that Richie Cole and Houston Person were getting those boosts - not named that are particularly widely known nowadays...)

That's interesting. So New Directions and Nice Guys? That would put it around '79-'80, which seems to reflect how it looked to me retrospectively. So were the earlier AEC records and his Muse records known more within the limits of avant garde fans?

Zeena Parkins – Ursa's Door

A question for those who were there. Lester Bowie seems to have received a lot of name recognition for an avant garde trumpeter. At what point or points did he begin to receive that wider recognition?

I promise that I haven't broken into your house.

Oh no.

The Lat-Teens – Buena Gente