Dr. Rat

Man, what's your sample size of people you've met that've read both or either of these books! You must travel in exalted circles! The people who say they bought the SUV because it was safer aren't really lying, either. It's not really a question of lying. The fact that someone might read what I wrote as arrogant I've already acknowledged. But I have no trouble acknowledging that my doctor knows more about my gallbladder than I do (to get back to the innards theme), I see no reason to object absolutely to the notion that someone might know more about why I like things than I do. And what I'm talking about here is a hypothesis, nothing more. --eric

My question is this: If Coltrane cannot be adequately criticized from a non-technical standpoint, can he be properly appreciated from a non-technical standpoint? My suspicion is that Coltrane's music is complex to the point that it is a muiscal form of esotericism, that its appeal is not immediate for the vast majority of listeners, and that the statement "I like this music" may be best interpreted as "I would like to be seen as someone who likes this sort of thing, but, truly, I neither understand nor enjoy this music." I am not cocksure about this, I put it out as a proposition to be considered. Is it arrogant to think I may know better about what people like and why they do thinigs than they do? Perhaps, but in my experience people don't really have a great grasp for why they do things and why they like things. A for instance: If you ask people whetehr they will participate in a sorted recycling program you get numbers that are all over the map vis-a-vis the participation you actually get. If you ask them whether thay think other people will comply, your yes number is generally very close to actual compliance. Or ask people why they buy an SUV and you'll get all kinds of absurd answers which are essentially rationalizations of the real reason they bought it. So, sometimes it may be right to be a little arrogant in these situations. Not necessarily this time, but . . . As far as the "bait-type terms" go. Those were McDonough's terms, not mine. McDonough was interesting to me because he brought up many of the very general terms that I thought ought to be at play in a discussion like this--music, emotionalism, religion, transcendance, delusion, social groups, inclusionary & exclusionary practices, blah blah blah. I'm not really too anxious to start throwing around invective or heaping scorn on anyone. And I'm not defensive about my tastes vs. those of others I'm just questioning how these things are thought to work in general. Not getting Coltrane is not my personal tragedy or anything. But I think how we answer these sorts of questions has important implications for how we think about art and jazz and where they're going. --eric

I'd certainly be intersted. The station runs a reasonably broad mix of jazz, blues, roots, world, alt. country which I come into regular contact with, so I could suggest new stuff. I've also got a pretty big collection of weird pop, folk & world to draw on. So I'd have plenty of suggestions and would be willing to give other people's suggetions a spin or two. --eric

Picking up from JSngry (and moving closer to Wittgenstein?): You may not know chess, but I think you picked up my drift: There are other very important elements to the appreciation of late Coltrane aside from admiration of his technical "accomplishment." I don't have enough knowledge of the music to really follow Coltrane through this process of discovering new possibilities and having a go at them and succeeding or failing--I don't "hear" this in any direct way, though since you do know about them, I acknowledge that they are there, and I'd be interested in knowing more about them, though this message board is probably not the place to undertake that project. But anyhow, I imagine that even if I did find out about what Coltrane was up to from a technical standpoint, I probably still wouldn't be able to hear the music and image Coltrane as a protagonist in the way that you do (Granted, this is not worship--I imagine other musicians (Coleman Hawkins, say) in much the same way--people taking risks and resolving them in various affecting ways and I don't think of it as worship). A few posts back JSngry questioned the ability of those who are technically unequipped to understand Coltrane to critique him. I wonder if there is reason to question the ability of the technically unequipped to appreciate Coltrane. Of course I don't know very much about Ellington's harmonies or voicings, but I can hear them just fine. But Coltrane, it would seem to me, raises the stakes a fair deal, to the point where I think it may be highly questionable whether the musically uneducated may be (generally -- there will be gifted exceptions) unable either to understand or even appreciate what's going on. --eric

Wanted to thank everybody who has made the effort to grapple with this "game" (I'll accept that) I got rolling here. I wanted to ask a few questions about JSngry's posts which, to some extent move the grounds for discussion to technique, where there is a fair deal of consensus. So at least for you Coltrane's accomplishments come down to more or less defining the limits of conventional music. I wonder how you would compare this sort of accomplishment to, say the accomplishment of Garry Kasparov (or, say, some future computer) in defining the limits of what may be done within the rules of chess. (Let's imagine that some sort of limit is being defined there, even if it isn't really) Would these sorts of accomplishments be on a level with each other? If not, what differences do you see? --eric

Just to address Chuck Nessa's last: I don't think I wrote anything even at all disrespectful of anyone prior to his post about drunken dorm-room conversations. I'm not particularly thin-skinned, but I'm not happy being characterized as a drunken college student, either. Pretty much all of my aggressive or "insulting" languauge has been other people's aggressive or satirical language turned back on them, which I think is fair game. Personally, I took it all to be in good fun. I certainly have no axe to grind with Chuck Nessa, but if you are going to be satirical or "insulting" (i wouldn't use that word) with me, you aren't going to get a free ride. On the other hand I don't take it personally. Just part of the fun of discourse with creative, intelligent and sometimes prickly people. Certainly no disrespect intended on my part. Anyhow, I did look over the prior posts, and that's how I feel about them. I am open to criticism from others, however. --eric

Well, the point isn't to change McDonough's mind. I really don't care about him. I haven't met him and he can live out his life entrapped in the most embarassing possible delusions for all I care. Though some of the people who have known him for 30 years might care, I'm satisfied leave the personal salvation of John McDonnough to someone else. And no, I'm not getting undergrad credit (or even graduate credit) for this discussion. Rather than changing McDonough's mind or college credit, what I'm getting at here is this: people like McDonough make an argument, essentially that people who are big fans of music like the late Coltrane stuff he critiques are not repsonding to the music so much as they are positioning themselves socially, and the "difficulty" of the music is obscurantist: it works to assure that not just anyone can gain entre to the in-group. Stuff like "A Love Supreme," he argues, is nothing but an instrument of modern cultural tribalism. Now what I wonder is whether there is a response that can be articulated to this point. I've never seen a very good one. Usually people just roll their eyes and make a few comments to the converted about how impossibly cool Interstellar Space is. In other words, the usual response to the critique is to act out its characterization (caricature?) of avant-garde jazz fans. While I have the utmost respect for concerns about swollen prostate glands and how these might take precedence over other things, I'd point out that the embrace of the unexamined is the prevailing attitude amongst this country 18-year-olds, not navel-gazing. I know because I spend a long time teaching them: they generally aren't interested in thinking very much about anything at all: "I love The Real World, I've examined my TV Guide, I know when it's on, and that's all the examination I need." We can just change some of the proper nouns and we have an American motto that's good for all ages and all in-groups! --eric

I'm not familiar with the particular collection you mention, but I would recommend looking for the French Columbia double disc with the same title--the remasters are better than usually found on Classics, in my experience. Also, you might be interested in their earlier work for Decca, which is collected on an early Classics disc 1938-39. This is before they got their schtick completely down, which is a good thing in my opinion. Three or four early tracks are on 52nd Street Swing, a collection that has a number of other items that might be of interest including some nice early Roy Eldridge performances. --eric

I don't think so. If I choose ignore the writings of John McDonough it may diminish your view of me (if you are aware of it), but does not concern the music at all. This reminds me of drunken, late night dormroom discussions. It's kind of funny that when people discuss totally inane things badly, no one seems to care, but trying to disuss anything serious (well or badly) always inspires someone to compare the discussion to a late-night dorm-room conversation. Anyhow, ignoring John McDonough is one thing. Saying that a disagreement you have with him is of no real significance is another. I can ignore McDonough because he's an idiot and can't see the truth I can see; the truth which I might then relate to thee. Saying we have opposite views and that both those views are all well and good says something about the object of the disagreement. It says it is insignificant. We can avoid the dorm-room problem by a) not being drunk yet; and B) having a bit of care in writing and interpreting. --eric

No, I doubt we'll settle the foundation question here. But I don't think it's necessary to answer any absolutely thorough skepticism in order to discuss aesthetics. The question is whether we can find sufficient points of agreement to have a discussion. The trouble with the attitude of "he's got his world, I've got mine and there's no point in discussing it" is that it drastically reduces the importance of music itself. I like pigeons. Other people don't like pigeons. It doesn't matter. I think Coltrane was genius whose work expresses transcendant truths about life. Other people think Coltrane is (and I am) a peurile fraud or a misguided naif. It doesn't matter. These two staements aren't the same. I think music does matter in a way that pigeon fancying does not. We don't need ultimate foundations for the difference to exist, just a level of consensus. --eric

I've posted a couple of old articles by John McDonough (from Downbeat and Wall St. Journal--don't tell them!) on the station message board http://wnmc.org/forum/messagedirectory/9842.htmlColtrane articles. I'm new here, so I don't know if this has been kicked around before, but I am interested in reading what others think about jazz aesthetics. I don't think responses like, say, "John McDonough must be deaf" are particularly interesting, because all you are doing is registering your allegience to the opposite camp--you are just running up the flag. Saying "just listen to the music and you'll see" is equally uninteresting because the other camp can say (and does) precisely the same thing. So, the question is, are there intelligent ways to discuss the issues McDonough brings up? And can we come to a better understanding of what's going on in jazz and what ought to or could be going on in jazz through a discussion like this. My own suspicion is that a lot of jazz fans and even musicians are pretty naive on the subject of aesthetics. What I've heard a lot of is "this is good" or "this is cool" defined strictly on the basis of "what me and my friends have come to identify ourselves with socially." In other words, discussions of musical aesthetics devolve quickly into different camps running up the flag because music is the flag. I'd like to think it can be a lot more than that. Anyhow, if you'd like to give McDonough a read and comment, I'd be interested to read what others have to say, -eric PS. I didn't want to take the responsibility of reposting this copyrighted material here, but if someone else wanted to, I'd say it was fair use, especially if this message board is not searchable by webcrawlers.