Jump to content

was Joe Henderson considered innovative?


CJ Shearn

Recommended Posts

Or put him in the "bad mofo" category.

Word. :tup

I'm in agreement totally.

I've noticed that he recycles a bit in his compositions. I know, who doesn't?

Ever compare the changes of Jinrikisha to Afro-Centric? He also likes to use parallel major7(b5) chords (Black Narcissus, Inner Urge, Punjab).

BTW, the Real Book version of Jinrikisha is a total mess! I think I just read that Hal Leonard is releasing a legal and corrected version of the original Real Book. Hmmmm, we'll see..................

Edited by Free For All
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just read that Hal Leonard is releasing a legal and corrected version of the original Real Book.

Yes that's true, it's a bit off topic but here is an informative review i found from Marc Sabatella.

I just picked up a copy of "The Real Book (Sixth Edition)", published by

Hal Leonard, and have spent the last few hours going through it.  For

those who don't know, this is a LEGAL fakebook that has just been

released (September 2004) and represents the first real attempt to

provide a true replacement for the old illegal "Real Book".  Sure, there

have been other legal fakebooks published, including the fine "New Real

Book" series from Sher Music, but these made no attempt to duplicate the

song selection in the original "Real Book", and because of this, it

simply doesn't work to use one of those other books if everyone else you

are playing with is using the old "Real Book".  You would end up with

only a very tunes in common, and in some cases, the changes and even

keys would be different enough that it still wouldn't work.  It's fine

if everyone has one of the newer books, yet because so many people

already have the "Real Book" (fifth edition, mostly), there remains a

real demand for the "Real Book" among players wishing to play with the

musicians who use it.  And yet, because the "Real Book" was produced

illegally and pays no royalties for the compositions in it, as well as

because of numerous errors in the book, many have felt the need for a

better replacement for the original.  I feel this is a very important

issue, and hence I am devoting quite a bit of time to this review.

Before I go any further, I should say that, as some of you may know,

some years ago I had toyed with the idea of producing a legal

replacement for the "Real Book" myself.  Just to clarify, I got nowhere

on that project, and have no involvement whatsoever with this new book

from Hal Leonard.  So you can take my comments here as being reasonably

objective.

My first overall comment: this is one slick production, in a consciously

"retro" sort of way.  They copied the original cover (replacing the

phrase "Fifth Edition" with "Sixth Edition").  They copied the original

foreward, merely adding a single paragraph to the end saying that this n

ew edition "contains tunes that are re-arranged, re-transcribed, and

most importantly, licensed".  The transcriptions and even the song

titles appear to have been written by the same person who wrote the

original, or someone doing a pretty good imitation.  And the text -

titles, chord symbols, and other markings - were definitely produced by

hand, as you can see by comparing different occurences of a single

letter.  The notes themselves may have been done with something like the

"Jazz" font, though.  The book is just as cryptic as the original

regarding its own origin - there are no "editor's notes" or credits of

any kind.  And the advertisement for other Hal Leonard fakebooks in the

back is in keeping with overall low-tech feel.

Now, the first thing you are likely to notice as you look closer is that

the song list is *not* identical to the original.  It's pretty close,

though, and for every tune I wish was there but isn't, there are several

new tunes that I'm really glad to see.  The full table of contents can

be found on Hal Leonard's site if you are curious.  I'd post a link but

their site seems to use forms or some other sort of technology that

makes the link awkward and not likely to work.  Do a Google search

instead; that's how I found it.

For the most part, the tunes missing are ones that are hardly ever

played.  Sorry, no "A Call For All Demons" or "General Mojo's Well Laid

Plan", or any of the "Hotel Hello" pieces.  I can live with that for the

most part.  Although there are a few tunes that arguably fall in that

category that I nonetheless am sorry to see gone - some tunes by

respected composers like Dave Holland (Four Winds, Conference of the

Birds), Chick Corea (La Fiesta, Open Your Eyes You Can Fly) and Keith

Jarrett (The Raven, Spiral Dance).  I suppose everyone is going to have

their own list of otherwise obscure tunes they wish hadn't been cut.

Note they didn't cut *all* of these kinds of tunes, however.  We still

get Doin' The Pig, Man In The Green Shirt, Some Skunk Funk, and others

that are hardly ever played, including some personal favorites of mine

like Falling Grace. Litha, and Memories Of Tomorrow.

There are a few *standards* that are conspicuously absent, though, and I

have to imagine this was because of licensing issues.  Why else would

one choose to leave out A Foggy Day, Alone Together, As Time Goes By,

Green Dolphin Street, In Your Own Sweet Way, Just Friends, Night And

Day, The Shadow Of Your Smile, Some Other Time, Spring Is Here, They

Can't Take That Away From Me, Walkin', or What Is This Thing Called

Love?  On the other hand, take a good look at that list.  I can't say I

was painstakingly thorough about it, but in going through the table of

contents, those were the *only* songs I found missing that more that two

people reading this have probably played in the last year.  A few others

that are a little less commonly played, but will presumably still be

more widely missed - Fables of Faubus, Goodbye Porkpie Hat, Hassan's

Dream, Jinrikisha, Little B's Poem, Little Niles, Pee Wee, Pensativa,

Played Twice, Serenade To A Cuckoo, and Wildflower.  So OK, add your

personal handful of favorite obscure tunes that were left out, and we

probably still have less than thirty tunes missing.  Versus *hundreds*

the books have in common.  As far as potentially replacing the "Real

Book" goes, I think the missing tunes are going to end up being a

non-issue.

Consider also what you get in return.  I said for every tune you miss,

there are several new ones will be glad to see.  I am not kidding.

Perhaps the most surprising thing to me in this book is how many

additional tunes they were able to put in without losing the feel that

this is supposed to be a replacement for the "Real Book", and just how

welcome a lot of those new tunes will be.

The list of new tunes is actually longer than I care to type, but I'll

mention some high points.  There are crowd-pleaser tunes with some

blues, jump swing, or even rock connections: Alright OK You Win, Black

Coffee, Gee Baby Ain't I Good To You, Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby,

Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out, Night Train, Unchain My

Heart.  There are classic swing era tunes: In The Mood, A String Of

Pearls, Woodchopper's Ball.  There are great standards we all love on

recordings but don't play so much for no good reason other than the fact

they weren't in the original "Real Book": Dreamsville, For All We Know,

I Love Paris, In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning, My Shining Hour,

When You Wish Upon A Star, Young At Heart.  Quite a few others that

probably aren't are well known or loved, but could turn out to be:

Always, Call Me Irresponsible, Dedicated To You, Dream A Little Dream Of

Me, It's Easy To Remember, Lady Sings The Blues, Some Other Spring,

Sunday Kind Of Love, Thou Swell.  There are some jazz classics like Agua

De Beber, Byrd-like, Chitlins Con Carne, Full House, I Wish I Knew How

It Would Feel To Be Free, Miss Ann, Nuages, Only Trust Your Heart,

Passion Flower, Ruby My Dear, The Old Country.  And just a bit of

schmaltz - My Way, Thanks For The Memory, That's Amore, Wives & Lovers.

Further good news regarding these new tunes - they are for the most part

not the ones found in the original "Real Book" volumes 2 & 3.  And

according to the blurb on the back page, Hal Leonard is putting out its

own version of these volumes as well.

Next, there is the matter of the charts themselves.  In general, they

are produced at the same level of detail as the original "Real Book", in

terms of including intros, endings, interludes, background figures,

kicks, etc.  Which is to say less than the Sher books but more than most

other fakebooks.  There are a few places where they added a little more

of that kind of material (bass line to All Blues, intro and interlude to

Con Alma), and others where they for some reason removed what was there

in the original "Real Book" (background parts to Interplay, intro to

What Was).  I haven't had time to really check out each chart one by

one, but in most cases, it seems if the chart wasn't seriously broken,

they left it alone.  But they fixed most of the really egregious errors.

Blue Train is moved to the right key with the right changes, Desafinado

gets four bars added back to its bridge, Django gets its solo section,

Round Midnight gets a wholesale replacement of its changes, Waltz for

Debby gets the correct bass line and its missing bars back in the last

section, Well You Needn't Gets the right pickups and Monk's original

bridge.  Some tunes are just moved back to their original keys - C#

minor for Equinox, Bb for Straight No Chaser, B minor for Windows.  Some

tunes just get relatively minor fixes that satisfy a lot of pet peevs

with the original "Real Book" - the first chord of Blue In Green, the

turnaround to Footprints, a couple of chords in Four, the beginning of

the bridge of I Could Write A Book.  Some tunes don't get the full

treatment I would have prefered to see - Israel still bears little

resemblance to the original Miles recording, Nica's Dream is still

missing the intro, interlude, and ending.

Of course, you have to be careful about any changes you make if you want

the charts to be compatible with the original "Real Book", and many of

the corrections I mentioned above will actually cause problems if you

have half the band using one chart and half the band using the other.  I

think it would have been much better had Hal Leonard included footnotes

on the charts noting the tunes that really are not compatible at all,

like the tunes where the key or length of the form has changed, or where

basically every single chord is just wrong.  They also could have

included the original Real Book changes in parentheses for tunes with

small but significant changes.  As it is, you can take my list above as

a starting point in at least noting where the significant discrepancies

are, so you can make notes yourself by comparing to the original "Real

Book", should you be in a situation where you play with musicians using

the older book.

All in all, though, I would have to say that as a book to substitute for

the "Real Book", it's going to be more than adequate, and considering

how cheap it is, I am hopefuly this will happen pretty quickly.  The

handful of tunes missing are hardly worth worrying about.  The folks who

are msot likely to complain about their absence are the ones who know

the tunes already, anyhow.  Original "Real Book" owners who are worried

that people who buy the new book won't be able to play those few tunes

with them can always photocopy the few relevant pages and carry them

around.  The charts with significant corrections might lead to a train

wreck here and there the first time you encounter them, but just be

prepared to take notes on what errors the original "Real Book" had so

you can play along with them, and give the corrections to the people

using the wrong charts as well.

Furthermore, independently of how good a replacement for the original

"Real Book" this is, it looks to be a great book on its own.  The tune

selection is probably better than any other single book out there -

almost certainly better than anything you'd find for $25.  So even if

you couldn't care less about compatibility with the "Real Book" and were

just wondering what fakebook to buy as a first fakebook, this would be

the one I'd recommend.  It's also a no-brainer, I think, for someone who

already has a decent selection of legal fakebooks, again, regardless of

whether compatibility with the "Real Book" is a concern or not.  The

only question is whether people who already own the "Real Book" would

find this worthwhile.  Some will decide it is just for ethical reasons -

finally rewarding the composers of the music they have been playing

already.  Others may appreciate the fixes.  Fakebook junkies may find it

worthwhile just for the few new tunes they don't already ahve elsewhere.

The price is definitely right for encouraging people to buy it who might

otherwise be hesitant.

By the way, I have no idea who actually did the work on this new

fakebook.  Was there any involvement from the people who created the

original "Real Book"?  How are they able to sell this book so cheap

($25), compared to other fakebooks of similar size?  I get the sense

there must have been a cooperative effort to make this book happen.  I

think the story behind it would be fascinating, and I hope to hear it

some day.

--------------

Marc Sabatella

marc@outsideshore.com

The Outside Shore

Music, art, & educational materials:

http://www.outsideshore.com/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

By the way, I love your modest story about Joe "pretending" to remember you. Though that sounds a classy kind of thing he'd do to be polite, I'm tempted to think he really did remember you!

Did I miss this post? Where was it?

Hmm, sorry I can't find it (my ISP is acting up which is making mere posting difficult.) It was from a thread long ago. I remember it just because I was in major Henderson accumulation mode at the time.

As I recall Rainyday's story went along the lines that she doesn't try to talk up the talent at clubs other than to say "nice show" (or the equivalent) if she happens to pass by on the way to the door. Uh, sorry, I'm back from the bar :g myself so I'm not sure exactly now how exactly the story goes, but perhaps she mentioned how she'd enjoyed his performance the time before and he mentioned he remembered seeing her. (Hiccup on my part.)

Anyway, her tale is not in this thread.

I think I need some water! ^_^

P.W.I. - posting while intoxicated.

I actually posted this story on another thread, possibly on another BBS.

A dear friend of mine used to play drums with Joe back in the 1970's. Back then, Tom Grant played piano with them. They were a great band. Tom continues to be one of my favorite piano players. Whenever they came to the Bay Area, I always went to see them, and I caught them out of town a few of times. I had the pleasure of meeting Joe a couple times. My friemd would always say "Joe, you remember my friend RainyDay," and Joe would always say yes. Maybe he did remember me. I always figure people don't remember me. He was always terribly polite. I never had a real conversation with Joe but he was part of the landscape of my life during my UC Berkeley days. When he died, I attended his memorial at Yoshi's and cried like a baby. I wrote about his memorial because so many artists attended and it had funny moments as well as the sad ones. Maybe I will post it here.

Edited for coherence :wacko:

Edited by RainyDay
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm in the camp that thinks Henderson's strength was exactly his ability to synthesize different ideas, especially his ability to integrate somewhat "outside" playing with the "inside" stuff ... but I'm curious about what people thought of him back when he was first making a name for himself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK, for someone to have influenced as many players as Joe has (especially over the last 15-20 years), wouldn't they have to have been "innovative", at least one some levels -- almost by definition??

Especially since Joe was never a huge success, in terms of sales (except perhaps at the very end, with his contract for Verve).

I guess I'm saying that Joe's relative lack of "phenomenal success" over the course of his entire career, would suggest (at least to me) that his influence on a whole generation of players was based on something that was, at least on some levels, "innovative".

Anybody here buying this line of argument?? :g

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also...

It seems to me that nearly all the same things being said here about Joe, apply equally well to Woody Shaw. (OK, not exactly the same things – but pretty darn similar things, in a parallel sense -- but obviously different, cuz they were different players, on entirely different instruments.)

Not to derail this thread entirely, but what do people here think about the degree to which Woody Shaw was innovative??? I think such a discussion would be useful, even in the context of a thread about Joe Henderson. (I almost started another thread, but the real issue here is "innovation" among those artists who were amazingly talented, but who didn't recreate the wheel -- so to speak.)

I mention this, because Joe and Woody seem to me to be very, very similar kinds of artists -- both of the very highest caliber, but neither of whom got the popular recognition they really deserved -- or in Joe's case, it was very late in coming (and Woody didn’t live long enough to get his).

Neither Joe or Woody reinvented the wheel, but they both sure refined the hell out of it. Maybe to frame the question differently, did either Woody or Joe "break any new ground"?? - so to speak.

Paging Dr. Sangry... :w

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sticking to the synthesizer line myself. Not that it matters, because it doesn't. But you asked me.

Agree w/Mike about Woody.

As for the whole "influence=innovation" line of argument, well, maybe, often enough, but ultimately, no. Unless coming up with a unique synthesis is an innovation unto itself, and one peson at least has overtly said it is. But... I don't know.

The original post was poised in the form of a question about some comments read in some liner notes, so to get back to THAT - yeah, those albums were highly studied (and in band terms, yeah, slightly "innovative" in their own way, but even that was more a matter of synthesis than true innovation), and most likely still are. But I think that what appealed to everybody who studied them was the synthesis element. Here was a way to play "in" and "out" at the same time, and a LOT of people were looking for a way to do that - the hard bop language had worn itself out in terms of contemporarity, but the avant-garde was just too far beyond many people's grasp and/or interest. So here's Joe, showing people how you can take a bit of Trane's modality, a little bit of Bird's swing, a little bit of the Lennie&Lee&Warne harmonic and rhythmic omnidirectionality, a little bit of the R&B grit, and a little bit of everything else that was out there and put it all together into one coherent style.

It was a great synthesis, still is, but it didn't really create anything new in and of itself, except for, like I said earlier, some of the mechanics involved, and again, even those can be traced back to somewhere else. They were developed and personalized, sure, but that's not the same as "innovating". But it sure gave a lot of players a new "comfort zone" that they hadn't had before.

And yes, all worthy innovations DO come out of something else. But - a true innovation pushes the music forward, and I think that what Joe's music did was to push the music sideways, to give it room to grow and accomodate all the "forward" innovations, to give them a chance to find there footing in what would eventually become the new "mainstream".

Same thing for Woody (and the Larry Young of UNITY while we're at it) - he took Freddie's root style, confronted it with Trane's bag, and found his own thing as a composer AND as a trumpeter. But it was an offshoot of Trane all the way. Trane was the true "innovator". You could rightly say that Joe and Woody (especially Woody) were "innovators" on their instruments, but bottom line is that what they really did was take Trane (and others) innovations and find their own way to deal with them. Again, no small feat, that.

Again, this is all HIGHLY academic, to say nothing of a matter of semantics. But "innovator" to me should be reserved (in "proper" terms anyway) for those who really, truly changed the music forever, those who laid down something SO strong and SO new that the music had no choice but to follow it and grow (either immediately or over time). Those people are few and far between. And yes, it usually involves things technical and theoretical, because, like it or not, that's how music gets made. You come up with some new technical and/or theoretical (and by theoretical, I defintely include "emotional perspective") stuff, and find a way to make it work, really work, and then you gots yourself a true innovation. Because you have come up with a new way to play/approach/feel about the music.

Now don't get me wrong - I LOVE Joe Henderson, he's one of my favorites, period. But I think that that love needn't be grounded on whether or not he was an "innovator" or not. He WAS a very distinctive voice, and he delivered music of consistently high intellegence, soul, and swing. In the end, THAT'S what should matter, not whether or not he was an innovator. Because if all we loved was innovation, we'd love but a handful of all the great music that has been made.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've probably always enjoyed Henderson's playing less than most everyone I talk jazz with--most of these folks being musicians.

But my first question would be, aside from the technical standpoint (an innovative technique being of possible use to other musicians) what difference does it make whether Henderson (or Shaw or anyone) is innovative.

Why is this such a quality to be sought after and valued. Would a musician rather be "innovative" than "beautiful" or "listenable" or "impressive," etc.

I suppose the "innovative" might get you the esteem of you colleagues, but is that what jazz fandom is: music by advanced musicians for advanced musicians, others can come along and enjoy if they like?

I'm not throwing accusations around, just a feeling I've got that the standards we apply to past musicians and, more importantly, to young contemporary musicians are kinda narrow and musician-oriented rather than listener-oriented.

--eric

Link to comment
Share on other sites

is that what jazz fandom is: music by advanced musicians for advanced musicians, others can come along and enjoy if they like?

I'm not throwing accusations around, just a feeling I've got that the standards we apply to past musicians and, more importantly, to young contemporary musicians are kinda narrow and musician-oriented rather than listener-oriented.

Interesting stuff, Eric ... I think there are definitely some fans/snobs who DO want to position jazz as advanced music for advanced musicians (or at least "advanced listeners") and consider that listener-oriented standards end up rewarding Kenny G-types.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

is that what jazz fandom is: music by advanced musicians for advanced musicians, others can come along and enjoy if they like?

I'm not throwing accusations around, just a feeling I've got that the standards we apply to past musicians and, more importantly, to young contemporary musicians are kinda narrow and musician-oriented rather than listener-oriented.

Interesting stuff, Eric ... I think there are definitely some fans/snobs who DO want to position jazz as advanced music for advanced musicians (or at least "advanced listeners") and consider that listener-oriented standards end up rewarding Kenny G-types.

I can see the rocks on that side of our passage. We don't want the ship of jazz to break up on the schoals of Kenny G. Even if the streets there are paved with gold.

But, I think there might be rocks on the other side, too. And we rarely see anyone trot out the too-elitist shibboleth the way the too-populist Kenny G gets trotted out.

I was sort of thinking along these lines when I read the Wayne Shorter intervie win the Atlantic a few months back.

Shorter is a great musicians, and a fine composer. He makes some fairly challenging music (though he's gotten trashed for being too populist as well).

When I spoke by telephone with Shorter at his home in Florida last year, he was still smarting from a lukewarm Down Beat review of Alegría, a Spanish-tinged orchestral album that he released last spring as a follow-up to Footprints Live! He said that too many jazz critics (and maybe too many jazz listeners, as well) were deaf to musical texture and tone color—elements that he prizes but that they find a hindrance to what they consider the real stuff of jazz: solo blowing. Such listeners were always "waiting for it to happen"—"vroom! ... here comes the damn saxophone solo," he complained. I agree, but hearing Shorter talk, I was reminded of another Down Beat review, one from 1972 that seemed perceptive then and became sadly prophetic as the years went by. Protesting Shorter's growing "devotion to sonic color, virtually at the expense of any other kind of energy and invention," the critic Larry Kart attributed this to his "seeming desire to renounce the notion of the improvising musician as the purveyor of a competitive, flamboyant ego."

A noble impulse at first thought, but one that cannot be achieved, I think, by the amplification of simplicities and restraints that amount to little more than a toning-down of invention. What I hear on this album is a musician trying to disappear. I wish he wouldn't.

Kart was reviewing Shorter's Odyssey of Iska, but he might as well have been discussing "Nefertiti," the title track of a celebrated 1968 Miles Davis album on which Davis and Shorter, who wrote the song, merely repeated the theme ad infinitum without taking solos (and without much variation), while the rhythm section moved around freely—a beautiful, hypnotic performance, but one that forecast a problematic direction for Shorter.

On this particular issue I suppose I'm on the Shorter side rather than the Kart side--I think critics often start to set standards which are heavily determined by idiom and style and they seem incapable of experiencing a piece of music outside of those idiomatic expectations (vroom!).

But then I read this:

Footprints Live! was thrilling because it offered a generous display of Shorter's improvisational prowess at a point when hope seemed lost of ever again hearing him at such length. My favorite of the CD's eight performances is "Go," a piece he first recorded in 1967. The title isn't, I think, an exhortation or a reference to the Japanese game but something said in sorrow and exasperation to a lover who's already halfway out the door. It takes a few hearings to figure out that the song is a ballad, not just because the melody snakes so much and Brian Blade's drumming implies a faster tempo: the many abrupt variations in pitch make Shorter sound agitated. It also takes a few hearings to realize that Shorter is doing little more than embellishing the melody, because he packs so much variety and invention into his embellishments.

Shorter guided his quartet through an extended and even moodier version of "Go" at Carnegie Hall last summer, during the JVC Jazz Festival. What he played was compelling, but he often seemed to be holding back—waiting to hear if his rhythm section got into anything exciting, and then deciding if he had anything worth adding. There would be a wave of anticipatory applause whenever the tune moved into a faster tempo. I could almost hear half the audience thinking Vroom! ... here comes the damn saxophone solo, and feel the disappointment when it didn't—at least not the breast-beating solo they were primed for.

Backlash usually isn't long in coming in jazz, so it was probably inevitable that the praise for Alegría would be less than unanimous. I was fascinated by the album, though, because with it Shorter has finally made good on the promise that he hinted at as an arranger on an LP he recorded with Blakey in 1963 of songs from the Broadway show Golden Boy.

Alegría is one of a growing number of jazz albums that borrow color from Latin music without copying its rhythmic clichés (others include Don Byron's Music for Six Musicians, Charlie Haden's Nocturne, and Carla Bley's recent Looking for America).

And I think to myself, well, those idiomatic expectations are the handle the audience has on the music, that's the common ground. Isn't it OK for them to be disappointed that Shorter refuses to work from the expecetd fram of reference? After, they're not critics. Are they required to come over and listen to the music the way Shorter wants them to. Or is the obligation on the side of the performer, the one getting paid, rather than paying?

And, finally, I read this:

A science-fiction buff, he named Michael Crichton and Frank Herbert, the author of Dune, as examples of writers who had exposed themselves to the same risk musicians like him face in making recordings—the risk of having their work scrutinized and found wanting. "This other stuff—journalism, critiquing—is kind of skip-to-my-lou," he said. "There's a little bit of a vampire thing going on there. Wait for the stagecoach to come, then ambush it." Switching metaphors as he went, he urged me, "Put on the astronaut suit and come on out there with us." Or maybe he was switching genres, because we'd talked as much about movies as about music to that point. This was a deliberate strategy on my part. I'd read numerous articles on Shorter in which he complained that interviewers always wanted to question him about music, never about life, which for him means "the incomprehensible mystery of it all."

And I think to myself, here's a guy in the medium of music who is refusing to meet not only the expectations of the run-of-mill music listener, but also those of a fairly sophisticated, idiomatically-aware jazz audience, demanding that they come to him, more or less.

And what does this man read? What books does he hold up as examples of edgy writing? Well-done but technically simple genre fiction! The sort of fiction that abides by (or at least nods to) idiomatic expectations practically every step of the way! The equivalent of Jimmy Smith--not even.

And having read Dune, he wants us to tell us about "the incomprehensible mystery of it all!"

There was something galling about this to me. Something that made me think jazz musicians ought to be thinking much more seriously about the consumption end of art--about how they consume art as non-experts, and applying some of their observations to how they produce jazz.

--eric

Edited by Dr. Rat
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It seems to me that you don't necessarily have to be "innovative" to be "influential." To be inluential you just have to be lucky enough (or good enough) to have lots of people immitate (be inluenced by) your style. Also, you don't have to be innovative to be great. I think jazz fans and critics put entirely too much emphasis on "innovation." There are plenty of ingenious "synthesizers" out there whom jazz would be much, much poorer without. I would nominate Hank Mobley as another talented synthesizer.

BTW...

I loves me some Henderson.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...