Larry Kart's jazz book

[Dan Gould]

well I gues I'm not done - if I stay on the same page, on my computer, as my post is on, it will not refresh by itself - I will not see the new post unless I go back to the title page - and that post took me a few minutes to do - so don't call me a liar --2:26 is the SUBMISSION time, not the time I began to edit -

Try left clicking and choosing "Refresh", dingbat.

Now I'm wishing Edith Bunker on him.

[Cornelius]

"Corn and co. here are challenging the reason for the book [...]" [Lazaro Vega]

1. I did not challenge the reason for the book. Please don't put words in my mouth. 2. I have no company. If I did I'd be in a hell of lot of trouble with the tax boards.

"[...] even if that communication is of an imagined soul or a soul personna [...]"

I like that way of putting it. And it goes along with Larry's remarks about dramatic personae. I've often thought that jazz musicians are like actors. They convey these musical personalities, or sometimes take multiple roles. In that sense, I think authenticity is over-vaunted. In one sense, an actor's art (I'm not addressing the Brechtian sense) is not to be authentic, nor to actually feel the experiences of his character, but rather to convey these experiences as they are even sometimes faked. In that way acting is an act of courage, an "existential leap of faith," if you will. To fake, and to commit to that fake, is its own authenticity. I think jazz musicians may share in that. It's not so much a matter of what the soloist is actually feeling, but what the soloist makes us feel. The trumpet player may be in a really lousy mood that night, but the music from his horn is a much different story. For me, Hank Mobley is an extraordinarily fascinating case - raising all kinds of questions - in this regard.

"Nothing is a foregone conclusion as [Mobley is] soloing."

That's not true. Mobley sometimes played whole routines that are basically the same from one performance (even on different compositions, but especially blues) to another. So, there's a lot that is improvised, some that isn't, some that's improvisation of nuance, but it's not true that his solos are completely without pre-determination. One thing that interests me is how Mobley makes even planned routines sound tentative.

Edited January 21, 2005 by Cornelius

[Dan Gould]

Where did I get personal?  Where is the "nasty and contemptuous tone"???

What, you don't think reducing a man's life's work to terms such as "ramblings," "convoluted meanderings," and "utterly vacuous" isn't "nasty and contemptuous?"

Tell us what you do for a living, Dan, so that we may have the opportunity to reduce YOUR life's work into a series of petty and uncalled for blasts against what you've dedicated your life to.

So, apparently, a professional critic can't be criticized. Watch out Allen, there's someone in the running for Chairman Emeritus of the Larry Kart Fan Club.

For that matter, just pick up the damn book (even Cornelius has done that, and he's made some excellent and debate-worthy points) and you will see, even with a cursory glance, that these are not the “ramblings” and “meanderings” of someone who woke up one morning and decided, “Hey, I think I’ll jot down some thoughts about my opinions of jazz.” Far from it. This is a collection of interviews, reviews, and yes, opinions, on the vast landscape of jazz from the LAST FORTY YEARS!!! Yet, you act as if any one of us just picked up a pen, wrote down some thoughts, sent ‘em off to a publisher, and voila, a book is published.

What a pathetic crock of shit, Al. You seriously think I am dismissive or ignorant of the fact that Larry's been gainfully employed as a critic/commentator for a long time?

You don’t like the book? Fine. Say so. But is it asking too much to do that WITHOUT insulting the man’s work?

OK:

I find nothing illuminating in any of the opinions/views that Larry has shared on this board.

I find his writing to be wordy and convoluted; surprisingly so from such an esteemed writer. Maybe his published work is more succinct, but I find his writing on this board to be dense, convoluted and hard to follow.

His writing, specifically about how musicians go about their business, epitomizes the cliche I quoted before: Writing about music is like dance about architecture.

Or are you just sore that no one’s contacted you about that grand list of CDs you felt compelled to tell us all about?

BTW, I do hope you don’t find that last comment to be ‘nasty and contemptuous.’ It isn’t. It’s just that I got nothing, absolutely nothing, out of looking at your list of CDs. But hey, that’s just me, others may dig it, and your mileage may vary. It’s certainly a better CD collection than mine, Gunga Din.

Again, no nastiness or contemptuousness intended.

No, no nastiness is received from taking something completely out of the realm of what's being discussed in order to get off some shots. Definitely no contempt there.

But a hearty FU to you, but no nastiness or contemptuousness intended. Its just for the hell of it.

[AllenLowe]

I'm glad we're getting back down to business here - and just to kick a dead horse, I'm not going to refresh until I finsih the post I'm working on - so that's irrelevant - I will back up a bit with Jordan, and I do agree that Jordu is a significant composition toward hard bop - harmonically it has almost a modal kind of energy, though it contains plenty of changes - which is a good description of a lot of hard bop writing. It's just in the realm of sound and approach that I think he differs - and, as I mentioned, if you listen, he has a lot of ties to the swing era in his rhythmic approach -

[Lazaro Vega]

"1. I did not challenge the reason for the book."

Only by implication. The book's main theme is challenged by some criticism you laid out before.

"Mobley sometimes played whole routines that are basically the same from one performance (even on different compositions, but especially blues) to another. So, there's a lot that is improvised, some that isn't, some that's improvisation of nuance, but it's not true that his solos are completely without pre-determination. One thing that interests me is how Mobley makes even planned routines sound tentative. "

Maybe choosing between the mix of pre-determined ideas and more spontaneous ones...I'll have to check out which performances you mean about his routines -- I know musicians do that, I just hadn't caught too much in Hankster. Though I don't transcribe and all of that...

Edited January 21, 2005 by Lazaro Vega

[Rooster_Ties]

I find nothing illuminating in any of the opinions/views that Larry has shared on this board.

Nothing?? Not one damn thing???

The man's posted almost 750 times (which is no proof of anything, mind you --- after all, my own post-count on this board is living proof of that!! )...

...and he's never said anything of ANY value in any of those posts?? (Or nothing of any value to you, Dan, to be more specific -- wouldn't want to misquote you.)

Not to pile on, but I do think you are making this too personal, Dan.

And what do you really hope to gain from all this?

Edited January 21, 2005 by Rooster_Ties

[Big Al]

Y'know Dan, for someone who doesn't care for Kart or his book one whit, you sure do like to hang out in this thread a lot.

Dan take something personal? I'd like to see evidence of THAT!

No offense taken, BTW.

[Big Al]

OK:

I find nothing illuminating in any of the opinions/views that Larry has shared on this board.

I find his writing to be wordy and convoluted; surprisingly so from such an esteemed writer. Maybe his published work is more succinct, but I find his writing on this board to be dense, convoluted and hard to follow.

His writing, specifically about how musicians go about their business, epitomizes the cliche I quoted before: Writing about music is like dance about architecture.

Now THAT I can hang with. I may heartily disagree with you on that, but it's a very reasoned and civil response to everything that had gone on before.

I dare say that had you said that the first time, we might not be having this conversation right now.

But I like ya, Dan, and will not for a second offer an FU to you at all. And I mean that.

[Lazaro Vega]

wordy and convoluted.

Not. He's the empitome of concision. In fact his writing fits the dictionary example: "the commentary is exemplary in its concision and lucidity."

[Cornelius]

""Jordu" reminds me of something Benny Golson would do -- just real subtle dynamics, whereas "Sandu" seemed more unequivocally hard bop. [...] Hard bop pianists -- Horace Silver, Bobby Timmons -- seem to put more sweat in their playing." [Lazaro Vega]

Part of the problem is that 'hard bop' was never a good rubric from the git-go. It's a term that's never had a consensus of agreement, and which is used in misleading, confusing, and beside-the-point ways. Many tracks and albums that are classified as hard bop are ones that don't fit the cliché definition "funky, churchy, hard driving."

I posted this elsewhere:

"There is too much music closely associated with hard bop that does not fit the usual definition. What about a soft ballad played by a hard bop musician? Is the ballad performance not hard bop? That would mean that the performer switched styles just to play a ballad. And not all hard bop is especially funky, but rather some hard bop suggests different colorings than the blues. And hard bop and so-called "cool" are not always so far apart. Some tracks on hard bop albums could be taken as "cool" jazz, while some tracks on "cool" albums could be taken as hard bop. I think there are better ways to categorize jazz styles. Primarily, I prefer that categorizations be based not so much on mood, energy, and color, but rather on more objective elements like form, melody, rhythm, etc. It's as if one wanted to base a book about automobiles on their colors, with chapters on red automobiles, blue ones, etc. Instead, you'd likely point out that it would be better to categorize automobiles by manufacturer, or engine type, or function (sedan, wagon, etc.)."

So I think it's too narrow a definition not to include Golson as a prime hard bop player and composer. I even think subtle dynamics are more, not less, a characteristic of hard bop as compared with bop. "Jordu" is very much a hard bop tune, especially the way it conveys the minor key. And many pianists not as aggressive as Silver or Timmons are still hard bop. As to whether Jordan is definitive (or, perhaps you mean 'typical'), I'm not inclined to argue that he is, but just to bear in mind that that wasn't the original question.

[Cornelius]

"I did not challenge the reason for the book." [Cornelius]

"Only by implication. The book's main theme is challenged by some criticism you laid out before." [Lazaro Vega]

What is the main theme? How do my comments challenge that theme?

If you construct an argument that my comments do challenge that theme, I still want to be clear that I have not personally contested whatever may be the raison d'etre of the book.

[AllenLowe]

I think Dan Gould is a scholar.

(edited by Allen Lowe at 4:03)

I think Dan Gould is an idiot.

(edited by Allen Lowe at 4:04)

I think I know Dan Gould. Isn't he Donald Rumsfeld's assistant?

(edited by Allen Lowe at 4:05)

Dan Gould forgot to take his meds today -

(edited by Dan Gould's doctor at 4:06)

[Cornelius]

Allen,

It is painfully ironic to me that I had to defend myself against charges of anti-intellectualism here. You see, arguing against anti-intellectualism, especially the view that jazz writing needs to be dumbed down, is one of my own gravamens! I get in arguments all the time with peope who insist that jazz writing needs to stay simple, simple, simple! That anti-intellectualism, anti-analyticalness, anti-scholarly, anti-substantiveness drives me NUTS!

Damn, in another forum, continually, I have to defend my own posts from posters who cry that my posts are too "academic" and that the posts use what is deemed inpenetrable vocabularly (can you believe, people are offended that I am "pompous" for using words such as 'vitiate'?!). (This is not to imply that I'm some great jazz scholar.)

And I've defended myself from a charge of anti-intellectuality lodged by a writer (you) whose book I've very much appreciated (with some reservations) as quite enjoyable writing, a refreshing critque (even as I may have some points of disagreement) of jazz historiography, and rescource for discovering more and more music.

[7/4]

I think Dan Gould is a scholar.

(edited by Allen Lowe at 4:03)

I think Dan Gould is an idiot.

(edited by Allen Lowe at 4:04)

I think I know Dan Gould. Isn't he Donald Rumsfeld's assistant?

(edited by Allen Lowe at 4:05)

Dan Gould forgot to take his meds today -

(edited by Dan Gould's doctor at 4:06)

Dan's such a good boy, always making friends at that Organissimo BBS....

[Big Al]

I think Dan Gould is a scholar.

(edited by Allen Lowe at 4:03)

I think Dan Gould is an idiot.

(edited by Allen Lowe at 4:04)

I think I know Dan Gould. Isn't he Donald Rumsfeld's assistant?

(edited by Allen Lowe at 4:05)

Dan Gould forgot to take his meds today -

(edited by Dan Gould's doctor at 4:06)

I know I did!

[AllenLowe]

Hi Cornelius -

I think that, in my mind, I lumped yours and Dan Gould's posts together, and this was extremely unfair - my apologies -

[Larry Kart]

Wow -- You leave the house for half a day and all hell break loose!

About what hard bop is, this may not be the be-all, end-all of the matter, but this passage from English critic Jack Cooke's piece about Blakey's "A Night At Birdland Vol. 1" (from "Modern Jazz The Essential Records, 1944-70," ed. Max Harrison) seems to home in on a number of essentials:

"In the light of later jazz developments, these tracks now have an almost 'mainstream' air, and what was so fresh at the time of their release -- the spirited 4-bar exchanges, the angular, aggresive melodies, the astonishing violence of the rhythm section, and the hectic solos -- quickly became accepted practice. And as it lost its power to surprise, the music more lasting values became apparent.

"These were the first recordings by what was then the newly formed Blakey Quintet, later to become the Jazz Messengers, and this was where the drummer fully realized his style. This is a method based closely on classic bop drumming, which relied on a steady cymbal beat decorated by accents and patterns on snare and bass drums, the whole providing a continuous yet varied flow from drummer to soloist. With Blakey, however, the high-hat is introduced on the second and forth beats, breaking up the flow into a more insistently syncopated pattern; the cymbal beat is emboldened to match, and the various accents raised to a degree of becoming often strong, lengthy rhythmic designs in their own right, setting up in polyrhythmic opposition to the basic beat. Inevitably, this is a style in which the drummer no longer functions as accompanist pure and simple, but often, and for long periods, becomes a contributor on the same level as the soloist, playing parallel with him, sometimes competing with him, occasionally even dominating him. It is a style well suited to a leader, and it seems no accident that it flowered at the point when Blakey became just that.

"Such a method demanded a similar response from others, and usually gets it here; Silver was building the same kind of attacking method for the piano in the rhythm section, and here he and Blakey become a rare combination of wit and ferocity, a team without equal....

"t ought to be said how important Silver's writing was to this date, for the willing old bop warhorses could only carry this music part of the way. 'Night in Tunisia,' which became almost Blakey's personal anthem was something of an exception, and Vol. 2 of this set demonstrates the proposition more clearly [that] there there was real need for the fresh jolting angularities of Silver's compositions."

To amplify, or to just point again to what Cooke already has said, one hallmark of hard bop is that the rhythm section assumes a virtually choral (and often fairly worked out) role in relation to the soloists. Another way to look at this, a la what Martin Williams wrote about Horace Silver in "The Jazz Tradition," is that the relationship between horn sections and soloists that prevailed in Swing Era big bands was now being imported into small groups, with the rhythm section playing as much of an orchestral-section role as a horn section did in, say, the Lunceford Band (certainly a notable model in Silver's case) or, of course, the way Basie, Green, Page and Jones fucntioned in Basie's band. Cooke doesn't quite say this, but the choral, orchestral role of the rhythm section in hard bop not only called for more co-ordination between its members, a la Blakey and Silver, but also for some simplification, vis-a-vis bop, in the name of unified effects, particularly on the part of the drummer -- with a somewhat stylized "astonishing violence" (to use Cooke's apt phrase) taking the place of the dizzying and more spontaneous complexity of Roach or Haynes in full flight behind Parker. As Cornelius said, hard bop didn't always need to be "hard," but the orchestral-choral role of the rhythm section in relation to the soloists was close to a constant, I think. An example of this at one of its ripest moments is the way, on the title track of "Cool Struttin,'" Sonny Clark, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe work as Clark leads off as soloist, and then behind Art Farmer and Jackie McLean. It's fairly low-key compared to Blakey and Silver, but the rhythm section -- working chorally/orchestrally and virtually as one -- comes up a subtly different time feel and set of accents for each chorus, to the point where the whole damn piece feels as though it were governed by a single evolving compositional impulse, though without much if any sense that things have been worked out other than in the moment. Particularly striking is what happens during Farmer's choruses; he's so alert to what's going on behind him, and what's going on there is so cleverly engineered to stiffen his musical spine, that it would be hard to say how much of what Farmer plays here (and it's great stuff) amounts to the rhythm section playing through him.

[AllenLowe]

hey Cornelius - I think I'll go back and edit those old posts so it looks like I'm only attacking Dan Gould -

(edited by Allen Lowe at 4:39 to add more insults)

Edited January 21, 2005 by AllenLowe

[AllenLowe]

hey Larry - who asked YOU? We were having a high old time just insulting each other - I feel like its the end of recess and the teacher's making us go back to the subject -

Edited January 21, 2005 by AllenLowe

[Lazaro Vega]

Cornelius, went back and read through and I think I was responding more to Dan's stuff than yours. Excuse, please.

I see what you mean about dynamics and hard bop: Blakey could really bring it down before blowing up in your face. But I'm not hearing Mobley as a pattern player. Was just checking out "Oleo" from Live at the Blackhawk and if patterns come up it they would be at that tempo. Could you provide a couple of examples where he plays the same thing on two different recordings?

The theme of the book comment specifically, "IMO, Jazz hardly needs the convoluted meanderings of one man's guesses about what an artist does or what motivates him or how he goes about his work."

Jazz in Search of Itself. If Dan can't follow Larry's "convoluted meanderings" how are we to believe he can follow Mobley's?

Edited January 21, 2005 by Lazaro Vega

[Cornelius]

"hey Cornelius - I think I'll go back and edited those old posts so it looks like I'm only attacking Dan Gould -"

You better be joking, you time-stamp revisionist, you!

Edited January 21, 2005 by Cornelius

[AllenLowe]

hey, I never said that -

(edited by Allen Lowe at 5:00 to completely distort the meaning of prior posts)

Edited January 21, 2005 by AllenLowe

[Rooster_Ties]

hey, I never said that -

(edited by Allen Lowe at 5:00 to completely distort the meaning of prior posts)

This post has been edited by AllenLowe on Jan 21 2005, 04:49 PM

Hey, wait just a minute!!!

[jlhoots]

Oy vey.

Where's Clem when we "need" him??

[couw]

Allen, please cool it down. You are not doing much better than the behaviour you are attacking. Just cut the childish crap.