Interesting quote by Michael Cuscuna

[Guy Berger]

In the liner notes to the Sam Rivers Mosaic, Michael Cuscuna writes:

...Sam and Bea opened a performance space within their loft which they called Studio Rivbea. The emotional excesses of the sixties had subsided. The influx of creative technically proficient musicians from Chicago, St. Louis and Detroit shoved a lot of the screaming pretenders off the scene. Freedom was no longer equated with anger and lack of musicianship. Studio Rivbea became an incubator for a lot of serious, new developments in experimental jazz and the forerunner of an alternate way of presenting music in New York.

What do you think of this quote? Cuscuna is obviously presenting a very strong slant on history, but is there a grain of truth?

Guy

[alocispepraluger102]

didnt i recently hear from a musician that the loft scene was no better financially for the artist than the club and recording scene? i believe andrew hill said that in an interview about 10 years ago.

[Guest donald petersen]

i thought the detroit guys mostly stayed in detroit.

[clifford_thornton]

it's a bit reductive but yes, it's true. 'screaming pretenders' might also diminish what else dudes x/y/z (whom he doesn't name... Frank Wright? Charles Tyler? Frank Lowe of Black Beings? Cuscuna knows better than that so it's likely shorthand for other, unknown, probably unrecorded blowhards) brought to the bandstand. (maybe a lot, maybe nuttin'.) also, note, for all his love & great work on behalf of the music, Cuscuna ain't ever much of a writer. not all can be

edc

poet laureate of ozona, fla

If yr talkin' late '60s stuff, I would expect the cast of non-Cuscuna-ordained blowhards to include Messrs. Wright and Lowe, as well as people like Byard Lancaster, Marzette Watts, Linda Sharrock, Arthur Doyle et al. The Arista-Freedom series aside, I can't really imagine MC jamming Black Beings and things of that ilk. Do I underestimate? Perhaps, but... I have a lot of reverence for that post-Coltrane NY Fire Music, but I can understand the backlash against it, too.

[Larry Kart]

He sure couldn't be talking about the Charles Tyler I know.

[paul secor]

It's an easy game to run your mouth (or in this case, your pen) if you don't name names. You can just let other people fill in the blanks you left open.

[clifford_thornton]

Maybe I should add that that quote seems to be full of shit.

[jazzbo]

Hey this guy was on the scene, and it's his opinion. And he may not be meaning any of the saxists the Decrepit Don listed.

I don't think it's full of shit. I can't smell it from here.

[clifford_thornton]

"The influx of creative technically proficient musicians from Chicago, St. Louis and Detroit shoved a lot of the screaming pretenders off the scene. Freedom was no longer equated with anger and lack of musicianship."

Firstly, though the AACM/BAG cats were certainly influential, I wouldn't say they "replaced" the post-Trane/Ayler players by any means. The AACM guys, too, were early on charged with the same "angry poseurs" mentality... not that there isn't "bad" art, but it's an easy cop-out due to lack of understanding.

[jazzbo]

Now I can smell some shit. Same old variety.

Edited May 6, 2007 by jazzbo

[clifford_thornton]

Cuscuna... well, I would admit some surprise from this end reading something so dismissive. I mean, he DID license a bunch of Alan Bates Joints and yet there's the whole "avant-garde trainwreck" thing which, in my estimation, goes further for him than Tyrone Washington.

I mean, one can surely revise one's opinion, with time, of certain music (as I've done with SY Daydream/etc), but when you're in a position of taste-making, it's important not to poo on the spoon that, as a babe, fed you.

Edited May 6, 2007 by clifford_thornton

[Simon Weil]

In the liner notes to the Sam Rivers Mosaic, Michael Cuscuna writes:

...Sam and Bea opened a performance space within their loft which they called Studio Rivbea. The emotional excesses of the sixties had subsided. The influx of creative technically proficient musicians from Chicago, St. Louis and Detroit shoved a lot of the screaming pretenders off the scene. Freedom was no longer equated with anger and lack of musicianship. Studio Rivbea became an incubator for a lot of serious, new developments in experimental jazz and the forerunner of an alternate way of presenting music in New York.

What do you think of this quote? Cuscuna is obviously presenting a very strong slant on history, but is there a grain of truth?

Guy

This is the old argument of feeling vs. thought which goes back to way back when. Inasmuch as art and/or religion always this dichotomy, there's nothing new. In art you can have the romantic movements with their elevation of emotion set against more "classical" styles. In (Christian) religion you get "Enthusiasm" filling the romanticism slot - and people fear emotion will carry away congregations from more considered, rationalistic, (Biblical)-text based experience.

The black church is just full of these arguments, with the specific problem that "emotional excesses" has specific racial connotations to do with blacks being agents of chaos and out of control. I would be very wary of this quote, just on that basis.

"Anger and lack of musician-ship" is a very loaded, rather tendentious, characterisation. It's a sort of symbolic anti-ideal - which carries with it all the seductiveness of the ideal. Sure there are musicans who fit that paradigm (or elements of it) from that period. But Cuscuna is here making of it a smug little narrative - implicitly of black ghetto rage erupting in music.

I think that's anachronistic. While it's perfectly true that riots filled the (mid to late) 60s, I think the music, as a whole, followed a different - rather more positive paradigm. You have to wait till the late 70s for a musical movement based on rage to appear. "Anger and lack of musicianship" fits the punk movement of England of the late 70s just perfectly - and the protaganists are perfectly happy to talk about it in those terms. The guys from the 60s don't do that - and I think you should respect them.

I think they innovated technically and went "beyond notes".

Simon Weil

[AllenLowe]

these internal jazz fights - of those schooled vs those unschooled - have been going on for some time and are complicated. A good friend of mine, pianist for Mingus's last group, got himself in some trouble for comparing two sets of personnel from that group in similar terms - when, as he said to me, he was making less a value judgment than an objective evaluation about schooling vs self-taught aspects. I don't think that this is what Cuscuna is doing, and he may have his point, though it is difficult without having names to compare. My feeling is that the first generation of free jazzers, for all their mishugas, set a direction and an aesthetic that changed everybody's idea of sound and composition; take Miles, who said they were all full of shit and than started to play the same way as they did, if with different strictures. As for myself, I tend to listen to fragments of all these players, because it is in the fragments that I find the moments of idea and inspiration. But this is a problem that continues to this day, and I know that many people will disagree with me (it's my old argument about formalism, but I won get into that again) -

[JSngry]

As for myself, I tend to listen to fragments of all these players, because it is in the fragments that I find the moments of idea and inspiration.

As somebody who at one point put a lot of time & emotional investment into what's now known by may as the "Fire Music", I certainly see the validity in this. I mean, ok, let's take Giuseppie Logan. In his time & on his few recorded appearances, yeah, you hear some interesting shit. But beyond that, what? Did this cat seem, for lack of a better term, "equipped" to do anything beyoind that? Not that I could hear.

Now, it's a very "romantic" notion, that of spilling your guts out with fire & passion taking precedence over anything/everything else, and yes, there's definitely a time/place in societal evolution when that sort of cathartic compulsion is not only welcomed, but is essential. And that time and that place did exist, and the players of that music who were into it mainly/totally for that reason were doing what had to be done - at that place and that time. Much eternal love and respect for them for doing that.

But...

The purpose of a cathartic experience is to "clear the air" in order to begin anew & build something. And for that you need skills beyond the ability to blow it all out. And the AACM/BAG cats definitely had these skills. Not that some of the NYC cats didn't, but the nature of that original scene was such that any number of "fringe" players such as Logan could get heard and romanticised in a way that the influx of most of the best players from "out of town" soon rendered obsolete. I mean, Jospeh Orange, what was he all about? Compare him to Joseph Bowie and tell me who's gonna be able to hang over the long haul.

By not naming names, Cuscuna may be being disingenuous & may well be playing into an over-simplification that's sort of become "conventional wisdom". We can all name more names that defy that than we can names that confirm it. But - even the best of the NYC bunch (and I'm leaving out the Shepps/Pharoahs/Anybody who came to the "New Thing" with a solid (enough) background in "traditional" style(s)) didn't show much of an interest in moving beyond the "blow it all out" stage, whereas the AACM/BAG bunch was bringing in concepts/compositions/etc. You know, stuff that actually was building on the revolution. And that was essential.

Which is what I think Cuscuna is actually getting at, sloppy/irresponsible as his language might appear (or actually be). But I'll cut him some slack. Jesus christ, before he turned into Mister BlueNoteMosaicGuardianOfTheGreatLegacy, look at his track record and be impressed. But one thing remains consistent in that track record - no hellbent balls out venting sessions where "emotion" at the expense/in place of "musicianship" was the order of the day. So I think he's being consistent in intent no matter what the language implies.

[JSngry]

Right, at the time it was definitely the right thing to do, and yeah, Cuscuna's verbiage seems to deny, or at least downplay that aspect of it. Sloppy writing indeed.

But I gotta ask myself - if he didn't get at least the validity of the initial impulse, what might have driven him towards the BAG/Braxton axis? (His deep love of Ayler is a matter of record, btw). I don't think you'd find too many, if any, people who would have found that shit repulsive who would have suddenly heard Braxton/Hemphill/Bowie(s)/etc & suddenly said, "Hey, THIS makes sense!", know what I mean?

I really think it's just sloppy/careless writing, "shorthand" from somebody who was there (although maybe after the "decline" had began to set in) that doesn't take into account (and whether or not it should is another matter altogether, since "looking back" ends up being a game of Russian Roulette more often than not) how it might be interpreted by the many who weren't.

[Larry Kart]

Just a guess, but at the time MC seems to be speaking of, I believe he was pretty heavily invested in Woody Shaw, both as a producer, a fan, and as a friend. I'm not saying that Shaw wasn't a terrific player, nor am I saying that the way he played was intended by him to be taken as some sort of "middle way" (in the context of the immediate aftermath of turbulent times), yet I get the feeling (based in part on dim memories) that something of the sort was in the air then -- both among some admirers of Shaw and associates (associates in both a narrow and wide sense) and perhaps on the part of Shaw and associates themselves. If so, that may where MC is coming from here. Also, if so, memories of actual old battles that MC went through as a producer in his Muse days may have something to do with this. Further, there's MC's link as a producer to the Braxton of that time, which may or may not have something to do with this.

[Simon Weil]

Simon, that's provocative but too reductive, & doesn't recognize the limey anger move was just as much showbiz as anything else. once "anger" became a commodity... a timeline of the American & Brit punk whatis is instructive here... which doesn't mean that, once up to speed, the limeys didn't have their moments but waaaaaaaaaaaay too much is made of all that (the brief genius of John Lydon is partly why). (but fuck the Clash, still.) NOTE: once the commodities moments were over, Brit DIY fractured into 5000 little art-punk pieces, only a few of which were "political." '60s Zappa & Phil Ochs could be plenty angry.

Well...

I loved being a Sex Pistol. I'll always be a Sex Pistol. At least then when I die I can say I've done something..I didn't have a life. I had nothing to lose. And I was a miserable sod deep inside. So the more havoc I created, the more I felt better at doing it because I was a tortured soul. I think the fighting came from lack of musical ability. It was like, "Oh, this is what gets you headlines."

Steve Jones

I remember these guys. Sure they were well aware that their provocations would get headlines. But deep down they were full of rage, "tortured soul", who enjoyed the havoc they were making. I think you need to get that clear. Once they became "the Sex Pistols, cultural icons" (or whatever), (a lot of )the rage went away because they were someones.

My view was it was "destruction for the sake of destruction".

Simon Weil

[clifford_thornton]

I mean, Jospeh Orange, what was he all about? Compare him to Joseph Bowie and tell me who's gonna be able to hang over the long haul.

Now THAT'S an obscure reference!

I can't really add anything to what you guys have said. I wasn't "there" at the time. Sure, it's easy to fall for a lot of smoke without much fire in the belly, and it does happen, but MC, in his quote, seems to be discounting nearly an entire genre of music on the charge that there were some fakers. There also were some lesser talents playing changes who some people harangue MC about reissuing on Mosaic, day in and day out... and the AACM guys weren't all tinkling bells and measured tones, either. Some of that shit is fierce. Dig on Lester Bowie's orchestral material ca. 69/70 for a bit of that.

As for "rage," great art can come in opposition, sure, and a fire in the belly can burn away the filth and prime the landscape for regeneration. Maybe idealistic, but...

Giuseppi Logan is my co-pilot, and Frank Smith my navigator.

Edited May 6, 2007 by clifford_thornton

[clifford_thornton]

How are we positing Shepp's re-evaluation of his playing from the 1970s on?

How are we positing, in a different light, Frank Stella's paintings after the early '70s?

Shepp was at his zenith pre-blowout and Stella should never be allowed near a metal shop.

Is there an end to the line?

[JSngry]

I kinda look at it all like this - the Big Bang was no doubt in all ways a very intense & sloppy affair that was in all ways equally inevitable & necessary, and that a lot of the elements therein were also intense, sloppy, inevitable, & necessary.

But after the Big Bang, what? What was going to stick around once it was over & continue to grow/evolve? No "value judgements" intended, just a hopefully objective look at the process of creation & evolution. Not everything that is necessary for birth is necessary for survival afterwards.

[Simon Weil]

As for myself, I tend to listen to fragments of all these players, because it is in the fragments that I find the moments of idea and inspiration.

As somebody who at one point put a lot of time & emotional investment into what's now known by may as the "Fire Music", I certainly see the validity in this. I mean, ok, let's take Giuseppie Logan. In his time & on his few recorded appearances, yeah, you hear some interesting shit. But beyond that, what? Did this cat seem, for lack of a better term, "equipped" to do anything beyoind that? Not that I could hear.

Now, it's a very "romantic" notion, that of spilling your guts out with fire & passion taking precedence over anything/everything else, and yes, there's definitely a time/place in societal evolution when that sort of cathartic compulsion is not only welcomed, but is essential. And that time and that place did exist, and the players of that music who were into it mainly/totally for that reason were doing what had to be done - at that place and that time. Much eternal love and respect for them for doing that.

But...

The purpose of a cathartic experience is to "clear the air" in order to begin anew & build something. And for that you need skills beyond the ability to blow it all out. And the AACM/BAG cats definitely had these skills. Not that some of the NYC cats didn't, but the nature of that original scene was such that any number of "fringe" players such as Logan could get heard and romanticised in a way that the influx of most of the best players from "out of town" soon rendered obsolete. I mean, Jospeh Orange, what was he all about? Compare him to Joseph Bowie and tell me who's gonna be able to hang over the long haul.

By not naming names, Cuscuna may be being disingenuous & may well be playing into an over-simplification that's sort of become "conventional wisdom". We can all name more names that defy that than we can names that confirm it. But - even the best of the NYC bunch (and I'm leaving out the Shepps/Pharoahs/Anybody who came to the "New Thing" with a solid (enough) background in "traditional" style(s)) didn't show much of an interest in moving beyond the "blow it all out" stage, whereas the AACM/BAG bunch was bringing in concepts/compositions/etc. You know, stuff that actually was building on the revolution. And that was essential.

Which is what I think Cuscuna is actually getting at, sloppy/irresponsible as his language might appear (or actually be). But I'll cut him some slack. Jesus christ, before he turned into Mister BlueNoteMosaicGuardianOfTheGreatLegacy, look at his track record and be impressed. But one thing remains consistent in that track record - no hellbent balls out venting sessions where "emotion" at the expense/in place of "musicianship" was the order of the day. So I think he's being consistent in intent no matter what the language implies.

Compare:

before he turned into Mister BlueNoteMosaicGuardianOfTheGreatLegacy, look at his track record and be impressed.

And:

But I gotta ask myself - if he didn't get at least the validity of the initial impulse, what might have driven him towards the BAG/Braxton axis? (His deep love of Ayler is a matter of record, btw). I don't think you'd find too many, if any, people who would have found that shit repulsive who would have suddenly heard Braxton/Hemphill/Bowie(s)/etc & suddenly said, "Hey, THIS makes sense!", know what I mean

Well, isn't it possible that this quote is representative of Cuscuna as "Mister BlueNoteMosaicGuardianOfTheGreatLegacy" rather than his "initial impulse" - the one that had "driven him towards the BAG/Braxton axis"? That before he turned into "Mr Tradition" he had a more positive conception of the people he now condemns? That, in fact, it's a rationalisation of the position he now holds?

That, in fact, he - along with the rest of Jazz - has been seduced into a "safe" listening life without all the dangerous and difficult stuff that was hurling around at the bottom of 60s Jazz and that all this stuff about technique is his (and our) rationalisation of that?

Or is this a post full of rhetorical questions?

Simon Weil

[JSngry]

Ok, this is really starting to get funny (in both senses of the word). "Jazz people" are really fucked up sometimes...

Let's look at the original quote:

...Sam and Bea opened a performance space within their loft which they called Studio Rivbea. The emotional excesses of the sixties had subsided. The influx of creative technically proficient musicians from Chicago, St. Louis and Detroit shoved a lot of the screaming pretenders off the scene. Freedom was no longer equated with anger and lack of musicianship. Studio Rivbea became an incubator for a lot of serious, new developments in experimental jazz and the forerunner of an alternate way of presenting music in New York.

The cat's saying this in praise of 70s "Loft Jazz", which was in no way "safe" or "traditional". It was very much the "avant-garde" of its time, and very much the type of music that the Marsailisupial Reactionaries were dead-set against.

So - explain to me how pointing out that the "avant-garde" evolved (that's a good thing, right?) equates straight-up with a condemnation of the revolution of the 60s. It doesn't, unless anybody feels that pointing out that that particular bit of history had perhaps ran its course as a useful general movement & that it was now time to build upon it (and I can tell you from first-hand experience that the 60s-style "blow-out" method of playing does not sustain itself over time as anything other than a vent of the moment. If that's what you need at the time, it's beautiful, but if that's all you ever need as player or fan, then you've probably got "issues" that might be legitimate, but geez, life's about more than just venting 24/7...). Yes, the language is sloppy, and yes, there's a broad-brushness to it that I'm sure Cuscuna would refine/elaborate on if pressed, but geez, we're taking a positive comment about the "avant-garde" and turning it into a perceived condemnation. WTF is that all about?

The cave sure is getting musty.

Edited May 7, 2007 by JSngry

[JSngry]

"Jazz people" are really fucked up sometimes...

Oh jeez, let me hasten to add some to that, lest it be "misunderstood.

[paul secor]

What exactly are "emotional excesses"? Emotions are feelings - it's as simple as that. There may be certain emotions that people don't want to deal with at a certain time (or that some people - perhaps Mr. Cuscuna falls into this category - don't want to deal with at any time), but as far as I know, there are no "emotional excesses".

As to "screaming pretenders", would Ornette, Jimmy Lyons, Roswell Rudd, Ed Blackwell, Bill Dixon, Charles Tyler, Dave Burrell, or Charles Moffett fall into that category? Perhaps so, as Mr. Cuscuna names no "screaming pretenders".

As to "anger and a lack of musicianship", would Mr. Cuscuna say that Cecil Taylor, Charlie Haden, Walt Dickerson, Henry Grimes, Denis Charles, Marion Brown, David Izenzon, Andrew Cyrille, Grachan Moncur III, Billy Higgins, Archie Shepp, Don Cherry, Alan Silva, and Beaver Harris couldn't play their instruments? Only Mr. Cuscuna knows, and he's not saying.

Has Mr. Cuscuna heard only anger when he's listened to any of the musicians mentioned above? Who knows? It's easier for him not to mention any names.

Jim S has called Mr. Cuscuna's statement "Sloppy writing indeed". That's a best case scenario. At worst, it's just a smear tactic. I hope that it's the former. I fear that it's the latter.

[JSngry]

Freedom was no longer equated with anger and lack of musicianship.

who said it was? cuz Neshui put Pollack on the cover of Ornette?

Ok, here's some sloppy writing on Cuscuna's part. Where does he say that he equated it with that? He doesn't, and I don't think that he did/does.

What goes without question though is that there was that perception in the years folowing Trane's death (really dark days as I understand it), and I'm man enough to say that it's a perception that wasn't completely unfounded , based on the recorded evidence. The "anger" part goes without saying (and nowhere does/has Cuscuna deny its validity).

Now, as for "lack of musicianship", hell if all you do is get up there and vent for a whole set/night/week/year/whatever, you're not going to (usually) use anything resembling a "refined" technique (and Ayler had a very refined technique, but Ayler was about more than just venting). Hell yeah you're going to honk and squeal, and hell yeah, that's not particularly hard to do (although there's definitely a way to do it that does require study and refinement, it's certainly not a prerequisite). Now if that's all that "people" hear you doing, why the hell shouldn't this "perception" of "anger" & "lack of musicianship" take root? You're going the Nationalist route, thus the "anger" & you're standing up there venting all night long. Why should anybody think "Hey, this guy's probably a real mutherfuker, he's just caught up in the times" if they don't ever hear anything to suggest that, yes, this cat just might be a real mutherfuker? Remember the key word here is perception, that "freedom" was "equated" with these things, not necessarily by Cuscuna, but by a sizeable segment of the "jazz public", at least part of which greeted the "Loft" players' introduction of "variety" as a welcome advance.

Me myself, I welcomed it as a necessary advance, and I suspect that Cuscuna did too. His track record as producer certainly indicates that he did. Pity he couldn't elucidate it better.

Edited May 7, 2007 by JSngry