Peter Brotzmann and the Chicago Tentet

[AllenLowe]

and I also say that I think the malaise we are finding in so much free playing is the result of the kind of formalism I have complained about in the past -

[Larry Kart]

One of the big reasons why I decided to back off the playing, get off the Artisitic High Horse and become a Regular Guy for a little while (if not longer, we'll see..) is that I woke up one night and realized just how premeditated and programmed my music was becoming, and how the handful of people who were really digging it were digging it based on what they thought it represented and what they thought they were hearing as a result, which may or may not have been the reality of what it was that was getting played.

The final straw that broke the drink's back was when one night, early on, I realized that I was simply playing shit by reflex and for effect. There was no real "inspiration" or "spontaneity" or anything else that the "free improv" crowd (fans and musicians alike) love to think is the raisin detter of this stuff, and will go to any lenght to hear (unless they got a grude to bring, in which case, they won't hear it no matter what). So I intentionally palyed nothing but the old "bag o'tricks", conspicuously so, I thought, in a way that was all about self-depreciating self-mimickry, a way to say, hey, this is ALL I got, whatcha'll think NOW?

Folks loved it. The band REALLY loved it. Thought it was some of the best playing I'd ever done.

Made me kinda sick, to tell the truth...

But hey - no biggie, same as any other music, same as any other life. If everybody concerned would/could be honest about it, hey, fine. We could all get on with the business of entertaining and being entertained, and life would be so much easier. But no - we are not entertainers of a pretty damn high calibre looking to share some feelings and hopefully elevate your spirits or otehrwise connect on a real level, we are CREATIVE ARTISTS CHANNELLING THE ALMIGHTY MUSE, BOW DOWN BEFORE US, and no, we are not an audience out for a night's worth of fun, we are LOVERS OF THE GREAT ARTS, A BREED APART FROM THE MASSES.

Well hell, does it really gotta be all that? Really?

Hey - genius is real. Art is real. Inspiration is real. Real-er than a mutthafukker.

But they're as rare as one too. If you "need" that shit in your life, you're gonna make it up all the time rather take it as it comes, and then whatcha' got if not a self-created illusion of constant "art"? Anything real about that?

It's not enough to have turned me into a full-blown navel-gazing self-denying Tristanoite, but...

Very interesting, as Joe said. I'm reminded of what a young, Chicago-based at one time and very good IMO saxophonist told me when I said something positive about his playing after a set -- that he was afraid of, tired of, bothered by (one or all of those or something like them) playing on the stand what he'd been practicing all day.

[Simon Weil]

Expectations and playing outside of them -- the audience, any audience, likes to hear what it knows. The pure improvisatory musical life is full of such ups and downs musically -- Sonny Rollins, Lee Kontiz -- that few choose the path.

Clem -- Barry Guy's music is a bitch, no doubt an "influence" on Tentet.

Well, yes. But....

I've been going round in the UK for years asking people what they thought about what's on TV, and pretty universally the answer is it's boring. And you get much the same answer, implicitly, if you think about their response to politics. The thing is there is a great paucity of anything new - and people are bored and they want something new.

Now, this is just ordinary people. So I would argue that there is some particular vibe in the atmosphere, something in Western culture, that is holding us back right now. So that all we get is retreds - and retreds of retreds - and things that appear to be something new but are, well, just the same as before - only rearranged.

And people see through it. It's just the the guys at the top are convinced that all the masses want is the same. Which ends up being a kind of elitism, unfortunately. And it is this, in part, which is holding us back.

People aren't so dumb, even if this age is.

Simon Weil

[Just recently there was a survey, where people told the BBC that they want "More experimentation, more risk-taking". The chairman promised to deliver. We'll see. - FT 4th July 2007]