Morals, politics, crime and music

[A Lark Ascending]

Yes to all that, Bev.

But it's not just "the fullest human potential" in my view. It's "their fullest human potential". Not everyone can be an Ellington. But everyone can give their honest best of themselves. Which is where I run into trouble over the "extra-curricular" stuff. Is a nasty character who can make sublime music being wholly honest?

MG

It depends if you think a creator is obliged to reflect themselves in what they produce - that the 'art' is only 'honest' if it reflects the 'artist's' real personality. I suspect that there are a fair few 'artists' who aim at 'artifice' - the creation of something that in no ways tells you anything about themselves. Stravinsky always tried to detach the creations from the person.

I doubt if you can totally divorce the two, MG, but I suspect there is a great deal of creative music etc that sets out quite deliberately to be detached. Not expressing yourself but using an 'art-form' to go somewhere very different. I'd imagine quite a few troubled people find creating music etc quite a rewarding way to escape their troubles.

I find myself in two minds about this - not just with criminals, abusers etc, but with the sort of musician who does adopt a haughty and elitist demeanour. In the end I compartmentalise - what a twerp, but what marvellous music.

It's always great to come across someone like Vaughan Williams whose music I adore and also comes across as a decent bloke (in spite of his pedigree!).

[A Lark Ascending]

I mean, hell, my Cut Of The Week was a freakin' Supremes record, for cryin' out loud. Hardly an "approved" source of "art", but damned if what that record stirred in me didn't have me thinking, reaching, living higher for a little bit.

I suspect that record was put together to create some joy, make a little money, by people trying to do the best job they could. And they clearly succeeded beyond their wildest dreams - I somehow doubt they had their eyes on posterity.

So why does it have to be picked out of the 'pop' box and put in the 'art' box? And who decides if it should move? (most of the heated arguments about music seem to revolve around this - what is worthy. As always those who feel the need to judge come armed with a set of cultural criteria for admission into the inner sanctum that are not shared in common.)

I think this is just about trying to legitimise something that has grown up in one culture in the terms of a very different set of cultural values. The Supremes don't need that validation. I'm not convinced a system of cultural measurement from the 18th/19thC has much value in the 21st.

[JSngry]

I mean, hell, my Cut Of The Week was a freakin' Supremes record, for cryin' out loud. Hardly an "approved" source of "art", but damned if what that record stirred in me didn't have me thinking, reaching, living higher for a little bit.

I suspect that record was put together to create some joy, make a little money, by people trying to do the best job they could...So why does it have to be picked out of the 'pop' box and put in the 'art' box? And who decides if it should move?

Why do you assume that I have these multiple boxes? Or shelves, or anything?

Look, I give a rat's ass about whether it's "pop" or "art". Screw that. My point/concern is that it is both, and that settling for pop music that doesn't elevate and/or being paranoid of art that actually reaches out to people are both signs of the same sickness, a fear that one is placing oneself in a position to be "contaminated" by somebody/something else, a contamination that will destroy something essential rather than enhancing it, growing it. It works both ways, it does (as a youth in rural East Texas, it was far from uncommon to hear education beyond the basics ridiculed as "high falutin'" or some such), and it's wrong in both intent and outcome both ways too. Anything "cultural" that seeks to enforce (or creates the net result of enforcing) the attitude of "no, you can't, because you are who you are" or "no, you shouldn't, because that's not who you are", be it to prop up or keep down, is just flat out wrong in my book, simply because it presupposes the right to deny self-determination of identity. And that, to me, is about as big a non-physical crime against humanity as you can commit because if you believe in the notion of a "soul", either real or abstract, then it really comes down to who owns your soul - you or some other human?

To all of humanity, I have just one simple message -

ELEVATE MOTHERFUCKERS, ELEVATE!!!

It is not a particularly difficult challenge, nor is it in any way an exclusive one. And there is no end to the road, either.

Unless one does not believe in the first place, in which case...

[JSngry]

If a person writes a great fugue or plays a wonderful saxophone solo and murders his grandmother, how can you tell which act is "honest"? Perhaps both are: when he wrote the fugue he was honestly expressing some beautiful emotion, when he murdered his grandmother he was honestly expressing his violent rage. How can you tell where the honesty is in such acts?

Also: why do you assume that nastiness and sublime art are contradictory? Perhaps someone could play a saxophone solo that expresses murderous rage and that impresses fans with its authenticity of feeling and beauty of form.

Hey, you know how sometimes you hear cats talking about their music and how "it's not from me, I'm just the vessel" and all that? Well, those are usually "spiritual" types who say that, but the fact of the mater is that they are right, and what nobody considers is that when some really fucked up people make wonderful music it's for that exact same reason - it's not from them, they are just the vessel. And as I stated earlier in this thread, you can put some breathtakingly beautiful flowers in an uglyass vase, and damned if the flowers still aren't beautiful & the vase still ugly.

Which is why I believe in "art" a whole helluva lot more than I do in "Artists"...

[Shawn]

I seem to have an internal filter that lets me easily separate an artists work from his/her life. I would venture a guess that MANY of the musicians I listen to I wouldn't want to hang out with on a social basis...but that's not going to stop me from enjoying their work.

[JSngry]

DJ Spinna with Wadada Leo Smith is next.

Now, bring that one on!

Clem.

[Jazzmoose]

Clem.

God, I hope so. I'd hate to think that two of them found this place...

[seeline]

John Carey is a patronizing cunt and I'm surprised to see any Organaut read him seriously. Seeline, did Miles beat, or fuck you, loan, or borrow money from you? I've had problems with gunt control on and off myself so no offense intended to my portly friends but intellectual fatasses like John Carey, and, sadly, like Bev Stapleton, too need to elevate themselves very badly. Revisionist populism is among the most desiccated forms of quasi-intellectual douchebaggery yet devised. But oh its exponents love to appear reasonable and ready to embrace hoi polloi. Diana Ross & Giorgio Moroder are greater than the Supremes but that wasn't a first step, nor is DJ Spinna (whom I bet a box of jelly donuts neither Carey nor Stapleton listen to) the last. DJ Spinna with Wadada Leo Smith is next. (And Vaughn Williams wore women's panties, just "for the record.")

You're way out of line, chauncey.

I don't appreciate the slur(s) at all.

/ Maybe we could get back on topic now?

Edited June 15, 2008 by seeline

[Larry Kart]

Watch you language/behavior (especially toward other posters), Chauncey. I reckon you're close to the edge and soon will be over it if you continue in this vein, though it's not my call exclusively.

[Jim Alfredson]

I'm getting tired of the personal attacks and disrespectful statements made towards fellow members. We can discuss things without insulting each other, can't we?

Consider this a mighty big warning (to everyone).

[rostasi]

Interesting topic MG!

For me, the opportunity has arisen to be able to study

with the artist Hermann Nitsch. For those that aren't familiar

with him, he was a member of the Viennese Actionists and his

performances were often filled with rituals that involved animal sacrifice.

Mentioning this opportunity to a fellow O-Board member

(who hasn't posted in quite a long time), he was emphatic that not only should I not

consider studying with Nitsch, but that I should, so to speak, completely erase him

from my mind - meaning, of course, getting rid of any music that I have of his,

and not buying anymore and certainly not studying with him.

Tho I deplore any of the animal sacrifice elements of his performances

(add: being a vegetarian for 35 years - bordering on veganism),

the sound and ritual aspect is so wonderfully enticing that this opportunity

sits right on the edge of my desires. In the last couple of years,

I've thought that I'd come to a set conclusion

that since I already had hundreds of pages of his scores and notes and

over a hundred discs of his work that I could just as well become "self-taught,"

when it comes to his compositional ideas, but this excuse for a way of working

can be used for all kinds of endeavors and deflates the need for any type of

apprenticeship which could be considered an absurd idea.

So the idea still sits there waiting to be acted upon (or not?).

Sometimes doing nothing, the answers appear anyway.

[A Lark Ascending]

Why do you assume that I have these multiple boxes? Or shelves, or anything?

I don't!

[papsrus]

Well ...

Spontaneous Tourette's outbursts aside, this is all interesting (and quite non-threatening) stuff. But, beyond the personal failings of individual musicians, or the role of art in general, did MG's original question also address artists or musics which promote state suppression or other institutional goals? Seeline touched on this with her observations about her percussion lessons. My clumsy reference to Wager as well.

Religious music is very much wrapped up in this question. I need not even believe in Jesus, for instance, to enjoy Handel's "Messiah." Further, if I believe Christianity is a sham (I don't, necessarily), does this mean I can't enjoy this piece of music for what it is?

This is a more interesting question to me than trying to sit in judgment of individual musicians or artists whom I can know very little about, really. (If Miles Davis asked for mercy on his death bed, would he be viewed more compassionately by some?).

Edited June 15, 2008 by papsrus

[Tom Storer]

I've asked myself the same question: How should I rate his music in the light of what happened soon after? Did he just play a role? Something must have been wrong for quite some time. While killing oneself is tragic enough (and not something we ought to try to judge), can excuses really be made for killing one's own children? I don't have the answer ...

I don't think excuses can be made for killing one's own children, but why do they have to be? Appreciating Rosolino's music is not the same thing as making excuses for his criminal acts. It just isn't. You can love the music and hate the musician's crimes. I don't understand why anyone would feel that one's condemnation of a criminal or other bad person must include condemnation, or at least refusal to accept, anything at all the person has ever done. I mean, Martin Luther King apparently plagiarized on some important thesis. What are we supposed to do, say, "Oh, that civil rights stuff, I don't know if I can get behind that now that I know he was a plagiarist. I can't make excuses for him"?

[seeline]

I have a suspicion that we all want our heroes and heroines to be flawless - and of course, they never are.

Apart from that, I don't want to come across as carrying a grudge against Miles (let alone any musicians who collaborated with either Sekou Toure or the Nazis), but I guess some of my skepticism about him comes from the fact that the Miles "cult" stuff can go pretty over the top (at least it did when he was still living), also because I have every sympathy for women like Pearl Cleage, who wrote a book about domestic abuse titled Mad at Miles. (Not that she personally had anything to do with Miles Davis, but she felt that he worked quite well as a public figure who was excused by many on account of his genius, etc.)

For me right now, uncritical adulation heaped on the late Sekou Toure is (kinda) problematic in the real world, for reasons I mentioned in my post (about him) on page 1.

Edited July 2, 2008 by seeline

[Larry Kart]

Is this the same John Carey who wrote an awful, finger-wagging biography of John Donne some years ago?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Religious music is very much wrapped up in this question. I need not even believe in Jesus, for instance, to enjoy Handel's "Messiah." Further, if I believe Christianity is a sham (I don't, necessarily), does this mean I can't enjoy this piece of music for what it is?

This is a more interesting question to me than trying to sit in judgment of individual musicians or artists whom I can know very little about, really. (If Miles Davis asked for mercy on his death bed, would he be viewed more compassionately by some?).

A very interesting point, Paps. I love Gospel music and also the kind of Mbalax which is explicitly Islamic praise songs, though I'm a dyed-in-the-wool atheist (of the "actually don't give a toss" type) and Jewish, to boot, and sometimes talk back to or lampoon the records I'm listening to - more usually sermons, of course, since they offer more opportunities. I don't buy and listen to them in order to provide myself with opportunities to take the piss out of them, however - just can't help it, sometimes, just as with any other kind of music I love.

Now, from this perspective, is being a "religious freak" of the same order as being a wife-beater, a murderer, or a supporter or a repressive government? Don't want to be too dogmatic about it, but I don't think so. I suspect we're hard-wired for this kind of stuff, as we are for language. Just because I happen to think it's reprehensible, doen't mean it really is.

(Smiley omitted)

MG

[AllenLowe]

these kind of topics tire me, not that they are unimportant, just that I've been fighting this battle for too many years - as for artists who are not nice people, Henry Miller said it best, if I can pararphrase him correctly; his idea was that artistic expression represented the best part of many who were otherwise not nice people. This fits many a jazz musician who had one problem or another -

1) Bill Evans was a classic narcissist (hope I'm spelling that right)-

2) Ben Webster beat up women

3) Max Roach beat up Abbey Lincoln and was feared by many a musician in the 1940s's-50s for his tendency to violence

4) ------ (you fill in the name; I'm afraid of lawsuits and/or of being murdered by said musician) was said by a VERY FAMOUS avant gradist to be "likely to kill everyone in the room." (a conversation I had last year)

5) Bud Powell could barely function outside of music ("In everything else," Walter Bishop said to me, "he was an infant.")

6) and yes, Al Haig, who was a close friend, likely raped his first wife, and did violence to his second -

7) Jim Alfredson insists on calling a G minor seventh flat 5 chord a G half diminished -

8) Chauncey Morehouse, above, called somebody here a bad name -

9) I once murdered a puppy (sorry, I'm just tired of being called a Jew-boy by cute furry animals))

Edited June 16, 2008 by AllenLowe

[7/4]

4) ------ (you fill in the name; I'm afraid of lawsuits and/or of being murdered by said musician) was said by a VERY FAMOUS avant gradist to be "likely to kill everyone in the room." (a conversation I had last year)

And that is George Anthiel, of course.

[Joe G]

7) Jim Alfredson insists on calling a G minor seventh flat 5 chord a G half diminished -

Yeah, but those things only ruin his music for me. You needn't worry about it. :rsmile:

[AllenLowe]

but he's just so damned evil -

[Hot Ptah]

I think that more musicians have some offensive conduct or flaw than we can imagine--as is the case with people in all walks of life. I have by chance learned about a jazz giant who is very verbally abusive and manipulative, as in the classic profile of an abuser, to the point where one of his sidemen sought therapy for depression. The jazz giant is generally very well thought of by the jazz public, I believe. Where do we draw the line if we do curtail our listening of an artist because of behavior--at physical violence? at racism? at support of violent governments? at treating others in a miserable fashion generally?

What about a male musician who cheats on his wife and lies about it? Many Americans thought at one time that this could qualify as a "high crime and misdemeanor", an impeachable offense. How many albums could any of us play if that was the standard? But why should the poor wife be dismissed as unworthy of our moral support?

[randissimo]

these kind of topics tire me, not that they are unimportant, just that I've been fighting this battle for too many years - as for artists who are not nice people, Henry Miller said it best, if I can pararphrase him correctly; his idea was that artistic expression represented the best part of many who were otherwise not nice people. This fits many a jazz musician who had one problem or another -

1) Bill Evans was a classic narcissist (hope I'm spelling that right)-

2) Ben Webster beat up women

3) Max Roach beat up Abbey Lincoln and was feared by many a musician in the 1940s's-50s for his tendency to violence

4) ------ (you fill in the name; I'm afraid of lawsuits and/or of being murdered by said musician) was said by a VERY FAMOUS avant gradist to be "likely to kill everyone in the room." (a conversation I had last year)

5) Bud Powell could barely function outside of music ("In everything else," Walter Bishop said to me, "he was an infant.")

6) and yes, Al Haig, who was a close friend, likely raped his first wife, and did violence to his second -

7) Jim Alfredson insists on calling a G minor seventh flat 5 chord a G half diminished -

8) Chauncey Morehouse, above, called somebody here a bad name -

9) I once murdered a puppy (sorry, I'm just tired of being called a Jew-boy by cute furry animals))

[Joe G]

Well, geez Randy - not all of Allen's post was a gut-buster!

[AllenLowe]

puppy-killing jokes always get a laugh -