Guardian: Philip Larkin and Jazz

[BillF]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/may/21/jazz-philip-larkin-john-harris?INTCMP=SRCH

[johnlitweiler]

"All What Jazz" by Larkin is certainly worth a read. There are a goodly number of lines like comparing Howling Wolf to a demon lover at midnight calling for his mate. Read him for his love of Bix, Bechet, etc., but also for his fierce prejudices, his psychoanalysis of bebop and later psychoses.

[JSngry]

I take it, then, that Larkin knows about a demon lover at midnight calling for his mate?

[jeffcrom]

"All What Jazz" by Larkin is certainly worth a read. There are a goodly number of lines like comparing Howling Wolf to a demon lover at midnight calling for his mate. Read him for his love of Bix, Bechet, etc., but also for his fierce prejudices, his psychoanalysis of bebop and later psychoses.

I agree. I pull that book off my shelf every six months or so. When I've read so much that his blind spots start to infuriate me, I put it back. But he's such a great writer that he's worth reading even when he's wrong - which is often.

[sidewinder]

Amazing to think that I used this book to judge future Coltrane and Dolphy purchases back in the day. If he hated it, I bought it ! Still a hugely entertaining read - and nice that he references many very obscure UK releases in the reviews.

[A Lark Ascending]

Never read this (or his poems...I don't really get poems!). But I think I should for what he has to say about what he likes.

There's an interesting chapter in Dominic Sandbrook's book on the 1958-63 period of British history where he explores Larkin and Kingsley Amis as the grammar school boys from a lower middle class background hitting university and running headlong into the established elite who believe that they own "culture". Interesting that both became highly conservative.

Think I might find myself sharing his prejudices!

[Big Beat Steve]

Thanks for highlighting "All What Jazz". This would be the one subtitled "A Record Diary 1961-71" and reprinted in 1985, right?

Sounds like an interesting read, especially if you - like me - find it interesting to read "contemporary" publications with the benefit of hindsight. Often "contemporary" pubications that came right from when the items they wrote about were more or less current give far more interesting insights and you can draw your own conclusions (adding what you know about the subject yourself) more freely than if you read up on the subject matter in more recent publications where the subject has ben "pre-digested" for you by the historian/author.

Larkings "blind spots" certainly wouldn't frighten me - after all I've "survived" (and actualy found quite a few interesting insights in) several books by Hugues Panassié who no doubt had far more blind spots than Philip Larkin.

[sidewinder]

The copy I have is marked 'Reprinted 1985' with the title as you describe and published by Faber. I think I bought it within the last 10 years though - the copy I used to consult was a public library copy. At a time when you could still access things like this, the Ian Carr 'Music Outside' and Dick Heckstall-Smith etc. biographies on the public purse !

[A Lark Ascending]

I'm currently reading through an old collection of essays about Delius.

There's an article by the composer himself where he vents against much of contemporary music (early 20s) - he seems to really have it in for Stravinsky, the whole post-WWI French scene and the Diaghilev ballet group. Same sort of crustiness as I've read in extracts from Larkin.

I'm always intrigued about the unwillingness (inability?) of some intelligent and high achieving people to see out of their box and acknowledge that it might be that they just don't get it (rather than the it being faulty). I suspect the offending music/book/painting just winds them up so much that they just have to vent. Or perhaps, viewing themselves as being someone with a higher level of perception than most, the promotion of something they dislike as of high 'artistic' value makes them insecure.

Edited May 22, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[BillF]

Never read this (or his poems...I don't really get poems!). But I think I should for what he has to say about what he likes.

There's an interesting chapter in Dominic Sandbrook's book on the 1958-63 period of British history where he explores Larkin and Kingsley Amis as the grammar school boys from a lower middle class background hitting university and running headlong into the established elite who believe that they own "culture". Interesting that both became highly conservative.

Think I might find myself sharing his prejudices!

Larkin and Amis (père) were fascinating characters. As you say, they did become highly conservative, but I find myself making excuses for them. Born 1922, they're from a long way back. (I predate Bev and Sidewinder by a couple of decades, but L and A predate me by a couple more - that's a long time ago!) Just think what the establishment attitudes were then that they were rebelling against! Their championing of the then unaccepted forms of science fiction (Amis) and jazz (both) was really something at the time. Their achievement in novel and poetry also makes them highly defensible - who is markedly more significant than them in these fields in mid-20th century England? Admittedly their line doesn't accord with present-day cultural sensitivity/political correctness, which is a lot to do with their fall from grace.

[A Lark Ascending]

Larkin and Amis (père) were fascinating characters. As you say, they did become highly conservative, but I find myself making excuses for them. Born 1922, they're from a long way back. (I predate Bev and Sidewinder by a couple of decades, but L and A predate me by a couple more - that's a long time ago!) Just think what the establishment attitudes were then that they were rebelling against! Their championing of the then unaccepted forms of science fiction (Amis) and jazz (both) was really something at the time. Their achievement in novel and poetry also makes them highly defensible - who is markedly more significant than them in these fields in mid-20th century England? Admittedly their line doesn't accord with present-day cultural sensitivity/political correctness, which is a lot to do with their fall from grace.

Yes, it must have been tough for them. By the time I got to university ('73) the welfare state reforms of the previous 30 years had ensured that those in control had to accept that the barbarians were through the gates. But the class differences were clear to see and some of the English profs in particular who I endured in my first couple of terms could hardly contain their contempt for those of us who did not have the classical/biblical reference points a bought education would have ensured (I could quote Dylan but not Cicero!).

Must have been very much harder in the 40s.

[colinmce]

If you'd like a more open-minded jazz loving poet, try the incredible Philip Levine. I do enjoy Larkin, though.

[JSngry]

I'm always intrigued about the unwillingness (inability?) of some intelligent and high achieving people to see out of their box and acknowledge that it might be that they just don't get it (rather than the it being faulty). I suspect the offending music/book/painting just winds them up so much that they just have to vent. Or perhaps, viewing themselves as being someone with a higher level of perception than most, the promotion of something they dislike as of high 'artistic' value makes them insecure.

Or maybe people who actually accomplish things in their field do so after subjecting themselves to rigorous self-interrogations about what matters & why, as well as what doesn't matter & why. It's that deeply-developed personal sense of "right and wrong" in their art that allows them to create something in their own distinct voice. When one has clearly developed lines about what should be what, lines that they can personally justify, then their agitation about certain things can be understood in terms of articulating a personal "artistic morality" that is demonstrated in their own work. In other words, they can talk the talk and walk the walk.

Doesn't mean that they're correct in an absolute sense, of course, but it does mean that if they've found and created worthwhile using their particular esthetic, then it's probably worth noting what is is about some other things that rub them the wrong way. For instance, there's no doubt that bebop was at once a radical revolt against and a continuation of certain elements of the then-prevailing "jazz esthetic". It's one thing to recognize the "moldy fig" element as being just that, but it's quite another to dismiss all rejections of the change to be just that, if for no other reason than the what-you-would-think-would-be-obvious principle that evolution actually involves real change. Some things so get left behind, discarded, just as other things get retained, and still others stay on, but in altered forms.

Then again, what Philip Larkin has to say about bebop and beyond is probably about as relevant to me as what I have to say about, for instance, Hatfield and The North or Matching Mole is to you, and that is probably how it should be, ya' know?

[A Lark Ascending]

Or maybe people who actually accomplish things in their field do so after subjecting themselves to rigorous self-interrogations about what matters & why, as well as what doesn't matter & why. It's that deeply-developed personal sense of "right and wrong" in their art that allows them to create something in their own distinct voice. When one has clearly developed lines about what should be what, lines that they can personally justify, then their agitation about certain things can be understood in terms of articulating a personal "artistic morality" that is demonstrated in their own work. In other words, they can talk the talk and walk the walk.

But they've already gone down a tunnel at that point, confusing what is personally 'right' for them with what should be 'right' for everyone else. It's a bit like the viewpoint of religious fundamentalists - this faith is not just for me; I have a duty to make you, an infidel, see it that way too.

I've no problem with the expression of antipathy towards certain music. It's just the rationalising of a subjective response to become an objective diktat. Doesn't stop me enjoying the music of such outspoken people - Delius' complete wrongheadness about Stravinsky won't stop me adoring his own music (and if I was a poetry reader Larkin's views on 'modern jazz' would never prevent me enjoying his poems).

Yes, I know the rubbishing of what one dislikes is a long and time-honoured tradition. I'm just surprised we still haven't got past it.

Edited May 22, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[JSngry]

I don't know that we should, at least not completely. I tend to...appreciate people with strong principles who will not be moved unless and until they can be shown that it is folly not to. So many people are so damn weak-willed, just go along with whatever seems right at the time, that they really have no core. I've come to respect core.

Which is not to say that core cannot be deadly or dangerous or simply folly. Of course it can, and it often is. But when I ask myself who the more foolish person is, the person who has a core that has become hardened to any further evolving or the person who has never had any, I tend to believe that it's the latter. There's just something about people who for whatever reason fail to...define themselves that really bugs me. "Define" is not exactly the right word, but...

I guess I'd rather live in a difficult world full of prickly personalities who know who they are battling it out than I would a quiet world full of people who just muddle around indifferently. The best of both worlds would be even better still, but at best that's something we're still evolving towards.

[A Lark Ascending]

I think you can have strong ideas, feelings, responses without needing to rubbish ideas that don't fit with them or those that don't share them. The strength comes from promoting what you think needs promoting rather than wasting energy decrying what you dislike.

Of course some things do need standing up to and rubbishing - fascism, racism, sexism, out-of-tune playing, poorly prepared performances etc.

Where I disagree on these 'strong opinions' is they often pretend an artistic performance falls into those latter categories. I'm not convinced a Keith Jarrett album or Emerson String Quartet performance is in the same league as those things that really do need resisting.

Strong opinions? The Ku Klux Klan have strong opinions. It's the logic, the evidence base of those opinions that count, not their strength.

(Incidentally...I hate Verdi. Does my opinion become more valid if I assert that he is an awful composer rather than one whose music gives me the willies!)

Edited May 22, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[JSngry]

The Ku Klux Klan do indeed have strong opinions.

So did Ghandi.

So do I.

So, apparently, do you.

[JSngry]

(Incidentally...I hate Verdi. Does my opinion become more valid if I assert that he is an awful composer rather than one whose music gives me the willies!)

Yes, if you can establish what your criteria for being a "good composer" entail, why these are your criteria, and if you can show how Verdi's music fails those criteria.

Doing show demonstrates that you have indeed tackled the issue head-on, thought them through, and made actual evaluations and not just had a gut-level vomit and let it go at that.

Of course, Verdi is actually irrelevant here. He did what he did, he's dead, and that's that. But you're not, and if you choose to engage that music (or have it forced upon you with no way out, as many of us have had it), the relevant issue is how do you deal with it then?

Character is not inherited, nor is it to be assumed. It is of necessity developed, and those who fail to develop it for themselves yet claim to possess it are crude charlatans who present themselves as having something of which they have no knowledge.

[A Lark Ascending]

(Incidentally...I hate Verdi. Does my opinion become more valid if I assert that he is an awful composer rather than one whose music gives me the willies!)

Yes, if you can establish what your criteria for being a "good composer" entail, why these are your criteria, and if you can show how Verdi's music fails those criteria.

But that is what so rarely happens. Establishing the criteria. Assertions are made, a few crushing pieces of 'evidence' are deployed and the case is over. It isn't about constructing a rational case. Half the time it seems to be about establishing an artificial position - I've decided not to like Ashkenazy and will now make my dislike for Ashkenazy part of what defines me as a person.

With Verdi, I have no problem in seeing that there is something in his music that just does not click with me (as with, say, most offal in food!). I leave the door open for the day when it might. Can't see I'd have a stronger 'character' if I was to convert my personal antipathy into a universal condemnation.

The Ku Klux Klan do indeed have strong opinions.

So did Ghandi.

But what mattered was not the strength by which they were held...but the logic, the reason, how far they accorded with what was (is) accepted as human morality (which I realise is a whole can of worms in itself).

Edited May 22, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[A Lark Ascending]

Yes, if you can establish what your criteria for being a "good composer" entail, why these are your criteria, and if you can show how Verdi's music fails those criteria.

In addition, responses to music often go well beyond what can be measured by objective criteria. I don't know why I'm still moved by 40 year old records by Matching Mole or Hatfield and the North but I am.

Which suggests to me that it makes sense, purely out of politeness, to tread lightly when criticising music. It may annoy you or render you indifferent; but the joy that many people are getting from it is very real. What is to be gained by telling them they really should not be enjoying it or that their enjoyment suggests a shallowness or deficiency of 'character'? [Delius suggests just that about those who are 'taken in' by Stravinsky etc]

Edited May 22, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[JSngry]

Other than what's written on the score, it's pretty much all subjective.

I've no real problems with "strong opinions" as long as within the expression thereof there is at least an occasional glimpse of a realization that opinions is indeed what they are. It's the people who really do believe that they are absolute fact that I'll get away from at the earliest opportunity.

otoh, people who delineate a "this is what I believe and this is why I believe it" POV with passion and clarity, them I will develop a respect for, even if I disagree with them completely and irrevocably, like the guy who spen almost an hour in a bar one night trying to convince me, somewhat aggressively, that Oscar Peterson was"greater" than Bud Powell because OP had a clarity of purpose & consistency of execution that Bud was rarely able to muster. I mean, on the one hand, I thought/knew that this guy was a fool, bit otoh, hey, he knew what mattered to him, knew who he was, had obviously thought this out on a personal level, so was he really a fool, or was he jsut wrong about this one thing? And I'm sure he was thinking the same about me.

Edited May 22, 2011 by JSngry

[JSngry]

The Ku Klux Klan do indeed have strong opinions.

So did Ghandi.

But what mattered was not the strength by which they were held...but the logic, the reason, how far they accorded with what was (is) accepted as human morality (which I realise is a whole can of worms in itself).

Logic and reason have very little to do with it, in the end. What really matters, what really gets things done, is how well the people with the strong opinions are able to convince those without them.

All the more reason to encourage self-examination and the developing of character based on same. People need to know who and what they are for themselves instead of just having their identity fed to them by various entities, few of whom are benevolent in intent. Should there be the willingness to speak up and maybe a little too loudly in the process, it's hopefully a growing pain. Whether it actually is or not, time will tell.

Waiting on time to make that decision is a pain in the butt, but what's the alternative?

[danasgoodstuff]

Never read this (or his poems...I don't really get poems!). But I think I should for what he has to say about what he likes.

There's an interesting chapter in Dominic Sandbrook's book on the 1958-63 period of British history where he explores Larkin and Kingsley Amis as the grammar school boys from a lower middle class background hitting university and running headlong into the established elite who believe that they own "culture". Interesting that both became highly conservative.

Think I might find myself sharing his prejudices!

"I don't really get poems!" Forgive me, but I have to say it - that explains a lot!

[A Lark Ascending]

"I don't really get poems!" Forgive me, but I have to say it - that explains a lot!

Is their some requirement to have an interest in poetry that I'm unaware of?

[BillF]

none whatever

it's entirely

up to you