Strange quote from Chick Corea

[AllenLowe]

"My opinion, generally, is that all music lacks value and humanity and feeling and depth when it's devoid of an audience. "

same thing, I would say, with executions.

Edited November 2, 2011 by AllenLowe

[cih]

sounds back-to-front to me, the artist leads and the audience follows

[AllenLowe]

also, as Walter Benjamin pointed out, there is no such thing as "an audience" - the phrase itself implies too many varied and contradictory things for one to envision any single entity.

[king ubu]

same thing, I would say, with executions.

Maybe they should start a "death channel" next to FashionTV and al-jazeera...

[TedR]

Not sure if he really means a live audience but he seems to be stating the obvious. Music played without anyone else to hear it is just practice. Isn't the record buying public an "audience"?

[cih]

I think he means that the music should be created in sympathy with the expectations/tastes of the current 'audience' (paying public I guess...), rather than saying something like "if a tree falls in the woods..."

(hey KING UBU - have you seen the new Jarry biography yet?.. if so, is it good?)

[king ubu]

(hey KING UBU - have you seen the new Jarry biography yet?.. if so, is it good?)

No, sorry... not much time for reading these days. But we'll invade Poland anyway

But on topic... if the CD/DL/whatever buying/freeloading public is the audience... then you can make yourself an audience by releasing your rehearsals... has been done, of course. But somehow I think that's all a bit too simple. If Corea's statement is just stating the obvious, it's thoroughly uninteresting.

[Pete C]

If Corea's statement is just stating the obvious, it's thoroughly uninteresting.

Maybe it's profound in a Scientology context.

[paul secor]

Does any thinking/feeling person care what Chick Corea thinks or says?

[Christiern]

same thing, I would say, with executions.

Maybe they should start a "death channel" next to FashionTV and al-jazeera...

A great idea, the "Execution Channel", and they could offer knitting kits with the initial subscription.

BTW Chick wouldn't be the first person messed up by Ron Hubbard's joke.

[Justin V]

Has anyone noticed that Chick is playing all month at the Blue Note in a dizzying number of contexts: RTF Unplugged; the Five Peace Band; a trio with Gary Peacock and Brian Blade; duets with Bobby McFerrin, Herbie Hancock, Marcus Roberts and Gary Burton; with his Flamenco Heart group, a Miles tribute with Wallace Roney, Gary Bartz, Jack DeJohnette and Eddie Gomez; and, his Elecktric Band. That's a little bit of something for everyone. Is anyone going?

[jazzbo]

An entertainer needs to consider his/her audience. Some artists are entertainers, many of them.

Chick likes to play and be paid. He never shows up in this town but at the most expensive venue. He had a pretty successful tour with the Return to Forever reunion, etc. and I bet these fattened his bank accounts. I'm certain he has the box office in mind when he plans his set list and even writes a new tune for with this sort of mindset. He hasn't been creating "albums" in some time, and even so, I bet he has the wants and expectations of what he conceives of as his audience in mind there too. ("Hey, maybe I can sell a Bud Powell tribute?") Nothing really wrong with that. Is there?

I don't think jazz is dead. I do think that jazz "as serious as your life" is as rare as it ever was. I think at this stage in his life and career Chick needs the audience and the focus it brings him to add "human value" to his work. Otherwise he is playing in his own vacuum, for himself, and he doesn't feel that is "human" enough perhaps.

Edited November 2, 2011 by jazzbo

[thedwork]

maybe not isolating people's quotes out of context would help understanding:

JazzWax: Is part of jazz-fusion's surge a desire by musicians to relate to younger audiences using electric instruments and volume?

Chick Corea: Yeah, that's part of it. My opinion, generally, is that all music lacks value and humanity and feeling and depth when it's devoid of an audience. I mean, if you think of me sitting in my room playing music just for myself, I mean there's nothing wrong with that, it's a great activity. But in terms of music as a culture and a society, you have to take changes in audiences into account.

JW: Is that what you did with your form of jazz-fusion?

CC: I've found that musicians always want to communicate. You don't want to not communicate, right? You want to get something across. But you can't just do what interests only you. My own personal tastes in music would turn everyone off. It would probably turn you off. So back then, I differentiated my own personal tastes in music from my attempt to bring my love of music to audiences that were looking for a new relationship with it, a new sound.

aside from Chick's double negative ( ), this should make it a bit more clear as to what he meant. certainly nothing earth-shattering or particular illuminating. the thing to remember with this is that he specifically says he's talking about music "in terms of culture and society." imo, that's a different thing from speaking about it as just "art." some might say that's semantic observation; i think it's just being specific. seems he's just saying that if you wanna be understood, make sure you're speaking a language in which those you're speaking to can understand. deciding whether or not you care to be understood, and deciding who it is you care your audience to be, are other matters entirely.

personal thought: Chick likely didn't mean for this to be extrapolated from what he's said here, but i've thought about this quite a bit myself and his comment kind of suggests it: People are more important than art.

Edited November 2, 2011 by thedwork

[AllenLowe]

my problem with his statement is that it puts down, by implication, many great artists, like Walser, Bruno Schultz, Herbie Nichols, etc, who had little or no audience in their lifetime. it substitutes marketing for the urge to create something - and that's fine for anyone for whom that works - it's the implied reduction of other artists that bothers me here.

the larger context does not change anything - to say "in terms of music as a culture and a society, you have to take changes in audiences into account..." is almost bizarrely blind. In any creative form, it works the other way around - audiences have to take changes in form and content into account.

Edited November 2, 2011 by AllenLowe

[Pete C]

a trio with Gary Peacock and Brian Blade;

That one is very tempting, but luckily it's tomorrow only and I can't make it. Luckily because I'm glad I won't be paying a $65 cover for one set of music.

Edited November 2, 2011 by Pete C

[JSngry]

The thing I really miss these days is the lack of a middle/grey/whatever area between playing "to" people and playing "for" them. That middle ground created one big lake. Now that it's dried up, we got a bunch of ponds.

Next step, dessert!

I also miss working bands making records of working music, no matter where in that spectrum it fell, but that's a different matter altogether.

my problem with his statement is that it puts down, by implication, many great artists, like Walser, Bruno Schultz, Herbie Nichols, etc, who had little or no audience in their lifetime.

Ah, but I think that Herbie Nichols definitely had an audience in mind for his music. He just couldn't find it, that's the tragedy. If he was just some guy who was all fuck it, I'ma play what I wanna and don't give a damn if anybody hears it or not, then that would not be a tragedy, that would be just another some guy with crazy music and a bad attitude. But Herbie Nichols definitely wanted people to hear and share his music.

[cih]

But you can still desperately want to communicate without tailoring what you do to the 'fit' of the crowd - Monk, Van Gogh... they knew they were saying something to people but the people didn't, until later

"People are more important than art."

can you separate the two? People don't know what they might like until someone creates it - or, if Chick Corea knows the 'kids' want fusion or whatever, he only knows this because somebody else has successfully served it to them cold, at some point

Edited November 2, 2011 by cih

[JSngry]

if Chick Corea knows the 'kids' want fusion or whatever, he only knows this because somebody else has successfully served it to them cold, at some point

Seriously? Chick Corea has no first-hand knowledge about fusion being served hot out of the kitchen and how people respond to it?

[cih]

ok, that just demonstrates my lack of knowledge about fusion & Chick Corea but doesn't affect the general point - which I can't remember at the moment but I'll get back to you asap...

[JSngry]

Uh...ok?

[RDK]

Has anyone noticed that Chick is playing all month at the Blue Note in a dizzying number of contexts: RTF Unplugged; the Five Peace Band; a trio with Gary Peacock and Brian Blade; duets with Bobby McFerrin, Herbie Hancock, Marcus Roberts and Gary Burton; with his Flamenco Heart group, a Miles tribute with Wallace Roney, Gary Bartz, Jack DeJohnette and Eddie Gomez; and, his Elecktric Band. That's a little bit of something for everyone. Is anyone going?

Wow. Anyone up for an Occupy Blue Note sit-in?

[jazzbo]

Has anyone noticed that Chick is playing all month at the Blue Note in a dizzying number of contexts: RTF Unplugged; the Five Peace Band; a trio with Gary Peacock and Brian Blade; duets with Bobby McFerrin, Herbie Hancock, Marcus Roberts and Gary Burton; with his Flamenco Heart group, a Miles tribute with Wallace Roney, Gary Bartz, Jack DeJohnette and Eddie Gomez; and, his Elecktric Band. That's a little bit of something for everyone. Is anyone going?

Oh the humanity!

[Late]

I wonder how many musicians/makers-of-sound think of YouTube as an audience, and how this factors/doesn't factor into the idea "feeling and depth."

[CJ Shearn]

Allen, I'd think you would be also bothered by the fact Chick has pretty much for the last several releases put out double albums.

Edited November 2, 2011 by CJ Shearn

[king ubu]

Allen, fer chrissakes, you're a merikin, how can you know Walser and Schulz!?

Interesting point there... Walser even more so, as parts of his (posthumously large) ouvre was indeed never "finished" and written into clean copy by him. But his final novel (The Robber / Der Räuber) is to me one of the most fascinating "modern era" novels, hell one of the most fascinating BOOKS EVER WRITTEN! And it was in painful work transcribed from his minuscule pencil writing... took years and a second edition (the first seems to have been marred with many mistakes).

Amazing character there, Walser! Maybe my very favorite author!

But it's almost sacrilege to bring this up in a Chikk-thread... (no elektrikk band for me, no matter if freezing cold or steaming hot). Can dig his old stuff a lot, now and then enjoy some more recent acoustic stuff (mostly radio broadcasts... Jaleel Shaw is a mother!), but I largely lost interest in his music post original RTF (the ECM and Polydor albums, not the later band that has been re- and re- and re-unified inspite of hubbardistical wars or whatever fallout these guys had...)