Department of useless Speculation: What

[cih]

interesting (i think) that Jelly Roll talks about Bolden really purely in terms of awesome power, and not in terms of 'quality' like he does with Keppard - though could this be uptown v downtown prejudice? Later in the Lomax book Paul Dominguez laments the fact that Bolden changed the way young creoles like Keppard & Bechet played (that is presumably substituting musical sophistication for power/rattiness). Are memories of Bolden's sound going to be tinted with some race bias?

[jeffcrom]

interesting (i think) that Jelly Roll talks about Bolden really purely in terms of awesome power, and not in terms of 'quality' like he does with Keppard - though could this be uptown v downtown prejudice? Later in the Lomax book Paul Dominguez laments the fact that Bolden changed the way young creoles like Keppard & Bechet played (that is presumably substituting musical sophistication for power/rattiness). Are memories of Bolden's sound going to be tinted with some race bias?

Along those same lines, Marquis found that musicians' assessments of Bolden's music-reading ability had a lot to do with how well the interviewee himself could read music. Those who were not good music readers rated Bolden's reading ability highly, while those who were good readers themselves tended to say that Bolden couldn't read well (or at all).

Edited November 18, 2011 by jeffcrom

[AllenLowe]

well, I don't want to cause a ruckus here - and we can agree to disagree, as the saying goes -but all I will say is that according to 2 people I know who are themselves the most knowledgable people I have ever come acrross about this time and millieu - Larry Gushee and John McCusker - Marquis' problem, aside from lack of reliablity, is a pervasive lack of understanding of the whole sociio-musical scene of that era - Larry called him "naive," though he was a bit reluctant to take the time to go through it point by point - though knowing Larry, if I talk to him enough, he will eventually give me more detail (he is not well these days). McCusker basically said that Marquis' had no real understanding of the concept of the New Orleans Creoles (a crucial thing in getting a grasp on early New Orleans); he gave me a detailed if somewhat difficult explanation, but I await his Kid Ory book for direct documentation. But he thinks Marquis didn't get it, and I will leave it to the Ory book to lay it out. But those two have really given me pause when it comes to Marquis.

Edited November 18, 2011 by AllenLowe

[AllenLowe]

addendum to the above - I just talked to Mr. Gushee - who said "call me back. If I have time I will pull out my copy of the book, which is covered with my markings of problems and errors."

[jeffcrom]

addendum to the above - I just talked to Mr. Gushee - who said "call me back. If I have time I will pull out my copy of the book, which is covered with my markings of problems and errors."

I would certainly be interested in hearing about the specifics of what Gushee thinks Marquis got wrong. I would have to see some pretty solid evidence before accepting the "lack of reliabilty" charge. There are just too many hoops of plausibility to jump through to believe that Marquis made stuff up. Not only would he have to make the stuff up, he would have to make up a bunch of fake sources, since almost everything is cited. And he would have to hope that no other researchers would check and find that the sources were false. And in the 34 years since it was published, I can't find that anyone has published anything refuting it.

Marquis does talk about the white/black/Creole and downtown/uptown aspects of New Orleans music and how that affected Bolden, although not in great detail. Even if you accept Gushee and McCusker's judgement of Marquis as naive in these matters (and I'm willing to), I don't see that as a fatal flaw in a book like this. A simplified way to view the book is that it's a work of reporting, rather than interpretation.

When I reread the book this week, I tried to be as critical as I could. And I did find a few weaknesses, but nothing major. I don't know Gushee, but I admire his work, too, and am sorry he's not well. But like I said, in the absence of solid evidence of errors or worse - fabrication - I don't see any reason to discount Marquis' work. The book is specific about its sources, and everything you've said so far has been pretty vague, so my judgement is still with Marquis.

And Allen, your opinion of the Bolden book seems so influenced by Gushee's opinion that I'm curious about whether you ever admired the book. Had you read it before knowing Gushee's view of it? What did you think?

And don't worry about causing a ruckus. This place is full of ruckuses, and this is a pretty interesting one - it's about jazz scholarship, not about personality. Like you said, we don't have to agree on everything. You can probably tell from my post #19 that you pushed my buttons on this topic, but I don't take it personally, and I hope you don't.

[AllenLowe]

no problem here. This is interesting.

I always found the Marquis book interesting but boring. But still an interesting source.

But I gotta admit, I have absolute faith in Gushee. He's not only a close friend, he is just unfailingly rigorous, and has always been able to back up his argument. Always; he's just so smart that I have many moments with his writing where I say "of course!" just because he is incredibly methodical and logical and just does not report speculation without saying it's speculation. I would walk off a building if he advised that it was an historically accurate gesture. Really, I would. So if he says he marked up his copy of the book, there has to be a lot of questionable things in it. As I said, he's not real well (about 5 years ago I could have gotten a lot more detail) and I'm not trying to be mysterious. He knows I've been thinking about this a lot, so I'll have to see what happens.

Edited November 18, 2011 by AllenLowe

[kenny weir]

This place is full of ruckuses

Rucki?

[Chuck Nessa]

Gushee's opinion may be more thought out than Wynton but doesn't carry any more weight. It is all mind games.