LF: Herbie Hancock quote

[Larry Kart]

About Solal, I was thinking of his impish, feline wit/playfulness -- impulses/habits that seem to me to crop up in a lot of French art of all sorts, though of course Solal's native land is Algeria. In any case, Herbie's "impressionism" seems to me to be a different kind of thing.

If you wanted to play the lineage game (and it's a mug's game for the most part) you could identify, in pretty much concrete terms, the things that Herbie shares with impressionist French antecedents. "Impish and feline" isn't going to get more concrete than that.

If you can't hear the Frenchness in Solal, I can't help you. But that's OK by me -- if you don't hear it, you don't.

[Larry Kart]

There have been discussions in the past, in other threads, that devolve into the whole "can't call it 'African' and 'it's not REALLY 'African-American', there's all this other stuff too" thing, and...I've had enough of it myself. It's like everybody gets to claim something as being "their own" except African-America (in any way you break that hybird apart), which is without question the overwhelming reason why any of this happened in the first place.

I mean, really.

Right -- you've got a point there.

[JSngry]

That's all I'm saying. We can go anywhere once that basic gets solidified, but...it ain't happening. It just ain't happening. As for who to blame, I can and will blame anybody and everybody for overeaching, doing the right thing for the wrong reasons (and vice-versa), etcetcetc but g**damn it, ingredients can & do come from anywhere & everywhere, but when it comes time to bake the pie, you don't let a committee do that, and the pie don't bake itself, and it ain't no accident what comes out of the oven.

Mmmmm.....pie!

[umum_cypher]

[robertoart]

How many of these European Jazz players, especially the ones of the 50s, 60's and 70's were academically classically trained (just like Herbie), and how many learnt their skills in community or on the bandstand? I think the European-ess of many European players from the earlier era comes from just that. An immersion and social-indoctrination in Classical music language and touch. From Bach to Satie to whatever. African-American musicians on the other hand, seemed to use the Army as a place to learn musical competency before being able to make a living on the road. And if Hancock (as he obviously was), is saying that all non-American based Jazz is simply Provincial, then I would agree with him. But it seems that time has passed - and now 'The Region' - is the whole world. No wonder the sense of urgency and need to reclaim Black American Music by the BAM movement. And the support it received from Black Musicians to ditch the Jazz word.

[Pete C]

I've never thought of Solal's style as particularly French. Maurice El-Medioni's style is definitely Jewish-Algerian-Cuban, though.

[Larry Kart]

"If you can't hear the Frenchness in Solal, I can't help you. But that's OK by me -- if you don't hear it, you don't."

It's a problem to be helped then? A Jewish pianist growing up in French Algeria playing a music widely identified as African American - I just don't much fancy filtering that complex through music, boiling it down and coming up with Frenchness, especially when those things (minority identities, colonial relationships, American cultural imports) have been redefining what France "is" in pretty profound ways during Solal's lifetime.

As it happens I do hear what I take to be something rather French in Solal, but it's nothing to do with his alleged humour. It's in his touch and articulation, which is (or at the start of his career, before free jazz shook things up, was) so utterly precise, clear and light, every note dead centre - the French piano pedagogues called it the "jeu perlé". But I might be imagining that, since he didn't have an extensive formal classical training, and lots of this stuff is confirmation bias more than anything IMHO. The informing African impulse, less so, surely.

No, not a "problem" -- I just meant that I can't take you to a place when your experience, sensibility, intellect, etc. say "There's no 'there' there." As for "jue perle," I've heard some of those pianists on recordings -- e.g. Marguerite Long -- and can detect little resemblance between their touch and articulation and Solal's, which can be near explosive. Rather, in those realms (and others,e.g. his use of harmonic trap doors) I think of Solal as perhaps the most deeply Tatumesque pianist we have, though not in terms of photographic imitation. So, very Tatum-esque and also deeply Gallic? Well, before I try to tackle that (and that may not be for a while), your "Jewish pianist growing up in French Algeria playing a music widely identified as African American" doesn't convince me that the outcome can't be very French any more than "George Gershwin, a Jewish pianist-composer growing up in Manhattan's Lower East Side ghetto, playing a music widely identified as African American" couldn't result in something very American -- though, aspects of this (alleged) American-ness or Frenchness certainly could be something that such figures themselves significantly redefined.

[.:.impossible]

Are you guys talking about gumbo?

[JSngry]

Are you guys talking about gumbo?

I very much like gumbo (My mom had people in and around Houma & Grand Isle, so I got the taste early on). So, yeah.

I don't like the way everybody fixes it, though. So, yeah.

Especially when they claim "authentic recipe" and then charge you out the ass for bullshit. So, yeah.

And I especially don't like it when people mindlessly mispronounce "jalapeno". Especially on TV where somebody should, and probably does, know better, but figures that more people speak English than Spanish, so fuck it, we getting this money, let'em worry about in Mexico HAHAHA buuuUUUURRRRRPPPppppp.

In such ways does the world go even more wrong.

So, yeah.

[umum_cypher]

As for "jue perle," I've heard some of those pianists on recordings -- e.g. Marguerite Long -- and can detect little resemblance between their touch and articulation and Solal's, which can be near explosive. Rather, in those realms (and others,e.g. his use of harmonic trap doors) I think of Solal as perhaps the most deeply Tatumesque pianist we have, though not in terms of photographic imitation. So, very Tatum-esque and also deeply Gallic? Well, before I try to tackle that (and that may not be for a while), your "Jewish pianist growing up in French Algeria playing a music widely identified as African American" doesn't convince me that the outcome can't be very French any more than "George Gershwin, a Jewish pianist-composer growing up in Manhattan's Lower East Side ghetto, playing a music widely identified as African American" couldn't result in something very American -- though, aspects of this (alleged) American-ness or Frenchness certainly could be something that such figures themselves significantly redefined.

Agreed on both counts. Solal certainly doesn't sound like Long or the others, not least because of what he's playing, but behind all Solal's verbiage I hear a kind of centred touch there which is different to even the most "technical" of mid-century US players', I think. I have some passages from the Gaveau recordings in mind, I'll look them up when I get home from holiday (actually I'm in France. It's hot as hell, and the locals are getting impish).

The point further up about classical vs eg army training is interesting, and there's surely something in it - but again, maybe not too much. Long taught René Urtreger for a while, and there's not a lot that's "perlé" about his touch, which I find quite bruising in the 50s.

Re Gershwin - that's my point. Solal isn't just fitting into a pre-existing mould of Frenchness (and there are attempts to do that - André Hodeir's music makes an extended effort to occupy the Debussian tradition). In his working with all kinds of incoming and pre-existant material and influences, Solal like everyone else is part of the process of defining what Frenchness is at the time. Music isn't reflecting that local identity, it is that identity.

The same could be said for Herbie, from the other side of the fence, but with the French classical tradition still very much a point of reference.

[robertoart]

Yes for Herbie, on a personal level, the French Classical tradition was an influence, but overall, that influence is affecting his personal sensibility, and not a whole tradition he was otherwise a part of. I know at the time, many players who had formal lessons would have started with learning materials associated with Classical music, but how far can, and should, these arguments go. I mean was Bird's interest in Stravinsky of equal weight to the Blues. Was the Slominsky scale book a game changer for the music? Classical music is there tangentially in Jazz, but it would have been omnipresent in the lives of most of the European players. I think Jazz, for many of the European pioneers, would have been a rebellious choice of expression, and they would have approached their Jazz from a foundation in European Classical harmony, whereas for the overwhelming majority of Black Jazz musicians, no such choice would have existed, either culturally or socio-economically. Also, I wonder as well, how many White US jazz musicians were formatively versed in Classical harmony - before they began to learn the Jazz language.

[fasstrack]

I guess Herbie should know. He used to play jazz.

And that, ladies and gents, was the starting gun---and----they're off!!

[Gheorghe]

I´m sure there are a lot of European musicians who got their own style and that´s great.

But I must admit, that my personal tastes are quite limited to American jazz. Though I am European, it was the jazz played by Miles, Mingus, Trane, Rollins, Ornette that I dug. I was a kid when I heard Miles on radio and didn´t even know who he was, but I knew that´s "my music", the first time I really dug music, almost 24 hours a day.

I can understand if Herbie said it that way, but maybe it should have been said else, but musicians are musicians and not lawyers or diplomates.

When Mingus was asked what he thinks about British jazz, what do you think he said?

[A Lark Ascending]

How many of these European Jazz players, especially the ones of the 50s, 60's and 70's were academically classically trained (just like Herbie)...

In the British case in the time period you mention, not many. More the case now (but I suspect that's equally true in the USA).

...and how many learnt their skills in community or on the bandstand?

Again, and in the time period you mention, most. Lots came up through dance bands, amateur trad/skiffle bands; some played in radio orchestras. By the 60s/70s many were getting their grounding in blues bands (McLaughlin for example) and later still many started in rock.

Today's younger performers are far more likely to come up via academic training though that is not always classical and I can't say the classical training is what I hear first and foremost in most players. It does sound different to American jazz, even contemporary American jazz, but that is more due to the different environment and a very conscious effort by many musicians since the 60s (not all) not to sound American.

I'd imagine something similar is true of other non-US countries with a strong internal jazz tradition.

Edited August 24, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[umum_cypher]

How many of these European Jazz players, especially the ones of the 50s, 60's and 70's were academically classically trained (just like Herbie)...

In the British case in the time period you mention, not many. More the case now (but I suspect that's equally true in the USA).

...and how many learnt their skills in community or on the bandstand?

Again, and in the time period you mention, most. Lots came up through dance bands, amateur trad/skiffle bands; some played in radio orchestras. By the 60s/70s many were getting their grounding in blues bands (McLaughlin for example) and later still many started in rock.

Today's younger performers are far more likely to come up via academic training though that is not always classical and I can't say the classical training is what I hear first and foremost in most players. It does sound different to American jazz, even contemporary American jazz, but that is more due to the different environment and a very conscious effort by many musicians since the 60s (not all) not to sound American.

I'd imagine something similar is true of other non-US countries with a strong internal jazz tradition.

[fasstrack]

It's kind of hard to believe such a statement could come from someone not only as forward-looking as he always has been, but who has worked with and embraced such international talent as Milton Nascimento, more recently African Lionel Louke. I doubt he said this.

Jazz is an international language now. Not only do we not own it, but there is exciting and fresh improvised music coming from all corners of the world b/c a great thing seems to have happened: The Europeans and others grew up, embraced their own traditions, and said 'the hell with copying America. Let's do our thing. Of course they respect and study our tradition and masters but now they've taken the leap of faith all real artist do, predicated on the realization that you are only yourself, are stuck with it, so you may as well love it. You get a foundation and grounding, then the ball is passed to you. Catching and running with it is how not to be a copycat.

So what Herbie said or did not say is a red herring. Somewhere a budding Thelonious Monk, African, Croatian, or Finlandic-style is playing vibrant jazz based on what is real to him.

[robertoart]

How many of these European Jazz players, especially the ones of the 50s, 60's and 70's were academically classically trained (just like Herbie)...

In the British case in the time period you mention, not many. More the case now (but I suspect that's equally true in the USA).

...and how many learnt their skills in community or on the bandstand?

Again, and in the time period you mention, most. Lots came up through dance bands, amateur trad/skiffle bands; some played in radio orchestras. By the 60s/70s many were getting their grounding in blues bands (McLaughlin for example) and later still many started in rock.

Today's younger performers are far more likely to come up via academic training though that is not always classical and I can't say the classical training is what I hear first and foremost in most players. It does sound different to American jazz, even contemporary American jazz, but that is more due to the different environment and a very conscious effort by many musicians since the 60s (not all) not to sound American.

I'd imagine something similar is true of other non-US countries with a strong internal jazz tradition.

Personally I'm with Gheorghe in terms of listening history and preferences. But certainly I see what you mean for British Jazz pedigree's. I know Derek Bailey always mentioned his beginnings in the dance bands of the era. So not classically trained, but still a long way formally from the American roots. The Trad thing is interesting, Britain and Australia both shared this movement. As I understand it, the Cavern was a Trad Jazz club originally. And then I believe, there was also the strong Calypso influence as well. The Trad thing though, was very tied to the Louis Armstrong (etc) records as the blueprint was it not? In Australia it was inexplicably linked to 'Modernism' throughout the 30s -50's, and in the 60's became almost a 'mainstream pop music' at certain points. However, I still hear the Ronnie Scott scene as connected to the 'classic Blue Note/50s-60s Jazz aesthetic.

So perhaps those things mark British Jazz of the time as a working class music?

Now for France, and especially the Eastern Block countries, and Scandanavia in the era before Jazz Studies Courses, I'd really only accept evidence based arguments that (as a rule) Classical music was not the 'Lingua Franca' jumping off point for Jazz.

Here is an excerpt from an article on NHOP,

He studied classical music as a foundation, but jazz was in the air, and all through the Pedersen house. “Since I’m the youngest, all I know of music goes back as far as I can remember. Since my older brothers played Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and God knows what, when they said, ‘Play the bass,’ I thought it was very interesting, intriguing. One of my so-called heroes was Walter Page. To me, that was one of the greatest rhythm sections ever.”

My link

And here is another excerpt from a Karl Berger interview,

TP: How did vibraphone become your instrument of choice?

KB: That’s also very accidental. I am a classical piano player, and as I was playing in a little club in Heidelberg called the Car-54, which was frequented by a lot of American players from the Air Force and Army bases around there… That’s where I met Carlos Ward, Cedar Walton, Lex Humphries, Don Ellis, and all these people. The piano was always in bad shape and out of tune, and there was a vibraphone player who came in sometimes, but then he left his instrument there. So I basically started playing it because the piano was so bad! The other reason was I could get up and move around. Because music makes me think of dancing always—and there I could do that, I could move around. But purposely, I never took a lesson on the vibraphone. So it’s my toy. Like, I played a vibraphone probably, because of that, like nobody else, just because I never learned how to play it classically.

So piano is really the instrument I know everything about. Vibraphone I only use for my own compositional and improvisational purpose.

My link

Also with regard to the 'wide-world' of Jazz. Why do so many non-American Contemporary Jazz trained players decamp to New York for as long as they can sustain it?