The proverbial "is jazz dying?" story

[Muskrat Ramble]

What's really ironic is that he'd probably agree with 99% of what's been posted here in terms of the deterioration of culture, except that he'd consider jazz as part of the problem!

Not ironic, really. Two regimes extremely interested in codifying and preserving national/ethnic culture, the Third Reich and the Soviet Union under Stalin, tried to do away with jazz, damning it as "degenerate" music, to use the German term of the time. (Of course, the Nazis also used jazz as propaganda--if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, I guess.)

Ironic, perhaps, to hear people defending "traditional" values of decency, decorum, and dress but at the same time loving jazz. In the days before it became a niche art form that could be marketed as an icon of trendy, up-market sophistication, jazz was perceived as pretty down and dirty by the standards of the time, afaik. There was certainly fear of it in some quarters. It sure wasn't always viewed as "America's classical music," something a bunch of middle-aged white guys can use to exhibit their refined taste in music

If anything, jazz has traditionally been about breaking down barriers and traditions, of casually crossing musical, cultural, and racial boundaries. It was post-modern before the term existed, as John F. Szwed has noted. Guys like Wynton and Co. notwithstanding, it's a fundamentally liberal, progressive (or at least polymorphous and dynamic) art form. So put on your baseball cap and start swinging

Edited January 30, 2004 by Muskrat Ramble

[Chrome]

Point taken about how people used to view jazz as being "down and dirty," etc., but I doubt Adorno got his ideas from the Nazis.

He was an assimilated Jew who was kicked out of his university professorship by the Nazis and left Germany in the mid 1930s, although he did return after the war.

On the other hand, even though Adorno's criticism of jazz was couched in academic terms (he was also a professor of music or something similar), I always secretly thought he really DID hate jazz for exactly the reasons you mentioned, not the Nazi stuff, but basically looking at jazz the way some people looked at rock when it first entered the mainstream.

[Muskrat Ramble]

but I doubt Adorno got his ideas from the Nazis.

I wasn't implying that he did. The implication was the certain brands of conservatism that focus on cultural purity and standards in the face of inevitable change have tended to view jazz as a musical plague. Jazz has usually been happy to subvert (unintentionally or otherwise) received hierarchies and narratives. That's part of its great beauty: it tends to do what it wants, and that scares conservatives. I imagine that's probably a big part of the reason Crouch, Wynton, and Co. are so interested in erecting a sort of official jazz historical narrative with its own value scale, canon, and preservationist museums (e.g., Lincoln Center).

(he was also a professor of music or something similar)

And composer. Some of his works have been recorded.

Edited January 30, 2004 by Muskrat Ramble

[Jazzmoose]

Yes, but now that rock and hip hop have "further eroded the cultural landscape", jazz by comparison seems downright elitist. Hence, it doesn't qualify for the scorn anymore. Just look at the treatment of jazz in the media. Instead of thequick, tilted camera shots of wild eyed Black jazz performers designed to raise anxiety in movies like D.O.A., we get pretentious "cultural" presentations, like Take Five lending upscale trappings to an Infiniti commercial.

To tailor the message to both factions, it's either "we're so far into the abyss at this point, that jazz is upscale by comparison", or "been down so long it looks like up to me."

[Simon Weil]

but I doubt Adorno got his ideas from the Nazis.

I wasn't implying that he did. The implication was the certain brands of conservatism that focus on cultural purity and standards in the face of inevitable change have tended to view jazz as a musical plague. Jazz has usually been happy to subvert (unintentionally or otherwise) received hierarchies and narratives. That's part of its great beauty: it tends to do what it wants, and that scares conservatives. I imagine that's probably a big part of the reason Crouch, Wynton, and Co. are so interested in erecting a sort of official jazz historical narrative with its own value scale, canon, and preservationist museums (e.g., Lincoln Center).

I sometimes amuse myself with the fantasy that Albert Murray read Adorno's view of Jazz and decided that it was a good idea. Hence Wynton, Jazz as Democratic, the whole Lincoln Center spiel, Ken Burns et al...

Just to amuse myself, that is...

Simon Weil

[Dr. Rat]

but I doubt Adorno got his ideas from the Nazis.

I wasn't implying that he did. The implication was the certain brands of conservatism that focus on cultural purity and standards in the face of inevitable change have tended to view jazz as a musical plague. Jazz has usually been happy to subvert (unintentionally or otherwise) received hierarchies and narratives. That's part of its great beauty: it tends to do what it wants, and that scares conservatives. I imagine that's probably a big part of the reason Crouch, Wynton, and Co. are so interested in erecting a sort of official jazz historical narrative with its own value scale, canon, and preservationist museums (e.g., Lincoln Center).

(he was also a professor of music or something similar)

And composer. Some of his works have been recorded.

Jazz is a threat to no one. "Subverting hierarchies" is meaningless if no one is listening, and if those hieracrchies are old hat and stupid for practically everyone who does listen.

Adorno was making an aesthetic point: he beleived that aesthetically challenging music could be personally transforming. He did not think jazz measured up--and I think if you go back and listen to the bulk of what was getting pumped out in the 1930s and 1940s, you'd probably agree that the transforming possibilities of the music was, shall we say, minimal.

It was a highly commodified form. Adorno didn't like art in the form of a commodity. One could argue that this critique is what motivated Ellington to start working in more extended forms and inspired Gillespie and Parker to start laying the groundwork for bop.

The reason everyone is so down on Adorno is that he chose jazz as a subject for attack, and that's something that we're all supposed to valorize today. I think it could weel be argued that Adorno's opponents are the ones who are conservative: they want to keep art safe & trivial. Adorno is fighting for an art that is more than that.

I think that certainly Murray and Crouch and Marsalis have absorbed some of these critiques of commodity form in their "anti-hip-hop" moments. But there is a lot more going on--politically, socially--in their work than what we'd simply label perjoritively as "conservatism."

If it is conservatism, it is of an engaged and thought-out sort rather than of a knee-jerk sort. Which is not something that can be said of many of the reactions they've inspired.

--eric

[Phil Meloy]

Baseball caps. I hate them.

[Chrome]

I'm not down on Adorno ... I think he was incredibly prescient. I also agree with that what Adorno was railing against was the commodification of culture.

However, I think his choice of jazz as an example of an art/commodity was a poor one. Early jazz is not really my cup of tea, but I would strongly disagree that the stuff in the 30s-40s was just "pumped out" on an assembly line. Perhaps what motivated Ellington/Parker, etc., was, in fact, the "transformative" power of early jazz.

[Chrome]

Regarding Marsalis/Crouch I'd refer to my previously post Adorno quote: "The dream industry does not so much fabricate the dreams of the customers as introduce the dreams of the suppliers among the people."

I think the opinion of most Marsalis haters is that they are the customers and Marsalis/Crouch are the suppliers.

[Dr. Rat]

Regarding Marsalis/Crouch I'd refer to my previously post Adorno quote: "The dream industry does not so much fabricate the dreams of the customers as introduce the dreams of the suppliers among the people."

I think the opinion of most Marsalis haters is that they are the customers and Marsalis/Crouch are the suppliers.

I think they are much more interestingly seen in the context of contemporary black politics (black nationalism, increasingly complex class divisions amongst blacks, large scale failure of inner-city education, both of the official and "handed-down across the generations" type, etc., etc.)

They make a number of more general aesthetic points, but I think that the point of origin within a struggling but culturally extremely important and highly visible minority is really what is crucial.

Introducing their dreams to the consumers is their dream, I suppose, but I don't think that is avoidable. What art does not do that, strive for that in some way. That's what it's all about, isn't it?

One of the problems I have with Adorno is that sometimes his critiques of the corrupt aesthetic object or the corrupt aesthetic process end up being, in truth, critiques of the aesthetic as such.

His critiques are so thoroughgoing that he himself has no ground to make the critique from--this goes for his critique of instrumental rationality as well, which quickly becomes a critique of reason as such and an argument for the impossibility of critique

--eric

PS Personally, I love old jazz of the 30s, but I have to admit that a lot of it was just churned out. As was a lot of copycat bebop. I enjoy a lot of the churned out stuff nonetheless, corrupt as I am.

[Chrome]

(1)Introducing their dreams to the consumers is their dream, I suppose, but I don't think that is avoidable. What art does not do that, strive for that in some way. That's what it's all about, isn't it?

(2) One of the problems I have with Adorno is that sometimes his critiques of the corrupt aesthetic object or the corrupt aesthetic process end up being, in truth, critiques of the aesthetic as such.

(3) His critiques are so thoroughgoing that he himself has no ground to make the critique from--this goes for his critique of instrumental rationality as well, which quickly becomes a critique of reason as such and an argument for the impossibility of critique

(1) My interpretation of Adorno, FWIW, is that, inevitable or not, the producers introducing their dreams to the consumers is a major problem for "culture" ... and that art should not so much seek to impress its dreams on people as that culture should be somehow constituted to allow the dreamers to challenge and dream for themselves.

(2) This is exactly what I think happened with Adorno and jazz.

(3) On the other hand, I feel very much the same way you do about Adorno essentially painting himself in a corner with his criticism. I find this to be a major problem w/a lot of the more modern "philosophers." They're able to present worldviews/critiques/whatever that seem very convincing, but then they refuse to apply that mode of criticism to their own work. Which makes sense for exactly the reason you mentioned: their works remove the very ground on which they're standing to make their points.

[connoisseur series500]

Baseball caps. I hate them.

It's even worse in England. They don't even play baseball here and they're still everywhere!

[Simon Weil]

They [Marsalis/Murray/Crouch] make a number of more general aesthetic points, but I think that the point of origin within a struggling but culturally extremely important and highly visible minority is really what is crucial.

That's true. But the bottom line about these people is not aesthetic and it's not social, it's political. They are ruthless cultural politicians. Everything they do is calculated towards their end of making Jazz into the national American artform in the sense that it's supposed to contain the essence of America in it. Now, people with a fair amount of knowledge of German cultural history will know that that was precisely what Germans thought about art. Think Wagner, for example (Crouch quotes him in one of WM's sleevenotes). So all Marsalis/Murray/Crouch et al are doing is importing this essentially German view into American cultural life. And if you look at Ken Burns, who came out of the Lincoln Center view and just continues it, he says that Jazz will "save" America. And I kid you not.

Once people get into this zone, of thinking that what they're doing is going to save America (or the World or Germany or Mars or whatever damn place is dearest to their heart), it's understandable that everything else fades into the background.

But this is yesterday's news. After Burns, their dreams are dead in the water.

Simon Weil

[Dr. Rat]

But this is yesterday's news. After Burns, their dreams are dead in the water.

You really think the series was that boring?

--eric

[Dr. Rat]

That's true. But the bottom line about these people is not aesthetic and it's not social, it's political. They are ruthless cultural politicians. Everything they do is calculated towards their end of making Jazz into the national American artform in the sense that it's supposed to contain the essence of America in it. Now, people with a fair amount of knowledge of German cultural history will know that that was precisely what Germans thought about art. Think Wagner, for example (Crouch quotes him in one of WM's sleevenotes). So all Marsalis/Murray/Crouch et al are doing is importing this essentially German view into American cultural life. And if you look at Ken Burns, who came out of the Lincoln Center view and just continues it, he says that Jazz will "save" America. And I kid you not.

But there are a lot of versions of this argument.

Is it poliitcal? Certainly. But there are differences in how they are political--what they are up to and why.

Wagner, heinous as he could be, was not Goebbels. (One big reason: he wasn't a government minister.)

And the traditional national policy of, say, preserving and encouraging French cultural difference is another thing. And the encouragement of Irish and Welsh language studies is yet another thing.

And then there's Leo Strauss, not to be confused with Carl Schmitt . . . you get the idea. I am highly suspicious about a lot of these "conservative" cultural lines of thought, but I think it's a mistake to be too quick to think of one version of it as an analogue of another.

--eric

[Simon Weil]

That's true. But the bottom line about these people is not aesthetic and it's not social, it's political. They are ruthless cultural politicians. Everything they do is calculated towards their end of making Jazz into the national American artform in the sense that it's supposed to contain the essence of America in it. Now, people with a fair amount of knowledge of German cultural history will know that that was precisely what Germans thought about art. Think Wagner, for example (Crouch quotes him in one of WM's sleevenotes). So all Marsalis/Murray/Crouch et al are doing is importing this essentially German view into American cultural life. And if you look at Ken Burns, who came out of the Lincoln Center view and just continues it, he says that Jazz will "save" America. And I kid you not.

But there are a lot of versions of this argument.

Is it poliitcal? Certainly. But there are differences in how they are political--what they are up to and why.

Well it's what I said. It's precisely and exactly that they're trying to save America.

"Today, America's only possible hope is that the Negroes might save us, which is all we're trying to do," Murray recently told the New Yorker. "We've got Louis, Duke, Count, and Ralph [Ellison], and now we're trying to do it with Wynton [Marsalis] and Stanley [Crouch]. That's all we are - just a bunch of Negroes trying to save America." Conversations with Albert Murray p96-7 1996

Wagner, heinous as he could be, was not Goebbels. (One big reason: he wasn't a government minister.)

Yeah, but there is a connection and it's this. Wagner saw his art as prophetic. He kept saying that on and on, including the idea that it contained "Germaness" in some equisitely concentrated form. Just add water (or the right regime I guess) and you get Germany as it should be. This is for the Mastersingers of Nuremberg.

" ... in the completion and production of The Mastersingers ... I was governed

by the idea of offering the German public a picture of its own true

nature."/Shall We Hope? PW6 p114 May 1879

And in 1933, Goebbels stated:

[The Mastersingers is the] "most German" [opera] - "the epitome of German

civilization, embodying everything that helps to make up the the German soul

and German cultural awareness."

And, for comparison, here's Wynton on Jazz:

"The connection between jazz and the American experience is profound. Believe me, that's why the fact that it has not been addressed has resulted in our losing a large portion of our identity as Americans. Because the artform that really gives us a mythic representation of our society has not been taught to the public." American Heritage Oct 1995

<snip> I am highly suspicious about a lot of these "conservative" cultural lines of thought, but I think it's a mistake to be too quick to think of one version of it as an analogue of another.

They sure as hell look analogous to me.

Simon Weil

[Chrome]

Without knowing the context of the Marsalis quotes, it looks to me like he's speaking more about integrating the black experience into mainstream America.

Look at this phrase:

"Believe me, that's why the fact that it has not been addressed has resulted in our losing a large portion of our identity as Americans."

My first thought on seeing something like this is that Marsalis meant "our" to mean "blacks."

Marsalis strikes me as "conservative" in the sense that he thinks all jazz should be one thing, the thing he likes, end of story. He doesn't strike my as Bush conservative.

[Dr. Rat]

And in 1933, Goebbels stated:

[The Mastersingers is the] "most German" [opera] - "the epitome of German

civilization, embodying everything that helps to make up the the German soul

and German cultural awareness."

And, for comparison, here's Wynton on Jazz:

"The connection between jazz and the American experience is profound. Believe me, that's why the fact that it has not been addressed has resulted in our losing a large portion of our identity as Americans. Because the artform that really gives us a mythic representation of our society has not been taught to the public." American Heritage Oct 1995

QUOTE 

<snip> I am highly suspicious about a lot of these "conservative" cultural lines of thought, but I think it's a mistake to be too quick to think of one version of it as an analogue of another.

They sure as hell look analogous to me.

Simon Weil

I guess what I'm saying is that the Crouch/Murray line of thinking is also analagous to a lot of cultural preservation movements which we would probably agree are generally harmless, or at least not comparable in level of perniciousness to Naziism.

Murray does seem to have the same sorts of ideas about the content and function of culture as did Wagner.

To speak just to the (admittedly important) "general cultural" thrust of this line of thinking, rather than to it's more particular import to someone who sees himself as a black american cultural leader:

America has a problem with cultural identity formation. I used to teach a course with 19-year-olds focussing on just this point. The usual consensus answer to the question "What does it mean to be an American?" was "Consumptive participation in the cornicopian American economy" (I paraphrase, of course).

While this is wonderfully inclusive (so long as you've got money--love gets you nowhere here), it seems to me to be impoverished, as well.

The sense of impoverishment is not lost on 19-year-olds, either. They sometimes expressed a sort of envy for minorities who at least are "something" (even if something viewed as negative in some quarters) rather than "nothing."

This, I think, is dangerous. It makes us vulnerable to the cheapest forms of jingoism and nationalism because they offer "something."

Illusory as it might be, a well constucted national identity might well be far better than one that's just left to be essentially nothing.

--eric

[Simon Weil]

Without knowing the context of the Marsalis quotes, it looks to me like he's speaking more about integrating the black experience into mainstream America.

Look at this phrase:

"Believe me, that's why the fact that it has not been addressed has resulted in our losing a large portion of our identity as Americans."

My first thought on seeing something like this is that Marsalis meant "our" to mean "blacks."

He's definitely talking about America as a whole. That's the whole thrust of his vision - derived from Murray and Crouch. They aren't interested in operating in a black ghetto, or anything approaching. Marsalis conceives Jazz as this artform that's been invented by blacks, but has transcended its origin.

Q: How closely is jazz tied up with the experience of African-Americans?

WM: It's inseparable - in its inception. They created it. But why has who created it become more important than what was created? It has transcended its inception. the ancient Greeks have come and gone, but the Iliad is still here.

American Heritage (same interview as above) 1995

He isn't identifying with blacks. They are "they" rather than "we".

Marsalis strikes me as "conservative" in the sense that he thinks all jazz should be one thing, the thing he likes, end of story. He doesn't strike my as Bush conservative.

Who knows what his political views are? He doesn't talk about them.

Simon Weil

[Dr. Rat]

Without knowing the context of the Marsalis quotes, it looks to me like he's speaking more about integrating the black experience into mainstream America.

Look at this phrase:

"Believe me, that's why the fact that it has not been addressed has resulted in our losing a large portion of our identity as Americans."

My first thought on seeing something like this is that Marsalis meant "our" to mean "blacks."

He's definitely talking about America as a whole. That's the whole thrust of his vision - derived from Murray and Crouch. They aren't interested in operating in a black ghetto, or anything approaching. Marsalis conceives Jazz as this artform that's been invented by blacks, but has transcended its origin.

Q: How closely is jazz tied up with the experience of African-Americans?

WM: It's inseparable - in its inception. They created it. But why has who created it become more important than what was created? It has transcended its inception. the ancient Greeks have come and gone, but the Iliad is still here.

American Heritage (same interview as above) 1995

He isn't identifying with blacks. They are "they" rather than "we".

Marsalis strikes me as "conservative" in the sense that he thinks all jazz should be one thing, the thing he likes, end of story. He doesn't strike my as Bush conservative.

Who knows what his political views are? He doesn't talk about them.

Simon Weil

Yes, you're right, he's specifically referring to the national culture generally, but you can't discount the context.

It isn't that he's thinking of restoring "culture" or his idea of it just to the ghetto, but that his sense of urgency on this question derives quite crucially from the position of blacks in this country, where there are proportionately half the number of black men with college degrees as white men, where young blacks go to horrible schools and where blacks themselves often seem to have a very ambivalent attitude toward education.

To people like Marsalis, a lot of this crisis in the ghetto comes down to cultural failings both within the ghetto and in the society at large (blacks, having the least in terms of power and wealth, naturally suffer most when the purely cultural assets of a society wither. If being American is buying lots of neat shit, ghetto blacks are in trouble, because they don't have the economic resources to participate).

So though the culture theme here is directed generally, I don't think it can be looked on apart from the racial context.

--eric

[Simon Weil]

I guess what I'm saying is that the Crouch/Murray line of thinking is also analagous to a lot of cultural preservation movements which we would probably agree are generally harmless, or at least not comparable in level of perniciousness to Naziism.

It's very intense. That's the main difference between guys like Murray and Wagner, to lump them together, and your more average "culture is at the heart of society" guys. They really think everything is at stake if their form of art does not win through. It's quite scary just how intense they are. There is also a parallel to do with degeneration, which is not really present in a lot of your standard preservation movements. The conception of this evil, dreadful, horrible culture-destroying degenerate fake-art is really quite central to both the Lincoln Center view and Wagner (to take one example). This is why Wynton would get so aggressive about avant-garde Jazz/fusion. He felt that it was rotting away at the core of American identity - by pretending to be Jazz when it was not. You get exactly the same stuff in Wagner - except it's German identity.

The importance of this "negative ideal" in both the Lincoln Center conception - and Wagner - is one of the most striking parallels between the two.

On the other hand, one of Murray's big influences is Malraux - and Malraux was minister of Culture in France when they were doing their Frenchness is to be found in culture thing. So it's pretty likely that Murray was influenced by the French approach. I'm not going to deny that one can make parallels with other guys like that.

Murray does seem to have the same sorts of ideas about the content and function of culture as did Wagner.

They both come out of Herder. That's one thing. Murray gets it via Constance Rourke, but probably directly as well. Also he's mad keen on Thomas Mann, who was a Wagner obsessive in his formation. And actually, there's probably some getting in there via Malraux as well. It is difficult to absoutely pin it down, because Murray's not about to destroy his mystique as an heroic elder by going into the nuts and bolts of his sources. But my personal feeling is that the guy hasn't got enough critical distance from whatever sources he's used.

To speak just to the (admittedly important) "general cultural" thrust of this line of thinking, rather than to it's more particular import to someone who sees himself as a black american cultural leader:

America has a problem with cultural identity formation. I used to teach a course with 19-year-olds focussing on just this point. The usual consensus answer to the question "What does it mean to be an American?" was "Consumptive participation in the cornicopian American economy" (I paraphrase, of course).

While this is wonderfully inclusive (so long as you've got money--love gets you nowhere here), it seems to me to be impoverished, as well.

Well I'm an English Jew, so what I'm doing talking to you about this I don't know. But, anyway... I do absolutely agree that America has a problem with cultural identity. But, to me, it has more to do with the youth of the nation than anything else. I mean the nation goes through experiences - and the way it reacts to those experiences define and deepen and change its cultural identity.

So I mean Big Mac and Coke and stuff like that, archetypally about American consumption, are indeed central to American identity - at least as conceived from this side of the pond. But so are things like optimism, size, dynamism.

I think American culture does lack a depth, that's true. But then I don't know it well. But, to me, the main way a culture is going to develop that depth is not by creating great artworks per se. It's, to repeat myself, by dealing with the problems the culture throws up in the course of its development. It may be that art helps in that, by dealing with cultural problems that otherwise elude definition or solution - maybe they can get worked out, to some degree, in art. But I don't think that, say providing images of what it's like to be a great American (as conceived by the artist) helps a great deal unless these images are dealing with the actual underlying problems. The fact the art deals with the problems is what's going to give the art resonance and lead to it being absorbed by society (if you're lucky).

The thing about the Lincoln Center is I don't think they give a damn about the underlying problems (social, historical, whatever). They just think that if you create an image of an archetypal existential hero, then society will graciously accept it and get better. Blaaaghh.

But I do think society (and society) needs unifying images and symbols and personalities. And, indeed, can't do without them.

But they're produced by society as a whole, not one guy or one institution.

Simon Weil

[Simon Weil]

Yes, you're right, he's specifically referring to the national culture generally, but you can't discount the context.

It isn't that he's thinking of restoring "culture" or his idea of it just to the ghetto, but that his sense of urgency on this question derives quite crucially from the position of blacks in this country, where there are proportionately half the number of black men with college degrees as white men, where young blacks go to horrible schools and where blacks themselves often seem to have a very ambivalent attitude toward education.

To people like Marsalis, a lot of this crisis in the ghetto comes down to cultural failings both within the ghetto and in the society at large (blacks, having the least in terms of power and wealth, naturally suffer most when the purely cultural assets of a society wither. If being American is buying lots of neat shit, ghetto blacks are in trouble, because they don't have the economic resources to participate).

So though the culture theme here is directed generally, I don't think it can be looked on apart from the racial context.

--eric

I have gone over Wynton/Murray's stuff about the black condition, and, honestly, I find it hard to work out. They seem conflicted. I have a correspondant who was at one of Murray's lectures and asked him about blacks in the ghetto. And, to paraphrase, Murray said it was their own fault and they should work harder to get out. On the other hand all the Lincoln Center guys are clearly intensely concerned about the delibitating effects race has on society and on black society in particular.

My personal feeling is that they're not entirely clear what their role is vis a vis black society. It seems like they feel that, if they can convince white Americans to be more democratic (through the music, unbelievable as it may be), then problems for black Americans will work out. But Wynton is really a kind of cocooned guy. Going round in his bubble of gigs and educational events in which he's the great man and people gather round. I don't know, he seems pretty cut off from the average black person (or the average person come to that).

But he doesn't think so, I guess.

Simon Weil

[Dr. Rat]

It's very intense. That's the main difference between guys like Murray and Wagner, to lump them together, and your more average "culture is at the heart of society" guys. They really think everything is at stake if their form of art does not win through. It's quite scary just how intense they are. There is also a parallel to do with degeneration, which is not really present in a lot of your standard preservation movements. The conception of this evil, dreadful, horrible culture-destroying degenerate fake-art is really quite central to both the Lincoln Center view and Wagner (to take one example). This is why Wynton would get so aggressive about avant-garde Jazz/fusion. He felt that it was rotting away at the core of American identity - by pretending to be Jazz when it was not. You get exactly the same stuff in Wagner - except it's German identity.

The importance of this "negative ideal" in both the Lincoln Center conception - and Wagner - is one of the most striking parallels between the two.

I see what you mean about the negative moment in this stance. Way overdramatized and . . . Wagneresque.

Call me a stupid optimist, but I'm hoping this is an immature stage for Wynton, at least.

I used to teach at Rutgers, and I've had some personal exposure to Marsalis and one of my students had worked with him a fair deal in clinics, etc.

I can say: detached as he might be from the mainstream, he can be a very positive influence and role model, and this seems to be an extremely important role for his own self-image.

But I don't think that, say providing images of what it's like to be a great American (as conceived by the artist) helps a great deal unless these images are dealing with the actual underlying problems. The fact the art deals with the problems is what's going to give the art resonance and lead to it being absorbed by society (if you're lucky).

This is something I've been thinking about a lot of late from different angles. The role of the artist in our society has grown substantially beyond creating aesthetic artefacts. There's a new book out about the "new economy," the rising class of information and technoilogy workers, and the importance of artists in how these folks conceive of themselves and what they do.

Though artsists aren't getting rich, and they might not feel they get a whole lot of respect personally, the role of artist is pretty heaviliy valorized in our culture. So I think the figure cut by the artist, the "great man," does have social impact. Certainly this was something Ellington felt strongly: his life was the role of a lifetime.

Baldly: artists can be very important role models.

The Marsalis/ Murray diagnosis of what's wrong is being echoed now by a public televison series on black america by Henry Louis Gates, and part of his solution is a better class of role model.

--eric

[randissimo]

What the hell!??

Baseball caps. I hate them. When did it become socially acceptable for middle-aged men to wear baseball caps constantly? Will the fad ever die? How did such an ugly piece of attire replace something as cool as a Borsalino?

I should start a Jimmy's Rants page on my website!

[Jim Alfredson]

This has been a fascinating discussion. Randy, I'm not trying to single anyone out. You don't wear a baseball cap all the time, only once in a while. And who gives a crap what I think, anyway? I'm just some nutty organist!

Are artists valorized in this society? Depends on what you call an artist. The word is thrown around so much it has lost all meaning. Is Britney Spears an artist? The media would have you believe she is. In my mind she's entertainment, not an artist. Chuck Close is an artist. Jason Moran is an artist. Mia Lynn is an artist. Are they valorized? Not enough, imho.