Attention, Pied Pipers!

[fasstrack]

His statement speaks for itself. Anyway, no music w/o listeners. Tree falling in the forest, etc.

[JSngry]

Players listening to each other = listeners.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Players listening to each other = listeners.

= (at best) rehearsal.

MG

[JSngry]

Players listening to each other = listeners.

= (at best) rehearsal.

MG

Oh, that depends. If they play in front of an audience and don't listen to each other, you got a big mess. You want players listening to each other, always.

Now, if they play in front of an audience and listen to each other in the service of getting more in tune with the music of the moment in order to more/most fully realize it, then if the audience is also listening for the same thing, you have a successful performance and happy people all around. If the audience is not listening for the same thing, then maybe it's a mismatch between audience and performers, in which case, it happens, and for any number of reasons. Keith Jarrett getting snitty at a large festival crowd is not the same as Keith Jarrett getting snitty at a crowd of drunks at some backstreet pizza parlor that he got booked into through some cosmic fuckup (not that such a booking would ever happen to Keith Jarrett, but "things like that" do happen to many people, and only sometimes are they not justified in being a little miffed about the whole thing).

The only time it = an (at best) rehearsal is if the musicians are playing at each other trying to do some basic calibrations that should have been done at an actual rehearsal. To do that in front of an audience is only salvageable if you let them in on what's going on, why it's necessary, and beg their understanding. Then you might have a successful performance. Might.

Playing for/to an audience is all well and good, but there are just as many different types of audiences as there are people playing to them. There is no "one size fits all" "right" way to do it, other than to hope, pray, and do your best homework to get the right players playing in front of the right people. Myself, I'll never meet an audience more than halfway, nor will I expect them to do the same for me. If it can't happen, let's both do what we gotta do to get through the night. If you gotta leave, fine. If I gotta play stuff I don't really dig but don't really hate, fine.But if that still don't get it, neither one of us should be here together doing this thing at this time. But life is not fair.

Hell, people who are deeply in love get married, have kids, and then fuck around, fuck up, and get divorced. Musician/audience relationships are never as deep as that. Never. And anybody on either side of the equation who lets it get that way is acting in an ill-advised matter with misplaced priorities about both music and life. Obviously more rehearsal is needed!

[fasstrack]

There was an interesting on-camera interview w/Ellington where he responded to a question re whether he gets tired of playing Satin Doll or A Train: 'I suppose I could get the guys together to play my more complex things-in a REHEARSAL BAND' I guess he was saying the same thing as Tony Bennett answering a similar query on San Francisco, that he was grateful to the public. The royalties from the hits and tickets sold subsidized the band and his own composing. The thing about audiences is the same as w/any endeavor involving other people: get them to like and trust you and they will listen. If you change direction some listeners may feel betrayed, but new ones will be gained. That's life-risk and growth. The main thing: esp. in the performing arts no one creates in a vaccuum.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Players listening to each other = listeners.

= (at best) rehearsal.

MG

The only time it = an (at best) rehearsal is if the musicians are playing at each other trying to do some basic calibrations that should have been done at an actual rehearsal. To do that in front of an audience is only salvageable if you let them in on what's going on, why it's necessary, and beg their understanding. Then you might have a successful performance. Might.

Depends what you mean. Louis Jordan and Ray Charles both used to work on new songs live, as you say, getting the calibrations right, then, when they'd played about with the songs and were pretty sure the audience would like them, go into the studios and record them. I never heard of either of them begging their audiences' indulgence or even telling them.

Les McCann did, at Montreux with Eddie Harris in the intro to 'Cold duck time'. That came out all right.

I don't think I have a problem with either way, though I was never at a Ray Charles gig where he was working up 'What I say'

Playing for/to an audience is all well and good, but there are just as many different types of audiences as there are people playing to them. There is no "one size fits all" "right" way to do it, other than to hope, pray, and do your best homework to get the right players playing in front of the right people. Myself, I'll never meet an audience more than halfway, nor will I expect them to do the same for me. If it can't happen, let's both do what we gotta do to get through the night. If you gotta leave, fine. If I gotta play stuff I don't really dig but don't really hate, fine.But if that still don't get it, neither one of us should be here together doing this thing at this time. But life is not fair.

Hell, people who are deeply in love get married, have kids, and then fuck around, fuck up, and get divorced. Musician/audience relationships are never as deep as that. Never. And anybody on either side of the equation who lets it get that way is acting in an ill-advised matter with misplaced priorities about both music and life. Obviously more rehearsal is needed!

I agree with all that.

MG

[JSngry]

Players listening to each other = listeners.

= (at best) rehearsal.

MG

The only time it = an (at best) rehearsal is if the musicians are playing at each other trying to do some basic calibrations that should have been done at an actual rehearsal. To do that in front of an audience is only salvageable if you let them in on what's going on, why it's necessary, and beg their understanding. Then you might have a successful performance. Might.

Depends what you mean. Louis Jordan and Ray Charles both used to work on new songs live, as you say, getting the calibrations right, then, when they'd played about with the songs and were pretty sure the audience would like them, go into the studios and record them. I never heard of either of them begging their audiences' indulgence or even telling them.

Nah, I'm talking much more basic than that. I've been on gigs where people will stand around discussing how some new "composition" is supposed to go for, like, 10-15 minutes, on the bandstand, and then turnaround and start playing w/o as much as a word of apology/explanation to the audience before or after. I've also seen people get up and leave the second or third time that happened - in the same set - and to be honest, I'd just have soon done so myself.

Then there's the question of having sound checks/getting instruments tuned/can the drummer and bassist hear each other/etc. going on after the set starts. Sometimes it's a logistical inevitability, sometimes not, but I really don't think it's something that you don't acknowledge to an audience if it goes on for too long and is too obvious. You're handling the "private" part of your business on "public" time, and I think it's a bit lax and/or arrogant to do that and expect an audience to not wonder wtf is going on, why are these guys being such amateurs (or behaving like it, anyway). So you should be proactive about that type thing wen it happens.

Just my opinion, though, and far from universal.

[robertoart]

I've got an ... er ... 'soundboard recording' of a James Blood Ulmer gig with Amina Claudine Myers and Jerome Brailey. Perhaps, because some of Blood's tunes revolve around a similar kind of 'drone', they start playing a number...and Amina Claudine Myers starts playing a different tune to the one Blood Ulmer's playing. Which - if you know the material they were doing at the time (the 'Blue Blood' album) -is quite easy to see happening. When Blood realises what's happened, he announces to the band (and audience), "it's the wrong song-it's the wrong song". They keep playing - and then Blood says to the audience - "ahh, we'll try and make something of it anyway"

Edited September 19, 2012 by freelancer

[A Lark Ascending]

Depends on the audience, and the performer.. often a mutual antagonism between an artist and an audience is inevitable and essential I believe. “FUCK the audience” can mean different things. If it means a disregard for the expectations of the crowd, that’s one thing - if it means a lack of motivation for producing something of any value, that’s another.

I agree that there is no imperative on a performer to live up to the crowd's expectations - I suspect a lot of us here pay, at least sometimes, to have our expectations challenged.

Can't say I can see any reason for the performer to be arrogant or rude about it, though. Yes, occasionally a nerve will be hit and the performer, like the rest of the human race, might lose his or her rag. And some performers are just shy; what seems like indifference might just be self-consciousness.

I just like the idea of performers as part of the rest of society doing their bit as I do mine. The Romantic ideal of the 'artist' as somehow above the herd, in communion with something higher, doing something more important than everyone else ('spiritual' to our 'temporal') just does not appeal. Always find it a bit odd that the 20thC musical radicals tore every part of Romanticism to bits - except the idea that the 'artist' can operate by different rules. Odd; but not surprising.

[robertoart]

I always thought Romanticism was an Aesthetic/Philosophical tradition associated with the Sublime and The Enlightenment. A substitution of the 'awe and terror' of nature for the newly diminished 'awe and terror' of 'God'. I guess in the context of what A Lark Ascending is saying however, it is/was the precursor of the valorising of the 'artist-individual' over the art, so to speak. And the natural progression from this lead to Modernism in Aesthetics and Existentialism in Philosophical thought. Is this not where the heroic individualism of the Artist as a special kind of maverick took root? Ayn Rand and her 'ideas' being possibly the vilest outcome of the 'Individual against the world' kind of outlook.

Edited September 19, 2012 by freelancer

[fasstrack]

Performers doing their bit in society.. Bingo! To that I would only add get rid of that antiquated European fabrication, the stage. Let the performers have no partition or physical elevation from the audience. (Fat Cat in NY does this, and for me it's relaxing and basic to work there). That way they start out equals-and an egotist would have to dig deeper to feel above the crowd. Get up close and personal, and don't pen off audience or performer. Place the musicians in the center of the action, not apart. What Miles Davis called 'social music'.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Players listening to each other = listeners.

= (at best) rehearsal.

MG

The only time it = an (at best) rehearsal is if the musicians are playing at each other trying to do some basic calibrations that should have been done at an actual rehearsal. To do that in front of an audience is only salvageable if you let them in on what's going on, why it's necessary, and beg their understanding. Then you might have a successful performance. Might.

Depends what you mean. Louis Jordan and Ray Charles both used to work on new songs live, as you say, getting the calibrations right, then, when they'd played about with the songs and were pretty sure the audience would like them, go into the studios and record them. I never heard of either of them begging their audiences' indulgence or even telling them.

Nah, I'm talking much more basic than that. I've been on gigs where people will stand around discussing how some new "composition" is supposed to go for, like, 10-15 minutes, on the bandstand, and then turnaround and start playing w/o as much as a word of apology/explanation to the audience before or after. I've also seen people get up and leave the second or third time that happened - in the same set - and to be honest, I'd just have soon done so myself.

Then there's the question of having sound checks/getting instruments tuned/can the drummer and bassist hear each other/etc. going on after the set starts. Sometimes it's a logistical inevitability, sometimes not, but I really don't think it's something that you don't acknowledge to an audience if it goes on for too long and is too obvious. You're handling the "private" part of your business on "public" time, and I think it's a bit lax and/or arrogant to do that and expect an audience to not wonder wtf is going on, why are these guys being such amateurs (or behaving like it, anyway). So you should be proactive about that type thing wen it happens.

Just my opinion, though, and far from universal.

Oh, I do agree. Seems to me I've seen that happening more in rock than jazz.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I always thought Romanticism was an Aesthetic/Philosophical tradition associated with the Sublime and The Enlightenment. A substitution of the 'awe and terror' of nature for the newly diminished 'awe and terror' of 'God'. I guess in the context of what A Lark Ascending is saying however, it is/was the precursor of the valorising of the 'artist-individual' over the art, so to speak. And the natural progression from this lead to Modernism in Aesthetics and Existentialism in Philosophical thought. Is this not where the heroic individualism of the Artist as a special kind of maverick took root? Ayn Rand and her 'ideas' being possibly the vilest outcome of the 'Individual against the world' kind of outlook.

I think it's the child of the French and Industrial Revolutions.

Under the Ancien Regime, since the dawn of civilisation, the ruling classes had always been the patrons/employers of artists of any type; they were the only ones who could afford to support artists. Under those circumstances, there could be no question of the artist being seen as 'The Great Man', even if he was a Bach or a Da Vinci, because he was an employee of some rich nob.

The two revolutions reduced the importance of the old aristocracy, in frequent cases by killing them off, but also by pauperising them. At the same time, they increased the prosperity and importance of the bourgeoisie, which within relatively few years became the new ruling class. Parvenus. It became possible for artists to look down on those people, who, unlike the aristocracy, didn't have the education to appreciate their skills because it was attuned to more practical matters. This was encouraged by such works as 'La vie Boheme', which served the interests of the new ruling class by absolving them of responsibility (the members of the old aristocracy, despite many defects, did understand, and insofar as they or their descendants exist, still does understand that their position was one of responsibility) and served the interests of the artists by placing them on a pedestal. This is a VERY great generalisation but may be useful in terms of identifying a trend.

At the same time, some, perhaps many, artists realised that they had to appeal to a wider public than just the nouveau riche. I always think of Theophile Gautier's novel 'Mademoiselle du Maupin' (1835) as being the greatest example of the commercialisation of the great man view of art. It's regarded as a handbook of Art for Art's Sake, and rightly. But it's a HOT sex story, too. Is this the way to market Art for Art's Sake?

MG

[fasstrack]

I don't find Ayn Rand's ideas 'vile' in the least, just glibly misinterpreted by many-and misappropriated by the right. She was anti-collectivist (also anti-God) but the me-against-the-world piece is overplayed. In The Fountainhead Roark wasn't out there by himself. He was sometimes in harmony with and sometimes opposed to some strongly individual people with their own motives and conflicts. Ultimately it took a collaboration to design and build the Wynand Building and in the end Roark's sticking to his guns was not only a victory over the herd mentality and its manipulators but led to the actualization of the Dominique Francon character. But everyone who tried to take Roark down did it by calling him an egotist making himself and his buildings above the people he served. He wasn't. He was an independent thinker willing to collaborate with like minded thinkers on projects bigger than any one idea or ego, that served the public anyway. Not collectivist or tyrant, but a 'collaborationist'.

[cih]

I think the pedestal thing is complicated - as I see it the story of modernism was of a continued effort to remove it, practitioners aligning themselves with (at different times) engineers, architects, artisans, revolutionaries, 'primitive' cultures, the insane etc etc*... unfortunately the fact that personal expression and creativity are so at odds with the working day and the demands of business, serves to keep art locked in that separated strata which both stops it interfering with the status quo, and also provides the ultimate in saleable products - imports from the rarified realm. How this benefits the 'artists' is questionable (the cliché is that it only works for you when you're dead - not altogether untrue). But I might be being romantic when I say that the evolving art of a hundred years ago was far more resistant to being put in its special place than it is today.

*I have to say I don't know much about modernist or radical music, other than the sorts of musics that were first produced as entertainment, and later adopted by radicals as part of the effort to align themselves with something 'other' (blues, early jazz - pre-selfconsciously 'arty'), which raises the question of which 'audience' we're talking about.. also, much of the music recorded last century, away from the stage and the studio and out 'in the field' does put into perspective notions like 'rehearsal' and 'performance' - that is, work songs &co..

Edited September 20, 2012 by cih

[fasstrack]

Lester Young still sounds modern to me.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I think the pedestal thing is complicated - as I see it the story of modernism was of a continued effort to remove it, practitioners aligning themselves with (at different times) engineers, architects, artisans, revolutionaries, 'primitive' cultures, the insane etc etc*...

I don't think I agree with this, but I do think it probably depends on how you look at it.

unfortunately the fact that personal expression and creativity are so at odds with the working day and the demands of business, serves to keep art locked in that separated strata which both stops it interfering with the status quo, and also provides the ultimate in saleable products - imports from the rarified realm. How this benefits the 'artists' is questionable (the cliché is that it only works for you when you're dead - not altogether untrue). But I might be being romantic when I say that the evolving art of a hundred years ago was far more resistant to being put in its special place than it is today.

*I have to say I don't know much about modernist or radical music, other than the sorts of musics that were first produced as entertainment, and later adopted by radicals as part of the effort to align themselves with something 'other' (blues, early jazz - pre-selfconsciously 'arty'), which raises the question of which 'audience' we're talking about.. also, much of the music recorded last century, away from the stage and the studio and out 'in the field' does put into perspective notions like 'rehearsal' and 'performance' - that is, work songs &co..

You're treating this issue of 'personal expression and creativity are so at odds with the working day and the demands of business,' as an absolute, but it ain't. There are hosts of original creative artists whose work is in no way at odds with the working day and the demands of business. Rev J M Gates, Rev C L Franklin, Ellington, Armstrong, Parker and Coltrane made plenty of money, (though they didn't always spend it wisely). I think I'd have to recognise that for musicians to reconcile these different and apparently opposed concepts is more difficult in a country in which the markets are ruled by huge monolithic dompanies (such as the USA) than in one like Senegal, in which there are no major companies and there's therefore a much freer and more competitive market, with room for a much greater diversity of approach. But, in the end, people are probably best at dealing with their own circumstances rather than with a foreign system.

MG

[JSngry]

I'm not at all convinced that creativity is at odds with business. Look at all the creativity at work in advertising, motion pictures, graphic design, programming, etc. I'm not talking about finding the results to my personal liking, I'm just talking about people who exercise their creative abilities in an existing business model and don't suffer from it. And let's be real - some people in those fields are creative and actually enjoy being "commercial". It all comes down to how you're wired. The people who make those wacked out Jack In The Box commercials are pretty damn creative as far as I'm concerned, and successful as hell.

The only time that creativity and business are at odds is when the results of a certain creative output do not play into the needs of an existing business structure. Even when that happens, there's usually an opportunity for somebody to create a business structure around that output, though, and get all entrepreneurial and shit. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

For that matter, there's a certain creativity involved in creating and running a business to promote creative output that does not yet have an existing business structure in place. Finding and building a viable market where one does not exist, that's not necessarily a plug-and-play process, if you know what I mena.

Creativity comes in all forms, including business. Now if you want to talk about "Art" as opposed to creativity, then there might be a different argument to be made, although I suspect that once all the subjective projections are filtered out, maybe not nearly as much of one.

[fasstrack]

Of course you're right. Creative people are better off in the business world anyway, where at least you get paid, than the snake pit of the arts world. It's a MF out here, and you have to be really committed-or ready to BE committed. A hard road, to quote a John Mayall title of yesteryear. But FWIW you remind me that Tal Farlow was a sign painter. They said in the biz that a well-done sign had 'snap'. Tal said the same is true of music-it either has snap or it's not quite there. Great quote, I thought.

[JSngry]

I'd like to think that if more artists got in touch with their inner mongoose that the snake pit of the arts world would be significantly less snake-y. But then you run the risk of being "unloved" or some such. The snakes get all hurt-feelingsly when the mongosse comes in.

Hell, never mind the mongoose. Be the Honey Badger!

Snap on that!

[A Lark Ascending]

Interesting reading a Brahms biography last year. I was surprised to read that he was quite down to earth and realistic about the role of artists by contrast with the Liszt/Wagner axis who played the superiority of the artist card for all it was worth.

[A Lark Ascending]

I think the pedestal thing is complicated - as I see it the story of modernism was of a continued effort to remove it, practitioners aligning themselves with (at different times) engineers, architects, artisans, revolutionaries, 'primitive' cultures, the insane etc etc*...

There's a fascinating - if highly controversial - interpretation advanced by John Carey that modernism was all about the ruling class getting petrified by their exclusive zone of culture being invaded by the bourgeoisie and, in particular, the masses as a result of rising literacy in the late-19thC. The result was to create an art so difficult to penetrate that it would keep the riff-raff out. Those of a left-wing persuasion then justified it as what the proletariat ought to want if only they were free of their chains.

As far as I can see 'abstract' art continues to be largely consumed by an upper/aspiring-middle class audience.

[robertoart]

I don't find Ayn Rand's ideas 'vile' in the least, just glibly misinterpreted by many-and misappropriated by the right. She was anti-collectivist (also anti-God) but the me-against-the-world piece is overplayed. In The Fountainhead Roark wasn't out there by himself. He was sometimes in harmony with and sometimes opposed to some strongly individual people with their own motives and conflicts. Ultimately it took a collaboration to design and build the Wynand Building and in the end Roark's sticking to his guns was not only a victory over the herd mentality and its manipulators but led to the actualization of the Dominique Francon character. But everyone who tried to take Roark down did it by calling him an egotist making himself and his buildings above the people he served. He wasn't. He was an independent thinker willing to collaborate with like minded thinkers on projects bigger than any one idea or ego, that served the public anyway. Not collectivist or tyrant, but a 'collaborationist'.

I think you are being very generous in your interpretation here. As far as misappropriated by the Right - if the shoe fits...

Sometimes the idea of 'progressive aesthetics' can be co-opted to provide the 'aesthetic-poetry' for 'survival of the fittest' 'social' ideologies - from where Rand was undeniably coming from. Leni Riefenstahl used fascist aesthetics to similarly create the visual poetry to support the Nazi ideology. She also has her defenders who try and separate her power as a visual organiser, from the fascism it sought to enable. One of the aims of Post-Modernism wasn't merely appropriating - but also to deny artists the ability to get away with such things 'merely in the name of Art'. Artists had to begin to take responsibility for the meaning of their work, and what that work represented beyond the aesthetics. I'll give Rand the benefit the doubt and say that perhaps she had 'the trickle down effect' in mind. But I doubt that.

[fasstrack]

Inner Mongoose! I'm stealing that-guaranteed. You get a co-write though. Make sure ASCAP has your address (;

Inner Mongoose! I'm stealing that-guaranteed. You get a co-write though. Make sure ASCAP has your address (;

[robertoart]

Of course you're right. Creative people are better off in the business world anyway, where at least you get paid, than the snake pit of the arts world. It's a MF out here, and you have to be really committed-or ready to BE committed. A hard road, to quote a John Mayall title of yesteryear. But FWIW you remind me that Tal Farlow was a sign painter. They said in the biz that a well-done sign had 'snap'. Tal said the same is true of music-it either has snap or it's not quite there. Great quote, I thought.

And he left the music world for a considerable amount of time, to return to sign painting. Apparently because he didn't like the lifestyle and social milieu of being a jazz musician back in the day. I suppose other musicians of his time made a similar choice when they became 'studio musicians' or joined TV bands.