An All Year Season of Discontent in Jazz

[Brad]

Article in today's New York Times by Nate Chinen, http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/arts/music/jazzs-year-of-complaint-citing-whiplash-and-the-new-yorker.html

[David Ayers]

Jazz. How is that still a thing?

[paul secor]

Fluff article - as usual with The Times. Written and published just to fill in empty space.

[Larry Kart]

Leaving aside "Whiplash," which to me seems an unrelated matter (also, I've only seen the tour de force verbal abuse scene, not the whole film), I think that the main point of interest in the Rollins-W. Post- and faux KOB kerfuffles and their offshoots is where they came from and why. That is, none of this b.s. would have worked (or "worked," if you prefer) if there hadn't been some prior agreement (or "agreement") out there in some precincts of the culture that jazz was a handy stand-in for all sorts of stuff that gets or has been culturally sanctified without the likes of the would-be hip sneering classes being consulted or getting a vote. No, I don't think that the indignant moralistic tone of much of the pushback to the aforementioned provocations was strategically sound -- I would have preferred a brief surgical response on the "why" front, then silence -- but one of the things mentioned in the Times piece seemed to me to be the best response at all because it wasn't a response but just was good/full of life and, FWIW, abundantly, unpretentiously hip: Antonio Sanchez's drum score to "Birdman."

Fact is, we've come to the point (though that point may well have passed) where jazz can be/could be used by turds, trolls, and creeps to advance their little agendas. The only answer, as in the "Birdman" score, is more or less un-ignorable value and vigor. Yes, getting such work out there is a problem, one that was solved in the case of "Birdman" because of the actual tastes of the people who were already in charge there/in a position to make things happen. But isn't that often the case?

[David Ayers]

Not sure I've got Larry's point but is it this - rattle the jazz cage by saying jazz is pointless fare for middlebrows who think it is art - people pour out to say in a laborious and PO-faced way, 'who are you callin' middlebrow?' - point made, cage rattlers move on to next cage.

[colinmce]

Fluff article - as usual with The Times. Written and published just to fill in empty space.

Yep. If guys like Chinen just shit the fuck up for once maybe things like this wouldn't happen in the first place.

[colinmce]

And most certainly we would not have this concept of "in jazz" to worry over to begin with.

[JSngry]

It's all Wynton's fault, he killed it, this is just what death looks like in real time, show's over, everybody go home, nothing to see here.

TAXI!

[Larry Kart]

Not sure I've got Larry's point but is it this - rattle the jazz cage by saying jazz is pointless fare for middlebrows who think it is art - people pour out to say in a laborious and PO-faced way, 'who are you callin' middlebrow?' - point made, cage rattlers move on to next cage.

That's pretty much it -- the cage rattlers part and the "laborious and PO-faced" response part. But I don't quite get the "pointless fare for middlebrows" versus "who are you callin' middlebrow?" dynamic. Didn't seem to me that either the free-lance cage rattlers or the irritated occupants of the jazz cage had, or were accusing others of having, their brows at any particular level, high, middle, or low. Rather, it seems to me, that this mini-shebang was based (however distantly) on the various moves over the years to more or less defensively sanctify jazz -- e.g. "It's America's classical music," Wynton and J@LC, the Ken Burns series, etc. Maybe Jim in post #8 kind of agrees with me on that, but maybe he's just having fun.

[David Ayers]

Yes I get that it is something about the failure to move jazz up to highbrow status, and that having failed...I think. I guess we never really had Wynton here in Europe so it all reads differently over here ;)

Edited December 31, 2014 by David Ayers

[JSngry]

Maybe Jim in post #8 kind of agrees with me on that, but maybe he's just having fun.

Doing both, doing both...in the old days you could just cut a motherfucker for getting all dicty and/or bitchy. Now you just go and whine about it online. Not sure how much progress that is, to be truthful, because in the old days, you thought twice about getting all dicty and/or bitchy, hello bullshit, meet deterrent. Nowadays, it's like, hey, all the dicty and/or bitchy your ass can eat, don't worry, if we run out we'll make you some more, open house at this house, we never close, and everybody naked all the time.

You know, when everybody's naked, nobody's naked. But your private parts are still out there for the critters to eat on anyway. Who's got the upper hand then if not those who want to eat and run? Is that really a preferred state of being, I ask you?

Happy New Year!

[marcello]

Chris Kelsey call the kettle black!

[colinmce]

Chris Kelsey call the kettle black!

Nailed it.

[JSngry]

Hello, everybody gettin' naked, like naked is the place for everybody need to be.

Be careful what you ask for, etc.

[Steve Reynolds]

Amazing that someone who has a forum to write about this music is hung up on nonsense.

I wonder what shows he attended last year? What recordings did he *really* listen to? How about talking about the actual music? His article reads like a page 6 gossip column.

I got woozy reading his stupid 2014 summary.