Simon Weil

In the spirit of idiot New Year's Resolutions, I suggest applying Ayleresque soloing to rap. Would probably be the most hated possible musical fusion for Wynton. Happy New Year to the Lincoln Center. Simon Weil

In an uncomfortably high number of cases, the assumption that there is a "deep" to go to is one that I'm having a harder and harder time making. The bar may be set as high as it can stand being set. Of course, that's the beautiful thing about living in a cave - known quantities set the standard, become the standard, and life's a breeze. I think everyone has a "deep" - in the sense of all sorts of repressed emotions and drives and God knows what. The thing that really bugs me about the "aesthetic" view of jazz is it seems to be a way of sidelining these emotions and drives in the quest for a beauty of the form. I think that's part of the Western ideal, to distrust emotions. But it leads to an awfully selfless - in the sense of you can't see any self in there, because the guy's not emoting - form of Jazz. This is the Marsalis form, which conceives of jazz as something in which emotion is induced in the audience rather than anything you articulate in and from your self. And, and, AND...? I do my standard thing which is compare Marsalis to Ayler, who is all about emotionality. See, these are two poles of the human spectrum...and they're the two poles of Jazz. We have swung much too much towards the Marsalis pole, now we need to go back the other way. That is we need to relegitimize going "deep". Simon Weil

I think the (? standard) answer is that the great artist is both of his time and transcends it. The rest of us might do great things if we get really lucky. Simon Weil

Alright, I'm going to put my foot straight in now. But, if you really want to reconnect up with popular culture, it's clear to me that you need vocals. And not just Jazz vocals, but pop vocals. Somehow I have the idea that if something like the Joe Fonda/Michael Jefry Stevens group (w. Herb Robertson) did a record with the vocalist from Portishead (whose name now escapes me), you might get something interesting. There are strangish, off-the-wall pop(ish) vocalists who might meld with the unexpectedness and deep resources of Jazz, yet at the same time provide access to a wider audience. I know there have been attempts (e.g. the Joni Mitchell stuff), but...now.... I'll stop painting by numbers. Simon Weil

Well...I've got a sense of disdain. Kind of "we don't have to take notice of that stuff anymore". I doubt there is really a true understanding of the core of Jazz, though. For what it's worth, I think a more viscerally powerful Jazz might do something to wake people from their stupor. Like most popular culture sends people to sleep. Simon Weil

OK. I get it. Simon Weil

Actually that would also be valid - Murray has a stance very like this, drawing on Malraux. I'm not sure if this is what they mean by mythology. I think not (probably). Simon Weil

I'll buy that. Luck. . . and craft. And I'll buy that. Except that I think that by and large it's political craft. That is to say I think he's a Jazz politican - maybe the first true example of that - and it is to that that he owes his success. That is he has created, along with his minders, an image - of himself and Jazz, which the public has found attractive. But he hasn't really got a great deal beyond that, at least for the majority of people. Looking at this thread, there are evidently a fair number of people to whom he is a really serious musician with a fascinating back-catalogue. But many more seem to be indifferent (some antagonistic). This only seems comprehensible to me if one asserts that his current top status in Jazz is down to extra-musical factors. Hence the idea of him as a Jazz politican, comparable to that of the Academic politician - good at climbing the greasy pole. But I think people have seen through the image. Simon Weil

Quite...They talk the talk and then...walk the dog. Or then there's the time I had a discussion about a Brit avant-garde film maker. I maintained her work was universal, the other guy that it was specifically Scottish. We got very heated. Meanwhile, the woman was standing right next to us, kind of ignored. God, it's embarrassing. Yup. People need myths (aka stories). Simon Weil

Well...His idea is that the core myth/narrative of America is the Democratic ideal, whereby America is the carrier of Democracy - in some sense that is what America is about. So when you go onstage as a Jazz musician your role is to enact that ideal - to take part in what he (and the rest of the Lincoln Center people) see as a democratic discussion in music. But this isn't just one place where it receives attention, it's THE place - Jazz is made the core exemplar of the American spirit. If you want to compare that to Wagner, in his writings, W says that his music is the core place where the GERMAN spirit is carried. But he thinks the German spirit is universal, just as Crouch et al think the American spirit is universal. Yup...Seems fair. Simon Weil

Well, to be fair to Crouch, he does include a quote by Wagner which shows myth as going right the way back. Trouble is, if I included that I'd get people's heads spinning even more than they already are. But then the whole thing is kind of intellectual Baked Alaska - overcooked on the surface and underdone inside. If I read you right, that's what you're saying anyway. Simon Weil

Crouch is not a debunker of myths. Or if he is, it is only in the service of building up his own. He believes that: "...all jazz musicians [when on stage enter] the world of vernacular American myth. But vernacular or not, the myth they addressed had the same components as once described by Richard Wagner...." Live at Blues Alley sleevenotes. I think you misunderstand his basic stance. Simon Weil

LOL. Simon Weil (I wish I didn't have to care about him)

I'm a long term Wynton-hater. Much more extreme in that than the average, I'd say. Yet, in the last few years I've come to the conclusion that the trend has been thoroughly in my favour. That is I am picking up a sense that, for most Jazz listeners, he's past his sell-by date. Is this wishful thinking (might be) - Or is there something there? Simon Weil

---The New York loft scene, for one. Thanks for the article 7/4, it was very interesting. There is no doubt that fusion was a leading form in the 70s. So was avant-garde, which would include the loft scene. Bop didn't do so well (at all). It was very hard (for me in the UK) to find those classic 50-60s dates which later became the meat and drink of the reissues industry. Then you got the 80s...with the rerelease of those albums and the arrival of Wynton Marsalis and things like John Carter's structured, written, recordings. These are quite different eras - which the article doesn't make clear at all. Fusion and Marsalis are important in their own eras. And you need to keep that in mind if you're going to be honest about the history of Jazz. Fusion is an uncomfortable and uncertain form; but so were the 70s. Simon Weil

Riot wouldn't mean anything if it wasn't for the singles (that went before). You need to know what he was before, how much light there was in there, to make sense of the gloom. I listened to those singles (at least some of them) as an unhip teenager and they were fun records to make you dance. I heard "If You Want Me to Stay" (lead cut from Fresh) booming out over the PA when I was working as a volunteer in Toxteth (The black ghetto in Liverpool) and that inspired me so much I did this thing with the lights which actually got one of those black kids looking at me like I could do something. So... Riot is a difficult record to listen to. I compare it elsewhere to Miles' late fusion period (and etc.) Didn't get either of them till many years later. One of those 70s listening to the music not entirely unaided experiences leads me to conclude that Fresh was put together from a sequence of very short edits. I just didn't feel like listening to Riot at the time. Simon Weil

Just to bring this a little wider I have the impression that, anyway in part, the 70s are coming back. A couple of the impressive movies of the last few years "King's Game" and "Syrianna" have been conscious attempts to return to aesthetic/political concerns - and seriousness - of that era. Also I went into a local Virgin, told the guy I was a Jazzer and interested in new rock. He recommended "The Mars Volta", who had been listening to Mclaughlin. I bought the CD, liked it - the first couple of tracks reminded me of "Turn it Over" by Tony Williams Lifetime (W. Mclaughlin). So I've made a CDR of 70s fusion(ish) tracks. Wait to see if the guy likes it. It does show that 70s fusion has new listeners. Simon Weil

Happy Birthday and Long Live the Ghost! Simon Weil

The last two collections Crouch has produced (of previously published articles) have merely retreaded old ideas. I see no sign of anything new in the uncollected stuff. So it's years and years since he's had a new idea. This may have some stuff in it - if he's been going at it that long - there will still be ideas from when he was still capable. "The First Volume"? Hell.....l......llllpppppp Simon Weil

I guess I'm biased in that I already have a take on 70s music/cultural etc interactions, Bitches Brew, Ist of 3 articles, and it isn't this. I think this evades fusion. Simon Weil

? Simon and I have some history but I don't know where this fits... You're surprised that I did a good job or I should be suprised that you think it's a good job? I mean...I could have let it go...but then...you could have left it out... I meant I liked it and I like your stuff generally. It's just you're real good and I wanted to show my appreciation of you being here. History...let's go private, Ed. Simon Weil

Yeah, there is a book available in German, Spirits Rejoice by Peter Niklas Wilson. This is a good biography, simply much better than anything we have in English. I have it, scanned it, put it through a translation device and read it (although I have a bit of German, this is the best way for me). I think that notion of "major recorded junctures" is a valid one. On that point, just get "Spirits Rejoice". The other record that doesn't seem to be mentioned is "My Name is Albert Ayler", recorded with a straightahead rhythm section mostly. It has this one track "Summertime" which I think probably qualifies as a masterpiece. Kind of has the same message as Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" to me. Other records, well it's difficult to know...I think Ed does a good job (Surprise!) of outlining Ayler's recorded history. You get an awful lot of material and variety (incl important stuff unavailable elsewhere) in the box. Much of it is very good. I think you have to make up your mind whether you want to go the important documents route, or the, more extensive, box route. However: Is right. Simon Weil [i don't know, I would probably get the box plus Spiritual Unity, if I could afford it.]

Love Cry is, to some extent, a record company concept. Impulse must have wanted short performances - tho perhaps Albert Ayler wanted a record like that also. I heard that band in concert (w. Junie Booth replacing Alan Silva) playing some of the Love Cry compositions, and they were played as a continuous medley - not broken up into separate pieces as they are on the record. I have to believe that's what Ayler wanted the music to sound like. Love Cry never did make a sense to me. Given what Paul says here, though, I think I begin to understand it. Maybe it was some sort of effort to move into Cecil Taylor "Conquistador" type territory. If you argue that he was making records that were already tight, focussed little bursts of structured activity, perhaps at Impulse's behest, then the last three records fit a pattern. Danasgood stuff said: No, but he is going back to the reassuring folds of the music of his formative period, as near as he can get with that music having moved on. In a sense it's a variant on Mary Maria being his "new mommy". He just sounds so painfully disconnected. Simon Weil

Well, no, not a business decision. More like a mix of a desire for money (largely unconscious) and a desire for adulation (seen as proof that he was getting his message across). I think there's a lot of truth in this. But inevitable, no I don't know about that. I mean there's all sorts of tangential forces operating on people to drag them off their path - by which I mean the place where they are artistically fully expressed. I think, when you are on that path, there is a kind of rightness to it and I don't think these records have that. There is a somewhat lost quality (not totally lost, he's still there) to them. I've never really bought that - about the old time religion messing them up. I mean it's some weird psychological stuff working through (maybe) religion, if it's that. I think it really did break his heart that no-one (or very few) in America listened to his stuff and was moved by it. In a sense it's about religion, but it's also about an artist, who's not really satisified with being an artist. I mean he wanted to be ultra-avant-garde and yet be famous and this is really an impossible combination (at least it is 99% of the time). You can get to be famous years later, that's the standard thing. Ayler was a guy who loved creating an impression - someone called him a peacock. I think that's what dragged him into making these records, mostly. That desire to have people looking at him. But it didn't happen. He didn't please the mass audience and he certainly didn't please the avant garde fans. I think that's the tragedy. Well, I don't disagree. At least not mostly. Simon Weil

Passion....vitriol...If you want passion and vitriol, all you have to do is go to, well, all the people who've hated Ayler over the years. Check out Ted Gioia. He positively rages at Ayler. And this is about the free soloing Ayler. This is what people get passionate about, for or against. If you love it (and you do love it), then you lament its absence - and that's where your angst comes from. If you hate it, well you hate its presence as Jazz. I mean passionate music produces passionate responses. Simon Weil