Simon Weil

What do you call an arab who owns a dairy herd? A milk sheik. (I gave up making up jokes after that)

It's an intelligent thing to do. Wynton likes Ornette. Many of Ornette's themes are "playable". By presenting a concert of this stuff, seen through the Wynton lens, he polishes up his credentials as not being an fanatic avant-garde hater. And he doesn't actually have to do anything very avant-garde. I guess Redman provides the "out". In more ways than one. Simon Weil

I've bought three things off Gemm. Bill Dixon's Intents and Purposes (LP) which was $50. Coltrane's Cosmic Music which was ca $20 from Japan - and the Coda with Val Wilmer's Ayler interview. All of those I absolutely had to have - and bought from 5 star merchants, having bitten the bullet on whatever the price was. I don't like buying music from unknown vendors, but if I have to... Simon Weil

Well look, Lazaro, 3 years ago on rmb (see the google archives) I had an argument with you about this same series (as then unreleased). I said there was something wrong with it. You talked about putting ..."some positive spin" on the series. And, to me that's what you're still trying to do. If I have a religion it's to do with truth. Enough already with the spin. Simon Weil

Two non-Jazz things: [Pat Metheny - Zero Tolerance For Silence]

Happy Birthday, Brownie! Simon Weil

1863 - 1485 Especially the Blue Note recordings of Attila the Hun. Simon Weil (aka this is a divisive poll)

I'm glad you went, Rooster - even if you're not quite sure about it. It's interesting to read your report - I find it does kind of fit with my perception of a more, let's say, user-friendly Wynton. He has definitely made an impression to tone down on the antagonism towards parts of Jazz he's previously slagged off (or perhaps simulate an interest in, even). In the interviews I have seen recently, he does tend to warble on. You get a lot of platudinous stuff. In general he seems less like the angry young man, than (as he is) in satisfied early middle age. It's interesting that he said stuff about women. Definitely has some problems there. Would have been nice to get your question in - but seems like he was keeping things pretty well under control. So it's difficult to see him answering anything too aggressive. The event comes across as Worthy - And him as Mr Worthy - or Mr Snooze-worthy, depending on your perceptions. Can't say I'd disagree (if that's right). Simon Weil

For evidence, you'll just have to wait for the fan(s) to hit the shit. Simon Weil

Sorry, but isn't this analagous to saying to Ernie Banks, "You're known as Mr. Cub. Considering that the Cubs still haven't gotten to the World Series, and blew it this year in heartbreaking fashion, isn't it time you step aside? Heck, why don't you just die already? You're obviously everything that's wrong with the Cubs." (I realize you'll miss the baseball reference, Simon, but others here know what I am saying). Well, I guess it's only fair that I get to reply to you kind of blindfold - I mean I do know a hell of a lot more about Wynton than you probably. Sort of evens things up. My feeling is that Wynton does have a case to answer here. One of his big themes throughout his career has been how avant-garde Jazz has driven people off. That implicitly the sort of more straight-ahead forms he advocates would be more easily comprehensible - and would bring back the Jazz audience supposedly alienated by Late Coltrane etc. So he's positioned himself as someone who will bring back Jazz's audience as well, as he sees it, recover its lost integrity. But he's failed in this. Even with Burns, he's failed. I think it's quite legitimate to say, "Well look, Wynton. You've had your innings. Now it's time for others to have a go." First of all, Wynton's "credibility" was damaged beyond repair among those who already disagree about post-60s jazz. So who are these presumed newbies who think Wynton is an idiot because Jazz didn't deal very well with the last forty years of the music? Wynton's credibility is exactly what it was pre-Jazz: For those who don't find anything worthwhile in free and fusion, he's fighting the good fight. For those who do, or are pushing the music into different areas, he's the anti-Christ. So what? Nothing has changed because of Jazz. What's changed is the "floating voters" in Jazz. People like you and me, on opposite sides of the Wynton debate, are probably more or less where we always were. But there was always a good number of people who were prepared to give Wynton the benefit of the doubt. To say that, despite his inflammatory rhetoric, perhaps he was more bark than bite. What changed was that they saw Burns, which was a product largely of the Lincoln Center world-view, and understood that his bite was just exactly the same as his bark - and they were getting bitten (or would be in due course). Because, as I said above, Wynton and his mates were trying to marginalize - through this series - much of what very many Jazz fans listen to. He hoped to spin it that that series wasn't a product of his perception of Jazz - but nobody bought it, and now he's reaping what he has sown (though he denies it). He's radicalised the people who were unsure about him before. Well, you're right and you're wrong. This is a place where people do concentrate a lot on the "classical" period (as you put it). But the fact is, this place is also so full up of knowledgeable and bright people, who take a view much wider than just, say, Art Blakey - that even with (perhaps) a kind of conservative POV - people are pissed off at what Marsalis has done through Burns. It's like a kind of a grade A insult to one's intelligence, that series. Simon Weil

I tend to see the semantics as an outgrowth of his relationship to the public. He essentially sees as it as his role to stand up for Jazz as conceived by him. It's not like he's looking, really, to give you straight answers - rather he's looking to proseletyze his view of Jazz, and use whatever questions may be thrown at him towards that end. He is a deeply agenda-driven guy. You can actually find his attitude to Miles' electric period in the pdf of the interview he gave to Burns which is on the pbs Burns site. He does, now, seem to have some respect for the 70s period - but complete contempt for the 80s Miles. Basically he hates fusion and considers it an invalid form. Always has. Even going back to pre public persona, there's an anectdote about him saying he ain't going to play fusion ca late 70s. You'll never get him to go along with the conception of it as at all vital. The whole fusion thing is mixed up with his desire to be "top" and thus replace Miles. He likes (even loves) Ornette's soloing. Can't stand his conception of group interaction/free Jazz which he considers chaos. His main problems come with the avant-garde except for Ornette's playing. E.G. late Coltrane, Art Ensemble, Braxton, WSQ, Cecil T. etc etc. Julius Hemphill (rooted in blues but not Jazz according to WM; too Euro). He's on record as saying M-BASE ain't Jazz (I don't know Osby's recent stuff.) . Wynton would probably run a mile from what Steve Coleman's been doing lately. All you'll probably miss, if you don't go, is getting frustrated. Simon Weil

You got it Rooster. I thought I'd never get away with saying that line. Simon Weil

I don't know if this is going to be a question, but we'll see what comes out of it. He must surely have some awareness that his credibility in the Jazz world has suffered a dramatic fall since Burns. In that series we learnt that, essentially, Jazz since 1960 was questionable - unless it was of the neo-trad sort that Wynton proseletyses. Or, any rate, we were supposed (or newbies were supposed) to learn that. But, being the boneheads that we undoubtedly are, we declined to take it at Burns/Wynton's say-so. Instead Jazz, as a whole, stuck to the view that there was something worthwhile in this music. Indeed, as so many threads here demonstrate, the post 1960s period in Jazz is central to what Jazz fans today listen to. So, looked at it like this, Wynton has been indulging - via Burns - in an attempted revolution from above. He's attempted to de-legitimize a central element of what Jazz fans listen to - implicitly telling us all that we're a bunch of half-wits and that he (and Burns who didn't know zip about Jazz before he got into this) is judge and jury on this issue. Unsurprisingly, this has drawn a quite enormous backlash - leaving Wynton in a position of lacking credibility as representative of Jazz amongst Jazz fans, while still being seen - outside of the music - as the face of Jazz. I don't think he can ever get that credibility back. He's alienated too many floating Jazz voters. But he seems unaware that his credibility is that fundamentally dented. He goes on like he's still the King of Jazz. But that is an unreal conception. So I guess I'd be looking for a question to pin him on his lack of credibility amongst Jazz audiences. Say: "As the public face of Jazz for ca the last 20 years, how do you reconcile that with the drop in Jazz audiences? Doesn't it imply that you have failed and that should move over?" Simon Weil

Yeah, he was kind of an indelible character. He had a role in one of those late John Wayne/Howard Hawks movies that I always remember (if not the title!). Watched Once Upon A Time in the West a week or so ago. It just makes a film "go" having a guy like that in it. In a way there's a comparison between a Jazz player's sound and this guy's look - Just in the way their presence remains with you. Kind of immortal like that. Simon Weil

I did happen to come a bit late to the concert...and saw Cecil going in the stage door. He seemed a bit floaty and disorientated - and I had the impression he was being supported by a woman helper, a bit. That sense of floaty also seem to appear on stage - and it was in that light that I read his performance. Like he never really did commit and give it his all that night. Simon Weil

Cecil played in the UK with Bang on a Can, which I guess you'd call a modern classical ensemble, a couple of years ago. They did a series of written pieces not by Cecil (maybe one was, I forget), which he more or less added colour to when he soloed. He also seemed subdued then, and I was a bit disappointed too (so it ain't just the French, Brownie). Tony Oxley was also there (although unbilled) and played in a more committed style. I am wondering if this is a pattern with CT - if, at his age and given the incredible physical demands his style must make, he's slowing down a bit - at least in some settings. It was quite an interesting concert, nonetheless. Simon Weil

If it were me, I'd ask how he relates his ideal of integration (aka democracy) with his lack of interest in integrating women into his band. He's always drivelling on about how Jazz is the ideal integrated music, but has a blind spot (or massive great hole, depending on how you look at it) regarding women. You could also ask him how, if Jazz is such an integrated music, it has such a poor record for women generally. Most other stuff he'll spin you, like the Jazz politician he is. I think he'll have prepared answers for questions relating to Fusion or Avant-garde Jazz - He's been getting more liberal (sounding) on those questions. 'Course I'm revealing my preoccupations now. Simon Weil

I think that is fundamentally because Jazz doesn't lend itself easily to the verbalization which is required for quality discussion. In part that's because it's music - i.e. rooted in non-verbal concepts. And in part it's because it's so rooted in on-the-spot improvisation - i.e. based in something unplanned and thus unknowable except in retrospect. This in contrast to going to a play (say) where the guy is dealing with x, y and z issues, which he probably conceptualizes in verbal terms - and we can likewise discuss them in verbal terms. And, further, whatever these issues are - x, y and z - that's what the final performance of the play is going to be determined by. But with Jazz, while there may be some programmatic performances - or elements of the programmatic to a performance, still we have the unknowable and unquantifable elements which are really why people go to the performance in the first place, to be excited and surprised etc, etc. But I have a suspicion that Jazz people like to keep Jazz mysterious and "theirs". Simon Weil

Happy Birthdays Chris... Simon Weil

I think he is a great player - and, maybe, the most controversial figure in Jazz - In that most people don't like his stuff at all. And there's a substantial vein of thought that asserts that he played chaos. That vein basically says he's where (or archetypally represents where) Jazz went wrong. There's a tremendous sense of life in Ayler. And, actually that is what he was trying to articulate in his music (see the Hentoff interview). His conceptions basically come out of the Christian church. He's kind of like a medieval mystic, only playing the saxophone in the 1960s! That is he was trying to get down to the elemental sources of the soul in Man. And I think he did it... Anyway...One of these days I'm going to try and write up my ideas... Simon Weil

There is no lightbulb. Simon Weil

Yeah, but why was it out this for us in the UK in the morning? You don't really get more than 10 people accessing the site then? Don't make sense. Simon Weil

I haven't read this book, but Curtis Cate, in his biography of Malraux, has one of the heroes Claude Vannec taking "his precious cargo of lifted statuary" on a detour inspired by Conrad's Heart Of Darkness... Malraux seem like an amazingly talented con-artist to me. Aesthetican, novelist, explorer, minister, left to right wing changecoat etc., etc. Maybe his greatest role was that of war-hero, where he suddenly reinvented himself as "Colonel Berger" in occupied France and went round organizing the resistance. Seems like could talk his way into or out of anything... Simon Weil

Likewise...and also...likewise. Simon Weil

Not just a story. In the 1920's Malraux and a partner did actually go to a Kmer temple and remove fragments of sculpture (chunks of stone which they had to pry out with some effort). They were tried, convicted and left in a kind of limbo for nearly a year while an appeal went through. This failed, but a campaign in metropolitan France, stressing Malraux's wonderful artistic bent - plus good lawyers, enabled him to get off with a suspended sentence and return home. On a vaguely Jazz related note, Malraux is one of Albert Murray's big heroes. One can hardly read Murray's theoretical stuff without falling over references to Malraux's aesthetics. The reason this might be vaguely interesting is that I have the distinct suspicion that Malraux's conception of his role as minister of culture in France in the 60s - where he conceived of the soul of France being contained in its art - may easily have influenced Murray, who conceives of the soul of America being contained in Jazz. And from this we get Marsalis and the Lincoln Center... Anyway, I also think that giving back antiquities is liable to be the thin end of the wedge. But still, if it ain't yours... Simon Weil