The troll who infests JC

[Jazzmoose]

There's a vast difference between just deleting your own posts and deleting entire threads including the posts of many others. I'd say there's even a vast difference between deleting 5000 of your own posts and deleting a thread with just one single post of another poster.

Obviously, I agree.

[Jazzmoose]

hey guys, cut it out already okay?

But couw, what would Tony think?

[couw]

There's a vast difference between just deleting your own posts and deleting entire threads including the posts of many others. I'd say there's even a vast difference between deleting 5000 of your own posts and deleting a thread with just one single post of another poster.

Obviously, I agree.

obviously, this stuff is too old and stale to warm up again. it has already started to sprout a green hairy mat.

[couw]

hey guys, cut it out already okay?

But couw, what would Tony think?

he's too occupied counting balls

[Jazzmoose]

Well, there's really no point then, is there? Okay; I'll stop...

[couw]

[Guest Chaney]

If I weren't listening to the mellow sounds of Mr. Burt Bacharach, I'd kick all yer asses.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Ah - but you must be listening to the wrong Bacharach, instead of "What the World Needs Now Is Love" (Jackie DeShannon, 1965) you should put on "Fool Killer" (Gene Pitney, 1965).

Mike

[Cornelius]

"Damen has the uncanny ability to draw you in with his comments. You read his stuff, get outraged and feel the need to vent." [sonic 1]

Damen has no special ability of that kind. You don't like his opinions or you don't like the way he posts them or you don't like the way responds to others who are on the make to take him and his opinions down. As you correctly alluded to, the responsibility is your own how, or whether, you respond to him.

/

"Sonic1, isn't there plenty of discussion about this over on Jazz Corner? It has become a contentious topic over there. It seems to start up the same ol' "What is Jazz" stuff. Why bring that over here? I'd just as soon see it stay over there." [Kevin Bresnahan in another thread some time ago.]

That's your opinion, but your intent in posting it seems not just to express that you'd like for people not post about a certain subject, but to convince others not to talk post about the subject. I find that controlling and censorial in spirit. And I say that not to convince you not to say whatever you want about people saying what they want, but rather just to tell you how I feel about your trying to control people's posting as you did. On the other hand, I do thank you for so many of your informative and generous posts over the years.

/

"Yeah, and you [Kevin Bresnahan] were the only one who popped to the EAI thread in to talk negative. That is a trollish to me." [sonic 1]

If you are referring to expressing negative opinions about music that all other posters are expressing appreciation, then I VEHEMENTLY disagree that just doing that is trolling or even "trollish". People should feel free to say what's on their mind, to give their opinions, even as a minority of one.

/

"Six, actually, with the sixth being your supposition that I haven't been around "the scene" long/deep enough to tell possible/probable from bullshit." [JSngry]

"cool, that makes it seven!" [couw]

/

No, still at six, since I did not suppose that JSngry lacks the smarts to tell what's jive. So that's back to five, but then on to six as JSngry did suppose that I made the supposition that he lacks those smarts. I don't dispute JSngry's discernment, nor the enjoyment of reading his many creative posts (not to mention, he's a hell of an auctioneer), but he only supports my point here by saying himself that it's only possible or probable (?) that Marsalis made the utterance. Moreover, we're lacking the context in which Marsalis made them. He didn't make this as a public statement, something he'd thought about and means to stand behind. Maybe he was just in a "talking shit" kind of mood. In private conversation many of us say things for the pleasure of temporary perversity or irreverence. There's not enough in this supposed incident to draw a meaningful conclusion, especially to damn a man, even if you feel he's damned for plenty of other things anyway.

/

AllenLowe,

Sincerely, I am very interested in reading any anti-Semitic quotes by Marsalis.

/

"People who have been listening a long time, and own a lot of music, don't have the time for Marsalis. Not because he is not good. He is ok as a musician. But he doesn't seem to break new ground (from the albums I have heard) and his swing comes off as contrived to a lot of long time listeners." [sonic 1]

I've been listening to jazz with a critical ear for a few decades and I own a lot of music. I have time for Wynton Marsalis. I think he's made some great records and some duds too. I don't know how you define "break new ground" without specific musical analysis, but I think Marsalis has extended jazz. For that matter, I have time for the music of many "non-groundbreaking" that is just real enjoyable, real good, even great jazz, lack of broken ground notwithstanding.

Edited February 12, 2005 by Cornelius

[sonic1]

Cornelius wrote: I've been listening to jazz with a critical ear for a few decades and I own a lot of music. I have time for Wynton Marsalis. I think he's made some great records and some duds too. I don't know how you define "break new ground" without specific musical analysis, but I think Marsalis has extended jazz. For that matter, I have time for the music of many "non-groundbreaking" that is just real enjoyable, real good, even great jazz, lack of broken ground notwithstanding

Give me some of your examples. As I have already said, I know I need to give the man's music more of a chance despite himself. Tell me what albums are really worth the time. I will check them out and report back.

Regarding Damen, I have been responsible for responding to him. But if you read through some threads I have spend more time avoiding him than not. Occasionally I couldn't help myself, and I am not the only one. He seemed to piss off a lot of people there. At any rate he is on ignore for me. I sincerely hope I will never have to exchange with him again.

[jazzypaul]

Wynton has "expanded" jazz? Are you high? How? Where? When?

The man has made exactly ONE, count 'em, ONE brilliant record: Black Codes. And that album is what, almost 20 years old? And, at that, there was no expansion there. It was simply an absolutely killin' rehash of Miles' 65-68 Quintet.

Did he expand with his jazz ballet? How about with his "long form" works? How about his soundtracks? I know...Big Train. That expanded jazz. Yep, that must be it.

Does he has flashes of brilliance? Yeah. Can he play? Yeah. Is he the second coming of Lee or Freddie or even Lew Soloff? Hell naw.

There are so many great players out there. To tell me that Marsalis is anything more than just the pretty good trumpeter who knows all the right people is to tell me that you've bought into the hype machine.

[chandra]

After reading this thread, I went over to JC to find out what this Damen character is all about. Yeah, the Marsalis discussion is not pretty. Though, as some of you suggested, the ones from a year back is a bit more civil. Some posters on the anti-marsalis side can get pretty nasty as well.

One thing I found to be a bit on the funny side is... I stumbled across some pretty high brow elitist discussions about what a hellhole Bluenote has become, especially after signing Ms. Jones. And there was one guy who was defending Blue Note with some verbose but reasonably argued posts and one poster mentioned in reply 'Hey you come across like Damen on the Marsalis thread'. I probably would not have found that funny if I had not read this thread first but talk about kiss of death...

OK, so far no point to this post but here is something I got curious after all this. Are jazz fans in general this serious about defending Jazz, the definition of it, and quarrel among the various sub-genres and periods? I wonder if this is unique among Jazz fans ( Does classical music fans get into this or are they really stuck two centuries back, lacking in innovation and thus nothing to debate and quarrel about? ). Or am I getting a skewed perspective due to the selection bias, meaning only people who are really into that kind of debate and have strong opinions tend to be frequent posters in these Jazz forums...

I wonder if country music fans would have such strong reactions and opinions. Like, if a Nashville label signs a non-country artist who then makes a country-influenced but not traditional country album, would they go up and arms over that 'blasphemy'? Somehow I don't get the feeling they will. ( Though Nashville music industry turning their back on Johnny Cash was a well known story but that is tinged to the core with personality conflicts and nothing much to do with fans ).

Anyway, just geneuinly curious about this passion which sometimes bleeds over to exclusivity that Jazz fans seem to have for their music...

[rostasi]

Just about anything that one feels strongly about, often will be defended to the "n"th degree!

I've witnessed someone vigorously and passionately defend the joys of potato leek soup.

---

Now playing: Åke Hodell - igevär (Presentarms) (part 2)

[Dan Gould]

I wonder if country music fans would have such strong reactions and opinions. Like, if a Nashville label signs a non-country artist who then makes a country-influenced but not traditional country album, would they go up and arms over that 'blasphemy'? Somehow I don't get the feeling they will.

Absolutely, this happens. Shania Twain was an outsider and if her music didn't turn out to be successful, Nashville never would have accepted her. They rejected her due to her husband/producer coming from the rock field, felt her songs weren't country enough (normally, new artists get signed, and the Nashville songwriting pros start writing for them-she didn't like what was written for her and wanted to write her own stuff). They also objected to how much skin she showed in her videos. Only because she became such a mega star was she embraced. You know how money talks.

And now, you've got artists like Faith Hill and Martina McBride making moves toward the AC genre, yet their music gets played on country radio because this is what the audience wants to hear.

But make no mistake, Shania Twain's breakthrough was a major event in Nashville, and at first, not many people liked it.

[Joe G]

OK, so far no point to this post but here is something I got curious after all this. Are jazz fans in general this serious about defending Jazz, the definition of it, and quarrel among the various sub-genres and periods? I wonder if this is unique among Jazz fans ( Does classical music fans get into this or are they really stuck two centuries back, lacking in innovation and thus nothing to debate and quarrel about? ). Or am I getting a skewed perspective due to the selection bias, meaning only people who are really into that kind of debate and have strong opinions tend to be frequent posters in these Jazz forums...

I wonder if country music fans would have such strong reactions and opinions. Like, if a Nashville label signs a non-country artist who then makes a country-influenced but not traditional country album, would they go up and arms over that 'blasphemy'? Somehow I don't get the feeling they will. ( Though Nashville music industry turning their back on Johnny Cash was a well known story but that is tinged to the core with personality conflicts and nothing much to do with fans ).

I'm sure there are lots of heated debates in these two camps as well. Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, and others, made boatloads of cash by coming to Nashville in the 90's with their country-rock, or country-pop, music that grated on those who liked the more traditional country music. Classical fans are just as passionate about their music as jazz fans are, so I'm sure you could find similar exchanges about certain musicians or schools of thought.

There is such a wide range of experience and knowledge exhibited by the people who share their thoughts and opinions on this board, and I for one have learned a hell of a lot reading some of these discussions.

[JSngry]

To Chandra-

I'm not just a jazz fan. I'm also a practicing jazz musician, and have been for about 30 years now. So the current "climate" at the top of the industry inevitably has a trickle-down effect on folks like me who are trying to make serious original music in a "local" environment.

The two biggest such trends on the last 25 years have been the advent of smooth and the institutionalizing of the Marsalis vision of jazz. The smooth stuff doesn’t bother me, because that's a parallel universe, if you know what I mean. But the Marsalis thing has had a direct impact. I'll spare you all the details, but I'll also tell you that there has been a definite increase in the glorification of the image over the substance. "Jazz" has come to mean a specific, fixed look and "style" instead of a living, evolving, personal music of creative expression.

Believe me, this music has a great legacy of musicians making self-serving statements and engaging in self-serving actions. Some of the stories I've heard would blow your mind (some of you, anyway). So it's not Wynton per se that upsets me. It's the fact that his accumulated power and recognition are totally out of proportion with the actual merit of his work. Of course, said merit is subjective, but I think it's safe to say that if Marsalis' music had even a fraction of the merit that his accumulated status warranted, the controversy would not be so heated, nor would there be all the ready resorting to demagoguery by so many of his defenders.

Do I resent such an average talent having success? No, it happens all the time. Do I resent such an average talent assuming the role of institutional "definer" of the music? Yes, I do, and not just because of the impact it has had on me personally. I've seen (and am seeing) things (history and values alike) being propagated as fact, as doctrine, as the way things "should" be. And I'm seeing lies propagated as truth. Cumulatively, and given the "weight" that these things have been given institutionally, the net result is nothing less than a rape of the music by liars, fools, cheats, and thieves.

And there are plenty of victims. Case in point (one of many): a few years ago, I was hanging out w/a local "Young Lion"-wannabe tenor player. This guy was getting lots of gigs (and other opportunities, such as clinics and other educational ventures). He was a good enough bop player, but still very raw in terms of personality. We were discussing current tenor players, and this guy says to me, "About the only guy on the scene right now who's playing the music the way it should be played is Ralph Moore". Well, regardless of how you feel about Ralph Moore, the part about "playing the music the way it should be played" should raise a red flag, I think.

I didn't hear such dogmatic talk before the rise of Wyntonism. Oh, sure, I heard plenty of talk about who was "saying something" and who wasn't. But such talk inevitably was based on content, not style. "Saying something" is a fundamentally different criterion than "playing the music the way it should be played". And it has shown in this guy's playing over the years - he continues to stay right where he was. His technique has improved, but the personality factor in his playing remains stuck on empty; he still sounds like he’s playing things that he doesn’t really understand on any level other than the technical. And he continues to gain recognition and respectability in what is now the local and regional "jazz establishment", the people who decide where the money goes.

You might call this "sour grapes". I'm not detached enough from the situation to say that you're necessarily wrong. But to me, this is symptomatic of the "jazz scene" as a whole today - too much of it is geared towards creating a living museum of the past than to nurturing the creation of content for the museums of the future to inspect and appreciate. The resources are finite, so the attitude "at the top" inevitably affects what goes on in the rest of the country. And the result is, I believe, hurting the music much more than it is helping it. Ralph Moore, however, might disagree.

And speaking of "country", Dan is totally correct. I have occasion to work with a fair number of Country players on wedding (and other "society" type) gigs, and yeah - there's just as much outrage at the direction that their music as taken. Perhaps even more, if you can believe that!

Edited February 13, 2005 by JSngry

[connoisseur series500]

I wonder, though, how much of this vaulting of style over substance is due to people like Wynton. I suspect that they are merely riding the wave of the sentiment as opposed to leading it.

Music has become so commercialized in all the genres today. You'll always have real artists out there expressing themselves, but it seems that money imperatives as dictated by the audience and the producers are determining the landscape. Again, I don't know if Wynton isn't just part of this. I doubt very much that he started any of this.

[JSngry]

Paul, with all due respect, I don't think that you were into jazz when Wynton broke on the scene, when the whole "Young Lions" thing was all the craze, or when Wynton's dogma was really taking over the institutional aspects of jazz. I was, and I tell you that the effect was real. Very real.

As to how much of it he personally created and how much was a case of him feeding into a dynamic that already existed, and which seized upon him as the focal point thereof, well that's kind of a "chicken or the egg" type question. Certainly, the desire to "turn back he clock" and to "return to traditional values" was prevalent across society at the time. But At this point, though, I think the question is moot. Wynton certainly seized upon what was already there, and more than used the power of, at first, his "bully pulpit" and, later on, his power in the "jazz power structure" to remake (or at least, attempt to remake) jazz according to his own vision of what it was/wasn't, could be/shouldn't be, etc.

Perhaps you can't blame him for stepping into the role, or for having it thrust upon him. But you sure as hell can blame him for what he's done since. Once you're given power, how you use it is your personal responsibility, nobody else's.

[sidewinder]

I recall when this 'Young Lions' thing took off in the 80s Wynton was featured on the front page of 'Time'. That must have been the first such occasion for a jazz artist since Monk back in the early 60s. The media really latched onto jazz in a really big way. Over here there was something very similar, with the way that they latched onto Courtney Pine.

[Dmitry]

Perhaps you can't blame him for stepping into the role, or for having it thrust upon him. But you sure as hell can blame him for what he's done since. Once you're given power, how you use it is your personal responsibility, nobody else's.

This is a question I've been meaning to ask all those who don't hesitate to rip WM a new one at every single available opportunity -

In the last 20 years, what has WM done to jazz music to harm it?

[Michael Fitzgerald]

How about this one:

Marsalis and the Lincoln Center band have *killed* the circuit that was available for larger jazz groups to tour (colleges, arts centers, etc.). Financially, those size bands could really only play those kinds of venues.

The Lincoln Center band's fees are astronomical and that eradicates the budget for the *entire* season, so where several groups used to be able to be on a series, now in many places, the jazz "series" is only one concert - Lincoln Center. Even if a larger group can find a place that isn't booking Lincoln Center, there aren't *enough* places to be able to put together a viable tour. They've been squeezed out by a "non-profit" behemoth that *already* has huge amounts of funding.

Mike

[rostasi]

This is a question I've been meaning to ask all those who don't hesitate to rip WM a new one at every single available opportunity

I don't think it's ripping him a new one - it's just expanding the same old one.

---

Now playing: Jacques Lejeune - Les Capitaine s'etant Allié au Projet de Conspiration...

[connoisseur series500]

Paul, with all due respect, I don't think that you were into jazz when Wynton broke on the scene, when the whole "Young Lions" thing was all the craze, or when Wynton's dogma was really taking over the institutional aspects of jazz. I was, and I tell you that the effect was real. Very real.

You're right on that, Jim. I was not into jazz at that time. He's had no influence on me regarding my jazz tastes.

[JSngry]

Harm? How about the creation of a "jazz culture" that doesn't look at jazz as a continuously evolving, living music and instead views it as a certain "style" that has to have a certain look and sound in order to be "real jazz"?

And lest that be construed as the view of an "avant-gardist", let me hasten to add this - has a B-3 player ever played Lincoln Center? Has the music of Lennie Tristano and his peers been celebrated? Wasn't George Russell dropped from the schedule simply because he planned on using electric bass? You're more likely to see Jimmy Smits at Lincoln Center before you are anything having to do with Jimmy Smith...

What the Wynton regime has given us is a look at what is or isn't "real jazz" that is in fact very narrow in scope, and one that doesn't allow for any deviation whatsoever. And they've become very adept at securing the funding and "official status" to put that vision across in no uncertain terms. Economically, that might be a wash, because those who fit that look and style now have a built-in audience, and one with fairly deep pockets. And believe me - the "status" that the agendas of these people have obtained does indeed filter down to the "local" levels.

Net result? An audience (and a fair number of musicians) that is LESS informed about the great scope and potential of this music, LESS curious about it, LESS eager to see/hear new developments, and LESS tolerant of anything that challenges the narrow parameters of the Wyntonian Doctrine. Jazz, you see, is JAZZ, and JAZZ is only one thing. Everything else is false, and must be either ignored or stifled. God forbid that it be ASSISTED in any form or fashion. That would be desecrating The Great Music, which must be kept pure, in it's original state and intent (now THAT'S a whole 'nother rant right there...) and be preserved for "presentation" to those who seek to become "sophisticated".

But is institutionalizing what is and isn't "real jazz" doing the music itself any real good? Especially when the people doing the institutionalizing are people with less than overwhelming talent and unabashedly revisionist socio-political agendas? I say it's harming the music, turning it, in all the wrong ways, into the real "American Classical Music" that some of us used to wish it would be come to be regarded as.

Be careful what you ask for, I suppose...

[JSngry]

Paul, with all due respect, I don't think that you were into jazz when Wynton broke on the scene, when the whole "Young Lions" thing was all the craze, or when Wynton's dogma was really taking over the institutional aspects of jazz. I was, and I tell you that the effect was real. Very real.

You're right on that, Jim. I was not into jazz at that time. He's had no influence on me regarding my jazz tastes.

Well obviously not. I mean, you own HOW many organ records?