The Freedom Principle - Jazz After 1958

[Alon Marcus]

I'm reading this book for about a year and sure that many of the board members are familiar with it.

Sure this is a great read but there is one thing that bothers me (though not too much ). It seems that the author is so enthusiastic about the music that he sometimes uses subjective and abstract descriptions, which can't reveal much about the music, only on the writer's personal impressions and associations about it. I miss a little bit the analytical point of view.

Nevertheless - this book is probably the best listening guide through the music it discusses and always interesting to read. So I guess the writer's goal had been reached. It added a lot to my listening experience to the music of Mingus, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy, Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman.

It also got me interested in the works of Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra and Muhal Richar Abrams.

[Gary]

Wow what a coincidence - I ordered a used copy from Amazon yesterday, along with Graham Locke's book about Anthony Braxton.

[EKE BBB]

I'm reading this book for about a year and sure that many of the board members are familiar with it.

Sure this is a great read but there is one thing that bothers me (though not too much ). It seems that the author is so enthusiastic about the music that he sometimes uses subjective and abstract descriptions, which can't reveal much about the music, only on the writer's personal impressions and associations about it. I miss a little bit the analytical point of view.

Nevertheless - this book is probably the best listening guide through the music it discusses and always interesting to read. So I guess the writer's goal had been reached. It added a lot to my listening experience to the music of Mingus, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy, Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman.

It also got me interested in the works of Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra and Muhal Richar Abrams.

Probably the very same John Litweiler will answer you!

[JSngry]

Sure this is a great read but there is one thing that bothers me (though not too much ). It seems that the author is so enthusiastic about the music that he sometimes uses subjective and abstract descriptions, which can't reveal much about the music, only on the writer's personal impressions and associations about it. I miss a little bit the analytical point of view.

Examples, perhaps?

[Alon Marcus]

Sure this is a great read but there is one thing that bothers me (though not too much  ). It seems that the author is so enthusiastic about the music that he sometimes uses subjective and abstract descriptions, which can't reveal much about the music, only on the writer's personal impressions and associations about it. I miss a little bit the analytical point of view.

Examples, perhaps?

Few examples. From the Cecil Taylor chapter

1. theme developments lead to stabbing bass pains

2. Above all you get a sense of zealous audacity from this early Taylor music

Albert Ayler chapter

In "Summertime" the rhythms of life become the rise and fall of dynamic structure.

Ornette chapter

1. upward leaps add dissonance to the harshness of loss

2. an angular rise topples off into a scale with the desolation of despair

3. he repeats a hopeless phrase to conclude the tragedy

[JSngry]

Makes sense to me, but not everybody responds positively to this type of "impressionistic" anaylsis. There was a similar (and heated) discussion along the same lines about Larry Kart's book here recently. I share most of Mr. Kart's & Mr. Litweiller's reactions to the music they discuss, so it's not a problem for me personally to "get" what they mean. But everybody's different, and not even everybody who digs the stuff is going to her/feel it the way they do. And so it goes.

All I can say is listen to the music in question long enough to get really familiar with it, and then see if your impressions/reactions match up in any way, shape, or form, to Mr. Litweiller's. If they do, great. If they don't, hey, that's great too. At least he got you to listen to, and to seriously think about and feel something about, the music!

[Alon Marcus]

All I can say is listen to the music in question long enough to get really familiar with it, and then see if your impressions/reactions match up in any way, shape, or form, to Mr. Litweiller's. If they do, great. If they don't, hey, that's great too. At least he got you to listen to, and to seriously think about and feel something about, the music!

Advice accepted

[Larry Kart]

I love and admire John's book and have learned a lot from it, and from his other writing, over the years. A possible side issue, by way of a quote from Hans Keller's essay on Mozart's chamber music in "The Mozart Companion":

"Most critics have never grasped the essential difference between analysis and description. Description gives a verbal account of what you hear and is essentially unnecessary. Can anyone seriously suggest that a music-lover has to be told that a contrasting theme is a contrasting theme? Verbal or symbolic analysis, shows, on the other hand, the elements of what you hear...the unitive forces behind the manifest music..." etc.

I would prefer "tries to show" to "shows" and would add "the issues at work in" to "the elements of" -- especially when we're talking about a music like jazz, whose relationship to us tends to be so close-up and whose underlying "language" principles at any key point may be in the process of shifting about a good bit, and in arguably novel ways.

Paragons of real musical analysis to my mind are Charles Rosen and the late Carl Dahlhaus; they try to give you the whole ball of wax, from the crucial atomistic detail to the broadest socio-historical perspective, which all things implicitly or explicitly bearing on everything else.

In that vein, a favorite passage from "The Freedom Principle":

"What the Tristano circle created was termed cool jazz for its difference from the emotional fires of bop, though in fact it was a no less passionate quest for lyricism. A more literally detached emotionality arrived with the West Coast jazz inspired by both Tristano and Miles Davis's 1949 Birth of the Cool nonet, a muted, scaled-down big band. The relaxed, subdued atmosphere of West Coast jazz had a healthy acceptance of stylistic diversity and innovation, but it also accepted the emotional world of pop music at face value; even original themes are treated like more hip, more grown-up kinds of pop music. In bop's freest flights it could not escape reality, but these Californrians were not aware of the conflict of values that was the source of bop."

No technical description here but IMO a brilliantly compact, axe-to-the-frozen-sea account of what the underlying issues and elements are, an account that's essentially congruent with the most atomistic examination of the musical details. On the other hand, I once pointed out this very passage to a very smart jazz critic, who then read it and said, "I don't know what he's talking about."

[AllenLowe]

as an aside, I would say that sometimes description IS analysis, especially with certain kinds of difficult or apprently abstract work - especially with "modern" works, though I know that term is imprecise - there's a line by Charles Olsen in which, attemptiong to explain modern poetry, he says (I'm reciting from memory): "An object is it's own meaning." What he was saying here, and what Susan Sonntag was indicating in her famous essay Against Interpretation, was that sometimes, instead of trying to put everything into metaphor or into separate terminology in order to explain meaning, sometimes we need to find such things within the more obvious and representative aspects of the work - I think the best critical writing is a combination of both; the art is in the kinds of descriptions, in the nuances of surrounding language.

Edited May 6, 2005 by AllenLowe

[chris]

The thing about a good description is that it can bring to light something that we didn;'t hear in the music. I mean, we all listen to the same piece but we don't all hear the same things. So when someone uses a description like some of the "artsy" ones just quoted, they are only valuable to me as far as I haven't really noticed or made the connection before.

And since I believe in the deep emotional engagement that good music brings, I'm not put off by emotional adjectives being used to lead the way into music.

That being said, good analysis is harder to find (and I suppose much harder to do) because it is somewhat less subjective ... or at least it grafts the objective on. I can clearly understand:

In "Summertime" the rhythms of life become the rise and fall of dynamic structure.

But it might not mean the same thing to everyone. But some analyst would be able to talk about modes and glissandi and harmonies and all that. It won't ever prove the tie to the rhythms of life, but it can be much more specific about what portion of the music the speaker is referring to

[Lazaro Vega]

[

Ornette chapter

2. an angular rise topples off into a scale with the desolation of despair

3. he repeats a hopeless phrase to conclude the tragedy

Both of these work for me: it wouldn't take much transciption to figure out what minor scale is being alluded to; and the idea that a piece of music is "telling a story" worked for Lester Young listening to Trambauer, and understandably works for John L. listening to Ornette.

The academic may be found out, but the human element as amplified by these phrases is part of the mystery of emotional response which is at the heart of listening.

[Guy Berger]

Aren't Litweiler's comments about Keith Jarrett somewhat, err controversial? (I've heard them described less politely than that, but I haven't read the book.)

Guy

Edited May 6, 2005 by Guy Berger

[Kalo]

What this thread tells me is that I have to get Larry Kart's and Allen Lowe's books, and hope that Jim Sangrey writes a book as well one of these days (not to mention Chuck Nessa).

I remember reservedly liking the Litweiler book and I hope to return to it soon, though not before I've read his Coleman bio. I recall bridling at his assessment of Andrew Hill as a sort of pastiche artist who (as I recall Litweiler's general drift) draws on the vocabulary of jazz piano history to fragile effect and intermittant success. I think Hill's much stronger and more assertive than that, albeit in a slippery way. But, then again I could have him wrong; it's been several years since I've perused Litweiler's book.

As for Guy Berger's comment regarding Litweiler's stance on Keith Jarret being controversial: Jarrett himself has always been controversial with me, ever since the Koln Concert double-disc became sort of a cult precursor to New Age music in the 1970s. And I believe that a large portion of the jazz public shares this opinion. Be it his lack of humor, a repetitive and psuedo-soulful vacuity in his solo piano effusions, or his disingenuous, be-afroed pretence to authenticity, I personally mark him down as something of a poseur, as do many others. He's had his moments (his American quartet, anyone?), but I find him peripheral to the main thrust of the music, however accomplished he may be in some ways.

But fine minds may differ. I'm prepared to eventually find myself on the wrong side of history in this matter: though, frankly, I don't expect to.

[Alon Marcus]

Jarrett himself has always been controversial with me, ever since the Koln Concert double-disc became sort of a cult precursor to New Age music in the 1970s. And I believe that a large portion of the jazz public shares this opinion.

New Age?

Large portion of jazz community?

First time I've heard this music being called New Age.

[JSngry]

Dude - the joke in my circle when Geroge Winston/Windham Hill started getting popular was that it was "ECM without the jazz".

And yeah, the Jarrett solo albums were a direct conduit into the George Winston thing, which at the time was considered "New Age". I know things are different now, but back then...

Personally, I think that Jarrett's music has deepened and darkened quite a bit since those days, but fersure, those ECM solo albums of the 70s sold in pretty big numbers, and spawned a lot of imitiators, noneof them offering anything more than superficial gloss. And that's what, to a significant extent, became "New Age" when New Age began to be.

[7/4]

Dude - the joke in my circle when Geroge Winston/Windham Hill started getting popular was that it was "ECM without the jazz".

And yeah, the Jarrett solo albums were a direct conduit into the George Winston thing, which at the time was considered "New Age". I know things are different now, but back then...

Personally, I think that Jarrett's music has deepened and darkened quite a bit since those days, but fersure, those ECM solo albums of the 70s sold in pretty big numbers, and spawned a lot of imitiators, noneof them offering anything more than superficial gloss. And that's what, to a significant extent, became "New Age" when New Age began to be.

Keith Jarrett wasn't exactly the sole source of the stream...

[Guy Berger]

As for Guy Berger's comment regarding Litweiler's stance on Keith Jarret being controversial: Jarrett himself has always been controversial with me, ever since the Koln Concert double-disc became sort of a cult precursor to New Age music in the 1970s. And I believe that a large portion of the jazz public shares this opinion. Be it his lack of humor,

Personally the guy might be a little short in the humor department, but his music isn't lacking in it. (Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with humorless music -- I mean, we all love our post-1963 Coltrane, right?)

Blaming him for the stuff that came after him but never matched his creativity is unfair. Are we going to blame Weather Report for smooth jazz, John Coltrane for cookie-cutter disciples, or Horace Silver for the less interesting soul jazz pianists?

a repetitive and psuedo-soulful vacuity in his solo piano effusions,

At the very least I don't think this characterizes Facing You. (Perhaps you can elaborate on "pseudo-soulful"?)

He's had his moments (his American quartet, anyone?), but I find him peripheral to the main thrust of the music, however accomplished he may be in some ways.

Are McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, and Herbie Hancock peripheral to the main thrust of the music?

Look, if you say that Keith Jarrett's recorded too much, or that some of his music is pretentious wank, or that he's overrated in certain (not necessarily jazz) circles, or that some of his fanatic followers are annoying, then I won't disagree with you. But I think your criticisms go beyond that, and I disagree. Furthermore, my superficial understanding is that John's book also goes beyond that. If someone could summarize the passages that deal with Jarrett and post their notes here that would be great...

Guy

[JSngry]

Dude - the joke in my circle when Geroge Winston/Windham Hill started getting popular was that it was "ECM without the jazz".

And yeah, the Jarrett solo albums were a direct conduit into the George Winston thing, which at the time was considered "New Age". I know things are different now, but back then...

Personally, I think that Jarrett's music has deepened and darkened quite a bit since those days, but fersure, those ECM solo albums of the 70s sold in pretty big numbers, and spawned a lot of imitiators, noneof them offering anything more than superficial gloss. And that's what, to a significant extent,  became "New Age" when New Age began to be.

Keith Jarrett wasn't exactly the sole source of the stream...

No, but he was probably the main jazz tributary.

[7/4]

Dude - the joke in my circle when Geroge Winston/Windham Hill started getting popular was that it was "ECM without the jazz".

And yeah, the Jarrett solo albums were a direct conduit into the George Winston thing, which at the time was considered "New Age". I know things are different now, but back then...

Personally, I think that Jarrett's music has deepened and darkened quite a bit since those days, but fersure, those ECM solo albums of the 70s sold in pretty big numbers, and spawned a lot of imitiators, noneof them offering anything more than superficial gloss. And that's what, to a significant extent,  became "New Age" when New Age began to be.

Keith Jarrett wasn't exactly the sole source of the stream...

No, but he was probably the main jazz tributary.

How about Paul Horn or Tony Scott?

[Guy Berger]

How about Paul Horn or Tony Scott?

Oregon as well...

Guy

[JSngry]

Paul Winter, for that matter. But as far as the Windham Hill school went, I'd still lean twards Jarrett as the major point of departure.

[brownie]

Tony Scott may have been lost in meditation for a time but he remains a hardcore jazz musician and is playing hotter than ever!

He is not in the same world as Winter, Jarrett, Horn or some others!

[7/4]

Paul Winter, for that matter.

I almost mentioned him, but I've never heard his music.

[7/4]

Tony Scott may have been lost in meditation for a time but he remains a hardcore jazz musician and is playing hotter than ever!

He is not in the same world as Winter, Jarrett, Horn or some others!

True, true.

I should get more of his music.

[Jazzmoose]

Blaming him for the stuff that came after him but never matched his creativity is unfair. Are we going to blame Weather Report for smooth jazz...?

Of course not; we're going to blame Miles Davis like Stanley Crouch does!