Twenty First Century Jazz

[.:.impossible]

I think that is very interesting Allen., especially in relation to Joe's previous post. I love it.

[AllenLowe]

is Juana Molina related to Judith Beck and Julian Molina from the old living theater?

[Joe G]

I've read only about 80 percent of this thread so forgive me if this post seems to miss some points - maybe it will and maybe it won't. But when it comes to the future of jazz and pop music I am convinced that even we, as non-academics (largely) spend too much time on social questions and context and how they effect what will or won't happen to the music. I will paraphrase the late Richard Gilman, whom I cite frequently, that art is an alternative to history, an alternative reality, a counter-history that will not be contained or limited by social or historical markers. It tells us not necessarily what we have been doing and thinking but what we will be doing and thinking NEXT, before we even know that this will occur -

feel free to ignore me here - as my wife and kids do when I make such statements -

I can see some truth in that.

[.:.impossible]

Judith MAlina, Julian Beck...

no. Juana Molina

argentina.

[Joe G]

I'll check that out - thanks!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I've read only about 80 percent of this thread so forgive me if this post seems to miss some points - maybe it will and maybe it won't. But when it comes to the future of jazz and pop music I am convinced that even we, as non-academics (largely) spend too much time on social questions and context and how they effect what will or won't happen to the music. I will paraphrase the late Richard Gilman, whom I cite frequently, that art is an alternative to history, an alternative reality, a counter-history that will not be contained or limited by social or historical markers. It tells us not necessarily what we have been doing and thinking but what we will be doing and thinking NEXT, before we even know that this will occur -

feel free to ignore me here - as my wife and kids do when I make such statements -

I can see some truth in that.

Well, putting on his argumentative hat, I think it's hubris.

The creative, innovative artist is part of society. As Parker said, "you can only play what you've lived". Maybe your playing can transcend the world you've lived in in a way that most of the rest of us can't achieve, but it's still rooted in the contemporary reality - Bird did not play science fiction. Or any kind of fiction.

MG

[.:.impossible]

Are you saying that fiction does not exist in music?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Are you saying that fiction does not exist in music?

No. Just that C Parker didn't play any.

MG

[.:.impossible]

Gotcha. I would think that Gilman's idea would still apply to Parker, that his art was not contained or limited by social or historical markers. It may have been influenced by such, but not contained or limited. Imagination is the key here, if I am reading correctly.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Gotcha. I would think that Gilman's idea would still apply to Parker, that his art was not contained or limited by social or historical markers. It may have been influenced by such, but not contained or limited. Imagination is the key here, if I am reading correctly.

Well, you could well be right there; I'm not sure. Music is a kind of funny thing, as far as I'm concerned. It isn't like thinking, which I do, and I suspect everyone else does, in words. Probably because I'm not a musician, I feel there's something like a black box in between a musician's life experiences and the sounds that come out. I don't know what goes on in there; I can just feel that connection between life and sound; how it happens is a mystery.

MG

[.:.impossible]

Thanks Joe. Relevant to YOU is the answer to your first question.

Relevant to YOU right NOW and why.

[AllenLowe]

what Gilman is arguing is not that art doesn't apply to life or relate to life or come from life - he's just talking about it coming from a much deeper part of the artist's consciousness, I think - a place that doesn't tell you what you already know or answer the same old questions, but asks new questions, and puts you in a space you never before inhabited - that ain't fiction either, but a deeper kind of reality -

it's like the difference between a crappy popular novelist and Proust - or between Neil Simon and Samuel Beckett. The pop novelist and Simon both think they are portraying life as it is; in actuality they are giving us life through a fog of cliches and received ideas, all of which touch on little that makes us as we are; whereas Proust and Beckett tap into parts of our consciousness that we may not, until we read them, even really know exist.

Think of Bird - he produces this music which is so new and so shocking at first - and yet so real and logical; it is as though it was there all along, but we did not know or see it until he showed it to us -

same thing with Ornette and Albert Ayler - and Eisenstein - and Beethoven - we could keep going here -

Edited December 23, 2006 by AllenLowe

[Joe G]

Now THAT is something I can get behind!

[JSngry]

Who was it who said that a great artist isn't ahead of their time, that most people are behind their's?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

what Gilman is arguing is not that art doesn't apply to life or relate to life or come from life - he's just talking about it coming from a much deeper part of the artist's consciousness, I think - a place that doesn't tell you what you already know or answer the same old questions, but asks new questions, and puts you in a space you never before inhabited - that ain't fiction either, but a deeper kind of reality -

it's like the difference between a crappy popular novelist and Proust - or between Neil Simon and Samuel Beckett. The pop novelist and Simon both think they are portraying life as it is; in actuality they are giving us life through a fog of cliches and received ideas, all of which touch on little that makes us as we are; whereas Proust and Beckett tap into parts of our consciousness that we may not, until we read them, even really know exist.

Think of Bird - he produces this music which is so new and so shocking at first - and yet so real and logical; it is as though it was there all along, but we did not know or see it until he showed it to us -

same thing with Ornette and Albert Ayler - and Eisenstein - and Beethoven - we could keep going here -

OK, we're saying the same thing. My take is that the cliches and received ideas actually DO make most of us what we are. But some people aren't fooled and can see through them. But they're in the same environment of cliches and received views as everyone else. The TRUE innovator (and not some eccentric who looks at things oddly) finds the RIGHT way of seeing things through the fog and brings about new ways of seeing which eventually give rise to a different set of befogging cliches etc. And so it goes on, all the time requiring a new someone to come along with the new RIGHT way of looking through the new fog.

And it's not fiction

MG

[Jim Alfredson]

Yes, but the true innovator often resorts to cliches of his own making. And pretty soon everyone is using them. And thus it goes 'round in circles.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Yes, but the true innovator often resorts to cliches of his own making. And pretty soon everyone is using them. And thus it goes 'round in circles.

Yes. A friend once observed that very few musicians (classical or any other kind he meant) make more than one step forward (assuming you agree that there is a forward). So, once you've made your step, what do you do for an encore?

MG

[Jim Alfredson]

Refine!

[.:.impossible]

Thanks for being clear Allen. There is a lot of figurative language to decipher here.

The quote goes: "No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time. It is just that the others are behind the time."

- Martha Graham

No artist. I always read that and think she must have had HIGH standards for what constitutes an artist. As in, there are only 12 artists alive right now.

[JSngry]

Since Monday has come up in this thread, let me say that the biggest musical revelation I've gotten from discovering her (and it's the biggest musical revelation I've had in years, although in retrospect it seems so simple as to be painfully, DUH-ishly obvious) is that most of us have lived a life surrounded by all kinds of people and all kinds of music, and that in order to best make music that reflects who we are, there's absolutely no reason to shut anything out. But most of us have been precondiitioned to segregate first, and then "fuse" when needed. Monday's music seems to me to take the opposite tact - you include everything from the git-go, and then filter out what doesn't meet your needs for any given situation, which as her music amply shows, is actually very little.

Even though it runs counter to the way that most of us have been thinking (and maybe feeling), that just makes more sense to me. I don't see any sense in limiting what "should" be a part of our music, or of having the equivalent of bench players, little things to call on when we want a special "effect". Jazz in particular (or maybe it just seems that way to me, and all musics are like this) has developed a really bad case of telling itself that this is what it must be, the result being that too many people are changing who they are (or could be) to make themselves fit "the music" instead of letting the music be who they are.

Of course, you could/should ask the question, what type of person allows themselves to surrender their core humanity for the sake of "belonging"? Or, if they're really not surrendering anything, but are instead finding their identity by stepping into a ready-made, relatively firm set of pre-existing criteria and conditions, how is that any different from joining a cult?

Jazz originally sprang up, developed, and evolved for a good long while, within a fairly specific set of "macro" social conditions & environments (which is not to say that the music was necessarily "about" those things, only that those things did have an intrinsic role in how & what the music became). The forces that created those conditions still exist, definitely, but the environments for the most part don't. We have more than basic documentation of what that all was, so why is there a need to so specifically replicate what alredy exists on such a seemingly broad scale?

It's all in the mind, I tell you. Too many minds seem to be working on the assumption that since there is profund universal truth to be found in yesterday's specific conditions, that taking the specific manifestations of that truth and applying them to today's different conditions (and conditions today are far more different in some pretty basic ways than ever) will yield the same profound specific truth.

I disagree.

Edited December 23, 2006 by JSngry

[.:.impossible]

Do you consider Monday to be jazz, or just to have elements of jazz in her music?

[JSngry]

Thanks for being clear Allen. There is a lot of figurative language to decipher here.

The quote goes: "No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time. It is just that the others are behind the time."

- Martha Graham

No artist. I always read that and think she must have had HIGH standards for what constitutes an artist. As in, there are only 12 artists alive right now.

That number might be on the high side...

Or not.

But I agree with Ms. Graham.

[.:.impossible]

[JSngry]

Do you consider Monday to be jazz, or just to have elements of jazz in her music?

I consider that question totally irrelevant, and it thrills me more than you know to be able to say that.

It's not anything other than music, and I don't mean that as the flip endorsement of a "fan". You can dissect it to pieces and find more parts than there are in a JC Whitney catalog, but ultimately, that's all they are - parts. It really is an "omnimusic" in that although it's made up of seemingly damn near everything at one point or another (and there are so many points, since there is no one "type" of song she makes), no one thing is more "core" to it than anything else. I've been more liberated by hearing something that does it like this than anything since....I don't know.

Think about it - what could be more natural to so many of us than to make a music that organically contains all the elements of who we are? But how many of us are still struggling with the concepts of "style" and "genre"? How many of us are still thinking in terms of musical "guilty pleasures"? These are all tools of self-imposed limitations, musical and personal, and they're encouraged both from within "the business" and from without it. And more often than is comfortable to admit, such a mindset provides safe haven for people who are looking to be all they can't (and/or don't want to) be.

Life is so vast & infinite, and individuals are so miniscule & finite. Yet opposites attract. So why the seemingly innate (although I believe it to be conditioned) urge to limit the scope/range of this natural attraction? That's just not working for me any more. It did when what I had access to was limited (and even then, it was pretty damn diverse), but now that the "Global Village" (and where's McLuhan now that we need him? But that's ok, Braxton's still here) is more than just an idea, it really seems time to let it go.

Let it go, that's the thing. Just let it go.

And then see where it leads.

[Chuck Nessa]

Do you consider Monday to be jazz, or just to have elements of jazz in her music?

I consider that question totally irrelevant

Not to the question at hand. Remember the topic.