Crossover...Fusion...Third Stream...Whatever!

[A Lark Ascending]

I started Ted Gioia's 'West Coast Jazz' in the spring but got distracted; finally settled down again today.

I was particularly struck by this passage:

The Third Stream, that infelicitously named combination of the two pre-existing streams of classical music and jazz, was long ago discredited in the world of jazz criticism for its rarefied academic tendencies. Although a thorough re-evaluation of Third Stream works is beyond the scope of this book, some comment is necessary to assess the Kenton band, not to mention several other West Coast musicians of the period under discussion. Part of the problem one faces here is the lack of a critical tradition and vocabulary required to "place" such works. To judge a Third Stream work by Gunther Schuller or Ran Blake with the same standards one uses to assess an Art Blakey or Sonny Rollins performance is clearly to stack the deck against it from the start. Yet precisely some such approach seems implicit in so many dismissals of Third Stream writings, pieces that, we are told, fail because of their "cold intellectualism," their "cerebral character," their lack of "solid swing," etc. Yet even Mozart and Bach would rate poorly if their work were to be evaluated by the standards of hard bop. Like all hybrid musks-fusion, bossa nova, Afro-Cuban, even jazz itself-Third Stream is both more and less than its constituent parts and must be so treated. Early jazz, a hybrid of African and European elements, might well have been seen as a failure if it had been evaluated by the standards of either of these "streams"-an African griot and a nineteenth-century classical composer might have been equally unimpressed with the music of King Oliver or Jelly Roll Morton, whose works succeed unabashedly when evaluted as what they are, namely, jazz. Third Stream music, comparably, is a hybrid music lacking a corresponding critical tradition. Without such a perspective, any critical assessment of these works must approach them gingerly, careful not to apply blindly the various jazz pieties that have little bearing on such compositions.

From Chapter 8: centred around Stan Kenton.

Edited September 13, 2008 by Bev Stapleton

[JSngry]

Just as a general comment, I've long felt that it is too easy to discredit these "in-between" musics by defining them by their more obvious (in whatever manner) examples, & that by doing so we miss a whole 'nother world of music, music that although indeed neither fish nor fowl is nevertheless not some failed mutant offspring but instead is a wholly viable-within-itself organism. And really, if something is indeed viable within itself, what other "justification" need it have?

Also, I think that the mantra of "individuality" is a double edged sword, for too often it is used only within certain tightly defined parameters, and when something falls too far outsider those boundaries, the problem of "authenticity" springs up. Which is, I feel, a fair argument to have, but not if the possibility of "authentic to one's own self, not anybody else's" is disallowed from the outset. At what point does "individuality" negate "authenticity", and if so, why? and if why not, then how come? If you know what I mean...

Now, having said all that, I must also say that I have a lot of respect for Gioa's book, and significantly less (overall) for the world of Stan Kenton, in spite of all the people who passed through it on their way to sometimes bigger and/or better things. But in spite of that, the premise that things must be evaluated on their own terms (although not exclusively/ultiamtely so, I mean, eventually we all gotta prioritize) and that such a task might stretch some "evaluators" to places where which they might not be comfortable (and therefore send the postcard without making the trip) is one with which I concur.

Although, in the end, my final judgment in such things comes down to "is this relevant to my lifestyle?" which is, I think, the ultimate test that anybody puts to anything. I only feel comfortable doing this, though, because I try (stress, try) to keep my vision of what my "lifestyle" could/should/could not/should not entail and include as open to suggestion as it is firm in experience. Otherwise, on runs the risk of only confirming what they already know and confusing it with "the truth". The truth, I believe, is a quantity open to all but owned by none. One piece of the pie, no matter how tasty and no matter how filling, is not the entire pie, much less the entire kitchen, never mind the ecosystem that produced the ingredients of the pie and the manufacturing system that constructed the implements used to bake it.

One piece of the pie is ultimately just one piece of the pie. Period.

[BruceH]

I like that West Coast Jazz book.

[A Lark Ascending]

I agree with everything you say there, Jsngry. One of the reasons I was so taken by the passage was its parallels in other areas of music. I first started listening to music in a 'crossover' era (the early 70s - jazz-rock, folk-rock etc); a fair bit of what I listen to today from this side of the pond involves collisions between jazz and other forms of music and I often read similar criticisms to the ones Gioia cites (ECM anyone?). And, I can also find myself disturbed by some collisions - my own internal compass goes haywire when faced with drum machines, hip-hop etc (not just in jazz but also in folk music where I'm drawn to a more acoustic, scratchy approach). In those cases my brain just isn't making the necessary jump to the new worlds being created.

One of the things I really like about Gioia's book is how hard he works to take the different musicians on their own terms and see the good in them. Overall, he echoes the view I've most frequently read about Kenton (whose music I don't know apart from the odd track - I've clearly been brainwashed not to go near him!) as making music that over-ices the cake; yet he takes care to point out what he thinks was good in the music. Dave Brubeck, someone who had the reputation that smooth jazzers have today when I was first listening, gets a very good write up. I've just finished the Chet Baker chapter and once again, he's not afraid to pan certain albums, but the overall feel is of great admiration for his music, especially in the 50s.

[Guy Berger]

Thanks for posting that, Bev. Something we should always keep in mind as listeners.

Guy

[seeline]

Overall, he echoes the view I've most frequently read about Kenton (whose music I don't know apart from the odd track - I've clearly been brainwashed not to go near him!) as making music that over-ices the cake; yet he takes care to point out what he thinks was good in the music.

My mom used to play Kenton LPs when I was growing up, and I really hated them. But when I was somewhere in the neighborhood of 19, 20, maybe 21, I was listening to some of her big band comps and found some really beautiful, understated pieces that featured Kenton's piano. The difference was so striking!

So now I have a bit of a soft spot for him.

Edited September 15, 2008 by seeline

[Big Beat Steve]

I don't quite know where Kenton fits into the "Crossover" or "Third Stream" bag (except that there might be parallels between the "pompousness" of some classical and some of Kenton's music) but the key fault IMHO with people in dissing Kenton's output (whether they were "brainwashed" into this attitude or not ) is that they lump all of Kenton's music even of that era into one bag.

Some of it WAS pompous, and sometimes the usual clichés are even increased by Kenton's own marketing. The other day I picked up the "Kenton Era" 4-LP set of 1956 (that was widely marketed and acclaimed at the time) to add to the not too few Kenton LP's I already have, and listening to those discs, the rhythm section work on a fair number of those tracks makes it quite clear why Shelly Manne "felt like chopping wood" when working with the Kenton band.

But as the Kenton orchestra went through a lot of different "phases" from the 40s to the early 60s alone there was quite a bit of variety that ought to have "something for (almost) everybody" if you take the time to listen closer.

That aside, I for one am glad that the attempted marriage of classical music and jazz into what was tagged the "Third Stream" did not evolve any further than it did. IMHO it would have taken too much of the lifeblood out of jazz, and the attempts at using "Third Stream" to "elevate" jazz to "respectability" (over here, anyway) were both ill-fated and totally off the mark if you really cared about jazz. Because this approach to using "Third Stream" could only have come from somebody who did just not do what Gioia did: appreciate jazz on its OWN terms.

[JohnS]

I like that West Coast Jazz book.

Probably the best jazz book I've read.

[A Lark Ascending]

Gioia makes quite clear that he doesn't care for Kenton overall - but he goes out of his way to recognise positive traits. He's especially praising on the later Cuban influenced music.

Three other bits that warmed the cockles of my heart.

On the use of oboe/flute (Shank/Cooper) in some of this music. He obviously dislikes it and quotes musicians themselves in later life dismissing their earlier experiments. But:

Most of the recordings of this unusual instrumental combination now seem dated. On slow mood pieces the distinctive timbres can be intriguing, at least in small doses, but on faster-blowing numbers the music sounds unidiomatic and gimmicky. The continued rarity of the oboe in straight-ahead jazz situations contributes to this impression; perhaps if more later musicians had pursued this lead, these early experiments would not sound so odd to modern ears. The flute and oboe work had the further unintended effect of distracting critical attention from the continued vitality of the pair's saxophone performances.

I like that recognition that something that 'doesn't work' might just not work because we're not used to hearing it. Again, relevant to the criticism of fusion musics in many forms.

Then this splendid observation on Jimmy Giuffre:

Perhaps, too, this deeply personal element of Giuffre's music explains the surprising neglect of his work by later critics and commentators - explains but hardly justifies. If Giuffre's contributions cannot be squeezed into the conventional linear accounts of jazz history, perhaps the problem is with the historians and not Giuffre. Given the Hegelian zeal with which the story of jazz has been portrayed as a succession of progressively higher developments, each growing dialectically from pre-existing schools . . . well, such accounts miss quite a bit. For one, they leave no room for stylists who fail to transform the art form in their own image. Such histories lack the terminology for addressing those musicians who create artistic statements that reflect themselves and not the fashions of the day.

I'm only passingly familiar with most of the musicians he describes, but stumbled on Giuffre way back and have always liked his music (even saw him once in a half empty upstairs pub room in Nottingham)! The chapter devoted to him held me spellbound.

And Gioia has a sense of humour:

The visit to South Africa was marked by Shank's intriguing attempt to assimilate the indigenous musical culture. "While we were there Bud discovered a little instrument called the pennywhistle," Williamson describes, "and we recorded a single 45 called "The Pennywhistle Blues," and it was number one on Johannesburg radio for three weeks." Soon after returning to the States in June of 1958, Shank abandoned his promising career as the leading pennywhistle exponent in jazz.

(promise I won't quote the whole book!)

[seeline]

I like that recognition that something that 'doesn't work' might just not work because we're not used to hearing it. Again, relevant to the criticism of fusion musics in many forms.

Exactly! I remember the 1st time i encountered what I thought was an "odd" combination in Brazilian music - a clarinet/guitar duo album by Paulo Moura and the late Raphael Rabello. The idea of those 2 instruments together was baffling to me, until I listened to the CD. (I don't think this pairing would be thought of as strange in Brazil, but I would have to ask around to be sure.)

Either way, it's a marvelous album.

on Bud Shank getting intrigued by S. African kwela music!

Edited September 15, 2008 by seeline

[A Lark Ascending]

I like that recognition that something that 'doesn't work' might just not work because we're not used to hearing it. Again, relevant to the criticism of fusion musics in many forms.

Exactly! I remember the 1st time i encountered what I thought was an "odd" combination in Brazilian music - a clarinet/guitar duo album by Paulo Moura and the late Raphael Rabello. The idea of those 2 instruments together was baffling to me, until I listened to the CD. (I don't think this pairing would be though of as strange in Brazil, but I would have to ask around to be sure.)

Yes. I try to be cautious when I'm put off by an unusual combination. So many times I've come back at a later time, probably benefiting from hearing lots of other things in the mean time, and wondered how I missed it. 'Bitches Brew' sounded like a mess when I first heard it in '76.

On the other hand there are things that sound no better many years on. And a fair few things that sound worse!

Edited September 15, 2008 by Bev Stapleton

[seeline]

When I 1st saw that Paulo Moura/R. Rabello album, I knew nothing about Brazilian music, except for some passing familiarity with bossa nova. Moura and Raphael were coming from different places 9various types of samba + choro), where the use of guitars and woodwinds in arrangements isn't at all unusual.

So I had nothing to gain - and lots to lose - by passing it up. I didn't buy the CD that day, but a few months later, it was spinning away in my player. I was sorry that I'd waited!

Edited September 15, 2008 by seeline

[Hot Ptah]

Perhaps, too, this deeply personal element of Giuffre's music explains the surprising neglect of his work by later critics and commentators - explains but hardly justifies. If Giuffre's contributions cannot be squeezed into the conventional linear accounts of jazz history, perhaps the problem is with the historians and not Giuffre. Given the Hegelian zeal with which the story of jazz has been portrayed as a succession of progressively higher developments, each growing dialectically from pre-existing schools . . . well, such accounts miss quite a bit. For one, they leave no room for stylists who fail to transform the art form in their own image. Such histories lack the terminology for addressing those musicians who create artistic statements that reflect themselves and not the fashions of the day.

This is a very interesting point to me. Jazz history has often been written as a "succession of progressively higher developments" with a Great Man Theory component added. In many published accounts which I read in the 1970s,when I was learning about jazz, the Swing Era giants gave way to the innovations of Bird and Diz, then Ornette and Coltrane took over....then, disappointment--who is the next Great Man, where is the next huge stylistic leap? Oh no! there are none, so "jazz is dead."

I have always thought that such an approach was too simplistic and reflected lazy thinking by the critics who wrote that way. Gioia describes the limitations of that approach very well in the quotation you have presented, Bev. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[seeline]

Agreed, HP.

funny how most accounts of classical music actually celebrate the "one-offs," like Chopin and Ives - Bach, for that matter! It's "great man"-focused, but with a twist. If you take that approach to jazz, people like Giuffre come out (I think) on the same level as Monk and other musicians whose work is unique. (Not that there are many of them - I think the opposite is true, and that the uniqueness has much to do with the intensely personal approach that some take.)

True of other genres as well.

[7/4]

Yes. I try to be cautious when I'm put off by an unusual combination. So many times I've come back at a later time, probably benefiting from hearing lots of other things in the mean time, and wondered how I missed it. 'Bitches Brew' sounded like a mess when I first heard it in '76.

I think I heard it about the same time. Imagine checking it out because McLaughlin from Mahavishnu was on it. That bass clarinet sounded pretty strange!

[Big Beat Steve]

Most of the recordings of this unusual instrumental combination now seem dated. On slow mood pieces the distinctive timbres can be intriguing, at least in small doses, but on faster-blowing numbers the music sounds unidiomatic and gimmicky. The continued rarity of the oboe in straight-ahead jazz situations contributes to this impression; perhaps if more later musicians had pursued this lead, these early experiments would not sound so odd to modern ears. The flute and oboe work had the further unintended effect of distracting critical attention from the continued vitality of the pair's saxophone performances.

I like that recognition that something that 'doesn't work' might just not work because we're not used to hearing it. Again, relevant to the criticism of fusion musics in many forms.

Yes and no. Sometimes it IS a matter of "not being used to it", sometimes it is a simple matter of taste, but sometimes it also appears to be a case of a musical dead end.

Taking the example of woodwinds used in jazz, by coincidence the other day I listened to a few Chick Webb recordings featuring Wayman Carver on flute. By the sheer "oddity" aspect this must have been even stranger than woodwind recordings in 50s jazz but to my ears it makes perfect sense and fits in perfectly well even in that idiom.

Same with 50s jazz: I am really not a jazz flute or woodwind fan but even on first listening I immediately took a liking to the early Herbie Mann recordings on Savoy whereas I never really got into all that flute'n'oboe etc. stuff by West Coast jazzmen such as Giuffre, Shank and Cooper, especially Bud Shank whose woodwind noodling and doodling I often find rather bloodless. And this despite the fact that I consider myself a HUGE West Coast jazz fan. How come, I wonder? Normally the more laid-back, cooler WCJ style ought to lend itself particularly well to woodwinds (at least more so than "bebop on flute") and yet ... somehow it just doesn't "fuse" with the idiom IMHO. Maybe the detractors of WCJ were right in that those woodwinds tended to accentuate the drawbacks of WCJ?? (I.e. a certain "laid-backness" just for the sake of being laid back - which I've never felt to exist to the extent the detractors of WCJ used to claim back then, but there just might be a grain of truth in it if woodwinds come too much to the fore?)

[A Lark Ascending]

Yes. I try to be cautious when I'm put off by an unusual combination. So many times I've come back at a later time, probably benefiting from hearing lots of other things in the mean time, and wondered how I missed it. 'Bitches Brew' sounded like a mess when I first heard it in '76.

I think I heard it about the same time. Imagine checking it out because McLaughlin from Mahavishnu was on it. That bass clarinet sounded pretty strange!

McLaughlin was also the draw for me.

What stumped me was the way the music rarely seemed to stray from a single chord base for long stretches. Although I'd (subconsciously) heard this in the more 'jamming' type of rock, my tastes were very much towards rich harmony, unusual chord progressions and unexpected key changes (the rock of the likes of Yes, Genesis etc).

It took the experienceof listening to much more jazz before I could really start to enjoy what the musicians were doing by deliberately restricting their harmonic foundations.

[A Lark Ascending]

Yes and no. Sometimes it IS a matter of "not being used to it", sometimes it is a simple matter of taste, but sometimes it also appears to be a case of a musical dead end.

I agree.

But some critics are very quick to assert the latter without considering that it might be one of the first two.

[A Lark Ascending]

You can carry the 'musician outside the main development' thing a stage further. I suspect most of us as listeners have favourites who rarely get a mention but figure highly for us just because we get the chance to hear them frequently and follow how they develop.

Over-emphasising the linear 'who is the most important' line takes no notice of the fact that jazz still has many local elements and often quite separated local audiences. So what figures large for me may be inconsequential for someone in LA.

And if...as is often asserted...jazz is best live, then most of us are going to be having our best, regular listening experiences with musicians who are, at least, local to our countries. I get to see Julian Siegal or Tom Arthurs in a range of contexts; I'm unlikely to see Joe Lovano or Roy Hargrove outside some major concert hall or festival stage.

[A Lark Ascending]

Another marvellous passage, this time from the Shelly Manne chapter:

Manne's work represents what Robert Frost called "the road not taken." With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that the great revolutions that were to come in the development of the jazz rhythm section-spurred by the Bill Evans Trio, the John Coltrane Quartet, and the Miles Davis Quintet during the 1960smade little conscious reference to the precedents set on the West Coast during the 1950S. If we judge a jazz artist by his influence, Manne-Iike many West Coasters of his day-is at best a minor figure.

Yet the value of a body of work is more than a retrospective assessment of its influences. Perhaps the greatest flaw of existing studies of jazz lies in their substitution of genealogies of influence for appreciations of merit. Manne's body of work becomes well worth consideration and praise when we evaluate it less as a stage in the history of drums, and more as a body of music.

[A Lark Ascending]

And a final observation which I like very much:

One can no longer attribute the continuing appeal of the music to passing fad or fancy, a temporary aberration of the public taste, or the big promotional budgets of the major labels. Nor can we continue to dismiss much of the West Coast output because it "doesn't sound like bebop" or hard bop or what you will. The time has passed for continuing illusions about what jazz should sound like-especially given the here-to-stay diversity of jazz in the postmodern years. Models from social sciences, clumsily applied to jazz, imply that one paradigm replaces another, that the new replaces the old; but the growing realization among practitioners in the contemporary arts is that such models bear little resemblance to what is actually happening in modern music, painting, poetry, or jazz. We are blinded by our theories of paradigm shift.

If the history of jazz innovation-the heated battles waged by Parker, Gillespie, Coleman, Coltrane, and others-has one lesson, it is simply that jazz sounds the way it sounds. Any extension of any tradition can be dismissed out of hand if the old rules are applied without an appreciation for the new. In this regard, the Kenton band and the Brubeck Octet are no different from the bebop bands at Minton's. They must be evaluated on the basis of what they were trying to achieve, not some imposed standards that have nothing to do with what the players were aiming at.

How often have I read grumbles that jazz today is not exciting, when is the next Coltrane coming along? etc Also a nice refutation for those who persue the 'You shouldn't be listening to that, you should be listening to this' approach to jazz discussion.

***************

The book was published over 15 years ago. In his conclusion Gioia makes a point about how the relative neglect of West Coast jazz can by explained by its lack of the support structures that the east coast had - especially an interested critical establishment. He suggests that with the economic importance of the West Coast growing on the Pacific rim, this might lead to a corresponding increase in the general importance of the west culturally.

Has that happened in any way in the last 15 years?