Iverson and Tristano

[Quasimado]

I don't think this has been covered here:

http://thebadplus.typepad.com/dothemath/20...e-tristano.html

It's is a great read (extensive, with related chapters).

I have to disagree with his theory that LT disliked Monk's piano because it was too black.

Quote *... the point is that Tristano’s paranoia about drummers and his distaste for Monk seem perfectly aligned. He doesn’t want too much African diaspora in his jazz, period*.

Well, It's an argument, but IMO LT respected Bird and Bud for their amazing (at their best) melodic and rhythmic development of the line - a purely Black, bebop development. Monk is a master in his own right, but rather than too black, he is too *primitive* (ie his vision is too idiosyncratic) for Lennie to appreciate, compared to these two instrumental masters ...

Q

[Larry Kart]

I don't think this has been covered here:

http://thebadplus.typepad.com/dothemath/20...e-tristano.html

It's is a great read (extensive, with related chapters).

I have to disagree with his theory that LT disliked Monk's piano because it was too black.

Quote *... the point is that Tristano’s paranoia about drummers and his distaste for Monk seem perfectly aligned. He doesn’t want too much African diaspora in his jazz, period*.

Well, It's an argument, but IMO LT respected Bird and Bud for their amazing (at their best) melodic and rhythmic development of the line - a purely Black, bebop development. Monk is a master in his own right, but rather than too black, he is too *primitive* (ie his vision is too idiosyncratic) for Lennie to appreciate, compared to these two instrumental masters ...

Q

Iverson is a bright guy, a nice guy, and a fine player, but I was disappointed by the facile-cheesy/armchair psychoanalysis amalgamation of musical and racial themes in the passage Quasimodo quoted, and elsewhere in the essay IIRC. Some of the same thinking crops up in Iverson's much chewed-over here interview with Marsalis, where at one point Iverson himself gets all "I'm not worthy" (along musical/racial lines) with Wynton about Iverson's provincial (for want of a better term) Wisconsin upbringing.

BTW, Lester Young had much the same taste in drummers as Tristano did, apparently for similar, primarily musical reasons. But I guess Pres was lying and really didn't want too much African diaspora in his jazz.

[AllenLowe]

I think Tristano tended to look at what he perceived was technique - and LACK of technique -

as he said to me about 1976 (it's true, I actually met the man, but that's a long and strange story in itself):"John Lewis? He can't play - now, Hank Jones - THERE's a piano player."

[Hot Ptah]

I don't think this has been covered here:

http://thebadplus.typepad.com/dothemath/20...e-tristano.html

It's is a great read (extensive, with related chapters).

I have to disagree with his theory that LT disliked Monk's piano because it was too black.

Quote *... the point is that Tristano’s paranoia about drummers and his distaste for Monk seem perfectly aligned. He doesn’t want too much African diaspora in his jazz, period*.

Well, It's an argument, but IMO LT respected Bird and Bud for their amazing (at their best) melodic and rhythmic development of the line - a purely Black, bebop development. Monk is a master in his own right, but rather than too black, he is too *primitive* (ie his vision is too idiosyncratic) for Lennie to appreciate, compared to these two instrumental masters ...

Q

Iverson is a bright guy, a nice guy, and a fine player, but I was disappointed by the facile-cheesy/armchair psychoanalysis amalgamation of musical and racial themes in the passage Quasidmodo quoted, and elsewhere in the essay IIRC. Some of the same thinking crops up in Iverson's much chewed-over here interview with Marsalis, where at one point Iverson himself gets all "I'm not worthy" (along musical/racial lines) with Wynton about Iverson's provincial (for want of a better term) Wisconsin upbringing.

BTW, Lester Young had much the same taste in drummers as Tristano did, apparently for similar, primarily musical reasons. But I guess Pres was lying and really didn't want too much African diaspora in his jazz.

Being a Wisconsin native myself, I can tell you that it is easy to think of yourself as a rube when talking to people in major metropolitan areas. This is not to excuse Iverson's leap from that, to unsupported musical/racial themes.

I have known some people from larger cities all too eager to label a Wisconsin person as an uncultured hick, and Iverson may have run into that himself. However, at some point you've got to get past that, and not mention it defensively yourself. In fact, now I occasionally use it as a diverting tactic, to make business opponents think that I am less of a threat than I really am, then I sneak up on them.

The most dramatic example that I can remember--I interviewed for a job in the recruiting office of my law school, with a Chicago law firm in 1980, and when the attorney heard that I was a Wisconsin native, he said, "Wisconsin! I just think that you will not be able to survive in Chicago. Wisconsin people are so backward. You have twenty seconds to convince me that you have some cultural background, something different about you so that you will be able to live in Chicago with a hick background like that." I quickly ran through the file cards in my mind, thought about mentioning the Jazz Showcase and Jazz Record Mart, decided that such an answer might be considered so out of the mainstream for a downtown professional office that it would not be a good answer, wondered if I should give the jazz answer a try anyway, but by then the twenty seconds were up. The attorney abruptly left the cubicle in the recruiting office without another word. I've often wondered if I would have had the job if I had mentioned Roscoe Mitchell. I never did break into Chicago.

But Valerie Bowman of my 100 student first year section at law school sure did. She's now known as Valerie Jarrett.

Edited January 22, 2009 by Hot Ptah

[AllenLowe]

you shoulda given him a lap dance -

[jostber]

I think Tristano tended to look at what he perceived was technique - and LACK of technique -

as he said to me about 1976 (it's true, I actually met the man, but that's a long and strange story in itself):"John Lewis? He can't play - now, Hank Jones - THERE's a piano player."

Would be great to hear that whole story!

[Larry Kart]

Just realized that I mis-spelled Quasimado's name two different ways above. Sorry.

Signed, Klactoveedsedstene

[Fer Urbina]

Tristano’s hatred of Monk is legendary:

In my opinion, just about the dumbest pianist I’ve ever heard.

I wouldn't take that as hatred, but that's just my opinion. In any case, Tristano is not alone re: Monk. Miles didn't like his comping, and IIRC, Jimmy Knepper didn't see him as a good composer.

As for blackness being Tristano's problem with Monk, I don't see how Monk is particularly "black". Very original, yes, but black?

F

[Quasimado]

Just realized that I mis-spelled Quasimado's name two different ways above. Sorry.

Signed, Klactoveedsedstene

Q

[jostber]

I've seen it mentioned some places that "The New Tristano" is pretty Monkish.

[Quasimado]

I've seen it mentioned some places that "The New Tristano" is pretty Monkish.

Well, to my ears at least, they are pretty much conceptually, rhythmically and harmonically a long way apart.

From my understanding it would seem that it was really hearing Bud that turned Lennie from a flashy modernist to a pianist who came to appreciate the value of each note he played. I recall reading somewhere that he was so taken by Bud's ability to approach what he (LT) thought of as pure musical expression that he spent sets lying under Bud's piano! It's not a big leap from there to his concept of *playing from the id*, allowing the music to manifest itself through the elimination of (egoistic) emotion, in an environment of intensive practice.

Despite Crouch's reservations, Iverson could do worse than investigate this path - it hasn't lost any of its validity, IMO.

Q

[AllenLowe]

interestingly enough, one of the things I like most about Iverson's playing (and I think he's a terrific pianist) is that he tends to play toward the middle of the keyboard, which is also very characteristic of Powell and the early beboppers - it's a sound that I love and I think is very unique -

[jazzbo]

Hmmm. . .Per. . . I can see Monk as "very black." Very original, and yet I so often hear a sort of black stride piano underpinning. And the interest in the beat and the playing with the beat seem very much unlike what a white pianist would have arrived at.

[JSngry]

We can have this "Tristano/White" discussion into perpetuity and make time stand still, or we can listen to the ways that it hasn't stood still, and the ways that Tristano has affected both white & non-white players (if only in terms of opening up a sense of "alternative-ness" to bebop and/or modality and/or free), how for those who aren't so hung up with anything except music that it has by and large become just that - music, and how for those who still want/need/can't escape the sense of eternal identity segregation (and they come in all hues), it will always be about more (and thereby less?) than the music.

For me, the latter route is much preferable, and much more real. Trisatano's "racial" significance relative to his music was of his time. His (& Warne's & Lee's) musical significance is of ours, or should be. Thinking of it as being a wholly "white" thing is old-school, and, truthfully, old-fashioned, irrelevant, and anti-evolutionary.

But that's just me.

[paul secor]

I don't put a lot of stock in what musicians have to say about other musicians' music. There may be exceptions, but in general that's my feeling. I'd rather listen to Tristano, Konitz, or Miles than read their opinions about Monk or any other musician.

Edited January 23, 2009 by paul secor

[Mark Stryker]

I don't put a lot of stock in what musicians have to say about other musicians' music. There may be exceptions, but in general that's my feeling. I'd rather listen to Tristano, Konitz, or Miles than read their opinions about Monk or any other musician.

I disagree with the first sentence. It's not that the great musicians' point-of-view is infallible. Far from it. It's that the insights are almost always valuable -- but often not for what they tell us about the musician who is the object of the analysis but what they tell us about the musician making the judgment. Tristano or Miles on Monk opens a window into the aesthetic preferences and the ears of Tristano and Miles more than it might about Monk -- and actually it offers an interesting perspective about Monk's ideas and choices, too, even if we might vehemently disagree with the thumbs up or down evaluation. It is often true that musicians make problematic critics because their own aesthetic point-of-view and values are so strong that it makes it hard for them to appreciate or understand ideas that spring from very different values. But if you remain cognizant of that, you can get a lot out of what any great musician has to say, both in terms of nuts and bolts and big picture philosophy.

Edited January 23, 2009 by Mark Stryker

[paul secor]

I don't put a lot of stock in what musicians have to say about other musicians' music. There may be exceptions, but in general that's my feeling. I'd rather listen to Tristano, Konitz, or Miles than read their opinions about Monk or any other musician.

I disagree with the first sentence. It's not that the great musicians' point-of-view is infallible. Far from it. It's that the insights are almost always valuable -- but often not for what they tell us about the musician who is the object of the analysis but what they tell us about the musician making the judgment. Tristano or Miles on Monk opens a window into the aesthetic preferences and the ears of Tristano and Miles more than it might about Monk -- and actually it offers an interesting perspective about Monk's ideas and choices, too, even if we might vehemently disagree with the thumbs up or down evaluation. It is often true that musicians make problematic critics because their own aesthetic point-of-view and values are so strong that it makes it hard for them to appreciate or understand ideas that spring from very different values. But if you remain cognizant of that, you can get a lot out of what any great musician has to say, both in terms of nuts and bolts and big picture philosophy.

I can agree with that.

[AllenLowe]

my general suspicion is that many musicians' critical attitudes are screwy - maybe including my own- though there are also plenty of exceptions. But a lot of times they don't see or understand other perspectives; so a guy who plays with a lot of facility will often not understand a guy who does not, or a guy of one style will miss the importance of another (Al Haig, for example, did not like Konitz or Tristano). I know of one guy, one of the greatest bass players I ever worked with, ideas, sound, time, harmony - who was so good technically that he never understood any musician who was not as perfect as he - and yet, he wasn't a "cold" player, wasn't so perfect as to be boring - it was just the way he saw things from his universe. Bill Evans played one of his best solos with Paul Bley in George Russell's band, but thought it was just "free" bullshit. Johnny Carisi, who I considered a true avant gardist, disliked the whole post-Ornette thing, just could not get it (he also hated minimalism). So we must take it all with lots of salt.

And Tristano, on top of everything, was a nasty guy, not above applying his personal conflicts to his artistic judgements. I remember telling one guy, after I met Lennie, that he had gotten fat. "Good" he said, "he deserves it."

[Chuck Nessa]

10) PEACE!

I don't think so.

[Larry Kart]

1) Iverson is still an uber-douche who snuck into good graces of some because jazz buffs didn't know how fully full of shit his pop appropriation moves were (are)... etc.

Leaving The Bad Plus aside -- which I'll have to do because by some miracle I haven't heard them yet -- over the years I have heard Iverson on a number of other recordings as a leader and a sideman where "pop appropriation" was not an issue and have been impressed.

Also, based on his blog posts and a few email exchanges I've had with him, while I certainly don't agree with Iverson about everything, I'd say that intellectually he's very far from "an inferior little f----." Instead, my impression has been that he's full of genuine curiosity about a whole lot of things and usually does quite well following his own nose. See, for example, his informative, shrewd blog post on the late Donald Westlake, whom he took the trouble to get to know:

http://thebadplus.typepad.com/

[Guest youmustbe]

Ethan is a good, intelligent guy. I've exchanged many emails with him regarding classical music.

So his opinions don't always jibe with some of ours. Ron Carter thinks Scott LaFaro sucked. So go figure. The way of the world.

[Guest youmustbe]

20th Century and current composers. As well as current classical pianists. Ethan is a little bit nerdy, but who hasn't faults?

I remember years ago I got a tape from him when he was unknown and I was just starting to produce records. I sent it off to somebody, can't remember who, and eventually he got some kind of deal with whomever it was.

[clifford_thornton]

I have also escaped the music of the Bad Plus, but I'm usually curious myself to see what Iverson's writing about on a given week.

Keith Tippett is, AFAIK, still kickin'.

[JSngry]

I still say that framing any discussion of Tristano (or "Tristano" is you want to deal with the entire "school") in primarily racial terms is, at this point in time, missing the point more or less entirely. Yeah, it was a motivator then, yeah, it was a "factor" in its time, pro and con, but like damn near any discovery of merit, it's moved far beyond those specifics of its time and into the general musical genetic gene pool, perhaps in relatively small doses so far, but you know, once things get in, it's hard to get them out except by brute ugly force.

If this is something that has begun happening just in the last 10-20 years or so, well, hey, it had to happen at some point, dig? And to miss that it has happened/is happening now is to miss the times in which we are beginning to live, which has unfortunately become the norm for jazz, but still, jeez, does it always have to be so damned....oblivious to its anachronistic self?

[AllenLowe]

well, I wasn't saying there was anything wrong with Tristano's playing, which I love; only that his nastiness definitely got in the way of some critical judgements - and I will say that he frightened me, young as I was (maybe 22) - he had an aura of the kind I've read about but not experienced elsewhere, of the kind cult leaders seem to attain, and I could understand from my brief visit (maybe 2 hours) how difficult to resist or defy he might have been. One had the sense he not only saw everything one was doing, but was something of a mind-reader.

As for latter-day judgements, I remember Martin Williams diminishing the whole importance of the Tristano school because he thought it had little influence; aside from the wrongness of this approach to historical judgment, he was plain wrong, anyway; one of the first things Hemphill told me was how much Konitz's playing had meant to him, and I know many others of Julius's generation were listening to Lennie et all (particularly Cecil Taylor, who has come, by reason of racial politics, to deny it) -

Edited January 26, 2009 by AllenLowe