Jazz Modernism by Alfred Appel

[chris]

Has anyone read Jazz Modernism by Alfred Appel? Your thoughts? I know of Appel through his incredibly good annotations for Lolita, but know nothing of his writing on jazz. I'm not afraid of things getting a little academic, as long as that's not all there is to it...

[jazzbo]

It's an interesting book by AA. Can't say I can really evaluate his criticism of paintings and other arts, and I think the man sees way too many phalluses and vaginas in artwork, but it was fun to read the jazz portions. . . .

[chris]

I didn't know it was possible to see to many vaginas

I'll try to find a used copy-- I found a few conflicting reviews, though the major dissenter appeared to be convinced that comparing music and visual arts was a complete nonsensical proposition in the first place, thus invalidating most of the book. But in the abstract, I don't agree with this...

[jazzbo]

I think you would likely enjoy it. Clearly there is a strong case to be made, and he tries hard to make it, for jazz as modernism during the first few decades of its recorded existence. And he has some amusing things to say about Pops and Fats and Duke and Pres and some others. When it gets MOST interesting for me is the few times when he relates his PERSONAL experiences seeing a few of the artists in performance. . . I'd like there to be more of that.

Where he loses me somewhat is when he compares some paitings to some recordings and vice versa. . . well. . . sometimes I think the comparisons have merit, sometimes. . . well who knows.

[chuckyd4]

I thought this was an absolutely brilliant book - I didn't always find myself agreeing with his conclusions, but his prose is really excellent. I found it one of the best jazz reads I can remember.

[Larry Kart]

Here's a copy of an email about "Jazz Modernism" that I sent to a friend a while back:

About that peculiar Appel book, it's about what I thought it would be but more inept, feels improvised but not in a good sense. Lots of detailed but often cute and cozy references to works by Picasso and Matisse (the book is full of nice slick-paper reproductions), and then Appel tries to link this to Armstrong, Ellington and Fats Waller et al., "to establish the place of classic jazz (1920-50) ... in the great modernist tradition in the arts." [Why pull the curtain in 1950, I wonder?]

Appel: "My musical emphasis is on singing and the lyrics of songs, because words lend themselves to discourse more readily than musical notes," he says at one point, rather ominously. But then there's this a while later on: "Even Miles Davis, a racially proud man, recorded instrumental selections from 'Porgy and Bess' in 1958 (arranged by Gil Evans, a white man), notwithstanding its controversial book and (coon show?) libretto. Simply enough, the words didn't matter." [Did I miss something here?]

Appel: "Accessible art [e.g. jazz] should be disseminated as widely as possible because it is tonic, like plasma or Andre Derain's great...masterpiece etc.... The idea of tonic art is old-fashioned and naive to many, but if art...isn't uplifting, and nationalism, religion, and Marxism have failed, what then?" [What then, indeed. Please pass the plasma.]

Appel: "'Make it new,' as Ezra Pound urged American poets in 1914. 'Taint what you do, it's the way that you do it,' sang Trummy Young with Jimmy Lunceford's Band in 1939."

[And "Caldeonia, what makes your big head so hard?" asked Woody Herman in 1946.]

When he does touch upon those musical notes, Appel has a big problem with the term "aleatory." It first crops up this way: "...Parker wanted to study with Edgar Varese, the French-American composer of aleatory music..."

Next comes this: "Teagarden's closing 'trombone' chorus on 'St. James Infirmary' is aleatory music, modernism by definition, though to him it was a proven crowd-pleasing vaudeville trick: using a water glass in place of the trombone's chamber and flared bell..."

Then this: "The toilet plunger, as vernacular and democratic as an object gets, is the source of the most popular incarnation of avant-garde aleatory music. This is a major Elllington achievement...aleatory music, from Pierre Boulez down, has not found an audience. Ellington jungle style is Varese for the people by way of the plumber."

And finally this: "...Ellington's aleatory wonder, 'Happy-Go-Lucky-Local,' where the brass bears the heaviest load in simulating the sounds of a train etc...."

Apparently Appel thinks that the "aleatory" means at least three or maybe four different things, none of which happens to be what aleatory does mean ("involving random choice by the artist"). "Using sounds from the natural or non-musical world in a piece of music" would fit Varese; "making sounds on musical instruments that evoke the natural or non-musical world" would fit "Happy-Go-Lucky-Local"; "making music on something that isn't normally a musical instrument" would be Teagarden and the water glass; and maybe "atonal or serial" would fit "aleatory music, from Pierre Boulez down"--certainly none of Appel's prior uses of aleatory fits here.

Appel: "...Lester actually roomed with Billie and her mother for a time, though he and Billie were never lovers--a striking, exceptional fact given the free and easy jazz milieu." [What?!!!]

There is one good story, if true: Appel was at Birdland on a Saturday in the winter of 1951 to hear Charlie Parker when a group that included Stravinsky sat down at the table next to Appel's, whereupon Bird, alerted to Stravinsky's presence by Red Rodney, began the first set with "KoKo" and "at the beginning of his second chorus interpolated the opening of 'Firebird Suite'--at which Stravinsky "roared with delight, pounding his glass on the table, the upward arc of the glass sending its liquor and ice cubes onto the people behind him...." Hey, he says he was there.

End of book report.

[jazzbo]

Do you think he mean aleatory to mean "taking risks"? It fits that way for the jungle style.

I don't really disagree with your statements about the book, none-the-less I thought his prose and its tone were fun.

[chris]

Appel: "My musical emphasis is on singing and the lyrics of songs, because words lend themselves to discourse more readily than musical notes," he says at one point, rather ominously. But then there's this a while later on: "Even Miles Davis, a racially proud man, recorded instrumental selections from 'Porgy and Bess' in 1958 (arranged by Gil Evans, a white man), notwithstanding its controversial book and (coon show?) libretto. Simply enough, the words didn't matter." [Did I miss something here?]

Thanks for the note-- I'll be sure to post my thoughts when I have read the book. In the meantime, I have a bit of a quibble with the quote I have sliced out. I don't see that the contradiction is as clear as you seem to think. The fact that words lend themselves more readily to discourse (which is true in a sense) than music doesn't preclude some particular music being more powerful than its words. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think the former has no bearing on the latter at all... or it is a great compliment to say that the music in a piece is so strong that it literally overrides the normally important (for discussion's sake) lyrics.

[Larry Kart]

Well, I see a big contradiction or disconnect or just ass-backwardness in Appel's "My musical emphasis is on singing and the lyrics of songs, because words lend themselves to discourse more readily than musical notes." His MUSICAL emphasis is not on the music because music is difficult to talk about? How about if someone said, "My study of, say, Edith Piaf (or Kurt Weill) will focus on the musical notes because I don't really understand (or feel at ease talking about) the setting and/or interpretation of French (or German) words."

As for, Do you think he mean aleatory to mean "taking risks"? maybe he did sort of. But that's not what "aleatory" means, and "taking risks" doesn't really fit how he uses "aleatory" in the passages quoted. I think Appel thinks that "aleatory" basically means grabbing something rather unconventional that happens to be at hand and putting it to use, but that fits well only one of the quoted passages (the Teagarden water glass anecdote). Besides "aleatory music" is, or once was, a commonly used phrase -- a music that involves chance operations on the part of the composer and/or performer, a la John Cage -- and none of Appel's quotes refers to music of that sort. I wouldn't harp on this if Appel weren't an English professor and a rather self-important one at that, a guy who prides himself on using words more precisely than the great unwashed do. On the other hand, he did do a fine job on his annotated edition of Nabokov's "Lolita," a task that was better suited to his abilities and temperament.

[chris]

Look, I took issue with on particular quote, not the whole section. I'm not trying to defend the book, which I haven't read, or Appel, though his annotated Lolita is a classic and shows an amazing amount of acumen.

But sometimes it is easy, once the train gets off the track, to continue in the same vein and miss the more subtle points. Appel states that the words lend themselves more easily to discourse-- this is very different from saying that he is ignoring the music or doesn't see the notes as important. The key word here is discourse-- because there is a connotative AND denotative meaning to words, it is much easier to hold a discussion about them with others (thus discourse). Musical notes have no denotative force, thus it is much harder to talk about them-- they are one step removed in the same way that some aspects of paintings are.

Incidentally, this is why I find the enterprise of writing about music at all, much less comparing music and visual arts, so interesting and-- ultimately-- so fraught with peril.

At any rate, I think there is a much more charitable reading of THAT quote than the one you gave.

I'm not sure why you are all worked up about it. But then I tend to just let the bad books go-- at least the author tried to get at something that is obviously important to them.

Personally, I think you make a bit too much of the use of "aleatory." I agree about the relatively formal definition. But in this respect, perhaps Appel is relying on a use that is perhaps more familiar to him-- aleatory is used in lit crit circles as (without getting into the connotation thing again) basically a synonym for unpredictable. Some dictionaries put it that way as well. So maybe it's not quite THAT egregious, though from the quotes it appears to just be one of Appel's favorite words

Edited December 16, 2003 by chris

[Larry Kart]

OK, Chris, but let us know how the book strikes you once you've had a chance to read it. Maybe it has more to do with me than Appel, but there was something about his pipe-and-smoking-jacket tone in this book that gave me the willies. I don't like being talked down to, though sometimes the realities of a particular situation make that unavoidable. But really I don't like being talked down to by someone who not only doesn't know his stuff but also is so damned cavalier about it all. That's how Appel struck me.

[jazzbo]

From websters.com:

a·le·a·to·ry ( P ) Pronunciation Key (l--tôr, -tr)

adj.

Dependent on chance, luck, or an uncertain outcome: an aleatory contract between an oil prospector and a landowner.

Of or characterized by gambling: aleatory contests.

also a·le·a·to·ric (l--tôrk, -tr-)

Music. Using or consisting of sounds to be chosen by the performer or left to chance; indeterminate: An object placed inside the piano added an aleatory element to the piece.

Now yes, in MUSICAL terms it doesn't necessarily mean taking chances. But using the word in in a nonmusical form it can. So it's interesting that the word can have different meanings in different contexts. And he could have meant risktaking . . . though usually speaking in music it wouldn't mean that. . . he seems funny that way with his prose.

He did not strike ME as talking down to ME.

Edited December 16, 2003 by jazzbo

[Larry Kart]

Jazzbo, I know this is getting old, but look again at Appel's use of "aleatory" below:

Appel has a big problem with the term "aleatory." It first crops up this way:

"...Parker wanted to study with Edgar Varese, the French-American composer of aleatory music..."

Next comes this:

"Teagarden's closing 'trombone' chorus on 'St. James Infirmary' is aleatory music, modernism by definition, though to him it was a proven crowd-pleasing vaudeville trick: using a water glass in place of the trombone's chamber and flared bell..."

Then this:

"The toilet plunger, as vernacular and democratic as an object gets, is the source of the most popular incarnation of avant-garde aleatory music. This is a major Elllington achievement...aleatory music, from Pierre Boulez down, has not found an audience. Ellington jungle style is Varese for the people by way of the plumber."

And finally this:

"...Ellington's aleatory wonder, 'Happy-Go-Lucky-Local,' where the brass bears the heaviest load in simulating the sounds of a train etc...."

No way one term, however you define it, fits these five very different instances: the music of Varese, Teagarden and the water glass on "St. James Infirmary," Ellington's plunger-muted brassmen, the music of Boulez, and the train evocations of "Happy-Go-Lucky-Local." It's just careless writing and thinking, and I resent it when guys like Appel, who rightly would get keel-hauled if they wrote and thought this way within their academic disciplines, stroll into jazz as though it were a kind of intellectual summer resort where precision doesn't matter and almost anything goes. Look at the way guys like Jim Sangrey and Chuck Nessa take care over their words here. The results may not sound fancy (and Chuck can be very blunt), but you almost always know precisely what they mean, and you usually feel that what they're talking and thinking about is something that they've tried to understand and put into words as precisely as they could. To me, that's a basic moral test that we all should try to meet.

[jazzbo]

Okay whatever. I'm not completely sold, but you are. Cool. I see less of an issue of his use of this word, and I actually DON"T always know precisely what Jim or Chuck mean, and I know just how carefully Jim sometimes doesn't put together his words, but hey that's me. You have a different view, Cool.

Edited December 17, 2003 by jazzbo

[Larry Kart]

Cool with me, too.