Albert Murray Speaks

[John L]

Given that jazz is no longer a popular music in America and is to a large degree disconnected from other forms of popular music, I would assume it is a "second language" for pretty much every musician.

I agree with this, and would extend that statement to "blues music" in the broad sense that Albert Murray has in mind. There was a time when many African American musicians did have an advantage of having absorbed the blues as a sort of first musical language. But that is rarely the case anymore. And the blues is no longer really what's happening in 21st-century jazz either. So the statement needs to be interpreted as corresponding to another time, and even then we can debate it.

I wonder what Albert Murray thinks about Wynton in that regard. Does HE play the blues like someone who speaks it as a first language? I would say, definitely no.

Edited February 10, 2011 by John L

[PHILLYQ]

Why give Murray any weight, it's clear he's a jerk. Now if David Murray has something to say...

[AllenLowe]

Chuck - it would be nice to move on, but it is now being discussed on the net, and I think Randy is at something of a logistical disadvantage (he's being attacked from about 3 different sides right now) - I quote Albert Murray because he clearly stands at the philosophical center of Lincoln Center's program, relative to his relationship to Ellison/Marsalis/Crouch; further, he is being depicted as having much more open ideas on race than he does have - and I wanted to report what he said to ME, directly.

[Tom Storer]

I pretty much agree with Sangry that this is a rearguard kind of debate. The generations are marching on, jazz doesn't sound like it did even twenty years ago. People are upset that some people have some kind of racial bias when listening to jazz--as if it were surprising to find racial bias in any setting. Albert Murray thinks this, Randy Sandke thinks that. Yeah, OK. It's an interesting debate, sometimes. But I suspect it will be increasingly irrelevant and that in 2030, maybe even 2020, people will look back at this little commotion and think "Wow, I guess that was an important debate back then."

Personally, I think age is the most important element in who can play what (not to mention who can hear what). Younger players, in general, just don't swing the same way older players do, independently of their skin. Not necessarily any worse, just different. When I was a teenager and young man, the swing I heard was coming from the 40's-through-60's generations, and that's still something magic to me. Sitting in the room with Max, Elvin, Blakey, Haynes, Higgins, Kenny Clarke, etc. on the drums, it defined certain things. I love a lot of younger players, but it's a different flavor now. That's life. Things don't stand still.

Chris, any gossip about why Albert Murray and Crouch aren't on speaking terms any more? I thought Crouch idolized Murray. Not that he doesn't have a history of changing his mind.

[Christiern]

Tom, I don't know what sparked the animosity between Crouch and Murray, but it was flashing neon at Ira's party. Crouch is an opportunist, so I guess the flow took him in a different direction. It would be interesting to hear what happened. I picture poor Wynton, hype in head, standing at that fork in the road.

[AllenLowe]

well, I think it's still relevant and important because musicians like Randy Sandke are still feeling the residual effects - and I honestly don't think the race thing will ever go away. Saying it's irrelevant is, in a way, missing the point - it's important to know and talk about in the same way that Jim Crow is important, even though it ended almost 50 years ago. It's part of the cumulative history and the dynamic of not only the musicians but the music.

hey, I'm still reading about Cautullus and the Roman Empire.

Edited February 10, 2011 by AllenLowe

[J.A.W.]

hey, I'm still reading about Cautullus and the Roman Empire.

His name was Catullus

[JSngry]

If it won't ever go away - and it won't - then the only sane and sensible course of action is to walk around it instead of trying to plow through it. Until quite recently, this was not an option, and even now it's just a tentative option.

But an option it is, and if not us, who, etc. etc. etc. If we're going to really go "post-racial", we're going to have to just do it. Ain't nobody going to do it for us. And thank god, there are enough people going that way to say that the door is now open, and that once open, it'll be pretty damn hard to shut it back again.

Anyway, Randy Sandke's "problem" is at least as much a matter of there not being any "market of significance" for what he does. Not just him, but any "jazz" in general that isn't re-creational. So even if all the racial issues ceased to exist, he'd probably have a net income increase of...not that much.

I'm not making light of the reality that at this level, any net increase in income is significant, but every time I hear any jazz musician of any stripe lash out at reasons why they're not getting their Proper Recognition As Artists Of Our Time or some such, the word "delusional" begins to enter my mind. Of all the reasons why people have a hard time in this music, the primary one is that it is now a music with limited appeal to a limited audience and probably will continue to be so in its current forms.

So I'm kinda like...do what you want to do how you want to do it with who you want to do it, get it out as best you can, and kwithcehrbitchin about how there's no market there, or there would be if only Mass Media hadn't brainwashed everybody or Black Folk holdin' White Folk back Or Vice-Versa, just forget about all that, because that stuff is what it is, and if you want the rewards of that world, then go live in that world.

Because that's how it works.

Edited February 10, 2011 by JSngry

[AllenLowe]

well, that's not really was his book is about - it's broader historically and has a lot of 'relevant' observations on jazz's full development and racialization - so it is about Randy's situation at the same time that it is not.

Edited February 10, 2011 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

So what's the end game here?

[Neal Pomea]

I just think Murray should remember that he's working in metaphors. First language/second language, "owning a music," "a music evolving" are all metaphors. Sure, I realize that's what we have to work with any time we use language, but sometimes the metaphors only go so far. They also can obscure. I am particularly wary/weary of the metaphor of a genre of music "evolving/developing" because I think such metaphors can be an inauthentic way of relating to the past. But that is a political issue, for sure. "The past is never dead -- it's not even past!" in the words of Faulkner.

This thing about one race having a better aptitude for X than another race is potentially dangerous. The flip side is that said race does not have aptitude for Y, which is how they used to argue against voting rights for certain groups. Be careful, Mr. Murray, of what you are introducing to the argument!

Edited February 10, 2011 by Neal Pomea

[Christiern]

Murray is an old fool who used to be a young fool. If someone questioned a black performer's ability to render Mozart, Bach, or Berg, he would sing a different tune. True, there are many whites who don't get it when it comes to capturing in a performance the essence of jazz/blues, just as there are whites who play chopin like an automaton. Murray's pet, Wynton, has a problem with music, as a whole, but that has nothing todo with his blood ancestry and everything to do with his seeming inability to convey honest emotion. Basic stuff.

[JSngry]

What I think is a valid point is for somebody to say that Artist X "speaks" with a certain "accent" that Listener X may or may not find relevant to their lifestyle. Fair enough.

What I think is wholly invalid is to equate one's own set of personal relevance criteria with Absolute Merit. That's just whack, although it often enough feels good at the time.

Case in point - somebody disses Paul Desmond for sounding "so white". Well, ok, fair enough (at least at face value), Paul Desmond is speaking with a definite "white" accent, and his content reflects a lot of that. If you don't have a use for that, fine. It's not for me or anybody else to demand that White People be Universally Loved & Respected, and by no means should it be assumed that What White People Have is Something That Everybody Else Wants. It ain't. But to go further than that and say that Paul Desmond "can't play" or "doesn't swing" or by extension of Murray's Law, is inherently inferior because he doesn't "play black" (enough or at all), well, that's imposing absolute criteria on subjective qualities, and really serves to paint the whole dynamic into a corner - the guy would be damned if he tried to "play black" because he can never succeed, and he's also damned for "playing white", because that's what? Not the object of the game? Illegal in 39 states? A Violation of the Twelfth Commandment? What exactly makes being true to yourself a crime in a music where the "stated goal" is (or used to be...) to be true to yourself?

Another case in point - all the angry/worried/whatever reaction to any music that attempts to assert an Afro-Centric (in some/any form or fashion) POV. All of the above.

Now, having said that...I have no problem with American (and earlier non-American) Jazz being viewed through the prism of being a "Black Music", simply because no matter what and who else went into it at any given time, in the end, ultimately, it was overwhelmingly made & sustained either by or in response to The African-American Experience. And a failure to recognize the multitude of complexities that went into that experience is directly proportionate to how..."wrong" somebody sounds trying to play that music (or in trying to defend/define it...). Note, though, that a part of that complexity - perhaps a huge part - is the lack of an absolute purity (and the frustration that stems from the absolute inability for there to ever be such an absolute purity is just as much a part of that complexity as is anything else, I'm sure). If you want to impose such a purity now, long after the fact of it ever being even remotely possible for more than a relative moment or two, what is the point? What is the goal? What is the end game?

BFD - to all of it. Up to and including the introduction of non-"jazz" elements into "jazz" music, be they "classical" or "hip-hop" or "European" or "electronic" or whatever. Just let people be people. Let people make their music. Let them suck and let them soar, whatever they have in them, let them get it out as they feel it.

Murray has made a good point in the past as to why he likes what he likes, why he likes it, and why he doesn't like what he doesn't like. Beyond that, though, he is a fool, and like all fools, dangerous to that which he loves.

Edited February 10, 2011 by JSngry