Bill Dixon Soul Note Box

[JSngry]

a quirky black dandy with an excessively high opinion of his own philosophy

Rude...

You must understand, Clem's originally from Texas, I believe, but has since immigrated to New York.

So it's ok.

[jlhoots]

Moms back trollin'.

Not sure what David is up to.

Like what you like is the best you / I can do.

Who cares what "they" think. Not me.

[.:.impossible]

Damn. Looks like I made a terrible mistake. I feel like an idiot. Who do I apologize to in order to make this right? Myself? Webern? Your mom?

[ep1str0phy]

But it ain't a whole lot more and sure is shit ain't a patch on hundreds of 20th century composers (that you ignore), instrumentalists (that you ignore) or, as trans-formal conceptualist, ELVIS PRESLEY (that you lie to yourself about).

Yeah, but basic liking of/enjoyment of Dixon--and this isn't even going into appreciation--isn't necessarily responsible for any other artist's lack of exposure/denigration. Unless someone really is making the claim that Dixon surpasses any number of contemporary/20th century/21st century composers, this is totally a straw man argument. On the other hand, that Jim or anyone has any responsibility to listen to and weigh the merits of any composer/performer against Dixon (again, unless he somehow makes the argument that Dixon > composer x) verges on the totalitarian.

On the other other hand, if anyone here were/is equipped to jump in and weigh Dixon's compositional acumen against any number of contemporaries/forebears, I'd love to hear it. I get the sense--and I could be completely off base here--that any number of us could easily construct an argument (not necessarily fact) for Dixon's primacy in terms of a jazz/improvisational lineage (I did it half-heartedly earlier), but not so easily an assessment on the level of what David suggested earlier (pro or con).

[A Lark Ascending]

The basic problem with these discussions is that listeners often couch the way they talk about music in a manner learnt from reviewers and writers. This tends to favour a rather absolutist stance - this is important, this is insignificant etc.

Now that makes sense if you are talking about assessing a musician's place in the grand scheme of things. But if you are, you'd have better have done your homework and be in a position to relate the musician to the wider picture.

Whereas, what really happens is that we base our judgments on reactions to a musician or music from our own personal context which, even with the vast collections we have here, is generally either limited or pretty skewed in one way or another. Putting most of us in no position to make those grander judgments.

In which case, I'd say David is right in urging caution on making grand claims for jazz musicians about their overall importance.

And Jsngry is also right in saying that in the end it does not matter - if the music moves you, that's what matters.

Claiming where a particular butterfly should be pinned in a perceived hierarchy of musical significance requires a quite different approach from expressing an enthusiasm for that butterfly. Too often the two get confused.

Edited April 27, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[JSngry]

In which case, I'd say David is right in urging caution on making grand claims for jazz musicians about their overall importance.

But only "jazz musicians", right? Because, to use the ongoing example, Wagner has absolute, eternally universal importance?

[.:.impossible]

So I don't owe anyone an apology?

[JSngry]

So I don't owe anyone an apology?

just yourself, for failing to accept The Natural Order Of Musical Superiority Thingy Stuff.

[A Lark Ascending]

In which case, I'd say David is right in urging caution on making grand claims for jazz musicians about their overall importance.

But only "jazz musicians", right? Because, to use the ongoing example, Wagner has absolute, eternally universal importance?

I think you know that is not what I meant.

It happens just as much with classical music. I've lost track of the times I've read people making grand claims for classical performers in particular - instrumentalists, conductors etc - when it is pretty clear their judgement does not come from having listened to a wide range of alternatives (let alone studying the score!). Someone has told them that X is a supreme interpreter and - hey presto - the magic shines through. Oh, the power of received wisdom.

There is a way of writing reviews that involves expressing personal response as objective judgment. We bulletin board amateurs are too prone to imitate that.

Context is all; and our contexts vary. Mike Westbrook is a shining star in my firmament and Bill Dixon a distant figure who has never caught my attention. One day that might change (unlikely); but until that point I'm not going to assert the superiority or greater significance of Westbrook over Dixon to those listening from a very different context. Though I'm likely to suggest that Westbrook might be worthy of other listeners' attention, if they are so minded.

Now if someone wants to go away for ten years, study both men in depth and the milieu they worked in and return with a judgment, well I'm more open to the wider claims for their greatness or otherwise. Though even that won't banish the influence of subjectivity.

Edited April 27, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[JSngry]

In which case, I'd say David is right in urging caution on making grand claims for jazz musicians about their overall importance.

But only "jazz musicians", right? Because, to use the ongoing example, Wagner has absolute, eternally universal importance?

I think you know that is not what I meant.

Honestly, I did not know for sure if that was what you meant, but I am quite glad to hear that it was not. Honestly. Thank you for the clarification.

The real problem I have with all this is the notion that everything in World A has its value measured against World B. Although it's "nice" to be aware of both worlds (and others), at some point in the process of the worlds defining and refining themselves, Worlds A & B just do not matter too much to each other any more. And that's when the "colonial" fun begins...

For some, anyway.

[A Lark Ascending]

The real problem I have with all this is the notion that everything in World A has its value measured against World B.

Agree entirely.

A bit like condemning Bruckner because he doesn't swing; or folk dance music because it just goes round and round without development.

Though I suspect the problem starts when people who adore the musician in World A start making comparisons with the musicians in World B. It's not unnatural for listeners who live in World B to get a bit uptight. A bit like claiming Ravel or Stravinsky as excellent jazz composers.

Though even there things blur - quite a few contemporary musicians do have feet in more than one World.

[JSngry]

Though even there things blur - quite a few contemporary musicians do have feet in more than one World.

As well they should. That type of thing is almost unavoidable these days, so much information is readily available,

What should be recognized, though, is that just because somebody from World B is informed and/or engaged, either intellectually, emotionally, or even "musically" by/in World A does not mean that the goals and ambitions of World A are automatically now totally aligned & in-sync with those of World B, which therefore legitimizes direct, linear comparisons of "worth", or perhaps even more insidiously "ability".

Ability is only relevant to goals, and goals are only worthy relative to needs. This holds true for producers and consumers alike. Everything is just make-believe.

[David Ayers]

A bit like claiming Ravel or Stravinsky as excellent jazz composers.

You'd be dead wrong on that - they were both very influential on jazz as well as being influenced by it. Why must their compositions be excluded from the 'jazz' canon?

There is only music, I think, and I oppose this two worlds model which others are so fond of.

[JSngry]

There is only music, I think, and I oppose this two worlds model which others are so fond of.

Hey, there's only water, too, and fish need it to live in, but all fish can't live in all water.

[.:.impossible]

You can lead a fish to water, but you can't make it a horse.

[JSngry]

So THAT'S where chess sets come from!

[A Lark Ascending]

A bit like claiming Ravel or Stravinsky as excellent jazz composers.

You'd be dead wrong on that - they were both very influential on jazz as well as being influenced by it. Why must their compositions be excluded from the 'jazz' canon?

By that logic Vaughan Williams, Holst and Grainger become folk composers. Kurt Weill a tango composer. Influenced by and influential on.

I'm not convinced it's the jazz-derived bits in Stravinsky and Ravel that had the biggest influence on jazz.

Yes, it's all music. Like it's all countryside. But we each have our preferences (give me a Wiltshire rolling hill over a Lake District mountain any day).

Edited April 27, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[David Ayers]

People like Ornette, Miles and Duke were very opposed to generic distinctions. I agree with them and share what I take to be their reasoning.

[A Lark Ascending]

It's only natural for humans to compatmentalise things to make sense of them - it only becomes a problem if those compartments are then used to box things in (which is what I imagine your three examples were alluding to).

Yes Duke Ellington drew from all manner of influences ('beyond category', 'there's only two...' blah! blah!). But I don't think I'm doing him a disservice in having him on the jazz shelves. It certainly helped back in the days when I was looking for his records in record shops. Knew what bit of the shop to head for.

Every morning I pass from Nottinghamshire into Derbyshire then back into Nottinghamshire and then back into Derbyshire and then back into Nottinghamshire again. Without the road signs there's nothing to tell you you've changed box and people, animals birds cross them without a thought. Doesn't mean the boxes serve no purpose.

Now if you start putting up barbed wire, 'peace' walls and the like, well...

Edited April 27, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[JSngry]

People like Ornette, Miles and Duke were very opposed to generic distinctions. I agree with them and share what I take to be their reasoning.

I think that perhaps you misread their reasoning! Being against generic distinctions in no way negates the appreciation of basic differences. Do you really think that Miles heard no basic difference between Willie Nelson and John Coltrane? Of course he did.

I think it would be an affront to all three to claim otherwise, just as it would be an insult to both Willie & Trane to point out that Willie could never burn on "Giant Steps" or that Trane never wrote a lyric like "Crazy". Not only is that insulting, it's so besides/not the point as to be obvious I think. The comparisons that are there to be made & the appreciations that there are to be had are on a different plane than that of just "X but not Y" & "for P, E>D".

The only way to get to Total Equality (Nirvana?) is to recognize the "equal" and "same" are not going to be the same thing in all ways at all times. The diversity of humanity (hell, of existence, period) pretty much dictates that. The true transcendence comes from seeing the commonality between the differences, which of course means that you have to recognize, understand, and respect the differences just as clearly as you do the commonality, and vice-versa.

[clifford_thornton]

Braxton has high praise for Wagner and I see the connection between the two, but in the end I'd rather listen to Braxton. Personal preference.

[David Ayers]

So what is their reasoning, do you think?

Braxton has high praise for Wagner and I see the connection between the two, but in the end I'd rather listen to Braxton. Personal preference.

This wasn't about what you would rather listen to, it was a reference to my criticism of Braxton's opera as a costly vanity project in an earlier thread. As you may know, those closest to him took a similar view.

[clifford_thornton]

He financed it himself.

I thought the music / experience was "fun."

[JSngry]

So what is their reasoning, do you think?

That it's neither good nor accurate to listen to music as "types", lest we confuse style with substance.

I'm in total agreement with that, but there's nothing in there that calls for the willful delegitimizing of very real differences. In fact, I'd think that an understanding, embracing even, of those differences is a prerequisite to grasping the different substances of different musics, and then you can find the commonalities that exist. But to just flat out bitch and moan that Bill Dixon is not truly a composer but Webern (or whoever) is... it's just so...petty, and not really relevant to anything, not really. Same thing with comparing instrumental prowess between players of totally different genres, yeah, you can do it, but what is the point in saying that Horace Parlan was hardly Sviatoslav Richter? What does that do to enhance the understanding of either man's effectiveness with his own vocabulary?

And that's it right there - the lack of a respect/awareness/whatever of different vocabularies used to express different specific realities posed as the contention that all realities are the same, therefore can and should be judged by one standard, as if all music and all people's music has the same needs and the same intents. Yes, at some meta-level that's the case, but you don't get there by making simple A-B comparisons between porcupines and pineapples.

[clifford_thornton]

I don't like getting hung up by applying a baseline to instrumental/structural vocabularies in order to make them "valid" or not. Nor do I understand why one has to limit someone's accomplishments to "only" their own immediate sphere in order to say that they are good or great. I wouldn't necessarily want to say that Hunke and von Schlippenbach are great pianists only in terms of their own respective orbits. I'd want to say that they are both masterful vis. what they do with the instrument, even though their ends might be somewhat different. These thoughts aren't easy to deal with and open themselves up to self-contradiction pretty readily.