Evan Parker and Roscoe Mitchell

[.:.impossible]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXPXffmKaB4

[Face of the Bass]

"Bourgeois" is the funniest part of this thread.

It's fine (IMO) to like what you like. However when you start to state that what you like is better than what someone else likes I get annoyed.

What makes any one of us the almighty arbiter of what's better / good?

I am a Marxist...the word has a very specific meaning for me and that is why I used it. From a sociological perspective, the music on ECM tends towards bourgeois affectations. Of course, the vast majority of jazz listeners are in the upper/middle classes (and that's one of the biggest problems with the music today), but with ECM you see a refinement of product specifically aiming to appeal to middle brow tastes. In the case of the other labels I mentioned, that is much less the case, unless you think, in the case of Leo, for instance, that there's a large middle class market out there anxious to devour Soviet experimental jazz. Now, a lot of you might find this kind of shorthand sociological analysis pretentious, but I don't really care. It's a more interesting topic of discussion for me than the vapid threads on product accumulation that take up most of the bandwidth on this site.

Edited January 29, 2012 by Face of the Bass

[JETman]

Let me out it this way - I actually agree with a fair part of the stuff about the narcissism and bourgeois tendencies of a lot of this stuff, how it's as much about certainty of product as it is anything, but...that's not music, that's, for want of a better word, "sociology".

On that note, I'm certain that most of the ESP catalogue sucks, and that many of all y'all pretend to like it (could it ever possibly be likable, after all?) because it's cool to be different. Ya know?

That's rubbish dude. You mean we only pretend to like: Albert Ayler, Marion Brown, Noah Howard, Ran Blake, Sun Ra, Milford Graves, Frank Wright, Charles Tyler, Sonny Simmons, and on. When you say, "I'm certain that most of the ESP catalogue sucks...", it sounds to me like you haven't actually listened to any of this music. Go listen, then discuss.

In light of all of the posts preceding mine, I'm surprised that you don't get the irony! I guess that not all Astorians were created equal.

[JETman]

"Bourgeois" is the funniest part of this thread.

It's fine (IMO) to like what you like. However when you start to state that what you like is better than what someone else likes I get annoyed.

What makes any one of us the almighty arbiter of what's better / good?

I am a Marxist...the word has a very specific meaning for me and that is why I used it. From a sociological perspective, the music on ECM tends towards bourgeois affectations. Of course, the vast majority of jazz listeners are in the upper/middle classes (and that's one of the biggest problems with the music today), but with ECM you see a refinement of product specifically aiming to appeal to middle brow tastes. In the case of the other labels I mentioned, that is much less the case, unless you think, in the case of Leo, for instance, that there's a large middle class market out there anxious to devour Soviet experimental jazz. Now, a lot of you might find this kind of shorthand sociological analysis pretentious, but I don't really care. It's a more interesting topic of discussion for me than the vapid threads on product accumulation that take up most of the bandwidth on this site.

Ouch!

All I can say is that your predisposed notions are causing you to miss out on the enjoyment of some very fine music.

Let me add that nobody (not even the Soviets) is anxious to devour anything Soviet.

[A Lark Ascending]

Is there a large working class market out there, waiting to summon experimental/avant garde/free jazz to the struggle?

Back in the days of the Appleby Festival in the UK, I used to spend a few hours in Evan Parker's Freezone session on a a Sunday afternoon. Don't recall seeing any miners, dock workers or other politically conscious members of the proletariat there. Most people - Evan included - looked like sociology professors. Or Islington socialists.

Maybe they were in disguise, waiting for the opportunity to strike at the heart of the bourgeois capitalist beast when it had its back turned.

[jlhoots]

As long as you don't tell me what to like or that what you like is better, then I don't care what your politics are.

[mjazzg]

Is there a large working class market out there, waiting to summon experimental/avant garde/free jazz to the struggle?

Back in the days of the Appleby Festival in the UK, I used to spend a few hours in Evan Parker's Freezone session on a a Sunday afternoon. Don't recall seeing any miners, dock workers or other politically conscious members of the proletariat there. Most people - Evan included - looked like sociology professors. Or Islington socialists.

Maybe they were in disguise, waiting for the opportunity to strike at the heart of the bourgeois capitalist beast when it had its back turned.

hope you're not suggesting there's anything wrong wth looking like an Islington socialist Bev? Sweepimg statements have derailed this thread enough already

[A Lark Ascending]

hope you're not suggesting there's anything wrong wth looking like an Islington socialist Bev? Sweepimg statements have derailed this thread enough already

I suspect I look like one myself! Though I tend to go for designer beer rather than champagne.

[David Ayers]

"Bourgeois" is the funniest part of this thread.

It's fine (IMO) to like what you like. However when you start to state that what you like is better than what someone else likes I get annoyed.

What makes any one of us the almighty arbiter of what's better / good?

I am a Marxist...the word has a very specific meaning for me and that is why I used it. From a sociological perspective, the music on ECM tends towards bourgeois affectations. Of course, the vast majority of jazz listeners are in the upper/middle classes (and that's one of the biggest problems with the music today), but with ECM you see a refinement of product specifically aiming to appeal to middle brow tastes. In the case of the other labels I mentioned, that is much less the case, unless you think, in the case of Leo, for instance, that there's a large middle class market out there anxious to devour Soviet experimental jazz. Now, a lot of you might find this kind of shorthand sociological analysis pretentious, but I don't really care. It's a more interesting topic of discussion for me than the vapid threads on product accumulation that take up most of the bandwidth on this site.

By coincidence I've just been dealing with Literature and Revolution. Of course the avant-gardes - notably Futurism and Proletkult, and in a different way and famously Formalism - presented the Bolsheviks with an interesting array of theoretical questions. On these kind of lines, I mean.

Edited January 29, 2012 by David Ayers

[A Lark Ascending]

By coincidence I've just been dealing with Literature and Revolution. Of course the avant-gardes - notably Futurism and Proletkult, and in a different way and famously Formalism - presented the Bolsheviks with an interesting array of theoretical questions. On these kind of lines, I mean.

And from the late 1920s the solution was....socialist realism. In the case of music, songs the proletariat could hum, based perhaps on folk song. Clear tonality resolving into triumphant 'victory of the proletariat' endings. In Stalin's eyes there was no doubt that any form of abstraction was 'bourgeois'.

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

Just listened to this. Won't pretend to understand it all or how it hangs together, but there are some very lovely sections. Part 5 particularly caught my ear - delicious flute. As did the opening, which in an odd way, reminded me of the boat rowing across the lake opening to Mahler 7. Probably not what I was meant to hear, but there you go.

Edited January 29, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[Face of the Bass]

Is there a large working class market out there, waiting to summon experimental/avant garde/free jazz to the struggle?

Back in the days of the Appleby Festival in the UK, I used to spend a few hours in Evan Parker's Freezone session on a a Sunday afternoon. Don't recall seeing any miners, dock workers or other politically conscious members of the proletariat there. Most people - Evan included - looked like sociology professors. Or Islington socialists.

Maybe they were in disguise, waiting for the opportunity to strike at the heart of the bourgeois capitalist beast when it had its back turned.

I figured I was setting myself up for ridicule by openly stating my politics.

But, to answer your question, no, there is not a large working class market out there for experimental or avant garde jazz. (There isn't a large market for such music, period.) And that's part of the problem.

[Face of the Bass]

Ouch!

All I can say is that your predisposed notions are causing you to miss out on the enjoyment of some very fine music.

Let me add that nobody (not even the Soviets) is anxious to devour anything Soviet.

Well, I'm not an "art for art's sake" kind of listener. The historical and cultural context of the music I listen to is always important to me.

As for Soviet jazz, I beg to differ. Some of the music that Leo put out in the 1980s in particular is wonderful stuff.

[mjazzg]

Ouch!

All I can say is that your predisposed notions are causing you to miss out on the enjoyment of some very fine music.

Let me add that nobody (not even the Soviets) is anxious to devour anything Soviet.

Well, I'm not an "art for art's sake" kind of listener. The historical and cultural context of the music I listen to is always important to me.

As for Soviet jazz, I beg to differ. Some of the music that Leo put out in the 1980s in particular is wonderful stuff.

Agree that many of those Leo releases were very interesting. How many of the artists involved would have identified themselves as creating "Soviet Jazz" would be interesting

to know (not that we're ever likely to) How many identified themselves with the Soviet system rather than living and creating within it? Again perhaps a moot point. Interesting that Document, the eight CD box, is titled "New Music from Russia, the 80s", a presumably well-considered choice not to reference USSR or just a geographically accurate statement.

[David Ayers]

That Trotsky text is findable at marxists.org. Worth checking the chapters I mention. And Bev, I thought you were all for the common man and against bourgeois art! and now you're turning on Uncle Joe! That's the dialectic of enlightenment for you.

[David Ayers]

Let me add that nobody (not even the Soviets) is anxious to devour anything Soviet.

Just an aside on that point. Many have found Shostakovich more comfortable than Boulez - but only when supplied with a fictitious narrative rehabilitating this core Soviet composer as a dissident. And yes I always ask the experts on this and they always confirm he was no dissident. So there's a Soviet composer people love - him and Prokofiev. Interesting we got on to this terrain.

[Leeway]

Let me out it this way - I actually agree with a fair part of the stuff about the narcissism and bourgeois tendencies of a lot of this stuff, how it's as much about certainty of product as it is anything, but...that's not music, that's, for want of a better word, "sociology".

On that note, I'm certain that most of the ESP catalogue sucks, and that many of all y'all pretend to like it (could it ever possibly be likable, after all?) because it's cool to be different. Ya know?

That's rubbish dude. You mean we only pretend to like: Albert Ayler, Marion Brown, Noah Howard, Ran Blake, Sun Ra, Milford Graves, Frank Wright, Charles Tyler, Sonny Simmons, and on. When you say, "I'm certain that most of the ESP catalogue sucks...", it sounds to me like you haven't actually listened to any of this music. Go listen, then discuss.

In light of all of the posts preceding mine, I'm surprised that you don't get the irony! I guess that not all Astorians were created equal.

You must be from Lawn Geyeland, your irony is too subtle for this Steinway kid. But I'm glad to hear it was ironic.

[A Lark Ascending]

That Trotsky text is findable at marxists.org. Worth checking the chapters I mention. And Bev, I thought you were all for the common man and against bourgeois art! and now you're turning on Uncle Joe! That's the dialectic of enlightenment for you.

As I think you well know, I'm all for the common person (we 'middle brows'!) not being excluded by masonic arty-farty-dom. I'm also for the musician being able to produce whatever he or she chooses and welcome those who choose to produce something challenging (alongside all the other options). Just as long as they (or those who rush to their banner) don't use it as a dais to patronise from.

Edited January 29, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[A Lark Ascending]

Let me add that nobody (not even the Soviets) is anxious to devour anything Soviet.

Many have found Shostakovich more comfortable than Boulez - but only when supplied with a fictitious narrative rehabilitating this core Soviet composer as a dissident. And yes I always ask the experts on this and they always confirm he was no dissident. So there's a Soviet composer people love - him and Prokofiev.

Not quite as you tell it. Yes, Shosty as a dissident makes for a nice story to carry a listener along (like Mozart and his scatology). But the real reason that Sh., like Mahler and Prokofiev, are current concert hall faves is because they wrote good tunes, music that was tonal and therefore comprehensible to a wider range of listeners. And, I suspect, the moodiness and musical irony fits very much with our times. I know all three speak direct to me - where, although I enjoy Mozart and Haydn, I always feel like I'm listening to a different country (well I suppose I am - Austria (and a bit of Hungary)).

Edited January 29, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[Face of the Bass]

Ouch!

All I can say is that your predisposed notions are causing you to miss out on the enjoyment of some very fine music.

Let me add that nobody (not even the Soviets) is anxious to devour anything Soviet.

Well, I'm not an "art for art's sake" kind of listener. The historical and cultural context of the music I listen to is always important to me.

As for Soviet jazz, I beg to differ. Some of the music that Leo put out in the 1980s in particular is wonderful stuff.

Agree that many of those Leo releases were very interesting. How many of the artists involved would have identified themselves as creating "Soviet Jazz" would be interesting

to know (not that we're ever likely to) How many identified themselves with the Soviet system rather than living and creating within it? Again perhaps a moot point. Interesting that Document, the eight CD box, is titled "New Music from Russia, the 80s", a presumably well-considered choice not to reference USSR or just a geographically accurate statement.

I used Soviet simply to describe the political context in which the music was created. If the same music had been made in the 1990s I would have called it "Russian Jazz."

[7/4]

Let me out it this way - I actually agree with a fair part of the stuff about the narcissism and bourgeois tendencies of a lot of this stuff, how it's as much about certainty of product as it is anything, but...that's not music, that's, for want of a better word, "sociology".

On that note, I'm certain that most of the ESP catalogue sucks, and that many of all y'all pretend to like it (could it ever possibly be likable, after all?) because it's cool to be different. Ya know?

I like both. What's wrong with me? I don't feel guilty.

[Leeway]

Let me out it this way - I actually agree with a fair part of the stuff about the narcissism and bourgeois tendencies of a lot of this stuff, how it's as much about certainty of product as it is anything, but...that's not music, that's, for want of a better word, "sociology".

On that note, I'm certain that most of the ESP catalogue sucks, and that many of all y'all pretend to like it (could it ever possibly be likable, after all?) because it's cool to be different. Ya know?

I like both. What's wrong with me? I don't feel guilty.

Don't worry, it's all ironic.

[JETman]

Let me out it this way - I actually agree with a fair part of the stuff about the narcissism and bourgeois tendencies of a lot of this stuff, how it's as much about certainty of product as it is anything, but...that's not music, that's, for want of a better word, "sociology".

On that note, I'm certain that most of the ESP catalogue sucks, and that many of all y'all pretend to like it (could it ever possibly be likable, after all?) because it's cool to be different. Ya know?

That's rubbish dude. You mean we only pretend to like: Albert Ayler, Marion Brown, Noah Howard, Ran Blake, Sun Ra, Milford Graves, Frank Wright, Charles Tyler, Sonny Simmons, and on. When you say, "I'm certain that most of the ESP catalogue sucks...", it sounds to me like you haven't actually listened to any of this music. Go listen, then discuss.

In light of all of the posts preceding mine, I'm surprised that you don't get the irony! I guess that not all Astorians were created equal.

You must be from Lawn Geyeland, your irony is too subtle for this Steinway kid. But I'm glad to hear it was ironic.

Yes, I always noticed that Steinway kids (I attended Steinway JHS, btw) were a little too rough around the edges for my particular taste. Subtlety has always been my preferred m.o.

Btw, all people from Brooklyn and Queens are from Long Island. So, therefore, are you.

Edited January 30, 2012 by JETman

[David Ayers]

Never made it to even one night of this: Evan Parker festival review in FT

I'm always missing out...

[mjazzg]

Never made it to even one night of this: Evan Parker festival review in FT

I'm always missing out...

Von Schlippenbach trio was a great testimony to 45 years playing and listening to each other. Vortex packed to the rafters - always good to see

[Leeway]

Let me out it this way - I actually agree with a fair part of the stuff about the narcissism and bourgeois tendencies of a lot of this stuff, how it's as much about certainty of product as it is anything, but...that's not music, that's, for want of a better word, "sociology".

On that note, I'm certain that most of the ESP catalogue sucks, and that many of all y'all pretend to like it (could it ever possibly be likable, after all?) because it's cool to be different. Ya know?

That's rubbish dude. You mean we only pretend to like: Albert Ayler, Marion Brown, Noah Howard, Ran Blake, Sun Ra, Milford Graves, Frank Wright, Charles Tyler, Sonny Simmons, and on. When you say, "I'm certain that most of the ESP catalogue sucks...", it sounds to me like you haven't actually listened to any of this music. Go listen, then discuss.

In light of all of the posts preceding mine, I'm surprised that you don't get the irony! I guess that not all Astorians were created equal.

You must be from Lawn Geyeland, your irony is too subtle for this Steinway kid. But I'm glad to hear it was ironic.

Yes, I always noticed that Steinway kids (I attended Steinway JHS, btw) were a little too rough around the edges for my particular taste. Subtlety has always been my preferred m.o.

Btw, all people from Brooklyn and Queens are from Long Island. So, therefore, are you.

They are on the same piece of land but occupy different worlds.