Why does LeRoi Jones (aka Amiri Baraka) hate Hard bop?

[fasstrack]

If Baraka's feelings towards hard bop as a retrograde music are very well known, what were his feelings towards music with "Afrocentric" leanings like McCoy's "Asante" or Joe Henderson's "Power to the People", "Black is The Color", etc...... which admittedly, the latter titles have more sociopolitical leanings than being "out" musically.

No offense, and I don't mean to single you out---but it just hit me how inbred this thread is. What jazz nerds we are. If we wonder why people shut out jazz, I submit that perhaps it is because we shut out people.

Just a thought....

[Pete C]

No offense, and I don't mean to single you out---but it just hit me how inbred this thread is. What jazz nerds we are. If we wonder why people shut out jazz, I submit that perhaps it is because we shut out people.

Just a thought....

Amazing--you've just described every jazz bbs on the planet. But, no, people don't "shut out" jazz because of annoying jazz fans, they don't listen because they don't like it or don't like it enough. It ain't rocket science.

[fasstrack]

Someone posted something about Stanley Crouch's assessment of Baraka---I think a millenium or two ago on this thread. Well, I like Stanley personally. I know a lot of people aren't nuts about his politics (he's actually harder to boil down than we might believe. Lotta surprises). But (I can hear the rope coming out now) I also admire Clarence Thomas in one way, aside from his excrable court decisions: he basically told prospective employers in interviews that if he was being considered for a position b/c of Affirmitive Action they could shove the gig. Anyway that, and certain conversations with Stanley since our friendship began have made me think more about black conservatism and its possible positive place in our society.

The desire to be judged for oneself and one's talents, deeds, etc.---period---I think is at the heart of this from what I can surmise, as well as a fervent wish to back away from sterotypes of any kind. Sounds reasonable and healthy to me. Maybe there should be a thread on this?

Edited March 16, 2012 by fasstrack

[fasstrack]

No offense, and I don't mean to single you out---but it just hit me how inbred this thread is. What jazz nerds we are. If we wonder why people shut out jazz, I submit that perhaps it is because we shut out people.

Just a thought....

Amazing--you've just described every jazz bbs on the planet. But, no, people don't "shut out" jazz because of annoying jazz fans, they don't listen because they don't like it or don't like it enough. It ain't rocket science.

Sorry, but that wasn't my point. I meant that people are--IMO---rightfully offended by elitism. If someone comes off as smarter than you chances are you won't want to like what he does or give him a chance as much as someone not above 'connecting' better. Remember a guy named Al Gore? He did a little thing called losing to a guy named W....

The other point is if these discussions were had in public they, in probability, 1. attract jazz nerds and a few flies, or 2. evoke comments such as 'WTF are these guys talking about (including me BTW) and who gives a f#%k?'

Nothing like 'preaching to the converted' to get people into the tent of a music with a 3% market share....

Edited March 16, 2012 by fasstrack

[AllenLowe]

whoa, let's not throw affirmative action into the grinder here. It's much more complicated than that. Eliminate it if you like, but first create a level playing field in employment - no legacy hiring, no friends, no nepotism, no prior contacts. Then we'll talk.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

whoa, let's not throw affirmative action into the grinder here. It's much more complicated than that. Eliminate it if you like, but first create a level playing field in employment - no legacy hiring, no friends, no nepotism, no prior contacts. Then we'll talk.

There never has been a level playing field in employment and never will be.

Being against affirmative action is a legit view that is held by many in South Africa. Lucky Dube, the Reggae singer, was continually singing songs against apartheid but as soon as Mandela got in, he began singing songs about self-reliance, the need to educate yourself, and against corrupt police, and affirmative action.

To refuse to talk about stuff until an impossible situation comes about isn't a mark of great openness, in my view; it's a loser's argument.

MG

[fasstrack]

whoa, let's not throw affirmative action into the grinder here. It's much more complicated than that. Eliminate it if you like, but first create a level playing field in employment - no legacy hiring, no friends, no nepotism, no prior contacts. Then we'll talk.

There never has been a level playing field in employment and never will be.

Being against affirmative action is a legit view that is held by many in South Africa. Lucky Dube, the Reggae singer, was continually singing songs against apartheid but as soon as Mandela got in, he began singing songs about self-reliance, the need to educate yourself, and against corrupt police, and affirmative action.

To refuse to talk about stuff until an impossible situation comes about isn't a mark of great openness, in my view; it's a loser's argument.

MG

Could not have said it better. Amen to all, especially the self-reliance piece. It's the one good thing about Americorrupt: sink or swim.

Part and parcel of the above, the persecution/prejudice card---even when truth-based---just doesn't play anymore. We're a pretty cold society and people learn pretty quick to either do what it takes to survive or get ahead or find a nice street corner to lay your head and possessions (until the 'bulls' roust you, that is).

[fasstrack]

whoa, let's not throw affirmative action into the grinder here. It's much more complicated than that. Eliminate it if you like, but first create a level playing field in employment - no legacy hiring, no friends, no nepotism, no prior contacts. Then we'll talk.

I was talking about what I perceive to be Mr. Thomas's self-respect---and lack of tolerance for bullshit. You kind of have to give it up for that.

I was an early casualty, or it felt like it was at the time (1968) of a kind of reverse discrimination when I was not picked to attend the HS of Art and Design in favor of many black kids. Did they deserve to go? I saw at least one portfolio and it put mine to shame. Did they deserve to go and I not to? I wonder. For me it worked out since music is more of a socially interactive pursuit, and it was calling my name around the same time. I wound up playing in groups with black kids and we never thought about any of this shit---just wanted to have fun and loved music. I guess with the visual art thing I 'took one for the team'.

But every once in a while, like now, I think back and wonder where life might have taken me had I gotten in to Art and Design.

Edited March 16, 2012 by fasstrack

[AllenLowe]

I didn't say we shouldn't talk about it - just that we shouldn't throw it away because of anecdotal B.S. Affirmative action is an attempt to re-define what qualifies people for employment, not promote people of lesser abilities - and my point was that you can't throw it out as preferential treatment unless you throw out ALL OTHER preferential treatment, which not-so-coincidentally favors white people. Even the New Deal made agreements with the devil to discriminate against African americans in the South; the legacy of Jim Crow is far from resolved. A Post-racial society? Listen to Santorum and Gingrich.

also - Clarence Thomas wouldn't be on the Supreme Court except for racial preference - remember that he was, essentially, appointed as the one African American there. THAT was B.S., I agree; but it does not negate all the benefits of Affirmative Action, which has had massively positive effects on balancing the action in the USA.

They also did it for the Jews - in the 1960s, Ivy League schools made conscious decisions to admit more Jews, who were serieously under-represented. These are things you gotta do when you live in a society as thoroughly racist and xenophobic as this one.

Edited March 16, 2012 by AllenLowe

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I'm not sure that prejudice - religious, gender, colour - doesn't play any more. But what you do about it, I don't know.

MG

[AllenLowe]

I agree, it's complicated - and I've seen it from both sides - I will say that Affirmative Action has been corrupted by dumbass liberals, who fail to see anything but color as a qualifier; we see it in jazz audiences, in Euro attitudes toward Negritude and exoticism. It's a mess, I agree, but the basics of Affirmative Action is that it has helped millions and millions of people in the US.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I agree, it's complicated - and I've seen it from both sides - I will say that Affirmative Action has been corrupted by dumbass liberals, who fail to see anything but color as a qualifier; we see it in jazz audiences, in Euro attitudes toward Negritude and exoticism. It's a mess, I agree, but the basics of Affirmative Action is that it has helped millions and millions of people in the US.

Hm.

"The workers will only be freed by their own efforts" (Anarcho-syndicalism motto)

But I do agree about the dumbass liberals. (And we're two on the left, Allan )

Oh well, anyway, I spent most of my time on the board on Wednesday reading this thread. Pretty nice thread, to start off with. So to get back to Amiri Baraka, I came across his writing first in the sleeve notes for Willis Jackson's 'Thunderbird'. Much nostalgia from Leroi there about the time of the honkers. And I always had the feeling that these were the first revolutionaries - who totally disregrded the 'white' rules of taste and playing 'properly' - who were his heroes. And not just musical heroes. Soon after I read the 'Thunderbird' notes, I came across a short story of his in an anthology of new American writing. The story was called 'The screamers'. The anthology was all, as far as I know, fiction and I thought 'The screamers' was fiction, too, because it was about a honking Chicago tenor player I'd never heard of - Lynn Hope. But when I found out Hope was a real person - and a Muslim back in the day - I had second thoughts, though I still don't know if the story - of Hope coming to Newark to play and walking the band right out of the dancehall ionto the streets and inciting a riot in the city was an account of a real event or something Amiri would have liked to have happened.

MG

[paul secor]

I agree, it's complicated - and I've seen it from both sides - I will say that Affirmative Action has been corrupted by dumbass liberals, who fail to see anything but color as a qualifier; we see it in jazz audiences, in Euro attitudes toward Negritude and exoticism. It's a mess, I agree, but the basics of Affirmative Action is that it has helped millions and millions of people in the US.

Hm.

"The workers will only be freed by their own efforts" (Anarcho-syndicalism motto)

But I do agree about the dumbass liberals. (And we're two on the left, Allan )

Oh well, anyway, I spent most of my time on the board on Wednesday reading this thread. Pretty nice thread, to start off with. So to get back to Amiri Baraka, I came across his writing first in the sleeve notes for Willis Jackson's 'Thunderbird'. Much nostalgia from Leroi there about the time of the honkers. And I always had the feeling that these were the first revolutionaries - who totally disregrded the 'white' rules of taste and playing 'properly' - who were his heroes. And not just musical heroes. Soon after I read the 'Thunderbird' notes, I came across a short story of his in an anthology of new American writing. The story was called 'The screamers'. The anthology was all, as far as I know, fiction and I thought 'The screamers' was fiction, too, because it was about a honking Chicago tenor player I'd never heard of - Lynn Hope. But when I found out Hope was a real person - and a Muslim back in the day - I had second thoughts, though I still don't know if the story - of Hope coming to Newark to play and walking the band right out of the dancehall ionto the streets and inciting a riot in the city was an account of a real event or something Amiri would have liked to have happened.

MG

You answered your own question. As you say, "The Screamers" is fiction. If that event had happened, Baraka would no doubt have included it in Blues People or in another of his books about music.

[Big Beat Steve]

Not so sure about that event in "The Screamers" being 100% fiction.

Big Jay McNeely was one sax honker, for example, who is reported to have walked his band right out in the street (to the frenzy of the audience). Not to mention entire bands that did this sort of parading (such as Lionel Hampton's).

It may have been fiction as far as Lynn Hope is concerned, though. Judging by his two most commonly accessible reissue albums - "Morocco" on Jonas Bernholm's Saxophonograph label and the Lynn Hope album reissue of Aladdin LP 707 on French Pathé Marconi - he was a sort of Earl Bostic on the tenor sax which makes him an unlikely candidate for such antics. OTOH the liner notes of the Saxophonograph LP mention his showmanship and his habit of doing the "bar walk".

So maybe a case of "artistic liberties" with the way events and persons are combined in that tale?

Edited March 16, 2012 by Big Beat Steve

[CJ Shearn]

If Baraka's feelings towards hard bop as a retrograde music are very well known, what were his feelings towards music with "Afrocentric" leanings like McCoy's "Asante" or Joe Henderson's "Power to the People", "Black is The Color", etc...... which admittedly, the latter titles have more sociopolitical leanings than being "out" musically.

No offense, and I don't mean to single you out---but it just hit me how inbred this thread is. What jazz nerds we are. If we wonder why people shut out jazz, I submit that perhaps it is because we shut out people.

Just a thought....

You've got a point. I mean, aside from my listening I can say that my interest in jazz history and its societal impact is academic, always has been starting with when I'd read the liner notes learning about the artists on records. The average person does not think about these things when they listen to music. We're a special breed

[JSngry]

There were two sides to Lynn Hope - the ballads and the standards, which were eerily tranquil and idealistic, and the hard blues side, which was pretty damn nasty.

It was like, under that turban, there was a .45.

Look out!

[AllenLowe]

I actually don't think we're any more "academic" than many writers or classical composers - jazz is particularly anti-intellectual. Try reading the critical works of Beckett, or Barthelme, or George Bernard Shaw. it's a different and more introspective world, and these are NOT academics.

[fasstrack]

I agree, it's complicated - and I've seen it from both sides - I will say that Affirmative Action has been corrupted by dumbass liberals, who fail to see anything but color as a qualifier; we see it in jazz audiences, in Euro attitudes toward Negritude and exoticism. It's a mess, I agree, but the basics of Affirmative Action is that it has helped millions and millions of people in the US.

Allen: Not sure what you mean re jazz audiences-unless it's pointing out instant white approval of anybody black on the stand, no matter what's going on up there musically. If so, no one needs that, or really wants it. I know the black guys I know hate that shit. Everybody who plays-with the rare exception of the preternaturally insecure and the odd ham-wants the props when a good job was done. Period.

[AllenLowe]

Esperanza Spalding has joined our thread: from today's NY Times:

"Ms. Spalding drew at lunch, hours before attending a reading at a scruffy downtown gallery by the firebrand poet Amiri Baraka in tribute to his fallen comrade Gil Scott-Heron. She listened raptly as Mr. Baraka read, backed by the jazz pianist Steve Colson. On her way out she bought a couple of Mr. Baraka’s books, including “Somebody Blew Up America.” "

[fasstrack]

Allen: why waste bandwith on eye candy flash-in-the-pans of next-to-nada jazz cred who will be forgotten in ten years or less? (sorry, folks, I rarely criticize working musicians-b/c any success is good for the rest-but Ms. Spaulding's 'contribution' IMO ranks 2nd only in annoyability to that lightweight purveyror of 'likeable' mediocrity John Pizzarelli-lest we forget his equally talentless wife Jessica Molasky. Please, oh G-d of Abraham, hear my plea and give Jonathan Schwartz that ear transplant. His insurance doth cover it..). I thought my question to you right before your post germane though. Your response, sir?

[Pete C]

I've actually never heard Spalding, but put-downs of the bad Pizzarelli are always appreciated.

[AllenLowe]

I was pointing out that there are segments of the jazz audience (both critical and otherwise) who have warped our perspective on race by accepting race as a qualifier in matters of authenticity,

[fasstrack]

Okay, thanks for the vote of no confidence on the Fabulous Fying Ps. You respond, though, to a carom shot. What would make pleased as punch (also, I feel, the late. great Hubert Horatio Humphrey who may have supernatural listening abiliity and a love of debate that may well be immorta- and besides hailed from Minnesota-close enough for O) though, would be a response to my query of you right before your port at around 8:18. If you would, good and kind sir.

[fasstrack]

Meant for Allen not Pete C. Sorry. Powder that cue, apply that English and...no caroms please. AS a Walter Brennan bhar2ter averred 'that's dirty pool'..

[Face of the Bass]

The most "inbred" part of this thread right now seems to be that almost everybody here is white.