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

[Dan Gould]

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

Really? Is there a special code in the pixels that lets you tell the race of members?

[Pete C]

Really? Is there a special code in the pixels that lets you tell the race of members?

"Post-colonial theory" gives him special powers...

(nb: I used to piss him off from the left when he was a pre-grad-school right winger. Now I can piss him off from a different corner of the left than his, i.e. the one that still cherishes those corny old European enlightenment values.)

Edited March 18, 2012 by Pete C

[AllenLowe]

Joel - that last post was a response to your pre-8:18 - I simply was reiterating that one reason Affirmative Action has had some bad response is that some liberals have warped its initial intentions by seeing nothing but color as a signifier of authenticity. I still favor Affirmative Action, however.

[Face of the Bass]

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

Really? Is there a special code in the pixels that lets you tell the race of members?

Yes.

Really? Is there a special code in the pixels that lets you tell the race of members?

"Post-colonial theory" gives him special powers...

(nb: I used to piss him off from the left when he was a pre-grad-school right winger. Now I can piss him off from a different corner of the left than his, i.e. the one that still cherishes those corny old European enlightenment values.)

You're not a racist, you just happen to think that the cultural and intellectual heritage of Europe is superior. It's funny because it was the Enlightenment that led to colonialism in the first place.

[A Lark Ascending]

It's funny because it was the Enlightenment that led to colonialism in the first place.

So what were the Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, French etc doing in the 16th and 17thC?

[ValerieB]

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?

even putting Spalding's name in the same sentence with Pizzarelli and Molasky is totally ludicrous!

[ValerieB]

hey guys/girls: anyone want to buy signed copies of the following:

"Tales of the Out and the Gone"

"Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music"

"Somebody Blew Up America"

as well as his daughter, Kellie Jones' "EyeMinded: Living and Writing Contemporary Art" with contributions by Baraka, Hettie Jones, Lisa Jones and Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr. (Kellie's husband)?

they'll go to the highest bidders!!!!!!!

[Pete C]

You're not a racist, you just happen to think that the cultural and intellectual heritage of Europe is superior. It's funny because it was the Enlightenment that led to colonialism in the first place.

There's only one appropriate response to a comment like that.

So what were the Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, French etc doing in the 16th and 17thC?

Don't muddle the discussion with facts.

[Chuck Nessa]

Out of control. Anyone here really have a handle on anything typed by others? I am not sure.

[robertoart]

Really? Is there a special code in the pixels that lets you tell the race of members?

"Post-colonial theory" gives him special powers...

(nb: I used to piss him off from the left when he was a pre-grad-school right winger. Now I can piss him off from a different corner of the left than his, i.e. the one that still cherishes those corny old European enlightenment values.)

Can you define post colonial theory, and how it pertains to 'American' music.

The 'whiteness' of the board is pretty self evident, it positively glissens on threads like this and the Peyton one.

One of the good things about the internet is it allows people interested in the music to be informed by Black opinion and insight as well.

Something I rarely had the privilege to experience growing up away from the centre of the music.

[Face of the Bass]

It's funny because it was the Enlightenment that led to colonialism in the first place.

So what were the Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, French etc doing in the 16th and 17thC?

The Enlightenment was not purely an 18th century phenomenon, though that is when it reached its zenith. But more to the point, the colonialism of the 19th century, inspired by nationalism and by scientific racism, was of a different nature than the colonialism of earlier centuries.

Also, Pete, I'm putting you on Ignore. I've never liked you much, and it has absolutely nothing to do with politics.

[Pete C]

Can you define post colonial theory, and how it pertains to 'American' music.

Lest it seem that I discard post-colonial studies, no, it has provided useful frames for literary and social discourse. My problem is with an academic left that is hermetically cocooned in the certainty of its "postmodern" perspectives contra differing (whether competing or actually complementary) perspectives, a kind of fundamentalism. Actually, it's probably very relevant to discussions of American music, as one of many modalities. Here are some links that come from positive perspectives, not some kind of David Horowitz hatchet job, which would be much worse, I'm sure, than what it sought to critique.

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Intro.html

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/10/

and it has absolutely nothing to do with politics.

Clearly, since we're probably in agreement on most things since your conversion. Of course, political converts, regardless of the direction of the conversion, are often of a fundamentalist intellectual style, so it's an easy shift, replacing one fundamentalism with another.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Pete C

[fasstrack]

Valerie: you are quite right! Quelle gauche of moi. Don't know what I'd do w/o you! They DON'T belong in the same sentence. So here are three separate sentences-to run concurrently, since I'm a merciful man: John Pizzarelli sucks. Jessica Molasky sucks. Ezparanza Spalding sucks.

[robertoart]

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,

I think most of the focus in arguments from Black musicians is culture and social history, not race per se. As I understand it, Payton talks about the 'authenticity' of a Black American social response to music as being different to a non-Black one. I think he is saying the divisions between soul and jazz and hip hop and blues etc are not as categorical in the minds and ears of Black Americans. The music is heard in a more wholistic way. I think the music of the sixties and seventies from Black musicians exemplifies that. Now, perhaps, there is an element of self consciousness in contemporary Black musicians from a jazz background trying to affirm that. But that just may be a sign of the times, and a self consciousness derived from an urgency to have to define that fact, rather than just live it. I don't hear arguments coming from Black musicians that non Black musicians can't play the music as authentically as anyone else. I also get concerned when I read these arguments, that there is a misrepresentation of the terms of 'authenticity', that leads the dominant voices into areas that will eventually erase the privileged position of 'jazz' as being a Black American artform. While I value what fasstrack's say's, that Black musicians (in his cross-cultural experience), just want to play the music with whoever has the capacity, I think that is a very different argument to ceding the sovereignty of the Black artform to 'whatever'.

I believe I understand your arguments about Europeans, fetishising the exoticism of the music, perhaps in racial terms. I have heard that the French (as an example) still perceive themselves to have been 'better colonialists' than the British.

That's why it is good to read opinions and arguments coming from players and producers within the 'American' experience.

Edited March 19, 2012 by freelancer

[robertoart]

Can you define post colonial theory, and how it pertains to 'American' music.

Lest it seem that I discard post-colonial studies, no, it has provided useful frames for literary and social discourse. My problem is with an academic left that is hermetically cocooned in the certainty of its "postmodern" perspectives contra differing (whether competing or actually complementary) perspectives, a kind of fundamentalism. Actually, it's probably very relevant to discussions of American music, as one of many modalities. Here are some links that come from positive perspectives, not some kind of David Horowitz hatchet job, which would be much worse, I'm sure, than what it sought to critique.

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Intro.html

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/10/

and it has absolutely nothing to do with politics.

Clearly, since we're probably in agreement on most things since your conversion. Of course, political converts, regardless of the direction of the conversion, are often of a fundamentalist intellectual style, so it's an easy shift, replacing one fundamentalism with another.

Ummmm. Sounds very Zizekian.

Although I think the way he uses the European traditions (Enlightenment, Christianity etc.) is more analogous to the way Bird used Gershwin.

I will read your references.

Edited March 19, 2012 by freelancer

[.:.impossible]

Out of control is right.

Completely turned off.

THAT sucks.

[ValerieB]

Valerie: you are quite right! Quelle gauche of moi. Don't know what I'd do w/o you! They DON'T belong in the same sentence. So here are three separate sentences-to run concurrently, since I'm a merciful man: John Pizzarelli sucks. Jessica Molasky sucks. Ezparanza Spalding sucks.

because i know you're a man of good taste, you really need to give Esperanza more of a chance, especially when it comes to her bass-playing. just cannot believe that you wouldn't appreciate her talent as a musician.

[JSngry]

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,

I think most of the focus in arguments from Black musicians is culture and social history, not race per se. As I understand it, Peyton talks about the 'authenticity' of a Black American social response to music as being different to a non-Black one. I think he is saying the divisions between soul and jazz and hip hop and blues etc are not as categorical in the minds and ears of Black Americans. The music is heard in a more holistic way. I think the music of the sixties and seventies from Black musicians exemplifies that.

I think Payton is trying to get more "jazz musicians" to get back to that.

I also think he's right to do so.

I also think that everybody is going through the "growing pains" of the possibilities of assimilation made possible by about 35-40 years of relative non-segregation.

Finally, I firmly believe, and will believe into infinity, that "jazz" = "Black Music" in that no matter who did what when to what extent, it was always in reaction and/or in relation to to something "black". I have no problem with accepting that and then going on about my business, having no desire to "own" or "claim" anything other than myself inside myself, and as Duke said (more or less), it's highly unlikely at this point that we will be able to determine "whom is enjoying the shadow of whom" up/down in there.

Edited March 19, 2012 by JSngry

[ValerieB]

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

i'm really surprised that you've never heard Esperanza. not even with Herbie, Lovano or McCoy?

[Pete C]

i'm really surprised that you've never heard Esperanza. not even with Herbie, Lovano or McCoy?

Nunca.

[fasstrack]

The problem, Valerie, is that I've heard her. Also, unfortunately, her 'songs'. To each his or her own, I suppose. Sorry to have offended you-and moving on. As the great music critic Snagglepuss put it so many years ago: 'Exit, stage left'.

[robertoart]

"whom is enjoying the shadow of whom" seems like a popular quote.

for those (like me) whose Ellington is not what it should be,

My link

My link

My link

I will peruse.

[JSngry]

"whom is enjoying the shadow of whom" seems like a popular quote.

for those (like me) whose Ellington is not what it should be,

My link

My link

My link

I will peruse.

Greatest Ellington-related quote ever, possibly, in that third link:

Art Baron, a trombonist in Duke Ellington's orchestra, reflected on how "you really had to believe in his harmonies. If musicians who were not so in love with [Ellington's] vision had played the same music, it would have sounded insane."

Hear Ellington's phrase fully, and in context, and enjoy!

Edited March 19, 2012 by JSngry

[ValerieB]

The problem, Valerie, is that I've heard her. Also, unfortunately, her 'songs'. To each his or her own, I suppose. Sorry to have offended you-and moving on. As the great music critic Snagglepuss put it so many years ago: 'Exit, stage left'.

"Offended" me? i don't think so. i, too, realize "to each his/her own".

[jlhoots]

Respect requires you to spell the person's name correctly.

Then you may have your "opinion".