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

[Leeway]

That sort of put paid to what Coltrane was doing in the 60s.

"...put paid to"? Even if you're referring only to what Coltrane was doing, "Interstellar Space," for one, suggests otherwise.

Larry, I think where I was going with that was that there was a period of backlash and reaction that in a sense erased music of that kind from larger popular appreciation and distribution. Not a reflection on the music but on the general cultural scene that served to get in the way of further developments along the line of "Interstellar Space" and even eroded the value of such music in the public arena. Fortunately, I think this situation has changed over the last decade or two.

[paul secor]

As an aside, does anybody here know the story Red Garland told about having a drink with Trane and asking him if he believed in the (new) music he was playing. Trane replied 'sort of. But if I stopped a lot of people would think I was a phony'.

I wonder about the veracity of that story......

Sounds like a bogus story to me. I'd never read it before and If it were true, I'm sure that it would have made a lot of rounds before this.

[David Ayers]

We've got AB coming to London for his birthday so come and see him/us and ask him about this in person!

http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/baraka/

His birthday's 6 October, same as mine. Do you mean 2014?

MG

2014 yes - it's all on the link.

[Leeway]

I would be very interested indeed in what Amiri has to say about it, but can any explanation 40 or so years later manage to capture the original insight? Or will we get something that is an alloy of the original idea plus the added material acquired later in life?

[fasstrack]

As an aside, does anybody here know the story Red Garland told about having a drink with Trane and asking him if he believed in the (new) music he was playing. Trane replied 'sort of. But if I stopped a lot of people would think I was a phony'.

I wonder about the veracity of that story......

Sounds like a bogus story to me. I'd never read it before and If it were true, I'm sure that it would have made a lot of rounds before this.

I believe I read it in a DB interview w/Red. Not 100% sure of that, but it was in print.

[fasstrack]

MG is correct, I think, on some of the racial confusion; I was a reading a book a while back about Braxton, and it advocated the position that he was rejected because what he was doing did not fit the image of how the black jazz musician should play; and the writer (can't think of his name, British) expressed the belief that this was a white, racist point of view. But geez, I remember the night Jamil Nasser gave me an earful of how he knew that that Braxon et al had killed the music; Percy France was more polite about this, but he clearly felt the same way, as did probably hundreds of black musicians from that generation.

Braxton wasn't the only one. Joe Henderson got heat (from blacks) for digging Stan Getz.

All I know is hanging around Chuck Wayne (a white man of Czech descent whose real name is Charles Jagaka) as a young man he said that one reason he originally got into music was that if you could play you were accepted no matter what your color or religion. I think the musicians have by and large been above the fray, even back then. The racial agitators have rarely been musicians.

Reading Notes and Tones the first time I thought 'geez, these guys are really pissed at Whitey'. Justifiably, too, to an extent. But Art Blakely, who made a comment in said tome that 'Caucasians can only swing from a rope' hired Valery Pomanarov and Dennis Irwin a few years later. Why? B/c they could play. I think he also said something about being proud that Clifford Brown's message had reached as far as the U.S.S.R.

As far as 'killing the music', (I saw Mr. Nasser on Like it Is saying similar things) etc.: anyone has the right to express themselves artistically as they see fit. But accept that if you end up on 'the fringe' it may be a lonely life. And don't cry about it. That goes for mainstreamers, too. Life is a bitch. But don't cry. It doesn't help. Playing does.

Edited November 16, 2013 by fasstrack

[JSngry]

I thought the Beatles killed jazz. Now come to find out it was Anthony Braxton who killed jazz.

all we know for sure is that Art Blakey killed Charlie Parker. So, like, look no further.

[Leeway]

Every art form, be it music, painting, sculpture, has its time and place. When it loses its vigor and fruitfulness, it dies. The succeeding art form does not kill it, it grows in the place where the previous art existed. Saying Charlie Parker killed classic jazz or swing, or that Braxton killed Charlie Parker, really doesn't make sense and is historical. Did Van Gogh kill Constable? Did Rothko kill Van Gogh? It would be ridiculous to say so.

Previous art forms move to the shadows, sometimes to be recalled by those who can reinvigorate them, at least temporarily. The good or bad thing about the digital age is that nothing dies. It's all there in vast digital storage spaces. So you can listen to Louis Armstrong AND Dizzy AND Freddie Hubbard AND Nate Wooley, et al as much as you want. I'm not sure this si good, because it fails to clear artistic space, but for archival purposes it's pretty cool. I think this is called the postmodern era.

[David Ayers]

The good or bad thing about the digital age is that nothing dies. It's all there in vast digital storage spaces. So you can listen to Louis Armstrong AND Dizzy AND Freddie Hubbard AND Nate Wooley, et al as much as you want. I'm not sure this si good, because it fails to clear artistic space, but for archival purposes it's pretty cool. I think this is called the postmodern era.

i don't know if 'jazz fans' and 'music lovers' needed the excuse of the digital age for their/our archival obsession. As a researcher i spend enough time among the dead. I quite appreciate living and breathing human bodies in my music-consuming. Let the dead bury the dead.

[robertoart]

Or Monty Python...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gQrqHDBQ4o

[Mark Stryker]

The Star-Ledger is reporting that Amiri Baraka has died at age 79. Wasn't sure where to post this info -- chose here because this was one of the longer threads I can recall and it started with a dicussion of Baraka's work and aesthetic. Here's the news: http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2014/01/hold_hold_hold_amiri_baraka_former_nj_poet_laureate_and_prolific_author_dead_at_79.html

Forgive me if somebody posted this reading/performance previously in this thread.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Mark Stryker

[Face of the Bass]

I have started a thread in the Artists forum.