Alex Hoffman: "Why I think Wayne Shorter Sucks"

[Jim R]

Whoa...that was bad on all counts by all parties.

Brutal. I watched the first 30 seconds (literally), and couldn't take any more. The guy has to edit that shit a dozen times per minute? I then read this thread, and decided to go back and watch some more, fast-forwarding to the beginning of the interview (actually just before the interview began, so I got to see a few more edits- like between where he says "please watch my channel" and "thank you for watching"). Hoffman struck me immediately as immature and dull, but that's not why I turned it off again. That interviewer... I mean, it's like we're listening to somebody's junior high music project. Oh well, I really don't care anyway.

[CJ Shearn]

That film, "Icons Among Us" is great. I don't think Shipp literally meant f Herbie, Bud, Monk, it was as freelancer said, he was trying to say that it's ok to know the tradition but use that knowledge to move forward into now. Glasper made the same point in the film. He said something like "Bird wouldn't want us playing what he played".

[fasstrack]

W/o defending Alex's ill-conceived FB remarks on Wayne or the stilted video speech in which he looks enbalmed, I can say the following: I've known Alex Hoffman for a few years. He's a talented tenor player and a bright, quiet guy who reads a lot of philosophy. He once framed a minor argument at a jam session by going to the piano and demonstrating his voice-leading theories. I doubt he'd wanted to have created the imbroglio he did. Just a nice, thinking young cat who should've done that a bit more before opening his yap this time.

[CJ Shearn]

Thanks for that fasstrack.

[danasgoodstuff]

OK, I watched as much as I could stand, which was not very much. And I don't know if we have a winner as far as the sour grapes theory goes, maybe that's not his motivation consciously or not, but one thing's damn sure, WE HAVE A WHINER and life's far too short for me to spend over an hour listening to that. Or, put it this way, if Lee Konitz (who knows as much maths as anyone) thinks Wayne's playing on the Plugged Nickle is really the shit, and he's said just that several times, who is this little fuck to argue?

Edited June 9, 2013 by danasgoodstuff

[JSngry]

Maybe his dogma just got ran over by his karma.

[Larry Kart]

OK, I watched as much as I could stand, which was not very much. And I don't know if we have a winner as far as the sour grapes theory goes, maybe that's not his motivation consciously or not, but one thing's damn sure, WE HAVE A WHINER and life's far too short for me to spend over an hour listening to that. Or, put it this way, if Lee Konitz (who knows as much maths as anyone) thinks Wayne's playing on the Plugged Nickle is really the shit, and he's said just that several times, who is this little fuck to argue?

While I'm certainly on Shorter's side in this (if that's the way to put it), I don't think that Konitz "knows as much maths as anyone" and I believe that he has stated as much in interviews. I recall one in particular with Ethan Iverson where Iverson went into what Brad Mehldau was doing harmonically behind Lee on one of the live albums they did, and Lee professed something like bemused bewilderment at EI's analysis. In any case, I think that Lee feels that his harmonic approach is essentially intuitive and in service of melodic impulses.

That interview (I see that above I somewhat mis-characterized Lee's response, but the gist remains):

http://jazztimes.com/articles/27721-lee-konitz-a-q-a-by-ethan-iverson

[jlhoots]

This thread is all over the place.

I'm not big on Metheny, Shipp, Glasper.

I love Monk, Bud & Wayne.

So - what to do.

I've heard Hoffman with Brian Lynch & he wasn't terrible.

I guess for today I'll go back to my Silke Eberhard CDs.

There you all go.

[AllenLowe]

I don't know Larry - when I look at transcripts of Konitz and Marsh, I see them as being very interval-conscious. Which was pretty much how Tristano taught. I'm not saying the use of this is not intuitive, but I think that's only because both were able to so internalize the process.

As for Hoffman, I was sympathetic at first, but now he sounds to me like just another reactionary schmuck.

as for Sacha Perry, oi, a strange one. Some good ideas, but reminds me of the times when Joe Albany's brain cells would misfire. It was like listening to an interesting echo.

Edited June 10, 2013 by AllenLowe

[Blue Train]

I couldn't take more than 15 minutes of the Hoffman interview when it first came out.

Speaking of Shipp. An interview from 1999 that is all over the place. I always found his comments about Braxton to be somewhat funny considering how many recordings he know has released. Shipp had 20 releases under his name by then.

http://www.furious.com/perfect/matthewshipp.html

Edited June 10, 2013 by Blue Train

[Larry Kart]

I don't know Larry - when I look at transcripts of Konitz and Marsh, I see them as being very interval-conscious. Which was pretty much how Tristano taught. I'm not saying the use of this is not intuitive, but I think that's only because both were able to so internalize the process.

As for Hoffman, I was sympathetic at first, but now he sounds to me like just another reactionary schmuck.

as for Sacha Perry, oi, a strange one. Some good ideas, but reminds me of the times when Joe Albany's brain cells would misfire. It was like listening to an interesting echo.

A fair amount of what Perry plays sounds to me like he's stuck inside a snippet of a solo on "Donna Lee" being played by, say, Argonne Thornton and can't find his way out.

[Noj]

I feel sorry for this guy. On multiple levels.

Me too. Wayne Shorter's music is some of the most beautiful I've heard in any genre, and this poor sap Hoffman has somehow thought himself out of appreciating it.

[JSngry]

This thread is all over the place.

The world is all over the place. Find a place where it is not there!

[Guy Berger]

I somehow missed the initial "controversy", but this seems to boil down to "(jealous/bitter?) idiot says something idiotic."

[7/4]

This thread is all over the place.

The world is all over the place. Find a place where it is not there!

This whole world's wild at heart and weird on top.

[CJ Shearn]

This thread is all over the place.

The world is all over the place. Find a place where it is not there!

This whole world's wild at heart and weird on top.

This thread is all over the place.

The world is all over the place. Find a place where it is not there!

This whole world's wild at heart and weird on top.

Yes!

[Larry Kart]

Here is Hoffman in better company, a band led by Brian Lynch. Nonetheless, his lack of projection sound-wise suggests to me that he is playing a combination tenor saxophone/vacuum cleaner, while a fair number of his phrase endings just stop or trail away, as though the sequence of "correct" changes and substitutions he's been using as a road map has led him down a blind alley or to the edge of a cliff.

[Joe]

Hoffman's sound reminds me rather much of (a Oxford-collared) Clifford Jordan. I wonder if he's listened to Jordan extensively, and, if so, of where Jordan went harmonically from his Strata-East days into his Muse years...

[7/4]

There's not many tenor saxophone/vacuum cleaners, that could be his legacy.

[fasstrack]

I don't know Larry - when I look at transcripts of Konitz and Marsh, I see them as being very interval-conscious. Which was pretty much how Tristano taught. I'm not saying the use of this is not intuitive, but I think that's only because both were able to so internalize the process.

As for Hoffman, I was sympathetic at first, but now he sounds to me like just another reactionary schmuck.

as for Sacha Perry, oi, a strange one. Some good ideas, but reminds me of the times when Joe Albany's brain cells would misfire. It was like listening to an interesting echo.

A fair amount of what Perry plays sounds to me like he's stuck inside a snippet of a solo on "Donna Lee" being played by, say, Argonne Thornton and can't find his way out.

Way more to him than that. Listen more, please.

[Larry Kart]

I don't know Larry - when I look at transcripts of Konitz and Marsh, I see them as being very interval-conscious. Which was pretty much how Tristano taught. I'm not saying the use of this is not intuitive, but I think that's only because both were able to so internalize the process.

As for Hoffman, I was sympathetic at first, but now he sounds to me like just another reactionary schmuck.

as for Sacha Perry, oi, a strange one. Some good ideas, but reminds me of the times when Joe Albany's brain cells would misfire. It was like listening to an interesting echo.

A fair amount of what Perry plays sounds to me like he's stuck inside a snippet of a solo on "Donna Lee" being played by, say, Argonne Thornton and can't find his way out.

Way more to him than that. Listen more, please.

Yes, this one below from Perry has something IMO:

but every time I've heard him in a "blowing" context FWTW (rather than as here, stating and sounding out an intense but more or less pre-determined structure) he sounds fairly well trapped to me, chewing over very similar figures and never getting much of anywhere.

And his comping? I do have a fair amount on Perry on CDs as a sideman.

Another taste of Perry:

Speaking of getting somewhere, listen to the melodic flow of Ted Brown's solo.

[robertoart]

W/o defending Alex's ill-conceived FB remarks on Wayne or the stilted video speech in which he looks enbalmed, I can say the following: I've known Alex Hoffman for a few years. He's a talented tenor player and a bright, quiet guy who reads a lot of philosophy. He once framed a minor argument at a jam session by going to the piano and demonstrating his voice-leading theories. I doubt he'd wanted to have created the imbroglio he did. Just a nice, thinking young cat who should've done that a bit more before opening his yap this time.

So he reads a lot of philosophy. Well he seems to be advocating a music that is all Platonic form and no social or personal ambience - which he seems to equate with vulgarity. According to this guy, Lester and Hawkins were apparently able to reach these lofty heights of transcendence without dirtying the sublime pain or hipster coolness of The Blues. Whereas others with a post-cool response to the world around them, are merely shallow exhibitionists. It's hard to believe he is talking about Shorter and not David Murray or Archie Shepp actually. But this guy probably wouldn't even consider those players on the 'musical' spectrum whatsoever. So maybe his attention to Shorter is a back handed compliment of sorts.

Interestingly, I found something of the thing he is trying get across, in of all places, a recent Nicholas Payton Chamber Jazz performance. Which I did kinda like by the way, just not as much as his blog writing and activism. It was like Payton had told his band not to fart in case they stunk up the Platonic air.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F54nR67PZPY

[AllenLowe]

Larry nails it on that last Hoffman solo; it's really, btw, right out of the Barry Harris playbook; but whereas Barry, who really internalizes those boppisms, plays lines that seem like natural extensions of self, Hoffman lacks conviction. It's a little weird.

on the other hand, nearly all of these kinds of groups sound like that to me recently (and not-so-recently). Insert, in your head, Von Freeman and Ira Sullivan, and you hear what's missing.

personally I am trying to get away from continuity. It seems to me, right now, to be the enemy of development, ironically or not.

Edited June 10, 2013 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

Sounds to me like instead of taking heroin to deaden themselves to the ongoing outside world in order to attempt to access their inner beauties & truths, they're using their music to deaden themselves to the ongoing outside world and just stopping there.

Maybe they can do a version of The Connection and take all the heroin out.

[robertoart]

Sounds to me like instead of taking heroin to deaden themselves to the ongoing outside world in order to attempt to access their inner beauties & truths, they're using their music to deaden themselves to the ongoing outside world and just stopping there.

Maybe they can do a version of The Connection and take all the heroin out.

There might be something in that.......sadly.