Guy Berger Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 Just throwing another thought into the melée. When I was at school, I was the only one in the class who's favourite music was jazz. The others thought that strange at best, though I was given any serious grief about it and I stood by it anyway. Since then (1970s) I think the peer pressure about what clothes to wear, what to see on film/TV and what music to hear has risen massively, thanks mostly to various industries. - So, hasn't it become much harder for youngsters over the past decades to get into and stick with a musical taste which is so clearly that of a minority? Interesting. I always thought that Germany had a more 'open' attitude to jazz (was always amazed at the amount of challenging jazz and not just Kenny G/Boney James etc. being broadcast on FM back in the 1980s at a time in the UK when it was once or twice a week) but I guess that things must have deteriorated. Shame.. oops,sorry, just noticed making an error in my previous post:it should read "wasn't given any serious grief" (now amended). Anyway, I wasn't referring to Germany in particular; rather what I think is a global phenomenon of increased pressure to adhere to accepted brands/trends. BTW: Jazz broadcasting and live jazz IMO went downhill sharply in Germany since the '80s I'm pretty skeptical that in the US there is "increased pressure to adhere to accepted brands/trends". Most likely, it's the same as it always was. Quote
Scott Dolan Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 I read MGs post as merely expressing how his journey took a different path. So why bring the word "progress" into the conversation? That's essentially saying discovering new artists/genres by way of other artists is essentially meaningless. Or at the very least, fruitless. And I simply cannot agree with that. Quote
JSngry Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 I don't know, I just think that the idea that "movement" = "progress" ="good" is presumptive of movement for movement;s sake being a desired quality, and I don't think it is, not really. I mean, I'd rather hang out with one person who deeply understands some music that I hate rather than with 50 people who "like" most of the things I do yet can't say anything beyond the most superficial drivel about any of it. It's just a variant on the collecting game, are you collecting to have the objects or to get the meaning? Some people collect "experiences" and don't learn a damn thing from them except how to have more of them. Broad as hell, sure, but equally shallow everywhere. Progress? I suppose there is "progression"?Maybe, but good? That's just a word. Quote
The Magnificent Goldberg Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 Guy, the oddest aspect of this conversatin is that MG first brought up the word progress. I could have taken it as a strawman argument, but decided to simply adopt the term just for the sake of the conversation.I just thought I should clarify that as it seems I'm the one being accused of calling it progress.Exploring other genres and artist because you were hipped to them by other artists is never, ever, EVER a bad thing. I really don't care what one refers to it as.Yes, you're quite right, Scott. I seemed to me from what you wrote that this was what you meant. And because you didn't say anything like 'Hey, that's not what I meant', I thought it WAS what you meant. And so...MG Quote
Scott Dolan Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 (edited) *edit* This post is meant as a reply to Jim. Again, I wasn't the one who introduced the term "progress" into this conversation. But, listening to Zappa introduced me to a lot of Jazz elements that I had been completely unfamiliar with. And having read about Thelonious Monk in Ben Watson's entertaining Zappa bio, The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play, I decided to purchase some Monk. Didn't "get" it at first, but it eventually lead to Jazz being my first love musically. Which eventually led to my son being named after two Jazz musicians. I don't give two shits whether that is progress, or not. But it's damn sure good.Guy, the oddest aspect of this conversatin is that MG first brought up the word progress. I could have taken it as a strawman argument, but decided to simply adopt the term just for the sake of the conversation.I just thought I should clarify that as it seems I'm the one being accused of calling it progress.Exploring other genres and artist because you were hipped to them by other artists is never, ever, EVER a bad thing. I really don't care what one refers to it as.Yes, you're quite right, Scott. I seemed to me from what you wrote that this was what you meant. And because you didn't say anything like 'Hey, that's not what I meant', I thought it WAS what you meant. And so...MG At the time it seemed a rather innocuous term, so it didn't bother me. But it has since seemed to have taken on a life of its own. Edited June 15, 2014 by Scott Dolan Quote
paul secor Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 So no artist you ever listened to led you to another? Every artist and genre you got into just happened randomly? I find that incredibly difficult to believe. I guess it's all just a happy coincidence that I have hundreds of Jazz albums from hundreds of Jazz musicians after having purchased Kind Of Blue. No; I've explored various aspects of black popular music when I've happened to come across them as a result of random wanderings. I don't think that means that artist X led me to artist Y. Both are present in the aspect on which I'm particularly focusing on at a point in time. I didn't get interested in Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey BECAUSE I liked Osadebe or E T Mensah or I K Dairo MBE. These people were around and very popular, therefore I picked up on them. Hm... I tend to like stuff BECAUSE it's popular, because popular music that's genuinely created for its specific audience is culturally more important to me than good music created for a minority. (I exclude from this general rule white pop music since the mid sixties. Before that, the white pop singles emanating from Philly were different from those coming from Nashville, LA or even New York. They were usually (except in Nashville) made by locally based indies and tended to have a common approach which had to have been geared to the local audiences. When the majors really started to get to grips with the industry, it became much less interesting. Not that it was ever TERRIBLY interesting, but there is a marginal interest in the differences between Bobby Rydell and Ricky Nelson, for example.) So, since I'm not looking for art in music, or even particularly quality, what I get reflects the taste and concerns of specific local communities and this helps me understand my own a bit better - though it doesn't make me LIKE it any better - but it does make me ask myself questions like 'why are 97% of Senegalese popular songs about politics and zero are love songs and why are (probably) 97% of western popular songs about love and some tiny percentage about politics?' MG An interesting and honest post. I have to say that I've tended to like stuff that's not or wasn't popular. Even when I did listen more to popular music, I eventually found myself questioning why I was listening to it. Was it because it was in the public eye and ear and found its way to my ears and eyes? Was it because it was part of "the time"? Over time, I found that the reasons I listened to popular music were more invalid than valid, and that the music meant less and less to me. That said, I do listen to some popular music - usually older - a sign that I'm older, I'm sure. I've always had a distrust of popularity and "the people", and that too has increased as I've gotten older. Quote
Scott Dolan Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 All great points, Paul. I think anything popular/mass marketed only holds its appeal until you discover finer quality in the same vein. For example, popular music sounds just fine until your discover more artistic and intellectually engaging forms like Jazz and Orchestral music. Same as fast food being alright until you start getting into finer cuisine which exposes how nasty the fast food stuff is. Yes, those are very broad, bordering on unfair, statements but I think you get my meaning. Quote
The Magnificent Goldberg Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 I read MGs post as merely expressing how his journey took a different path.So why bring the word "progress" into the conversation? That's essentially saying discovering new artists/genres by way of other artists is essentially meaningless. Or at the very least, fruitless.And I simply cannot agree with that.Explained the thing with progress above. But in every kind of music there are thousands or tens of thousands of practitioners and no one can get into them all. So you get into what you find, however you find it, but there's no particular validity to any one trail of artists any more than to another trail. We're all people to whom things happen (even if sometimes we make things happen ourselves) and those things are essentially random, whether they're opportunities knocking or hints about a musician or a reliable and competent plumber. To attribute 'meaningfulness' to a random series of events that happen to one seems rather self-centred to me.As far as I can see, there's no meaning to life. If you can enjoy it, that's good. But don't kid yourself that there's something meaningful about it. And don't try kidding the kids that some path is better than another. They'll soon come to realise that, seven days a week, they're assailed by random events and also realise that 'THE PATH' is a con.MG Quote
A Lark Ascending Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 All great points, Paul. I think anything popular/mass marketed only holds its appeal until you discover finer quality in the same vein. For example, popular music sounds just fine until your discover more artistic and intellectually engaging forms like Jazz and Orchestral music. Same as fast food being alright until you start getting into finer cuisine which exposes how nasty the fast food stuff is. Yes, those are very broad, bordering on unfair, statements but I think you get my meaning. Robert Johnson made records to give enjoyment, hopefully make some money, maybe even get rich. But it didn't happen (of course the Robert Johnson industry tells the story somewhat differently). If he had been a commercial success - quite possible, he recorded a few popular tunes and, by all reports, performed a lot more - would the music have lost its value? Is it only worthy of the 'discerning' listener because it was not a commercial success? When I were a lad we listened to our prog-rock records convinced that a new 'art' form was being born and sneered at those who skipped away to commercial dross like Tamla Motown. But look what history has done to those two genres! We are taught to believe that that which is uncommercial has greater 'depth'. This has the advantage of placing us in a small, discriminating elite who have the good taste to recognise the value of that which everyone else seems to dislike. It's how the middle and upper classes in western societies have distanced themselves from the 'riff-raff' for centuries. Those sort of attitudes are a major stumbling block to new audiences coming to jazz and classical music (apart from those looking for some social/cultural capital). They are nowhere near as prevalent as they were 40 years ago. I'm always amazed that they are still there at all. Quote
Scott Dolan Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 I read MGs post as merely expressing how his journey took a different path.So why bring the word "progress" into the conversation? That's essentially saying discovering new artists/genres by way of other artists is essentially meaningless. Or at the very least, fruitless.And I simply cannot agree with that.Explained the thing with progress above. But in every kind of music there are thousands or tens of thousands of practitioners and no one can get into them all. So you get into what you find, however you find it, but there's no particular validity to any one trail of artists any more than to another trail. We're all people to whom things happen (even if sometimes we make things happen ourselves) and those things are essentially random, whether they're opportunities knocking or hints about a musician or a reliable and competent plumber. To attribute 'meaningfulness' to a random series of events that happen to one seems rather self-centred to me.As far as I can see, there's no meaning to life. If you can enjoy it, that's good. But don't kid yourself that there's something meaningful about it. And don't try kidding the kids that some path is better than another. They'll soon come to realise that, seven days a week, they're assailed by random events and also realise that 'THE PATH' is a con.MG Well, all I can tell you is that throughout my life I have often been introduced to new artists and genres by ones I was listening to at the time. Or, by a mutual fan of an artist that said, "then you'll probably this as well." Nothing random about that at all. Matter of fact, off the top of my head I can't think of a single artist or genre that I just randomly fell back asswards into appreciating. Quote
The Magnificent Goldberg Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 So no artist you ever listened to led you to another? Every artist and genre you got into just happened randomly?I find that incredibly difficult to believe.I guess it's all just a happy coincidence that I have hundreds of Jazz albums from hundreds of Jazz musicians after having purchased Kind Of Blue.No; I've explored various aspects of black popular music when I've happened to come across them as a result of random wanderings. I don't think that means that artist X led me to artist Y. Both are present in the aspect on which I'm particularly focusing on at a point in time. I didn't get interested in Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey BECAUSE I liked Osadebe or E T Mensah or I K Dairo MBE. These people were around and very popular, therefore I picked up on them.Hm... I tend to like stuff BECAUSE it's popular, because popular music that's genuinely created for its specific audience is culturally more important to me than good music created for a minority. (I exclude from this general rule white pop music since the mid sixties. Before that, the white pop singles emanating from Philly were different from those coming from Nashville, LA or even New York. They were usually (except in Nashville) made by locally based indies and tended to have a common approach which had to have been geared to the local audiences. When the majors really started to get to grips with the industry, it became much less interesting. Not that it was ever TERRIBLY interesting, but there is a marginal interest in the differences between Bobby Rydell and Ricky Nelson, for example.)So, since I'm not looking for art in music, or even particularly quality, what I get reflects the taste and concerns of specific local communities and this helps me understand my own a bit better - though it doesn't make me LIKE it any better - but it does make me ask myself questions like 'why are 97% of Senegalese popular songs about politics and zero are love songs and why are (probably) 97% of western popular songs about love and some tiny percentage about politics?'MG An interesting and honest post.I have to say that I've tended to like stuff that's not or wasn't popular. Even when I did listen more to popular music, I eventually found myself questioning why I was listening to it. Was it because it was in the public eye and ear and found its way to my ears and eyes? Was it because it was part of "the time"? Over time, I found that the reasons I listened to popular music were more invalid than valid, and that the music meant less and less to me. That said, I do listen to some popular music - usually older - a sign that I'm older, I'm sure.I've always had a distrust of popularity and "the people", and that too has increased as I've gotten older.I do understand. The stuff I like isn't popular here and now. But it all was popular sometime and somewhere. And that, I think, goes for most of the music you like, too, Paul.I agree that distrust of pop music has, rightly, increased. The globalisation of pop music is to blame and has got worse as the number of major music companies has shrunk. Worse is to come, no doubt.MG Quote
Scott Dolan Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 All great points, Paul. I think anything popular/mass marketed only holds its appeal until you discover finer quality in the same vein. For example, popular music sounds just fine until your discover more artistic and intellectually engaging forms like Jazz and Orchestral music. Same as fast food being alright until you start getting into finer cuisine which exposes how nasty the fast food stuff is. Yes, those are very broad, bordering on unfair, statements but I think you get my meaning. Robert Johnson made records to give enjoyment, hopefully make some money, maybe even get rich. But it didn't happen (of course the Robert Johnson industry tells the story somewhat differently). If he had been a commercial success - quite possible, he recorded a few popular tunes and, by all reports, performed a lot more - would the music have lost its value? Is it only worthy of the 'discerning' listener because it was not a commercial success? When I were a lad we listened to our prog-rock records convinced that a new 'art' form was being born and sneered at those who skipped away to commercial dross like Tamla Motown. But look what history has done to those two genres! We are taught to believe that that which is uncommercial has greater 'depth'. This has the advantage of placing us in a small, discriminating elite who have the good taste to recognise the value of that which everyone else seems to dislike. It's how the middle and upper classes in western societies have distanced themselves from the 'riff-raff' for centuries. Those sort of attitudes are a major stumbling block to new audiences coming to jazz and classical music (apart from those looking for some social/cultural capital). They are nowhere near as prevalent as they were 40 years ago. I'm always amazed that they are still there at all. Which is exactly why I offered that caveat at the end of my post. But, no matter how one wishes to spin it, the John Coltrane Quartet is a hell of a lot more complex, and emotionally and intellectually engaging than Britney Spears. Quote
Shawn Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 All great points, Paul. I think anything popular/mass marketed only holds its appeal until you discover finer quality in the same vein. For example, popular music sounds just fine until your discover more artistic and intellectually engaging forms like Jazz and Orchestral music. Same as fast food being alright until you start getting into finer cuisine which exposes how nasty the fast food stuff is. Yes, those are very broad, bordering on unfair, statements but I think you get my meaning. Elitism; the reason why so many jazz fans come off like pretentious assholes to outsiders. Quote
Scott Dolan Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 (edited) All great points, Paul. I think anything popular/mass marketed only holds its appeal until you discover finer quality in the same vein. For example, popular music sounds just fine until your discover more artistic and intellectually engaging forms like Jazz and Orchestral music. Same as fast food being alright until you start getting into finer cuisine which exposes how nasty the fast food stuff is. Yes, those are very broad, bordering on unfair, statements but I think you get my meaning. Elitism; the reason why so many jazz fans come off like pretentious assholes to outsiders.Sorry, but considering most Jazz to be a cut above manufactured and mass marketed boy bands and teenage starlets is anything but elitist. It's not like I go around evangelizing, and if someone likes that plastic prepackaged music, then good for them. I like some of it myself. I'm also a huge Jimmy Buffett fan, and have received my fair share of abuse for that from lots of different music fans. Doesn't bother me one bit. And yes, Jazz is a huge cut above Jimmy Buffett. So what? So figure out who you're talking about before tossing out labels. Edited June 15, 2014 by Scott Dolan Quote
A Lark Ascending Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 (edited) But, no matter how one wishes to spin it, the John Coltrane Quartet is a hell of a lot more complex, and emotionally and intellectually engaging than Britney Spears. Not if you were 13 when she was at the peak of her popularity (well, the emotionally engaging bit!). It depends on context. I'd not dispute that there are qualitative differences in music. Gotterdammerung is a far more complex and revolutionary piece than 'Come On In My Kitchen'. But is it better? Do you improve by going from the latter to the former? Too often these judgement are not based on any defined criteria. Someone takes a liking to Evan Parker and then proceeds to assert they they are better than Branford Marsalis. Based on what criteria? The chances are that the person listening to the latter is doing so from a completely different context to the one listening to the former. Edited June 15, 2014 by A Lark Ascending Quote
BillF Posted June 15, 2014 Author Report Posted June 15, 2014 But, no matter how one wishes to spin it, the John Coltrane Quartet is a hell of a lot more complex, and emotionally and intellectually engaging than Britney Spears. QUOTE OF THE YEAR! Quote
mjzee Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 This is beginning to remind me of a debate I heard in the record library of my college radio station. Two impassioned music lovers, in a loud debate over which was better: Robert Johnson or Kiss? It was pretty funny to listen to, as it eventually descended into smack talk. Quote
The Magnificent Goldberg Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 I read MGs post as merely expressing how his journey took a different path.So why bring the word "progress" into the conversation? That's essentially saying discovering new artists/genres by way of other artists is essentially meaningless. Or at the very least, fruitless.And I simply cannot agree with that.Explained the thing with progress above. But in every kind of music there are thousands or tens of thousands of practitioners and no one can get into them all. So you get into what you find, however you find it, but there's no particular validity to any one trail of artists any more than to another trail. We're all people to whom things happen (even if sometimes we make things happen ourselves) and those things are essentially random, whether they're opportunities knocking or hints about a musician or a reliable and competent plumber. To attribute 'meaningfulness' to a random series of events that happen to one seems rather self-centred to me.As far as I can see, there's no meaning to life. If you can enjoy it, that's good. But don't kid yourself that there's something meaningful about it. And don't try kidding the kids that some path is better than another. They'll soon come to realise that, seven days a week, they're assailed by random events and also realise that 'THE PATH' is a con.MGWell, all I can tell you is that throughout my life I have often been introduced to new artists and genres by ones I was listening to at the time. Or, by a mutual fan of an artist that said, "then you'll probably this as well." Nothing random about that at all.Matter of fact, off the top of my head I can't think of a single artist or genre that I just randomly fell back asswards into appreciating.That's what random events happening in a person's life are. They're not quite as random as picking a random number from a table because none of us knows every person in the world. We only know a few hundred people, maybe a thousand or two. But within the scope of a life, all of these events that are 'A' might equally have been 'B'. If one event is as likely as another, the eventual outcome is random.Looks like you're easily led by friends or by artists you like.When I was getting into R&B in '59, knowing nothing about it, I bought records because they had been recorded by Atlantic, ordered them before I'd heard them (because I knew it was reasonably sure I wouldn't hear them or find out anything about them over here) and much of the music I bought I DID fall into ass backwards. Same when I started getting into Soul Jazz - I bought anything I'd never heard of on Prestige. Same with gospel music, mbalax, djeliya and so on - I followed record labels. Of course, all this stuff was deadly difficult to get hold of over here; maybe if I'd lived in America, I'd have done the same as you.MG Quote
Larry Kart Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 So no artist you ever listened to led you to another? Every artist and genre you got into just happened randomly? I find that incredibly difficult to believe. I guess it's all just a happy coincidence that I have hundreds of Jazz albums from hundreds of Jazz musicians after having purchased Kind Of Blue. No; I've explored various aspects of black popular music when I've happened to come across them as a result of random wanderings. I don't think that means that artist X led me to artist Y. Both are present in the aspect on which I'm particularly focusing on at a point in time. I didn't get interested in Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey BECAUSE I liked Osadebe or E T Mensah or I K Dairo MBE. These people were around and very popular, therefore I picked up on them. Hm... I tend to like stuff BECAUSE it's popular, because popular music that's genuinely created for its specific audience is culturally more important to me than good music created for a minority. (I exclude from this general rule white pop music since the mid sixties. Before that, the white pop singles emanating from Philly were different from those coming from Nashville, LA or even New York. They were usually (except in Nashville) made by locally based indies and tended to have a common approach which had to have been geared to the local audiences. When the majors really started to get to grips with the industry, it became much less interesting. Not that it was ever TERRIBLY interesting, but there is a marginal interest in the differences between Bobby Rydell and Ricky Nelson, for example.) So, since I'm not looking for art in music, or even particularly quality, what I get reflects the taste and concerns of specific local communities and this helps me understand my own a bit better - though it doesn't make me LIKE it any better - but it does make me ask myself questions like 'why are 97% of Senegalese popular songs about politics and zero are love songs and why are (probably) 97% of western popular songs about love and some tiny percentage about politics?' MG Music as a form of sociological information, no? The resulting information certainly can be interesting, but there's a whole lot more than that going on when music has been/is being made IMO. Quote
Shawn Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 In my world Miles Davis, King Crimson, John Coltrane, Black Sabbath, Hank Mobley, Yes, Stanley Turrentine, Pink Floyd, Pharaoh Sanders and Jimi Hendrix all exist in the same respected circle. One of them is not "more important" to me than another, I love them all equally, just because some of those artists are jazz doesn't make them "superior". I don't discriminate based on genre. Quote
A Lark Ascending Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 (edited) Well, all I can tell you is that throughout my life I have often been introduced to new artists and genres by ones I was listening to at the time. Or, by a mutual fan of an artist that said, "then you'll probably this as well." Nothing random about that at all. Matter of fact, off the top of my head I can't think of a single artist or genre that I just randomly fell back asswards into appreciating. Did you never hear something randomly on the radio and go 'Wow!'? Or in a pub or a friend's house? Or read a description of something in a magazine or book or internet site which just piqued your curiosity even though you had no experience? I recognise totally what you mean by the 'Kind of Blue' generation thing - lots of my exploration has worked that way. But being blindsided out of left-field is just as exciting. In my world Miles Davis, King Crimson, John Coltrane, Black Sabbath, Hank Mobley, Yes, Stanley Turrentine, Pink Floyd, Pharaoh Sanders and Jimi Hendrix all exist in the same respected circle. One of them is not "more important" to me than another, I love them all equally, just because some of those artists are jazz doesn't make them "superior". I don't discriminate based on genre. Absolutely. I lived through the "Tull rool, Sabbath are crap" era. Edited June 15, 2014 by A Lark Ascending Quote
The Magnificent Goldberg Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 So no artist you ever listened to led you to another? Every artist and genre you got into just happened randomly?I find that incredibly difficult to believe.I guess it's all just a happy coincidence that I have hundreds of Jazz albums from hundreds of Jazz musicians after having purchased Kind Of Blue.No; I've explored various aspects of black popular music when I've happened to come across them as a result of random wanderings. I don't think that means that artist X led me to artist Y. Both are present in the aspect on which I'm particularly focusing on at a point in time. I didn't get interested in Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey BECAUSE I liked Osadebe or E T Mensah or I K Dairo MBE. These people were around and very popular, therefore I picked up on them.Hm... I tend to like stuff BECAUSE it's popular, because popular music that's genuinely created for its specific audience is culturally more important to me than good music created for a minority. (I exclude from this general rule white pop music since the mid sixties. Before that, the white pop singles emanating from Philly were different from those coming from Nashville, LA or even New York. They were usually (except in Nashville) made by locally based indies and tended to have a common approach which had to have been geared to the local audiences. When the majors really started to get to grips with the industry, it became much less interesting. Not that it was ever TERRIBLY interesting, but there is a marginal interest in the differences between Bobby Rydell and Ricky Nelson, for example.)So, since I'm not looking for art in music, or even particularly quality, what I get reflects the taste and concerns of specific local communities and this helps me understand my own a bit better - though it doesn't make me LIKE it any better - but it does make me ask myself questions like 'why are 97% of Senegalese popular songs about politics and zero are love songs and why are (probably) 97% of western popular songs about love and some tiny percentage about politics?'MG Music as a form of sociological information, no? The resulting information certainly can be interesting, but there's a whole lot more than that going on when music has been/is being made IMO.In my view too, but understanding a foreign culture - and America is foreign to me, don't forget - is a not unimportant part of getting the music and getting the music is a not unimportant part of getting the culture. Of course, one has to read history etc etc, as well. But society's like woven cloth and all hangs together. Music that's NOT relevant to society is of no interest to me. If it's relevant, then it's likely to be, or have been, popular, somewhere. The best selling black recording artist of 1930 was Rev J M Gates.MG Quote
The Magnificent Goldberg Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 In my world Miles Davis, King Crimson, John Coltrane, Black Sabbath, Hank Mobley, Yes, Stanley Turrentine, Pink Floyd, Pharaoh Sanders and Jimi Hendrix all exist in the same respected circle. One of them is not "more important" to me than another, I love them all equally, just because some of those artists are jazz doesn't make them "superior". I don't discriminate based on genre.Yes, I agree, but they don't exist in the same respected circle; they exist in different circles. Often it happens that those circles don't respect one another.MG Quote
Larry Kart Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 In my view too, but understanding a foreign culture - and America is foreign to me, don't forget - is a not unimportant part of getting the music and getting the music is a not unimportant part of getting the culture. Of course, one has to read history etc etc, as well. But society's like woven cloth and all hangs together. Music that's NOT relevant to society is of no interest to me. If it's relevant, then it's likely to be, or have been, popular, somewhere. The best selling black recording artist of 1930 was Rev J M Gates. MG Yes, music, like any art, expresses the culture it's a part of, but it also (like any art) at times seeks to and does transcend the immediate social context. I would say that among the things that are most relevant to just about any society are the drives on the part of some of its members to create things that reach beyond the immediate social context. Further, a good many societies then respond to some degree to those creations with pleasure, wonderment, you name it -- just because that drive toward extra-social "relevance" is recognized as having potentially transcendent value. Quote
JSngry Posted June 15, 2014 Report Posted June 15, 2014 "...a hell of a lot more complex, and emotionally and intellectually engaging..." What units of measurement are we using to determine this? Is there some objective scale based on quantifiable determinations? I sure hope so, because then we can weed out all the deficients among us, or at least send them to trade school where they can make the best of what they've got. After all, those who cannot and/or will not be engaged with what is provably more engaging, hey, let's know whose burdens we will gladly suffer and proceed accordingly, joyfully and dutifully. I could almost cede "more complex", but there are so many ways to be complex, including being simple...and it seems like there's always people who talk about well, that's really complex, but it has no meaning to me, there's nothing there I can feel, so, what are we talking about here other than personal resonances/satisfactions? Of such things a common culture of no small reward can be built, but also can be constructed some really idiotic simplistic assumptions that lead to self-glorifying stupidity. It can go either way, it can. Appreciation in the service of aggrandizement is no appreciation at all. Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.