Is Alfred and Francis turning in their graves

[JSngry]

Geez! Another thread to avoid for my blood pressure. I do not want to get nasty.

I just got my prescription refilled, so I'm good for a little while.

[Dr. Rat]

Well, considering where "the right" was during those years, that's kinda like saying that your average rock-and-roll fan of the same years was a white teenager wanting more excitement than their "social destiny" offered them at the time. It's true, but I'm not sure that there's any "deep" relevance to it because it's so obvious, and, I'd argue, an inevitability.

If we follow this POV to it's logical conclusion, how do we not end up saying that all white folks (including musicians) who dug hard bop over cool were posers motivated more by "white guilt" than a genuine appreciation and affinity for the music? I can go there up to a point, but only to a point. There has been (and is) that element to the overall jazz culture, and always has been, But labels like "white guilt" and "left-leaning"? To successfully paint with a brush that broad requires that LOTS of masking tape be applied beforehand!

Right, and I'd really only want to take it to a certain point

I'm not so much criticisizing the music or the fans: I'm criticizing "the legend" of Blue Note (apply reverb).

It was a good label, lots of good music got made on it. Good people worked there (and in our more charitable moments we might even change some of those verbs to the present tense).

But I really think building up the BN legend as something whose purity has been sullied by later commercialism blah, blah, blah . . . Well I just think that's a lot of hooey, and hooey with bad motives hiding behind it.

I'll dig around tonight and see if I can't find some of the Gioia stuff I think I remember reading. He says it better than I can.

Chuck: sorry I get on your nerves. Best of health!

--eric

[Christiern]

I once read an article that went into great--if somewhat jibbery--details to explain why Louis Armstrong switched from cornet to trumpet. It had a lot to do with his highly sensitive ear for music, the Author said. I asked Louis why he switched and he explained that it was strictly for cosmetic reasons.

The turn taken by this thread reminded me of that. Chuck, I share your pain!

[Larry Kart]

Eric -- This paragraph you quote from James Rozzi

("Or, using a lower common denominator, how about this, from a likewise- minded "student of jazz" who grew up in the New York of the 1930s, 40s and 5Os? "I remember going to Birdland and hearing Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. They all had nice suits on. One group in particular had really nice suits on. You know, every time I hear a lot of those Blue Note Records (Blakey was recording for Blue Note at the time), I always envision them in those same suits because they play so fixed and so tight and arranged... Herbie Hancock too, all of them...even though they all play such great solos. Herbie Hancock could have been in the same suit Horace Silver was in... or Bobby Timmons.")

not only contradicts what Rozzi quotes from Bob Weinstock and Ira Gitler but also doesn't fit the overall point you seem to be making. That is, the characterization of Blakey et al. by this "likewise- minded 'student of jazz'" fits no contemporary image of so-called East Coast jazz that I'm aware of (certainly not Weinstock's or Gitler's), and it's also factually quite goofy -- as their recordings make clear, the Jazz Messengers and related bands of that time did not, comparatively speaking, play "so fixed and so tight and arranged," quite the contrary. But ""so fixed and so tight and arranged" DOES fit the cliche of what West Coast jazz supposedly was like. Who the heck is this Mr. Rizzo and his "likewise- minded 'student of jazz'"? Neither one knows what he's talking about.

[Larry Kart]

Eric -- This paragraph you quote from James Rozzi

("Or, using a lower common denominator, how about this, from a likewise- minded "student of jazz" who grew up in the New York of the 1930s, 40s and 5Os? "I remember going to Birdland and hearing Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. They all had nice suits on. One group in particular had really nice suits on. You know, every time I hear a lot of those Blue Note Records (Blakey was recording for Blue Note at the time), I always envision them in those same suits because they play so fixed and so tight and arranged... Herbie Hancock too, all of them...even though they all play such great solos. Herbie Hancock could have been in the same suit Horace Silver was in... or Bobby Timmons.")

not only contradicts what Rozzi quotes from Bob Weinstock and Ira Gitler but also doesn't fit the overall point you seem to be making. That is, the characterization of Blakey et al. by this "likewise- minded 'student of jazz'" fits no contemporary image of so-called East Coast jazz that I'm aware of (certainly not Weinstock's or Gitler's), and it's also factually quite goofy -- as their recordings make clear, the Jazz Messengers and related bands of that time did not, comparatively speaking, play "so fixed and so tight and arranged," quite the contrary. But ""so fixed and so tight and arranged" DOES fit the cliche of what West Coast jazz supposedly was like. Who the heck is this Mr. Rizzo and his "likewise- minded 'student of jazz'"? Neither one knows what he's talking about.

[John L]

But I really think building up the BN legend as something whose purity has been sullied by later commercialism blah, blah, blah . . . Well I just think that's a lot of hooey, and hooey with bad motives hiding behind it.

I really don't understand this statement at all. OK, so there is a cult around Blue Note that is sometimes taken to extremes. But there is also a reality behind the legend.

Blue Note was a case of business combined with genuine love for the music. It does happen every now and again. From the very beginning, Lion was interested primarily in blues music. He began recording boogie woogie and blues-based traditional jazz. So it makes sense that he always concentrated on the blues side of the modern jazz spectrum.

Then there was the labor-of-love to document the work of people like Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols, and Andrew Hill when there was no real strong commercial interest in the music as a justification.

As Lon (Jazzbo) writes, today Blue Note is little more than a big business. Things have changed. They do sometimes.

Edited February 17, 2004 by John L

[Dr. Rat]

Eric -- This paragraph you quote from James Rozzi

("Or, using a lower common denominator, how about this, from a likewise- minded "student of jazz" who grew up in the New York of the 1930s, 40s and 5Os? "I remember going to Birdland and hearing Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. They all had nice suits on. One group in particular had really nice suits on. You know, every time I hear a lot of those Blue Note Records (Blakey was recording for Blue Note at the time), I always envision them in those same suits because they play so fixed and so tight and arranged... Herbie Hancock too, all of them...even though they all play such great solos. Herbie Hancock could have been in the same suit Horace Silver was in... or Bobby Timmons.") 

not only contradicts what Rozzi quotes from Bob Weinstock and Ira Gitler but also doesn't fit the overall point you seem to be making. That is, the characterization of Blakey et al. by this "likewise- minded 'student of jazz'" fits no contemporary image of so-called East Coast jazz that I'm aware of (certainly not Weinstock's or Gitler's), and it's also factually quite goofy -- as their recordings make clear,  the Jazz Messengers and related bands of that time did not, comparatively speaking,  play "so fixed and so tight and arranged," quite the contrary. But ""so fixed and so tight and arranged" DOES fit the cliche of what West Coast jazz supposedly was like. Who the heck is this Mr. Rizzo and his "likewise- minded 'student of jazz'"? Neither one knows what he's talking about.

You're right. I've wondered about this particular quote, too--but obviously I didn't think about it when I was cutting and pasting for this thread . . .

But just as well. So, did Blakey wear overalls to work, or a nice suit?

And as to arrangements: I've often felt that a lot of the "hard bop" classics were pretty meticulously arranged and depended more on written out melodic hooks for their popularity than on the solos.

I wasn't there at the time, so I don't really know how much retrospective restructuring of reality has been done to dichotomize the East/West conflict.

I remember reading a review of Mingus's East Coasting which claimed that "West Coast Ghost" was an insult directed at bloodless West Coast jazz. But then I read later (in the liner notes, I think) Mingus quoted as saying the title refers to himself! (I suppose to his own mixed heritage in jazz.)

While there was certainly a conflict between some partisans of the two coastal "sounds" sometimes it seems that later writers have gone back to clean things up a bit and draw more recognizable lines between the different camps.

I think this may be an instance of this sort of thing--the reality was a bit more complicated. But I think a lot of the images being put out, even at the time, were pretty much in line with the dichotomy I lined up earlier.

Whetehr or not this is a viable point of view remains to be seen,

--eric

Edited February 17, 2004 by WNMC

[Pete C]

WNMC, are you an academic, or do you just listen to jazz like one?

[Dr. Rat]

I once read an article that went into great--if somewhat jibbery--details to explain why Louis Armstrong switched from cornet to trumpet. It had a lot to do with his highly sensitive ear for music, the Author said. I asked Louis why he switched and he explained that it was strictly for cosmetic reasons.

The turn taken by this thread reminded me of that. Chuck, I share your pain!

Straight from the horse's mouth answers aren't necessarily true. You might also have asked Louis his birthday while you were at it, and have gotten the wrong answer.

Of course, we have seen no cases of jazz musicians fobbing people off with simplistic answers to such questions in the past.

Certainly, it's possible that Louis went with the trumpet for cosmetic reasons (by which I suppose you mean visual ones): the trumpet was an extremely important prop for him, and it definitely has a different look to it than the cornet--but there we're going in the direction of Achtung, Dr. Freud rather than my own obsessions with sociological explanations.

I think the answer to this particular question is "We don't really know why he changed, and we probably have no way of finding out for certain. We may, though, speculate using the evidnece we've got (including your horse's mouth data), either well or badly."

[Dan Gould]

but there we're going in the direction of Achtung, Dr. Freud rather than my own obsessions with sociological explanations.

Aren't the results of "feminine" west coast jazz or "masculine" east coast jazz far more pleasurable and interesting than any supposed sociological explanations?

In other words, its in the grooves, not the sociology.

[JSngry]

...did Blakey wear overalls to work, or a nice suit?

Depends on which decade you're talking about.

[couw]

In other words, its in the grooves

you mean curves

[Christiern]

Aren't the results of "feminine" west coast jazz or "masculine" east coast jazz far more pleasurable and interesting than any supposed sociological explanations?

I rather like the androgynous jazz of the mid-west.

[JSngry]

[JSngry]

[Dr. Rat]

On Rozzi, he seems to be an Atlanta based critic and liner-note writer who writes for Jazziz pretty often. In fairness to him, I think the contradictory quotations may be intended to complicate the story he's telling.

Below I quote from a piece publiched in Jazz and American Culture by Mark Noferi, a student of William Youngren's:

Interestingly, however, Kerouac's reference to bop as the "music of the American night" brings to mind a host of dark and wild associations that, by and large, are not present in the music itself. The bulk of bop music is far from dark; if one listens to Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie playing, for example, "Salt Peanuts," one of the popular songs of the bop generation, one would be hard pressed to find anything dark in the fast, upbeat, peppy playing by both soloists.

It seems that Kerouac's terming of bop as dark arises more from the scene that surrounded it rather than the music itself. While the music is generally quite upbeat, the subculture of the bop scene was typified by drugs (generally benzedrine, marijuana, cocaine and heroin), seedy nightclubs, and the hipsters, who by their attitude, language, and clothing self-consciously set themselves apart from the mainstream. While the musicians avoided labeling themselves (Parker, for example, said, "Let's not call it bebop. Let's call it music"),53 it was largely the hipsters who created the notion of a "bop revolution" in jazz, and it was largely them, not the musicians, who created the wild nightlife that surrounded bop.

Kerouac's referring to bop as dark may also, subconsciously or consciously, have been due to the black musicians who played it and the black nightclubs Kerouac and his friends frequented when they went to hear it. For the Beats, the world of the Negro (the term they used at the time) was a wild, strange one; yet, they felt a kinship with blacks due to what they felt was a common "beatness", a common rejection by mainstream society. At one point, Sal (Kerouac) states:

I walked with every muscle aching among the lights of 27th and Welton in the Denver colored section, wishing I were a Negro, feeling that the best the white world had offered was not enough ecstasy for me, not enough life, joy, kicks, darkness, music, not enough night.54

Kerouac's view of black society was shaped only by what he knew of it - the wild scenes and "kicks" he experienced in black jazz clubs at night. Thus, he trivializes all of black society into the dark, nighttime world of jazz, believing that it consists of an endless search for "kicks." Most likely, a black person at the time, instead of returning Kerouac's enthusiasm for his culture, would have felt that Kerouac's view was vastly one-dimensional; it seems that Kerouac only cares about black society insofar as it can offer him kicks that mainstream white society cannot.

Jon Pannish compares Kerouac's attitude towards blacks to that of 19th-century American "romantic racialists." He argues that Kerouac uses blacks as symbols of those entities that he feels are tragically lacking in white civilization, namely the existential joy, wisdom, and nobility that comes from a history of suffering and victimization; however, his image of blacks is like the classic image of the Noble Savage - one-dimensional, static, and unreal. Thus, Pannish concludes, Kerouac trivializes the true nature of American racial oppression by blurring the difference between voluntary and forced outsiderism.55

Pannish's charges have a great deal of merit. Kerouac rarely lets black characters speak for themselves. More commonly, Kerouac's only interaction with blacks is the static, one-way kinship he perceives the musicians onstage to feel with him. For example, Kerouac describes an unknown singer in On the Road:

The piano hit a chord. "So baby come on clo-o-o-ose your pretty little ey-y-y-y-yes"-his mouth quivered, he looked at us, Dean and me, with an expression that seemed to say, Hey now, what's this thing we're all doing in this sad brown world?-and then he came to the end of his song...56

Certainly, Kerouac's attraction to bop as "wild" stemmed largely from its emphasis on improvisation and the accompanying re-introduction of individual emotional intensity into an idiom that many felt had become too commercial during the big-band era of the 1930's and 1940's. Yet, Pannish's arguments shed light on a less positive idea: that Kerouac's terming of bop as "mad" and "wild" had as much to do with his perception of the men who played it, listened to it, and lived it as wild, primitive Noble Savages.

The question arises, then, of whether Kerouac was truly a fan of jazz music, or was attracted to it due to the scene that arose around it. Poet Kenneth Rexroth, who, although he supported the Beats generally, thought Kerouac personally arrogant, once said, "Now, there are two things Jack knows nothing about - jazz and Negroes."57 There is evidence to support this. For example, in April 1959, Kerouac wrote in an essay titled "The Beginning of Bop" that "Lionel [Hampton] would jump in the audience and whale his saxophone at everybody with sweat;"58 Hampton, of course, was famous for playing the vibes and drums.

In fairness, though, it seems that Kerouac was quite familiar with not just bop, but the history of jazz in general. In his published essay "Jazz and the Beat Generation," essentially an expanded chapter from On the Road, Kerouac outlines the history of jazz, from the "mad tuba-players and trombone kings who'd paraded on official days and broke up their Sousa marches into ragtime" through Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge with "a thousand choruses of 'Wonderful'," the "old swinging Basie and Bennie Moten band that had Hot Lips Page and the rest," until the day of "Charlie Parker meeting mad Monk and madder Gillespie."59

Full Article

Kerouac was ahead of his time, I'd argue. A lot of the ideas that were flying around in his writings on jazz were later appropriated and (ironically) mixed with some of the ideas about authenticty, rootedness and origins coming out of the trad revival to compose the ideas flying around hard bop.

These ideas in large part were shared in common among (largely) black musician-leaders and (largely) white listener-fans.

I think a lot fo the Blue Note myth--which I acknowledge has a basis in truth--is tied in with the notion of jazz as a particular kind of social symbol, with a particular kind of social currency, one that has a lot in common with Kerouac's perception of what jazz stood for.

These values probably come across most strongly in the images of Wolff's cover art, rather than in the music, which didn't always contrast so strongly with the West Coast jazz to which hard bop was a reaction.

[Dr. Rat]

but there we're going in the direction of Achtung, Dr. Freud rather than my own obsessions with sociological explanations.

Aren't the results of "feminine" west coast jazz or "masculine" east coast jazz far more pleasurable and interesting than any supposed sociological explanations?

In other words, its in the grooves, not the sociology.

Oh, I'm open to any kind of fun.

Well, most any kind.

I see no conflict between enjoying my MJT+3 and wondering about the why and wherefores from a sociological standpoint.

To move to a different medium, beer, I feel very very lucky that there's been a revival in "artisinal" beer making in this country. I enjoy the products of the industry immensely.

I also recognize that I cultivated a taste in "strange" beer in part to distinguish myself from my peers. I also recognize that a lot of the folks who have fueled to whole rise and partial fall of microbrewing didn't really enjoy good beer very much and were more interested in becoming part of the in-group by bashing the entry-level beer (Sam Adams) than in anything else.

But I still like my strange beers.

Too early for one now, though,

--eric

[Dr. Rat]

Here is the Ted Gioia passage I referred to above:

From the Lighthouse

shoot the pier

Ted Gioia

West Coast Jazz,  1992

The combat between East Coast jazz and West Coast jazz was waged by means of album covers. Covers from New York's Blue Note label lived off the mystique of East Coast intensity, with monochromatic images that evoked an essentially macho view of the jazz experience: drummer Art Blakey drenched in sweat caught mid-solo; saxophonist Sonny Rollins taking a smoke between smoking takes; trumpeter Lee Morgan threatening to pop a vein with the next high note. Such stolen moments of jazz in flight captured a musical intensity that was the antithesis of West Coast cool. The Blue Note musicians were invariably shown indoors, blanched in the double darkness of the studio inner sanctum and East Coast gloom. This music achieved its diamond-edged sharpness, such covers suggested, through hard work, unbounded energy, and occasionally plain brute force. The music's underlying sophistication seemed continually tempered by a blue-collar, New England work ethic mentality. Recall the anecdote about an importunate audience member asking drummer Blakey why he wore overalls to the gig. The response came back quickly enough: "Because I'm going to work!"

Covers from California's Contemporary label fought back with their Own distinctive arsenal. West Coast record companies didn't even need to show musicians on their covers. Being savvy marketers, they knew how to sell their product-with image advertising, sometimes with humor, often unabashed pandering to the baser instincts. A honey in a skimpy bathing suit, a nurse with her blouse half open, an attractive model climbing Out of the bell of an enormous saxophone. What did these images have do with West Coast jazz? Very little perhaps, but they did sell records. The Contemporary cover for Russ Freeman and Andre Previn's Double Play, for example, could even evoke a sexual double entendre from the Title by depicting an attractive young woman, apparently naked except for incongruous baseball cap (which mysteriously bears the initial H), who holds both her thumbs up in the air. The nurse featured on the cover of a Curtis Counce release is shown applying a stethoscope to her partially covered left breast (apparently measuring the palpitations inspired by the enclosed music).

All these images were, moreover, displayed in full-color, splashy lay-outs-another sharp contrast with the no-frills, look Alfred Lion instituted at Blue Note. And if the leader of a Contemporary date did get his mug on the album jacket, he certainly wasn't shown perspiring in Rudy Van recording studio. On the basis of the record covers, one might wonder whether these musicians ever saw the inside of a studio. Contemporary covers seemed to find the bandsmen playing in the most low-key locations: Harold Land blowing tenor at the Watts Towers, Red Norvo playing vibes in a meadow, Art Pepper fingering his horn in a tree-lined garden. Even East Coast players were susceptible, it seems, to this baneful influence: When Sonny recorded Way Out West for the Contemporary label, he posed for the album cover on the desert plains of the Southland, dressed in a mock cowboy outfit, brandishing his saxophone like a gunslinger's weapon.

The Lighthouse All-stars went the furthest to imprint this ultra-cool West Coast ethos on their album covers. Each Lighthouse release seemed to outdo the previous one in presenting West Coast jazz as an offshoot of Southern California beach culture. The inevitable end-point was reached with the cover of the All-stars' sixth Contemporary album: The band is actually shown set up to play on the Hermosa Beach strand. The waves roll gently onto the shore a few dozen yards in the background. Dressed in suits and ties (in sharp contrast to the one, possibly naked, bather discernible in the distance) and apparently captured in the middle of a serious impromptu performance (only saxophonist Bob

wears a giveaway grin), the act as though this beach setting is the most natural place in the world for a California band's jam session.

Perhaps this simply underlines the timeworn injunction not to judge a book (or record) by its cover. Even so, if the New York critics wanted to prove that West Coast jazz was all image and no substance, certainly these flighty jackets played right into their hands. Yet with the Lighthouse al-bums, more than perhaps any others, reality seemed to approach the stereotyped image. The Lighthouse brought West Coast jazz about as far west as it could go, at least in terms of geography. Only a few feet past the door to the Lighthouse Cafe, which even today stands near the end of Hermosa Beach's Pier Avenue, the sidewalk disappears, its place taken by the sandy beach shown on the aforementioned cover. A pretentious statue of a surfer now stands here on a huge pedestal at the brink of the pier—locals call it the Tomb of the Unknown Surfer.

Another hundred feet or so past the sundry sunbathers and volleyball enthusiasts, the waves of the pacific Ocean lap on to the shore. At the end of the avenue, the Hermosa Beach pier juts out over the ocean. Surfers who frequent these waters will try, in moments of daring or foolhardiness (take your choice), to "shoot the pier," cascading on their boards between the large supports underpinning the structure. This is how the continent ends, not with a bang, but on a surfboard. Or, if the waves roll wrong, with a bang on a surfboard.

A picture-perfect setting for the celebrated Lighthouse Cafe. Yet even a legend occasionally needs some help. The towering lighthouse shown on the cover of Music for Lighthousekeeping (another Contemporary release) was not the Lighthouse, but an attractive surrogate. The actual club, for all its proximity to the shore, boasted no beacon for fog-bound sailors, no towering turret, no crusty keeper (unless one wished to award Howard Rumsey that dubious distinction). With its unassuming facade and dark, cramped interior, the club proper was unsuitable for glossy cover photos. First-time visitors to John Levine's inelegant dive soon learned that it was a lighthouse in name only.

And even the proximity to the Pacific could be misleading. True, the Lighthouse was situated as far west as you could go without getting your feet wet. True, it was intimately associated with the West Coast scene-- in fact was almost synonymous with it in the minds of many listeners. Yet the music played within its four walls was often strikingly at odds with the critics' stereotypes of jazz on the Pacific Coast. In contrast to the emphasis on composing and arranging characteristic, say, of Mulligan, Rogers, Giuffre, Holman, and many other West Coast bandleaders, the Lighthouse All-stars frequently worked within the context of fairly freeform jam sessions. Even when many of these same musicians played with the Lighthouse group, their work on the Pier Avenue bandstand differed markedly from what they did in the studio. The various live recordings suggest that the Lighthouse was no center for California cool but was as boisterous and lively a setting for jazz music as any dive found east or west. A constant undercurrent of talk, tinkling glasses, cash registers ringing, and other assorted crowd noises provided a nonmusical counterpoint to the often frenetic activities onstage. Whatever introspective tendencies West Coast jazz may have had, they rarely took wing in this high-energy environment.

[Dr. Rat]

Man, you're not talking grooves! You're talking labels!

--eric

[Dr. Rat]

WNMC, are you an academic, or do you just listen to jazz like one?

Name calling!

[Joe M]

Is Alfred and Francis turning in their graves

Only for the use of bad grammar...

[Dr. Rat]

Is Alfred and Francis turning in their graves

Only for the use of bad grammar...

I can't take responsibility for that particular slip -- but there's plenty of bad typing and even the occasional grammatical error in my posts as well,

and unlike a lot of folks around here, I've only got the one language and an uncertain grasp on that.

--eric

[JSngry]

Is Alfred and Francis turning in their graves

Only for the use of bad grammar...

Hey, it was right on the original Lp. Blame that damned BN proofreading department again!

[Rimshot]

Revised Quote:

"Are Alfred and Francis turning(spinnng) in their graves?"

... That's actually a rather pleasant thought for two people that spent their lives in the recording industry.

"Still spinnin' after all these years"

[Christiern]

Certainly, it's possible that Louis went with the trumpet for cosmetic reasons (by which I suppose you mean visual ones): the trumpet was an extremely important prop for him, and it definitely has a different look to it than the cornet... I think the answer to this particular question is "We don't really know why he changed, and we probably have no way of finding out for certain. We may, though, speculate using the evidnece we've got (including your horse's mouth data), either well or badly."

• To be specific, Louis told me that he made the switch while a member of Erskine Tate's orchestra at Chicago's Vendome Theatre. Tate asked him to switch, because he didn't think it "looked good" to have a short horn in the trumpet section. Ergo, it was for esthetic reasons.
  
  If you are reluctant to believe that explanation, it's no problem, but I hope you understand that I was reminded of it when you offered yet another example of reality-starved analysis.