Branford slams Miles

[Big Beat Steve]

3 minutes ago, Scott Dolan said:

As for genre’s/artists that were avant garde at the time that we consider mainstream now, can you provide some examples? 

Bebop was quite avantgarde in the 1940s but it became "mainstream" (not in the sense of "Mainstream" à la Stanley Dance, of course) in the general canon of jazz long, long ago, didnt it? To my ears, for example, even back in the mid-70s when I got into jazz as a youngster of 15 or so. As mentioned before, I got into jazz almost at the same time I got consciously into listening to and buying music in the first place, and starting at 15 found my muscial preferences in what lesser enlightened and more superficially minded ones would probably have called "nostalgia". Rock to me was REAL rock'n'roll (i.e. the 50s variety), the Beatles were the Meseybeat Beatles to me (not the psych stuff, although I was exposed to a lot of late 60s/early 70s hard rock etc.on school buddies' turntables, eager to listen to what common denominators betwen their tastes and mine there may have been), and jazz in the beginning was all swing (and early jazz) to me. I did get deeply into this, did a fair bit of reading and so was aware of Bird and Diz early on. Occasional listening to this on the radio had made me feel dizzy (no pun intended) but intrigued ... And then one day (at not quite 16 I think) I took the plunge and bought the Prestige twofer with the early Dizzy Guild and Musicraft sides, and from the very first moment it did sound like a logical, natural and linear and immsensely enjoyable continuation and expansion of what 40s small band swing I had been exposed to before.

[Scott Dolan]

I think there may need to be a distinction between underground and avant garde, to be honest. Everything was underground at some point, but that doesn’t mean it was avant garde. Not in my mind anyway. 

Just take Grunge as an example. It was underground in the Seattle scene, but hardly avant garde, by any stretch of the imagination.

Bebop was underground, but hardly avant garde or inaccessible. It mayhave seemed more inaccessible at the time, I don’t know. But it certainly isn’t now. ‘60’s Free Jazz was likely inaccessible then, and still inaccessible now for the average listener.

[Big Beat Steve]

25 minutes ago, Scott Dolan said:

I think there may need to be a distinction between underground and avant garde, to be honest. Everything was underground at some point, but that doesn’t mean it was avant garde. Not in my mind anyway. 

Just take Grunge as an example. It was underground in the Seattle scene, but hardly avant garde, by any stretch of the imagination.

Bebop was underground, but hardly avant garde or inaccessible. It mayhave seemed more inaccessible at the time, I don’t know. But it certainly isn’t now. ‘60’s Free Jazz was likely inaccessible then, and still inaccessible now for the average listener.

If you take contemporary (mid- to late 40s) publications about jazz as a yardstick it was inaccessible to a LOT of jazz listeners (and fellow jazzmen) and alienated a LOT of them at THAT time. And I am not talking about (temporary or eternal) "moldy figs". So WITHIN jazz it was about as avantgarde as things had got at that time. FWIW, Lennie Tristano's early recordings (another "avantgarde" style of 40s jazz) certainly do not sound that avantgarde-ish anymore today either.

Of course latter-day listeners like you and me will experience these styles of music differently to how 40s listeners reacted, and I also agree that a lot of what was given the "avantgarde" (or "free") tag in jazz from the 60s onwards has REMAINED inaccessible to a lot of the audience - but not just to the "average" listener in jazz. I can totally see the point that Jimmy Giuffre made who - when asked "where is the beat" about his 50s trio recordings - replied "It is understood" (and that Jimmy Giuffre music certainly is no easy listening) and I can see where Ornette Coleman's "Change of The Century" fits into the evolution of jazz as it had gone on up to that time (but I make no excuses for this LP being the stylistically most "modern" one in my collection). But at one point things thereafter IMHO went beyond an accessibility limit that not very many listeners will pass, regardless of who may put the marketing clout behind it. In fact WITHIN the jazz subculture a LOT of media and marketing exposure was given to 70s European free or avantgarde jazz over here in Europe (just remember how many still drool over these acts even today in jazz collector's circles), up to the point of touting this - along with jazz rock and fusion for other segments of the audience - as being the only "artistically valid" forms of jazz and everything else just being nostalgia. I've never been deeply into what the Marsalises did, particulary not when they came up, and I honestly do not know what comparative exposure they got over here on the jazz scene early on but I'd not be surprised one bit if one reason why they got to where they are was that this kind of the pendulum swinging back was more than welcomed by a lot of jazz listeners outside Europe too who just found that the kind of jazz they cherished was fine up to, say, hard bop, but who preferred any further evolution being gradual and based on THAT and not on disjointed "free" screeching.

Edited April 20, 2019 by Big Beat Steve

[Scott Dolan]

12 minutes ago, Big Beat Steve said:

If you take contemporary (mid- to late 40s) publications about jazz as a yardstick it was inaccessible to a LOT of jazz listeners (and fellow jazzmen) and alienated a LOT of them at THAT time. And I am not talking about (temporary or eternal) "moldy figs". So WITHIN jazz it was about as avantgarde as things had got at that time. FWIW, Lennie Tristano's early recordings (another "avantgarde" style of 40s jazz) certainly do not sound that avantgarde-ish anymore today either.

Of course latter-day listeners like you and me will experience these styles of music differently to how 40s listeners reacted, and I also agree that a lot of what was given the "avantgarde" (or "free") tag in jazz from the 60s onwards has REMAINED inaccessible to a lot of the audience - but not just to the "average" listener in jazz. I can totally see the point that Jimmy Giuffre made who - when asked "where is the beat" about his 50s trio recordings - replied "It is understood" (and that Jimmy Giuffre music certainly is no easy listening) and I can see where Ornette Coleman's "Change of The Century" fits into the evolution of jazz as it had gone on up to that time (but I make no excuses for this LP being the stylistically most "modern" one in my collection). But at one point things thereafter IMHO went beyond an accessibility limit that not very many listeners will pass, regardless of who may put the marketing clout behind it. In fact WITHIN the jazz subculture a LOT of media and marketing exposure was given to 70s European free or avantgarde jazz over here in Europe (just remember how many still drool over these acts even today in jazz collector's circles), up to the point of touting this - along with jazz rock and fusion for other segments of the audience - as being the only "artistically valid" forms of jazz and everything else just being nostalgia. I've never been deeply into what the Marsalises did, particulary not when they came up, and I honestly do not know what comparative exposure they got over here on the jazz scene early on but I'd not be surprised one bit if one reason why they got to where they are was that this kind of the pendulum swinging back was more than welcomed by a lot of jazz listeners outside Europe too who just found that the kind of jazz they cherished was fine up to, say, hard bop, but who preferred any further evolution being gradual and based on THAT and not on disjointed "free" screeching.

Very well said, Steve. And I’ll certainly grant you the Bebop example. Fair enough. But I’m also thinking we can both agree that if that isn’t the only example, there certainly aren’t many more. You also help solidify the point I’ve been getting at with the last sentence of your post.

In a roundabout way it reminds me of a buddy of mine whose deepest dive into Jazz was Najee. I remember I once asked him why Najee plays such simplistic sounding music. My friend stated quite matter of factly, “because that’s the kind of music he likes to play.” Airtight logic. And that’s exactly why I believe Wynton and Branford play the way they do. 

BTW, this same friend was over once and I was playing Coltrane’s First Meditations (tied with Sun Ship as my favorite Jazz album). When it was over my friend asked, “can we listen to real music now?” 

Ouch...

But, those kinds of interactions seem to be the kind that people like Chuck and Jim have never had, or else they’d clearly see how fallacious their “Marsalis roadblock” arguments are. 

[Teasing the Korean]

14 hours ago, ep1str0phy said:

I agree with the dint of what you're saying--and this is the crux of what I'm saying: the fundamental economic value of something like revivalist/young lion jazz is tied up in broader social and cultural mechanics.

Agreed.  The rise of Reaganite Cinema following the era 70s Auteur Cinema would be a reasonable parallel in film.  

[Scott Dolan]

14 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Agreed.  The rise of Reaganite Cinema following the era 70s Auteur Cinema would be a reasonable parallel in film.  

I wonder if 80’s Heavy Metal was correlated with Reaganite Cinema. kind of aggressive, but ultimately happy-go-lucky and all about life being one endless party. 

Then Desert Storm happened, souring the mood of the country, which was perfectly encapsulated by the rise of Grunge, and the almost overnight death of 80’s Metal. 

[clifford_thornton]

I mean, there were some weird ass bands in the 1980s scene that later became identified with the term "grunge." U-Men, Mr. Epp and the Calculations, the Melvins, and even Tad were not exactly normal. If you're just going by what was on the radio in 1992 I can't really help you there, but it was a pretty interesting time for rock music. 

 

Yes, Geffen were able to be on trend and pour money into signing some weird ass bands to DGC, most of which were loss leaders. Sonic Youth as a legacy band are absolutely huge, even if not exactly Nirvana numbers (and as I understand it, SY got Nirvana signed and received quite the finders fee as a result).

[Scott Dolan]

I hear you, Clifford. But FM radio pretty much is the mainstream. Well, from 94.9 upwards, I guess. The lower numbers will have more Jazz and Classical. 

And those names may have been somewhat big locally, but I’m not sure they were nationally, Sonic Youth being the lone exception. 

[clifford_thornton]

Yeah, I mean that stuff was there if you dug / listened to college radio; "grunge" actually had a lot of interesting bands, but the better they were the less mainstream press they got. Mudhoney did pretty well in terms of popularity despite the fact that their music was/is fairly non-traditional. 

[Scott Dolan]

Where I lived on the Gulf Coast of Florida we didn’t have any college stations within range. Though I will admit that we did have a really good public station that played Classical weekdays, had an outstanding Jazz program at night, and often had three to four hour weekend programs that would play a pretty eclectic, non mainstream mix of music. 

Hell, even mainstream Rock stations were relatively eclectic back then until Clear Channel snapped them up and gave them a playlist of about 20 songs.