In With the In Crowd: Popular Jazz in 1960s Black America

[Rabshakeh]

8 hours ago, JSngry said:

 

today it's fashionable to talk about "coding". Well hell, Eddie Harris was coded like a motherfucker. He reached people not because of what he did or did not play, he reached people because they could FEEL him.

What do you mean by the coding bit? I'm familiar with "coded" as in "rock is white-coded" or "XYZ political position is [right / left] coded. But not this usage. 

[JSngry]

The inner core message of blackness. Eddie could played the simplest most commercial stuff, skate over the top of it, but that core was always there. Coded in there no matter what.

[JSngry]

And just, like, if you know the deeper parts of Eddie Harris's music, that stuff is still there in his really "basic" music. He codes it in there.

[Teasing the Korean]

In 1979, a community radio station, WMNF 88.5, was launched in our humble hamlet.

At that time, they played jazz in prime time, 7-10 if not 7-11, Monday through Thursday (possibly more.)

Each night of the week featured a different host, and as a result, different aesthetics and musical/cultural perspectives.

While most of the jazz DJs were white, the Thursday night DJ was an African American gentleman by the name of Charles Van.  He played primarily organ grove.  As a white kid (That is not me in my profile pic; I'm not that handsome), I had never heard this music before and was mesmerized.  

I didn't know it at the time, but Charles Van was playing this stuff 10 years after it had gone out of fashion, and 10 years before hipsters rediscovered it.

Anyway, my anecdotal experience seems to reinforce the book's thesis.  The "jazz" that anyone was talking about, writing about, or listening to at that time was all very "serious."  But I could tell instinctively as a teenager listening to this organ groove stuff that it was party music.

Fast foward another 20 or so years.  In the late 1990s, I was living in Beantown, and Ms. TTK and I went to a small jazz club in Roxbury - forget the name of the club - where there was an organ trio playing.  The audience was a blend of both demographics - younger white hipsters getting into this stuff, and older African American couples who were probably spinning these records 30 years earlier.

Edited October 5 by Teasing the Korean

[Dan Gould]

19 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

As a white kid (That is not me in my profile pic; I'm not that handsome), 

Not to mention not a murderer, nor imprisoned.

 

[Rabshakeh]

I do wonder whether in 30 years time we are all going to be telling people the same thing about Najee and Kirk Whalum.

[JSngry]

Quite possibly!

It's easier with Eddie because he left a trail. The guys you mention (and include Gerald Albright)...not so much. But it's in there, imo.

[Big Beat Steve]

On 10/2/2024 at 6:33 PM, Dan Gould said:

Looks like a good companion to 

Jazz With a Beat: Small Group Swing, 1940 – 1960

by member @ListeningToPrestige (Tad Richards) as well as the Soul Jazz book.

I think I am in ... definitely.

I am about to spring for "In with the In Crowd" and have it presented to me for Christmas by my better half. 😄

In the meantime, I did pull the trigger on "Jazz With A Beat" and received it today. Worth closer reading and examination as the author does seem to cover this from an angle that had all too often been dismissed or ignored (and does not look like it duplicates that of "Honkers and Shouters" by Arnold Shaw but might complement it well). But ... under the "get your facts right and REALLY do your research homework" angle it looks like a mixed bag to me (at very first sight, admittedly). Any interest here in starting a separate thread on THAT book?

[Dan Gould]

4 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

I am about to spring for "In with the In Crowd" and have it presented to me for Christmas by my better half. 😄

In the meantime, I did pull the trigger on "Jazz With A Beat" and received it today. Worth closer reading and examination as the author does seem to cover this from an angle that had all too often been dismissed or ignored (and does not look like it duplicates that of "Honkers and Shouters" by Arnold Shaw but might complement it well). But ... under the "get your facts right and REALLY do your research homework" angle it looks like a mixed bag to me (at very first sight, admittedly). Any interest here in starting a separate thread on THAT book?

Feel free Steve, I am sure Tad will have a reply to whatever you've seen that you think is wrong.

Personally I thought it was excellent and had few or no quibbles about what he wrote.

 

Edited October 23 by Dan Gould

[Big Beat Steve]

O.K., then ...

"Stand by (and watch this space) for further announcements"!

(I am not even one third through the book ... but considering it has barely 140 pages it won't be exceedingly long ...)

 

[JSngry]

On 10/4/2024 at 12:30 PM, JSngry said:

I wonder about the last chapter - how/why "we" forgot...is this going to be some dogmatic axe grinding?

Not sure who "we" is...it certainly isn't the people I knew, except the White Folks who were "sophisticated"...otherwise, a few decades of Acid Jazz, Rare Grooves, and crate-digging argue otherwise.

Nancy Wilson and Jeanne Lee are not the same thing, but they weren't supposed to be and they don't need to be. Not for me, and not for some other people I know.

Yin & Yang, there is always both. Promote one at the expense of the other at your peril.

Got the book today and cut to that last chapter just to see what the point was going to be.

Still not sure, other than that the history of this era is to date incomplete because the musicology is written by people who were not a part of the community then or now, to which I can only say...this is different than most all Black Music how, exactly?

Also, I'd like to know where all this "emphasis" on the "New Thing" is in today's narrative. Marion Brown is hardly a household name. Neither is Bobby Bradford, and he's still active!

And this whole notion of narrative...I recall that the whole narrative being changed with the corporately funded Young Lions thing. Not only was the avant-garde excommunicated, but so was much of the music covered in this book (as well as it's evolutionary successors). We don't fix a damn thing until we purge that bullshit and that ain't gonna happen.

To that end, there's a reference at the very end of this chapter to "the great jazz scholar Albert Murray"...no. Philosopher, muse, pontificator, yes, yes, and especially yes. But scholar? 

Words matter.

Now, having said that, I definitely like the premise(s) that seem to be driving this book. Anything that expands the truth rather than contracts it is welcome here. 

There's a lot more to be corrected than this bit here. But every bit helps.

 

[Dan Gould]

9 hours ago, JSngry said:

Got the book today and cut to that last chapter just to see what the point was going to be.

Still not sure, other than that the history of this era is to date incomplete because the musicology is written by people who were not a part of the community then or now, to which I can only say...this is different than most all Black Music how, exactly?

I think the point that should be made is that which is popular cannot be important or worthy of discussion and this book is meant as an argument against that.

9 hours ago, JSngry said:

Also, I'd like to know where all this "emphasis" on the "New Thing" is in today's narrative. Marion Brown is hardly a household name. Neither is Bobby Bradford, and he's still active!

 

9 hours ago, JSngry said:

And this whole notion of narrative...I recall that the whole narrative being changed with the corporately funded Young Lions thing. Not only was the avant-garde excommunicated, but so was much of the music covered in this book (as well as it's evolutionary successors). We don't fix a damn thing until we purge that bullshit and that ain't gonna happen.

 

His point is that the history of jazz in the 60s is presented as Ornette - Coltrane - Ayler. That has never changed IMO and really doesn't have to do with the Young Lions thing which was marketing of a return to pre-60s styles.  The fact that Brown or Bradford don't figure in it doesn't mean that Ornette - Trane - Ayler isn't the focus of "important" 60s jazz, and this book is meant to establish that there was a whole nother thing that was popular and important in its own way among jazz consumers.

Young Lions was marketing and liner notes - mostly by Crouch. 

I have several quibbles I will post about this book later but overall I highly recommend it.

 

Edited October 25 by Dan Gould

[Big Beat Steve]

2 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

His point is that the history of jazz in the 60s is presented as Ornette - Coltrane - Ayler. That has never changed IMO ... The fact that Brown or Bradford don't figure in it doesn't mean that Ornette - Trane - Ayler isn't the focus of "important" 60s jazz, and this book is meant to establish that there was a whole nother thing that was popular and important in its own way among jazz consumers.

 

So true ...

Just as in the case of that "other" book mentioned earlier ...

[Dan Gould]

1 minute ago, Big Beat Steve said:

So true ...

Just as in the case of that "other" book mentioned earlier ...

I should also mention that Miles, especially Bitches Brew, is recognized as important in the popular definition of "important jazz of the 60s"/

[JSngry]

Those things were important, no reason to wish/pretend otherwise, and to his credit. I don't see him doing that. He spent a few years with Phil Cohan, so he knows better, and says as much.

But his point that this other stuff is also important is a sound one and he makes it well. It's an application of the macrobiotic principle of " the bigger the front, the bigger the back".

It seems that he's arguing for a holistic, non/less exclusive view of Black American  Musical Culture. I'm all for that.

And let's bring in R&B while we're at it!

[felser]

Apart from the subject matter and assertations in these books, how is the actual writing itself?  I find it hard to read poorly written books, regardless of their points, and find great pleasure in well written books on subjects that interest me.

[JSngry]

The one chapter I read was articulate enough. I see no reason to expect anything else from the rest.

[Dan Gould]

51 minutes ago, felser said:

Apart from the subject matter and assertations in these books, how is the actual writing itself?  I find it hard to read poorly written books, regardless of their points, and find great pleasure in well written books on subjects that interest me.

It is written with enthusiasm - a surprising number of exclamation points coming from an 'academic' on a university press imprint. The writing is fine IMO.

 

My quibbles:

Page 7:

"Mandel, in noting the innovations of saxophonists Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and others ..."

That's just a big old whoopsie.

 

Page 17:

".... Herbie Hancock's smash hit song from his first solo album, Takin' Off."

IMO "solo" album has a specific meaning in jazz. We can say that Paul McCartney's first Wings album was his first "solo" recording post-Beatles. But for jazz, the correct descriptor is "leader date".

 

Page 165:

"... it sounded like the riot at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 for LGBTQ rights."

To me this is projection into the past of current concerns/alliances. Stonewall was about gay rights specifically.

[AllenLowe]

I haven't read, and probably won't - I think this deserves more of a magazine article than an entire book - but I do worry about the anti-art and anti-intellectualism of books that seem, from the description, to create straw man arguments. I know this is probably promo written by a third party, but dumb stuff like:

"The New Thing,” as personified by Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler and a few others."

doesn't help the cause; "a few others" - ? no, hundreds of others of musicians who were feeling a certain way in the 1960s.

Or:

"Avant-garde jazz, made by musicians indifferent to public perception" is just total crap. Many of the avant garde-ists had a very populist perspective, and saw the music as addressing a deeper and much more direct kind of musical reality. There was a strong black nationalist bend to the new music, and any book that ignores it is only worthy of contempt. These musicians - like Hemphill and BAG - saw themselves as community organizers. So this book, instead of breaking new ground, is trying to reinvent a perspective that has already been expressed.

Write about it - but don't try and sabotage musicians who were also in the middle of if all. Include it all.

And if you really want an alternative jazz history...well, read my book That Devilin' Tune, which shows there is an entirely different perspective that most jazz writers have ignored.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 25 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

38 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

It is written with enthusiasm - a surprising number of exclamation points coming from an 'academic' on a university press imprint. The writing is fine IMO.

 

My quibbles:

Page 7:

"Mandel, in noting the innovations of saxophonists Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and others ..."

That's just a big old whoopsie.

 

Page 17:

".... Herbie Hancock's smash hit song from his first solo album, Takin' Off."

IMO "solo" album has a specific meaning in jazz. We can say that Paul McCartney's first Wings album was his first "solo" recording post-Beatles. But for jazz, the correct descriptor is "leader date".

 

Page 165:

"... it sounded like the riot at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 for LGBTQ rights."

To me this is projection into the past of current concerns/alliances. Stonewall was about gay rights specifically.

I've noticed a few others, just in Chapter One. But nothing that some good editing or proofreading couldn't have caught/fixed.

[medjuck]

8 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I've noticed a few others, just in Chapter One. But nothing that some good editing or proofreading couldn't have caught/fixed.

I find this true of nearly every book I've read recently.

[JSngry]

2 minutes ago, AllenLowe said:

I haven't read, and probably won't - I think this deserves more of a magazine article than an entire book - but I do worry about the anti-art and anti-intellectualism of books that seem, from the description, to create straw man arguments. I know this is probably promo written by a third party, but dumb stuff like:

"The New Thing,” as personified by Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler and a few others."

doesn't help the cause; "a few others" - ? no, hundreds of others of musicians who were feeling a certain way in the 1960s.

Or:

"Avant-garde jazz, made by musicians indifferent to public perception" is just total crap. Many of the avant garde-ists had a very populist perspective, and saw the music as addressing a deeper and more direct kind of musical reality. There was a strong black nationalist bend to the new music, and any book that ignores it is only worthy of contempt. These musicians - like Hemphill and BAG - saw themselves as community organizers. So this book, instead of breaking new ground, is trying to reinvent a perspective that has already been expressed.

Write about it - but don't try and sabotage musicians who were also in the middle of if all.

 

 

 

I'm not deep enough into the book to tell if a case is being made for setting more places at the table (or even building a bigger table!) or just moving some people off the table so that new people can sit there.

I can tell already, though, that this guy is probably too concerned with critics and scholars for his own good. I sense a bit of defensiveness in his writing that imo undermines the strength of whatever cases he comes to make. We'll see how that develops.

 

 

[felser]

53 minutes ago, medjuck said:

I find this true of nearly every book I've read recently.

Which is troubling.  Welcome to the new normal, I guess.

[JSngry]

The Eddie Harris chapter was a bit of a slog for me. Not much at all about Eddie Harris and a lot of "explaining" about critical perceptions throughout the 20th Century and how the jazz narrative is being taught in schools and through mass media.

I'd much rather just listen to Eddie Harris 

Or in the intended spirit of the book...

 

[Rabshakeh]

I think there is something to be said for the need the CHALLENGE the NARRATIVE.

I don’t think there’s been a wholesale top down decision here, more that a culture industry has grown up that highlights certain areas for various reasons, which often reflect either marketing choices, fashion, academic trends or the evolution of later musical tastes.

If you were there you were there and you know. Either you enjoyed this stuff at the time or you rolled your eyes at such commercial trash. Perhaps you are ready to re-evaluate. But fundamentally you know who Gene Ammons, Ramsey Lewis and Eddie Harris were, and can make decisions accordingly.

But please don’t underestimate how difficult it is to access this stuff if you were not there at the time. For someone getting into jazz retrospectively there are very strong barriers up, that serve to kettle listeners into listening to a tiny portion of what is out there, which is placed under a spotlight. And the likes of Eddie Harris, Gene Ammons and Ramsey Lewis are certainly not in that tiny illuminated portion. They are out there in the darkness. People who were not there at the time do not have access to these records. They don’t show up in jazz histories and they don’t get posted on instagram. 

Something small like a book or one tastemaker can therefore have an effect and help to widen the area under the spotlight. In the last forty years we have watched electric Miles (journalist), disco fusion / rare groove (DJ), soul jazz organ work (DJs and book), the AACM (book), ‘spiritual jazz’, Strata East and Black Jazz (social movements and aesthetic developments), Japanese postbop and fusion, and British modernist jazz (books) be granted a place in the light. But it takes effort, and it really helps when people do publish books like this. Any push to widen the scope of what people have access to is helpful. Especially if it means that a young person might get to know the name Gene Ammons.

Edited October 26 by Rabshakeh