review of book on authenticity in music
tomb...@jhu.edu
conception of American musical styles:
k_l...@yahoo.com
Not sure how or if this really applies to jazz - looks like the
authors are careful to stay within the realm of pop music... I guess
the logical extreme would be "straight-ahead jazz isn't any more
authentic than smooth jazz", or even worse, "Coltrane (or Parker or
Lester Young, etc.) is just as phony as Kenny G", but I don't think
even the most tortured aspiring PhD. would try to make that claim.
Maybe an internet troll... :)
Yeah, Coltrane, Parker, Miles, etc. still sell today largely because
they are easily reduced to stereotype - Parker the junkie genius,
Coltrane the spiritual seeker, Miles the super-hip fashion-plate
misogynist with the raspy voice... But listen to the music and all
the nonsense doesn't matter. Does anyone think this performance is
not authentic?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6WwuxqXPOg
I suppose someone could say the same thing about Boney James lovingly
caressing some banal melody or another...
pmfan57
No. Coltrane's manager thought all that stuff up with an eye towards
making music for future college audiences. Coltrane was originally a
harmonica player.
momalle3
In my professional life I'm involved in questions like this all the
time--what's "authentic," who is defining it that way, etc. It's
surely true that musicians are forced into marketing categories that
don't reflect what they can play or want to play, and it's surely true
that "authentic" is a marketing category. This kind of critique is
valuable.
On the other hand, it's easy to overstate. There are such things as
traditions; there are communities that practice certain forms, there
are styles and forms handed on from person to person, there are craft
practices and forms of insider knowledge. So it would be kind of crude
and a distortion to dismiss that out of hand.
Speaking for myself, I'm not interested in "authentic" as a category
of analysis, but I can also hear traditions in people's playing and I
can see and hear degrees of sincerity, honesty and intelligence in
playing. I don't care if Coltrane is more "authentic" than Boney
James; I care that what Coltrane has do say is deeper, richer, more
intelligent and more provocative.
stapledietgtr
> can see and hear degrees of sincerity, honesty and intelligence in
> playing. I don't care if Coltrane is more "authentic" than Boney
> James; I care that what Coltrane has do say is deeper, richer, more
> intelligent and more provocative.
momalle3,
So very well said. You obviously have a great awareness of these concepts,
or labels, or catagories.
Is this more a discussion of Popular art vs Popular culture? I can't see
how these values relate to the quality of music. But then again, i guess
that beckons for a definition of "quality".
Gerry
Thanks. Reading reviews of books on music is about as close as I think
I'll come for the projected future. I'm still trying to finish all
kinds of books I started over the past year. Maybe I'm done with
reading.
Though there are a number of interesting ideas in the review, and I
assume in the book, here's one of my favorite line from the review:
> Wright recognised Lomax's manipulation of Leadbelly (who later
> successfully sued Lomax), but he assumed there was a genuine Leadbelly
> behind the music, a real black expression minstrel-ised by the white
> man. In fact, many of Leadbelly's songs came from white folks, who'd
> learned them from black musicians, who'd composed them with African
> inflections as reinterpreted by white musicians eager to add "floating"
> rhythms to the marching beat of Scots-Irish reels. The strongest
> argument of Faking It is for the endless "miscegenation" of music.
> Great popular music is always a collage of cultures, while the quest
> for authenticity all too often functions as a means of policing racial
> boundaries.
> --
///---
Bobo
Thanks for posting that. Quite entertaining.
I had these thoughts on reading.
The real power of instrumental music is that it communicates via triggers,
rather than by edict. I hear the same thing you hear and I react based
on my life experience which is necessarily distinct from yours. Hence I
have the final say on what it means to me, and I have no say whatever
as to what it means to you. I further assert that you have no say as to
what it means to me, which reduces nearly all music criticism to mere
evangelism. The beauty of this musical thing is that people who don't
at all agree can share a wonderful experience - as long as they don't
try too hard to explain it. Talking about music and dancing about
architecture to quote someone...
The reason this all works (in jazz say, but really all instrumental) is
because jazz is not a language, since it doesn't admit to any kind of
objective test for well defined semantics.
Try claiming you know Russian vocab just because you can
pronounce the words.
Since it isn't a language you can have everyone in the audience hearing
the exact same stuff and enjoying it in their own unique, even singular
way, which may in fact be far different from the next them they hear it.
I am very grateful that jazz isn't a language.
If it were then we'd have endless threads of people telling me that
I shouldn't like Carlton's rendition of Misty and that if I do
I have to accept that JT is Mingus. This leaves me unable
to reconcile two axioms in my life: (1) I do like Carlton's rendition,
and (2) I know that JT doesn't smoke Cigars.
So with my view I have to have a lot of reservation about even being
able to pose a question of authenticity, beyond the obvious milli
vanilli or live versus overdub issues. Non instrumental gets a bit
harder. If a Kangaroo sings a really significant song about
having to jump a really high fence with a really fat infant
in the pouch my later
finding that the singer didn't really ever have any fat children
isn't going to change the degree to which I "understand" the pathos,
angst and despair involved - all the really interesting things in life
are ineffable anyway.
With that reservation however I find this stuff very entertaining
and so thanks again for mentioning it.
Regards,
b
Tim McNamara
Art is a subjective expression by the artist, which in in turn
interpreted subjectively by the audience. Where is the authenticity
located- in the subjective expression of the artist or the subjective
interpretation of the audience? What if the artist's expression is
authentic but the audience's interpretation isn't? Or if the artist's
expression isn't authentic but the audience's interpretation is?
These conversations rapidly become a discussion of the potential
population of angels on the head of a pin, which of course ignores the
likely possibility that angels might have better things to do than to
hang out on the heads of pins waiting to be counted. One of my favorite
artists, the illustrator Frank Patterson, regularly stated "all art is
gump!" He may have had a point.
Play music. Play what you like to hear. Don't worry about it beyond
that. IMHO, YMMV, etc.
edi...@rcn.com
Anybody who takes Neil Young seriously should not be taken seriously
himself
Sean
Gerry
Anybody who uses a single secondary reference to validate a listener is
also not worthy of consideration... :-)
--
///---
stapledietgtr
my first. (Harvest being my first) So in 2005 I bought Prairie Winds by
Neil after my trip through midwest Canada.
The honesty i feel from that album is beautiful. To me it reflects much of
life from this region.
Which is where he hails from. I'll take a lot of Neil however he wishes to
serve it up and tremendously enjoy it.
What more validation does a listener need? But i guess i need to read
Rolling Stone to find out if its authentic. Not!
JP
<edi...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:1177249489.6...@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> On Apr 20, 11:47 pm, "tombr...@jhu.edu" <tombr...@jhu.edu> wrote:
>> Some interesting data points that undermine the racial purist as
tom walls
some...@sunny.calif says...
--
Tom Walls
the guy at the Temple of Zeus
momalle3
This attitude always bugs me, as if being conscious and thinking about
what you do is some kind of impediment to doing it, or as if self-
knowledge is somehow inauthentic. I guess you can complicate things to
the point of paralysis, but that's not a problem of thinking, that's a
problem of muddled, unresolved thinking. I suppose the goal is to be
so well trained ad so well founded that action flows without seeming
to require thought. But there's no necessary opposition between
thinking and dong. It won't hurt anyone to think about the nature of
what they do. You could say it's the difference between people and
animals--thinking about what we do and why we do it. Or , as the old
saying goes, an unexamined life is not worth living.
Paul
On 4/23/07 7:56 AM, in article
1177329360.9...@b58g2000hsg.googlegroups.com, "momalle3"
<moma...@gmail.com> wrote:
But there's no necessary opposition between
> thinking and dong.
Many lives are loaded with problems caused by this particular opposition :)
PK
tom walls
@cornell.edu says...
>
> >
> That did it. Now I'm going to have to read the damn thing.
>
>
marketing with art. I would agree that in pop culture there is little
difference between the two, but not all culture can be reduced to pop
culture. This confusion may be only attributable to the person reviewing
the book, but I got a sense that the book is likely the product of pop
culture nabobs. I've already read enough of that gobbeldy-gook to last
two lifetimes.
Tim McNamara
momalle3 <moma...@gmail.com> wrote:
That wasn't the point. I was criticizing the idea that we can somehow
objectively establish "authenticity" of art. Is Grandma Moses more
authentic than Paul Klee? Is Coltrane more authentic than John Klemmer?
Is Neil Young more authentic than Cole Porter? Is Django more authentic
than Pat Martino? In these discussions there is always the danger of
falling into Romanticism and seeing the "primitive man" as the
"authentic man." I think there's a problem in excessive navel-gazing
and that books and reviews like these tend to promote this. Great for
PhD dissertations, not so great on the bandstand.
I would argue (being a psychologist) that there are different kinds of
cognition. We usually consider thinking as a subvocal process,
basically talking inside our heads and using language and concepts. But
there is a whole range of cognitive processes that don't involve and
don't need verbal construction. Imagining music is one of them. I can
imagine a melody, I can "hear" the notes in my mind, and there's no
words or concepts involved. A different part of the brain is accessed
than is used during verbal/conceptual thinking. Just about anyone can
do this, although some are better than others at it. Part of the
training of improvising musicians is to develop the faculty of imagining
music and to be able to instantly play what you imagine, and not
everyone can do that. Verbal thinking will tend to interfere with that
process.
Personally I don't find it interesting to listen to players who go along
thinking things like "gee, I should use the Phrygian mode of the
harmonic minor in this bar." That gets old fast. But primitive playing
also gets old fast, hence the lack of appeal that most rock music and
all hip-hop has for me. I don't think it's helpful to think about
whether a type of music- or any art- is authentic. I think about
whether I like it and whether it creates an emotional resonance with me.
Gerry
> In article <MPG.209665af...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>, tw25
> @cornell.edu says...
>>
>>>
>> That did it. Now I'm going to have to read the damn thing.
>>
>>
> Okay, I read it. I'm not so impressed. The reviewer seems to confuse
> marketing with art.
That's always irritating. But then these blurred lines is what makes
American art so very American.
> I would agree that in pop culture there is little difference between
> the two, but not all culture can be reduced to pop culture.
Relative to the art in this frame of reference, "authenticity" and
American "popular music" and such, what is it that should not be
reduced to being viewed as "pop culture"?
> This confusion may be only attributable to the person reviewing the
> book, but I got a sense that the book is likely the product of pop
> culture nabobs. I've already read enough of that gobbeldy-gook to last
> two lifetimes.
I find it almost impossible to separate American popular music
(including "folk", blues, jazz and the more niche varieties) from the
"something else".
--
///---
Gerry
>> Art is a subjective expression by the artist, which in in turn
>> interpreted subjectively by the audience. Where is the authenticity
>> located- in the subjective expression of the artist or the subjective
>> interpretation of the audience? What if the artist's expression is
>> authentic but the audience's interpretation isn't? Or if the artist's
>> expression isn't authentic but the audience's interpretation is?
>>
>> These conversations rapidly become a discussion of the potential
>> population of angels on the head of a pin, which of course ignores the
>> likely possibility that angels might have better things to do than to
>> hang out on the heads of pins waiting to be counted. One of my favorite
>> artists, the illustrator Frank Patterson, regularly stated "all art is
>> gump!" He may have had a point.
>>
>> Play music. Play what you like to hear. Don't worry about it beyond
>> that. IMHO, YMMV, etc.
>
> This attitude always bugs me, as if being conscious and thinking about
> what you do is some kind of impediment to doing it,
I think this *persepective", while easily taken to far one way or the
other is easily understood. The purported primitives have a guileless
quality about them which we assume to be the result of reflexive
creatiion rather than labored and highly structured. I think people
can overthink things and underthink them too. Both can be impediments
to creating something that sounds and feels natural.
> ...or as if self-
> knowledge is somehow inauthentic. I guess you can complicate things to
> the point of paralysis, but that's not a problem of thinking, that's a
> problem of muddled, unresolved thinking.
If you think it sounds bad, yes; that might describe it. If you think
it sounds good, then I guess it would be a solultion of elegant
thinking. Which returns us to Tim's view, above, that "Art is a
subjective expression by the artist, which in in turn interpreted
subjectively by the audience".
> I suppose the goal is to be
> so well trained ad so well founded that action flows without seeming
> to require thought.
Right, "to the audience" it appears to be done without stress.
> But there's no necessary opposition between thinking and dong. It won't
> hurt anyone to think about the nature of what they do. You could say
> it's the difference between people and animals--thinking about what we
> do and why we do it. Or , as the old saying goes, an unexamined life is
> not worth living.
Neither side is "good" or "bad". One is always thinking, whether
consciously or carefully or not.
--
///---
tom walls
some...@sunny.calif says...
> On 2007-04-23 05:32:12 -0700, tom walls <tw...@cornell.edu> said:
>
> > In article <MPG.209665af...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>, tw25
> > @cornell.edu says...
> >>
> >>>
> >> That did it. Now I'm going to have to read the damn thing.
> >>
> >>
> > Okay, I read it. I'm not so impressed. The reviewer seems to confuse
> > marketing with art.
>
> That's always irritating. But then these blurred lines is what makes
> American art so very American.
It is a feature of things that we consider American art, but it's not
exclusively "American" anymore. Even "Western" won't do. There's a
worldwide audience now.
>
> > I would agree that in pop culture there is little difference between
> > the two, but not all culture can be reduced to pop culture.
>
> Relative to the art in this frame of reference, "authenticity" and
> American "popular music" and such, what is it that should not be
> reduced to being viewed as "pop culture"?
>
Pop culture is defined by either it's ubiquity or the amount of
attention that it garners. Other cultural artifacts need neither of
those things for relevance. Authenticity and popularity are irrelevant.
There is either cultural resonance or not.
> > This confusion may be only attributable to the person reviewing the
> > book, but I got a sense that the book is likely the product of pop
> > culture nabobs. I've already read enough of that gobbeldy-gook to last
> > two lifetimes.
>
> I find it almost impossible to separate American popular music
> (including "folk", blues, jazz and the more niche varieties) from the
> "something else".
>
If I read you right, I agree: any type of music might be popular.
Max Leggett
wrote:
>In article <MPG.209665af...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>, tw25
>@cornell.edu says...
>>
>> >
>> That did it. Now I'm going to have to read the damn thing.
>>
>>
>Okay, I read it. I'm not so impressed. The reviewer seems to confuse
It's Rolling Stone, fer kriseake. T&A lifestlye rag for sophomores.
momalle3
>
> But there's no necessary opposition between
>
> > thinking and dong.
>
> Many lives are loaded with problems caused by this particular opposition :)
>
> PK
LOL!!!!
tomb...@jhu.edu
>
> That wasn't the point. I was criticizing the idea that we can somehow
> objectively establish "authenticity" of art. Is Grandma Moses more
> authentic than Paul Klee? Is Coltrane more authentic than John Klemmer?
> Is Neil Young more authentic than Cole Porter? Is Django more authentic
> than Pat Martino? In these discussions there is always the danger of
> falling into Romanticism and seeing the "primitive man" as the
> "authentic man." I think there's a problem in excessive navel-gazing
> and that books and reviews like these tend to promote this.
Did you read the review yet? The book authors actually agree with
you.
Gerry
> In article <2007042307433475249-somewhere@sunnycalif>,
> some...@sunny.calif says...
>> On 2007-04-23 05:32:12 -0700, tom walls <tw...@cornell.edu> said:
>>
>>> In article <MPG.209665af...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>, tw25
>>> @cornell.edu says...
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> That did it. Now I'm going to have to read the damn thing.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Okay, I read it. I'm not so impressed. The reviewer seems to confuse
>>> marketing with art.
>>
>> That's always irritating. But then these blurred lines is what makes
>> American art so very American.
>
> It is a feature of things that we consider American art, but it's not
> exclusively "American" anymore. Even "Western" won't do. There's a
> worldwide audience now.
Yeah but we broke it first! We're number one! We're number one...
>>> I would agree that in pop culture there is little difference between
>>> the two, but not all culture can be reduced to pop culture.
>>
>> Relative to the art in this frame of reference, "authenticity" and
>> American "popular music" and such, what is it that should not be
>> reduced to being viewed as "pop culture"?
>
> Pop culture is defined by either it's ubiquity or the amount of
> attention that it garners. Other cultural artifacts need neither of
> those things for relevance.
Are there among the other cultural artifacts any music? What would you
consider these other cultural artifacts? Like independent movies and
small-press publications and such?
> Authenticity and popularity are irrelevant. There is either cultural
> resonance or not.
Not meaning to bail on the pivotal point of the topic or anything, but
as an aside, I've never been able to find a slot for "authenticity" in
my gauging of art. I've always felt somebody toe'd the line by hitting
the stylistic and constructional markers or they didn't. One of the few
places authenticity seems to come up is strictly a racial thing. Not
limited to old black blues guys, but also to non-Latins in Salsa, for
example. Or those who don't sing in Spanish in what would otherwise be
Latin styles.
>>> This confusion may be only attributable to the person reviewing the
>>> book, but I got a sense that the book is likely the product of pop
>>> culture nabobs. I've already read enough of that gobbeldy-gook to last
>>> two lifetimes.
>>
>> I find it almost impossible to separate American popular music
>> (including "folk", blues, jazz and the more niche varieties) from the
>> "something else".
>
> If I read you right, I agree: any type of music might be popular.
In musical cultural studies they always make a point of distinguishing
"folk" art from other approaches: the "other" (whatever it's called)
seems to be the product of educated musicians, and in this case
"educated" means in an academic environment. As such, this distinction
seems to be about useless anymore. Outside classical music there seems
to be nothing that remains with the exception of educated jazz
musicians: so they are academically trained, understand theory and
history and all that, but in the end are still playing what is
generlaly viewed as a "folk" music, regardless of how advanced it is.
So anymore I can't really find a place where pop/folk has a correllary
on the other side of the "something else" dyad, except for "classical".
--
///---
tom walls
some...@sunny.calif says...
>
> > Pop culture is defined by either it's ubiquity or the amount of
> > attention that it garners. Other cultural artifacts need neither of
> > those things for relevance.
>
> Are there among the other cultural artifacts any music? What would you
> consider these other cultural artifacts? Like independent movies and
> small-press publications and such?
>
I'm sorry, I worded that poorly. I meant only to seperate "art" from
"pop art". High art, low art, folk art, what-have-you, but not pop art.
> > Authenticity and popularity are irrelevant. There is either cultural
> > resonance or not.
>
> Not meaning to bail on the pivotal point of the topic or anything, but
> as an aside, I've never been able to find a slot for "authenticity" in
> my gauging of art. I've always felt somebody toe'd the line by hitting
> the stylistic and constructional markers or they didn't. One of the few
> places authenticity seems to come up is strictly a racial thing. Not
> limited to old black blues guys, but also to non-Latins in Salsa, for
> example. Or those who don't sing in Spanish in what would otherwise be
> Latin styles.
>
I'm with you. Life's too short. On the other hand, if -- like you say --
they don't hit the markers, they likely suck.
>
> In musical cultural studies they always make a point of distinguishing
> "folk" art from other approaches: the "other" (whatever it's called)
> seems to be the product of educated musicians, and in this case
> "educated" means in an academic environment. As such, this distinction
> seems to be about useless anymore. Outside classical music there seems
> to be nothing that remains with the exception of educated jazz
> musicians: so they are academically trained, understand theory and
> history and all that, but in the end are still playing what is
> generlaly viewed as a "folk" music, regardless of how advanced it is.
>
> So anymore I can't really find a place where pop/folk has a correllary
> on the other side of the "something else" dyad, except for "classical".
> --
It used to be that, by definition, music that was used for purposes of
entertainment was not folk music. Folk music had to satisfy a specific
ritual purpose. I'm actually comfortable with that, but I would say that
social dancing is a rite, and headbanging(one could include punk,
hardcore, heavy metal, gangsta, etc) is probably an adolescent male life
rite passage. Whether the musician is trained, or the music is meant for
commercial purposes, I don't see why that is relevant as long as the art
has the "cultural resonance" to serve it's ritual purpose.
Gerry
>> So anymore I can't really find a place where pop/folk has a correllary
>> on the other side of the "something else" dyad, except for "classical".
>
> It used to be that, by definition, music that was used for purposes of
> entertainment was not folk music.
Ah, very good. That's exactly right. And in previous times it would
be assumed that "entertainment" music would be performed by
"professional musicians" and they, in theory were "trained".
> Folk music had to satisfy a specific ritual purpose. I'm actually
> comfortable with that, but I would say that social dancing is a rite,
> and headbanging (one could include punk, hardcore, heavy metal,
> gangsta, etc) is probably an adolescent male life rite passage. Whether
> the musician is trained, or the music is meant for commercial purposes,
> I don't see why that is relevant as long as the art has the "cultural
> resonance" to serve it's ritual purpose.
Agreed. Speaking of dance/ritual etc, have you seen the movie Rize? (
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808624625/info ). It's pretty damned
interesting in a folk-art/urban-ritual kinda way. In fact it's pretty
fascinating in any number of ways intersecting race, music, urban
culture, hip-hop, etc.
While picking through the cultural drift-net, there is also a very
interesting artticle in the current issue (April, 2007) of National
Geographic: "Hip Hop Planet" by James McBride. He states the same
generally negative viewpoint espoused by many jazz musicians (myself
included), then points out the reasons why he's been born again. I
haven't finished it yet, but it's a pretty cool article.
--
///---
tom walls
some...@sunny.calif says...
> On 2007-04-23 11:01:34 -0700, tom walls <tw...@cornell.edu> said:
>
> >> So anymore I can't really find a place where pop/folk has a correllary
> >> on the other side of the "something else" dyad, except for "classical".
> >
> > It used to be that, by definition, music that was used for purposes of
> > entertainment was not folk music.
>
> Ah, very good. That's exactly right. And in previous times it would
> be assumed that "entertainment" music would be performed by
> "professional musicians" and they, in theory were "trained".
>
> > Folk music had to satisfy a specific ritual purpose. I'm actually
> > comfortable with that, but I would say that social dancing is a rite,
> > and headbanging (one could include punk, hardcore, heavy metal,
> > gangsta, etc) is probably an adolescent male life rite passage. Whether
> > the musician is trained, or the music is meant for commercial purposes,
> > I don't see why that is relevant as long as the art has the "cultural
> > resonance" to serve it's ritual purpose.
>
> Agreed. Speaking of dance/ritual etc, have you seen the movie Rize? (
> http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808624625/info ). It's pretty damned
> interesting in a folk-art/urban-ritual kinda way. In fact it's pretty
> fascinating in any number of ways intersecting race, music, urban
> culture, hip-hop, etc.
Looks interesting. Never heard of it.
>
> While picking through the cultural drift-net, there is also a very
> interesting artticle in the current issue (April, 2007) of National
> Geographic: "Hip Hop Planet" by James McBride. He states the same
> generally negative viewpoint espoused by many jazz musicians (myself
> included), then points out the reasons why he's been born again. I
> haven't finished it yet, but it's a pretty cool article.
>
I'll have to check it out. I've been trying to get to this month's
Geographic, it's got a feature on the pre and colonial Jamestown that
looks interesting. Complete with foldout map! :-)
paul
> On 2007-04-23 11:01:34 -0700, tom walls <t...@cornell.edu> said:
> Agreed. Speaking of dance/ritual etc, have you seen the movie Rize? (http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808624625/info). It's pretty damned
> interesting in a folk-art/urban-ritual kinda way. In fact it's pretty
> fascinating in any number of ways intersecting race, music, urban
> culture, hip-hop, etc.
>
rize is a very, very bizarre documentary. I didn't really like it as a
documentary but the subject matter is fascinating and pretty
unbelievable. I thought it was a joke at first.
--paul
Gerry
> rize is a very, very bizarre documentary. I didn't really like it as a
> documentary but the subject matter is fascinating and pretty
> unbelievable. I thought it was a joke at first.
I found it an excellent documentary. The subject matter is certainly
surprising, and almost inscrutable, but it is a very well-made
documentary.
I found it fascinating what people in a war-zone do to find an avenue
for their own creativity. I'd certainly tune in if they had an update
to the street dance-situation in LA.
--
///---