Article: Too easy on the ears
Nou Dadoun
that was in the NYTimes Arts section on Sunday (it uses a similar
Norah Jones in overalls in front of a vintage blue truck as the
related graphic and I had to read several paragraphs to confirm that
it was in fact different). But it touches on several points that have
come up in discussions here in the last year wrt Jones, Krall and the
'jazz' vocalist marketing phenom.
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030219.wxnorah0219/BNStory/Entertainment
=======
Too easy on the ears
Singers like Norah Jones and Diana Krall are turning a formerly fringe
genre into the kind of music that draws millions of fans
By J.D.CONSIDINE From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Don't look now, but jazz singing has quietly become the new Easy
Listening. And boy is it big business.
At a time when jazz instrumentalists are lucky to see sales in the low
five figures, Diana Krall's last three studio albums have all been
million-sellers, certified platinum in the U.S. Then there's newcomer
Norah Jones, who is widely expected to sweep the Grammy Awards this
Sunday, and has so far sold more than four million copies of her
debut, Come Away with Me. Last month, the album shouldered aside
Eminem and Shania Twain to spend several weeks atop the Billboard
charts.
Jazz singing has gotten so hot that even pop vocalists want a piece of
the action. Aging rocker Rod Stewart snuck back onto the charts last
year with a collection of standards called The Great American
Songbook, and wound up with his biggest hit in years, while k. d.
lang's latest release was an album of duets with jazz crooner Tony
Bennett, called Wonderful World.
With a host of others - Jane Monheit, Cassandra Wilson, John
Pizzarelli, Jaqui Naylor, Eliane Elias - queuing up to join the gold
rush, it would seem that there has never been a better time to be a
scat singer. Yet funnily enough, what these best-selling jazz singers
deliver has little to do with jazz, beyond a walking bass and an
occasional piano solo.
Instead, their music sits squarely in the middle of the road, offering
obvious melodies, a soothing mood and a veneer of sophistication -
qualities eminently familiar to fans of Percy Faith or the Jackie
Gleason Orchestra. Albums like Krall's The Look of Love, with its
whispered vocals and lush Claus Ogerman orchestrations practically
scream, "This is mood music!" (Except, of course, that mood music
never screams.)
Because it's so pretty, so determinedly inoffensive, it's hard to hate
this music. But it's very easy to despise the musical dumbing-down
that comes with aspiring to a higher class of aural wallpaper. Where
once jazz singers strove to stretch the boundaries of music, embarking
on improvised flights of fancy, as did Ella Fitzgerald, or turning a
tune inside-out a la Betty Carter, today's young crooners are
principally blessed with an ability to smooth things over, to massage
a melody into an easily digestible dollop of sound.
Billie Holiday died for this?
In fairness, we can't blame the jazz audience for this devolution,
because frankly, there just aren't enough jazz fans to generate
millions of CD sales. No, this is a pop phenomenon, fuelled in part by
the market clout of aging boomers.
According to a poll conducted last year in the U.S. for the Recording
Industry Association of America, nearly a quarter of CD sales were to
listeners aged 45 and older. This age group is the fastest-growing
demographic in the music market - and not just because comparatively
few of them know how to download music from the Internet.
Having grown up with an active interest in rock, boomers have been
entering middle age with an enduring interest in new music, as well as
the disposable income needed to feed that hunger. This has given rise
to a radio format called adult-album-alternative radio, a format
touted within the industry as "music for grownups." Offering
everything from Elvis Costello to Coldplay to Ry Cooder, Triple-A
radio emphasizes musical daring and artistic value while
simultaneously downplaying aggression and attitude. In that sense,
it's an alternative to the bland mainstream pop of Barbra Streisand
and Celine Dion, as well as to the raucous edge of hip-hop and heavy
metal.
But even though Jones, Krall and the other young jazz singers have
benefited somewhat from the boom in Triple-A radio, the secret of
their success lies not with radio but with shopping malls, coffee
bars, waiting rooms and other public places that discreetly serenade
clients. Because over the years, the constant murmur of soothing
melodies at work and in the market has trained people to want some
sort of sound in the background - not to listen to, but merely to
hear.
"Music has become completely ubiquitous," says Roy Trakin, a senior
editor at the trade magazine Hits. "People expect to have it around
them all the time." At the same time, what they want is more
background than foreground - a sound that's pleasant, mildly engaging,
but not particularly distracting. As do the people in movies, we've
come to expect a certain amount of soundtrack in our lives.
Krall, Jones and their ilk aren't the first jazz-based musicians to
benefit from this hunger for easy-listening fare. In the late '80s and
'90s, "smooth jazz," a blandly melodic blend of fusion jazz and R & B,
became standard fare in elevators everywhere. Derided by jazz purists
as "fuzak," smooth jazz turned the bleat of a soprano saxophone into
the most feared cliche in popular music, in the process making
millions for the likes of Kenny G, Najee and George Howard. Yet for
all its militant mellowness, smooth jazz has always tried to maintain
some rhythmic urgency, fuelling its airy noodlings with grooves
derived (read: watered down) from funk.
The new jazz singing, by contrast, takes its rhythmic cues from the
denatured swing of '50s saloon singers. Harry Connick's soundtrack
recording for When Harry Met Sally was a pioneering work in this
regard, with its mannered croon and lush orchestrations offering a
suave, Sinatra-esque vibe but without the original's bite. The effect
was classy and comfortable background music - a perfect romantic
soundtrack even if you weren't at the movies.
At the time, many assumed that younger listeners were simply searching
for a new Sinatra. They weren't. (Connick, who later evinced a
genuinely Sinatra-style pugnacity, found that out the hard way.) What
they really wanted was quiet sophistication and melodies that didn't
get in their face.
Such music doesn't have to be bedecked with Nelson Riddle-style string
arrangements. Like Jones, Cassandra Wilson gets similarly soothing
results from acoustic bass and the muffled whine of a steel guitar.
But it won't ever stretch a melody out of shape, or take a solo into
uncharted territory, or challenge its listeners.
And if Jones, as expected, walks away with a handful of Grammys on
Sunday, we'll doubtless be seeing more understated, undemanding albums
from well-groomed, smooth-voiced, inoffensive jazz singers.
It won't mean a thing, but it will have that swing. Sort of.
-------------------------------------------------> Nou
====
Nou Dadoun | dad...@cs.ubc.ca | Black Swan Records,
Dpt. of Computer Science,|*******************| 3209 W. Broadway,
Langara College, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1W5 | Vancouver, BC, V6K 2H5
(604) 323-5822 | http://www.blackswan.bc.ca | (604) 734-2828 / 734-2899 [FAX]
Ebay seller:blackswanrecords; Current online auctions linked from our web page.
JGMcLean0
>>http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030219.wxnorah0219/BNS
tory/Entertainment
>Too easy on the ears
>
>Singers like Norah Jones and Diana Krall are turning a formerly fringe
>genre into the kind of music that draws millions of fans
>By J.D.CONSIDINE From Thursday's Globe and Mail
>
>Don't look now, but jazz singing has quietly become the new Easy
>Listening. And boy is it big business.
(. . .)
>Billie Holiday died for this?
Ye Gods. *J.D. Considine* wrote this illogical, poorly-defended,
self-loathing load?
Let's see, in the course of a dozen column-inches, we have claims that:
- Jazz albums by pop vocalists is a new trend (anybody remember Linda
Rondstadt in the mid-80s?)
- It's aging boomers listening to AAA radio, and who are not internet savvy
who made Norah Jones a huge success. We don't have an AAA station here; Jones
is sandwiched between Eminem and Pink -- who do you think their core audience
is?
- AAA radio "emphasizes musical daring and artistic value", but the format's
embrace of Jones et. al. represent a "musical dumbing down".
- Kenny G has "rhythmic urgency" (!)
What a maroon.
JGM
Brian Rost
>
> This article from this morning's Globe and Mail is very similar to one
> come up in discussions here in the last year wrt Jones, Krall and the
> 'jazz' vocalist marketing phenom.
The fact that the author lumps John Pizzarelli and Cassandra Wilson in
together with Krall and Jones suggests to me that he has his ears up his
butt.
--
Brian Rost
Stargen, Inc.
**********************************************************************
Sum1
article itself doesn't seem to say much - there is an older audience with
money to spend that prefers melodic music to honking, bleating and banging.
"Nou Dadoun" <dad...@cs.ubc.ca> wrote in message
news:b30q5l$5kc$1...@mughi.cs.ubc.ca...
Luke Kaven
>dad...@cs.ubc.ca (Nou Dadoun) wrote:
>>
>>Too easy on the ears
>>
>>Singers like Norah Jones and Diana Krall are turning a formerly fringe
>>genre into the kind of music that draws millions of fans
>
>Since Norah's latest CD is Blue Note's biggest seller ever, I can only
>hope that some of that revenue continues to fuel the label's
>remastered reissues.
>
>If that is indeed the case, more power to her and her listeners!
>________
>beatnik
This is the wrong thing to wish for. The Blue Note (etc) reissues
make a lot of money, more than enough to finance the reissue program
and make a profit. Instead, it is the living artists who will suffer,
because they play jazz instead of pop music, since Blue Note doesn't
put out jazz anymore, except on the rarest occasions.
Luke
Luke Kaven
>Nou Dadoun wrote:
>
>>>http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030219.wxnorah0219/BNS
>tory/Entertainment
>
>>Too easy on the ears
>>
>>Singers like Norah Jones and Diana Krall are turning a formerly fringe
>>genre into the kind of music that draws millions of fans
>>By J.D.CONSIDINE From Thursday's Globe and Mail
>>
>>Don't look now, but jazz singing has quietly become the new Easy
>>Listening. And boy is it big business.
>(. . .)
>>Billie Holiday died for this?
>
> Ye Gods. *J.D. Considine* wrote this illogical, poorly-defended,
>self-loathing load?
>
> Let's see, in the course of a dozen column-inches, we have claims that:
>
> - Jazz albums by pop vocalists is a new trend (anybody remember Linda
>Rondstadt in the mid-80s?)
That isn't the claim. These are pop vocalists passed off AS jazz
vocalists first and foremost, which represents a legislation of the
concept of jazz into a pop-music category. This is something
relatively new.
> - It's aging boomers listening to AAA radio, and who are not internet savvy
>who made Norah Jones a huge success. We don't have an AAA station here; Jones
>is sandwiched between Eminem and Pink -- who do you think their core audience
>is?
He knows that. Again, these are pop artists being passed off as jazz
artists, even when they're being played on AOR stations.
Luke Kaven
>The article title alone suggests that the author has an axe to grind and the
>article itself doesn't seem to say much - there is an older audience with
>money to spend that prefers melodic music to honking, bleating and banging.
Why shouldn't the author have an axe to grind? Doesn't a writer have
the right to voice critique? Aren't you griding an axe too?
Your fallacy is that the alternative must be the extreme. In the last
one thousand jazz performances I've attended, I don't think I've heard
"honking, bleating, and banging" more than a few times, so you are
constructing a straw opponent. Let the older audience spend money on
their pop music. Just don't let them smother the art of jazz. There
is also an audience with money to spend that prefers art to McMusic.
Which seems more fair: adult pop music doesn't suffer *anything* by
being called "instrumental pop" or "vocal pop" instead of
misappropriating an existing style, namely "jazz". Whereas historical
forms of jazz music as art suffer when the name "jazz" is
misappropriated by instrument or vocal pop artists playing McMusic.
Luk
Simon Weil
and what people like Krall produce is the very antithesis of that. When
Considine says:
> their music sits squarely in the middle of the road, offering
>obvious melodies, a soothing mood and a veneer of sophistication -
He hits on something important. This is most of all *comfort music*. It gives
the sense of quality and reassurance. I think people want to listen to that
sort of music when, as now, economies and societies stagnate.
But I think, on a formal level, the music itself echoes the stagnation in the
wider society. I speculate that things froze up after the technology bubble
burst.
Simon Weil
Brian Rost
>
> That isn't the claim. These are pop vocalists passed off AS jazz
> vocalists first and foremost, which represents a legislation of the
> concept of jazz into a pop-music category. This is something
> relatively new.
???? What about Bing Crosby ????
> He knows that. Again, these are pop artists being passed off as jazz
> artists, even when they're being played on AOR stations.
One of my local jazz stations does an all-Sinatra show.
Vocalists on the fence between pop and jazz are as old as jazz is.
Brian Rost
>
> But I think, on a formal level, the music itself echoes the stagnation in the
> wider society. I speculate that things froze up after the technology bubble
> burst.
I don't agree. Pop music and jazz have both been in stagnation for
years.
I first got interested in music on the radio about the time the Beatles
arrived in the US (1963?). That was 40 years ago. What was the music of
40 years before that? Louis Armstrong hadn't yet recorded! Go back 30
years to 1973, fusion jazz was thriving as was first generation heavy
metal, Southern rock and soul music. Thirty years before that bebop
hadn't yet arrived! To most listeners the music of 30 years ago wouldn't
sound out of place today, and in fact on stations that play contemporary
heavy rock you can also still hear Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin
recordings from that era (not to mention how many modern country acts
sound more like the Eagles and similar ElAy bands of the 70s than Hank
Williams). That sure suggests the stagnation had set in long before the
tech bubble burst.
As far as progress and inovation, don't forget that Armstrong and Condon
hated bop, Ornette and Trane got slagged for playing noise and those
reviled Miles LPs like "On the Corner" sound pretty darn comtemporary 30
years later when compared to "cutting edge" hip hop, drums & bass, etc.
Most innovation comes out of left field, who's to say that a period of
jazz and pop intertwining as it did back in the 40s won't lead to
something new and exciting?
BTW, did anyone hear Norah on Piano Jazz recently? While she won't have
people forgetting Art Tatum any time soon, she played and sang a number
of standards suggesting she does have knowledge of the music.
tomw
lu...@smallsrecords.com says...
snip
> > - Jazz albums by pop vocalists is a new trend (anybody remember Linda
> >Rondstadt in the mid-80s?)
>
> That isn't the claim. These are pop vocalists passed off AS jazz
> vocalists first and foremost, which represents a legislation of the
> concept of jazz into a pop-music category. This is something
> relatively new.
>
> > - It's aging boomers listening to AAA radio, and who are not internet savvy
> >who made Norah Jones a huge success. We don't have an AAA station here; Jones
> >is sandwiched between Eminem and Pink -- who do you think their core audience
> >is?
>
> He knows that. Again, these are pop artists being passed off as jazz
> artists, even when they're being played on AOR stations.
>
>
>
I really don't think that the popularity of Nora Jones is attributable
to any association she may have with jazz. She plays an elegant,
heartfelt, creative music that appeals to a wide audience, most of whom
wouldn't give a fig whether it was called jazz. The marketing strategy
of Diana Krall, Jane Monheit, is quite different(as is the content).
--
Tom Walls
the guy at the Temple of Zeus
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/zeus/
Simon Weil
>>
>> But I think, on a formal level, the music itself echoes the stagnation in
>the
>> wider society. I speculate that things froze up after the technology bubble
>> burst.
>
>I don't agree. Pop music and jazz have both been in stagnation for
>years.
>
>I first got interested in music on the radio about the time the Beatles
>arrived in the US (1963?). That was 40 years ago. What was the music of
>40 years before that? Louis Armstrong hadn't yet recorded! Go back 30
>years to 1973, fusion jazz was thriving as was first generation heavy
>metal, Southern rock and soul music. Thirty years before that bebop
>hadn't yet arrived! To most listeners the music of 30 years ago wouldn't
>sound out of place today, and in fact on stations that play contemporary
>heavy rock you can also still hear Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin
>recordings from that era (not to mention how many modern country acts
>sound more like the Eagles and similar ElAy bands of the 70s than Hank
>Williams). That sure suggests the stagnation had set in long before the
>tech bubble burst.
Well, yeah - I did kind of forsee this reply, and in a general kind of way
agree with it. I mean, for me, the highpoint of Jazz innovation stopped in the
60s. The 70s, you got fusion, which I still find value in. The 80s and 90s, it
slowed down. But, now I just think there's real stagnation. For me the 80s and
90s were conservative decades in both Jazz and the wider society and innovation
existed at the fringes. I take what's happening now as an extension of that.
With a hyper-conservative US government and artistic innovation approaching
non-existent except through brave hold-outs.
God knows where this all leads.
Simon Weil
Ira Chineson
I love it when people who don't like a certain type of music feel the
need to supply socio-political explanations in order to explain the
music's appeal. I think the analysts often assume a sense of superiority
in offering their explanations. The subtext is "If I don't like the
music, but the music is still popular then there must be some nonmusical
reason for all those misguided fools buying it."
Simon Weil
>I love it when people who don't like a certain type of music feel the
>need to supply socio-political explanations in order to explain the
>music's appeal. I think the analysts often assume a sense of superiority
>in offering their explanations. The subtext is "If I don't like the
>music, but the music is still popular then there must be some nonmusical
>reason for all those misguided fools buying it."
this subtext: " Shoot the messenger".
And they've been doing that a while.
Simon Weil
Ira Chineson
"Simon Weil" <simo...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20030220094211...@mb-fx.aol.com...
I don't want to shoot the messenger, I'd rather just bury his sociology
textbooks. However you must remember my hostility could just be a function
of my economic stagnation vis-a-vis the bursting of the technological
bubble. My 401K has gone south and the landlord is at the door.... quick
I need my Diana Krall fix.
JGMcLean0
>On 19 Feb 2003 21:18:09 GMT, jgmc...@aol.com (JGMcLean0) wrote:
>> Let's see, in the course of a dozen column-inches, we have claims that:
>>
>> - Jazz albums by pop vocalists is a new trend (anybody remember Linda
>>Rondstadt in the mid-80s?)
>
>That isn't the claim.
It's exactly the claim Considine makes: "Jazz singing has gotten so hot that
even pop vocalists want a piece of the action." He then cites Rod Stewart and
k.d. lang as examples.
>These are pop vocalists passed off AS jazz
>vocalists first and foremost, which represents a legislation of the
>concept of jazz into a pop-music category. This is something
>relatively new.
Nonsense. As soon as vocal singing enters jazz the boundaries between jazz
and pop are blurred. This has been true in any era from Bing Crosby and
Sinatra through Sade and Harry Connick Jr in the '80s right up to Krall and
Jones today.
The idea that there is some meaningful difference between a "pop singer
singing jazz" and a "jazz singer singing pop" -- and, by the way, Billie
Holiday, whom Considine holds up as the avatar of this genre, was arguably more
of the former than the latter -- is absurd. All the "classic" singers in the
Jazz canon, Ella and Billie included, got their start in front of big bands or
swing bands -- what do you think pop music *was* at that time? Considine seems
to think that improvisation and "turning a tune inside out" is the stamp of a
"true" jazz vocalist -- of course pop, soul, and gospel singers (think Aretha)
have been doing this for decades while any number of "jazz" singers have been
happy to stick to a basic tune and get by on mere phrasing, setting, and
expression (as does Jones).
>> - It's aging boomers listening to AAA radio, and who are not internet savvy
>>who made Norah Jones a huge success. We don't have an AAA station here;
>Jones
>>is sandwiched between Eminem and Pink -- who do you think their core
>audience
>>is?
>He knows that. Again, these are pop artists being passed off as jazz
>artists, even when they're being played on AOR stations.
Actually, Considine doesn't say this at all. He describes them as
"jazz-based musicians". His claim is that the popularity of the music is a
"pop phenomenon" (whatever that seeming tautology might imply).
And again, these distinctions are spurious. If anything, Krall, Jones et al.
are being *marketed* like pop artists, complete with orchestrated media
blitzes, promotional deals with radio conglomerates, glamor photography etc.
(The "real" jazz world *used* to know how to do this -- remember in the mid-80s
when you couldn't pick up a newspaper or magazine without seeing something
about Wynton Marsalis? -- but seems to have given up trying). Listen to the
music, though, and I defy you to tell me what, other than your bias going in,
makes these "pop" artists. Norah Jones may not be the most *progressive* or
*challenging* jazz singer out there, and she may not be to everyone's taste,
but a jazz singer she is, as much as Blossom Dearie or Peggy Lee ever were.
Considine's article plays right to the self-ghettoization that has plagued
jazz since about the time Miles went fusion. Aapparently if you were any good
nobody would like you, and if everybody likes you you can't be any good and
deserved to be slapped down as a poseur or traitor.
JGM
tomw
@aol.com says...
> Norah Jones may not be the most *progressive* or
> *challenging* jazz singer out there, and she may not be to everyone's taste,
> but a jazz singer she is, as much as Blossom Dearie or Peggy Lee ever were.
>
I don't understand why you would consider her a jazz singer in any
respect. She's a good singer, and, going by her piano accompanyment and
her arrangements, is a creative musician, but I don't get the jazz
connection. If Peggy Lee and Blossom Dearie are the standard, then many
singers who don't consider themselves jazz singers are jazz singers. And
that group would include Nora, according to the interview that I read. I
think you've broadened the category beyond the point where it serves a
useful function.
> Considine's article plays right to the self-ghettoization that has plagued
> jazz since about the time Miles went fusion. Aapparently if you were any good
> nobody would like you, and if everybody likes you you can't be any good and
> deserved to be slapped down as a poseur or traitor.
>
I agree, but I think it's equally absurd to attach the label "jazz" to
any popular entertainer who exhibits traces of jazz's influence.
Denise and Al
these artist do is " jazz. " I also think there are toooooo many others
that are much more talented. I think it is all about the "eye candy"
nowadays. long as your looking good they can't put your little cute butt on
an album cover and if the music doesn't sound half bad it will sell to some
horny old men or women .... hahah!! and it sure makes the recording
companys happy to make money doesn't it??
JGMcLean0
> jgmclean0 @aol.com says...
>> Norah Jones may not be the most *progressive* or
>> *challenging* jazz singer out there, and she may not be to everyone's
>taste,
>> but a jazz singer she is, as much as Blossom Dearie or Peggy Lee ever were.
>I don't understand why you would consider her a jazz singer in any
>respect. She's a good singer, and, going by her piano accompanyment and
>her arrangements, is a creative musician, but I don't get the jazz
>connection. If Peggy Lee and Blossom Dearie are the standard, then many
>singers who don't consider themselves jazz singers are jazz singers. And
>that group would include Nora, according to the interview that I read. I
>think you've broadened the category beyond the point where it serves a
>useful function.
I guess you and I would have to sit down and suss out our individual
definitions of what makes a jazz singer, then. If your definition is the
classic one for instrumental jazz, that is, melodic and rhythmic improvisation
around a chord structure and/or basic melody, then I would agree that Jones et.
al. are not jazz singers. At that point, though, you'd have to throw out at
least 80 percent of the people ever considered to be such, and a pretty fair
portion of the instrumental jazz catalog as well. For me, the fact that Jones
is operating within traditional small-combo instrumentation and arrangements
and makes simple songs her own through her choice of phrasing and expression
brings it Close Enough; that she plays her own piano (and appears to be no
slouch either) further adds authenticity, I think. It feels like jazz to me --
but then I'm not hung up on labels: I have no problem if your definition is
different, and I wasn't the one implying that being a "pop singer being passed
off as a jazz singer" (a description that I'd still claim is incorrect in this
case) is some sort of Evil Deception and threat to the musical landscape.
>> Considine's article plays right to the self-ghettoization that has plagued
>> jazz since about the time Miles went fusion. Aapparently if you were any
>good
>> nobody would like you, and if everybody likes you you can't be any good and
>> deserved to be slapped down as a poseur or traitor.
>I agree, but I think it's equally absurd to attach the label "jazz" to
>any popular entertainer who exhibits traces of jazz's influence.
Fair enough, but in that case your gripe is with Considine rather than me.
Whatever label you choose to apply (or not) to Norah Jones I think you have to
admit that there's a freshness there that is a far cry from the Muzak he
compares her to.
JGM
Luke Kaven
>Luke Kaven wrote:
> jgmc...@aol.com (JGMcLean0) wrote:
>
>>> Let's see, in the course of a dozen column-inches, we have claims that:
>>> - Jazz albums by pop vocalists is a new trend (anybody remember Linda
>>>Rondstadt in the mid-80s?)
>>
>>That isn't the claim.
>
> It's exactly the claim Considine makes: "Jazz singing has gotten so hot that
>even pop vocalists want a piece of the action." He then cites Rod Stewart and
>k.d. lang as examples.
Yes, sorry that is one of the claims. But that isn't the *major*
claim of the article. The claim might be articulated as:
1) An artist was a pop artist who was never a jazz artist
2) The artist makes a record under the label "jazz" which was not a
jazz record.
3) The artist is then mistakenly considered or passed-off as a
bona-fide jazz artist.
This is new.
>>These are pop vocalists passed off AS jazz
>>vocalists first and foremost, which represents a legislation of the
>>concept of jazz into a pop-music category. This is something
>>relatively new.
>
> Nonsense. As soon as vocal singing enters jazz the boundaries between jazz
>and pop are blurred. This has been true in any era from Bing Crosby and
>Sinatra through Sade and Harry Connick Jr in the '80s right up to Krall and
>Jones today.
>
> The idea that there is some meaningful difference between a "pop singer
>singing jazz" and a "jazz singer singing pop" -- and, by the way, Billie
>Holiday, whom Considine holds up as the avatar of this genre, was arguably more
>of the former than the latter -- is absurd. All the "classic" singers in the
>Jazz canon, Ella and Billie included, got their start in front of big bands or
>swing bands -- what do you think pop music *was* at that time? Considine seems
>to think that improvisation and "turning a tune inside out" is the stamp of a
>"true" jazz vocalist -- of course pop, soul, and gospel singers (think Aretha)
>have been doing this for decades while any number of "jazz" singers have been
>happy to stick to a basic tune and get by on mere phrasing, setting, and
>expression (as does Jones).
I think you are misidentifying Billie Holiday. She was not well known
among white listeners, except for the more sophisticated. If you ask
people of that age whether Billie Holiday was a pop singer, they will
tell you she wasn't. She was more popular among black audiences where
art was a staple, and for white audiences, she was more of a college
thing, dug by very few.
Swing was only marginally a pop music. It's core forms were mainly
popular among a college set, and then only after they had been
appropriated by Benny Goodman directly out of Fletcher Henderson's and
Don Redman's books. And that didn't last for long! A lot of pop
music after that time was "swingified". And in all this, one has to
acknowledge the harmonic sophistication of the tin-pan alley composers
as a source of inspiration, and the depression and the war as a source
of pathos -- which is to concede that In a non-trifling sense, you are
also right. The writer might have discussed more the tendency towards
musical conservativism in recent years that makes much of contemporary
jazz so barren. The writer might have also acknowledged a certain
amount of slack in the category which admits a certain amount of
pluralism, and then drawn a distinction from there.
But there is also an essential tension between art and mere
entertainment. Billie Holiday had a certain sophistication that she
could bring to entertainment. She could really improvise beyond the
pale, as could Anita O'Day, Ella, Sarah, Dinah, Betty, Carmen, etc.
This is a quality that is absolutely lacking in singers like Krall and
Monheit, etc., all of whom are good entertainers, but lack aesthetic
sophistication. Is there anyone who thinks these performers are Hip,
or would say that they can really Blow? I know most of the musicians
who have played with these singers, and they certainly don't think so.
This is a frequent topic of conversation. Those same musicians would
rather play behind, for example, another singer that we know, who has
less in the way of pipes, but more in the way of what they would say
is The Way It's Supposed To Be. I capitalize that because I hear it
said a lot, and the musicians I work with and I all know it when we
hear it.
But I still disagree with the notion that Norah Jones is a jazz
singer, even in any evolved sense of jazz. She seems to be more
begotten from other things, and bears more resemblance to Joan
Armatrading than anything I've ever heard in jazz. Since in my
semantics, jazz is -- literally -- a species term, then the
begets-begot relationship is the essential thing.
>>He knows that. Again, these are pop artists being passed off as jazz
>>artists, even when they're being played on AOR stations.
>
> Actually, Considine doesn't say this at all. He describes them as
>"jazz-based musicians". His claim is that the popularity of the music is a
>"pop phenomenon" (whatever that seeming tautology might imply).
The crucial distinction is "passed off as jazz". If you ask the
average person what they think jazz is, they will tell you that Kenny
G is jazz. Of course, even Kenny doesn't really think that. But he
is passed off for whatever effect as a jazz artist by being put in the
jazz bins. Blue Note is banking on their trademark, which dictates
putting a jazz stamp on anything they do, regardless of what it
actually is. And most of it is "young urban professional lifestyle
fashion", and occasionally, it is good in its own way.
> And again, these distinctions are spurious. If anything, Krall, Jones et al.
>are being *marketed* like pop artists, complete with orchestrated media
>blitzes, promotional deals with radio conglomerates, glamor photography etc.
>(The "real" jazz world *used* to know how to do this -- remember in the mid-80s
>when you couldn't pick up a newspaper or magazine without seeing something
>about Wynton Marsalis? -- but seems to have given up trying). Listen to the
>music, though, and I defy you to tell me what, other than your bias going in,
>makes these "pop" artists. Norah Jones may not be the most *progressive* or
>*challenging* jazz singer out there, and she may not be to everyone's taste,
>but a jazz singer she is, as much as Blossom Dearie or Peggy Lee ever were.
Well..hmm...Wynton was constructed into the token examplar of jazz, a
phenomenon that he helped to create. Most people who are one step up
from Kenny G have the ability to retain only one or two names. If
they want to seem like they know what jazz is, they have Wynton's name
to use for it. He did succeed in turning himself into a fashion,
which also does harken back to the day. Today's fashion comes more
from conservative politics, and "Fine Arts Republicanism", to use
Marty Khan's term for it. And whether I like his music or not, he is
a jazz musician, and still growing. The fashion/glamour aspects of
this were never taken so seriously by Bille, Ella, Sarah, etc. They
always had more of an edge, and were less cloying. They certainly
didn't have an agressive corporation built around them to market them
the way Krall does. And Blossom Dearie and Peggy Lee always had a
dark edge and sophistication that none of these contemporary singers
have, not to mention having come out of the jazz millieu. That is a
much different thing than having studied music in college and then
deciding to be a jazz singer...they are jazz singers, but only *after
a fashion*, so to speak.
> Considine's article plays right to the self-ghettoization that has plagued
>jazz since about the time Miles went fusion. Aapparently if you were any good
>nobody would like you, and if everybody likes you you can't be any good and
>deserved to be slapped down as a poseur or traitor.
I think the tension runs a little deeper than you suggest and is more
complex. There seems to be a persistent myth about music, as though
it were a universal language that, even in its most sophisticated
forms, ought to be graspable by anybody, no matter what they bring to
bear. This isn't so. It doesn't mean that there aren't universal
elements of the human psyche that are in play, but the aesthetics of
music -- the poetics -- run way beyond that as well into modernism, in
which the framework of the music is highly articulated in a way that
takes one time or experience to grasp. For example, everyone knows
what a rhyme is, but that doesn't mean they understand poetics.
Luke
Luke Kaven
I think it is unfair to paint Simon (and I guess me) into an academic
mold. There clearly is a socio-political explanation for a lot of
these things, none of which is at odds with street-level
(basement-level) experience. In fact, it sounds a lot like the talk
on the street, and in the back rooms of jazz clubs. People who deny
the socio-poltical explanations seem to be buying into the "universal
language" myth, which covers a multitude of suppressed arguments with
sheer piety.
When one's retirement is in jeopardy and the wolf is at the door seems
to be the right time to look for sociopolitical explanations, along
with the other staples of living. Doesn't one need to figure out
what's wrong in order to make it better?
Luke
Richard Thurston
>
>Well, yeah - I did kind of forsee this reply, and in a general kind of way
>agree with it. I mean, for me, the highpoint of Jazz innovation stopped in the
>60s. The 70s, you got fusion, which I still find value in. The 80s and 90s, it
>slowed down. But, now I just think there's real stagnation. For me the 80s and
>90s were conservative decades in both Jazz and the wider society and innovation
>existed at the fringes. I take what's happening now as an extension of that.
>With a hyper-conservative US government and artistic innovation approaching
>non-existent except through brave hold-outs.
>
>God knows where this all leads.
>
>Simon Weil
Dunno about that.
The 1950's are certainly considered (by a great many people) a
'hyper-conservative' political era here in the states but music, film
art and literature progressed nicely.
Makes one wonder what (if any) connection exists between the world of
art and the world of politics.
Richard Thurston
tomw
ric...@groverthurston.com says...
relationship and the time element depends on the dynamic of the specific
events.
Luke Kaven
I think there is a connection between the world of art and the world
of politics, but that it isn't as simple as to say that the world of
art mirrors the world of politics. There are of course local
variations. Not everything is equally affected by the prevailing
political moods. During the fifites, there was also rampant strife,
with the red scare and artists being blacklisted, with civil rights
beginning to boil over, and the traditional American family structure
becoming unglued at the seams. These things affected artists
directly, especially in the black communities, and since art was more
of a grass roots affair then, and less of an academic affair, this
affected the art to a higher degree I think.
Conservativism and complacency in jazz in recent times is partly due
to the movement of jazz to the universities, where well heeled kids
learn jazz and 'how to be a jazz musician' as an academic subject, .
It is less of a grass roots music coming from the street, and more of
an academic career track. No wonder most musicians playing today
don't have anything to say to me, and why their music sounds like an
ode to the classroom.
Luke Kaven
[...]
>I don't want to shoot the messenger, I'd rather just bury his sociology
>textbooks. However you must remember my hostility could just be a function
>of my economic stagnation vis-a-vis the bursting of the technological
>bubble. My 401K has gone south and the landlord is at the door.... quick
>I need my Diana Krall fix.
I meant to add this before: I don't begrudge anyone a liking for pop
art. And I don't think of myself as superior. When it comes to
movies, I like some appallingly bad pulp films along with other more
artistic stuff. Sometimes I need to escape. Some people might escape
with Diana Krall, or "Fly Away" with Norah Jones. All I want is for
the more artistic (and yes, politically relevant) side of jazz not to
be killed off by marketing forces that tend to overwhelm the category
with sheer numbers, which has the effect of eviscerating the category,
and then replacing that with new inhabitants. Let people have what
they want, but just *don't kill the precious thing*. I likened this
once before to the idea of replacing the contents of the Museum of
Modern Art with Leroy Neiman paintings, which are enormously popular.
I don't begrudge people who get pleasure out of those paintings, but I
wouldn't want to see Renoir, Degas, Monet, etc. exhibitions either
replaced wholly or otherwise driven out. They are too precious.
That isn't so controversial, is it?
Richard Thurston
<lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote:
>
>I think there is a connection between the world of art and the world
>of politics, but that it isn't as simple as to say that the world of
>art mirrors the world of politics. There are of course local
>variations. Not everything is equally affected by the prevailing
>political moods. During the fifites, there was also rampant strife,
>with the red scare and artists being blacklisted, with civil rights
>beginning to boil over, and the traditional American family structure
>becoming unglued at the seams.
Sort of like today in many ways. At least a common complaint is the
unluedness of the American family. And certainly the issue of civil
rights continues to plague the US. Likewise we have our own version of
the red scare underway and radical Islam is the new menace du jour. I
agree it isn't as simple as art mirroring politics exactly. And that
is why I raised the question. Given the state of things one would
think
These things affected artists
>directly, especially in the black communities, and since art was more
>of a grass roots affair then, and less of an academic affair, this
>affected the art to a higher degree I think.
I agree.
>
>Conservativism and complacency in jazz in recent times is partly due
>to the movement of jazz to the universities, where well heeled kids
>learn jazz and 'how to be a jazz musician' as an academic subject, .
>It is less of a grass roots music coming from the street, and more of
>an academic career track. No wonder most musicians playing today
>don't have anything to say to me, and why their music sounds like an
>ode to the classroom.
Similar thing takes place in art museums and galleries all too often.
Art made for and about one another. Exclusionary and hermetic.
Self-absorbed and endlessly self-referential. Not to mention boring to
an astonishing degree.
Richard Thurston
Simon Weil
>>Well, yeah - I did kind of forsee this reply, and in a general kind of way
>>agree with it. I mean, for me, the highpoint of Jazz innovation stopped in
>the
>>60s. The 70s, you got fusion, which I still find value in. The 80s and 90s,
>it
>>slowed down. But, now I just think there's real stagnation. For me the 80s
>and
>>90s were conservative decades in both Jazz and the wider society and
>innovation
>>existed at the fringes. I take what's happening now as an extension of that.
>>With a hyper-conservative US government and artistic innovation approaching
>>non-existent except through brave hold-outs.
>>
>>God knows where this all leads.
>>
>
>Dunno about that.
>
>The 1950's are certainly considered (by a great many people) a
>'hyper-conservative' political era here in the states but music, film
>art and literature progressed nicely.
I don't know enough about the 50s to be able to comment on why that is except
to guess. My guess is that, up to the 60s, the idea that it was possible to
make the world better prevailed - even within a conservative era that
prevailed. Art reflected that - as you say, it progressed.
The 60s saw the birth of post-modernism in art - and at the same time a series
of as yet unresolved conflicts in the leading society of the West, America.
And, for me, the two are related. But I actually think of free Jazz up to Ayler
as modernist and related to the Civil Rights movement etc.
The 70s were the era of malaise - and you can read my thing on that here:
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/articles/arti0601_01.htm
My thing about the 80s and 90s follows on:
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/articles/arti0701_01.htm
And if you've really got too much time on your hands you can read the first
article in the series:
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/articles/arti0501_01.htm
>
>Makes one wonder what (if any) connection exists between the world of
>art and the world of politics.
>
Personally I believe the whole "vibe"of a time, like how it feels to live at
that time (and place), ends up being articulated culturally - whether it's in
pop records or whatever. I don't think it's politics, rather *society* that
gets expressed in cultural products.
Instinctively,I don't believe in a "pure" world of art unconnected with the
real world. Even (or perhaps especially) if something is escapism, it's still
escaping *from* something. I mean that old line about "you can only be free
*from* something" comes into play.
Which is not to say I can (or anyone else can) know what the connection is.
Simon Weil
Richard Thurston
>
>Which is not to say I can (or anyone else can) know what the connection is.
>
>Simon Weil
Rats.
I came here for answers.
Richard Thurston
void
>
> I meant to add this before: I don't begrudge anyone a liking for pop
> art. And I don't think of myself as superior. When it comes to
> movies, I like some appallingly bad pulp films along with other more
> artistic stuff. Sometimes I need to escape. Some people might escape
> with Diana Krall, or "Fly Away" with Norah Jones.
It's "Come Away", by the way. And, uh, thanks for the tolerance.
It's important to distinguish between bad marketing and bad music,
though I understand that some artists are associated with both.
np: Sam Rivers, "Inspiration"
--
Ben
"An art scene of delight
I created this to be ..." -- Sun Ra
Richard Thurston
<lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote:
>
>The crucial distinction is "passed off as jazz". If you ask the
>average person what they think jazz is, they will tell you that Kenny
>G is jazz. Of course, even Kenny doesn't really think that. But he
>is passed off for whatever effect as a jazz artist by being put in the
>jazz bins. Blue Note is banking on their trademark, which dictates
>putting a jazz stamp on anything they do, regardless of what it
>actually is. And most of it is "young urban professional lifestyle
>fashion", and occasionally, it is good in its own way.
>
>
>
>Luke
From the Bluenote Website:
(Bruce) Lundvall noted, "Norah’s recording is not exactly a jazz
album, but it is jazz-informed.The best thing is to say she’s beyond
category."
Richard Thurston
Sum1
"Luke Kaven" <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote in message
news:1vga5v0b2981fplpg...@4ax.com...
Not at all.
But you make it sound like there is some sort of conspiracy to kill "real"
jazz.
Sum1
> "Sum1" <shridurga@-yahoo.com> wrote:
> Which seems more fair: adult pop music doesn't suffer *anything* by
> being called "instrumental pop" or "vocal pop" instead of
> misappropriating an existing style, namely "jazz". Whereas historical
> forms of jazz music as art suffer when the name "jazz" is
> misappropriated by instrument or vocal pop artists playing McMusic.
What is called "rock" today is certainly not the same as "rock" of the
1950's. Has that historical form of rock suffered by association with
modern forms?
Luke Kaven
>"Luke Kaven" <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote
>
>> Which seems more fair: adult pop music doesn't suffer *anything* by
>> being called "instrumental pop" or "vocal pop" instead of
>> misappropriating an existing style, namely "jazz". Whereas historical
>> forms of jazz music as art suffer when the name "jazz" is
>> misappropriated by instrument or vocal pop artists playing McMusic.
>
>What is called "rock" today is certainly not the same as "rock" of the
>1950's. Has that historical form of rock suffered by association with
>modern forms?
This is a good question.
I think the white rockers eclipsed the true creators, like Bo Diddley.
Even in trying to pay tribute, the press *still* looks at him as "the
man who influenced ELVIS PRESLEY" as though that were his claim to
fame! He isn't important because he influenced a popular white person
for god's sake. He's important because he was a true original and
invented a style that was sublime. He should have been the star. But
second-rate white imitators overshadowed him.
From a recent NY Times article:
"Performers as diverse as Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix,
Mick Jagger and Bruce Springsteen have been inspired by the syncopated
Bo Diddley beat..."
"Mr. Diddley's uses of the electric guitar, creating special effects
like reverb, tremolo and distortion, influenced funk bands in the
1960's and heavy metal groups in the 1970's...."
"'I opened the door for a lot of people, and they just ran through and
left me holding the knob,' he said with pride and anger..."
"'Have I been recognized? No, no, no. Not like I should have been,' he
said. 'Have I been ripped off? Have I seen royalty checks? You bet
I've been ripped off.'"
Luke Kaven
>
>"Luke Kaven" <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote in message
>> I meant to add this before: I don't begrudge anyone a liking for pop
>> art. [...] Let people have what
>> they want, but just *don't kill the precious thing*.
>> That isn't so controversial, is it?
>
>Not at all.
>
>But you make it sound like there is some sort of conspiracy to kill "real"
>jazz.
I wouldn't call it a conspiracy. If it were a conspiracy at all, it
would be de facto, or tacit conspiracy. The precious thing is
relatively fragile. It's a little more like somebody accidentally
running over a swan with their car. One didn't intend to, but then
again, one's car tends to run roughshod over anything it comes into
contact with by virtue of size and weight. One has to learn to look
where one is going.
Luke
The Arranger
> Conservativism and complacency in jazz in recent times is partly due
> to the movement of jazz to the universities, where well heeled kids
> learn jazz and 'how to be a jazz musician' as an academic subject, .
> It is less of a grass roots music coming from the street, and more of
> an academic career track. No wonder most musicians playing today
> don't have anything to say to me, and why their music sounds like an
> ode to the classroom.
If not for the University Jazz movement, jazz would probably be dead,
unfortunately. What can you do.
I am a skeptic about creating direct links between politics and art,
because in many ways I am culturally reactionary and politically
far-left. Although in both areas I don't fit any mold easily. I like
Diana Krall. I also listen to Archie Shepp and Lester Bowie and Eric
Dolphy. I also like Johnny Cash and the Dion and the Belmonts, for
what it's worth.
Who gives a rat's ass whether something qualifies as "jazz." The same
arguments were had over Dinah Washington (whom I love) and John
McLaughlin (I'll pass, but you may partake without any objection from
me). Here's a continuum, you draw the line:
Ellington-Lunceford-Goodman-Miller-Elgart. I've dispensed with the
whole argument myself.
I don't want to be "challenged" every minute of the day. (I have two
kids for that.) And sometimes I do want to be engaged, shaken up.
While I can't stand Kenny G, I'm loathe to attack him or those that
do. How many of us entered the world of jazz by listening to
Coltrane's "India." For me it was Maynard Ferguson (hey, I was 13).
The first time I heard Bird, it sounded like free jazz to me. It took
a while. If people start with Norah Jones or Diana Krall, then move on
to Shirley Horn, etc., it's a good thing for all of us. In 1968,
somebody probably picked up the trumpet because they dug the Tijuana
Brass, and then discovered Miles, Clifford, Dizzy, Freddie, Cherry,
etc. And who cares if he cues up "Whipped Cream" every few years for
old times' sake?
These people aren't driving out other recording artists. They probably
are helping to bring some people into jazz who wouldn't otherwise give
it a second look.
And in defense of Krall and Pizzarelli: if they weren't immenseley
popular, and if you heard them only as instrumentalists, would you
deny that they are "jazz"?
JGMcLean0
>The precious thing is
>relatively fragile. It's a little more like somebody accidentally
>running over a swan with their car.
This treatement of jazz as a fragile thing that is threatened rather than
informed by the outside world is largely what has led to the stagnation and
inbreeding that is the current bane. Do you think Miles was ever worried about
being run over by *any* outside thing?
JGM
Luke Kaven
>Luke Kaven wrote:
>
>>The precious thing is
>>relatively fragile. It's a little more like somebody accidentally
>>running over a swan with their car.
>
> This treatement of jazz as a fragile thing that is threatened rather than
>informed by the outside world is largely what has led to the stagnation and
>inbreeding that is the current bane.
You're partly right. But that only applies to certain ways of
approaching the problem. Putting jazz in the academy both boosts it
and also causes severe stagnation. Creating a jazz scene, and giving
musicians a chance to develop spontaneously is better for the art.
Having executives from Sony, or from Vivendi/Bertelsmann/Seagrams say
"these records have to sell over 50,000 copies each, or we're cutting
the jazz division, so you'd better make some big hits!" causes
producers to look outside jazz for "jazz" artists.
If you look at announcements by the formerly-independent jazz labels
after being bought by the transnational corporations, you will see
such things as "we're going to encourage our jazz artists to record
with Rock and R&B and Funk musicians", and this was after the jazz
roster was cut. The word 'encourage' was a euphemism for a threat.
By the way, this is not to say that artists did not buy in. Sure, a
lot of those artists wanted to think that they were 50,000 sellers
right off the bat. We know several who got dropped after one record,
as though they had failed somehow. But they hadn't failed--there was
a mismatch of expectations. To develop a promising artist, you have
to put out steady releases without the expectation that each one is
going to be a big hit. Put the budget down where it should be so you
can stay in business. Take a young artist like Jason Lindner, for
example. He should have four or five records out by now under his own
name. Goodness knows he's got the talent. Frank Hewitt should have
been recorded all through his career. C Sharpe..don't even get me
started with that.
> Do you think Miles was ever worried about
>being run over by *any* outside thing?
Miles was rich and famous, and he could do as he pleased without much
worry. Only a handful of jazz artists today have that luxury.
And by the way, in order for Miles to get started, somebody had to say
"he's great...this might only sell 5000 copies--but that's ok, we'll
just have to make a lot more records!"
Luke
Nathan Tenny
Luke Kaven <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote:
>jgmc...@aol.com (JGMcLean0) wrote:
>> This treatement of jazz as a fragile thing that is threatened rather than
>>informed by the outside world is largely what has led to the stagnation and
>>inbreeding that is the current bane.
>
>You're partly right. But that only applies to certain ways of
>approaching the problem. Putting jazz in the academy both boosts it
>and also causes severe stagnation. Creating a jazz scene, and giving
>musicians a chance to develop spontaneously is better for the art.
>
>Having executives from Sony, or from Vivendi/Bertelsmann/Seagrams say
>"these records have to sell over 50,000 copies each, or we're cutting
>the jazz division, so you'd better make some big hits!" causes
>producers to look outside jazz for "jazz" artists.
>
>If you look at announcements by the formerly-independent jazz labels
>after being bought by the transnational corporations, you will see
>such things as "we're going to encourage our jazz artists to record
>with Rock and R&B and Funk musicians", and this was after the jazz
>roster was cut. The word 'encourage' was a euphemism for a threat.
OK, I'm playing devil's avocado here, a little bit, but bear with me:
Maybe we oughta be looking at this development not from the jazz
perspective but from the easy-listening perspective, as one might
look at fair portions of fusion in the 70s and say not "what lousy jazz"
but "what interesting rock". By the same token, I'll say this for the
"smooth-jazz" flavor of ear-pudding music: It beats the living hell
out of elevator music that *hasn't* listened to jazz. Which is a
bit like saying "herbivore feces don't smell as bad as carnivore feces",
but, heck, that's true too... :-) So maybe this is a case of jazz
offering something *to* another genre---it doesn't happen to be a genre
that most of us in this conversation like, so small surprise if the
aspects of jazz that it finds helpful seem kind of appalling.
Personally, I doubt if we're ever again going to see an era of genuine,
forward-looking jazz as highly popular music. It takes too much effort to
appreciate; it *rewards* that effort, to be sure, but there's so much
effortless entertainment available that it's kind of hard to believe that
huge numbers of people are ever going to bestir themselves to seek out the
challenging stuff. It's for a relatively small, self-selected audience,
and so it'll remain. And it follows that the multinationals are going to
be out of the picture, because they can't afford to deal in small, picky,
eccentric audiences.
So the right question isn't "How can the multinationals be led to support
jazz?" but "How can something be led to support jazz, given that the
multinationals won't?"
Heck, maybe out-of-genre collaborations are exactly the right answer;
one huge-selling fake-jazz-influenced-sonic-mush album could subsidize
several Serious Projects, like a painter doing commercial art to pay the
bills while working on less-marketable works of genius.
>And by the way, in order for Miles to get started, somebody had to say
>"he's great...this might only sell 5000 copies--but that's ok, we'll
>just have to make a lot more records!"
And if Miles came out of the woodwork today, that somebody wouldn't be
a major label. We may just need to get better, as the rock world has
rapidly been getting better, at locating the best material in a sea of
microlabels without corporate guidance. I actually think that sounds kind
of fun and likely to produce a lot of interesting music. Hard economic
road for the players, though.
NT
--
Nathan Tenny | Space is where your ass is.
Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA | -William S. Burroughs
<nten...@qualcomm.com> |
Luke Kaven
I'm not at odds with that view. As I say, I don't wish to deny
easy-listening to the people who want it or find solace in it. My
main concern is that art not be pushed-out by it. People have to be
actively encouraged to give art an opportunity.
>Personally, I doubt if we're ever again going to see an era of genuine,
>forward-looking jazz as highly popular music. It takes too much effort to
>appreciate; it *rewards* that effort, to be sure, but there's so much
>effortless entertainment available that it's kind of hard to believe that
>huge numbers of people are ever going to bestir themselves to seek out the
>challenging stuff. It's for a relatively small, self-selected audience,
>and so it'll remain. And it follows that the multinationals are going to
>be out of the picture, because they can't afford to deal in small, picky,
>eccentric audiences.
I agree. I'm not sure forward looking jazz as ever a highly popular
music. The multinationals could take a turn towards housing
independent labels, but not without a culture change.
>So the right question isn't "How can the multinationals be led to support
>jazz?" but "How can something be led to support jazz, given that the
>multinationals won't?"
Right.
>Heck, maybe out-of-genre collaborations are exactly the right answer;
>one huge-selling fake-jazz-influenced-sonic-mush album could subsidize
>several Serious Projects, like a painter doing commercial art to pay the
>bills while working on less-marketable works of genius.
Hmmm...possibly. I suspected that the key to running an indie label
was to have a reliably good product, which tends to develop loyalty.
But on the other hand...we'll see.
>>And by the way, in order for Miles to get started, somebody had to say
>>"he's great...this might only sell 5000 copies--but that's ok, we'll
>>just have to make a lot more records!"
>
>And if Miles came out of the woodwork today, that somebody wouldn't be
>a major label. We may just need to get better, as the rock world has
>rapidly been getting better, at locating the best material in a sea of
>microlabels without corporate guidance. I actually think that sounds kind
>of fun and likely to produce a lot of interesting music. Hard economic
>road for the players, though.
It wasn't a major label back then either. Savoy, Prestige, Blue Note,
all indies.
Its a very hard economic road for players...the forces against them
are freakishly harsh. More than once I've seen The Good Thing almost
happen, only to have the artist die first, or the cheating partner
steal everything. Sick world.
Luke
Simon Weil
>>So the right question isn't "How can the multinationals be led to support
>>jazz?" but "How can something be led to support jazz, given that the
>>multinationals won't?"
>
>Right.
There is an as yet unfulfilled avenue. That is Jazz as an art. We all call it
an art (well very many of us do) and so do the cogniscenti in the wider art
world. But, by and large, they don't mean it. The thing is practically no-one
outside the Jazz world "gets" Jazz. So that while yer average art personage may
refer to Jazz as an art, he's really just being polite. This means that Jazz
exists within its own little ghetto - that's my explanation for ghettoization.
Of course there are others, but this'll do for me, in asmuch as I can see
potential openings (or maybe sense those openings would be more or accurate. Or
maybe I have wishful thinking that such openings exist: who knows). Anyway, the
point is, if you actually get to the point where Jazz can be comprehended by
the average husband, wife and two kids who go to a Monet exhibition, you're
going to have a *way* bigger audience.
So that's my theory.
Simon Weil
Nathan Tenny
Luke Kaven <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote:
>n_t_e_nn_y_@q_ual_c_o_m_m_.c_o_m (Nathan Tenny) wrote:
>>OK, I'm playing devil's avocado here, a little bit, but bear with me:
>>Maybe we oughta be looking at this development not from the jazz
>
>I'm not at odds with that view. As I say, I don't wish to deny
>easy-listening to the people who want it or find solace in it. My
>main concern is that art not be pushed-out by it. People have to be
>actively encouraged to give art an opportunity.
You know, I wonder if it *is* being pushed out, really. Jazz is certainly
losing what place it had in the world of huge corporate labels, but I
think that would be happening anyway, irrespective of whether other
genres are incorporating (however superficially) jazz influences and jazz
musicians.
If it were almost any other genre, I'd say "...and it may bring some new
listeners who wouldn't have come to jazz by looking for it under that name",
but in this case I don't buy that, precisely because this sort of elevator-
fuzak is quite consciously designed for inattention. I don't imagine
many people listening to mood music suddenly say "Hey, that sax player
sounds really good, I should see if he's done other stuff!" But I do
think the listener pools are almost totally disjoint; there aren't many
people listening to smooth jazz who would otherwise be listening to
Cecil Taylor, surely.
So the crossover mush isn't stealing listeners from jazz, I don't think
it's really stealing record-company dollars, and because of that I'm not
sure I see the sense in which it can *damage* the Real Stuff.
>>Heck, maybe out-of-genre collaborations are exactly the right answer;
>>one huge-selling fake-jazz-influenced-sonic-mush album could subsidize
>>several Serious Projects, like a painter doing commercial art to pay the
>>bills while working on less-marketable works of genius.
>
>Hmmm...possibly. I suspected that the key to running an indie label
>was to have a reliably good product, which tends to develop loyalty.
>But on the other hand...we'll see.
Just as a thought, there's no sacred reason why label contracts should
always say Thou Shalt Not Record For Any Other. I guess I'm imagining
players who do commercial releases on Giant Label From Hell, Inc.,
and their Real Work on some little indie label, rich in character and
integrity and all those good things, that can afford to deal in small
sales figures.
The only obstacle I see to that, really, is a tendency for major-label
contracts to say We Own Your Ass, but that at least is something I
can *imagine* changing.
>Its a very hard economic road for players...the forces against them
>are freakishly harsh. More than once I've seen The Good Thing almost
>happen, only to have the artist die first, or the cheating partner
>steal everything. Sick world.
It's just amazing to me how badly really, really good artists get
maltreated without very many people appearing to care. Money is
scary stuff.
Dennis J. Kosterman
>There is an as yet unfulfilled avenue. That is Jazz as an art. We all call it
>an art (well very many of us do) and so do the cogniscenti in the wider art
>world. But, by and large, they don't mean it. The thing is practically no-one
>outside the Jazz world "gets" Jazz. So that while yer average art personage may
>refer to Jazz as an art, he's really just being polite. This means that Jazz
>exists within its own little ghetto - that's my explanation for ghettoization.
>Of course there are others, but this'll do for me, in asmuch as I can see
>potential openings (or maybe sense those openings would be more or accurate. Or
>maybe I have wishful thinking that such openings exist: who knows). Anyway, the
>point is, if you actually get to the point where Jazz can be comprehended by
>the average husband, wife and two kids who go to a Monet exhibition, you're
>going to have a *way* bigger audience.
>So that's my theory.
I must take exception to this theory. I'd be surprised if a husband,
wife, and two kids going to a Monet exhibition is any more common than
the same family going to a jazz concert. I think *anything* that's
widely perceived as "art" is pretty much ignored by the general
public. Classical music, ballet, opera, theatre, painting and
sculpture, literature -- all are appreciated by a relatively small
portion of the general populace. Just like jazz. Great art in any
medium takes more effort to appreciate than the average person is
willing to expend. They'd rather watch TV or go hang out at the bar.
Thus has it ever been and will ever be.
Dennis J. Kosterman
den...@tds.net
Alan Young
<den...@tds.net> wrote:
> I'd be surprised if a husband,
> wife, and two kids going to a Monet exhibition is any more common than
> the same family going to a jazz concert. I think *anything* that's
> widely perceived as "art" is pretty much ignored by the general
> public. Classical music, ballet, opera, theatre, painting and
> sculpture, literature -- all are appreciated by a relatively small
> portion of the general populace. Just like jazz.
So far, exactly right.
> Great art in any
> medium takes more effort to appreciate than the average person is
> willing to expend. They'd rather watch TV or go hang out at the bar.
> Thus has it ever been and will ever be.
No, I disagree with that part. We live in a brainwashed culture, but
there are other cultures where *everyone* is involved in art. Bali
comes to mind. So it hasn't *always* been this way.
Whether we can sustain a technological culture *and* get average
people interested in art is another question.
--
alan
"[Television programming] is a campaign of fear and consumption. Make
people afraid and they'll consume."
--Marilyn Manson in "Bowling for Columbine"
Simon Weil
>I must take exception to this theory. I'd be surprised if a husband,
>wife, and two kids going to a Monet exhibition is any more common than
>the same family going to a jazz concert. I think *anything* that's
>widely perceived as "art" is pretty much ignored by the general
>public. Classical music, ballet, opera, theatre, painting and
>sculpture, literature -- all are appreciated by a relatively small
>portion of the general populace. Just like jazz. Great art in any
>medium takes more effort to appreciate than the average person is
>willing to expend. They'd rather watch TV or go hang out at the bar.
>Thus has it ever been and will ever be.
>
audiences (overall) to Jazz gigs.
Simon Weil
Luke Kaven
>Dennis J. Kosterman wrote:
>>I must take exception to this theory. I'd be surprised if a husband,
>>wife, and two kids going to a Monet exhibition is any more common than
>>the same family going to a jazz concert.
[...]
>OK, explain how you get enormous audiences to Monet exhibitions and tiny
>audiences (overall) to Jazz gigs.
>
>Simon Weil
Microtreatise follows.
In general, I think the visual arts are more accessible to
individuals, average or otherwise. There are a couple of reasons:
For one, the visual cortex is much more highly developed than the
auditory cortex, and occupies most of our brains. We are made to be
much more engaged with our visual experiences than with our auditory
experiences, and the aesthetics of such experiences are more innate.
Second (and this partly explains the first), the nature of visual
experiences are more accessible to the public, and hence, easier for
one to verify intersubjectively. This is an aspect of empiricism, in
which our knowledge of the world is promoted by the extent to which
our experiences can be intersubjectively verified in the neutral court
of observation.
For example, consider
(1) Subject points to painting, and says to another, "do you see
*that*?", after which a dialog follows, which includes more pointing
and further explanation.
Compare this with
(2) Subject, listening to music, says to another "did you hear
*that*?".
Notice the difference between the uses of the demonstrative in the two
examples. In the case of visual experience, one can ostensibly point
to something in a way that is intersubjectively verifiable. In other
words, it is easier for me to know that I am seeing the very thing
that is being demonstratively pointed out to me by another. It is
easy to get another to reliably count the number of apples just the
same as you do. In the case of auditory experience, there is very
little reliable evidence one can give in intersubjectively identifying
the phenomena being pointed to. It is very hard to know whether one
hears something as you do. And in fact, there are INTRAsubjective
difficulties in verifying that one is experiencing one and the same
phenomenon when present on two separate occasions, until one has
developed a way to verify such within reason for one's self. [And by
the way, it is easier to reliably identify visual phenomena that are
static. Auditory phenomena are never static in the same sense. A
sound doesn't so much hang in the air as a painting does.]
Luke
Sum1
Ah, the analogy should be from evolution - birds were once reptiles, but the
lizards are still around. It's just that most people prefer swans.
Sum1
> "Sum1" <shri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >"Luke Kaven" <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote
> >> "Sum1" <shri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Which seems more fair: adult pop music doesn't suffer *anything* by
> >> being called "instrumental pop" or "vocal pop" instead of
> >> misappropriating an existing style, namely "jazz". Whereas historical
> >> forms of jazz music as art suffer when the name "jazz" is
> >> misappropriated by instrument or vocal pop artists playing McMusic.
> >
> >What is called "rock" today is certainly not the same as "rock" of the
> >1950's. Has that historical form of rock suffered by association with
> >modern forms?
>
> This is a good question.
>
> I think the white rockers eclipsed the true creators, like Bo Diddley.
Doesn't mean Bo's been forgotten.
So how has rock suffered? Or jazz from being associated with such "lesser
lights" as Norah Jones or Diana Krall?
Sum1
"Alan Young" <aay...@sonic.net> wrote in message
news:210220032046069629%aay...@sonic.net...
> No, I disagree with that part. We live in a brainwashed culture, but
> there are other cultures where *everyone* is involved in art. Bali
> comes to mind.
Bali is certainly a magical place, but one need not pick up an instrument,
brush, or sculting knife to make art. Art is to be found in the saimple
day-to-day act of living. All of life is art, if you chose not to
discriminate.
Luke Kaven
>"Luke Kaven" <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote
>> "Sum1" <shri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >"Luke Kaven" <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote
>> >> "Sum1" <shri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Which seems more fair: adult pop music doesn't suffer *anything* by
>> >> being called "instrumental pop" or "vocal pop" instead of
>> >> misappropriating an existing style, namely "jazz". Whereas historical
>> >> forms of jazz music as art suffer when the name "jazz" is
>> >> misappropriated by instrument or vocal pop artists playing McMusic.
>> >
>> >What is called "rock" today is certainly not the same as "rock" of the
>> >1950's. Has that historical form of rock suffered by association with
>> >modern forms?
>>
>> This is a good question.
>>
>> I think the white rockers eclipsed the true creators, like Bo Diddley.
>
>Doesn't mean Bo's been forgotten.
>
>So how has rock suffered? Or jazz from being associated with such "lesser
>lights" as Norah Jones or Diana Krall?
It is in the fact that you read my previous reply and didn't get the
point of it. That and the fact that you're in good company. The New
York Times perpetuated an injustice while supposedly in the act of
trying to correct such.
Luke
Sum1
That I didn't get your point indicates that rock - and/or jazz - has
suffered from something as yet undefined? Which has been compounded by the
NY Times?
What are you on about?
Simon Weil
>>>I must take exception to this theory. I'd be surprised if a husband,
>>>wife, and two kids going to a Monet exhibition is any more common than
>>>the same family going to a jazz concert.
>[...]
>>OK, explain how you get enormous audiences to Monet exhibitions and tiny
>>audiences (overall) to Jazz gigs.
>>
>
>Microtreatise follows.
>
>In general, I think the visual arts are more accessible to
>individuals, average or otherwise. There are a couple of reasons:
>
>For one, the visual cortex is much more highly developed than the
>auditory cortex, and occupies most of our brains. We are made to be
>much more engaged with our visual experiences than with our auditory
>experiences, and the aesthetics of such experiences are more innate.
Right. I think that's undeniable. But I would argue that, when music - not
sound, note - gets in, it connects in quite and exceptional way. I remember
having an argument with Sabutin a few years ago, where he maintained that music
was *so* powerful that people had to use distancing mechanisms to avoid being
over-affected by it. That was his explanation for why avant-garde Jazzers
(Maybe I used Cecil Taylor, I can't remember) are not heard, whereas parallel
people in Visual art (My parallel for CT would be cubist period Picasso) were
digestible. My speculative explanation, which I think we've talked about
before, is that the brain actually communicates with nerve impulses of varying
frequencies - so that, maybe, music is in part an analogue of the language of
the brain. Visual stimuli have to be converted into this language. So my
speculation is that music speaks to us as a direct inject to the language of
brain.
>
>Second (and this partly explains the first), the nature of visual
>experiences are more accessible to the public, and hence, easier for
>one to verify intersubjectively. This is an aspect of empiricism, in
>which our knowledge of the world is promoted by the extent to which
>our experiences can be intersubjectively verified in the neutral court
>of observation.
You're saying you can put a name to visual experiences? Like this is a dog -
that is a cat - that is a distorted representation of a dog which looks a bit
like a cat. Things like that?
>For example, consider
>(1) Subject points to painting, and says to another, "do you see
>*that*?", after which a dialog follows, which includes more pointing
>and further explanation.
>Compare this with
>(2) Subject, listening to music, says to another "did you hear
>*that*?".
Right. With music there are a few ways you can look at it. There's the formal
approach - chord sequences and neat resolutions and things like that - which
you need to be Jazz musically educated to "get". Mind you I think that's just
as much a thing that's capable of this is a dog type explanation - if you've
got the knowledge.
Then there's music as evoker as emotion. I think you can see that best in film
music. I'm one of these guys who watches movies over and over again - and at
some point I usually come to the conclusion that the music is telling the
audience how to feel. Now, it's not often discussed like that, it's just felt -
But, to me, the reactions film music produces do seem deliberate and, on the
part of the composer and director, predictable. So this is the area that really
interests me in Jazz - putting a name to the kind of emotion that a piece
expresses - because, I think, that sort of Jazz criticism can have a much wider
impact than criticism which concentrates on the formal aspects. Simply because
everyone has emotions - we can all relate to them - whereas only a very few get
much out a discussion of the, let's say, technical aspects of a piece. For me
the ideal would be a piece of criticism which combined the two - which is what
you get in quality visual art criticism.
There's also the impressionistic use of music - which you get a bit of in Jazz
- and would also seem to be more widely digestible to non-specialist audiences.
>
>Notice the difference between the uses of the demonstrative in the two
>examples. In the case of visual experience, one can ostensibly point
>to something in a way that is intersubjectively verifiable. In other
>words, it is easier for me to know that I am seeing the very thing
>that is being demonstratively pointed out to me by another. It is
>easy to get another to reliably count the number of apples just the
>same as you do. In the case of auditory experience, there is very
>little reliable evidence one can give in intersubjectively identifying
>the phenomena being pointed to. It is very hard to know whether one
>hears something as you do. And in fact, there are INTRAsubjective
>difficulties in verifying that one is experiencing one and the same
>phenomenon when present on two separate occasions, until one has
>developed a way to verify such within reason for one's self. [And by
>the way, it is easier to reliably identify visual phenomena that are
>static. Auditory phenomena are never static in the same sense. A
>sound doesn't so much hang in the air as a painting does.]
Once a note is played it's gone (Eric Dolphy said something about Jazz along
those lines)...
But the melody lingers on.
Simon Weil
Luke Kaven
It isn't a question of Bo Diddley being "forgotten", it is a question
of the fact that he never was, even to this day, recognized in the way
a true original ought to be. He is remembered instead -- absurdly --
as the person who influenced the people who imitated him. Even to
this day, supposed attempts to give him his due follow that. Since
when are "pale imitations popularized to a large white audience" more
important than "original creators". Imagine if Picasso were black and
best known for having influenced a wildly popular, but second-rate
white painter. Under those circumstances, could we excuse it by
saying that Picasso wasn't "forgotten"? Would it be just to hail the
guy who produced the pale imitations as "The King" because he was so
popular with white people, who control the media outlets and write the
history books?
Luke
Joseph Scott
> Luke Kaven wrote:
> >
> > That isn't the claim. These are pop vocalists passed off AS jazz
> > vocalists first and foremost, which represents a legislation of the
> > concept of jazz into a pop-music category. This is something
> > relatively new.
>
> ???? What about Bing Crosby ????
>
To the best of my understanding, around '31, Bing was a jazzy pop
vocalist -- he was a good improvising scat singer -- being passed off
as a jazzy pop vocalist, and later (in a general trend that rather
parallels Nat Cole's singing career over the decades) Bing switched
squarely to pop vocalist being passed off as a pop vocalist.
> Vocalists on the fence between pop and jazz are as old as jazz is.
Hear hear.
Joseph Scott
Joseph Scott
> >singing jazz" and a "jazz singer singing pop" -- and, by the way, Billie
> >Holiday, whom Considine holds up as the avatar of this genre, was arguably more
> >of the former than the latter -- is absurd.
Yes, I think I understand what you mean: Considine basically defined
"real jazz" in one, fairly narrow way, Ella's improvised scat singing
and such, and then, ironically, immediately asked, "Billie Holiday
died for this?", which suggests he doesn't know much about Billie. If
anything, Billie _popularized_ the approach of taking a fine pop tune
and applying _subtle_ improvisation to it (no improvised scat breaks
for Billie) -- i.e. more or less what all these (ostensibly)
lightweight aging boomers want to hear, rather than Ella's "Flying
Home"! So in short, no, Billie didn't die for this stuff (she died
because she had personal problems) -- she lived for this stuff.
All the "classic" singers in the
> >Jazz canon, Ella and Billie included, got their start in front of big bands or
> >swing bands -- what do you think pop music *was* at that time?
Well, there was plenty of pop music that sold big and was less jazzy
than "In The Mood." Most of the bands are forgotten now, but people
such as Jan Garber and Kay Kyser made a ton of money then selling
records of great standards played completely straight and pleasantly,
or novelty records that weren't jazzy. They were much more "pop" than
Ellington or Goodman was.
Listen to broadcasts of the great jazz-associated big bands of the
'30s and '40s, and just about everybody played _some_ straight pop and
_some_ jazz. To give just a few examples, in the '40s Calloway had
"girl singer" Dotty Salter singing straight ballads (as did Cab),
Ellington had Herb Jeffries, Basie had Earl Warren and Thelma
Carpenter, Goodman had Art Lund, Herman had Frances Wayne (and often
sang ballads straight himself), Kenton had Gene Howard.... (Some of
these singers were talented and some weren't, but they all weren't
there to sing jazz.) Emphasis on jazz in reissues has distorted the
picture of the actual variety of jazzy and non-jazzy music the famous
"jazz" bands played in the '30s and '40s.
>
> I think you are misidentifying Billie Holiday. She was not well known
> among white listeners, except for the more sophisticated. [...] She was more popular among black audiences where
> art was a staple, and for white audiences, she was more of a college
> thing, dug by very few."
Is there a difference between "the more sophisticated" on the one hand
and people for whom "art was a staple" on the other? (No imo.) What
were the demographics at Cafe Society? (Mostly "whites" over college
age, to the best of my knowledge.)
[...] and then only after they had been
> appropriated by Benny Goodman directly out of Fletcher Henderson's and
> Don Redman's books.
Goodman paid for his arrangements, and was friends with Fletcher
Henderson. The mythology that Goodman stole from Henderson/didn't
acknowledge Henderson is mythology.
>
> Well..hmm...Wynton was constructed into the token examplar of jazz[....]
Well said.
>
> > Considine's article plays right to the self-ghettoization that has plagued
> >jazz since about the time Miles went fusion. Apparently if you were any good
> >nobody would like you, and if everybody likes you you can't be any good and
> >deserved to be slapped down as a poseur or traitor.
Amen!
Joseph Scott
Joseph Scott
What's a "true creator"? Were Jimmy Cavallo, Eddie Cochran "true
creators"?
>He isn't important because he influenced a popular white person
> for god's sake.
Since when does influencing a popular musician not make a musician
important to the history of music? It seems to be one of the most
common arguments made in defense of a musician's importance. Is it not
legitimately part of Fletcher Henderson's importance that he was a
major influence on Goodman, ditto with Lester and Getz, and so on?
He's important because he was a true original and
> invented a style that was sublime. He should have been the star.
He is a star.
But
> second-rate white imitators overshadowed him.
Examples? (I don't think Elvis Presley or Buddy Holly, e.g., was
"second-rate.")
> From a recent NY Times article:
> "Performers as diverse as Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix,
> Mick Jagger and Bruce Springsteen have been inspired by the syncopated
> Bo Diddley beat..."
Can anyone think of an Elvis Presley recording that has the Bo Diddley
beat?
>
> "Mr. Diddley's uses of the electric guitar, creating special effects
> like reverb, tremolo and distortion, influenced funk bands in the
> 1960's and heavy metal groups in the 1970's...."
Guitarists such as Al Casey (ex-Waller, went electric around the time
Waller passed away) were using distortion in the '40s.
'Have I been ripped off? Have I seen royalty checks? You bet
> I've been ripped off.'"
He's been ripped off, and he's seen royalty checks. Relative to the
Jimmy Prestons and the Goree Carters and even the Roy Browns and
Wynonie Harrises, Bo gets _plenty_ of credit for being a rock pioneer.
Him whining that he wishes he were paid on more compositions reminds
me of Ginger Baker's whining about the same thing: fine guys, you
really like money and you wish the copyright laws had been set up
differently, I'll be sure to lose sleep about that tonight.
Joseph Scott
Joseph Scott
> Ellington-Lunceford-Goodman-Miller-Elgart.
Before we draw the line we have to get the continuum right. Anyone
want to present an argument that Ellington was more "jazz" than
Lunceford, or that Lunceford was more "jazz" than Goodman?
Joseph Scott
Luke Kaven
>> > The idea that there is some meaningful difference between a "pop singer
>> >singing jazz" and a "jazz singer singing pop" -- and, by the way, Billie
>> >Holiday, whom Considine holds up as the avatar of this genre, was arguably more
>> >of the former than the latter -- is absurd.
>
>Yes, I think I understand what you mean: Considine basically defined
>"real jazz" in one, fairly narrow way, Ella's improvised scat singing
>and such, and then, ironically, immediately asked, "Billie Holiday
>died for this?", which suggests he doesn't know much about Billie. If
>anything, Billie _popularized_ the approach of taking a fine pop tune
>and applying _subtle_ improvisation to it (no improvised scat breaks
>for Billie) -- i.e. more or less what all these (ostensibly)
>lightweight aging boomers want to hear, rather than Ella's "Flying
>Home"! So in short, no, Billie didn't die for this stuff (she died
>because she had personal problems) -- she lived for this stuff.
Billie Holiday was not a pop singer. Among white audiences she was a
college thing. She never did see much money from what she did.
Saying she died because she had "personal problems" is a gross
oversimplification, and overlooks the continuity between her art and
her life. [And this story pertains to a lot of artists.] It does her
a real disservice to her.
Earlier postings in this thread tend to conflate jazz and pop without
articulating the necessary distinctions between the two. Saying that
jazz used to be the pop music is not exactly true. The black artists
were almost never pop artists, because one couldn't cross the color
barrier so easily. Going to the Cotton Club, or listening to Billie
Holiday, or even listening to Pops, was always something of an elite
thing among whites. Benny Goodman popularized swing for a time, but
only in a restricted sense. He was an ambassador of a sort, and also
eclipsed the originals whose works he presented (how many people who
knew Benny Goodman knew who Don Redman was?). Like Wynton Marsalis,
"Benny Goodman" was the one jazz name that most white people knew, a
handy thing for parties. Most of the pop music was "swingified",
faddish, highly derivative, or used bland stock arrangements, and
pre-arranged "solos". Cab Calloway, who managed to be somewhat
popular, put himself across as a novelty act, playing off white
people's fad obsession with black culture (which for whites was
manifest in Zoot suits, and "jive talk") watered-down for white
consumption (compare with the "Wegroes" of today, with their phoney
hip-hop patter and gang salutes).
Billie Holiday was never about this. What she, and other jazz
musicians did with a popular song was to strip it of its pop elements
-- the cloying, syrupy sentimentality -- and turn it into a work of
art, giving it a very dark edge.
>All the "classic" singers in the
>> >Jazz canon, Ella and Billie included, got their start in front of big bands or
>> >swing bands -- what do you think pop music *was* at that time?
>
>Well, there was plenty of pop music that sold big and was less jazzy
>than "In The Mood." Most of the bands are forgotten now, but people
>such as Jan Garber and Kay Kyser made a ton of money then selling
>records of great standards played completely straight and pleasantly,
>or novelty records that weren't jazzy. They were much more "pop" than
>Ellington or Goodman was.
Agreed.
>Listen to broadcasts of the great jazz-associated big bands of the
>'30s and '40s, and just about everybody played _some_ straight pop and
>_some_ jazz. To give just a few examples, in the '40s Calloway had
>"girl singer" Dotty Salter singing straight ballads (as did Cab),
>Ellington had Herb Jeffries, Basie had Earl Warren and Thelma
>Carpenter, Goodman had Art Lund, Herman had Frances Wayne (and often
>sang ballads straight himself), Kenton had Gene Howard.... (Some of
>these singers were talented and some weren't, but they all weren't
>there to sing jazz.) Emphasis on jazz in reissues has distorted the
>picture of the actual variety of jazzy and non-jazzy music the famous
>"jazz" bands played in the '30s and '40s.
Agree here too.
>> I think you are misidentifying Billie Holiday. She was not well known
>> among white listeners, except for the more sophisticated. [...] She was more popular among black audiences where
>> art was a staple, and for white audiences, she was more of a college
>> thing, dug by very few."
>
>Is there a difference between "the more sophisticated" on the one hand
>and people for whom "art was a staple" on the other? (No imo.) What
>were the demographics at Cafe Society? (Mostly "whites" over college
>age, to the best of my knowledge.)
In black culture, the language of that music was indigenous, requiring
little in the way of interpretation. For whites, understanding that
music required something in the way of interpretation.
>[...] and then only after they had been
>> appropriated by Benny Goodman directly out of Fletcher Henderson's and
>> Don Redman's books.
>
>Goodman paid for his arrangements, and was friends with Fletcher
>Henderson. The mythology that Goodman stole from Henderson/didn't
>acknowledge Henderson is mythology.
I did not mean to imply that they were stolen, as I also indicated
above. Goodman was more of an ambassador. It is still significant
that Goodman eclipsed Redman in the white-authored history books, even
if he was not culpable.
>> Well..hmm...Wynton was constructed into the token examplar of jazz[....]
>
>Well said.
>
>>
>> > Considine's article plays right to the self-ghettoization that has plagued
>> >jazz since about the time Miles went fusion. Apparently if you were any good
>> >nobody would like you, and if everybody likes you you can't be any good and
>> >deserved to be slapped down as a poseur or traitor.
>
>Amen!
I still think this is an oversimplification.
Luke
Simon Weil
>
>What's a "true creator"? Were Jimmy Cavallo, Eddie Cochran "true
>creators"?
>
>>He isn't important because he influenced a popular white person
>> for god's sake.
>
>Since when does influencing a popular musician not make a musician
>important to the history of music? It seems to be one of the most
>common arguments made in defense of a musician's importance. Is it not
>legitimately part of Fletcher Henderson's importance that he was a
>major influence on Goodman, ditto with Lester and Getz, and so on?
>
>He's important because he was a true original and
>> invented a style that was sublime. He should have been the star.
>
>He is a star.
>
> But
>> second-rate white imitators overshadowed him.
>
>Examples? (I don't think Elvis Presley or Buddy Holly, e.g., was
>"second-rate.")
>
artists, who based their form in black music, vastly outsold the black
musicians from which their music was partially derived. So people see things
through the eyes of the overwhelmingly successful form, rock.
Basically people's view of Bo Diddley comes, by and large, through books and
articles written about the white musicians who he influenced.
Ergo Bo Diddley "the influence" rather than Bo Diddley "the star" is the
predominant approach. I guess Chuck Berry and Little Richard would be prominent
exceptions.
Overall, rock couldn't exist without black music. Not many rock listeners know
that.
Simon Weil
Richard Thurston
>Overall, rock couldn't exist without black music. Not many rock listeners know
>that.
>
>Simon Weil
Oh I think they do.
That the mass audience prefers the popularizers of the form rather
than the real pioneers doesn't necessarily mean that audience is
totally ignorant of rock's origins.
It merely means they prefer a facsimile to the real thing.
And that's the American way.
Richard Thurston
Luke Kaven
>> I think the white rockers eclipsed the true creators, like Bo Diddley.
>
>What's a "true creator"? Were Jimmy Cavallo, Eddie Cochran "true
>creators"?
I'll have to defer to you on this area of history. I don't really
know.
>>He isn't important because he influenced a popular white person
>> for god's sake.
>
>Since when does influencing a popular musician not make a musician
>important to the history of music? It seems to be one of the most
>common arguments made in defense of a musician's importance. Is it not
>legitimately part of Fletcher Henderson's importance that he was a
>major influence on Goodman, ditto with Lester and Getz, and so on?
You're missing my point, and also not considering the historical
context of segregation. Things might have been different without
racial segregation -- would have and should have been different.
It is only of *secondary* importance that he influenced others. It is
of primary importance that he was an originator. His secondary
importance is obvious, whereas his primary importance is not, because
it relies on some counterfactual reasoning.
Why is Goodman known as the "King Of Swing"? It isn't because he
actually wrote anything that orginated the genre. He was an
ambassador and conduit (and somewhat of an imitator too). He is known
as the King of Swing because he is white, and white people outnumbered
blacks, controlled the money, the media, and wrote the history books.
Don Redman is only a footnote, someone that only scholars and
hard-core enthusiasts know about. Henderson fares a bit better, but
not much. Again, it is not to suggest that Goodman is guilty of theft
over honest toil; the story just involves him.
Now consider this counterfactual example. Knowing what you know now,
what would you say if Picasso were only believed to be important
because he influenced an imitator named Flurg, whose work was
accessible to a large audience, who controlled media and press, and
who then wrote Flurg into their history books as the "Genius of Modern
Painting". I'm sure there are a lot of Flurgs out there to make this
plausible. But something seems wrong, Picasso and his paintings are
still what they were (and so were all the rest). The only thing
different is that Picasso is now a footnote in history in this
possible world, and Flurg is heralded as king. Doesn't this seem
counterintuitive?
I say yes, and the problem is that in order to understand the damage
done in history, one has to be able to understand things such as this
counterfactual (and of course, believe it, which some may not).
>He's important because he was a true original and
>> invented a style that was sublime. He should have been the star.
>
>He is a star.
In a highly qualified sense of the word.
> But
>> second-rate white imitators overshadowed him.
>
>Examples? (I don't think Elvis Presley or Buddy Holly, e.g., was
>"second-rate.")
How about secondary, rather than second-rate? R&B riffs didn't just
sprang from their heads ex nihilo.
>He's been ripped off, and he's seen royalty checks. Relative to the
>Jimmy Prestons and the Goree Carters and even the Roy Browns and
>Wynonie Harrises, Bo gets _plenty_ of credit for being a rock pioneer.
>Him whining that he wishes he were paid on more compositions reminds
>me of Ginger Baker's whining about the same thing: fine guys, you
>really like money and you wish the copyright laws had been set up
>differently, I'll be sure to lose sleep about that tonight.
Not the point at all.
Luke
Ira Chineson
"Richard Thurston" <ric...@groverthurston.com> wrote in message
news:4j2g5v8nr0q3bnp36...@4ax.com...
That may be true,or it could be that the American way is to enjoy whatever
music you like without worrying whether it meets the standards of critics
and other self-appointed guardians of authenticity.
Dennis J. Kosterman
>Dennis J. Kosterman wrote:
I'm still not convinced that "enormous audiences to Monet exhibitions"
exist. If they do, maybe your theory is better than mine. My
perception of popular culture (in the U.S., at least) is that the
number of people who would go to a Monet exhibition is not
significantly larger than the number who would go to a jazz concert.
Maybe I'm wrong in this assumption.
I can think of one reason why a Monet exhibition might draw more
people. There is only one original copy of each of Monet's paintings,
and if one or more of those is being exhibited somewhere near where I
live, chances are it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I won't get
another chance to go see those paintings without travelling to Paris
or London or someplace else far away. Whereas, with most jazz artists,
if I don't catch them this time, they'll probably come around again in
a year or two. So, if I'm equally interested in the two, I have more
incentive to go see the paintings, since it might be my only chance.
It can be this way with jazz, too. A few years back, I spent $200 to
go to Chicago and see Cecil Taylor (no, the ticket wasn't that much,
but add in car rental, gas, tolls, and parking, and it was close to
$200) -- because he hasn't played in this part of the country for at
least ten years and might not do so again for another ten. Like the
Monet exhibition, I perceived it as a once-in-a-lifetime chance. But I
haven't done anything like that since, and it's not something I could
afford to do (or would want to do) very often.
However, I don't know a single other person who would go out of their
way to see either Monet or Cecil Taylor, even if they were free. I
really don't see either one as being more popular than the other.
Dennis J. Kosterman
den...@tds.net
Luke Kaven
Our two views are not mutually exclusive. My hypothesis would be that
the auditory system is somewhat general, but has a number of functions
for very specific purposes. We know of some of the familiar
functions, like those that enable us to locate something through
binaural disparity. Tthen there may be a range of functions for
social signals, speech, etc. Perhaps we have a capacity for
recognizing vocalizations of a certain kind, ones that indicate to us
affective information about another person. The sound a mother makes,
threatening sounds, and perhaps a whole range of social signals.
[This is where sociobiology is going, and it is plausible enough in my
view.]
In terms of these things, I think Simon is probably right. Music, in
the way that it often does mimic speech or animal sounds does reach us
more or less directly in that way. If there are any aspects of music
that *are* universal, they probably are found in things such as this.
I'm a bit more cautious about the "language of the brain", just
because I think the language metaphor is overused in cognitive science
(Fodor, via Chomsky to be exact).
But then there are a range of functions involving the auditory system
that are harder to pin down, and they make use of nearly all the
knowledge that we have -- or at least nearly all the knowledge that we
have is accessible to these functions. One that I've looked into the
most involves the capacity that allows us to apprehend rhyming. I
posit that this is a mechanism whose purpose is to enable us to
coordinate auditory events having a temporal regularity. The
phenomena that we most readily make use of involves rhyming of words
and syllables based on similar properties in auditory stimuli occuring
at different times, but with a temporal regularity -- just the common
rhyme. But nothing is to suggest that we are limited to just verbal
rhyming. We can apprehend rhyming based on nearly any set of auditory
properties. The note "Bb" for example, a harmonic interval of a #11
for another, or a certain rhythmic motif. Now these are just the
processes that I would claim are used in a more in-depth understanding
of the poetics of music as something that has *thematic continuity*,
and I'd further claim that these are processes that are developed by
experience and reflection.
Again, though, I'll go back to the problem inherent in auditory
phenomena. They are less public, less accessible to empirical
verification. It is hard, though behavioral means, to know when you
are hearing something the same as someone else, particularly when it
involves these more sophisticated capacities (sophisticated, though I
claim we all have them). How do I know that you're hearing *that
thing* when you listen to a Charlie Parker solo?
After hanging around musicians for many years, I've come to realize
that there is a wide range of behavioral cues used in music listening
that do help (somewhat) in getting people to -- more or less --
understand whether they are hearing what you hear. It might be in a
way of looking at each other, nodding, looking for affirmation from
another listener, all of which contribute. But it is far from
reliable.
>>Second (and this partly explains the first), the nature of visual
>>experiences are more accessible to the public, and hence, easier for
>>one to verify intersubjectively. This is an aspect of empiricism, in
>>which our knowledge of the world is promoted by the extent to which
>>our experiences can be intersubjectively verified in the neutral court
>>of observation.
>
>You're saying you can put a name to visual experiences? Like this is a dog -
>that is a cat - that is a distorted representation of a dog which looks a bit
>like a cat. Things like that?
I think it is easier to point out visual phenomena using ostension in
such a way that they could be named, and in such a way that one can
know that another person *sees things the same way you see them*. I'm
pretty sure ripe tomatoes look red to you in the same way they look to
me, and I could tell if you were color blind even if I can't look
through your eyes. [Putting aside the debate about spectrum
inversion.] It is harder to "point out" auditory phenomena, making it
more difficult to know whether one is hearing just the same phenomena
as another.
We all grasp a simple rhyme on the basis of phonemic similarities, and
we all know that everyone does. But "musical rhymes" involving no
words, and only abstract auditory properties are much harder to grasp,
to believe in, and to verify intersubjectively.
>>For example, consider
>>(1) Subject points to painting, and says to another, "do you see
>>*that*?", after which a dialog follows, which includes more pointing
>>and further explanation.
>>Compare this with
>>(2) Subject, listening to music, says to another "did you hear
>>*that*?".
>
>Right. With music there are a few ways you can look at it. There's the formal
>approach - chord sequences and neat resolutions and things like that - which
>you need to be Jazz musically educated to "get". Mind you I think that's just
>as much a thing that's capable of this is a dog type explanation - if you've
>got the knowledge.
Agreed...you can learn to identify almost any chord with ear training
and knowledge of the rudiments as though you were "looking at it".
But more complex phenomena are more difficult to "see", and harder to
verify intersubjectively.
>Then there's music as evoker as emotion. I think you can see that best in film
>music. I'm one of these guys who watches movies over and over again - and at
>some point I usually come to the conclusion that the music is telling the
>audience how to feel. Now, it's not often discussed like that, it's just felt -
>But, to me, the reactions film music produces do seem deliberate and, on the
>part of the composer and director, predictable. So this is the area that really
>interests me in Jazz - putting a name to the kind of emotion that a piece
>expresses - because, I think, that sort of Jazz criticism can have a much wider
>impact than criticism which concentrates on the formal aspects. Simply because
>everyone has emotions - we can all relate to them - whereas only a very few get
>much out a discussion of the, let's say, technical aspects of a piece. For me
>the ideal would be a piece of criticism which combined the two - which is what
>you get in quality visual art criticism.
Agreed...and in jazz criticism. Just that I'd add in all of these
more sophisticated sorts of phenomena which are harder to discuss.
>There's also the impressionistic use of music - which you get a bit of in Jazz
>- and would also seem to be more widely digestible to non-specialist audiences.
Agreed. I think, as I think you are saying, that these rely more upon
the capcities that we have to recognize the social signals that are
signified in animal sounds...like the various vocal inflections that
indicate mood, the sound of cooing, crying, signals of aggression,
joy, etc..
>>Notice the difference between the uses of the demonstrative in the two
>>examples. In the case of visual experience, one can ostensibly point
>>to something in a way that is intersubjectively verifiable. In other
>>words, it is easier for me to know that I am seeing the very thing
>>that is being demonstratively pointed out to me by another. It is
>>easy to get another to reliably count the number of apples just the
>>same as you do. In the case of auditory experience, there is very
>>little reliable evidence one can give in intersubjectively identifying
>>the phenomena being pointed to. It is very hard to know whether one
>>hears something as you do. And in fact, there are INTRAsubjective
>>difficulties in verifying that one is experiencing one and the same
>>phenomenon when present on two separate occasions, until one has
>>developed a way to verify such within reason for one's self. [And by
>>the way, it is easier to reliably identify visual phenomena that are
>>static. Auditory phenomena are never static in the same sense. A
>>sound doesn't so much hang in the air as a painting does.]
>
>Once a note is played it's gone (Eric Dolphy said something about Jazz along
>those lines)...
>
>But the melody lingers on.
Thankful for the memories.
Sum1
Well, the folks at Xerox came up with the iconic user interface for home
computing, which was swiped by Apple, which was swiped by Microsoft to make
Windows.
Does anyone but a person with an interest in science, computers, or
corporate history really care that Xerox was the original creator?
You said Bo should be remembered as an originaor. Obviously you remember
him as one and others do, too. The problem seems to be his "popular" image.
And we all know that the "popular" truth about a lot of things is at odds
with the record.
Robert McKay
>From: den...@tds.net (Dennis J. Kosterman)
>Date: 2/22/03 9:14 PM Mountain Standard Time
>However, I don't know a single other person who would go out of their
>way to see either Monet
I would - I've come to love the Impressinoists. And a friend of mine might go
as well. But we're the exceptions who prove the rule; we'd have to look long
and hard to find someone else who even knows who Monet was.
>or Cecil Taylor
I know the name, but my jazz knowledge is so slim still (competing interests,
like car payments and *O Brother Where Art Thou?* and food<lol>) that I don't
know whether I'd like him. However, if it was a free show, that being your
qualification, I'd certainly be willing to give it a try.
Robert McKay
goffs...@aol.com
Many people suffer from PEBKAC :)
Simon Weil
>>OK, explain how you get enormous audiences to Monet exhibitions and tiny
>>audiences (overall) to Jazz gigs.
>
>I'm still not convinced that "enormous audiences to Monet exhibitions"
>exist. If they do, maybe your theory is better than mine. My
>perception of popular culture (in the U.S., at least) is that the
>number of people who would go to a Monet exhibition is not
>significantly larger than the number who would go to a jazz concert.
>Maybe I'm wrong in this assumption.
>
classic moden artists" (like Monet or Picasso or Van Gogh) and Jazz. They have
queueing systems and timed entry and book in advance (even long way book in
advance) to cope with crowds. And there are definitely crowds. I mean, I
personally know many more people - I guess you'd call them modestly interested
in culture - who go to Monet and enjoy the books of his work etc.. You get
vast great crowds to things like the Post-Impressionist exhibitions in Paris -
just too long to stand in line for unless you're prepared to wait hours. I mean
I gave up. I had a similar sort of experience with the Van Gogh centenary
exhibition in Amsterdam - except that I'd booked a ticket in advance and got
in. That Van Gogh exhibition is really what I'm thinking about when I'm talking
about vast crowds and ordinary people - that's when the phenomenon first hit
me, in 1989. I guess the latest experience was just going round the
(relatively) new Tate here in London. This is the national modern art gallery -
they just shifted to a v. expensive new space, which is *real* impressive.
they've got a lot more room - and, as a result have been able to show a lot
more stuff. But, actually, the new stuff is not a patch on the old, smallish
central collection which remains the best work on show. But the *whole
experience* is so much better - with this very flashy, modern, exciting
building that they've brought the crowds in - and there are crowds, even on the
cold day I went. The Old Tate was popular, but this is quantum leap better.
The presentation has done that. I may not be a fan of marketing, presentation
etc. but the results are inarguable. Why not for Jazz?
Also it may be we're talking a transatlantic split here - and perhaps that's
why Jazz has historically been more popular here - perhaps there is just a
greater proportion of people interested in the arts. But I would argue, that
Jazz can do better here as well, too. Just some thoughts.
I have slightly varied my argument, but basically I think Jazz is an
undervalued cultural product - and I just can't see why people have such a
problem thinking it can't be a more popular one.
It seems like Jazz succumbs to a "discourse of failure" too easily.
Simon Weil
Luke Kaven
[...]
>Well, the folks at Xerox came up with the iconic user interface for home
>computing, which was swiped by Apple, which was swiped by Microsoft to make
>Windows.
>
>Does anyone but a person with an interest in science, computers, or
>corporate history really care that Xerox was the original creator?
Not the right analogy.
>You said Bo should be remembered as an originaor. Obviously you remember
>him as one and others do, too. The problem seems to be his "popular" image.
>And we all know that the "popular" truth about a lot of things is at odds
>with the record.
You haven't gotten my point.
You think that this is a matter of whether one understands history
correct;ly or not. The suppressed cateris paribus premise in what you
say is that history would have been the same otherwise. But the claim
is that history would have been different, and the moral claim
involves that. You have to be able to take on the counterfactuals in
order to understand the moral claim.
[Sorry, I'm leaving town overnight, so I don't have a chance to write
more. Perhaps tomorrow.]
Luke
Steve Carras
> jgmc...@aol.com (JGMcLean0) wrote:
>
> >Luke Kaven wrote:
> > jgmc...@aol.com (JGMcLean0) wrote:
> >
> >>> Let's see, in the course of a dozen column-inches, we have claims that:
> >>> - Jazz albums by pop vocalists is a new trend (anybody remember Linda
> >>>Rondstadt in the mid-80s?)
> >>
> >>That isn't the claim.
> >
> >even pop vocalists want a piece of the action." He then cites Rod Stewart and
> >k.d. lang as examples.
>
> Yes, sorry that is one of the claims. But that isn't the *major*
> claim of the article. The claim might be articulated as:
>
> 1) An artist was a pop artist who was never a jazz artist
> 2) The artist makes a record under the label "jazz" which was not a
> jazz record.
> 3) The artist is then mistakenly considered or passed-off as a
> bona-fide jazz artist.
>
> This is new.
>
> >>These are pop vocalists passed off AS jazz
> >>vocalists first and foremost, which represents a legislation of the
> >>relatively new.
> >
> > Nonsense. As soon as vocal singing enters jazz the boundaries between jazz
> >and pop are blurred. This has been true in any era from Bing Crosby and
> >Sinatra through Sade and Harry Connick Jr in the '80s right up to Krall and
> >Jones today.
> > The idea that there is some meaningful difference between a "pop singer
> >singing jazz" and a "jazz singer singing pop" -- and, by the way, Billie
> >Holiday, whom Considine holds up as the avatar of this genre, was arguably more
> >Jazz canon, Ella and Billie included, got their start in front of big bands or
> >to think that improvisation and "turning a tune inside out" is the stamp of a
> >"true" jazz vocalist -- of course pop, soul, and gospel singers (think Aretha)
> >have been doing this for decades while any number of "jazz" singers have been
> >happy to stick to a basic tune and get by on mere phrasing, setting, and
> >expression (as does Jones).
> I think you are misidentifying Billie Holiday. She was not well known
> people of that age whether Billie Holiday was a pop singer, they will
> tell you she wasn't. She was more popular among black audiences where
> art was a staple, and for white audiences, she was more of a college
> thing, dug by very few.
>
> popular among a college set, and then only after they had been
> appropriated by Benny Goodman directly out of Fletcher Henderson's and
> music after that time was "swingified". And in all this, one has to
> acknowledge the harmonic sophistication of the tin-pan alley composers
> as a source of inspiration, and the depression and the war as a source
> of pathos -- which is to concede that In a non-trifling sense, you are
> also right. The writer might have discussed more the tendency towards
> musical conservativism in recent years that makes much of contemporary
> jazz so barren. The writer might have also acknowledged a certain
> amount of slack in the category which admits a certain amount of
> pluralism, and then drawn a distinction from there.
>
> But there is also an essential tension between art and mere
> entertainment. Billie Holiday had a certain sophistication that she
> could bring to entertainment. She could really improvise beyond the
> pale, as could Anita O'Day, Ella, Sarah, Dinah, Betty, Carmen, etc.
> This is a quality that is absolutely lacking in singers like Krall and
> Monheit, etc., all of whom are good entertainers, but lack aesthetic
> sophistication. Is there anyone who thinks these performers are Hip,
> or would say that they can really Blow? I know most of the musicians
> who have played with these singers, and they certainly don't think so.
> This is a frequent topic of conversation. Those same musicians would
> rather play behind, for example, another singer that we know, who has
> less in the way of pipes, but more in the way of what they would say
> is The Way It's Supposed To Be. I capitalize that because I hear it
> said a lot, and the musicians I work with and I all know it when we
> hear it.
>
> But I still disagree with the notion that Norah Jones is a jazz
> singer, even in any evolved sense of jazz. She seems to be more
> begotten from other things, and bears more resemblance to Joan
> Armatrading than anything I've ever heard in jazz. Since in my
> semantics, jazz is -- literally -- a species term, then the
> begets-begot relationship is the essential thing.
>
> >>He knows that. Again, these are pop artists being passed off as jazz
> >>artists, even when they're being played on AOR stations.
> >
> > Actually, Considine doesn't say this at all. He describes them as
> >"jazz-based musicians". His claim is that the popularity of the music is a
> >"pop phenomenon" (whatever that seeming tautology might imply).
>
> The crucial distinction is "passed off as jazz". If you ask the
> average person what they think jazz is, they will tell you that Kenny
> G is jazz. Of course, even Kenny doesn't really think that. But he
> is passed off for whatever effect as a jazz artist by being put in the
> jazz bins. Blue Note is banking on their trademark, which dictates
> putting a jazz stamp on anything they do, regardless of what it
> actually is. And most of it is "young urban professional lifestyle
> fashion", and occasionally, it is good in its own way.
>
> > And again, these distinctions are spurious. If anything, Krall, Jones et al.
> >are being *marketed* like pop artists, complete with orchestrated media
> >blitzes, promotional deals with radio conglomerates, glamor photography etc.
> >(The "real" jazz world *used* to know how to do this -- remember in the mid-80s
> >when you couldn't pick up a newspaper or magazine without seeing something
> >about Wynton Marsalis? -- but seems to have given up trying). Listen to the
> >music, though, and I defy you to tell me what, other than your bias going in,
> >makes these "pop" artists. Norah Jones may not be the most *progressive* or
> >*challenging* jazz singer out there, and she may not be to everyone's taste,
> >but a jazz singer she is, as much as Blossom Dearie or Peggy Lee ever were.
>
> Well..hmm...Wynton was constructed into the token examplar of jazz, a
> phenomenon that he helped to create. Most people who are one step up
> from Kenny G have the ability to retain only one or two names. If
> they want to seem like they know what jazz is, they have Wynton's name
> to use for it. He did succeed in turning himself into a fashion,
> which also does harken back to the day. Today's fashion comes more
> from conservative politics, and "Fine Arts Republicanism", to use
> Marty Khan's term for it. And whether I like his music or not, he is
> a jazz musician, and still growing. The fashion/glamour aspects of
> this were never taken so seriously by Bille, Ella, Sarah, etc. They
> always had more of an edge, and were less cloying. They certainly
> didn't have an agressive corporation built around them to market them
> the way Krall does. And Blossom Dearie and Peggy Lee always had a
> dark edge and sophistication that none of these contemporary singers
> have, not to mention having come out of the jazz millieu. That is a
> much different thing than having studied music in college and then
> deciding to be a jazz singer...they are jazz singers, but only *after
> a fashion*, so to speak.
> > Considine's article plays right to the self-ghettoization that has plagued
> >nobody would like you, and if everybody likes you you can't be any good and
> >deserved to be slapped down as a poseur or traitor.
>
> complex. There seems to be a persistent myth about music, as though
> it were a universal language that, even in its most sophisticated
> forms, ought to be graspable by anybody, no matter what they bring to
> bear. This isn't so. It doesn't mean that there aren't universal
> elements of the human psyche that are in play, but the aesthetics of
> music -- the poetics -- run way beyond that as well into modernism, in
> which the framework of the music is highly articulated in a way that
> takes one time or experience to grasp. For example, everyone knows
> what a rhyme is, but that doesn't mean they understand poetics.
>
> Luke
Boy is this an interesting topic or what. Harry James is blasting from
the next room, and it's his "commercial pop" theme "Cirribirrbin".
Yeah, Billie Holiday's considered a non jazz star to the clueless, and
she did praise the much maligned jazz leader Paul Whiteman according
to a book about all girl swing outfits (Sherri Tucker's "Swing Shift")
but she was basically a black thing for a long time. Most of the more
popular big bands were leaders who insisted the music be ballads done
pleasant (Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey are you TAKING NOTES HERE?).
For the record, I saw Norah in TWO WEEKS NOTICE and enjoyed her
singing. The comment about conservative politics is correct, just look
ast my outfits. Neoswing can go to hell for bashing anything
conservative and DIGNIFIED about the music. For every Glenn Miller,
Sha, Dorsey, Sammy Kaye, and Lawrence Welk there ae a bunch of
oppurtinstic PUNKISH neoswingers killing the great music, which
(amongst other thangs!) didn't need EARRINGS and fag stuff to be
successful.(Like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy allegedy wearing earrings and
nives in their noses!)
Sadly no kids will buy a big band unless it is a SINGER and then only
if it is TONY BENNETT MTV UNPLUGGED or the godawful current album,
SINATRA DUETS, got forbid they buy a WORLD WAR II 78 by Lombardo,
Ellington, or Basie,not to mention anyone else like Barnet, Kyser, or
Freddy Martin or Phil Harris.
Richard Thurston
Or we swallow the marketing, promotion and advertising and do what we
are supposed to do.
Get out there and buy.
Richard Thurston
Joseph Scott
> Billie Holiday was not a pop singer.
If you mean she never sold all that many records during her lifetime
("popular"), I agree. If you're talking about the style she chose to
sing in, I think that's a gross oversimplification. If there is some
sort of continuum between pop and jazz, and Ella's "Flying Home" is
over to the jazz side, then much of what Billie emphasized in her
repertoire and approach (perhaps all, I guess!) was obviously more
over to the pop side than Ella's "Flying Home" was. E.g., I think Paul
Whiteman fans who bought "Travelin' Light" and enjoyed it and
perceived Billie as doing a fine job singing that pop song were _not_
very far off-base in their perception of what that recording was
about.
Among white audiences she was a
> college thing.
Can you expand on that claim? You'd have to break it down into periods
of her career, I suppose. My understanding is that the people who went
to Cafe Society were generally over college age. "Strange Fruit" on, I
would venture to guess that a greater number of "white" people knew
who she was than "black." (The masses never cared about her during her
life time, "black" or "white." E.g., she was admired by Esquire's
"white" jazz critics, but wasn't asked, IIRC, by AFRS "Jubilee," the
radio show created to boost the morale of "black" servicemen. Or was
she? Anyone remember?) Prior to "Strange Fruit," I would think that
she was mostly known to "blacks"; if you want to talk about "whites"
who knew of her then, they would have been split among high school
education no college, college years, and older, I think, e.g. a
"white" Artie Shaw fan who became aware of Billie while she was with
him or a "white" Count Basie fan who became aware of Billie while she
was with him would have been fairly likely to have a high school
education, no college.
The whole idea of college students in _particular_ wanting to listen
to jitterbug music is not a '30s-'40s thing, it's more of a Dave
Brubeck inventing a new niche kind of thing. Okay, the Casa Lomas had
a college following if I remember right, but I think during the same
era as them, a college following was more likely to be for sweeter
bands than the Casa Lomas, not very jazzy music relative to Goodman.
Goodman seemed to "whites" to be revolutionary as of the second half
of the '30s (and in some ways was).
> Saying she died because she had "personal problems" is a gross
> oversimplification, and overlooks the continuity between her art and
> her life. [And this story pertains to a lot of artists.] It does her
> a real disservice to her.
Well, I'm not a huge believer in the continuity between musicians' art
and their life, generally speaking. Obviously there's often a certain
amount. Maybe you can give your specific thoughts about Billie on
that. Obviously she was _marketed_ that way, aren't they all, but I'm
asking you about your understanding of the reality -- e.g. how "What A
Little Moonlight Can Do" or "Summertime" or "Pennies From Heaven" or
"Strange Fruit" or "Fine And Mellow" or "Let's Do It" or whatever is
actually connected to Billie's personal life -- not the show-biz
version of her created by marketing.
I think that she was dealt a bad hand in childhood, that that was the
main thing that led to her self-destructive personality, and that her
self-destructive personality led to her early death. I don't think she
denied that she was dealt a bad hand in childhood, to the contrary, so
I'm not sure where the disservice is...
Saying that
> jazz used to be the pop music is not exactly true. The black artists
> were almost never pop artists, because one couldn't cross the color
> barrier so easily. Going to the Cotton Club, or listening to Billie
> Holiday, or even listening to Pops, was always something of an elite
> thing among whites.
Agree with all this. But some of the music that was most "popular"
during the '30s-'40s _was_ jazz (most wasn't).
Benny Goodman popularized swing for a time, but
> only in a restricted sense.
Disagree, he made real "swing" jazz and he made it really popular.
> He was an ambassador of a sort
Absolutely...
and also
> eclipsed the originals whose works he presented (how many people who
> knew Benny Goodman knew who Don Redman was?).
A small proportion. I would also say that I think a large proportion
of people who knew who Benny Goodman was knew who Duke Ellington was,
and a small proportion of people who knew who Duke Ellington was knew
who Don Redman was. To the best of my understanding Don's band was
never as popular even among "blacks" as, say, Buddy Johnson's, nor did
most "black" or "white" people care who had _arranged_ what when for
Fletcher Henderson or anyone else.
Like Wynton Marsalis,
> "Benny Goodman" was the one jazz name that most white people knew, a
> handy thing for parties.
I don't think that parallel works very well. Wynton's a revivalist
after an older demographic who consider themselves arty, Benny --
during the period we're talking about -- was after a younger
demographic who mostly considered themselves looking for a good time.
(Benny did go "arty" for a while around '41 with Sauter and such, but
I think the situation there was that he was so popular that he could
afford to do, much of the time not all, what he personally wanted as a
music lover, and still sell records, a la the Beatles making
edgy-for-pop music such as "Strawberry Fields Forever" around '67
because that's what they personally liked best, and if "SFF" "only"
goes to #8 in the U.S. and not #1, they don't much care, and no one
else could have taken that weirdness as high as #8 anyway.) The
"white" subset of that younger jitterbug demographic (i.e. most of it)
knew who Benny was, and generally knew who his "white" competition
was, such as Jimmy Dorsey, Charlie Barnet, just as a '60s Beatles fan
had heard "Satisfaction" and "Sunny Afternoon" on the radio. An
earlier generation of "whites," on the other hand, would have included
a lot of people who had heard Benny Goodman's name, but didn't
particularly like his kind of music and considered Paul Whiteman the
king of jazz.
Most of the pop music was "swingified",
> faddish, highly derivative, or used bland stock arrangements, and
> pre-arranged "solos".
Most good jazz was highly derivative of other good jazz and faddish
too. As for "bland" and "pre-arranged," those are just words a jazz
fan uses to describe non-jazz music (whether good or bad non-jazz
music), and you and I both know that most (not all) popular music of
that era was non-jazz, so.... (What does "bland" mean anyway? Are Nat
Cole's non-jazz '50s pop hits "bland" -- they aren't to me -- and if
they are, does that mean I'm not allowed to enjoy listening to them?)
Cab Calloway, who managed to be somewhat
> popular, put himself across as a novelty act, playing off white
> people's fad obsession with black culture (which for whites was
> manifest in Zoot suits, and "jive talk") watered-down for white
> consumption (compare with the "Wegroes" of today, with their phoney
> hip-hop patter and gang salutes).
"Somewhat" popular relative to whom? The man made _loads_ of money. As
for your other comments, Cab would have admitted that himself, he was
a candid guy.
"Watered down" can be a misleading expression when applied to musical
styles, whether in the context of "race" or not. Debussy e.g. isn't
"water," and Rosetta Tharpe e.g. isn't "alcohol."
Cab altered his music to appeal to "whites," but there were many
_other_ ways other "black" musicians altered their music to appeal to
(often _other_) "whites," there isn't one particular way ("adding
water") that that was done. For instance, Billy Eckstine (who really
liked "white" music personally anyway, and disliked blues) found
appeal to "whites," and Billy did not sound much like Cab. The appeal
many "whites" found in the classical elements of Duke's music are
miles away from the appeal many "whites" found in Slim Gaillard's
over-the-top silliness. See what I mean? Which is the water?
>
> Billie Holiday was never about this.
She wasn't about what Cab was about, I agree with you. She was further
over on the pop-jazz continuum towards pop than he was. I'm sure Cab
appreciated songwriters such as Gershwin, Porter, Kern, and so on,
that kind of music, because he was a man of broad musical tastes, but
he chose a different career road from Billie, didn't sing that kind of
material to nearly the extent that she did.
What she, and other jazz
> musicians did with a popular song was to strip it of its pop elements
> -- the cloying, syrupy sentimentality -- and turn it into a work of
> art, giving it a very dark edge.
I don't agree that "cloying, syrupy sentimentality" is a good
definition of "pop elements." And it's important to note here that --
wake up you in the back, there may be a quiz tomorrow -- __much of
Billie's appeal over the decades to many people HAS been that her work
has MORE emphasis on "cloying, syrupy sentimentality" than, say, Cab's
or Benny's or Ella's.__
I wrote:
> >Is there a difference between "the more sophisticated" on the one hand
> >and people for whom "art was a staple" on the other? (No imo.) What
> >were the demographics at Cafe Society? (Mostly "whites" over college
> >age, to the best of my knowledge.)
Luke responded:
>
> In black culture, the language of that music was indigenous, requiring
> little in the way of interpretation. For whites, understanding that
> music required something in the way of interpretation.
Have you looked at who wrote most of Billie's songs? "White"
songwriters, some hacks, some brilliant. Perhaps you're referring not
to the material she chose, but to listeners "getting" the use of
subtle improvisation -- I agree that a significant proportion of
"whites" didn't get that during Billie's lifetime (in many cases
because they weren't interested in getting it), but another large
proportion did get it, or Benny Goodman wouldn't have sold so many
records.
It is still significant
> that Goodman eclipsed Redman in the white-authored history books, even
> if he was not culpable.
Saying quote "the" white-authored history books makes it sound like
they're a gestalt. Some "white"-authored music history books have
exaggerated "whites"' contributions to jazz relative to "blacks"',
others of them haven't, and all of that is significant, worth talking
about. Meanwhile, I really love Don Redman's work, but I think
comparing Benny to Don as if it's some sort of natural parallel is
artificial. For one thing, Don's glory years were largely behind him
before the "white" public had even first heard of Benny's band. A more
useful parallel imo, if you want to consider degree and nature of
"white"/"black" "eclipse," would be between Benny and Basie, who arose
to popularity right about the same time, played similar-era hot
"swing" music, both made a ton of money, were friends, liked each
other's bands, and had many differing experiences in the business
because of their difference in "race."
Best wishes,
Joseph Scott
Joseph Scott
> >Since when does influencing a popular musician not make a musician
> >important to the history of music? It seems to be one of the most
> >common arguments made in defense of a musician's importance. Is it not
> >legitimately part of Fletcher Henderson's importance that he was a
> >major influence on Goodman, ditto with Lester and Getz, and so on?
>
> context of segregation.
Please, it's bad enough that that's ad hominem, it's also presumptious
in the extreme. As if you know what I'm considering.
Things might have been different without
> racial segregation -- would have and should have been different.
Things WOULD have been different, big-time. Now: I've been talking
about what was, I'm interested in music history. If you want to talk
about what alternate universe should have been instead, please let us
know when you are and aren't doing that.
>
> It is only of *secondary* importance that he influenced others.
I basically feel the same way, although there isn't some ultimate
arbiter of which importances are "really" primary and secondary,
"importance" is subjective for all of us.
> Why is Goodman known as the "King Of Swing"?
He isn't known as that any more. I'll assume you're asking me why he
_was_ known as that.
It isn't because he
> actually wrote anything that orginated the genre.
He wasn't a writer, to speak of. He was an improvising clarinetist,
probably the best improvising clarinetist of that era, and a
bandleader who sought out many of the best sidemen around and
concentrated much of the time on some of the best material around.
Like Basie (who wasn't a major tune writer either), Goodman had
excellent taste, which helped him put out an excellent product.
He was [...] somewhat of an imitator too).
As both a clarinetist and bandleader, during the Swing Era, Goodman
was highly original, more original than most. If buying good
arrangements in of itself makes you an "imitator," then just about
every bandleader of the era was an "imitator." The choices he made in
his own playing and in the musicians and writers he sought out created
a musical stew that was powerful and of his devising.
He is known
> as the King of Swing because he is white, and white people outnumbered
> blacks, controlled the money, the media, and wrote the history books.
I'm putting in "was" there rather than "is": Yes. But the fact that
some admired him for the wrong reasons doesn't mean that he wasn't
talented (an even better improviser than Don Redman, e.g.), or that we
can't admire him for the right reasons.
> ... an imitator named Flurg...
What's important about Benny Goodman or Elvis Presley personally is
what he contributed to music, and I think taking them and focusing on
perceiving them as quote "imitators" is biased, given the various
contributions they made, so I guess I'm not going to be able to buy
into this analogy.
>
> >He's important because he was a true original and
> >> invented a style that was sublime. He should have been the star.
> >
> >He is a star.
>
> In a highly qualified sense of the word.
I can't imagine what that highly qualified sense is. We've heard of
him many times, just like we've heard of Richard Pryor many times,
whether we happen to be much into his work or not. Bo's a famous
musician. Granted they aren't as famous as Bill Cosby and Chuck Berry,
the poor fellas.
>
> > But
> >> second-rate white imitators overshadowed him.
> >
> >Examples? (I don't think Elvis Presley or Buddy Holly, e.g., was
> >"second-rate.")
>
> How about secondary, rather than second-rate? R&B riffs didn't just
> sprang from their heads ex nihilo.
Nor did they spring from "black" musicians' heads ex nihilo; everyone
was drawing on and incrementally changing an uptempo blues tradition
that had been gradually evolving for decades.
Jimmy Cavallo was making rock records before Bo Diddley, and Cavallo
is "white" (and still living, and not a star). I don't mind talking
about secondary in terms of chronology one bit, but we've got to talk
about individuals, not pretend all "black" musicians did this one
thing and later all "white" musicians did this other thing, it was
more complicated than that.
Joseph Scott
Joseph Scott
rock, and the vast majority of the musicians participating in that
evolution, then, were "black," and some weren't. (See www.hoyhoy.com,
and listen to e.g. "Rock The Joint" by Jimmy Preston and "Willow Tree
Blues" by Sandman Howard.) Let's call that the "early rock" era --
some would object to that, would say it was "really" still "only" R&B,
but I really disagree, I think it's appropriately called "early rock"
-- I think there's been a lot of sloppy mythology that ignores how
early the shift to what we think of as "'50s rock and roll style"
happened among R&B musicians. (I respect Sam Phillips and Elvis
Presley for their assorted major talents, but I think the stories
about how the "first" rock record was produced by Phillips, the
ultimate sources of which stories are Mr. Phillips and knee-jerk Elvis
fans, are shot to pieces by the countless counterexamples that are
presented on hoyhoy.com.) Very, very largely "black" fans during that
"early rock" era.
And then call the people who started recording just around the time
that people such as Freed started trying (successfully) to popularize
"white" and "black" rock music among "white" young people, call that
the "rock boom era." Split it up into the "early rock era" and the
"rock boom era," so we can look at the chronology sensibly.
Bo Diddley started recording in '55, the year after Elvis did. Bo and
Elvis are both "rock boom era" artists.
Joseph Scott
Simon Weil
>>>Microtreatise follows.
>>>
>>>In general, I think the visual arts are more accessible to
>>>individuals, average or otherwise. There are a couple of reasons:
>>>
>>>For one, the visual cortex is much more highly developed than the
>>>auditory cortex, and occupies most of our brains. We are made to be
>>>much more engaged with our visual experiences than with our auditory
>>>experiences, and the aesthetics of such experiences are more innate.
>>
>>Right. I think that's undeniable. But I would argue that, when music - not
>>sound, note - gets in, it connects in quite and exceptional way. I remember
>>having an argument with Sabutin a few years ago, where he maintained that
>music
>>was *so* powerful that people had to use distancing mechanisms to avoid
>being
>>over-affected by it. That was his explanation for why avant-garde Jazzers
>>(Maybe I used Cecil Taylor, I can't remember) are not heard, whereas
>parallel
>>people in Visual art (My parallel for CT would be cubist period Picasso)
>were
>>digestible. My speculative explanation, which I think we've talked about
>>before, is that the brain actually communicates with nerve impulses of
>varying
>>frequencies - so that, maybe, music is in part an analogue of the language
>of
>>the brain. Visual stimuli have to be converted into this language. So my
>>speculation is that music speaks to us as a direct inject to the language of
>
>>brain.
>
>Our two views are not mutually exclusive.
No, I think probably they overlap. In general - i.e. not just here, we seem to
be coming at it from two sides of the same coin.
My hypothesis would be that
>the auditory system is somewhat general, but has a number of functions
>for very specific purposes. We know of some of the familiar
>functions, like those that enable us to locate something through
>binaural disparity. Tthen there may be a range of functions for
>social signals, speech, etc. Perhaps we have a capacity for
>recognizing vocalizations of a certain kind, ones that indicate to us
>affective information about another person. The sound a mother makes,
>threatening sounds, and perhaps a whole range of social signals.
>[This is where sociobiology is going, and it is plausible enough in my
>view.]
Right, and I can see how these things would tend to be empirically testible -
which is the first thing you need for a scientific hypothesis.
>
>In terms of these things, I think Simon is probably right. Music, in
>the way that it often does mimic speech or animal sounds does reach us
>more or less directly in that way. If there are any aspects of music
>that *are* universal, they probably are found in things such as this.
>I'm a bit more cautious about the "language of the brain", just
>because I think the language metaphor is overused in cognitive science
>(Fodor, via Chomsky to be exact).
Ahh, well there I'm going to hang onto my thought - albeit that I pulled it out
of the air over 25 years ago when I did some psychology and physiology courses.
>
>But then there are a range of functions involving the auditory system
>that are harder to pin down, and they make use of nearly all the
>knowledge that we have -- or at least nearly all the knowledge that we
>have is accessible to these functions. One that I've looked into the
>most involves the capacity that allows us to apprehend rhyming. I
>posit that this is a mechanism whose purpose is to enable us to
>coordinate auditory events having a temporal regularity. The
>phenomena that we most readily make use of involves rhyming of words
>and syllables based on similar properties in auditory stimuli occuring
>at different times, but with a temporal regularity -- just the common
>rhyme. But nothing is to suggest that we are limited to just verbal
>rhyming. We can apprehend rhyming based on nearly any set of auditory
>properties. The note "Bb" for example, a harmonic interval of a #11
>for another, or a certain rhythmic motif. Now these are just the
>processes that I would claim are used in a more in-depth understanding
>of the poetics of music as something that has *thematic continuity*,
>and I'd further claim that these are processes that are developed by
>experience and reflection.
That sounds jolly interesting. Are you going to publish?
>
>Again, though, I'll go back to the problem inherent in auditory
>phenomena. They are less public, less accessible to empirical
>verification. It is hard, though behavioral means, to know when you
>are hearing something the same as someone else, particularly when it
>involves these more sophisticated capacities (sophisticated, though I
>claim we all have them). How do I know that you're hearing *that
>thing* when you listen to a Charlie Parker solo?
Well you can't know. But you can try - to hear what is intrinsic to a piece of
music.
>
>After hanging around musicians for many years, I've come to realize
>that there is a wide range of behavioral cues used in music listening
>that do help (somewhat) in getting people to -- more or less --
>understand whether they are hearing what you hear. It might be in a
>way of looking at each other, nodding, looking for affirmation from
>another listener, all of which contribute. But it is far from
>reliable.
Which is why, partly, it is so much easier to get a rich experience from a live
performance - because those cues provide a way into the music.
>
>>>Second (and this partly explains the first), the nature of visual
>>>experiences are more accessible to the public, and hence, easier for
>>>one to verify intersubjectively. This is an aspect of empiricism, in
>>>which our knowledge of the world is promoted by the extent to which
>>>our experiences can be intersubjectively verified in the neutral court
>>>of observation.
>>
>>You're saying you can put a name to visual experiences? Like this is a dog -
>>that is a cat - that is a distorted representation of a dog which looks a
>bit
>>like a cat. Things like that?
>
>I think it is easier to point out visual phenomena using ostension in
>such a way that they could be named, and in such a way that one can
>know that another person *sees things the same way you see them*. I'm
>pretty sure ripe tomatoes look red to you in the same way they look to
>me, and I could tell if you were color blind even if I can't look
>through your eyes. [Putting aside the debate about spectrum
>inversion.] It is harder to "point out" auditory phenomena, making it
>more difficult to know whether one is hearing just the same phenomena
>as another.
The thing I want to bring up against this is the "three chord trick" which,
anyway, in the West has such a powerful effect that large quantities of rock
music rely on it. I think, basically, people have to be hearing much the same
thing when they hear this - otherwise why is it so universally popular? I have
a feeling that other chord changes etc have similar kind-of-universal qualities
(at least in the West). That's where I was going with my film music example -
because, I think, film music is written to evoke a very specific emotional
response - and its success (and part of the film's success) depends on it doing
so. What I'm not so sure about is whether other, non-western people respond the
same way to (western) film music. That would be kind of an interesting test,
to do with the potential of universal meaning in music.
And the present discussion.
Simon Weil
tomw
> I'm still not convinced that "enormous audiences to Monet exhibitions"
> exist.
Whenever we visit a major city we'll always take in the museums. The
art museums are -- as a rule -- busy. If there is a major exhibit
you'll need to have ordered your tickets in advance. If it's a really
popular one you may not be able to score any. The Impressionists have
been wildly popular in the US for most of my life(I'm 51).
--
Tom Walls
the guy at the Temple of Zeus
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/zeus/
Luke Kaven
Joseph, some misunderstandings have crept in. Perhaps I am somewhat
to blame for ambiguity in my phrasing. So as not to exacerbate, I
won't respond paragraph-by-paragraph.
1) I didn't intend to be ad hominem. In saying that you weren't
considering the racial context, I did not mean to imply that you were
insensitive to it, only that you didn't address it in your post.
2) When I said that Bo Diddley (as an example) was not important
because of X but important because of Y I was unintentionally
ambiguous. He was important both as an originator of a style *and* as
an influence (and presumably also as a son, and as a friend to many,
etc). But his importance as an originator is *prior* to his
importance as an influence. He was an influence *because* he was an
originator, and thus his importance as an influence was secondary to
his importance as an originator.
3) Moral claims about value are often tied to counterfactuals, claims
about what would have been the case or should have been the case. The
use of modal claims is commonplace in philosophy, and stands on good
grounds. One reasons about criminal punishment, for example, in the
context of what would have otherwise been the case, and one reasons
about the victim in the context of what life might have otherwise been
lived.
4) I think it is reasonable to say, of the Picasso counterfactual,
that if history books had been written different;ly, citing Flurg
instead of Picasso as a great genius of modern painting, and Picasso
had painted just the same paintings as he did paint, then we can say
that had history books been written otherwise (in other words, written
as they actually were written) then Picasso would have been known as
the originator of a particular style of modern painting, and
presumably would have deserved credit for such. I also recognize that
there is room for debate in these areas, especially as concerns the
implicit cateris paribus claims. But we can and should concern
ourselves with the life that Bo Diddley (as an example) could have
lived had history books not been written by historians working in a
racially segregated society.
5) I also recognize that Bo Diddley (again, an example) was working in
the context of his predecessors, which included things such as Western
Swing, a style heavily influenced by whites.
6) I'm not knocking poor Benny Goodman, or Elvis for that matter.
Luke
Luke Kaven
>Luke Kaven wrote:
>>Our two views are not mutually exclusive.
>
>No, I think probably they overlap. In general - i.e. not just here, we seem to
>be coming at it from two sides of the same coin.
Agreed.
>>In terms of these things, I think Simon is probably right. Music, in
>>the way that it often does mimic speech or animal sounds does reach us
>>more or less directly in that way. If there are any aspects of music
>>that *are* universal, they probably are found in things such as this.
>>I'm a bit more cautious about the "language of the brain", just
>>because I think the language metaphor is overused in cognitive science
>>(Fodor, via Chomsky to be exact).
>
>Ahh, well there I'm going to hang onto my thought - albeit that I pulled it out
>of the air over 25 years ago when I did some psychology and physiology courses.
I don't think your intuitions are wrong.
>>But then there are a range of functions involving the auditory system
>>that are harder to pin down, and they make use of nearly all the
>>knowledge that we have -- or at least nearly all the knowledge that we
>>have is accessible to these functions. One that I've looked into the
>>most involves the capacity that allows us to apprehend rhyming. I
>>posit that this is a mechanism whose purpose is to enable us to
>>coordinate auditory events having a temporal regularity. The
>>phenomena that we most readily make use of involves rhyming of words
>>and syllables based on similar properties in auditory stimuli occuring
>>at different times, but with a temporal regularity -- just the common
>>rhyme. But nothing is to suggest that we are limited to just verbal
>>rhyming. We can apprehend rhyming based on nearly any set of auditory
>>properties. The note "Bb" for example, a harmonic interval of a #11
>>for another, or a certain rhythmic motif. Now these are just the
>>processes that I would claim are used in a more in-depth understanding
>>of the poetics of music as something that has *thematic continuity*,
>>and I'd further claim that these are processes that are developed by
>>experience and reflection.
>
>That sounds jolly interesting. Are you going to publish?
I've been wanting to publish these claims for some time, ever since
grad school, but unsure of what kind of audience to address. It seems
to be within cognitive science in many ways. But I'm also interested
in getting it to the audience of musicians and music theorists.
Finding arguments in support of it are tricky, involving as much
metaphysics as empirical investigation. Nice of you to encourage.
>>After hanging around musicians for many years, I've come to realize
>>that there is a wide range of behavioral cues used in music listening
>>that do help (somewhat) in getting people to -- more or less --
>>understand whether they are hearing what you hear. It might be in a
>>way of looking at each other, nodding, looking for affirmation from
>>another listener, all of which contribute. But it is far from
>>reliable.
>
>Which is why, partly, it is so much easier to get a rich experience from a live
>performance - because those cues provide a way into the music.
This is spot on, I think. Jazz is a music that involves much in the
way of social coordination. This is part of the reason why I think
the best jazz arises from a jazz community, and why I think that the
academy is sometimes (but not always) a poor environment for the
development of jazz musicians.
>The thing I want to bring up against this is the "three chord trick" which,
>anyway, in the West has such a powerful effect that large quantities of rock
>music rely on it. I think, basically, people have to be hearing much the same
>thing when they hear this - otherwise why is it so universally popular? I have
>a feeling that other chord changes etc have similar kind-of-universal qualities
>(at least in the West). That's where I was going with my film music example -
>because, I think, film music is written to evoke a very specific emotional
>response - and its success (and part of the film's success) depends on it doing
>so. What I'm not so sure about is whether other, non-western people respond the
>same way to (western) film music. That would be kind of an interesting test,
>to do with the potential of universal meaning in music.
Though I was talking about phenomenal character at first, I suspect
the same sort of argument could be made for affective character. I
*think* I agree with you here, though I'm unsure about the
cross-cultural claim. My hypothesis is that since the 5th is the most
salient interval in the overtone series, that this is why, after the
tonic, the dominant and the subdominant are the two strongest tonal
centers. This sort of musical knowledge falls somewhat closer to the
core of what people share, in comparison to the relative esoterica
that are commonly employed in jazz.
>>>But the melody lingers on.
>>
>>Thankful for the memories.
>>
>And the present discussion.
Enoying it as well.
Luke
Nathan Tenny
Luke Kaven <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote:
[amid much good stuff]
>In terms of these things, I think Simon is probably right. Music, in
>the way that it often does mimic speech or animal sounds does reach us
>more or less directly in that way. If there are any aspects of music
>that *are* universal, they probably are found in things such as this.
There actually has been some research that seems to me to relate to this
discussion. I'll spare you the statistics---it's ugly---but back in 1978,
a couple of guys affiliated with IBM did some statistical sampling of
music of many genres and found that *all* of it shared a certain
statistical property: it's "1/f noise", which means that it's more
correlated, at various timescales, than purely random white noise,
but less correlated than Brownian motion.
The paper is: Voss, Richard F. and John Clarke, 1/f noise in music: Music
from 1/f noise. J Acoust Soc Am 63(1), Jan 1978.
It turns out that 1/f noise turns up in all kinds of natural phenomena,
too, and that when it appears in language it seems to have something to
do with meaning; e.g., in English, where tone is usually independent of
meaning, the pitch of speech looks like white noise, but in Chinese,
where pitch and meaning are connected, conversational pitch is 1/f noise.
The slightly half-baked idea that follows is that, in some sense, music
is an abstraction of the kind of semi-randomness that we associate with
meaning---a kind of distillate of semantics.
To bring this back on-topic, about ten years ago I experimented with
this idea, and found that by generating a 1/f noise, and using its
values as note pitches, then quantizing those notes according to the
standard chord-scale correspondences, I could generate plausible if
somewhat emptyheaded jazz. To people knowledgeable about the music it
didn't sound like much---all the right notes but no ideas---but to a
naive ear it worked pretty well. My computer shouldn't quit its day job,
though.
NT
--
Nathan Tenny | Space is where your ass is.
Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA | -William S. Burroughs
<nten...@qualcomm.com> |
void
> music you like without worrying whether it meets the standards of critics
> and other self-appointed guardians of authenticity.
You've got it backwards -- it's all about the guardians of *access* --
the radio stations, magazines, and (not then but now) television stations.
Do you really think that Elvis' music was more accessible, more easy to
comprehend than the music of the black originators? Or could it be,
maybe, that Elvis had better access to the audiences, being white?
--
Ben
"An art scene of delight
I created this to be ..." -- Sun Ra
Luke Kaven
>Luke Kaven <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote:
>[amid much good stuff]
>>In terms of these things, I think Simon is probably right. Music, in
>>the way that it often does mimic speech or animal sounds does reach us
>>more or less directly in that way. If there are any aspects of music
>>that *are* universal, they probably are found in things such as this.
>
>There actually has been some research that seems to me to relate to this
>discussion. I'll spare you the statistics---it's ugly---but back in 1978,
>a couple of guys affiliated with IBM did some statistical sampling of
>music of many genres and found that *all* of it shared a certain
>statistical property: it's "1/f noise", which means that it's more
>correlated, at various timescales, than purely random white noise,
>but less correlated than Brownian motion.
>
>The paper is: Voss, Richard F. and John Clarke, 1/f noise in music: Music
>from 1/f noise. J Acoust Soc Am 63(1), Jan 1978.
Thanks for the reference. Glad to get it.
>It turns out that 1/f noise turns up in all kinds of natural phenomena,
>too, and that when it appears in language it seems to have something to
>do with meaning; e.g., in English, where tone is usually independent of
>meaning, the pitch of speech looks like white noise, but in Chinese,
>where pitch and meaning are connected, conversational pitch is 1/f noise.
>
>The slightly half-baked idea that follows is that, in some sense, music
>is an abstraction of the kind of semi-randomness that we associate with
>meaning---a kind of distillate of semantics.
As you probably already knew, the 1/f distribution was alleged to be
one of the characteristic properties of a quasi-periodic structure
displaying self-similar variation. The paradigm example of the late
1980s non-linear dynamics studies was beat-to-beat variability in
heart rate, mapped as a time-series.
I agree with some of what you said, in that I think it can be a cue to
order in natural systems. In my view, there are many instances of
music in binary time that exhibit similarity at multiple time-scales.
First an example in binary meter. In a isochronous map, measures 1-8
may be similar to measures 9-16, measures 1-4 are similar to measures
5-8, measures 1-2 are similar to measures 3-4, measure 1 is similar to
measure 2, beats 1-2 are similar to beats 2-4. Add to this that, for
example, measures 1-4 may be similar to measures 9-12, etc. These are
the makings of a very complex rhyme scheme. You can look at
"Confirmation" this way.
Add to this the possibilities inherent in the blues, which divides up
either by 3 or by 4. Think of it as 3 x 4 measures, and 4 x 3
measures both at the same time. In a blues like "Au Privave", there
are similarities are both binary and ternary meters. Beats 1-6 are
similar to beats 7-12, just as beats 1-8 are similar to beats 9-16.
Bird yielded so much material for this.
Luke
Dennis J. Kosterman
>In article <3e584598...@news.tds.net>, den...@tds.net says...
>> I'm still not convinced that "enormous audiences to Monet exhibitions"
>> exist.
>Whenever we visit a major city we'll always take in the museums. The
>art museums are -- as a rule -- busy. If there is a major exhibit
>you'll need to have ordered your tickets in advance. If it's a really
>popular one you may not be able to score any. The Impressionists have
>been wildly popular in the US for most of my life(I'm 51).
I guess I don't get to the major cities enough! Which is largely by
design, since I don't like big cities. No doubt I miss out on cultural
opportunities this way, but I'm willing to pay that price to avoid all
the bad things -- noise, crime, traffic, crowds, high cost of living,
etc.
Anyway, I seriously didn't realize that the visual arts were that
popular. If they are, I'll back off on that issue.
I'm still skeptical, though, that jazz can be made significantly more
popular than it is without changing it into something that isn't jazz
anymore.
Dennis J. Kosterman
den...@tds.net
callowaykid
LUKE, IT'S GUYS LIKE YOU WHO GET ME UPSET. YOU'RE A BIT "TOO EASY ON
THE THINKING"!!
Your post is so ignorant and deviod of fact that I won't even elevate
it to the level of a fantasy. You do not recognize that the swing era
represented the confluence of the best in American culture where
popular taste and high art converged, nor to you recognize that Cab
Calloway is the iconic epitome of that era.
Your totally unsubstantiated claims about Billie Holiday are the
obscene and an affront to her memory. You know Luke, there are things
called "Top 40" Charts that have been kept since the 1890's The have
been transcribed in a book called "Pop Memories" by Joel Whitburn
published 1986 by Record Research Inc. And guess what it says? Maybe
luke@"smallrecords" better look at some "real records". Read on if
you dare:
During Billie Holidays entire recording career from 1935 to 1945 she
had 39, I repeat 39 top 40 hits that's an average of FOUR TOP 40 HIS A
YEAR!! But according to the great Luke of "smallrecords" she was not
a Pop artist. And to totally reveal your shameless ignorance, I have
a quiz for you. LUKE during the same time period, which of the
following pop artists had more Top 40 hits than Bille Holiday:
The Boswell Sisters?, The Count Basie Orchestra?, Earl Hines?, Ella
Fitzgerald?, Dinah Shore?, Fred Astaire?, Judy Garland?
GIVE UP?? And the Answer is........
NONE OF THEM! ZERO! Which is about your IQ on this subject. Bille
Hiliday had more top 40 hits than all the artist listed above. In
fact, the record clearly shows that BILLIE HOLIDAY HAD MORE TOP 40
HITS THAN THE COMBINATION OF JUDY GARLAND AND THE BOSWELL SISTERS PUT
TOGETHER!!! In fact Luke, in the ENTIRE recorded history of American
Popular music before 1954 there is only 1 JUST ONE pop female vocalist
with more top 40 hits than Lady Day! Kate Smith is the only one, and
even she beat Billie Holiday by just 6 hits coming in at 45 hits for
the same period!
Long live the memory of POP SINGER Lady Day! And as for LUKE???
That's it! Case Closed! Off with his head!!!! (though it apparantly
would not be much of a loss) And use a small blunt axe. Your
pathetic politically driven wishful thinking position is utter
devastated by the facts! Get the book and see for yourself before you
shoot your mouth off!
Now Luke, you might be asking yourself: "what did I dow to deserve
such nasty treatment? Why is this guy being such a nasty flamer about
how stupid I am??" I dislike flaming generally, but THIS IS ONE OF
THOSE RARE CASES WHERE A FLAMER IS ENTITLED TO FLAME. You see Luke,
through your reckless, stream of consciouness, "lets make it up as we
go along and maybe they'll believe I'm an expert" brand of posting.
you personally insulted me and the memory of my grandfather. Maybe you
guessed it from my handle. (Well in your case, maybe not) Yes, Luke I
am the blood grandson of a guy who won Americas highest art award--the
Presidential Medal of Freedom-- Cab Calloway, check out the website.
And Luke, and I am here to avenge my family name and honor--pal.
Doesn't is all make you feel like SUCH a smart guy. In the old days
what you did would call for swords or pistols but these words will do
just fine, I guess.
"Cab Calloway, who managed to be somewhat popular" Guess what vocalist
had more hits than Billie Holiday? -- Cab Calloway. Guess which
Afro-American male jazz vocalist had more vocal hits than ANY other
Afro-American Male Jazz Vocalist? --Gee Luke, your're getting a little
better informed.
"put himself across as a novelty act" To Eurocentric ignorants like
yourself who won't let themselves recognize a American Modern Tribal
Shaman, Neo-Primitivist, and Urban Folklorist, who was also the most
popular African American male jazz vocalist ever, I guess this is
true. And the fact that he was most Afro-Centric of ALL swing
bandleaders-well I guess that is a novelty.
Who did more for his fellow musicians than ANY other band leader?
Consider this Luke, did you know that the Cab Calloway Orchestra was
the first THEEEeee FIRST Afro-American Big band EVER to tour the Deep
South? Right in the teeth of the trial of the Scottboro Boys. I
gotta lotta great stories from granddad about that one. Duke
Ellington got scared refused to go. Basie wasn't big enough.
Granddad's band almost mutinied at the prospect. The tour bus was
stopped and roused by police 10 miles after it first crossed into
Virginia, at the very beginning of the tour. No hotel's, no
restaurants, no bathrooms, death threats, cross burnings, police
shakedowns, it was amazing! But nothing could stop Granddad, not even
people as ignorant as you. Not only did the Cab Calloway do every
date, but they broke box office records and the color barrier in
scores of Southern Theatres paving the way for the thousands of bands
and millions of indiviual aesthic enlightenments that followed.
You're right Luke--it's typical sellout behavior.
On later tours, Granndad had the nerve to pack his beautiful Packard
convertable on the train. When he got to the venue he would drive all
over town in it with a sign on the side like he owned the place.
Thousands of Black share croppers and white racists saw an educated
well dressed black man driving his own new car down the street--for
the first time ever in their lives. Ossie Davis says he'll never
forget how inspired he was the first time he saw granddad driving in
that car down south. Somtimes, he'd stop the car and give an improptu
song for free to workers who were too poor to make the show. Luke,
why don't you try doing somthing similar today say in downtown Tehran?
It's actually about the same culture gulf and atmosphere as the Deep
South for a showy Black man in the 1930's.
Come on Luke -- "playing off white people's fad obsession with black
culture"?? Yeah right Luke, just like every Afro-Artist who ever
existed. Don't you understand that during the swing era Americans came
together to celebrate and take the best from each other's cultures???
And really Luke -- "(which for whites was manifest in Zoot suits, and
"jive talk") watered-down for white consumption"???? GOD! What a
reactionary thoughtless euro-centric perspective you have! Zoot suits
are the the first and the ultimate civilian American man's garment
with cuban pants, long plantation owners jacket, slaves field hat,
Native American feather, British 2 tone shoes, French loud tie and a
German watch all in one garment. A zoot suit is as American as it
gets. Reactionaries in the US and hated them! Where have you been
Luke? Haven't you heard of the Zoot suit Riots?? Didn't you know the
Cab Calloway was the ONLY major singer in the US to continue to wear
the Zoot suit after it was basically banned by the government as
"subversive"?? I guess he did that for "watered down white
consumption" too, eh Luke?
Luke people like you who spout off huge gaping blatant ignorance as
fact are not just idiots, they're DANGEROUS to art and to history.
Face it Luke, you're like a kind of modern Fascist, inventing history
out of whole cloth, and spouting it off as fact and destroying art and
history in the process. I've been tough on you, but as I said, for me
- this is personal. I have every right for it to be personal.
You've got a LOT of work and research to do Mr. Luke Kaven AKA
Smallrecords! Come back when you've done your homework!
Hi De Ho!
C. Calloway Brooks
Director, Cab Calloway Orchestra
www.cabcalloway.cc
"Considine's article plays right to the self-ghettoization that has
plagued
Jazz since about the time Miles went fusion. Apparently if you were
any good
nobody would like you, and if everybody likes you you can't be any
good and
deserved to be slapped down as a poseur or traitor."
Luke Kaven <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote in message news:<ekqf5vks7360inpc0...@4ax.com>...
callowaykid
Hi De Ho!
"Considine's article plays right to the self-ghettoization that has
plagued
Jazz since about the time Miles went fusion. Apparently if you were
any good
nobody would like you, and if everybody likes you you can't be any
good and
deserved to be slapped down as a poseur or traitor."
Luke Kaven <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote in message news:<ekqf5vks7360inpc0...@4ax.com>...
callowaykid
Hi De Ho!
Luke Kaven <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote in message news:<m81h5v4e94fhc7v23...@4ax.com>...
callowaykid
Hi De Ho!
Luke Kaven <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote in message news:<idig5vol53ffqe3gr...@4ax.com>...
callowaykid
Hi De Ho!
Luke Kaven <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote in message news:<jlvf5v8psf90lr7c2...@4ax.com>...
Mike
Heard you the first time, man.
Nice post.
By the way -- who threw the spitball?
--
Mike W
tomw
> On Mon, 24 Feb 2003 09:12:43 -0500, tomw <tw...@cornell.edu> wrote:
>
> >In article <3e584598...@news.tds.net>, den...@tds.net says...
>
> >> I'm still not convinced that "enormous audiences to Monet exhibitions"
> >> exist.
>
> >Whenever we visit a major city we'll always take in the museums. The
> >art museums are -- as a rule -- busy. If there is a major exhibit
> >you'll need to have ordered your tickets in advance. If it's a really
> >popular one you may not be able to score any. The Impressionists have
> >been wildly popular in the US for most of my life(I'm 51).
>
> I guess I don't get to the major cities enough! Which is largely by
> design, since I don't like big cities. No doubt I miss out on cultural
> opportunities this way, but I'm willing to pay that price to avoid all
> the bad things -- noise, crime, traffic, crowds, high cost of living,
> etc.
>
You know what they say, "Nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to
live there."
> Anyway, I seriously didn't realize that the visual arts were that
> popular. If they are, I'll back off on that issue.
>
It seemed to me that you were unfamiliar with the scene.
> I'm still skeptical, though, that jazz can be made significantly more
> popular than it is without changing it into something that isn't jazz
> anymore.
>
> Dennis J. Kosterman
> den...@tds.net
I hear you, but I categorize two kinds of change: 1) that which is
predictable, and 2) that which catches you totally unaware.
Joseph Scott
> called "Top 40" Charts that have been kept since the 1890's
Not so. For the era before charts were really kept, Whitburn invented
the positions himself, and didn't do a very realistic job of it,
either.
THIS IS ONE OF
> THOSE RARE CASES WHERE A FLAMER IS ENTITLED TO FLAME.
Nah.
>
> "put himself across as a novelty act" To Eurocentric ignorants like
> yourself who won't let themselves recognize a American Modern Tribal
> Shaman, Neo-Primitivist, and Urban Folklorist [...] I guess this is
> true.
"And now ladies and gentlemen, one of my novelty numbers, 'The Lady
With The Fan.'" -- Cab Calloway, 1934. Flyright CD 944, track 5.
Joseph Scott
Joseph Scott
I agree with you that counterfactuals are sometimes useful. One of my
intended main points was that we ought to keep straight in our minds
the difference between, e.g., talking about how accomplished and
influential an improviser Benny Goodman was relative to his peers on
the one hand and how accomplished and influential an improviser Benny
Goodman might have been relative to his peers if things had been
different on the other hand. For a more obvious example than Goodman,
take the ODJB: In the real world, however many bands LaRocca's band
influenced is however many they influenced -- including Ory's -- and
that's history, that history doesn't hinge at all on how many stupid
things LaRocca said later or why so-and-so didn't get the opportunity
to record or the like, if we're not revisionists. In contrast, we can
invent an alternate universe in which LaRocca & Co. didn't record or
weren't very popular or whatever, for whatever reason, e.g. that half
the record companies were "black"-owned in 1917 and most were in Los
Angeles, or whatever, anything. And of course that's creative fantasy:
not the area (real) music historians concern themselves with.
I doubt that Bo Diddley was influenced too much by Western Swing, as
opposed to the more mainstream swing and boogie blues of the '40s, but
I understand your basic point that Western Swing would be an example
of a bluesy pre-rock style that was dominated by "whites." Imo two
'40s artists who significantly impacted what would become the rock and
roll tradition and were "white" would be Freddie Slack and Louis
Prima. (And you could add Johnny Otis, of course, who is of "white"
ancestry, as far as is parents were aware, but has long considered
himself "black.") Slack and Prima and quite a few other "whites" were
involved in the transition from swing/jump blues to R&B that was
happening around the mid-'40s, while the "boogie fad" was still
heavily on the minds of "white" Americans in general. In contrast, to
the best of my understanding, very very few "whites," proportionally,
were involved in what was going on in the transitions from jump
blues/R&B to early rock that was happening during about '48-'50.
Take care friend,
Joseph Scott
callowaykid
Just wanted to make sure that dolt Luke Smallrecords got the message.
Anyway, it was Jonah Jones who threw it. Granddad, ever the warrior,
still finished the gig even though he was stabbed. You know Dizzy had
been fired for fighting in the last band before he was hired by the
Cab Calloway Orchestra. One of the fathers of Salsa Mario Bauza
brough Dizzy in. Granddad gave Diz a lot of play. Dizzys first
recroded solos, and first recorded composition, and first recorded
arrangements, were all with the Cab Calloway Orchestra. Huge elements
of Dizzys performance style, attitude, and bandleading technique came
directly from Cab Calloway.
Dizzy to me was the most important figure in the BeBop movement, not
Bird. In my mind, the Calloway Orchestra was the Cradle of BeBop,
albeit an uncomfortable cradle with a thin mattress.
Granddad and Dizzy made up before too long and before Dizzy got his
own big band together, he brought his fabulous big band charts to the
Calloway Orchestra to rehearse in the late 40's. I used to talk to
Diz every Christmas, when he would call up granddad with holiday
wishes.
Hi De Ho!
C. Calloway Brooks
"Mike" <som...@somewhere.com> wrote in message news:<b3f2tn$irm$1...@perki.connect.com.au>...
Michael West
Thank you for the background info.
Of course that confirms Milt Hinton's version of the
story. Milt also relates that Dizzy spent many hours
teaching him and other interested players the new
music -- writing out substitutions and so on.
Are those the Gil Fuller charts you're referring to?
--
Mike
"callowaykid" <callo...@runbox.com> wrote in message
news:9c020eab.03022...@posting.google.com...
Jack Woker
> recorded solos, and first recorded composition, and first recorded
> arrangements, were all with the Cab Calloway Orchestra.
Two thirds true, at least. Dizzy's first recorded solos were with Teddy
Hill's band, 1937.
jack
Joseph Scott
Yeah, at the time he formed his own first big band he had taken _far_
more solos on Cab's records than on anyone else's. The stories about
Cab having an aversion to bop don't make much sense...
Dizzys first
> recorded solos
-- those were with Teddy Hill in '37, not Cab
, and first recorded composition, and first recorded
> arrangements, were all with the Cab Calloway Orchestra.
-- yeah, "Pickin' The Cabbage" with Cab would be both the first
composition and first arrangement, right?
Huge elements
> of Dizzys performance style, attitude, and bandleading technique came
> directly from Cab Calloway.
Absolutely.
>
> Dizzy to me was the most important figure in the BeBop movement, not
> Bird.
Yeah, and best I can tell, just about everyone knew that in the '40s
-- Charlie's role relative to Diz's got exaggerated, bent out of
perspective, later on.
>
> Granddad and Dizzy made up before too long and before Dizzy got his
> own big band together, he brought his fabulous big band charts to the
> Calloway Orchestra to rehearse in the late 40's.
Plus even when Diz wasn't around, "Zanzi" from '45 broadcasts shows
that Cab was open to bop (and as of '45 playing bop wasn't yet
bandwagon jumping, the way it was for e.g. Benny Goodman a couple of
years later; in '45 it was just staying on top of the latest
cutting-edge jazz, like e.g. Coleman Hawkins was also doing as of
'45).
Joseph Scott
callowaykid
Though I do believe that in "To Be or not to Bop" Dizzy says that his
solo was the one that you could trace all his later work back to.
There are several other bop and even post bop charts from the vaults
which have never been recorded that the orchestra now performs. These
include, Minnies a Hep Cat Now, Dissonance with Hinton, Such a Rebop
Guy and others.
--CB
j_ns...@msn.com (Joseph Scott) wrote in message news:<a2d52481.03022...@posting.google.com>...
JC Martin
>.....but one need not pick up an instrument,
> brush, or sculting knife to make art. Art is to be found in the saimple
> day-to-day act of living. All of life is art, if you chose not to
> discriminate.
That's saimply deep mon.
-JC
Luke Kaven
There might be more of a consensus on some things than otherwise would
appear. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I'm inclined to look at it that way.
1) I agree there was a continuum between pop and jazz, at least from
the 20s through the 50s. As I said before, there was a harmonic
richness inherent in the Tin Pan Alley songbook, and I think that the
listeners of the time had more of an ear for chords than do those who
listen to today's pop music.
2) You are correct that in large part I mean to suggest that she never
sold all that many records during her lifetime. [A recent challenge
here has me looking back into the charts more carefully, but that was
my claim, right or wrong.] As far as post-1940, I can only turn up
the appearance of Lover Man on the Billboard charts ('45). I'm unsure
about methodology on any of the charts, especially before 1940. I'd
like to look further into this, as I said.
3) Given (1), though, I'd have to agree that there were many things
she did that involved her interpretating pop tunes of the day. But I
think that there was always something more going on. The
interpretations were always more personal, and the performances were
more geared towards her art than towards providing a background for
dancing, for example. I'm not going to say that the dance bands
weren't artistic, though I suspect most of them fell short in this
regard.
4) When I suggested she was a "college thing", I think I used a poor
choice of words. What I intended to say was that among white
audiences she tended to be more recognized among intellectuals,
whether of college age or not. A number of people there at the time
suggested this to me, but perhaps my sampling isn't big enough. But
all reports I have of Cafe Society describe a mixed-race bohemian club
whose clientele consisted mainly in left-leaning intellectuals. I
can't substantiate your claims about the education-level and
demographics of white Basie fans, so I'll leave that up in the air.
But as you say, "the masses" never cared about Billie Holiday much
during her lifetime. This is the one sense in which I did intend in
saying that she was not a pop singer. Along with this, I can accept
much of the rest of what you say.
As far as "college things" go, I would also agree that most college
students are not particularly sophisticated in the arts, and popular
tastes predominate. On the other hand, college students have always
played a key role in bringing recognition to lesser-known, and more
experimenting artists.
5) The general question of the continuity between an artist's life and
his/her art is extensive in scope, including where drug use is
concerned. I'm not sure how well a few words can convey that. I get
this mainly out of personal experience, after many years of frank
conversations with many musicians. It is hard to explain how I would
know about the reasons for X's alcoholism, and how that is continuous
with X's music, except to give you X's biography. I can wave my hands
at a few things, which won't completely satisfy anyone's curiosity.
But still: Almost all the jazz musicians I've known live a life that
is so different from anyone else, and the world will never let them
forget that. They are alienated from the rest of the world, to say
the least. Hell, most aren't even awake when the rest of the world is
awake. I know why some of them literally want to kill themselves the
slow way, and I hear it in the dark edge of their music. Giving a
good account of an affective thing like that is very hard, yet if you
know a person well enough over enough years, and you hear them play
hundreds of times, then you see the continuity between their
personality and the music that they play. Not a great answer, I know.
6) I really have no beef with Benny Goodman, so I'm inclined not to
take issue with your remarks.
7) As far as what bland is, I think you've experienced it in any
number of elevators. Beyond that, there may be a penumbra of
vagueness. But it is worth pointing out that jazz musicians typically
will not use what they call "stock arrangements", finding them too
dull.
8) Cloying, syrupy sentimentality. Agreed this is a vague judgment.
But nothing that Billie Holiday did that I've heard *ever* fit into
this category, which gives you an idea of where I draw the line.
There are shades of distinction somewhere between there and "Sunshine
and Lollipops". [Hmm...whose version of Embraceable You is featured
in Catch Me If You Can? I thought it was a dull rendition. Its a
great song, but only when its harmonic possibilities are sufficently
realized. Billie Holiday always surpassed that criterion.]
9) Going back to her songbook, subtle improvisation, and "getting it"
- - yes, as I said before, I agree that harmonic sophistication among
listeners was more prevalent then than it is now. Which is partly why
I say that there are certain singers billed as "jazz singers" that
absolutely don't do anything for me in that way. Its like a lost art,
except for a few I know. I don't think you have to have that degree
of subtlety to make it nowadays as a jazz singer.
By contrast, there were a lot more singers back in the day who could
pull that off. So in a sense I am conceding some of your points about
their being a continuity. I just don't think that continuity extends
to today.
10) You say that Don Redman's "glory years" were largely behind him
before the "white public" had ever first heard of Benny's band. This
suggests in part to me that the whites were the last to be clued in,
and in my counterfactual possible world, Don Redman (or Fletcher
Henderson, or Bennie Moten, or Andy Kirk) did the deeds and *would
have and should have* achieved the fame in their own times that Benny
did later with their music. The only reason that the "glory days" for
these black artists were over at all by that time is that they were
ahead of their time, relative to the white masses. The same goes for
Bo Diddley, and other original R&B artists. R&B had been around in
the early fifties before white audience ever picked up on it. There
was a latency period required for original black artistic
contributions to be packaged up for white consumption, and thereby
made popular.
The similarities between Basie and Benny (and Billie for that matter),
who you point out as having achieved success at the same time, has
something to do with the contributions of John Hammond, who brought
Basie to a wider, whiter, audience. Otherwise, I'm not so sure that
Basie would have been recognized so soon, if at all.
Luke
Luke Kaven
And I think there's something to that. Dewey wrote extensively about
the aesthetics of everyday life, and it strikes to the core of what
aesthetics is.
Mike
"Luke Kaven" wrote in message
> But as you say, "the masses" never cared about Billie Holiday much
> during her lifetime.
Could you please amplify this?
Who are these masses and why do you have
scare quotes around them. And who were all
those people who loved her music if they were
not the masses? Would a couple of middle-class
white teenagers in Los Angeles be part of these
masses, and if so, why not? Or do you mean
that these masses only include the people who
meet your stereotype, and no-one else counts?
Throw me a frickin' bone here, like the man said.
--
Mike
Dennis J. Kosterman
<lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote:
>"JC Martin" <jcma...@sonic.net> wrote:
>>"Sum1" <shridurga@-spamoff-yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>>.....but one need not pick up an instrument,
>>> brush, or sculting knife to make art. Art is to be found in the saimple
>>> day-to-day act of living. All of life is art, if you chose not to
>>> discriminate.
>>That's saimply deep mon.
>And I think there's something to that. Dewey wrote extensively about
>the aesthetics of everyday life, and it strikes to the core of what
>aesthetics is.
I think there's *something* to it, but he goes too far. To say that
"all of life is art" renders the word "art" meaningless. If you choose
not to discriminate, there's no difference between a Charlie Parker
solo or a Beethoven symphony and me blowing my nose. And I find that
idea utterly ridiculous. I choose to discriminate.
Dennis J. Kosterman
den...@tds.net
Luke Kaven
>"Luke Kaven" wrote in message
>
>> But as you say, "the masses" never cared about Billie Holiday much
>> during her lifetime.
>
>Could you please amplify this?
>
>Who are these masses and why do you have
>scare quotes around them. And who were all
>those people who loved her music if they were
>not the masses? Would a couple of middle-class
>white teenagers in Los Angeles be part of these
>masses, and if so, why not?
I used the scare quotes because I was quoting Joseph Scott. I would
take it to be a matter of degree. The audience that Elvis or the
Beatles reached in their own lifetimes was a mass audience without a
doubt. Every other high school kid had their disks. Charlie Parker
very definitely _did not_ reach a mass audience. Billie Holiday was
somewhere in between, and I'm guessing pretty far down the scale of
numbers from Elvis or The Beatles.
> Or do you mean
>that these masses only include the people who
>meet your stereotype, and no-one else counts?
Aren't you asking this rhetorically and then presupposing the answer?
If you want to say something, please say it without the
passive-aggression.
The ony demographic trends I'm observing have to do with segregation.
I suspect that more white teenagers were interested in Frank Sinatra
than were interested in Billie Holiday. Just as I suspect that more
white teenagers were interested in Elvis than were interested in Bo
Diddley.