1) Music Without Words Is Kind Of Inherently Lame, No?
In 1967, after the death of his Orchestra's vital composer, arranger, and pianist Billy Strayhorn (who succumbed to cancer at the age of 51), grief-stricken bandleader Duke Ellington and his musicians recorded the tribute album ...and his mother called him Bill, an arguably well-chosen selection of some of Strayhorn's best-liked tunes, including of course his melodic directions to Harlem, "Take The A Train." After the session proper, while musicians folded chairs and discussed plans for their evenings, Ellington himself sat at the piano and played a gorgeous, and plainly tortured-with-loss version of Strayhorn's ostensibly exquisite ballad "Lotus Blossom." Listening to it, Ellington's personal sense of loss is palpable. Still. One can't help but think how much strongly The Duke could have sold the tune with some lyrics. Maybe something along the lines of "I'm really sad/that you're dead/Billy Strayhorn./You played piano/but you /didn't play horn." Just give a listen and see if you don't agree.
2) So Many Kinds Of Music Gets Categorized As Jazz That People Don't Even Really Know What The Hell Jazz Is. What's Up With That?
Like, a couple of months ago, I was listening to some stuff by The Boswell Sisters, a New-Orleans-originating trio of white women (sisters, just like the group name says) who did all sorts of synthesizing-and-innovative things with harmony and syncopation and tone, vocal wise, that no less an expert than Donald Fagen (noted old white jazzbo who managed to have a few hit records in the '70s) has compared their body of work, significance-wise, to that of the aforementioned Duke Ellington. And their material is pretty peppy, despite it sounding kinda tinny and not being in stereo because most of the best of it is derived from ancient transcriptions of ancient radio recordings. Not long after that, I listened to a record by an outfit that calls itself The Apophonics. Another trio, this one all guys, and not related, one of whom plays bass, okay that's a real instrument, the other of whom plays saxophone, or saxophones, because he switches them on occasion I guess. And then there's the third guy, who plays, get this, "energised surfaces & synth." "Energised" because they're a British outfit I guess. So anyways, while The Boswell Sisters' disc I'd had on, Airshots And Rarities 1930-1935 features twenty nifty ditties, from "Here Comes The Sun" (not the Beatles' tune, but they're lame too, but that's for a different post) to "Lullaby Of Broadway" (is that gay, you think?), On Air by The Apophonics features three "pieces," and while the Boswell Sisters sing peppily, the Apophonics's "pieces" are made up of them rubbing and scraping their traditional instruments, such as they are, and whatever the hell the energized (screw you, limey, I'm using the American spelling) surfaces are. AND YET. In the liner notes to On Air is is revealed that these pieces were originally heard on "the BBC programme [Christ this British spelling again] 'Jazz on 3'." JAZZ on 3. How is this scraping and bowing and blatting and silence any relation to the "jazz" that is practiced by the peppy Boswell Sisters? Some musicologist might venture that, well, the breakdowns to which the Boswell Sisters subjected the material they chose is the most crucial proponent of their music, and that, as dissimilar to the Boswell Sisters as, say, Thelonious Monk might sound, his project of musical deconstruction was not inherently too far away from the Boswell Sisters' project. Of course the aim might be hugely different relative to potential audiences, but let's put that aside for the moment. In any event, what a combo like the Apophonics is doing is conducting an inquiry into the nature of music itself, that is, taking a proposed sound world that has been even more dismantled of certain particulars than either the Boswells or Monk necessarily dreamed of, or consciously dreamed of, and subjecting it to a kind of improvisational stress test.
Maybe that's so, but Jesus. How pretentious.
Anyway, Washington Post editorial person and part-time post-punk musician Justin Moyer put it much more elegantly in his recent op-ed piece when he pronounced: "Charlie Parker and John Zorn do not seem to occupy the same sonic universe, let alone belong in the same record bin or iTunes menu."
As my old pal Lex G. might say, "YEP YEP." Here's alto saxophonist John Zorn playing with the Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet:
3) I Don't "Get" Your Aesthetic, And If You Don't Understand How That Invalidates Your Whole Project, I Feel Bad For You, Son, But That's No Reason For You To Become Unpleasant
In the aforementioned Washington Post piece, Moyer recalls studying jazz with the likes of Anthony Braxton, Pheeroan akLaff, and Jay Hoggard. "I appreciated that these generous African American men deigned to share their art at a quite white New England liberal-arts school," Moyers allows, and as you see there is not a trace of racist condescension in his nevertheless quite white reminiscence. Like he said, he appreciated it, but "I just didn’t get their aesthetic." And for an aesthetic to be valid, a white boy has to get it. In case you're interested in the aesthetic Moyer gets, well, here's the website for his band, which has a cute name. Also, in the words of Mark E. Smith, "You are working on a video project." Why doesn't this kind of stuff get grants? And also, you don't have to get so shirty, Amiri Baraka, or do I mean LeRoi Jones? I mean, really.
1) Jazz just isn't relatable.
2) You realize this is the WaPo, right? It's the Onion without the attempt at satire or humor. (Or as Dean Baker likes to say, "Fox on 15th Street".)
3) I hate you for finally making me read the article after studiously avoiding it.
Posted by: Petey | August 10, 2014 at 09:47 AM
I'm quite partial to "Blood Count" which apparently is metered to match the drip of an I.V. Strayhorn was a ferocious talent and combined so well with Ellington's genius.
Posted by: Steven Scott | August 10, 2014 at 02:37 PM
1). No. Music is an aural art form. Words are completely unnecessary and I prefer it most of the time when they are not present. There are many who share my opinion. This art form speaks to people like them.
2). Labels are completely irrelevant and they are assigned by people like you, not the art itself.
3). There have always been less accessible art forms. I personally don't "get" much rap or hip hop. That is on me. This is on people like you and Moyers.
Posted by: Ben | August 10, 2014 at 03:32 PM
That there is some quality sarcasm.
And thanks for mentioning that recording of "Lotus Blossom," which is practically my favorite thing, ever.
Posted by: policomic | August 10, 2014 at 03:37 PM
Satire that cuts right to the core of what was wrong with Moyer’s piece: a tradition is refusing to conform to what _Moyer_ wants it to be.
Posted by: Han-earl Park | August 10, 2014 at 07:09 PM
You'd think by writing ""I just didn’t get their aesthetic," a self-respecting editor would immediately recuse her/himself from commenting on what s/he admits s/he doesn't understand. As Lex would not say: NOPE. NOPE. This was infinitely worse than M. Django Gold's (one of those names you wish you'd never seen) utterly humor-free full-on embrace of the jazz-sux-who-cares-why? know-nothing meme that infects much discussion of the topic for the coming generation. And the douchebag was signed to Dischord...meantime, the Minutemen would open their concerts by playing Ascension. Bet it sounded like Phish! All that improv, Lord have mercy...sure would love it if Professors Braxton, akLaff, and/or Hoggard would deign to speak to how little this clown knew in order to flunk himself forward to the head of the discourse. Jazz lives -- as, sadly, does shamelessly vacuous dipshittery.
Posted by: James Keepnews | August 10, 2014 at 09:33 PM
Wasn't it Louis Armstrong who said of jazz, "If you gotta ask, you'll never know?"
Funny you should mention the Boswells; one of the just-wrapped new Biffle & Shooster shorts, SCHMO BOAT, features the Saguaro Sisters doing a pitch-perfect version of the Boswells' arrangement of "Roll On, Mississippi, Roll On."
Posted by: Cadavra | August 11, 2014 at 12:48 AM
No comment on the original article, which is probably for the best. However, a second doffing of the hat to you, sir, for introducing me to Ellington's painfully beautiful take on "Lotus Blossom", which I had not heard until now.
For the record, the first doffing of the hat was back in 2011, when you were doing the "Encounters with Great recordings of the Century" and discussed "We Three" by Roy Hanes/Phineas Newborn/Paul Chambers. That record refuses to get tired.
Posted by: Chris Voss | August 11, 2014 at 10:25 AM
Damn. "Part-time post-punk" is such an exquisite stealth burn. Great post Glenn; I think #3 is especially damning.
Posted by: k.van. | August 11, 2014 at 11:52 AM
Ben, we're going to have to agree to strongly disagree about your first point and leave it at that.
Also, having read enough condescending culture articles recently, I'm staying away from that "Washington Post" article, and taking Glenn's word for it.
Posted by: lipranzer | August 11, 2014 at 01:35 PM
The Boswell catalog (ARC/Brunswick) was split between Columbia and Decca in ye olden days. Legacy did some lovely remasters of the Columbia stuff in the 1990s. MCA, nothing. (In the US anyway) Don't know what's out there now, still have the old CDs and LPs (including an MCA import which is half Connee Boswell solo, half Sisters.)
Posted by: Shawn Stone | August 11, 2014 at 05:53 PM
I heartily agree with point #2: too many kinds of music get categorized as jazz. The liner notes of my favorite album of all-time (Chuck Mangione "Live at the Hollywood Bowl") contain a quote by Harvey Siders of The Los Angeles Times that helps make some sense, at least to me: "There wasn't an empty seat at the Hollywood Bowl Sunday night- in the 18,000-seat amphitheater, or it's ample stage- as Chuck Mangione, his quartet and 65 of Hollywood's finest demonstrated why jazz and rock are living together so compatibly." The whole album is wonderful, except for the second tune which I never listen to, because it's too...jazzy.
Agree or disagree, one thing is for certain: Harvey Siders knew how to spell "amphitheater" correctly.
Posted by: Scott Neal | August 11, 2014 at 08:29 PM