Music, like all art forms, is an evolutionary endeavor. Jazz in particular is popularly traced by a rich cartography of styles and schools with relative (and highly subjective) starting points and figureheads widely-lauded as catalysts to its development. Bop has Bird & Diz, Free Jazz has Ornette & Trane, Free Improv has Derek Bailey & Evan Parker, to name but a few. What often isn’t touched on is the tenuous nature of these constructed histories. Why did they necessarily follow the itineraries they did? Was Ornette really the first one to play ‘free’? Why wasn’t Chu Berry blowing his tenor with split tones & circular breathing totally independent of chord changes back in the day. Why are the forces of convention and custom so historically ironclad? Are the creative leaps that launched new trajectories in the music really all that monumental? What the hell am I talking about? Truth be told, I’m not really sure...
Basically I’m trying to come to grips with the way the history of jazz (& other genres of music for that matter) hashed out the way they did. In the larger scheme of human history it all seems so arbitrary & based on happenstance. But if you listen to the dogma peddled by some jazz ‘historians’ it couldn’t have happened any other way. Others have less rigid perspectives & imaginations. The writer John Corbett is especially adept at painting tantilizing post-modern musical portraits. For instance: an aging Bubber Miley and Omer Simeon sitting in with Sun Ra’s Chicago-era Arkestra or Warne Marsh & Lee Konitz trading subversive phrases from the bandstand with the Ayler Brothers. These sorts of fanciful combinations are the likely province of trainwrecks and coal mine cave-ins, but they’re still effective in getting the mental juices circulating. Are the stylistic boundaries that seem so integral and innate really just lines in the sand drawn by the vagaries of geography and chance?
Posted by derek on August 22, 2003 9:47 AMBlame the taxonomy on the people who write/talk about it.
I offer this, from Mal Waldron's liner notes to Mingus' At the Bohemia. You'll find no genre setting here, only "jazz" as generic label:
This is a Jazz Workshop album!...which means that here you will find new ideas and new developments on old ideas. Whatever you find, you cannot judge with old criteria completely. You must add new measurements to your yardstick because we are aiming for new concepts. We are no presenting these concepts with the feeling that they must be used as is. Instead, we are presenting them as a record of our developments in jazz. Some of the ideas will stay and some will disappear. The real test is time. Only the truly good ideas will last and become an integral part of modern jazz.
He further adds that his notes "...are designed to introduce you to our concepts and help you to develop new criteria with which to evaluate our music."
BTW, I like how you differentiated between Free Jazz and Free Improv.
"Are the stylistic boundaries that seem so integral and innate really just lines in the sand drawn by the vagaries of geography and chance?"
More or less, yeah. It's usually pretty easy to find counter-examples to any definition anybody gives of artificial kinds. I suppose they're useful anyhow, though.
Posted by: walto at August 23, 2003 10:59 AMThe problem is not just with history, and, with the exception of some easily-vilified journos there's not really anyone we can blame. Even now, I know for a fact that there are some ridiculously innovative musicians in small towns who get no recognition. Most of them don't care much about that anyway, but the fact is that if you're not in NYC, Tokyo, Berlin, London, Chicago or maybe a few other places you're unlikely to be noticed. I side with the guys like Todd Whitman (reeds, Buffalo, NY) who just don't really care.
Another think is the standardization of improvisers' bios: a long list of famous playing partners is expected. I've met guys who played with Cecil Taylor or Eugene Chadbourne ONE TIME who persist in including those names in their bios, while leaving out the names of the unknown players with whom they've *really* done their developing.
Again, though, it don't matter. The sounds are the only testimony.
Posted by: Jurgen Faster at August 23, 2003 10:17 PMI guess I don’t really have a problem with the taxonomy as long as the caveat that it’s all malarkey anyway goes part and parcel with any application. I am curious about how the strictures of convention & taste dictate development. Going back to the timeline- someone like Cecil putting out a record like JAZZ ADVANCE in 1955. Why’d it take so long? Not to slight Cecil’s achievements, but why wasn’t that sort of shit happening in Nawlins back at the turn of the century as an outgrowth of Congo Square polyphony? Maybe it was & we just don’t know about it. Sounds might be the only true testimony as Jurgen notes, but sounds get lost if they’re not preserved and circulated. Then there’s people like Art Tatum and Jaki Byard who were completely ahead of their time. Toss a stylistic tag at their names & rarely, if ever, does it stick. Why are the vast majority of musicians content to follow the herd? Simple economics? Maybe, but I think it goes deeper.
Posted by: derek at August 25, 2003 6:04 AMInnovative musicians? What's that? New things are here now and were here yesterday. There's always someone doing a new thing. But, it's the influence that we measure. When the new sound hits, we look back and say, hey, they were doing that back then and because of this influence into the 'new' style, we pay heed. There are lots of new things existing right now but we don't give props until they lead a school of followers. That's the way we know the tradition is being passed. I feel sorry for any artist who worries about being appreciated rather than continuing to work on their craft.
Posted by: Ted at August 25, 2003 9:49 AM.................................................. © 2003 - 2006 bagatellen ..................................................