In reviewing the new Modern Jazz Quartet box on Fantasy I was reminded how fickle and judgmental musical tastes can be. The MJQ were a top flight unit with nearly a half century of experience together as a band. Lewis and Jackson were widely lauded as individuals (Heath and Kay, while lower profile, were too). Yet throughout their entire career together they were dogged by critics who derided them for supposed high-brow antiseptic flavors in their music. Who fired off invectives claiming they had abandoned the smoky populist environs of jazz clubs for the larger bankrolls attainable through concert hall gigs. Basically that they sold out their roots for bourgeois (read: white) cultural acceptance. Publicly the band members just tipped their top hats and soldiered on, but I’m sure the recurring indictments had to sting a little.
Fans of the group have suffered similar slander, being pigeon-holed as stodgy, starched-collar types whose upturned noses can’t stand the stench of the gutbucket blues. All this got me mulling about my own tastes and music I’ve been lambasted for liking. Music, like any passion-driven pursuit, is bound to engender strong and polemic opinions. But it still baffles me sometimes how something so subjective can have the semblance of objective truth attached to it on such a regular basis. I like John Mellencamp. I’ve been a fan of his music since before he wisely dropped his feline sobriquet and started gaining serious songwriting substance in the mid-1980s. Slice of life tunes like “Jack and Diane” and “Minutes to Memories” still bring a smile to my face and while he’s had misfires over the years the majority of his work has managed to move me on some level. Yet there are many of my friends and colleagues who would (& have) laugh(ed) out loud at these admissions.
There was a time when this sort of shit flipping used to bother me. But not anymore. These days Martin Denny and INXS get occasional playtime right alongside Coltrane and Curtis Mayfield. Friends may scoff and chuckle, but me, I’m happy.
I can sympathize with your sentiments, Derek. I’ve often wondered why my own work has such a bad rap as thrift-store vinyl surplus & gimmicky easy listening. This despite my obvious domination of the charts in the 60s with my Persuasive Percussion series & my invention of the gatefold concept in LP packaging. Not to mention my advancements in studio engineering & pioneering use of 35mm film in place of standard audio tape. Somehow all the popularity I curried was overtaken by other less talented acts & I’ve paid the price ever since. I still regret selling off my holdings in the Command label to ABC. Their subsequent sale of the label to MCA was a death knell that continues to ring in my ears. Anyway, I encourage anyone and everyone to follow their musical muse wherever it takes them. Thanks for your time.
Enoch Light
I bought Stand Up And Shout: The Dio Anthology yesterday.
Posted by: Phil Freeman at October 16, 2003 11:27 AMWhen I was a freshman in college I bunked with a roommate who professed to be a Ronnie James Dio freak. One morning I was rocking out to my well-worn cassette copy of KISS THE SKY and he asks me who’s playing. I was like “it’s Hendrix, man” and my roommate replies, “Hendrix? Hendrix who? That guy can’t play for shit. Now Dio, that dude can play guitar.” I yelled back “man, Dio doesn’t even play guitar!” He just stared at me blankly & I rolled my eyes, cranking the volume knob all the way to the right to tune him out.
Posted by: derek at October 16, 2003 12:44 PMDuran Duran owns INXS. You should know that, D.
Posted by: al at October 16, 2003 7:27 PMYo Jones! You know I’m down with Simon LeBon, John Taylor & the rest of them cats. Shit, their BARBARELLA name-check alone gives them bank in my book. But they were all surface video flash & soft-core sexual innuendo. The Aussie boys in INXS could & did get deep. Just check their work from THE SWING thru KICK- new wave pop leavened with a sharper rock edge & even some soul. Michael Hutchence had charisma & swaggering sex appeal to spare- the perfect 80s frontman. And my man Kirk Pengilly on sax, with his Buddy Holly horn rims- he almost struck jazz-worthy moments with his wailing solos in spots. I still remember catching them at the Seattle Center Coliseum with Black Uhuru opening back in 87’.
Posted by: derek at October 17, 2003 5:59 AM.................................................. © 2003 - 2006 bagatellen ..................................................