But insofar as music-_making_ has political implications in a given context, this does not mean that the music itself has political content. In Eastern Europe, for example, the Communist authorities had all sorts of do's and don'ts about what politically correct "people's" art should be like: in the case of music, it should incorporate folk material, it should be tonal, it shouldn't go over the heads of the proletariate, it should be "uplifting," it shouldn't be "hot" - i.e., it should make the masses want to work, not fuck. In that context, it was the very _refusal_ of political programming or inspiration that made jazz (swing, bop, and later the free stuff), 12 tone classical, and rock'n'roll so deeply subversive behind the Iron Curtain - the musics of rebellion and freedom.
(There is a great account of this in the fiction and essays of Josef Skvorecki: "The Bass Saxophone," "Talkin' Moscow Blues," "The Cowards," etc.)
> The 'New Thing' was very much a voicing
> of what was happening at the time in the
> black community, and although you might
> perceive it as a purely instrumental
> sound, the sound of the horns was able
> to communicate emotional and even
> political (anger!) feelings to those
> with the ears to hear.
Well, there's an old saying: military intelligence is to intelligence as military music is to music... Which is to say that what the "New Thing" produced of enduring musical value communicates much more than the rage and militance of the '60s. Archie Shepp's "Attica Blues," for example. It's way more than "message music." Kind of like Beethoven's 3rd Symphony...
> In my opinion, it was John Coltrane who
> took the music to the edge of the abyss
> (and beyond!), and played an incredibly
> deep spiritual sound that embraced all
> cultural and religious traditions.
And I think that what makes his sound so spiritual is that there's nothing in it that "shows off" Trane's spirituality. There's no "Look at me! I've transcended my ego!" coming out of that man's horn. Ever.
In contrast, when I listen to someone like Tisziji Munoz belaboring his "spirit" thing on electric guitar, it just feels like a complete hustle. Sonic Elmer Gantry. It's just too blatant, and I'm at a loss at how other people take his healing-the-universe stuff seriously. (I'll admit, though, that the self-congratulatory titles and holier-than-thou liner notes don't help.) Go figure.
David
np: Schulhoff, Concerto for Piano & Orchestra, Op 11.
Hans Georg-Gadamer, a French Hermeneutic philosopher, has quite an extensive dialogue on the subject of art and religion. In a way, he kind of goes back to Heidegger, and refines Martin's ideas of "ways of knowing the world." To make a long story short, Gadamer suggests that art discloses the world to mankind in a similar fashion as religion. i.e. the two things are almost the same. If your interested, read Truth And Method.
They also kind of argue that science and rationality are forces of precluding sacred ways of knowing the world. That is to say that rationality has created a system where the sacred way of knowing the world is discounted as ridiculous whereas science seems to get the final say on everything.
I highly recommend it
Steve Spangler
- -
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 15:39:31 -0600
From: Joseph Zitt <jzitt@metatronpress.com>
Subject: Re: Religion/Music
On Fri, Mar 09, 2001 at 04:38:49PM -0500, Steve Spangler wrote:
> They also kind of argue that science and rationality are forces of precluding sacred ways of knowing the world. That is to say that rationality has created a system where the sacred way of knowing the world is discounted as ridiculous whereas science seems to get the final say on everything.
Somewhere in Samuel R. Delany's novel Dhalgren, a character talks
convincingly about how art, religion, and science each see the others
as mistaken of their own all-encompassing truth.
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|> ~The only thing that is not art is inattention~ --- Marcel Duchamp <|
