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Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 13:15:03 -0800
From: "Patrice L. Roussel" <proussel@ichips.intel.com>
Subject: Re: wanting to find wynton's views on jazz...
On Tue, 20 Mar 2001 19:52:22 -0000 "thomas chatterton" wrote:
>
> "With a peculiar mix of pride and bitterness, [Julius] Hemphill maintains
> the reason he's not more popular today is that he 'really doesn't qualify'
> by the standards created by the current canon-makers, the Lincoln Center
> brain trust of Wynton Marsalis and critic Stanley Crouch. Jazz, according to
> them, must be about swing, polyphony and blues. 'They're not qualified to
> say that in the first place', Hemphill growls. 'Jazz doesn't have to do a
> damn thing. Where did this hogwash come from? Got to do this, got to do
> that. Why does jazz have to do it? No other music has those requirements.
> Everybody's trying to fit this music into some kind of pigeonhole, like it's
> patented or some shit. 'That's just somebody making a living!' He laughs.
> 'I'm not into sociology, I'm not into history - I'm into music. If everybody
> thought that way, nobody would get anywhere different. Plus, I see thar
> these people, Wynton and Stanley, are doing real good. I see them on TV,
> they're making the Grammys, the lecture circuit. So what right have they
> got, in the midst of all their success, to drop a lug on somebody who's
> doing something different? That's why I call them Uncle Toms, because
> they're just watching the boss's fields.' "
The usual whiny explanation...
You really believe that we had to wait for Wynton and Stanley for jazz
to be in such situation? They are the thermometer of the problem, not
the cause. They noticed a problem and proposed a solution. You like it
or not.
Jazz has been disconnected from the mass media for more than 40 years...
Most of the "jazz" fanatics are still crying on Coltrane's grave.
Patrice.
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Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 13:24:00 -0800
From: Skip Heller <velaires@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: wanting to find wynton's views on jazz...
skip heller
> The usual whiny explanation...
>
> You really believe that we had to wait for Wynton and Stanley for jazz
> to be in such situation? They are the thermometer of the problem, not
> the cause. They noticed a problem and proposed a solution. You like it
> or not.
>
> Jazz has been disconnected from the mass media for more than 40 years...
> Most of the "jazz" fanatics are still crying on Coltrane's grave.
>
> Patrice.
>
And these guys are nearly as guilty as the participants on this list are of
beating their chests about what is the "real" jazz. I agree with Ralph
Peterson's quote -- "Any category that can embrace Louis Armstrong and
Grover Washington Jr is broad enough to be healthy."
skip h
np: lou rawls -- all things in time
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Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 13:30:24 -0800
From: "s~Z" <keith@pfmentum.com>
Subject: Re: wanting to find wynton's views on jazz...
"Any category that can embrace Louis Armstrong and
Grover Washington Jr is broad enough to be healthy."
Any category that embraces Grover Washington Jr
has its head up its ass.
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Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 14:03:21 -0800 (PST)
From: Scott Handley <thesubtlebody@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: wanting to find wynton's views on jazz...
- --- "Patrice L. Roussel" <proussel@ichips.intel.com>
wrote:
> The usual whiny explanation...
>
> You really believe that we had to wait for Wynton
> and Stanley for jazz
> to be in such situation?...They noticed a problem
and proposed a
> solution.
A final solution, it would seem.
>You like it
> or not.
Words _do_ matter and _are_ powerful; when the LCJO
posse appropriates the term "jazz" as aggressively and
exclusively as they have, I'd argue this clearly
closes the field for many other people, even if they
have no personal or aesthetic investments in the word
or "the" tradition. People are so dependent on
categories, that before one gets the chance to
(cheerfully) problematize this dependency and wean
them off the need for discrete genre limitations, they
are co-opted by the (coercive) arbiters of taste. I
read that Hemphill article when it came out, and it
didn't come across like whining; it was a complaint,
and it was a criticism.
- ---s
=====
"Electric guitar gets run over by a car on the highway/This is a crime against the state/This is the meaning of life...
Electric guitar is copied, the copy sounds better/Call this law and justice, call this freedom and liberty/I thought I perjure myself, right in front of the jury!"
The question of whether or not jazz is in deep shit or is fine is irrelevant, as any so-called art form evolves and mutates into unrecognizable forms over time anyway.
I suspect that the real reason people get miffed at the dynamic duo is their air of 'anything we don't like is worthless.' Granted, lots of people, including most of us on this list, possess thoughts of that nature in some form or another, but the fact remains that to air these views in such a public and authoritarian manner is irresponsible. For someone like Wynton, who is so involved in education, teaching music from such a closed mindset is fairly inexcusable.
At any rate, some people - one could argue most sometimes - just don't get it, and never will, so its really pointless to get upset about it.
On a MUCH more interesting note, I saw Ruins on Sunday night in Phladelphia. Incredible. I've loved them for a while, but they keep improving upon their already high level, and are getting more interesting with each new release. Though there's been about 4 bass players, this version is by far the strongest, I feel, with the past two releases - Vrresto and Pallatschom - containing their most varied and frenzied stuff. Ron Anderson and PAK were also great; kind of like an American Ruins with guitars added.
- -matt mitchell
>>Two possibilities:
- jazz is in deep shit: if you believe that, this has been the case
for a while and you are attributing too much importance to the
infamous duo
- jazz is fine: in this case you should not care about what they are
saying, right?
Patrice.
- -
>>
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Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 12:32:40 +1100
From: "Julian" <jcurwin@hartingdale.com.au>
Subject: Re: wanting to find wynton's views on jazz...
> Any category that embraces Grover Washington Jr
> has its head up its ass.
You really enjoy the 'head up ass' motif, don't you?
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Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 22:41:25 EST
From: Orangejazz@aol.com
Subject: zorn + pedophilia
I think we've discussed this topic before, but I am about halfway through a
recently published book on Hans Bellmer, and I think I've become a little
disturbed! (though there was a reference to a photo of a dollhead with four
breasts that the author deemed "Bustlike" which is pretty fucking hillarious)
I'm not taking a political side here regarding right or wrong, I just find it
a little simple to say Zorn's use of Bellmer's photos (and additionally, a
soon-to-be released piece for Joseph Cornell, who while I personally don't
feel in any way, shape, or form has the same pedophiliac tendencies as the
former, obviously has some sort of youth fetish, especially considering his
lifelong abstinence .. even with Carolee Schneeman hanging around all the
time! ha. um. ) is simply there for "Shock Value". Zorn is obviously very
interested in art, simply judging from his numerous pieces dedicated to
artists (Martin, Duchamp, Cornell, etc..), and it would be a drastic
oversight to say Zorn is just trying to shock us with some over-the-top cover
art. Obviously, Zorn has respect for Bellmer, the artist.
Granted, if we take the art of Bellmer and Cornell at face value, without
probing their personal lives, a little breathing room is given. Bellmer's
work is undeniably explicit, yet whether or not the viewer is degrading or
being degraded is an absolutely amazing contradiction in any art. Cornell's
art, at least I feel, doesn't really champion the same explicitness at all.
Although, both artists hold childhood objects (Bellmer with his marbles and
hoops, and Cornell with just about everything) in high regard.
I really don't know. Which is the last thing any reader wants to see after
reading several paragraphs. I am certainly not accusing Zorn of being a
pedophile, I'm just pointing out a coincidence. We really don't know much
about the man himself, which is probably why we discuss other jazz musicians
and such on this list almost equally as much. His chamber pieces are rife
with the enigmatic, and yet starkly visual. They seem to me, to be the real
conclusions he has gained from his other projects. It's just that with all of
the talk about S&M, the unsettling photos, the few and poorly executed
interviews, we are left with a very mysterious, yet vast body of work. Which,
judging from the hermetic lifestyles of the artists he laudes and respects,
is just as he wants it.
So, sue me for trying to find something to grab on to!
from,
matt
http://www.mp3.com/mattwellins
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End of Zorn List Digest V3 #345
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