Size doesn't matter

So one distracted morning last week I decided to jump back into the jazz blogosphere by offering a comment on NPR's A Blog Supreme, specifically in response to an interesting post called "Oh, The Kids These Days." The always alert and thoughtful Patrick Jarenwattananon decided to turn that comment into a full-blown post of his own, and here we are.

It was a weird comment to write, though not unrelated to things I have said on JTMoU before. As a bandleader, I am exceedingly frustrated by the idea that art might do better (qua art) -- that it might be more interesting and vibrant and vital -- in a microcosm, because the bottom line of that scenario is most likely less work and less bread for me and my (large and unwieldy) band. And that too is essentially the POV articulated by all of the "con" commenters who responded to PJ's question. (In my original remarks I should probably have made a distinction between "smallness" and "viability." I definitely was not suggesting that it would be better for jazz to lack viability.)

But I am also, as I said, a music fan. And as a fan, I am always tempted by the impulse to run screaming in the opposite direction whenever I know I am being actively sought out as a consumer. And that's probably the point that I should have magnified. Call it the observer-expectancy effect, or late industrial capitalism-induced paranoia, or what you will.

Of course, this point too is kind of ridiculous, if you think about it. The intentions of the boosters are certainly pure. Alas, my fanhood habits were developed as an adolescent, and in some ways I never grew out of the way it felt to love music in that insubordinate context. Unlike most of my friends, whose parents listened to classic rock and roll, and were thus at least tolerant of subsequent forms of youth-oriented popular music, I grew up in a household in which "The Windmills of Your Mind" was unironically considered to be good stuff. The first rock and roll album I heard from beginning to end -- Hey Jude, by the Beatles -- was a true shock in that environment. And from that point on, underneath all the other layers through which I learned to enjoy music, I have always valued it first as an expression of rebellion. (Silly, I know.) Being openly analyzed as a hypothetical customer tends to ruin that effect.

There is an extent to which the debates over jazz's future -- whether of the "jazz is dead!" or "jazz is making a comeback!" variety -- depend and even thrive on one another, and are really just two sides of the same coin. The problem that I was carelessly lashing out over, I now realize, was the sin of excessive self-consciousness, the sort of interminable navel-gazing that is usually symptomatic of decadence and the effete. It is the inevitable byproduct of jazz finding a home in institutions, and on the blogs -- if not in the hearts of a wider audience. (Don't get me wrong -- as a frequenter of both institutions and blogs, I am as much to blame for the problem as anyone else.)

I guess what I was positing was that being satisfied with being "small" (whatever that means) -- or better yet, letting go of (or at least dialing back on) the "whither jazz?" meme altogether -- is a way for musicians and fans alike to escape the oppressiveness of self-reflection run amok. What about the novel idea that we could attract "the kids" (or any neophytes, actually) simply by being hopelessly caught up in the process of unselfconsciously (insofar as that is possible in 2010) creating and adoring great music? Would that not be better than having to talk said kids/neophytes into their attraction? (And is it not ironic that I am articulating this idea so very self-consciously?)

Maybe I'm being uncharacteristically purist here, but isn't it better to have someone love you for who you are, rather than for how well you sell yourself, how well you know yourself, or how much pity you make them feel?

[Photo credit: Niffty]

Betty you know it's true

Next time I get down on the interpersonal challenges of playing music, remind me to re-view this film. It documents a pretty relentless stream of bad luck / bad decisions in the career of a decent band that came ever-so-close to "making it." (Whatever that means.)

Betty Blowtorch's "failure" is even more bittersweet if you consider Bianca Halstead's history of childhood abuse. And how hard everyone in the band seemed to work.

Anyway, here's the rundown:

PHASE ONE: Fire the guy who formed the band you joined. Wait for him to sue you (by serving you papers onstage).

PHASE TWO: Watch as the guy who joined the band as the original guy's replacement quits publicly, trash-talking your (major) record label in the process.

PHASE THREE: Hire Vanilla Ice as a guest artist on your next record. No, it's worse than that: hire Vanilla Ice to rap about his penis.

PHASE FOUR: Watch as two members of your band quit (without warning) in the middle of a tour, taking the van and all the equipment. Literally: wake up the morning after some show to discover that half the band and the aforementioned van and gear are GONE.

PHASE FIVE: Die in a car accident shortly after replacing the AWOL band members, and after things finally seem to start going your way.

Perspective. It's all about perspective.

John you know it's true

It was the biggest statement he could possibly make. There are no compromises in it. You know, there are some beautiful things, but they're not the result of wanting to make something pretty.

That's journalist Richard Williams offering a succinct assessment of John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band record.

Beauty without prettiness. I knew there was a reason Lennon was my favorite Beatle.

[photo credit: "raw sugar mountain," by qmnonic]
.

Girl you know it's true

This probably expresses the argument in the "recorded authenticity" section of my dissertation better than what I actually wrote:

At our best, audiophiles are the selfless and generous custodians of a thousand small libraries, keeping alive not only music's greatest recorded moments but the art of listening itself. At our worst, we are self-absorbed, superannuated rich kids, locked in an endless turd-hurl over who has the best toys.

With maybe a little more of an emphasis on the latter half.

Speaking of my dissertation, you may be wondering why I paused blog publication of said tome way back in March.

Well, as it turns out, the internet is not a totally useless phenomenon. Among the three or four people who actually read what I did publish was a (very kind) professional literary agent, who contacted me with an offer to help get the thing published in book form.

And though I was, I guess, part of that dying breed of grad students who wrote a dissertation because I thought it was fun, I quickly discovered in the wake of this inquiry that the idea of trying to find a wider audience through traditional publishing channels (ironic though that may seem in today's digital world) appealed to me greatly.

So I am currently in the throes of editing and revising the thing in the hopes of making it into less of a dissertation, and more of a book. (And if, in the end, it turns out we can't get it published as a book, I will eventually finish what I started via the blog.)

Add to that all the work I'm doing to prepare the next edition of the IJG, to be unveiled on August 19, and this is turning out to be a busy summer indeed.

[photo credit: pescatello]

Why any of us get into it

When he was first interviewed by the author, [Skip] James claimed that blues singing had served as a form of inner expression, acting as a salve for unspecified sorrows. But this was a veil he had thrown over himself to avoid detailing the actual attraction blues-singing originally held for him. Eventually, he was to reveal that he had been drawn to blues singing on a professional level because he wanted to become a pimp. Becoming a blues singer was, in his immediate environment, almost an initiation rite for budding pimps.

(Stephen Calt, I'd Rather Be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues)

You can sublimate it all you want. As for me, it's futile to pretend that music is unconnected, on some deep and inexorable level, to sex.

[Photo credit: lucyfrench123]

Portrait of the artist as a young techno fodder provider

Based on a tune from an older era ("Building a Fire," something I originally wrote for my early 90s band, the Evelyn Situation), this remix was recently forwarded to me by Ms. Knapp, who is a friend of the DJ in question. Though still only a draft, I hope you will be as impressed as I am at the metamorphosis, from this (the Evelyn version of the tune) to this:

Make and Destroy (Remix of "Building a Fire" by The Evelyn Situation) [draft] by Wonder Nexus

Again, I wrote the song in another (simpler, more maudlin) era. If you don't believe me, here's the lyric:

We went away for a weekend together
High in the mountains and high in the heather
I brought my anger and you brought your fear
We boarded the bus that took us out of here
We stayed awake all night gathering fuel
For building a fire for lovers and fools
We lay it all down in a clearing that dawn
And slept as it dried out all day in the hot sun
Setting the wood took three or four hours
But slowly and carefully we built a tower
We worked much harder than we'd ever known
And when we were done I could swear it looked like home
Then we stood there watching as we burned away
This beautiful thing we had labored to make
I shut my eyes and I thought of our joy:
It's something we make and it's something we destroy
It's something we make and it's something we destroy

What still gets me about this one: the notion of working hard to build something, only to tear it down (or calmly watch its demise) later. At the time, I was writing about a relationship (some of them do indeed work out that way) -- but as it turned out, the song was also about the Evelyn Situation itself (it wasn't long after this was recorded that the band broke up). With a little interpretive liberty, there are other applications too (via):

During the 1930s and 1940s, Hovhaness famously destroyed many of his early works. He later claimed that he had burned at least 1000 different pieces, a process that took at least two weeks; elsewhere he claimed that he had destroyed approximately 500 works, up to 1000 pages in total. In an interview with Richard Howard, he stated that the decision was based primarily on Roger Sessions' criticism of his works of that period, and that he wished to have a new start in his composing.

There is an impulse in art to invest in projects with an eye toward keeping them going forever. I understand that, of course, and there is something to be said, when it comes to bands in particular, for the longevity of a specific configuration of people, or the persistent pursuit of a specific aesthetic goal. I take a special pride in the fact that the IJG has been making music for ten years so far; each additional year I count as a gift.

On the flip side, it's also nice to know when to let something go, or when to allow it to self-destruct in order to work on something new. Otherwise you end up, maybe, with something like this.

[Photo credit: a portrait of the Evelyn Situation by Tom Crofton]

Welcome to my world

The blog-tastic team at Brilliant Corners (if I actually had the time to read blogs these days, this one would be a regular stop for me) recently published a nice rumination on the subject of humor and schtick in jazz. Kudos to you, Steve Provizer, for using that evil word! (The evil word is "schtick," not "jazz.")

The subject is Mostly Other People Do the Killing:

In the video, deadpan all the while, [drummer] Shea sticks an odd-shaped piece of paper on his nose and proceeds to straddle the drums, hump them, bump them, milk them, tangle with them, move them, disassemble them, pratfall over them and use them as a staging area for a finger puppet show. At one point, it looks like Laurel and Hardy moving a piano, but with the bass drum standing in for Ollie. The audience seems too intimidated by the 'seriousness' of the context to respond as I did-laugh out loud. It's just not done. Mr. Wooster.

After all this, Shea moves the band into a fiery "Night In Tunisia." His is a gutsy, funny and focused performance. I know, performance art, yadda-yadda, but this is essentially shtick and a little shtick never hurt anyone.

This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart, not only because I posted something about it at the very outset of my own damned blog, and not only because it's a critical aspect of my own aesthetic, but also because the IJG has gotten into trouble -- right here in River City! -- at the hands of this very same phenomenon. Damn you, schtick!

But this is an old story by now and there's no point in going into it any further.

Incidentally, I once wrote something about MOPDTK here.

[Photo credit: crazytales562]

No accounting for taste

The Germans are the only people who currently make use of the word "aesthetic" in order to signify what others call the critique of taste. This usage originated in the abortive attempt made by [Alexander] Baumgarten, that admirable analytic thinker, to bring the critical treatment of the beautiful under rational principles, and so to raise its rules to the rank of a science. But such endeavors are fruitless. The said rules or criteria are, as regards their chief sources, merely empirical, and consequently can never serve as determinate a priori laws by which our judgment of taste must be directed.

-- Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

I would like to pair the above quote with the following observation (they may or may not be related): the thing that irritates me most about professional critics is that they are often very good at explaining what there is to like or dislike about a given piece, and often not very good at considering why they like or dislike the thing they have categorized as likable or not likable.

What these folks do, essentially, is provide lists of descriptive qualities. Very rarely do they follow through and turn the critical lens back upon themselves, like so: Okay, this album has these characteristics. Why do I care about these characteristics? Or not?

As I say, I find this irritating. But perhaps I've got a bad reflexivity habit.

[photo credit: ibm4381]

In defense of that effeminate Asian bass dude

I don't want to turn this blog into an explication of "things I've seen on Facebook," but like that damned drummer video, this movie of a transvestite bassist is something that a number of my Facebook friends have seen fit to post recently.

Why now? Beats me. The thing has been out there for a while. I guess sometimes viral video goes in fits and starts.

Anyway. The responsive commentary generally adheres to the expected script. (You know the one: "My eyes! They burn!" and "I'll never be able to unsee that!" and on and on, blah blah blah.)

I'm not even sure whether this video qualifies as "safe for work" or not. Guess that shows how far out of the loop I am.

Anyway, I get it. You're grossed out. (And perhaps a little homophobic too?)

But what about the music? Many years ago I attended a film scoring seminar in which one of the other attendees (I forget who) described how he had been challenged by a teacher to compose while other music was playing in the background. It was an exercise, not a recommended technique, but the point was clear: musicians need to have a high degree of concentration.

And yet, even among some of the best musicians on the planet (as I can say without a doubt some of my Facebook friends are), it is hard to get away from the steamroller of visuality. Sometimes it seems that the image crushes everything, even for people whose auditory senses are pretty freakin' fine-tuned.

Maybe I'm an idealist, but, all things being equal, I'd assume that committed musicians could completely tune out visuality when the moment called for it. If we're interested in the music, great: let's talk about the music. And if the music's no good, well, then, fine: move on.

Music as a process, gradual or otherwise

In 1968 Reich spelled out his new aesthetic in a terse essay titled "Music as a Gradual Process." "I am interested in perceptible processes," he wrote. "I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music."

This philosophy differs starkly from the thinking inherent in Boulez's total serialism and Cage's I Ching pieces, where process works behind the scenes, like a spy network employing front organizations. Reich's music transpires in the open air, every move audible to the naked ear. Recognizable in it are multiple traces of the creator's world: modal jazz, psychedelic trance, the lyrical rage of African-American protest, the sexy bounce of rock 'n roll. But there's no pretense of authenticity, no longing for the "real." Instead, sounds from a variety of sources are mediated by the composer's personal voice.

The above is from Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise, which I am finally getting around to finishing. (If you're familiar with it, you may understand my reading strategy, which has been to savor the text over an extended period, rather than wolfing it down in a weekend or two.)

The quote got me thinking. Much of the material I write for the IJG is designed to be transparent, too. I hadn't thought of that in terms of audible processes, per se -- for me it's more about constructing things in such a way that the listener is thinking about the mechanisms that propel the music, and there's no sleight of hand. It's a bit different from, and even antithetical to, the idea of washing over your listener with a "narrative," or a seamless flow of polished and refined sound, in which the things that are going on under the hood are somehow less compelling than the ride you are taking. I've spoken of it before in terms of using art not merely to tell stories, but to tell how books are made.

Not sure if that is a comprehensible distinction at this level of abstraction, but that is basically how I think about it.

In any case, the really interesting question for me is whether this quality is, in part, dependent upon familiarity. Now that Reich's music is so much a part of the "art music" landscape, I wonder if anyone actually does still hear it in terms of "perceptible processes"? Does broad familiarity undercut the power of a completely open compositional strategy, to the point where however much the composer is trying to lay bare, all we hear is the surface sound?

[Photo credit: Al Pavangkanan]

What it's like

Tonight my good friend Jeff redirected me toward the the wonder that is Amanda Palmer's blog. Specifically:

so anyway, to summarize….the tour was hard. but fucking wonderful.

so many people took care of us, shared their homes and beds, cooked for us, loved us. i slept in so many different bedrooms and beds and lost track of where i was half the time.

[...]

business-wise….we were (or i was) really cavalier about how we booked this tour, i gotta say.

i expected everyone would make the jump from the dresden dolls to amanda palmer to evelyn evelyn and that selling tickets wouldn’t be too difficult.

i was wrong. the general touring climate blows…it’s BAD out there, ticket prices are getting slashed and a lot of artists are playing to half-empty rooms due to the economy and the overgutted market since EVERY band and their moms are hitting the road to make up for the shortfall in record sales. and the weirdness of the show billing dented us…the shows were about half sold-out, which was actually pretty respectable…but it did teach me a damn fine lesson in marketing. we billed the show wrong; it should have been billed as an amanda palmer & jason webley extravaganza, with the twins as a support act, not the other way around. those who knew about the twins would have gotten what they expected, those only familiar with me & jason would have been strangely surprised by our weirdo stunts.

by the end of the tour, i was constantly kicking myself.

Which just about sums it up, as far as I'm concerned.

One corollary to the fact that digital technology has made a career in music more accessible than ever, which in turn seems to be dovetailing with a pretty wretched economic period: many who seem to be "making it," on the surface anyway, are actually struggling like mad. Much more than you might expect. There is often a lot of spin to obscure this perception (because who wants to be seen to be struggling?), but in all honesty the situation is pretty damned scary.

[Photo credit: Amanda M Hatfield]

A bomb made of cute

Apologies to those of you with a low tolerance for treacle, but I'm posting these as an addendum to this.

The new critter's name is Claudette (c/o my wife, who got the name from George of the Jungle). Get it?

Why no blues wars?

I recently came across an interesting Jim Fusilli piece on the state of 21st century blues, and specifically on the dearth of new blues styles. A sample:

In early May, I traveled to Memphis to attend the Blues Foundation's 31st annual two-day gala, which included its Hall of Fame induction ceremony and awards banquet. Buddy Guy received a Lifetime Achievement Award. Pinetop Perkins, now 96 years old, turned up, as did 80-year-old Bobby "Blue" Bland and 78-year-old Hubert Sumlin. I heard folk blues, country blues, jump blues, Chicago blues, Delta blues, Texas blues, fast blues, slow blues, good blues and bad blues. What I didn't hear was new blues, and I flew back home no less relieved of my own blues over the genre's troubling future.

Today's blues music isn't only steeped in the past; it's anchored to it. During the performances before and during the banquet, I could trace to almost every song, instrumental solo or vocal style I heard its originator or its most celebrated proponent—and I'm far from an expert on the history of the blues. These tales of heartache, oppression and fleeting joy sounded all too familar.

According to Jay Sieleman, the Blues Foundation's executive director, most blues fans aren't looking for something new. "We all don't want the blues to be the same ol', same ol'," he said, "but it'd better be close."

[...]

In 2004, Skip McDonald, who works under the name Little Axe, released "Champagne and Grits," which mixed traditional blues with spoken word, drum loops, Indian percussion and a dab of reggae. It was the kind of album that could bring young listeners to the blues: Give it to a Citizen Cope or a Massive Attack fan and they'd feel at home. It wasn't well received by the blues community.

"I upset a lot of people," Mr. McDonald told me. "People are so traditional in their approach. It was a hybrid amalgamation, but the blues was my first stop."

The blues establishment seems to have little interest in reaching out to other musical communities. No rock, hip-hop or jazz artists with a musical debt to the blues were part of the activities in Memphis. Perhaps in turn, blues musicians aren't invited to participate in most major rock festivals: There were no traditional blues artists at this year's Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, nor will there be any at the Glastonbury Festival in Britain later this month. At this weekend's Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn., only Trombone Shorty and Big Sam's Funky Nation, both from New Orleans, and the string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, adhere to blues traditions.

Sound familiar? It probably does if you're a jazz fan, as we in the so-called "jazz community" seem to have this same debate every few months (here's the latest outburst). Some folks argue that the music should stay close to its "roots." Some argue that it should embrace newness of various sorts. Heated debate ensues. We call it the "jazz wars."

Jazz did not introduce this sort of internecine aesthetic conflict. Often couched in terms of the frustratingly arbitrary notion of "authenticity," similar debates have been flirted with by proponents of most genres. But jazz critics, fans, and musicians have raised such debates to the level of an art form (not to mention a brilliant form of marketing). And therein lies the reason for this post.

You see, I'm confused. Why does the notion of an all-out "blues war" lack the sort of staying-power that seems to drive the recurring "jazz war" meme? Why, for instance, did Fusilli's piece not prompt the firestorm of outrage that greeted a similar (now-infamous) piece by Terry Teachout last summer?

I'm tempted to say it has something to do with the blues' time-honored fatalism, the sense conveyed (by most exemplars of the genre) that nothing lasts forever, and that death is, in fact, an important part of life.

But that can't be the only reason.

[photo credit: kevindooley]

Confuse me

Thanks to the evil geniuses at TCM, I was introduced to an amazing little film this weekend:



I won't even go into it. Words are horribly inadequate.

Of course, that didn't deter me from doing a little online research, which led to an interesting write-up over at Cinema du Merde, which in turn had the collateral benefit of reminding me of why I pursue weird cinema (or, for that matter, weird music) in the first place. This reminder was, in fact, highlighted as a "manifesto":

It's less about whether the movie is good, and more about whether it's enjoyable to watch.

We will never let a movie's cheesiness interfere with our engagement with its ideas.

Both of which seem noble aspirations to me. I'm particularly interested in the distinction between the "good" and the "enjoyable"; the former presumably refers to received notions of artistic value (i.e., what I'm supposed to think is "good"), while the latter suggests something more personal (i.e., art I actually enjoy, regardless of social sanctions for or against).



And yet it's more than that, too. In a world that reveres artistic mastery and critical omniscience, it can sometimes be refreshing and pleasurable to be drawn into something for no good, rational, compelling reason you can discern. Which is kind of where the reviewer at CdM takes his writeup on Darktown Strutters:

There is only one word that can describe this film: INEXPLICABLE. This is just one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen, making me wonder who made it—and WHY—and who they thought they were making it for. This is a film that will make you say wtf? And then WTF?? And then W??? T??? F???

In this day and age, when most of us are a little careless with our "WTF?"s, it's nice to come across something that genuinely inspires that acronym. Because sometimes, being in a position where all you can do is genuinely wonder "what the fuck?" can be a healthy experience.

Why? Well, you'll never catch me promoting ignorance as a aesthetic framework, but by the same token, sometimes I think our mania for analyzing and understanding art can actually inhibit our experience of it. As Josh Sinton recently said of his Steve Lacy tribute band, Ideal Bread:

I’m playing these songs because I don’t understand the songs.

Honestly, who among us truly understands anything about the art we love?

Beginner's mind, baby.

Rock stars and athletes

Gazing at my twitter feed tonight, I quickly got the impression that there was some sort of important athletic event going on out in the world. I can't be sure, of course, as I've never been a big fan of organized (dare I say corporate?) sports, and I don't think I'd know a "Laker" from a "Celtic" if my life depended on it. (Yes, I know, this is a shortcoming of mine. Ironically, I remember falling in love with Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" because of the version that accompanied a Commodore 64 video game called "One on One," which featured rather stiff avatars of Dr. J and Larry Bird, and which my brother and I played ad nauseum when we were kids.)

Anyhow, in the spirit of the evening's frenzy (which, apparently, Los Angeles was the primary benefactor of), I thought I'd riff on this little blurb, which I came across on Andrew Sullivan's (increasingly valuable) blog:

Athletes are typically associated with hard work and achievement; sports competitions are typically institutional and often government-sponsored events; and athletic competition thrives on order and rules. They are the champions of the values of organized society, which makes them excellent role models. As such, society will expect them to be well-behaved. Musicians, or at least popular musicians, are the polar opposite: their success is associated with creativity and inspiration, their excellence springs from innovation and subversion.

But most importantly, one of the greatest things that pop and rock stars sell is an anti-social image of extravagant hedonism or rebellion (and frequently both). Part of being a fan is to indulge in these things that aren't generally acceptable in polite society. This double-standard is not a bug: it gets to the heart of what it means, in the popular imagination, to be a musician and to be an athlete.

Even as I resisted this writer's categories, I found myself wondering, while reading, where jazz might fall in this imaginary continuum. On the one hand, one could argue that jazz has always been concerned with "hard work and achievement" (most jazz musicians aspire toward total instrumental mastery), and even, in a sense, "order and rules" (consider the rigors of jazz theory, or the pedagogical importance placed on the music's history). Certainly nowadays, jazz musicians often aspire to be role models for society, whether "society" is constituted on the micro-level of other jazz musicians, or the macro-level of culture as a whole.

And yet, while for me the idea of true subversiveness in music is bunk, I'd be lying if I said that I was originally attracted to the prospect of music-making because I was interested in some Calvinist work-ethic ideal, or because I wanted to belong to a historical tradition that I admired from the outside. I wasn't, and I didn't. I wanted to play music, and, in particular, jazz music, because I wanted to explore an arena in which it was possible to do things that "aren't generally acceptable in polite society" (not the least of which was a kind of generalized passion).

I don't know if that makes me less "authentic" as a jazz composer, but I do know that the things I admired in the recordings of the jazz composers who influenced me most (Mingus, Ellington, Monk, et al) had a lot to do with my perception that they too were outsiders, that their lives were perfectly idiosyncratic, and that they resisted codification.

It's not so much that they were anti-social (though one might be able to make that argument re: Mingus) and it's not that hedonism was a value for its own sake, as sometimes seems to be the case in popular music. Rather, what was compelling on the deepest level was the way these folks seemed to embody the spirit of "doing your own thing," with no apparent preconceptions about what that meant.

Not to mention: their music often contained a little more than a soupçon of the mystical giant middle finger of resistance, aimed at a fucked-up world. And with the possible exception of someone like the immortal Muhammad Ali, I never got a whiff of anything that powerful from big-time sports.

[photo credit: basketball fans, shot by M31.]

The art of the fill

Speaking of drummers, the most recent Hamid Drake / Bindu album is truly fantastic, and highly-recommended.

I don't think I can improve upon this John Sharpe review -- summed up in the phrase "it's a joyous ride" -- but every time I go back to this recording (which is wonderfully played all around, and includes primo contributions from trombonist Jeff Albert) I find myself thinking about what drummers do, and more specifically about the art of the fill. Because while Sharpe is right when he says of Reggaeology that "[g]iven Drake's extensive reggae back story, it's no surprise that the riddims carry conviction" -- for me it's actually the small bursts of energy that Drake occasionally uses to supplement and adorn the groove that fascinate the most.

Now, I'm no drummer. (The best I can say is that for one summer in fifth grade, I almost became one. Okay, and I played drums on the first studio recording I ever made. Oh, alright: and I have a drum kit in my basement right now that I can't wait to rock out on.) And perhaps I spent too many of my formative years in the rock world, where some songs are actually defined (or even eclipsed) by their drum fills. Think Phil Collins's "In The Air Tonight," or Led Zeppelin's "D'Yer Mak'r," or dozens of others -- truthfully, some of these would be so-so recordings if we could somehow take away their signature moments of transitional percussive interplay.

But that doesn't make a good fill any less impressive. It's not like a drummer can play just anything (and have it sound good) at those pivotal sections of a given song. And if he or she plays the wrong thing, the music's forward motion can be greatly hampered, even destroyed. Plus, you have to be real selective: no one wants the composition to be saturated with end-of-the-bar noodling, lest things start to sound too busy and predictable.

So we're really talking about brief set of fleeting opportunities that must be recognized and responded to with authority and a sense of beauty. (How long is the average drum fill? A few seconds? How many distinctive fills can a five-minute tune handle? Four or five?)

Honestly, is that situation all that different from this one?

General Dodonna: Well, the Empire doesn't consider a small one-man fighter to be any threat, or they'd have a tighter defense. An analysis of the plans provided by Princess Leia has demonstrated a weakness in the battle station. But the approach will not be easy. You are required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to this point. The target area is only two meters wide. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should destroy the station. Only a precise hit will set off a chain reaction. The shaft is ray-shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes.

Wedge Antilles: That's impossible! Even for a computer.

Yes! And that's really the point here: on Reggaeology, Hamid Drake repeatedly does the impossible.

People want to be free

So, yeah, I guess I have now developed a full-blown infatuation with Italian cinema. It started (many years ago) with my love of Fellini; a love I was recently reminded of by the good folks at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. The IJG will be playing the Hammer in August, and as part of an early PR push, the organizers there quoted a bit of Kyle O'Brien's 2008 review of the IJG album, LEEF:

"If ever there were a perfect band for a Fellini film, this is it."

I have no idea whether that is actually true, but I sure hope so. And in any case, it's very flattering.

Of course, not all Italian cinema is made of the same whimsical stuff as a "typical" Fellini film. Fellini himself came to prominence on the heels of what seems to me to be the very un-Fellini-esque genre of Neorealismo, which, generally, errs more on the "emo" side of things.

But even at its most melodramatic, Italian Neorealism is great stuff. And delving into it in more detail has given me some insight into the balancing act that I'm ultimately after with the IJG. To wit: maybe I am more interested than your typical 21st century "jazz composer" in the somewhat "un-jazzy" aesthetic strategies of comedy, satire, irony, burlesque, and even nihilism -- all of which, it might be argued, distance the audience from the art in question (something that has raised the hackles of more than a few of our critics). But these interests are not (and never have been) at the expense of more "serious," "involving" artistic concerns, like beauty, pathos, or empathy. Because to jettison those things would just be silly.

The key is to figure out how to make it all fit together, in one effortless, complex package.



In any case, last night's selection was the classic Rossellini film, Rome, Open City, the screenplay for which was partially written by Fellini. It's a story set during Nazi / Fascist control of Italy, and as you might expect, it is equal parts depressing, moving, and maddening.

I do recommend this film, though I'm not going to write about it at length here. I will, however, share one more thing before wrapping up this post. After discovering that one of my favorite scenes from the film was not to be found anywhere online, I offer the following transcription. It is a rather disturbing exchange between two Nazi officers, concerning the torture of an Italian prisoner. Considering the way it unfolds, I have to wonder if Fellini was the one who inserted it.

Hartmann: Strenuous evening?

Bergman: Not very. But interesting.

Hartmann: Really? How so?

Bergman: I have a fellow who must talk before morning, and an Italian priest who claims the fellow won't, because he's praying for him.

Hartmann: And if he doesn't talk?

Bergman: Ridiculous.

Hartmann: If he won't talk no matter what?

Bergman: That would mean an Italian is as good as a German. That there's no difference between the blood of a slave race and that of a master race. What would be the sense of our struggle?

Hartmann: Twenty-five years ago I led execution squads in France. I was a young officer then, and I too believed that we Germans were a master race. But the French patriots chose to die rather than talk. We Germans refuse to realize that people want to be free.

Bergman: Hartmann, you're drunk!

Hartmann: Yes, I am. I drink every night to forget. But instead I see more and more clearly. All we're really good at is killing, killing, killing! We've strewn all of Europe with corpses, and from their graves rises up an unquenchable hatred. Hatred... hatred everywhere! That hatred will devour us. There's no hope.

Bergman: Enough!

Hartmann: We'll all die without the slightest hope.

Bergman: I forbid you to continue!

Hartmann: Without hope.

Bergman: You hear me? You forget that you are a German officer!

"Hatred will devour us." There are days when I wonder if that is the essence of the human condition.

This drummer is at the right gig

This video has been all the rage with my Facebook friends lately. I must've seen it posted about ten times in the past week.

I get the popularity -- it's funny as shit -- but honestly I think the thing was incorrectly named.

Don't want to sound like a curmudgeon, cuz I truly am not interested in judging it from an aesthetic standpoint. But is this not the natural, logical outcome of a musical culture that overwhelmingly takes its cues from MySpace, American Idol, and Guitar Hero?

If you're in a band that unquestioningly thinks it needs headset mics, matching yellow jackets, and a gigantic American flag as a backdrop, then how could you possibly want any other drummer than this?

Let's not kid ourselves. Everything in this video is exactly as it should be. For better or worse.

Of course, maybe the whole thing is a satire. Sometimes it's hard to tell. I recently saw It Might Get Loud (featuring Jimmy Page, Jack White, and the Edge); this had its own problems with musical bombast (I found myself wondering: don't these guys ever take the masks off?), but there was a nice moment where the Edge, in discussing the over-the-top, self-indulgent nature of the 70s rock he grew up with, referred to the film Spinal Tap, which of course expertly lampoons that same era. His response to the classic mockumentary? "I didn't laugh, I wept. It was so close to the truth."

I wouldn't hold it against you if you had the same reaction to Rick K. and the Allnighters.



[photo credit: Newsbie Pix]

Greatness

I am not greedy;
I do not seek to possess
the major portion
of your days.

I am content if,
on those rare occasions
whose truth can be stated
only by poetry,
you will, perhaps,
recall an image --
even only the aura
of my films.

And what more
could I possibly ask
as an artist
than that your
most precious visions,
however rare,
assume, sometimes,
the forms of my images.

-- Maya Deren

I find it hard to believe that any artist would go through the exhausting process of creative work without at least some (however unacknowledged) desire for recognition.

Don't call it a lust for fame, necessarily (though for some of us, that's clearly what it is). Let's say instead that it's a rational hunger for some sort of external proof that the whole thing (i.e., making art) isn't just an elaborate onanistic exercise, and that we're not just screaming pointlessly into the void.

And yet, there is a way to have that hunger for connection, while still maintaining a sense of perspective; a sense, in other words, of how rare it is, on the strength of the art alone, to truly reach another human being.

Which is why I love the above Deren quote (ganked from the beginning of her film Meshes of the Afternoon). I especially like the the fact that it includes the words "perhaps" and "sometimes."

My gloss: every connection, no matter how fleeting or rare, validates the entire enterprise.

[photo credit: Daquella manera]

By chance and trembling

One must try to come up with new, unrecognizable techniques that won't resemble any previous ones, so as to avoid silly ridicule. One should build one's own world that would allow no comparisons and for which there would be no previous measures of judgment, which must be new, like the technique. No one must realize that the author is worthless, that he's an abnormal, inferior type that, like a worm, writhes and slithers to keep alive. No one must ever catch him being naive. Everything must appear perfect, based on rules that are unknown, and therefore, not judgeable. Like a crazy man, yes, like a crazy man. Glass on glass, because I'm unable to correct anything, and no one must realize this. A brush stroke on one pane corrects without spoiling the one painted before on another glass pane. But nobody must realize it is the expedience of an incapable, of an impotent. Not at all. It must seem like a firm decision, resolute, high, and almost domineering! No one must know that a stroke comes out well by chance, by chance and trembling. That as soon as a brush stroke comes out well, as if by miracle, it must be protected right away, and sheltered as in a shrine. But no one must notice that the artist is a poor, trembling idiot, a half-ass who lives by chance and risk, dishonored like a child, and has reduced his life to the silly melancholy of one who lives degraded by the impression of something lost forever.

So says Pietro during a crisis-induced painting spree in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema.

Art is always a bit of a put-on, isn't it?

This is one of the things that always fascinated me about bootleg recordings: they offer a peek behind the curtain, and (often) a glimpse of a seemingly mighty creator as a "poor, trembling idiot."

Of course, one of the attractions of jazz (as far as I'm concerned) is that it manages, usually through improvisation, to integrate this behind-the-scenes roughness, this humble uncertainty about where a given piece is really going, into an overall artistic gesture that is actually more powerful as a result.

Or, as David St. Hubbins puts it:

The fact is that jazz is mistakes. You're playing a song, but you're playing it wrong. [...] Which is not to say we do not improvise. He'll take off, he will improvise like crazy, but it's all intentional. Jazz is an accident.

[photo credit: kwanz]