What it looked like

On October 16 and 15. C/o photographer Steve Noreyko.




More to come...

Members of the Industrial Jazz Group jumping on a hotel room bed

Just what it says...

The big tour

Well, this is it. October 15-24 will be a week and a half to remember, as the Industrial Jazz Group undertakes the most ambitious tour in its history. Get ready for... Rocktober!

Thursday, 10/15, 5 PM: Pittsfield Jazz Festival (Pittsfield, MA)

Friday, 10/16, 7:55 PM: Green Line Café, Locust (Philadelphia, PA)

Saturday, 10/17, 8 PM: Galerie St. George (Staten Island, NY)

Sunday, 10/18, TBA: Mystery gig (NYC)

Monday, 10/19, 9 PM: The Bell House (Brooklyn, NY)

Tuesday, 10/20, 7:30 PM: The Space (Hamden, CT)

Wednesday, 10/21, 8 PM: Twins Jazz (Washington, DC)

Thursday, 10/22, 11 PM: Automata Chino (Jersey City, NJ)

Friday, 10/23, 8 PM: Time & Space Ltd. (Hudson, NY)

Saturday, 10/24, 9:30 PM: The Black Door (Montpelier, VT)

Yeowza! Makes me want to create one of those moth-eaten tour T-shirts with all the dates on the back. (You know, the ones everyone had in high school, back in the 80s.)

Hope to see you at a show! Please tell your friends!

Contest Mania!

In order to celebrate this mammoth undertaking, we are going gangbusters with two totally rad contests! You could win prizes, fame, and fortune!

First, the IJG remix contest: remix our tune "Howl" (from the album LEEF), and you could win a $50 prize. Plus, your mix could be included on our next album! Details here. Deadline: December 31, 2009.

Second, the IJG video contest: make a video for our song "The Job Song" (also from LEEF), and you could win $250! Details here. Deadline: January 31, 2010.

Fundraiser!

Fundraising for the tour continues. If you have been waiting for a good time to contribute, wait no longer: now is a good time to contribute! We need all the help that we can get! Details here. And thanks!

Rocktober Online!

As usual, all the antics from the tour will be posted online as much as possible. If you're unable to make it to a show, feel free to follow the fun at the group blog, at this here blog, at Durkin's twitter feed, at Jill's twitter feed, or at (new!) Dan Rosenboom's twitter feed.

And thanks, as always, for your support! We're nothing without you. Eastward ho!

with much love,
The Industrial Jazz Group

Brooklyn underground

I know our October 19 Bell House hit is among the most high-profile gigs of our upcoming tour, but I LOVE how this poster (commissioned and deployed by the good people at SearchandRestore.com) gets all DIY and shit.

The humble hand-drawn quality takes me back to the halcyon high school days that got me into this business in the first place -- when "garage band" was still the name of an actual endeavor, as opposed to a you-too-can-be-a-star website or a piece of software. And it makes me want to rock out all the more.

Eastward, ho!

Doing what scares you

It's Halloween-month, y'all! One of my favorite times of year.

Those of you who read this blog know that lately I've been obsessing about my group's upcoming east coast tour (October 2009).

Maybe I shouldn't obsess. The IJG has toured the rightward states before -- in 2005 and 2007. The first time was sorta fun but not terribly successful, the second time was super-fun and very successful (in the sense that we had a great response, and also got a trip to Europe out of it). Maybe the 2009 tour will be even better than that.

Maybe.

The fact that we're touring is probably, in and of itself, not that remarkable. Except that this version of the band has 16 people in it (11 of whom are traveling from the west coast, where we're based). Also: we're attempting ten shows in as many days.

Dig: ten days on the road as an independently-funded entity, playing jazz (or, in our case, something vaguely resembling it) would not be an easy proposition for a quartet, let alone for a massive ensemble like the one I lead. Without the sort of guarantees commandeered by the "big fish" of the jazz world -- fees that this band has enjoyed from time to time, but never on a consistent enough basis -- the financial side is a crapshoot. Even if we "win" that gamble, and have a great turnout at every show, the sad truth is that cobbling together a week-and-a-half's worth of door-split type gigs, from venues that generally charge $10 and can only fit, say, 70 people -- that is not a recipe for economic success.

So I feel like I have some explaining to do. Cuz, you know: why?

Obviously, there's the "everything-for-the-music" argument. Why indeed have I done half the things I have done for music, especially when most of them have involved great sacrifice? Well, because I love it, of course. I love it for its inherent beauty, I love it for the people involved, but also because when I'm sitting at the piano (or standing in front of the band, ready to count things off), the world suddenly makes (fleeting) sense. For me, music is, as Robert Frost said about poetry, a "momentary stay against confusion." (Which is kind of humorous, if you think about it, because much of my own music is apparently a little confusing. Or at least so I'm told.)

But that alone is not a reason to take on such a risky endeavor as an east coast tour. After all, I could advocate for the intrinsic value of music from the safety of my home, right? I could blog about it, quoting Robert Frost (or whoever else) until I was blue in the face. Or I could limit myself to our west coast gigs -- or at least the Southern California ones (which in fact are slowly becoming self-sustaining). I could retire from performing altogether, and just focus on writing and recording new tunes. Any of these things would certainly be easier than going on tour 3000 miles from my home-base. They would certainly satisfy my love of music, albeit in a less spectacular way.

No, I think what I'm really after with this damned tour is something symbolic.

It's a protest, really. A piece of performance art. An existential gesture of radical self-determination. The physical evocation of an alternate reality. A demonstration that even under the worst circumstances, it's important to hold your ground.

Believe me, I'm not trying to be a hero. And I'm not so self-centered that I actually believe it's worth inconveniencing fifteen other musicians just so my stupid compositions can "live" for a set of east-coast audiences (like all artists, I'm an egomaniac, but I'm not that much of an egomaniac). But there's a broader principle at stake here: isn't it odd that it seems odd for someone to do something like this? That there's all this great independent music out there, and yet not very many opportunities for people to hear it live, except when it grows in their own backyards?

It seems to me that there is no way to escape this problem, except by finally saying: I'm going to escape this problem. And if that's a scary proposition, well, then, so be it.

Boo!

[Photo credit: D Sharon Pruitt.]

* * * * *

Scary or not, the Industrial Jazz Group needs your help! We're having a fall fundraiser, in support of our October tour. You can find out more, and contribute to the cause (for as little as $1!), here.

Also! Contest mania! Check out the remix contest, and the IJG "The Job Song" video contest.

Research & development

So, as I mentioned in a tweet earlier this week, I had been planning to play a few "Jazz Now"-ish tracks for my elementary school kids, just out of curiosity. Today was the first chance I had to do that, so I grabbed it.

In truth, it wasn't much of a chance. Our classes are a fleeting 30 minutes long (I know, I know), and of course there are other things on the daily agenda with each -- so basically I had to steal time from an already limited period.

I decided to focus on the older kids (4th through 7th grade), because I wanted them to respond to the music in writing, and I wanted them to provide as much detail as they liked.

I played two tracks: Led Bib's "Shower" (not sure if Led Bib made it onto anyone's Jazz Now list, actually -- but what the hell, I dig them) and Polar Bear's "Tomlovesalicelovestom." Assuming this is going to be an ongoing exercise, I'm starting across the pond, I guess.

A few words about the sample: all of the students I played this music for are at the very beginning stages of learning to play an instrument. When I have polled them about their musical taste in the past, they have tended to skew toward heavy metal, hard rock, rap, and pop. I did not tell them anything about what I was going to play for them (I did not even use the word "jazz") -- I simply played the track, cold, and then asked them to answer three questions:

1. Did you like it?

2. Why or why not?

3. Would you like to hear more music by this artist?

I encouraged them to be honest.

Out of a total of 19 students:

5 liked "Shower," and wanted to hear more.

8 did not like "Shower" and were not interested in hearing more.

6 were not sure if they liked "Shower" or not, and were not sure if they wanted to hear more.

Here are some of the comments from the students who liked "Shower":

"It sounds mysterious and Egyptian."

"It is very calm and helps take the stress out of you. I also like old-sounding and looking stuff."

"I think that it's a jazz theme. I liked it. I'd like to be good like those guys. I like that it was slow."

"It's soothing I guess, and its a nice mix of instruments."

And the haters:

"It's just not me."

"Horrible song, too may instruments at one time."

"A little weird."

"I don't like it that much. It's because it's boring and does the same thing over and over. I hate when songs do that."

"It's better than nothing but I like words. I don't like saxophone."

"It was too slow getting to the part I like."

"There's no singing and it's not exciting."

Then I played "Tomlovesalicelovestom."

12 kids liked it (some, in fact, loved it), and wanted to hear more.

4 were on the fence, but 2 of them were interested in hearing more.

3 were sure they didn't like it, and didn't want to hear any more (as one wrote: "MY HEAD HURTS").

Excerpted commentary, pro:

"THAT's what I'm talkin' about! It's groovy and funky fresh. I'd listen to it more." (This student also said it reminded him of the B-52s.)

"Yes! Yes! I like it because the beat and choice of instruments. But I only like the beginning to the middle."

"It sounds classic."

"It is so random. I love things that are so random, with old music."

"It's like a lowish jazzy song [...] or it sounds like an Aztec feast."

"It is kind of weird but I like how alternative it is."

Excerpted commentary, con:

"It's horrible it sounds like monkeys." (A reference to the balloon noises in the second half of the tune -- which were assumed by other students to be dolphins.)

"I don't like jazz or whatever this is."

"I hate jazz. It's boring."

And there you have it. That's what you call science, beyotches.

[photo credit: NIOSH]

* * * * *

9 out of 10 researchers recommend the Industrial Jazz Group's fall fundraiser, in support of our October tour. You can find out more, and contribute to the cause (for as little as $1!), here.

And: contest mania! Check out the remix contest, and the IJG "The Job Song" video contest.

At rehearsal yesterday

We attempted a favorite Elizabeth Cotten tune: "Shake Sugaree."

The impossibility of the avant-garde

While aimlessly watching TV for the first time in days, I noticed the above spot, and it reminded me of something Stanley Kubrick once said about how some of the most "brilliant" cinema happens in TV commercials.

If that is true, I wonder about the effect -- either for cinema, or for art in general.

The clip above is fairly "weird" by the aesthetic standards of, say, People magazine. It has the feel of something designed to provoke, and intended as art. It is informed by experimental techniques, however inauthentically. But it is being deployed by a major corporation. To sell jeans. And it will probably be seen by millions of people.



The problem that follows is at least as old as mass media itself: how can there be an outside-of-the-mainstream, if anything can be absorbed and used by the mainstream?

Once upon a time, there was this idea (probably hooey to begin with) that being a "true" artist was about staying a step ahead of whatever the latest cultural "norm" was. Our mission as artists (so we thought) was to figure out which components of a particular practice had been done to death, and then to innovate something new.

We have that impulse toward innovation still, but what's the upshot? It doesn't even matter whether "everything has been done before" (the big complaint of young artists). When the raw power of anything can be instantly appropriated by the people who have the budgets, and the products to sell -- recall Jim O'Rourke's comments on "context" -- there has to be some other reason to make art.

As artists, we may find this or that aesthetic approach tiresome, and we may go after something different in the process of escaping what we already know (that's part of the fun) -- but nowadays, that's ultimately a personal journey, never a broadly groundbreaking act of artistic rebellion.

Which is maybe how it should be -- and maybe how it's always been, under the surface of our mass media economy. There really is no "mainstream" or "avant-garde." No "in" or "out." Art wants to be de-centered, despite all our attempts to organize and rank it. Art wants to be local (and not strictly in a geographical sense). And critical categories ("hip" / "square," "cutting edge" / "predictable") may make sense in the context of a particular microcosm, but beyond that, who really knows? Or cares?

(My wife just walked through the room. She wanted to know who I was yelling at.)

[photo credit: meddygarnet]

* * * * *

Avant garde or mainstream, the Industrial Jazz Group needs your help! We're having a fall fundraiser, in support of our October tour. You can find out more, and contribute to the cause (for as little as $1!), here.

Also! Check out the remix contest -- and, as of today, the IJG "The Job Song" video contest.

LEEF-tastic

Matt Miller has a new review of LEEF in October's All About Jazz-NY. It is conveniently coordinated with our October 19 show at the Bell House (with Darcy James Argue's Secret Society and Travis Sullivan's Bjorkestra).

It’s hard to take anything about the Industrial Jazz Group for granted. Even the LA-based ensemble’s name is misleading to the point that its leader, Andrew Durkin, feels the need to address it in the header of the group’s website. “So we’re not really industrial. Were the Beatles really insects?” As explanations go - humorous as they might be - it rings a little hollow. It does, however, speak volumes about IJG and its singular approach to music-making. Just when you think you’ve got it, when the form becomes clear, the beat insatiable, a song implodes and you’re left to sift through the wreckage or a freely improvised saxophone solo is followed by a foray into ‘70s lounge rock. The result is rarely anything less than thrilling.

Recorded at a series of live concerts from 2004-07 and interspersed liberally with studio material, Leef is an unrelenting amalgam of shtick, pop, cabaret and classical that comes off equal parts Bernstein, Zappa and Mingus. Durkin has a hand in every aspect of Leef, including the live, often improvised performances that make up the album’s core. The result is a so-called “hybrid approach”, where live sections are touched up with studio material and entire passages from studio sessions are inserted into live material. Durkin attempts to tally the ratios in the album’s notes and comes to a rough average 90% live material/10% studio, disregarding the entirely live “Don’t Let ‘em Getcha” and the studio recording of “Fuck The Muck (part one)”. Thus Leef has the spontaneity of live performance along with the lightning transitions and rounded edges of a studio work. Add to that a beguiling uniqueness, humor and beauty and you have a great record by an incredible ensemble.

The second kind of cool

Matt at Twenty Dollars has a post that is tres dope, hip, fly, or whatever the kids are calling it nowadays.

The thesis:

The jazz universe resembles that of railroad enthusiasts or Magic: The Gathering players. It is a subculture: cared for passionately by a small group of insiders, but thought of as a mere curiosity by the wider population, if they think of it at all. [...]

It seems like the only reason jazz is referenced in contemporary popular culture is to mock the music and its fans. [...]

[T]his picture of jazz in popular culture is pretty grim. Jazz is the province of egg-heads and snobs; it is unpleasant cacophony that is perpetuated by bizarrely self-important weirdos. The problem is not just that people don’t see jazz as something cool, it is that they are seeing it as explicitly not cool. This has not always been the case — Bill Cosby used to have jazz musicians guest on his show quite often, and they were always cool “Uncle Dizzy,” or something along those lines. But the older jazz icons are leaving us, and the newer breed of university-trained musicians have not figured out a way to maintain the same aura of cool. [...]

As we struggle with declining audiences, jazz venue closures, and a general music industry upheaval, we must not forget that there is a broader public relations battle that must be waged – the re-coolization of jazz.

One of the more interesting comments came from someone named Nancy:

From my vantage point — that is to say the longtime jazz girlfriend that doesn’t really know or like jazz — I have to say that the reason jazz isn’t cool is because the jazz nerds have effectively shut the rest of us out of it. The way jazz fans fawn over and talk about jazz makes it unwelcome to any casual fan.

There is no music quite dissected like jazz, and no topic quite as boring as dissected jazz. While all of you yammer on about changes and chords and time signatures and social issues related to jazz (bah!), the music has faded to the background... of both your chatter and my mind.

Ah, yes. I feel a stream of consciousness coming on.

* * * * *

What is "cool," anyway?

On one level I suppose it's a basic stance of intellectual or artistic superiority. The cool person is seen by the outsider as ineffably, unattainably, desirably better than. "Cool" in this sense is style-driven: the cool person has access to the "cutting edge," is in the vanguard of taste, and knows about the "hot" new trend (ironic how "cool" and "hot" fit together like this, eh?). Further: he or she is able to walk a delicate (and potentially contradictory) tightrope: publicly shunning broad popularity (which, of course, is problematically "mainstream" or "square"), but simultaneously driven by a desire to be a leading (and thus popular) taste-maker.

In response to this (possibly arbitrary) definition of "cool," I say: who needs it?

Okay, maybe that's a bit dismissive. We all want our art to "speak," and it won't speak if it has nothing to do with the zeitgeist it is embedded in. And artistic superiority is a fine aspiration (as long as you realize that the results are always going to be relative); another word for that is "excellence," and we should all be interested in excellence.

But at the same time this definition of cool has to do with much more than a simple interest in relevance or excellence. This definition of cool always seems to come back to an obsession with status. It thus reminds me a bit of the dynamic that obtained in high school, and, to a lesser degree, grad school.

I lived through both of those environments once. I do not wish to experience them again. So while I acknowledge its value, this is not my kind of cool.

There is, however, a second kind of "cool" that I do find appealing: "coolness" as an almost zen-like detachment. Its natural musical analog is probably not jazz at all (at least not post-1970s jazz), but the (real folk) blues.

Whereas the first "cool" is socially-obsessed while presenting itself as anti-social ("too cool for school"), the second cool is powerful because it is impersonal, because it eschews self-importance, because it does not seek to impress. While the first cool is about displaying superiority and strength (through "chops," "complexity," or a bitchen hairdo), the second is more about embracing the imperfection of humanity, and somehow making that into something beautiful. The first cool is "da bomb," the second cool is "aplomb."

Can you see where I'm going with this? One way out of the dilemma jazz currently finds itself in (i.e., lacking a sustainable audience) may be through this second kind of cool. (The first kind is valuable too, but, as Nancy would probably tell us, it has its limits.)

Let's compare. In rock, this second kind of cool bubbled up to the surface in the wake of super-serious prog-rockers, and spawned a whole series of superstar bands and artists that were comfortable embracing their inner nerd: Talking Heads, Devo, They Might Be Giants, Elvis Costello, et al.

Where are the jazz musicians who are comfortable embracing their inner nerd? Who are comfortable with the aesthetic possibilities of self-deprecation? Who are comfortable with their own idiosyncrasies?

You might point me toward the term "jazz nerd," and yes, that's a term that I have heard plenty of musicians use to jokingly refer to themselves -- always outside the context of a performance. That last is an important detail, because recognizing your own nerdiness is very different from embracing that nerdiness through your music. What if real live jazz musicians were to take up the sort of mockery highlighted by Twenty Dollars? What if that sort of thing actually informed the music more? Would that kill us or make us stronger? (If the former -- does that mean jazz is so fragile that it can be fractured by a few well-placed jibes?)

Of course, I'm really talking about comedy, a subject that is near and dear to my heart. But that's because I have long thought that all the great comedians have the second kind of cool. It humanizes them, and it feeds their popularity. Consider folks like Dave Chapelle, Carol Burnett, Charlie Chaplin, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Louis CK, Sarah Silverman, and so on -- all of them demonstrate keen awareness of the absurdity of life. All of them are great at laughing at themselves. And all of them seem to be coming from a very different aesthetic and philosophical place than most modern jazz musicians.

Maybe that's okay. Jazz is not stand-up comedy (though both involve improvisation). And it's also not like there isn't any humor to be found in modern jazz (though much of it seems cursory to me). Of course Nancy might disagree:

Take for example, the Austin McBride “scandal.” While jazzicists debate his merits/demerits and whether or not it’s all a big joke, the rest of us are left with a video of him counting four over “Take Five.” Yes, I get the humor in it. But funny? No, not really.

Which in turns reminds me of something Zappa said in The Real Frank Zappa Book:

What academicians regard as "humor" in music is usually stuff along the lines of "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" (remember, in Music Appreciation class, when they told you that the E-flat clarinet is going "ha-ha-ha!"?). Take my word for it, folks -- you can do way better than that.

He was right, I think: we can, and we should.

[photo credit: porcupiny]

* * * * *

If you love jazz nerds, you could do worse than throwing a few bucks at the Industrial Jazz Group. We're having a fall fundraiser, in support of our October tour. You can find out more, and contribute to the cause (for as little as $1!), here.

Also! Check out the remix contest.

Sometimes the internets is a dangerous place, part two

I live in the strip club capital of the country, I have a male stripper in my band, and even I am weirded out by this.

How do you solve a problem like myopia?

Do you remember the brouhaha a week or two ago regarding President Obama's address to schoolchildren? I wrote about it here.

If, for some reason, you entered that situation in an Obamaphobic state of mind, and my brief outburst was enough to convince you to drop your faux outrage (hey, I can dream, can't I?), then perhaps you are looking for a new home for your habitual bitterness.

If that is the case, may I suggest you could more productively direct your anger here?

I mean, hell, if you're gonna get fired up over an authority figure trying to brainwash the kids, why not go after the real thing? The RIAA has, for a long time, been in the business of trying to re-educate schoolchildren. Among the topics on their agenda: filesharing is completely evil, "fair use" is hardly a legitimate defense, and music is essentially a product, which can't properly exist outside the context of a capitalist system.

All of which is misleading or untrue ("filesharing" can often actually be beneficial to artists, "fair use" is a fundamental creative practice, and music is much more than a product). And all of which fits in nicely with the general devaluation of the arts in public education. Because if, eventually, music can only be accessed from behind the walls of the sort of proprietary listening environment the RIAA dreams of, that will be one more obstacle-to-actually-getting-kids-excited-about-music that the 21st music teacher will have to deal with.

(Try for a moment to imagine how hard it might be to get fired up about some of the music featured on A Blog Supreme's Jazz Now series without the mp3s / youtube videos that accompany each post. Now imagine you're a 12-year-old trying to convince a friend to check out some cool new band you like without actually giving them a copy of the music.)

Want to prevent kids from sharing music? You may as well prevent them from listening to music. There are just too many other things they'd prefer to spend their money on. If they have no way of getting hooked on the power of music now, the chances that they will get hooked later (when they actually have some sort of disposable income) are fairly slim indeed. And ten years down the road, the ghost of the industry will still be wondering from which direction the coup de grâce originated, and we'll be left with a culture in which the beauty of music is known only to a select few.

But don't despair. While kids' ears atrophy, they can do a project like this (click the image above for the full text):

Imagine that you are in the music industry, and you want to send a message about the consequences of songlifting [a neologistic riff on "shoplifting"]. Complete the chart below noting what each music industry professional would say about the effects of songlifting on their career. [...]

With your team of fellow music industry employees, plan an information campaign that lets others know why it's important to get their music the right way. [...]

Challenge: Take your campaign a step further by contacting the editor of your community newspaper or the director of your community cable television station to see if you can submit an article or a video about your campaign.

I'm half tempted to take these lesson plans into my own classroom just to savor the kids' reactions. But I more or less know in advance that they will laugh their asses off. Which is not to say that my kids are that much savvier-in-the-face of-a-hornswaggle than kids in other schools. It's just that kids in general are not terribly interested in pretending to be "music industry employees."

And only a music industry employee could be surprised at that statement. (It takes a special kind of narcissism, I guess.)


* * * * *

No surprises as I narcissistically shill for the Industrial Jazz Group, right? We're having a fall fundraiser, in support of our October tour. You can find out more, and contribute to the cause (for as little as $1!), here.

Also! Check out the remix contest.

Sometimes the internets is a dangerous place

Public service announcement

You were probably hoping that I had given up making these stupid little videos, huh?

Sorry. (Sigh.)

This one is a big commercial for The Industrial Jazz Group's upcoming east coast tour (October 15 - 24, 2009).

Of note: it features unfinished excerpts (raw, unmixed, etc.) from the forthcoming album (to be released in 2010).

It also relies, as usual, on the camera work of Matt Lichtenwalner, Tany Ling, and me.

I suspect that it will make you either want to see the show, or want to run screaming in the other direction.

(Please note: the word "jazzer" is used ironically in this context.)

* * * * *

You may also run screaming in the other direction when I remind you that the Industrial Jazz Group is having a fall fundraiser, in support of our October tour! You can find out more, and contribute to the cause (for as little as $1!), here. Every penny counts! Seriously.

Plus! Check out the remix contest.

Jazz populi

By now, you have probably seen or heard of A Blog Supreme's efforts (or, more specifically, Patrick Jarenwattananon's efforts) to catalog a list of new-ish (within the last decade or so) "albums you would recommend to somebody looking to get into modern jazz." Note that this differs from a pure "best of" list in that its purpose is (hopefully) proselytization -- and so the albums chosen should contain jazz that is not only great, but accessible (and inspiring) to those who are not already inclined toward the stuff.

That word "accessible" is a little controversial, of course -- at least to the extent that one assumes it's meant as a pejorative. For the record, when I use it, it's not. But I guess when Henry Powderly uses it (as he did in a comment appended to Lucas Gillan's list), it is:

I have to disagree on Largo. [Brad] Mehldau is indeed one of the most influential modern artists but Largo is a stain on his discography, a watered-down record that clearly put "accessibility" in front of artistry. I own every record he ever made, and deleted that one.

We should definitely celebrate the young artists that are carrying the torch of jazz, but we can't forget what that torch is, what jazz is: Unapologetic, spontaneous and above all honest music. The rest of the drivel coming out of the record industry may not value those, but jazz must always if it intends to evolve.

Tellingly, Mehldau never made another record like Largo.

I guess I understand the point here. Why try to sell jazz to people who are not already into it by changing it into something it's not? Rock fans (for instance) may end up liking the hybrid thing you create merely to the extent that it is not jazz. And how exactly is that motivation for them to get into the "real thing"?

Of course, this idea of "accessibility" is pretty slippery when you look at it closely. One could argue that a jazz musician who employs the sort of extravagant studio-intensive production that usually characterizes rock releases (as Mehldau does on Largo) is "watering down" his or her art. But what if he or she happens to like extravagant studio-intensive production?

Or, to put it another way: who the fuck am I to say whether Brad Mehldau is or is not being "honest"? There is only one person who really knows that: Brad Mehldau.

(I'm sorry. I'm a natural-born hybridophile. And I love Largo. One man's "watering down" is another's water-on-fertile-ground, I guess. But I digress...)

* * * * *

What about my own selections? Well.

Since I haven't seen a lot of love (so far) extended toward west coast musicians on any of these lists, I'm going to have to represent a little. (Apologies in advance.)

Fair warning: most of the folks I am going to mention have some kind of connection to the Industrial Jazz Group. (Apologies in advance for that too. Is it my fault that many of the best musicians on this coast have played in my stupid band?)

Also: I have circumvented the request for a list of albums (since one could argue that albums are in fact becoming increasingly irrelevant to "the youngsters"), and have focused instead on bands.

Finally, I made my selections, in each case, based on what I perceive as hard evidence, personally witnessed, of crossover appeal. In other words, I'm not just listing these bands because I love them. In fact, there are other west coast jazz bands that I love just as much, but that I'm not listing here, because, in my estimation, they don't offer the same seductiveness for the neophyte. (Which is not necessarily a bad thing.) But I know for a fact that the following folks are all very good at creating new jazz fans. In each case, I've seen it with my own eyes.

1. Kneebody



I know it's a crude measure of their impact, but I have personally witnessed these guys make "the ladies" swoon. How many jazz bands do you know who can do that?

2. Nels Cline Singers



Is this not the 21st century jazz version of Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar on fire? And, besides: Wilco.

3. Spaceheater's Blast Furnace



It's hard to find a YouTube video that does justice to how exciting this band really is. (Try their MySpace page for streaming samples.) Suffice it to say that in the hands of bandleader Evan Francis, the jazz/hip-hop/Cuban thing is a winner.

And, speaking of San Francisco:



Having to turn 200 people away from a concert by a large ensemble? If that's not bringing jazz to the masses, I don't know what is.

4. PLOTZ!



The crossover here is less with the Balkan music crowd than with the metalheads. PLOTZ! is loud, and, at their best, kind of sinister. (As an added bonus, it turns out this band was the only way I was able to get one of my System-of-a-Down-loving students to even think about listening to jazz.)

5. Wiener Kids



A video featuring the original incarnation of this group, with Steini Gunnarsson. Note the use of film as a part of the overall artistic expression. (Does it "water down" the music, I wonder?)

So: the first five bands that came to mind. There are more (way more, actually), but you get the idea.

* * * * *

One other (minor) thing:

If, as Jarenwattananon suggests, the problem jazz faces is primarily due to lack of "exposure" (and I happen to agree with that assessment), then it seems odd for any of these lists to include something by, say, the Bad Plus, or Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, or Medeski, Martin, & Wood. I admire these groups as much as the next indie-jazz afficionado, but whatever you think of them, it's hard to argue that they haven't had enough exposure. (Fer crissakes, I first of heard The Bad Plus on LA's hippest of hip radio stations, KCRW.)

Maybe none of these groups have yet performed on the US equivalent of the Mercury Prize award show, but most have been turning up in the usual indie rock haunts for a while now (MMR at Bonnaroo, for instance, or Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey at SXSW (the same year IJG was there, ironically)). So unless I seriously need to re-calibrate my sense of how the music business works, I'm pretty sure that "the kids" are going to hear about them whether we include them on our lists or not.

It's a quibble, I know. And I don't like to quibble, so I'm gonna sign off now.

* * * * *

Nothing to quibble with here: the Industrial Jazz Group is having a fall fundraiser, in support of our October tour! You can find out more, and contribute to the cause (for as little as $1!), here.

Plus! Check out the remix contest.

It ain't me, babe

From today's junk mail intake. I think they sent it to the wrong house.

The world we have lost

Came across an interesting article on Jim O'Rourke today:

Mr. O’Rourke’s production style is precise and dry; he creates a sound picture in which tiny sonic details matter. But where his Drag City records are concerned, everything matters: the pacing, the length, the sound, the cover images. For this reason he won’t allow “The Visitor,” or any of his albums, to be sold as downloads, on iTunes or anywhere else. He’s taking a stand against the sound quality of MP3s; he’s also taking a stand in favor of artists being able to control the medium and reception of their work.

“You can no longer use context as part of your work,” he said, glumly, “because it doesn’t matter what you do, somebody’s going to change the context of it. The confusion of creativity, making something, with this Internet idea of democratization ...” he trailed off, disgusted. “It sounds like old-man stuff, but I think it’s disastrous for the possibilities of any art form.”

Like me, O'Rourke is 40. I suppose, when you're that "old," and faced with the sort of industry-wide upheaval that the music business is currently going through, you're entitled to a certain degree of curmudgeonliness. And while I generally try to resist that sort of thing, for the purposes of this post I'm going to broadly agree with O'Rourke's assessment of where music is at, because it gives me a convenient excuse to express a few thoughts I've been mulling over anyway.

First: the obvious. To the extent that jazz's viability as a music of the future is in jeopardy, that situation has a lot to do with various threats to the existence of a strong and extensive fan community.

But what is a fan? Consider: a true fan does much more than simply "like" a certain artist or genre. True fanhood is, essentially, an irrational enterprise.

For instance: I have written before about the importance of context for a fan's love of a given work. I may be fascinated by the biographies of my favorite musicians, because they provide an engaging frame -- but the music itself is no different whether I know the relevant background or not. The fact that I seem to enjoy a given tune more once I have obtained said information strikes me as somewhat odd.

But if you really want to talk about irrationality, think about the extent to which fanhood has traditionally involved elaborate rituals of fetishization. While true music fans love music, and love stories about music, we also love to fetishize the objects that convey music.

(Right? I'm assuming that you too have lovingly caressed a well-worn LP jacket.)

So the fact that we are developing a purely digital, artifact-less musical culture is maybe a little concerning. Cuz, you know: how do you fetishize an mp3?



And what happens to fanhood when you no longer have an art object to fetishize? Do you stop caring about the art itself? I wonder. While people still do buy physical media, I suspect that in general our relationship with recordings (i.e., qua recordings) has become much more ethereal, and much more casual (I know, I know). Who really worries about losing, misplacing, or wearing out a recording anymore? In my own case, I transfer most of the digital music I download onto disc, but I rarely buy jewel cases in which to protectively house them. I also gave up on CD wallets. Generally I just let the damned things accumulate in piles on my desk, or else just stack 'em back on the spindle they came from. Once they have been "consumed" for a given period of time, the MP3s, in turn, get backed up onto numerous hard-drives, which I hardly ever consult because there is so much new music to get to.

One could argue that the whole history of recording technology thus far has been driven by the search for devices and media that make the experience of music durable, reliable, and convenient. At their most fragile, brittle, and finite, older forms of music media (the 78, say, or even the cassette, which was always getting "eaten" at the wrong time (in my experience, anyway)) seemed to invite a greater degree of fetishization. We knew they wouldn't last forever, we knew they might be hard to replace, we knew they actually required some effort to obtain -- so of course we treated them with greater reverence.

Now that everything is so much easier, more durable and convenient, is that reverence harder to come by?

[photo credits: puroticorico, carlcollins]

* * * * *

Speaking of "fetishizing": the Industrial Jazz Group is having a fall fundraiser, in support of our October tour! You can find out more, and contribute to the cause (for as little as $1!), here.

Oh yeah, and we also have a remix contest.

Fight the good fight

Sometimes I miss LA.

Re: Rocco Somazzi's latest Quixote-esque mission: the Angel City Jazz Festival.

(You may or may not recognize a few former / one-off members of the Industrial Jazz Group in the above trailer.)

The blind interrupting the blind

(Yawn.)

UPDATE:

Apparently, Viacom decided this non-event (Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift at the VMA awards, if you must know) was so important and valuable that the video had to be removed from YouTube.

(Double yawn.)

Ah, well:

Political coda, plus assorted flim-flam

Okay. A parting shot on this subject before the weekend.

Probably the best political commentary I've seen this week comes from Ta-Nehisi Coates:

We (liberals) have spent so much of our time on the losing end of the past 30 years, that the impulse is to fight every battle, and challenge every press release. Moreover, media has uncovered our inner crazy. HuffPo blasts every utterance from Jon Kyl in bold font. Politico reports every feint and jab, like it's the whole fight. I'm not blaming them, they're doing well because they've figured out something about our inner animal.

It's fine for us laymen to indulge that, but I don't want to be led by people who think that outlets (including this one) which weigh in on who "won the week" are some kind of gauge of their actual progress. I don't want to be led by people who think that "getting angry" is a actual political strategy. I want to be led by a killer. A cold, unemotional, professional killer.

I keep meeting lefties who tell me Obama's "too soft" with these guys, and I keep looking at them like they're crazy. I am going to go out on a limb and say that there is something deeper at work here, something beyond the policy fights. I think a lot of us don't just want Obama to be effective, we want him to exact some measure of revenge. It's smart to understand the difference between the two, and moreover, how the desire for one can undermine the other. A section of conservatives love Sarah Palin because she drives liberals crazy. That she drives a lot of other people crazy too, and hence undermines herself, is beside the point.

Let's not make that mistake.

In other words, let's not be MORANS.

* * * * *

Other stuffs:

-- The New Yorker shout-out. (Big thanks to DJA for making this happen.)

-- "Yo, Jimbo!"

-- The Industrial Jazz Group Remix Contest.

-- I'm honored to be guest-posting on Seattle trumpeter Jason Parker's blog this coming Monday. Gonna try really hard not to fuck it up.

-- And finally, this: