Does Jazz music have a "limited emotional expressivity" ?

[rasputin1963]

 

the lectures are roughly:     Antike Medieval (-1450) Renaissance (-1600)   1600 bis 2000:   Baroque Bachscher Choralsatz Klassik (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven Clementi, Kuhlau...) Wiener Klassik Schubert Romantik Harmonik of Richard Wagner Neoklassik 20th Century 1900-1050) 20th Century (1950-1999) Zeitgen

[A. Einstein]

Zaggar & Evans... HAHAHAHA.

 

did you hear the Italian renaissance trick (harmony shift), and shortly later how he gets very exited from 9595 on, and both strum harder only to solute all the cosmic energy a few bars later?

[rasputin1963]

I appreciate the way the song employs the Harmonic (not the Natural/Modal) minor, and descends in a quasi-Flamenco thing.

[nat whilk II]

Well.....I recommend not confusing propositional ideas and notions about music and the music in actuality. Lots of brilliant musicians and composers come across when talking or writing about music, as doctrinaire, bigoted, close-minded, even ignorant when going on about their art.

 

Yeah, Ken Burn's Jazz AKA All Roads Lead To Wynton, got on my nerves too, once the show got into the 60s. But why should that keep me from giving Marsalis' music an equal chance and an unbiased hearing?

 

Bad philosophy and good music co-exist all the time, in the performers, the composers, and the listeners.

 

Most musicians would do well to follow the mans' words, Shut Up and Play Your Guitar. And listeners distinguish between what the musicians play and what they say. If it's actually music you're interested in.

 

nat whilk ii

[rasputin1963]

 

Well.....I recommend not confusing propositional ideas and notions about music and the music in actuality. Lots of brilliant musicians and composers come across when talking or writing about music, as doctrinaire, bigoted, close-minded, even ignorant when going on about their art.

 

 

 

Like Miles Davis, who, by nearly unanimous report, loathed white people openly?

[Gabriel E.]

 

Well.....I recommend not confusing propositional ideas and notions about music and the music in actuality. Lots of brilliant musicians and composers come across when talking or writing about music, as doctrinaire, bigoted, close-minded, even ignorant when going on about their art. Yeah, Ken Burn's Jazz AKA All Roads Lead To Wynton, got on my nerves too, once the show got into the 60s. But why should that keep me from giving Marsalis' music an equal chance and an unbiased hearing? Bad philosophy and good music co-exist all the time, in the performers, the composers, and the listeners. Most musicians would do well to follow the mans' words, Shut Up and Play Your Guitar. And listeners distinguish between what the musicians play and what they say. If it's actually music you're interested in. nat whilk ii

 

 

Well I think that's mostly true. However Marsalis has done a lot outside his own music to institutionalize his propositional ideas and notions about music. It's one thing to espouse an opinion. It's entirely another to harness a massive and well-funded institution (such as Jazz at Lincoln Center) to ensure that those who do not share your opinions are shut out of the mainstream conversation.

 

FWIW, I find that while Marsalis is a brilliant technician and even a fairly emotive player, most of his compositions and interpretations are predictibly conservative. At this point he's doing duet records with Willie Nelson and Eric Clapton - how much more milquetoast can you get than that?

 

I think that it's a mistake, in any idiom, to ignore large tracts of time in which very important things happened. It results in a lack of depth.

[Surrealistic]

 

Like Miles Davis, who, by nearly unanimous report, loathed white people openly?

I don't want to derail the thread but I really don't think that's true and I can't let it pass without comment.

 

In his own words:

... because my friends are all colors. When I say that some of my best friends are white, I sure ain't lying. The only white people I don't like are the prejudiced white people

(http://www.erenkrantz.com/Music/MilesDavisInterview.shtml)

 

If you think he was being disingenuous when he said that, how could you explain his work with many white people, not least Gil Evans, of whom he said (in the same interview quoted above)

we couldn't be much closer if he was my brother

 

 

I suspect any reputation he had for hating white people came from the fact that he spoke out against prejudice and injustice. Let's not forget that too many people back in the 40's, 50's and early 60's wouldn't take kindly to him not knowing his place (as they might put it).

[philbo]

I do think there are a lot of jazz soloists who are purely technical, and as a result purely boring. They run through scales as fast as possible, switch keys, and run through them again. No emotion, no communication.

 

It is no different than a 15 year old shred lead player who has to fit as many notes into as small a space as possible. That, to me, is not music, it is sonic masturbation.

 

Of course, this also happens in a lot of classical music, only without the improvisation. Same result though.

[philbo]

 

Enlightment of the Buddhist kind, a mental illness from Asia which swaped all over the world recently, most often happen to the subject while taking a {censored}.

 

 

Both can happen at any time. It is best to be in a bathroom when the last one happens, though.

[A. Einstein]

 

Both can happen at any time. It is best to be in a bathroom when the last one happens, though.

 

 

Yup.

 

Or if it is a big Enlightenment, on the meadow.

[techristian]

 

I hate to be this directly blunt, but this is so wrong I can't even begin to tell you. It's been typically just the opposite. I really don't feel like debating this again because it rears its head so many times, especially in the context of learning music. Suffice it to say that it will almost every time expand your horizons, palette, and knowledge, and not close it down.

 

 

I'm really speaking in a general context, not really applying directly to music. However in the case of the "teacher" who inspired this thread, yes this would apply. He sounds like he is reading out of a text book.

 

This kind of thing usually applies to engineering types that say "It can't be done!"

 

Dan

[UstadKhanAli]

I believe it's the same in a general context. Having knowledge is not limiting; poor attitudes are. And that poor attitude would be pervasive no matter how much knowledge someone had anyway, so having the knowledge is not the problem.

[nat whilk II]

 

Well I think that's mostly true. However Marsalis has done a lot outside his own music to institutionalize his propositional ideas and notions about music. It's one thing to espouse an opinion. It's entirely another to harness a massive and well-funded institution (such as Jazz at Lincoln Center) to ensure that those who do not share your opinions are shut out of the mainstream conversation. FWIW, I find that while Marsalis is a brilliant technician and even a fairly emotive player, most of his compositions and interpretations are predictibly conservative. At this point he's doing duet records with Willie Nelson and Eric Clapton - how much more milquetoast can you get than that?

 

 

 

I still think it's important to keep a person's music separate from all the personality stuff, at least for the sake of assessing the music by itself. It's very common that people take offense at some artist's personality or comments or attitude, resulting in an inability or unwillingness to give the music a chance on it's own terms.

 

Closely related is the "contempt by association" accusation - such as "doing duet records with Willie Nelson and Eric Clapton". All I care about is the question - well, are they good records? Is the jazz community some sort of cult where the members are not to mingle with "outsiders"? Marsalis is so frequenty characterized as an elitist - seems to me that doing a little collaboration outside the elitist box could be a good thing.

 

I mean sure, people who misbehave should be called out on misbehavior. But I still think it's important to not lose objectivity when listening to music. I may not want to support some musician I think is a nasty bigot or really bad influence with my money, but believe me, over the long haul, people don't care about bad behavior - they just see the art eventually. In fact, a really nasty personality can even make an artist "more interesting" when "re-assessment" comes along - Caravaggio being a case in point in the visual art world. You just have to wait long enough.

 

It's all just the ad hominem thing, in a subtler form.

 

nat whilk ii

[Lee Knight]

 

If they don't, Marsalis said, "Call it what you like; I don't care what you call it. But it isn't Jazz." I'm guessing he is drawing a historical lineage directly from the African form known as the Bembe.

 

 

The whole issue here, the one of your professor's statement, of Marsalis' statement, and the very thread title itself... all of it is based on a label. Of a category. Jazz. And while there is nothing wrong with naming genres, to fall into too much of a respect and adherence to genres and labels is limiting.

 

So, jazz has to use a blues scale. {censored}... I guess when I think I'm playing jazz, sometimes I'm not. That's OK. It's like pointing out that that thing I called a lake is really a pond. Except I still got wet when I dove in.

 

So, it seems to me, the very nature of this categorizing is to facilitate organization. Fine. And one of its byproducts is that it limits. Strip away the genre and you're left with music. Might even sound like jazz. Or not. Doesn't really matter.

 

Is a pond any less wet than a lake?

[Gabriel E.]

I get your point. I think in most cases an artist

[Raymar]

And in Marsalis

[A. Einstein]

is it really necessary to listen to Marsalis, a brilliant trumpetist, but not one phrase he play is from him

[stomias]

I must say I've played with Wynton with the Chicago Jazz ensemble under William Russo and it seemed EVERY phrase "he play is from him"

[A. Einstein]

 

I must say I've played with Wynton with the Chicago Jazz ensemble under William Russo and it seemed EVERY phrase "he play is from him"

 

 

Well, then everything is fine for you.

 

And I suffer from too good memory of what the great jazz trumpetist played in the past, mainly so from about 1948 to the end of the era in about 1974.

[Lee Knight]

 

Well, then everything is fine for you. And I suffer from too good memory of what the great jazz trumpetist played in the past, mainly so from about 1948 to the end of the era in about 1974.

 

 

What are you talking about?

 

I think there's a tendency to slam great artists because they don't do things the same as our favorite artists. So, maybe Miles floats your boat. Me too. And Wynton is nothing like Miles. But, you know, he does have a lot of Louis in him. And he does have a lot of stiff attitude that manifests in a style. It's not Miles or Freddie, Diz or Chet. That's OK, Marsalis is a still a force to be reckoned with as an instrumentalist. I'd still put him up with the greats.

[A. Einstein]

 

What are you talking about?

 

 

I am talking about that I know all solos, as well how they play the head, of Clifford Brown, Sharkey Bonano, Dizzy, Wild Bill Davison, Freddie Hubbard, King Oliver, Miles Davis, Kenny Dorharm, Roy Eldridge, Lee Morgan, Louis Armstrong, Rex Stuart, Hannibal Marvin Peterson, Roy Hargrove and so on...

 

and I talk about that I don't need a new trumpetist which has nothing new to add, even when he is a brilliant trumpetist, also don't really wanna hear half an Elvin Jones, or a quarter of a Jack deJohnette or some 0.0815 Herbie Hancocks...

[Lee Knight]

 

...and I talk about that I don't need a new trumpetist which has nothing new to add...

 

 

Well, ok... yeah, there is a great tradition of pushing boundaries in jazz. I hear you. But, I really have no issue with this:

 

[video=youtube;zc3vZsoE7VI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc3vZsoE7VI

[3shiftgtr]

 

And I suffer from too good memory of what the great jazz trumpetist played in the past, mainly so from about 1948 to the end of the era in about 1974.

 

 

Ha! Now you are doing exactly the kind of elitist historical-only bias that the OP was talking about regarding classical vs jazz....old jazz vs new jazz...venturing into jazz nazi land.....

[Lee Knight]

Aha!

[A. Einstein]

 

I'd still put him up with the greats.

 

 

For me that era of the great in Jazz trimpetists is long over, unforunately for Jazz, but more or less a fact,

 

However, for example Pat Metheny is a new star on the Jazz firmament, a novum