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I was thinking about Sonny Rollins's 9/11 Concert yesterday. It's worn well, I think mainly because it is a real album, not a sentimental effort too closely tied to its inspiration. Rollins's music from that night is powerful not because of its associations (which, through the years and generations, often fade) but because of the music itself, and the album is this just as powerful today as it was ten years ago.
That's all I'm saying about 9/11. Thoughts?
Peter Hum at the Ottawa Citizen has this article on Kurt Rosenwinkel and Dwayne Burno's recent statements that most jazz today sucks. It's good, go read it.
Rosenwinkel's follow-up message ("i mean- just make better music because it seems that jazz musicians seem to think its ok to just do anything. its not ok. its not ok with me because most of the time the actual music is terrible, and it makes people think with good reason that Jazz sucks. which it does, much of the time") makes me think of a quote by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Franz Wright:
"What I would say is this: writing poems doesn't make you a poet. … It is only with poetry, for some reason, that everyone wants to believe they can try their hand at it once in a while and be considered, can call themselves a poet. … . It's a craft. It's an art. It's a skill. It is not therapy, and it is not compensation for terrible things in one's life. It is a thing in itself. You devote yourself to being an instrument of it, or you wander forever in the belief that it is a form of "self-expression." … And I explained very clearly my opinion of what I think a poet, an artist is. Someone who puts this thing first. "
That, I think, has some relevance to the contemporary jazz scene. In this age of independent recording and Internet releases, it's very easy for musicians to have CDs available (I do, for one). It's also very easy to start believing that you're now an important and vital part of the music because of those CDs - as Wright says, "Everyone wants to believe that they can try their hand at it once in a while and be considered... a poet." Substitute "jazz musician" for "poet" and you've got it.
