Rehearsing The Blues

Excerpted (If It's The Last Thing I Do)

From "Nicholas Payton Is Chillin' On Our Nutz: How One Musician Misrepresented the Facts and Bullied the Jazz Narrative Off Course," my last feature-length piece of jazz writing before I leave the jazz community more or less completely for several years:

Payton and his most vocal adherents are making much the same argument for jazz. "Some aim to nix jazz for perceived racist connotations; [Gary] Bartz is most strident on this point, comparing jazz to a plantation system with 'house' and 'field' musicians," writes Shaun Brady in the Philadelphia City Paper. [16] "Whites created the title [‘jazz’] anyway," writes saxophonist Marcus Strickland in arguing for Black American Music. [17] Because, Payton argues, “jazz” is "a label that was forced upon the musicians," [18] much like slave names, then it should be cast off and replaced. Malcolm X. Jazz X. "It’s the colonialist mentality that glorifies being treated like a slave," Payton writes on his blog, The Cherub Speaks. [19] "Go on, 
continue to box yourself in a label that was designed to marginalize [b]lack musicians and cut them off from their brilliance." [20]

Payton and his most vocal adherents are making much the same argument for jazz. "Some aim to nix jazz for perceived racist connotations; [Gary] Bartz is most strident on this point, comparing jazz to a plantation system with 'house' and 'field' musicians," writes Shaun Brady in the Philadelphia City Paper. [16] "Whites created the title [‘jazz’] anyway," writes saxophonist Marcus Strickland in arguing for Black American Music. [17] Because, Payton argues, “jazz” is "a label that was forced upon the musicians," [18] much like slave names, then it should be cast off and replaced. Malcolm X. Jazz X. "It’s the colonialist mentality that glorifies being treated like a slave," Payton writes on his blog, The Cherub Speaks. [19] "Go on, 
continue to box yourself in a label that was designed to marginalize [b]lack musicians and cut them off from their brilliance." [20]

 

As we have seen, however, the origins of the word “jazz” as "a label that was designed to marginalize" African-American musicians and their work are far from certain, and may be completely false, a jazz urban myth. And the above-quoted passages from some of the most creative and heritage-minded musicians in jazz show that not all, or even most, musicians would agree they're being "boxed in" by the word; or, if they are, it may not be because it's a racist, colonialist or oppressive word, but merely an outdated or too narrowly defined one.

 

So, the question is: Do we need to Malcolm X jazz? Does changing the name of the genre have the same symbolic power that it had, for instance, when Duke Ellington told Fletcher Henderson he wanted jazz to be called "Negro music"?

Check out the entire piece here, and feel free to leave any comments you have, or email me at jon.wertheim@gmail.com.

 

 

An English Professor's Son Reads Nicholas Payton

NOTE: Although I do take issue with some of Payton's definitions here, this is not meant to reflect on the validity or non-validity of any other statements Mr. Payton has made. A typo does not a liar make!

Great! Nicholas Payton! Love that guy!

But seriously, Nicholas Payton has written another manifesto on his blog. I'm sure it will be extensively covered in the jazz community here in this small, cozy world of the Internet, and I really don't care enough to go into it more myself. I've said my piece on the actual issues, and you can read that here. But I don't want to be left behind as Payton, jazz trending topic of the year, makes more news. I might lose blog hits, and we all know how important those are! So, to stay current but retain my sanity, I'm tackling the one thing that really, really bothers me about Payton: the guy doesn't bother to use freakin' spell check on his manifestos. Here goes:

1. "Can NOT" is technically correct (although the use of capital letters could be seen as melodramatic, and even be confused with an acronym, since Payton often uses BAM, another three-letter capitalized word). However, Payton uses "cannot" later in the post. I would suggest using one or the other. "Cannot" would probably be better, since it's easier to read and is more common. 

2. "Prejudice" should be "prejudiced." The way he has it now, Payton is saying that African-Americans can literally be prejudice, which is like saying that someone can be hunger or be microwave oven. That's pretty easily fixed, though.

3. In "President of The United States," the word "the" shouldn't be capitalized. Words such as "at," "and," "of," or "the" are usually left lowercase, because they aren't the main words of the title being written.

4. "Black." I have no problems with Payton capitalizing the word "Black" - it's a commonly accepted convention - but he should keep it consistent, as later on in the article he writes "black." Since the uppercase version appears most often, he should stick with this. 

5. "To that I say" is a bit archaic, but if Payton wants that grandiose effect, that's an aesthetic choice to be respected. However, the phrase is more commonly followed by a colon, not a comma. This helps the reader make sense of what is being said, and helps the overall flow of the words. It's a small detail, but an important one.

Jazz Sucks

  

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.

Fun/ny

^Monk isn't laughing.

The line between "having fun" and "being funny" is, apparently, a blurred one in the jazz world, and one that is often drawn through the name of Thelonious Monk. Writing about pianist Martial Solal's recent stay at the Village Vanguard, Jim Macnie wrote:

...[W]hen the music is also marked by whimsy, those [appreciative] head-shakes can turn to chuckles. Last night at the Village Vanguard, pianist Martial Solal made me chuckle out loud seven times - that's a damn good laughs-per-set ratio.... Dexterity and delivery were in the forefront, pure imagination was driving the action, and the chuckles just kept coming.... If you could use a laugh, it's recommended."

"Monk’s surrealism has been interpreted as clowning around or startling," wrote Ethan Iverson a few months back on his blog, Do The Math, in reference to Solal's interpretations of Monk:

Glass Enclosure

 

I am constantly involved with music. If I'm not actually buying it, then I'm researching it, re-organizing it, writing about it, or just listening to it. The amount of music I have on my computer actually became a problem this past year, as college assignments (saved until the last grades were in, just in case) took up space already reserved for the next twenty albums I had on my wish list. My MacBook Pro holds 250 gigabytes; my music is 165 gigabytes, and jazz alone is 150 gigabytes of that. 

As someone who not only listens to but also simply accrues this much music, I necessarily have songs or artists who hold a special place in my ears; these are the musicians and albums that seem to flip some switch in my brain, removing any stresses of the day and slowing me down to a more human pace. I talked about some of these albums in a recent article (Stepping Back, Moving On), but those records were the discs I've lived with and loved for years. They might be intricate mazes of sound, but I know where every twist and turn is - and when every note has the power to surprise and delight, who could resist revisiting every one? David Prentice is this way about Kurt Rosenwinkel, a bassist friend of mine feels the same about Charles Mingus, and even jazz masters like a Jackie McLean or Lester Young had their home base musicians; whether it was Frank Sinatra or Charlie Parker, it had that same beauty, that same familiarity, and the same surprises which somehow still surprised. 

But McLean and Young were able to buy vinyl records, and transcribe from them, wear them down. The relationship between that black plastic disc and the ears that listened to it was a special one indeed. Having so much oddly transient music formats available to me in a few clicks is a very different relationship, one defined more by how I have my music more than how I actually hear it.

Stepping Back, Moving On

We all have musical prejudices. Martin Williams disliked John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong hated bebop, Barry Ulanov looked down on everything not either Duke or Tristano. My most recent article, Value Judgment, seeks to emphasize a percieved lack of subjectivity in the world of jazz criticism. But in writing that piece, my aim was to make a point, not necessarily explain it. And, in making my point, I named names and brandished my lists of critics like some kind of jazz McCarthy, sitting behind a microphone and prophesizing downfall by objectivity.

I stand by my point, but with time comes reflection (and emails with Patrick Jarenwattananon), and a flaw in Value Judgment is, as I say, my lack of explanation. The comments on that post (now lost in cyberspace, I'm sorry to say) tended to ask for, or try to give, some clarification on what kind of subjectivity I meant, and how that subjectivity manifested itself. I touched on this slightly - too slightly, it seems to me now.

Jazz Today (Jason Parker)

When Jon asked me to choose one musician who exemplifies the modern jazz musician, I knew immediately who I would write about: bassist Evan Flory-Barnes. In the interest of full disclosure I should say that Evan is the bassist in my band and one of my dearest friends. That should not take away from my estimation of him as the quintessential modern jazz musician.

Evan starting playing classical bass in high school, and only later on did he start playing jazz. He went through the highly acclaimed Garfield Jazz program here in Seattle and then studied at the University of Washington. In the ensuing years he has played just about every kind of music imaginable, from jazz to classical to solo bass to hip-hop, funk, latin, rock and experimental. He gigs 4-5 times a week and is one of the first-call bassists in town. He was also recently awarded a prestigious Meet The Composer grant to produce a 9-movement orchestral work with dance that was featured in the 2009 Earshot Jazz Festival (previous grantees include Jason Moran and Dave Douglas).

What makes Evan exemplify jazz today is his unwillingness to be classified as a jazz musician! He is a musician, a bass player, a human, and he brings all this to bear no matter what genre he happens to be playing in. It’s all about bringing his passion and his personality to each and every project he’s involved in. And while he’s studied the music and gone through the academic ranks, when he plays, it’s about pure emotion.

To give you an idea of Evan’s breadth, he plays with his own groups, like the modern orchestral hip-hop band Threat of Beauty, the indie-jazz/rock group Industrial Revelation, and the unclassifiable trio The Teaching. He’s played straight-ahead jazz with Marc Seales,Hadley Caliman and the Jason Parker Quartet, Latin music with Picoso and Jovino Santos Neto, R&B with Choklate, bass duets with Farko Dosumov, and much, much more.

Evan’s willingness to bring his jazz sensibilities to each and every project, and learn from them all, bringing that knowledge back to his jazz playing, makes him a great example of jazz today. What’s more, I think he’s part of a growing trend young musicians who feel it is important to put their energies into building up their hometown scenes rather than fleeing those scenes for New York. Evan could make a great name for himself in the jazz mecca, but has chosen to stay in Seattle and focus on creating a great scene here, collaborating with artists of all stripes.

 

Jazz Today (Rachel Cantrell)

I was sitting in Ravi Coltrane’s saxophone clinic at the Reno Jazz Festival when I was reminded of Jon Wertheim and the piece he’d asked me to do ages ago. Perhaps it was lack of concentration or a lack of inspiration, but I’d already spent more than a few nights blinking at the blank page on my computer screen, slightly panicked at the thought that I had no idea where to start. But watching Coltrane holding a microphone in one hand and steadying a saxophone in the other – a stark contrast to the Coltrane I’d seen a few months ago – definitely sparked something.

Suggesting No True Feeling (James Lincoln Collier on Duke Ellington)

A note on terminology: In the interests of continuity between quotations and the main text, I have used the term "Negro" throughout this article. I would not have made this choice were there not many instances of Ellington himself using this term, and instances too of members of the jazz community in recent years using this term (notably Stanley Crouch and Wynton Marsalis). Needless to say, I approach Ellington and his music with the deepest respect, and any terminology is employed with the full force of that respect.

The biography is, in essence, both the most objective and subjective of books. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines "biography" as simply "an account of someone's life written by someone else"; as such, it sounds quite objective indeed. The facts, the figures, all merely recorded by another hand. Literary photographs, as it were, showing exactly what happened and when. But the Greek roots of the word "biography" give more insight into the purpose of these accounts: bios, meaning life, and graphia, meaning writing: "life-writing."

"Life-writing" is certainly what biographer and jazz historian James Lincoln Collier does in Duke Ellington, published in 1987. Throughout the book, which is, as all jazz biographies must be, an examination of both the man and the music, Collier emphasizes Ellington's power not as a musician or a composer, but merely as a strong "character":

He lacked the melodic inventiveness of a Bix Beiderbecke, a Johnny Hodges; many of his most famous melodies were supplied to him by members of his band. His sense of larger form, of musical architecture, was notoriously weak; the most persistent criticism of his longer works, where lack of form would be most noticeable, was that they were "rambling" and "incoherent." And... he did not have the exquisite rhythmic sense of a Louis Armstrong, a Benny Goodman, a Lester Young, that makes even the simplest and most direct of melodies swing..... How can this be? How can a man with no easily discernible gift produce a body of music so important?

Black And White/New And Old

 

Alex Rodriguez over at Lubricity is up in arms. He's concerned about a quote from Ben Ratliff, critic for the New York Times, who said about this year's Winter Jazz Fest, "Jazz is always in search of a new audience, and I think — in New York anyway — there’s this glimmer of hope now that younger jazz musicians are actually finding one. And it has nothing to do with Lincoln Center, and it has nothing to do with education per se; it’s like, people who want to go hear music that’s fresh and new and unmediated." Just like Mr. Rodriguez, I have my problems with the Marsalis family and JALC. But I had a very different interpretation of Ratliff's words."For Ben Ratliff — who has steadfastly been writing to the same audience (New York Times readers) for decades — to tangentially dis the life’s work of people like Taylor by saying that Winter JazzFest 'has nothing to do with education per se' is patently absurd," writes Rodriguez. Whoa, there.