Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site drux3.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxi!houxm!ihnp4!drux3!trb From: trb@drux3.UUCP Newsgroups: net.music Subject: Time to talk about Jazz, again... Message-ID: <829@drux3.UUCP> Date: Thu, 13-Oct-83 17:49:34 EDT Article-I.D.: drux3.829 Posted: Thu Oct 13 17:49:34 1983 Date-Received: Fri, 14-Oct-83 20:34:30 EDT Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver Lines: 101 Note: I got no response to this when I posted it about a month ago, so here it is again... Recent discussion on the net regarding Ornette Coleman in particular, jazz in general, needs some comment. I believe the category of jazz is unambiguously defined, and 75% of what is called jazz today isn't jazz. Let's start off with Billboard's (and similar) top 100 jazz albums. It usually consists of people and groups like Pat Metheny, George Bensen, Bob James and the like. These people are wonderful musicians, but their music is no more jazz than that of Steely Dan or Ricky Lee Jones, and no one considers THAT jazz! The reason these musicians are considered jazz is that the record companies have no other category to place them in. You would insult the musicians by placing them under rock, and yet you insult jazz by placing them there. Let's start utilizing Downbeat's category for them - Contemporary music. In regards to Ornette Coleman, free jazz, avant-garde jazz, or the so-called "thinking man's music," we need to analyze music and what makes something jazz. Music has disciplines, and the basic structures of songs must adhere to these disciplines. When you stray from these disciplines you escape the musical aspect and enter a new dimension of sounds which may or may not be music. All songs, especially in relation to a jazz discussion, are comprised of three components: a melody, the harmonic element, and the rhythmic element. What differentiates jazz from pop is that you improvise on the melody, while still staying within the confines of the other two elements. This is very difficult to do, and accounts for the fact that there are few musicians who make the grade of jazz musician. About twenty years ago, Ornette Coleman came onto the scene and acquired a very large following. His "gimmick" was to not only improvise on the melody, but to stray from the confines of the harmonic element and the rhythmic element. When you no longer have the harmonic element to worry about, there no longer is any such thing as a wrong note. This intrigued a large number of people who were not that good when confined to the absolutes of music. It would be the same as a mathmetician suddenly throwing out the rules and absolutes of mathematics and declaring that "anything goes." When you stray from the absolutes of a discipline, this tends to confuse the public mind, and provides a great forum for the followers of this deviation to appear as "intellectuals." Picasso stated many times that one of his purposes in his paintings was to cloud the public's perception of what was art and what wasn't. There are absolutes in this world, and a sharp person can attract a large following of "intellectual fools" by making their discipline "relative" and not absolute. The free jazz and the avant-garde jazz is a wonderful example of this. These people have strayed from the absolutes of music and attracted their following by playing unrecognizable songs that have no melody, and are not confined to any harmonic or rhythmic discipline. The artistic and deeply emotional experience of listening to their music isn't there, and the listener's ability to differentiate between talent and noise is diluted. So what is jazz? It's difficult to define in words, but if you dragged 1000 people off the street and had them listen to various types of music, the one that WAS jazz would be defined by all as such, and the rest would receive differing opinions. So, Is Miles Davis a jazz musician? He certainly is interesting. Here's a man who's technical ability on the trumpet is nil, his tone is terrible, his musicianship is questionable to say the least, his ability to improvise on a melody is poor, and his contempt for his audiences and followers is astounding. And yet, he remains as a cult figure with many jazz musicians who can't tell hype from good music. Columbia records has made millions off Miles, simply by engaging in an "active measures" propaganda campaign to convince the public that Miles is the greatest jazz musician who's ever lived. When Miles has a new album out, the hype by Columbia and the record stores is unbelievable. Even when the music is absolute trash, it's defined as a "new direction in music," and everyone rushes to hear what it is. The public can be conned so easily. In short, not only is Miles not a jazz musician, he's not a musician PERIOD. Well, I've had a chance to blow off some steam. There's a great deal of good music out there, but let's be sure we call a spade a spade; let's keep the jazz name for just jazz and call the other stuff something else. And let's also differentiate between good music and the crap that Miles and Ornette throw on us! (Oh, everyone's the critic!) Tom Buckley