Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!hplabs!hao!seismo!brl-tgr!internet!Michael Fehling From: Michael Fehling Newsgroups: net.music Subject: Re: Jazz and/in US society (*long* flame) Message-ID: <5891@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Mon, 19-Nov-84 00:04:22 EST Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.5891 Posted: Mon Nov 19 00:04:22 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 21-Nov-84 05:01:31 EST Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA Organization: Ballistic Research Lab Lines: 112 Perhaps Marcel Simon's remarks (about jazz in the U.S) were not perfectly phrased so as to preclude debate, but Bob Soron's replies to Simon are at best the standard kind of diatribe that one always hears about jazz, and in fact they really beg the important questions that (I hope) Simon is asking. I've never flamed on one of these mailing lists before, but Soron's replies to Simon's questions about jazz appreciation in the U.S. have irked me, so here goes: First, Soron challenged Simon's claim that jazz is the one established American art form by pointing out that "country music dates back 300 years". This is a definitional. It is really a waste of time arguing about historical precedence (or uniqueness) of jazz or country music as soron does. For one thing, by going that far back in history the "roots" of country music are in general thoroughly intertwined with those of jazz (e.g., blues, swing forms, importation of eastern european forms, etc). More importantly, I doubt that Soron or anyone else can provide a completely acceptable account of when a musical style becomes a unique identifiable art form. Speaking as a practicioner (I spent a few years making my living playing jazz, rock, classical, and other styles of music), I couldn't care less whether country music is described as art. What matters to me is to understand and appreciate the artistic *aspects* of *any* type of music. It does seem obvious, however, that the artistic facets of country music are currently buried in heavy layers of commercialism. (E.g., If someone can't tell the difference in *intent* between the music of Dolly Parton and that of Thelonius Monk then no amount of historicism or definition will help!) Second, consider Soron's remarks about the "French jazz movement" exemplifying the non-American roots of jazz. Au contraire!! Rather than refuting Simon's points it really provides a concrete example of them. Of course the French jazz "movement" (sic) was important! It was (and is, e.g., Jon Luc Ponty) providing benefits that always accrue to an art form when expanded by artists with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. But please remember the facts. (A), the music and artistic style adopted in this movement was built entirely upon the american jazz tradition; (B), this French activity was at least as much the result of work by expatriot Americans as it was French artists; and (C), an important factor in the very existence of a French jazz movement was the relative amount of support that could be garnered by going artists to France to play compared to the support they could obtain while playing in the U.S. For example, in France guys like Stephane Grapelli (and the *American* sidemen he frequently depended upon) could play "downtown for the white folks" while at the same time their American counterparts were still limited to playing "uptown" in Harlem clubs in front of black audiences. Third, Soron seems to imply that the jazz community has brought the lack of support for jazz on itself when he claims that if a jazz work sells wells the jazz community "dismiss(es) it as populist". This claim is factually incorrect and reveals a simple minded understanding of the real concerns pop art. Soron's claim is factually incorrect because of the many examples in which the jazz community strongly supported popularized and expanded versions of their art. In the seventies the growth of so-called jazz-rock fusion was supported by jazz audiences well before this music was successfully brought to non-jazz audiences by the likes of Chick Corea. For example, recall the early experiments by Miles Davis with jazz fusion. Also, the jazz community has been extremely supportive of the experiments of Claude Bolling, whose work has fused classical and jazz forms and has been quite popular (though not on the order of "millions of albums"). Certainly there was debate about such new directions, but please remember that it was the efforts of these jazz artists, along with support from the jazz community, that provided sufficient support for these new forms to establish themselves so that they could be "packaged" and brought to the general music audience. There will always be members of any art community who blindly resist changes in the genre, but it is silly to indict the entire community for that resistance. Expecially when we have just come through a period of such intense expansion. Soron's indictment of the jazz community as anti-populist portrays a far too simple minded undertstanding of the type of concern that artists have with popularization. Practioners and followers jazz (or any other music style for that matter) don't oppose popularity, they oppose selling out on an important element of the art form they cherish. In particular, many jazz fans (and most jazz players) do indeed tend to oppose popularizations of the music, but mainly when such popularizations are obtained at the expense of the jazz musician's ability to *express herself*. The real problem in pop forms of jazz (e.g., the stuff of a few years ago on the CTI label by the likes of Grover Washington Jr., etc.) is that the artist's means of self expression are greatly restricted in favor of established *formulas* that those involved with music as a business believe will guarantee popular acceptance. (Again, rock and other musicians have long been subjected to these same pressures.) In other words the problem with pop art is that there is an inevitable tradeoff to evaluate between artistic freedom and accessibility. Most jazz fans and artists that I know want to make sure that this tradeoff is minimized; they are *NOT* trying to oppose the popularization of jazz absolutely. (By the way, I have had concrete experience as a performer with the severe trade-offs one must often make in doing popular versions of jazz. I did studio sessions to record some pop(disco)-jazz stuff of a few years ago. I have also done a number of straight-ahead jazz sessions. In the disco-jazz sessions the main "guidance" of what to play and how to play it came largely from the "people in the recording booth", i.e., the producer and the recording directors/engineers. The primary concern in these pop sessions seemed to be producing a *marketable* version of the music. In doing jazz sessions the specific direction of the music came almost always from the musicians themselves. The primary focus in these sessions was whether we were using managing to fully *express* the emotion and ideas that we, the musicians, felt were important.) It seems to me that Simon's main points must still stand. If jazz is not the only American art form, then it is at least the clearest example of a well developed art form originated within the U.S. culture that has spread its influence around the world. And it is simply a fact that this art form is not well supported in the U.S. It is instead the case that jazz artists often must flee the U.S. to Europe or Japan to find a situation where they may practice their art with few compromises, with some degree of respect from the surrounding community, and where they can at least earn enough money to survive. It is nonsense to offer arguments like Soron's which imply that the jazz community has somehow brought this situation on itself.