Modern "classical" composition informing Jazz Beyond Jazz

I have recently come to Jazz from Classical music. I am just a listener. I have no musical training or academic background what so ever.

I got the Classical influence from my father, who had a humungus LP collection, limited only in that it ran from Beethoven through Copland, nothing much earlier or later.

My wife's family was not at all interested in music. But my wife was influenced toward Jazz by her peers at the New School and the Art Students' League. So, we began to listen to some Jazz.

Especially when we lived near Philadelphia and had the adavantage of a great radio station, WHAT, with Sid Mark and the recently passed Joel Dorn, we began buying Jazz.

But my real passion started when I began to listen to the documentary work of Steve Rowland (http://www.artistowned. com) on Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

I am, of course, still listening to Classical music, my own pretty good collection and the music presented on wnyc2 (http://www.wnyc.org/wnyc2)and WPRB, Princeton, NJ (http://www.wprb.com).

With Steve's influence- much email back and forth- I have now developed a huge Jazz collection.

If one takes advantage of Kyle Gann's essays for American Mavericks (http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/programs/program1.html), one learns to clear away a lot of the clutter of genre. Many early twentieth century "Classical" composers, especially those of European extraction, were heavily influenced by American Jazz.

Alex Ross in "The Rest is Noise" comments on the relationship between John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" and Sibelius. In one of Steve's programs on Miles Davis, we learn about McCoy Tyner's relationship to Paul Hindemith. At some point, its seems that all of the Bop guys were studying Bartok.

So, I think we need to relax and remain open to all sorts of musics.

>>RSM

HM: Yes, we should all feel free to partake of any and all music, without genre restrictions. However, I find it curious that the best jazz musicians feel free to investigate "classical" music and do so without condescension, but that attitude it less often demonstrated by "classical" musicians, despite the urgings more than 100 years ago by Dvorak, the interests of notable "maverick" composers, the works of Stravinsky, Copeland, Bernstein (who I don't think of as mavericks), the jaz backgrounds of Mel Powell, Milton Babbitt, Terry Riley, etc.

Replying to this blog entry does require life experience and another book.

Please remember to read George Lewis's book on the AACM. A Power Stronger than Itself, which is Pulitzer material; not one page can go by without bearing some wonderful information. I just have problems with his kind of "exclusive ending."

It should be quite easy to take in "classical" contemporary music, knowing jazz and experimental music intimately. The difference between the two is FORMALITY. Although jazz artists and experimentalists draw on classical music in terms of its basic structure, this does not mean that the restrictions of classical are necessarily folded into their own "literature."

When Terry Riley performed with Bang on A Can in concert last summer, an improvisation was scheduled. This I was looking forward to hearing. But I will say that Riley is the only musician of the several BOAC musicians (including Evan Zyporin) who came any where near improvising. Riley built the composition such that it came to amazing piano climax at which point the whole group was meant to "improvise." I have never seen such suffering from the classical musicians: they had no music to follow and could not make it up...they did not have the riffs.

Furthermore, classical music today is not ONLY Eliott Carter who is 100 years old. It has progressed a bit. He is almost a precursor instead of a contemporary. Perhaps, it is important for you to know Edgard Varese, Morton Feldman, Milton Babbitt, Christian Wolff, George Crumb, Henry Cowell, Toru Takemitsu, Gregor Ligeti, Arvo Part, John Adams, John Harbison, Pauline Oliveros, Joan La Barbara, Charlemage Palestine, Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham. It is difficult to put these composers into a package, except to say that Branca, Palestine and Chatham have a category all their own.

Steve Reich's best work and THE classical piece of the last half of the 20th century is "Music for Eighteen Musicians." This piece was a transition from the phase pieces into pieces that addressed more diverse language. These days also, one has to be aware how classical composers keep writing the same piece over and over again, just with different colors perhaps: e.g. PHILIP GLASS. His best work was one of his first and appeared on the album "Glassworks." A total concept recording. It is fabulous.

For a classical musician to try to integrate the freedom that is instilled in jazz is difficult. I will say that Gunther Schuller has failed. His last BMOP recording, for me, was totally embarrassing and that he called it Third Stream was astonishing.

Values are not the currency between classical and jazz. The attitude from classicists to improvisors changes everything. Values become moot.

Joe McPhee, who is well aware of the history of classical music, tells the story that a friend who introduced him to the music of Albert Ayler, at his youthful evolutionary peak, said: Listen, Joe, Albert is playing just like Bach. To which Joe replied: You are right, he is.

HM: Lewis's book is of the highest level of achievement, I agree (though I do disagree with some of what he says, he has traced like no other author of whom I'm aware the development of a productive community and organization of artists over four decades). I'm also in basic agreement with you, Lyn, though I take exception to some of the artists you're enthusiastic about -- having experienced them enough to have an opinion. Thanks for writing.

Enjoy THE REST IS NOISE. One of the best non-fiction books I've ever read.