Monday 11/16, NYC: writer-guitarist-conductor Greg Tate‘s Burnt Sugar plays the Blue Note, and the late journalist-reedsplayer Robert Palmer is celebrated by biographer-world musician John Kruth, historian-memoirist-social commentator-radio producer-singer-songwriter Ned Sublette, and the Master Musicians of Jajouka with at Le Poisson Rouge. Are the inmates running the asylum?
Not really — when music critics take the stage they don’t generally intend to cast musicians as critics (though more musicians are writing good jazz journalism — cf. Steve Coleman and Ethan Iverson). We just want to get in on the performance fun. Burnt Sugar as I last saw/heard it is a party band not too reverently indebted to Butch Morris‘ significant work on conduction, George Clinton’s P-Funk revues, Sun Ra, Miles, James Brown and whatever other grooves it digs. It”ll be good to catch up with what they’re doing now, as it is always bracing to read Brother Tate’s incisive, original thoughts on race, music and the whole damn thing.
Well, something happened to my last comment, so I’ll try again: I had expressed surprise at the idea that the critics were the inmates, rather than the overseers. I guess it makes sense if you consider the absolute power of a certain cut-and-paste phenomenon–the czar of the downtown jazz scene, to whom said critics defer accordingly…On the other hand it could be a Panopticon phenomenon, a Spy vs Spy thing–there I go again. All roads lead to Zorn…
HM: Inmates, overseers, I guess it depends upon one’s perspective. But I’m sure Mr. JZ doesn’t consider himself czar of a “jazz” scene, He’d never stand for that, he’s the composer saxophonist genius beyond jazz.