endless war?
What I've learned
since writing that WSJ piece is that, Dave Douglas's comment aside (as well as
those of musicians I did not quote in print), the "jazz wars" are
still to a fair extent alive and relevant to a degree I no longer thought true,
though the term "jazz war" itself may be a trivialization of something far more
complex: By that I mean that there is still a good deal of clear resentment
toward and well-expressed opposition to Jazz at Lincoln Center's aesthetic
sensibility and, more the point, its dominance of both funding and press
attention in some musical circles. There is even still very much a sense among
some musicians I've heard from that JALC "defines" jazz in a way that is
dangerously in opposition with or dismissive of broader, more progressive
representations (as one musician put it, "...an interpretive version of jazz to
be held higher than originality"), and which they feel drowns out or smothers
alternative viewpoints. Also, there is at some level the feeling of injustice
based simply on income disparity.
I should have known
all this, as it appears to be truest among the ranks of the very communities I
spend much of my time listening to and writing about. And I've come very
quickly to respect the fact that what I'm talking about is not the sort of
critic-oriented philosophical argument that was so common in the 1990s: This is
a deeply held feeling within communities of musicians who, for lack of better
words, are often described as avant-garde or free-improvising but who in
reality create music no less well defined or connected to jazz tradition than
anything else anyone calls jazz, yet also not confined by such definitions.
Buried in what I've
learned is a potentially meaningful debate or at least discussion that I for
one wish to flesh out (and which I touched on directly through quotes of Scott
Southard and Randall Kline): Is the net effect of Jazz at Lincoln Center's work
in education, fundraising, and presentation helpful, neutral, or detrimental to
the career potential and audience development of those musicians whose music is
not reflected at all in JALC's programming or aesthetic?
Listening to Ornette Coleman play in Rose Hall (where I could hear the dynamics of his acoustic-plus-electric-bass quartet far better than in Carnegie), I thought to myself: Some of this audience must be new to this music-- which adheres as strongly as any other to Wynton Marsalis's definition ("Having the swing element and the blues at its center, and heavy on improvisation"), is as tightly executed as any other presented on that stage, perhaps more so, and is yet also unfettered by ideas about genre, instead liberated and elastic almost in the face of its tight execution--and, oh, mustn't they be in rapturous appreciation too?
I don't know how many in the seats around me were season subscribers that were new or previously closed to Coleman's music and how many were die-hard Ornette fans. Yet I wondered about that question of impact, and the promise for Jazz at Lincoln Center to grow not just on its own terms but also in ways that, whether in direct alliance or not, are of service much more than of hindrance to so many musicians that, like Coleman, engage in what one musicians described to me as a necessarily "messy and thorny process of creativity in real time."
No other musician can claim the position Coleman has; he is a special case in all respects. But if Jazz at Lincoln Center's booking of Coleman to kick off its season is indicative of a deeper embrace of Coleman's musical horizons and if the various forays into broader programming of the past few years grow into deepened threads, and if concerts like last night's open new ears among JALC subscribers, then maybe something begins to happen, is happening.
I noticed that Amiri Baraka is among the instructors for this year's JALC "Swing University" series: The last time I saw Baraka, he was reciting his work onstage at the Vision Festival.
Are these things token crossings? Or can worlds that seem separate, even at odds, not so much unite as find common purpose, shared resources, even some audience in common?
I'm still thinking.
Blogroll
CultureGulf
be.jazz
rifftides
Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise
Dave Douglas: Greenleaf Music
birdlives
Lerterland
point of departure
Jazziz magazine
Jazz Journalists Association
Steve Smith: nightafternight
Willard Jenkins: Open Sky Jazz
music/food/justice in NOLA
Howard Mandel's JazzBeyondJazz
Stereophile:Fred Kaplan
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