You know, continuing the thought from last post, my generation of composers (Downtowners at least) was the “no guilty pleasures” generation. For some reason I associate the phrase first with Anthony Coleman and a subsection of Downtown improvisers, but I remember the slogan becoming quite common circa 1990. “No guilty pleasures” meant that any music we liked, we were going to like openly and use as perfectly legitimate source material and models for our music, whether it was cartoon music, easy listening, C&W, space age bachelor pad music, or anything else. What do kids today think John Zorn playing Ennio Morricone (1986) was all about? Or Eugene Chadbourne doing avant-garde country and western at New Music America? Or John Oswald sampling Dolly Parton and Michael Jackson? Or Eve Beglarian appropriating disco songs? Even one of my microtonal tunes is a surreptitious C&W cover. And the young composers assume people my age will get our knickers in a knot just because they’re into film music? They have zero sense of history. I feel insulted on behalf of my entire generation. If they need us to be the old fogies telling them they can’t do that, we will not oblige. We already won that battle for them.
(Meanwhile, in my experience, those same young composers turn up their noses if we mix genres, say, use a trap set in a notated piece. They’re the ones with prohibitions.)
Did you know that Ennio Morricone is also Helmut Lachenmann’s favorite composer? “After lunch, I listen as he plays me Ennio Morricone, his favourite composer – a medley from Once Upon a Time in the West.” http://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/oct/14/helmut-lachenmann-rolf-hind
KG replies: Sue, you told me that in a previous comment, and I’ve had occasion to run across it several times lately.
Oh, dear, sorry to repeat myself!
KG replies: Sue, I repeat myself so often on this blog that I’ve become afraid to post. But since certain people check in so rarely, it’s probably good to repeat things now and then.
I respectfully submit that Helmut Lachenmann’s favorite composer is obviously Karlheinz Stockhausen, and that his claiming that position for Ennio Morricone – wonderful as he is – should be given exactly as much credence as Stravinsky’s claiming to prefer Chabrier to Wagner.
KG replies: That sounds like a good bet.
America’s true promise is as a melting pot, perhaps even setting a positive example for other countries, but now and foremost, we must prevail in dissuading those among us who would literally melt the ice of the world so much that our land begins to disappear.
When I was fortunate enough to catch and tape a performance by Snoop Dogg on the Tonight Show earlier this year (the performance has since been removed from YouTube and NBC online), it put me into a trance whereby I conjured Raga Kirvani, extending upon the music with Shuddha Nishada (natural seventh) as opposed to the Komal Nishaba (lowered seventh) found in the performance.
When it came time to select the timbre of the primary melodic voice for what became a new composition inspired by Snoop, I was astonished to recognize that an electric country guitar was the best choice because I had never dreamed of using that sound before.
And who is Snoop Dogg? (I’ve never met him, so I can only speak about his music.) Well, to begin with, he is substantially more gifted than any jazz artist of his generation in terms of substantive musical invention, originality, rhythmic fluidity, and authenticity of expression. He is the one looking down upon us. And that’s an essential part of the melting pot: to admit what are the most delicious and nutritious ingredients in the stew, and not pretend otherwise due to the color of one’s skin, one’s religion, the number of bills we hold in our wallets, or simply because someone is different from other people.
Later on, in the liner notes of my new album, I ruminated about the time I spent with John Cage, and how I related to Frank Sinatra’s preference for recording a certain way. Composers are inspired by musicians who have it going on irrespective of genre, as opposed to ongoing things that never were.
Here is the mentioned album, titled Moonrise and Rain-Mist:
http://azuremilesrecords.com/Moonrise_Rain-Mist.html
With all due respect, it seems that if the younger generation has no sense of recent history, we may only have ourselves to blame for not teaching it to them. (And by “ourselves” I mean not just composers but the whole conservatory-industrial complex.)
Of course you can lead a horse to water….
KG replies: Well, exactly. I’d start elaborating, but I just got up and the whole day would be gone by the time I finished. (Nice term, by the way. I’ll use it.) I will add, though, that in any given year I have a student or two who does what I did, go to the library (and internet) and figure out the history for yourself.