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Fluffy
Administrator
USA
10739 Posts |
 Posted - 10/14/2002 : 06:07:40 AM
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Well tonite I was lucky enuf to catch this show at the 9:30 Club. It was only the 2nd nite of the tour and Chick said from the stage he thought they were a little ruff, but I sure couldn't tell. If you get a chance to catch this show, DON'T MISS IT. A truly incredible lineup of musicians you rarely get to see on stage at the same TIMe. In case you aren't familiar, John Patitucci is a god! He plays a 6 string bass with a neck that reminds me of Greg Howard's Stick. Frank Gambale is a legend who writes for guitar player and gives lessons via the internet weekly at FrankGambale.com Dave Weckl is one of the most proficient drummers I have ever had the pleasure of seeing and even Eric(whom I had the least interest in of all the folks onstage)blew me away!! Chick Corea had a little band in the 70s called Return to Forever, one of the most influencial groups of the fusion movement. Those guys were amazing way back when and have only gotten better with age. DO NOT miss this show. Musicians especially, do not miss this show. You will be in awe all nite. Did I mention I was blown away by the show? HEHE
ps:Chick also said that the first gig in Tarrytown was a quiet affair as you would expect. The 9:30 Club blew him away. There were probably 600-700 people in attendance and haven't seen a crowd that size so engrossed in a show. Usually you have folks standing around talking and whatnot, but all eyes were focused on the stage tonight. Don't miss this show if it is coming near you. Luckily, it seems the tour has just started. I planned on coming home and telling everyone on the board to check it out but figured that most of the dates would already be over. Lucky for you, it is only the beginning of the tour and many of you may be able to catch the show.
Here is the press release from ChickCorea.com:
Great news Chick Corea Elektric Band fans!
The tour you've been waiting for is finally coming to a town near you!
Chick reunites with John Patitucci (bass), Dave Weckl (drums), Eric Marienthal (sax), and Frank Gambale (guitar) for the first time in 10 years to present both original CCEB repertoire as well as new compositions Chick created for the later version of the band and now rendered by the original fab five genius musicians (Jimmy Earl joins on bass after October 19th).
Chick, John, Dave, Eric, Frank and Jimmy are pumped and totally excited about playing to their audiences once again. Since the group's creative beginnings each member of the band has gone on to win more and more musical territory with all of them now bringing their collective experience and creative energy back into focus around Chick's music and under his leadership. (The band's first onstage reunion at the Hollywood Bowl this August literally blew the roof off the place!)
But, hurry up -- tickets are selling REAL fast!
"CHICK COREA ELEKTRIC BAND" REUNION TOUR
October 2002
12 - Tarrytown Music Hall, Tarrytown, NY
13 - 9:30 Club, Washington, DC
16 - Chick & John Only - New York City - with Roy Haynes
at Lincoln Center
17 - Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
19 - Clearwater Jazz Festival, Clearwater, FL
22 - Eleven 50 Theater, Atlanta, GA
23 - Carefree Theater, West Palm Beach, FL
24 - House of Blues, Orlando, FL
26 - Blue Note Club, New York, NY
27 - Blue Note Club, New York, NY
29 - Paramount Theatre, Denver, CO
November 2002
1 - Catalina's, Hollywood, CA
2 - Catalina's, Hollywood, CA
3 - Catalina's, Hollywood, CA
Peace & Keep the Faith
Fluffy [img]fluff_alien.gif">[img]yinyang.gif">[img]skull.gif">[img]bigeyes2.gif">[img]censored.gif">[img]weeping.gif">[img]kitty.gif">[img]sonar.gif">[img]darkside.gif"> |
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dirtysloth
Fluffy-Esque
USA
1302 Posts |
Posted - 10/14/2002 : 11:42:49 AM
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Thanks for the heads up Fluffy. I'm going to try to make the Orlando show.
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dirtysloth
Fluffy-Esque
USA
1302 Posts |
Posted - 10/14/2002 : 12:03:06 PM
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Yeah, I checked my schedule and luckily, even though I'm in school 8 hours that day, I'm off by 5 and have plenty of time to make the show. Went ahead and ordered the ticket(floor btw) and printed it. I can't wait!!!
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Silky The Pimp
Alien Abductee
3321 Posts |
Posted - 10/14/2002 : 12:10:55 PM
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I may try to catch the Atl. show based solely on your gleaming recommendation. What kind of music is it?
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Bustoff
Chatterbox
145 Posts |
Posted - 10/14/2002 : 1:55:42 PM
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Jazz. These are some of the best jazz musicians to ever live, in my opinion. I've got an album and a video of John, Eric, and Dave all playing together in the GRP(record label) all-star big band. It is awesome. I played jazz saxophone in high school and we all studied these guys. Chic Corea was one of the pioneers of jazz fusion back in the 70's. Check out his band Return to Forever, as Fluffy mentioned above. My fav is "Captain Senor Mouse." I'm guessing some of you know one of the guitar players that played in that band at one TIMe - Al Di Meola. If any of you guitar players haven't heard of him, CHECK HIM OUT. He is right up there with TIM in my opinion, although they differ in style a good bit, so it's hard to compare.
I wish i could get to one of these shows, but none of them are around me UGH.
trivia: Dave Weckl played for Madonna at one TIMe hehe
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Fluffy
Administrator
USA
10739 Posts |
Posted - 10/15/2002 : 3:42:58 PM
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I just told TR about the show and he was quite envious. He was a huge fan of them when they were together and recording albums and says they were the best of the best at the TIMe. Chick started out playing with Miles Davis, I think, and some of the most brilliant jazz-fusion musicians...hell, musicians period...have come to by way of Chick Corea's bands. TR said that line up has some of the most technically proficient musicians on each of their instruments. Don't miss it. Also, if you are in the NYC area, at ChickCorea.com you can register to win an evening with Chick Corea at the Blue Note. Free show, backstage passes, dinner, etc etc etc. I wish I was gonna be around I would enter. I have always wanted to see a show at the infamous Blue Note in NYC. I saw Tony Williams here in DC at Blues Alley, Billy Cobham at a now defunkt club called The Wax Museum, Dizzy Gillespie at Gettysburg College, Wynton Marsalis at Blues Alley and there is an endless list of amazing jazz musicians I have seen at 9:30 Club in my years there. By the way, they did an amazing cover of the Miles Davis standard "C.T.A.". Quite a different arrangement than Miles version but AMAZING!! Quite a few of the songs they did the nite I saw them were from the Chick Corea Elektric Band album "Eye of the Beholder". Check that album out if you want to have a better idea of the skill and talent involved in this particular line-up of Chick's band.
Peace & Keep the Faith
Fluffy          |
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victorwootenfan
Alien Abductee
USA
2128 Posts |
Posted - 10/15/2002 : 7:20:51 PM
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Chick corea is the man! i have a Return to Forver cd with him and a bunch of other great musicians. that show you're seeing sounds really up my ally, except it's too far away for me. but i do salavate at the thought of such a show.
"Set the gear shift to the high gear of your soul, you gotta run like an antelope, out of control" -Dude of Life |
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__________
Try A Little Harder
88 Posts |
Posted - 10/15/2002 : 7:40:40 PM
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did al di meola have something to do with Chick Corea at one time?
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__________
Try A Little Harder
88 Posts |
Posted - 10/15/2002 : 7:50:14 PM
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aAh, now I've got it. Al diMeola replaced Bill Connors in Return to Forever, which included Chich Corea and Stanley Clarke.
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Fleabass76
Fluffy-Esque
USA
1026 Posts |
Posted - 10/15/2002 : 11:37:01 PM
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DAMN IT!! WHY DO I HAVE TO LIVE IN *FRENCH POLYNESIA.
*French Polynesia in this case is refering to the midwest.
Recently some kickass players came up to French Polynesia.
Larry Coryell-Guitar
Mark Eagan-Bass
Paul Wertico-Set
It was wicked awesome. Eagan has mad tone on his fretless...
"I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire. |
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Fluffy
Administrator
USA
10739 Posts |
Posted - 10/16/2002 : 04:13:51 AM
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And Larry Coryell is right up there with the best of them. I would suggest checking out some of his solo acoustic albums and even his duet albums with another amazing acoustic player, Phillip Catherine.
Hey VWF, I see you already saw this post. GOOD!
Peace & Keep the Faith
Fluffy |
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PJK
Alien Abductee
USA
4159 Posts |
Posted - 10/16/2002 : 2:35:57 PM
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Damn, missed the NY show.....guess I won't see them this time around.
Wow Fluffy, you got to see Wynton Marsalis? I love his music!My daughter and her boyfriend (who is a Jazz performance major at Temple) went to see Sonny Rollins a couple of weeks ago in NYC. They stayed at the venue til it closed in the wee hours of the morning which is a great thing about NYC it never closes,they had a blast!
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victorwootenfan
Alien Abductee
USA
2128 Posts |
Posted - 10/16/2002 : 10:35:03 PM
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man you guys are so lucky to see chick corea, and sonny rollins and wynton marsalis(who is an asshole, but still a good trumpter) and other great musician's. i've only seen the flecktones(which is still very good). i want to see wayne shorter, i love weather report and he's the closest link to them, good freaking musicians!!
"Set the gear shift to the high gear of your soul, you gotta run like an antelope, out of control" -Dude of Life |
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PJK
Alien Abductee
USA
4159 Posts |
Posted - 10/16/2002 : 11:43:02 PM
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VW....out of curiosity, why is Wynton Marsalis an asshole????
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victorwootenfan
Alien Abductee
USA
2128 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2002 : 10:13:41 PM
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| i've read in several books, especially "round midnight" a biography of Miles Davis(THE MAN!!!) that when wynton marsalis came along and other young jazzers like him that they completely denouced fusion and electric music, and wynton marsalis pretty much said that he had no respect for miles davis at all when he was in his fusion era. Wynton is kind of a jazz purist, which is silly cause jazz should always be an evolving sort of music, but anyway... |
www.myspace.com/smileymnbass
http://itunes.apple.com/us/preorder/quartet-art/id423870767
www.mattsmiley.blogpost.com |
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PJK
Alien Abductee
USA
4159 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2002 : 10:36:15 PM
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Thanks for the reply. I see what you mean now and agree with you 100% Miles is the man! |
"It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!"Friedrich Nietzsche |
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Fluffy
Administrator
USA
10739 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2002 : 05:52:38 AM
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| Chick Corea even covered a Miles song C.T.A. and mentioned that Miles was the man and how almost ever great jazz musician had come thru Miles' band at some TIMe. He mentioned that while annoucing the Miles cover. As for Wynton, he is an amazing player, but it has been alleged that he has said some horrible things about jazz and jazz musicians. I had heard at one TIMe that he had said "white people" had no business playing jazz and that it was a "black mans" legacy. Whether these statements are true or not, I don't know, but I have heard them from many people that I consider reliable. Of course, Wynton has completely changed his tune about this if he did indeed make those comments. Anyway, he is a great musician regardless and luckily we don't base our musical tastes on politics or ones personal beliefs. We can condemn him for his possible comments but that doesn't mean we condemn him as a musician. It is unfortunate that this attitude exists anywhere in music especially. Music has no room for any kind of rascism. There actually shouldn't be room for it anywhere in our world but it unfortunately exists. It is really a shame when rascism enters the music world. |
Peace & Keep the Faith
Fluffy
"THE MUSIC BUSINESS IS A CRUEL AND SHALLOW MONEY TRENCH-- A LONG PLASTIC HALLWAY WHERE THIEVES AND PIMPS RUN FREE AND GOOD MEN DIE LIKE DOGS. THERE'S ALSO A NEGATIVE SIDE..." -Hunter S. Thompson |
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Fluffy
Administrator
USA
10739 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2002 : 06:18:01 AM
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From Z Magazine Feb 95
The last 3 paragraphs discuss the Marsalis/racism issue.
Jazz And Race
By Sandy Carter
The musical tradition known as jazz is a hybrid with roots in West Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and North America. Nonetheless, over the last four decades, many African-American musicians have become increasingly vocal regarding the idea that jazz is essentially a black art form. In brief, the argument for the blackness of jazz contends that although jazz is not entirely "pure," the most immediate and significant ancestors of jazz (work songs, spirituals, blues, ragtime, and brass band music) were expressions rooted in black communal life. And in the music's hundred year existence, the tradition's greatest innovators (Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman, to mention only a few) have been black.
Needless to say the view of jazz as black music is controversial. It politicizes the world of art and entertainment, it reminds of racial division, and ultimately it rankles notions of white supremacy. For some, it is a statement of reverse racism aimed at white jazz musicians and is destructive to a "truly democratic music." All of these issues are addressed in Gene Lees's recent book about jazz and race, Cats Of Any Color: Jazz Black And White(Oxford University Press, New York).
Lees, a veteran jazz critic and former editor of Down Beat magazine, draws the title and central theme of his essays from Louis Armstrong's comment, "It's no crime for cats of any color to get together and blow." Believing that jazz is not the property of any one racial group, Lees takes this quote as a reflection of the jazz tradition's noble effort to explore "the full range of human experience and emotion." Unfortunately, as Lees freely acknowledges, jazz lives in a society where questions around the artistic and economic ownership of jazz remain racially volatile.
To provide some background to the conflict, Lees presents a number of anecdotes illustrating the plight of black jazz musicians during the heyday of Jim Crow racism. Included are tales of a 10-year-old Horace Silver observing a concert of Jimmie Lunceford's band through a wooden fence separating him from an outdoor whites-only show in Connecticut; of revered artists such as Oscar Peterson and Nat Cole being refused hair cuts and meals because of their skin color; of the pressures and sanctions bearing on musicians challenging segregation; and of the general disparity between black and white musicians in monetary rewards and popular recognition.
While most serious, liberal-minded jazz fans have some awareness of the racist conditions plaguing black jazz players throughout this century, Lees's stories are nonetheless poignant and necessary reminders of where jazz is coming from. But in laying out some of the old fashioned racial barriers imposed on jazz, Lees has another agenda in mind. Assuming that anti-black feelings are no longer a major problem in the world of jazz, Lees now fears that the historical cumulative effects of white racism have produced a reverse racism that threatens to destroy the egalitarian heart of jazz.
Lees's evidence of the rise of "black xenophobia in jazz" comes mainly from the statements of African American musicians and writers (Amiri Baraka, Spike Lee, Archie Shepp, Stanley Crouch and Wynton Marsalis) advocating jazz as a black-defined aesthetic. He asserts, however, that the idea of black supremacy in jazz has become so popular and politically correct that jazz audiences, black jazz musicians, and even white jazz critics routinely discriminate against white musicians and downgrade their contributions to the jazz heritage. An upholder of jazz as basically an interracial art form celebrating "the human spirit" and "personal vision," Lees argues that "any statement that jazz is black music and only black music is racist on the face of it."
To be sure, there are kernels of truth in Lees's argument. Jazz has never been exclusively black. Its origins are multicultural and scholars on the subject agree that at the turn of the century, when the music became a recognizable idiom, white and black musicians were playing similar, though not identical, forms of music. It is also true that numerous white musicians (Bix Beiderbecke, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Zoot Sims, Gerry Mulligan, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Dave Brubeck, and Charlie Haden among them) have left distinguished marks on jazz history. It may be further conceded that historically African American jazz players have harbored some bitterness about white musicians "stealing music" originated by black musicians. None of this, however, adds up to a rebuttal of "jazz as black music."
In recent years a generation of young black jazz musicians has taken on the mission of re-establishing the significance of jazz as an African American defined art form. This advocacy, however, does not include claims that all jazz is about or for only black people. Nor has it been argued that whites, by virtue of genes or culture, are incapable of playing authentic and original jazz. What has been articulated is the centrality of jazz to African American culture. Which is to say, the jazz expression of black Americans is a creative reflection of black experience.
Given the historical circumstances of black life in the United States, the many black musical roots of jazz, and the preponderance of technical and stylistic inventions of African American jazz players, it seems clear that the black impact on jazz weighs heavier than that of other groups in our society. Interpreting "the black experience" at times narrowly and at other times abstractly, Lees, however, finds the proposition of black jazz near absurd. In his dramatic, overblown polemic he complains, "How anyone can think that the art of Louis Armstrong--or Benny Carter or Count Basie or Coleman Hawkins or John Coltrane--is the cry of pain of a downtrodden people is beyond me." Later he concludes that jazz is "dead" if it is useful only "for the expression of anger and resentments of an American minority."
No one, of course, has ever argued that jazz or blackness is only about pain and suffering. Wynton Marsalis has, in fact, described jazz as "optimistic music." And down through the century, black musicians have stated and publicly demonstrated that jazz is a music with universal appeal. Nevertheless, it is also a music that takes its primary inspiration from the struggles and achievements of the black community.
"Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." --Charlie Parker
"You probably would take a white kid and subject him to the same things that one of us was subjected to and he'd probably stomp his foot just like we do. It's not a matter of race, but environment." --Dizzy Gillespie
"For a long time, social protest and pride in the Negro have been the most significant themes in what we've done. In that music we have been talking for a long time about what it is to be a Negro in this country." --Duke Ellington
"I can't see any separation between my music and my life. I play pretty much race music: its about what happened to my father, to me, and what can happen to my kids." --Archie Shepp
"A lot of it [the music] has to do with all the things I experienced growing up in New Orleans, that kind of feeling of fraternity, of humor, of style, food, dances, parades, churches, ribbing, family, sports, girls--all of it." --Wynton Marsalis
Although Lees has been around jazz a long time and is obviously familiar with statements of this kind, they have left little impression on his perspective. A white Canadian who professes to be "color blind," Lees hears in jazz only abstract humanity. Still, when he digs through history to redress the neglect of white contributions to jazz, he consistently exaggerates the Anglo-European influence on black creativity. Yes it is true that Charlie Parker admired Stravinsky; that Miles Davis employed many white musicians and admitted the influence of white trumpeters Harry James and Bobby Hackett; that Ellington's cornetist Rex Stewart studied the solos of Bix Beiderbecke. But this hardly means that the genius of Parker, Davis, and Stewart was equally derived from black and white sources.
Lees's color blindness also presents a problem when it comes to recognizing the political economy of jazz. Particularly since the birth of modern jazz in the 1940s, black musicians have been outspoken critics of how the white domination of record companies, clubs and festivals, magazines, television, and movies hinders the visibility and profitability of jazz. As trumpeter Jimmy Owens once explained: "Black music has never really been controlled by the people who are making that music. Consequently, the amount of money going to the people who perform that music, the musicians, has been very small compared to what goes to the people who control the music." While Lees is well aware of this obvious sore spot on "jazz black and white," his fragmented, selectively focused portrait of jazz history tends to overemphasize the popularity and critical esteem enjoyed by black jazz musicians. As a result, when he quotes from black protests against the white, corporate-dominated music industry, the statements come off more as allegation (and anti-Semitism) than fact.
Interestingly, Lees seems much more committed to addressing the contemporary racial bias in jazz, which he finds most powerfully embodied in Wynton Marsalis's directorship of the prestigious Lincoln Center jazz program. Lees condemns Marsalis for firing most of the organization's white employees, hiring and honoring only black musicians, and preaching a jazz as black music ideology. And in all of this Lees sees the creeping institutionalization of anti-white blackness. Someone a shade or two less wary and not so color blind, might view these moves cautiously, but as an imperfect effort at artistic affirmative action. But Lees's reaction is so hasty and hysterical that one must assume he carries an abiding affection for the good old days of "jazz black and white."
The Marsalis Defense: In August of the past year, Wynton Marsalis responded to charges of racism in a debate with jazz historian James Lincoln Collier at the Lincoln Center in New York. At that time he presented statistics showing that he had hired and showcased many white musicians in the center's jazz program. More recently, he has commented on the criticism of Gene Lees. In a December 18, 1994 interview with San Francisco Examiner reporter Joan Smith, Marsalis explained: "I work with musicians I think are playing the best music. It's not true that we hire only black musicians, but even if we did would that be so odd? Would it be odd if you organized a polka festival and all the musicians were white? To say that my tastes are racist because I don't think a musician should be included that you think should be included is just plain wrong.
"As long as there is democracy, there will be people wanting to play jazz because nothing else will ever so perfectly capture the democratic process in sound. Jazz means working things out musically with other people. You have to listen to other musicians and play with them even if you don't agree with what they're playing. It teaches you the very opposite of racism and anti-Semitism. It teaches you that the world is big enough to accommodate us all."
From The New Republic:
WASHINGTON DIARIST
Carvin' the Bird
by Leon Wieseltier
Post date 01.11.01 | Issue date 01.22.01
Who's afraid of Wynton Marsalis? Except for people with ears and brains, everybody. Or so it would appear from the reception of Ken Burns's stupefying Jazz, for which Marsalis served as "senior creative consultant" and as senior on-camera exegete. In a symposium in the Arts and Leisure section of The New York Times, the centrality of Marsalis in Burns's epic provokes resentment from a jazz historian ("with Wynton Marsalis arriving like a jazz Dalai Lama, after the deaths of Ellington and Armstrong"), and "angry blues" from the trumpeter Jon Faddis, who is incensed that the "philosophy" of Marsalis is "presented as fact, rather than opinion or interpretation." Faddis is also "angry that the music from 1961 until now was given only one episode of two hours": this is the old complaint about the neo-classicism of Marsalis and its allegedly reactionary character. Meanwhile The Weekly Standard reached all the way to The Washington Times to find someone to accuse Marsalis of racism--pardon me, of "racialism." The writer, who seems to think that Mel Powell was the equal of Thelonious Monk, cites the "searing" opinion of the freelance philistine Terry Teachout that Marsalis propounds "an ideology in which race is a primary factor in the making of aesthetic judgments," and reports that "the racialist ideology has played out in a series of jazz programs [at Lincoln Center] based on the work of black players, composers, and arrangers."
Jazz programs based on the work of black players, composers, and arrangers? Imagine! In truth, the attempt in recent years to deny African Americans pride of place in the evolution of jazz has been stupid and ugly, Bix and Benny and the rest notwithstanding. And the imputation of racialist standards to Marsalis's view of jazz is a willful misrepresentation of his music and his institution. In this regard, his livid brothers on the left understand him better than his livid brothers on the right. It is precisely because he has championed an aesthetic point of regard toward jazz--as a serious art that is pledged, like all serious art, to the beauty of structure and the morality of structure--that Marsalis has not pioneered a reconsideration of the achievement of Albert Ayler. Unlike the downtown expressionists, Coltrane's idiot children, Marsalis does not consider feeling the enemy of form. But formalism is a variety of universalism. It establishes itself at the highest level of generality: at the level of the human. For this reason, an aesthete who is a racialist is a bad aesthete, but an aesthete who is a democrat is a good aesthete, and Marsalis is one of the most accomplished aesthetes of his time. "God don't like ugly," he wrote in Blood on the Fields. Maybe God don't like The Weekly Standard.
Is it really controversial to suggest that jazz is historically more black than white but spiritually neither black nor white; that personal expression is the beginning but not the end of art; that spontaneity is hardly a promise of truth; that improvisation is an activity of the intellect; and that the alto playing of John Zorn represents a falling off from the alto playing of Johnny Hodges and Lee Konitz and Jackie McLean and Ornette Coleman? But fall off, I say, fall off. This is a free country, and everybody can produce any noise that he wishes to produce. Still, the noises will be judged, because judging is what minds do. From the standpoint of pleasure, the judgment will not be severe: my pleasure is not more valuable than your pleasure. Indeed, I will confess gladly to the pleasure that Lester Bowie's version of "The Great Pretender" brings me. But I will not mistake my emotional attachment to that slumming masterpiece for its musical excellence. For decades Chet Baker's singing has furnished the soundtrack for my imperfect man's heart, but I will concede that, artistically speaking, it is just junk that I love. Distinctions of quality may be nothing more than classifications of delight, but still they must be maintained. And no apology need be offered for the belief that the art that asks more of you is the art that should be more precious to you. We are here for more than fun.
In Burns's 19 hours of hollow hagiographies, Marsalis stands out like a soloist whose rhythm section is lost somewhere behind him. His is the only analytical voice in this interminable starstruck rhapsody. (His little lesson about "Epistrophy" alone is worth a sea of sepia.) Sure, there are good things on these tapes: I will not soon forget the sight of Coleman Hawkins watching Monk sublimely poke the piano; or of the battered and lovely Lester Young stepping up to play a pellucid chorus of "Fine and Mellow" before the battered and lovely Billie Holiday; or of Soupy Sales introducing Clifford Brown. But Burns suffocates the jazz tradition in his superlatives. He deadens everything with his wonder. He has come to be ravished. A helpless hero-worshiper, his success threatens to make hero worship into a respectable historical standpoint. It is easy to see why Burns flourishes in this culture of worthless admiration. He is really just a fan: Bob Costas with an NEA grant.
In the book that accompanies Jazz, Burns admits that "when I began the project, I had perhaps two jazz records in my fairly large music collection," and it shows. The music in these programs is mainly the background for its edifying narrative; I do not remember a single piece that Burns allows to be given in its entirety. Alas, you cannot have the mystic chords of memory unless you have the chords. So piety stands in for comprehension, and the music is made into a parable of everything good and beautiful and true. Jazz is freedom, love, joy, sorrow, creation, destruction, risk, responsibility, sex, friendship, the body, the soul. Burns's series is another document in the religion of jazz, which is a fine bulwark against the experience of jazz. After eight hours or so of these doxologies, I wanted to reach for Journey's greatest hits, for anything with the integrity of being only what it is.
But jazz for Burns is, above all, America. This accounts for the vaguely official tone of Burns's script. This is the story of our nation told by a national treasure. "In Jazz," he says, "we complete our trilogy on American life," after The Civil War and Baseball. His trilogy on race in American life, he should have said. In any event, Burns finds "in the music's lines and phrases and riffs ... not only a meditation on American creativity, but a joyous and sublime celebration of its redemptive future possibilities.... [J]azz has kept the American message alive." There are many such homilies. They sound rather like the citations on presidential medals. There is also too much celebration in Jazz. For a fearful quantity of pain, individual and social, went into the making of this music. Burns is not comfortable with pain. He turns it into tragedy, which is the condition of triumph. Jim Crow was terrible, but here is Armstrong; dope was terrible, but here is Parker. Burns makes you almost grateful for their adversity, which is indecent. The happiness of sad people is not so easily grasped. Jazz is the sound of stoicism, and it, too, is not so easily grasped. There are secrets even in the swing.
LEON WIESELTIER is literary editor of TNR.
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Peace & Keep the Faith
Fluffy
"THE MUSIC BUSINESS IS A CRUEL AND SHALLOW MONEY TRENCH-- A LONG PLASTIC HALLWAY WHERE THIEVES AND PIMPS RUN FREE AND GOOD MEN DIE LIKE DOGS. THERE'S ALSO A NEGATIVE SIDE..." -Hunter S. Thompson |
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Fluffy
Administrator
USA
10739 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2002 : 06:31:54 AM
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From a Rolling Stone biography of Wynton:quote:
During the past 15 years Wynton Marsalis has managed to be a controversial figure despite his obvious abilities. His selective knowledge of jazz history (considering post-1965 avant-garde playing to be outside of jazz and 1970s fusion to be barren) is unfortunately influenced by the somewhat eccentric beliefs of Stanley Crouch, and his hiring policies as musical director of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra led to exaggerated charges of ageism and racism from local writers.
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Peace & Keep the Faith
Fluffy
"THE MUSIC BUSINESS IS A CRUEL AND SHALLOW MONEY TRENCH-- A LONG PLASTIC HALLWAY WHERE THIEVES AND PIMPS RUN FREE AND GOOD MEN DIE LIKE DOGS. THERE'S ALSO A NEGATIVE SIDE..." -Hunter S. Thompson |
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PJK
Alien Abductee
USA
4159 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2002 : 09:04:05 AM
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Thanks Fluffy for all the info. on Marsalis. Interesting, but somehow I wish I could have stayed in my little naive world. I only knew his family background and his music (I have several of his CD's and love them) He was someone I really wanted to see in perform live, guess I still do but it is hard to separate issues from the music. I know it shouldn't be, but it is.
I hate rascism. Part of why I love where I live is because of the diversity. Last Sunday my daughter and I went to see a gospel play in Philly. We were the only "white folk" there, and I can tell you I didn't want to be anywhere else! It was great and we were so moved by the experience, it made a huge impact on our lives and will be something we will remember for years to come.
I am going to try to catch one of Chick Corea's shows next weekend in NYC. Thanks again Fluffy! |
"It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!"Friedrich Nietzsche |
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Fluffy
Administrator
USA
10739 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2002 : 08:07:25 AM
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My pleasure PJK, maybe this will help clear some of the bad taste from your mouth, a wonderfully, refreshing........
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Peace & Keep the Faith
Fluffy
"THE MUSIC BUSINESS IS A CRUEL AND SHALLOW MONEY TRENCH-- A LONG PLASTIC HALLWAY WHERE THIEVES AND PIMPS RUN FREE AND GOOD MEN DIE LIKE DOGS. THERE'S ALSO A NEGATIVE SIDE..." -Hunter S. Thompson |
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PJK
Alien Abductee
USA
4159 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2002 : 5:54:57 PM
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Thanks......I needed that! |
"It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!"Friedrich Nietzsche |
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enthuTIMsiast
Alien Abductee
6990 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2002 : 6:26:32 PM
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| I need one too. Something anyway. Make it a double, neat. |
Tim Reynolds Downloads
I am not the albatross of love, I am the human ellipsis. I am dot dot dot. - Leo Kottke
I hate beating people over the head with anything. We can all make up our own minds. What we don’t have is enough music. More music please. - Leo Kottke |
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dirtysloth
Fluffy-Esque
USA
1302 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2002 : 4:29:10 PM
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| Tonight's the night they play here. I'll let ya know how it went. |
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PJK
Alien Abductee
USA
4159 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2002 : 7:41:31 PM
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Yes! We'll be expecting a full review.....don't leave anything out!!!!
I can't wait to hear it! Thanks in advance!!!  |
"It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!"Friedrich Nietzsche |
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dirtysloth
Fluffy-Esque
USA
1302 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2002 : 12:19:31 AM
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| Man, that was incredible. I wish I had time to say more, but I have a final to study for and as soon as that's over I'm leaving town for the weekend. I'll be sure to write about it as soon as I can. But yes, that was an incredible show and thanks so much for the heads up Fluffy. |
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Fluffy
Administrator
USA
10739 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2002 : 04:59:00 AM
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| Glad you dug it dirtysloth!!! I thought it was an AMAZING show. There is a helluva lot of talent on that stage. Can't wait to hear your critique of the show. Write back soon and good luck on your final. |
Peace & Keep the Faith
Fluffy
"THE MUSIC BUSINESS IS A CRUEL AND SHALLOW MONEY TRENCH-- A LONG PLASTIC HALLWAY WHERE THIEVES AND PIMPS RUN FREE AND GOOD MEN DIE LIKE DOGS. THERE'S ALSO A NEGATIVE SIDE..." -Hunter S. Thompson |
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dirtysloth
Fluffy-Esque
USA
1302 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2002 : 01:19:28 AM
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| I'll write about it later I promise. I don't feel up to it at the moment(see what a day post). |
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dirtysloth
Fluffy-Esque
USA
1302 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2002 : 9:28:23 PM
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Ok, this probably won't be all too detailed, or very good, because I'm not at all familiar with the band's music except for what I heard the other night....
The thing that really blew me away, probably because I'm a guitar player, was some of Frank Gambale's solos. There's this one technique he uses that appears, even from twenty feet away(I was on the left side of the stage, first row, just to the left of Chick), physically impossible. Fluffy, you gotta know what I'm talking about. It basically looks like an upstroke but you hear about a hundred notes. It's ridiculous how fast this guy can play. To say he knows the fretboard like the back of his hand is still an understatement. He knows it better. My favorite part though is when he picked up the acoustic on one of the three songs of the "sweet suite" as Chick put it. I can't remember the name of the song. I like the distorted sound, but I would have really liked to hear a clean electric at least once because I did kind of get tired of hearing that same distorted sound all night, just my opinion, but the acoustic worked just fine. He's just as proficient on one as he is an electric.
Chick was mindblowing too. There's this one song he started out playing some really awesome lines as a call and response with the audience. Then the rest of the band came in and it was actually the song. He can play as fast as you'd want him too, or heart-breakingly beautifully. It was a real treat to hear him play alone alot, as he did a lot of long intros with no one else playing.
Dave Weckl is without a doubt one of the greatest drummers I've ever seen. So much tasteful work gave such a full sound all the time. Not only because of his playing, but that was one of the neatest sounding sets I've heard too. Jazz drumming is where it's at.
Eric really got into it at points. I know from being a clarinet player how hard it is to hit those high notes with a clean tone. He hit them alright, and cleaner than I thought possible. He'd play in unison with Frank a lot, which was really impressive because those lines are so complex. Actually, there were times when piano, bass, sax, and guitar were playing lines at breakneck speed and so clean too, as if they were one instrument.
John Patitucci isn't quite Vic as far as speed goes, but then again he uses two finger technique for leads, so it's not fair to compare. Not that he isn't fast, I can't do a lot of what he does on bass on guitar. His leads are still great though. Very melodic. Sweet as can be up high, and punches you right in the gut on those lows. And John and Dave are an incredible team for holding down a groove.
Can't thank you enough Fluffy. That was a real treat. |
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PJK
Alien Abductee
USA
4159 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2002 : 10:05:39 PM
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What did you mean that your review wouldn't be very detailed or very good???? I thought it was great, much better than I could do!!! It really made me wish I could have seen them. I was going to try to see them on Sat in NY but the early show was sold out and I couldn't fit the later one into my schedule. Thank you very, very, very much for sharing your thoughts!  |
"It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!"Friedrich Nietzsche |
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dirtysloth
Fluffy-Esque
USA
1302 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2002 : 10:41:43 PM
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| Thanks Pam. That's a shame you couldn't make either show. |
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Fluffy
Administrator
USA
10739 Posts |
Posted - 10/28/2002 : 08:10:43 AM
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WOW PJK!!! That's exactly what I was thinking. AMAZING review!
dirtysloth wrote:quote:
Actually, there were times when piano, bass, sax, and guitar were playing lines at breakneck speed and so clean too, as if they were one instrument.
That was one of the things that amazed me the most at the show. How they played as one during that one part where they all lined up on the front of the stage and all played the same thing in unison in those pauses in rhythm. AMAZING, I know just what you mean, but I could have never described it so eloquently. I just use words like, AMAZING. HEHE |
Peace & Keep the Faith
Fluffy
"THE MUSIC BUSINESS IS A CRUEL AND SHALLOW MONEY TRENCH-- A LONG PLASTIC HALLWAY WHERE THIEVES AND PIMPS RUN FREE AND GOOD MEN DIE LIKE DOGS. THERE'S ALSO A NEGATIVE SIDE..." -Hunter S. Thompson |
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enthuTIMsiast
Alien Abductee
6990 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2006 : 6:02:30 PM
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| His birthday was yesterday. FYI. |
Tim Reynolds Downloads
I am not the albatross of love, I am the human ellipsis. I am dot dot dot. - Leo Kottke
I hate beating people over the head with anything. We can all make up our own minds. What we don’t have is enough music. More music please. - Leo Kottke |
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OH MY GOD.....UTTERLY AMAZING......Chick Corea
