Mary Lou Williams 18-22 November

[LMcD]

Agreed. But I do enjoy Petroc Trelawny, at least before 8 am; after 8am the emphasis changes.

There certainly seem to be more what might be called classical 'lollipops' or 'potboilers' after 8.00 a.m.

[Serial_Apologist]

When or in what state of mind do you think you can say ‘I understand it’ about a work of jazz? This is obviously a very personal thing but I remember trying very hard to ‘understand’ what I was listening in my youth (long before the 1980s, S-A ) when I was carrying a copy of progressive weekly magazine and going along with Jazz enthusiasts. I would make ‘right’ comments but didn’t really feel I was ‘understanding’ it. And one day, I was just hearing Oscar Peterson’s Canadian Suite when I fell through into it. The difference between then and before was just like standing on this side of a glass window looking in and being inside. Looking back now, I think I fell through when I wasn't trying to put the music into words.

Well then you need not worry. For me understanding jazz has come in chunks over time. In the early 1960s I "transitioned" from Trad (British revival New Orleans) jazz to "modern" (Bebop, Cool and Hard Bop). Free jazz took much longer; in the meantime jazz-rock Fusion had occurred, about which I was quite sniffy in the early days, fearing that the "rock" side of the equation, as I perceived it to be, would absorb the jazz by swamping it, while at the same time the classical avant-garde of the time (late 1960s) would as it were monopolise jazz from that end: in both cases jazz would disappear. Like many more conservative aficionados I wanted something new but was unsatisfied with whatever was coming along - rather like politics today! In the same way that one particular recording swayed me on both counts - the "rock" and the "free" inputs - much like a light coming on and it all then making sense.

I think too it helps to appreciate why and how jazz came about in the first place: finding out that it was black people who on the whole had brought the music about and been responsible for its most major changes of direction was important in two ways: ridding me of the racist assumptions that had been implanted in my head by my family; and helping start a whole process of political radicalisation that would place all the music and art I loved in a congtext that made sense of history and the world, while being of value in itself, listened to in the moment, unburdened of external contingencies. In those ways jazz can be listened to as a particular response to what was still the dominant musical culture at its birth, namely a quest for freedom to transcend on its own terms white European-derived concert music forms which, again in purely musical terms, followed certain procedures with regard to how it was put together - the most obvious parallel being symphonic theme and variations - together with an impulse, which was clearly part of the immediacy with which musical ideas were collectively worked on and through, to stretch the boundaries within its parameters - harmony, time, rhythm, virtuosity, all interlinked; and in many ways too a challenge to the "straight" music world, saying, if you (straight music world) can compose music as good and exciting/stimulating/challenging/moving etc on score paper, come on, prove it! And of course all this is taking place in (hopefully) convivial surrounds, in which audience attentiveness and responsiveness can, in Keith Tippett's words, "make or break a performance" - contrasted to the bourgeois-values informed formality of the concert hall, with its separations of audience from players, and, in the traditional repertoire at least, players from the act of composition. Other than that, one listens to jazz the same way one listens to any truly involving music, through the formal conventions it has evolved for creating and resolving tension.

[Quarky]

Looking back now, I think I fell through when I wasn't trying to put the music into words.

The other side of the coin is artists such as Jon Hendricks who actually have set complex jazz solos to words in a very clever way. That for me has been an excellent way of appreciating the original solo more deeply.

Couldn't agree more with S_A's view that Jazz is essentially Black music. Useful to bear that in mind when navigating through the various styles and types of Jazz that have developed over the years to find music which appeals. However I thought that Benny Goodman's solo at the end of the final instalment of Mary Lou was quite something!

[NatBalance]

And all that playing around with time......

Anyway, I often feel a bit guilty that I am enjoying it ( some jazz or other) without really ” understanding “ it.

I find this need to understand a piece of music in order to enjoy it extraordinary and also rather sad. It means the music itself is not enough.

I think this is one of the problems with the classical scene, the impression is given that if you do not like classical music it is because you do not understand it. I remember a girl telling me that very thing, that she did not know if she liked it because she did not understand it. If you need to understand classical music in order to enjoy it then there is something wrong somewhere.

[doversoul1]

I find this need to understand a piece of music in order to enjoy it extraordinary and also rather sad. It means the music itself is not enough.

I think this is one of the problems with the classical scene, the impression is given that if you do not like classical music it is because you do not understand it. I remember a girl telling me that very thing, that she did not know if she liked it because she did not understand it. If you need to understand classical music in order to enjoy it then there is something wrong somewhere.

When it comes to classical music, many people prefer saying ‘I don’t understand it’ to ‘I don’t like it’ because it sounds better, less ignorant. To understand music does not mean to be able to say something clever about it. It can mean many things.

[teamsaint]

I find this need to understand a piece of music in order to enjoy it extraordinary and also rather sad. It means the music itself is not enough.

I think this is one of the problems with the classical scene, the impression is given that if you do not like classical music it is because you do not understand it. I remember a girl telling me that very thing, that she did not know if she liked it because she did not understand it. If you need to understand classical music in order to enjoy it then there is something wrong somewhere.

I blame myself for your comprehensive misunderstanding of my post.

Actually, quite often we don’t enjoy music because in some way we don’t understand it. I don’t see why classical should be any different.
Oh, and context really does matter, of course.

[Serial_Apologist]

And it depends on what one means by "understand", surely?

Understanding can mean being able to interpret a statement, be it verbal or musical. In that sense, if the "language" of what one is perceiving is outside one's experience, then it may well be difficult to understand. On the other hand, I can enjoy the sound of Italian or Russian when spoken, without being able intellectually to understand it; in the same way I can love Stockhausen's "Gesang der Jungelinge", without knowing precisely in explanatory ways what it is that is going on in the music that enables me to like it. I believe the human capacity for comprehension can take place on many different levels, not all possible to put immediately into words: the process can "take in" phenomena perceived at deeper intuitive levels than how I can explain them to either myself or anyone else, in ways rather analogous to how I can "take in" things going on around me in such a way that I can guide my way to a destination while at the same time responding to peripheral phenomena happening around me. I like to imagine that my appreciation stems from some inner coherence in the sound or visual object the artist or "nature" is communicating to some inner capacity, though the Rorschach test suggests we can "read into" things stuff which is not really there - like pictures in a fire. Maybe with repetition and familiarisation I can come up with either a rough or reasonably precise rationale for why I like it - it fits together in accordance with my (conditioned) sense of rightness, or I like the way it challenges and/or stretches such received notions, thus opening my mind to previously unknown possibilities for self-enrichment and shared experience. I may even come to appreciate something I previously considered ugly or unpleasant, for expressing aspects of life and experience which need to be embraced in order to be transcended. Or something like that, anyway.

[Serial_Apologist]

Mary Lou Williams was quoted as quoting Hindemith in saying "Bebop is ... whenever you encounter a fifth, flattening it". I'm not sure of Hindemith did actually say this, but, thinking now about it, it's a pretty good guide!

I'll probably change my mind on that after a bit more thought; however, I would like to point to this particularly fascinating and fulfilling repeat of an excellent COTW.

[Padraig]

Great to see Mary Lou Williams up there. Lil Hardin Armstrong another jazz woman at the top.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzXEQkc1u9c

[Ein Heldenleben]

Mary Lou Williams was quoted as quoting Hindemith in saying "Bebop is ... whenever you encounter a fifth, flattening it". I'm not sure of Hindemith did actually say this, but, thinking now about it, it's a pretty good guide!

I'll probably change my mind on that after a bit more thought; however, I would like to point to this particularly fascinating and fulfilling repeat of an excellent COTW.

I suppose in jazz/blues Once you’ve flattened the fifth there’s only the second , fourth and sixth left and you’ve got yourself a tone row...

[Serial_Apologist]

I suppose in jazz/blues Once you’ve flattened the fifth there’s only the second , fourth and sixth left and you’ve got yourself a tone row...

"My next number is 'Blues Row' by Howard Riley. It's based on a twelve-tone row". Later I asked the musician in question if he should have pronounced the word "Row" as in "tone row", rather than as in bloody great argument. "What difference does it make?" he came back at me, "Row, or... row?"

[NatBalance]

I find it strange that Donald will redo many composers and do pop music composers like Hoegy Carmichael and now even do Mary Lou Williams again (pretty sure he has already done her although she's not down in the library) but yet he won't do some composers who have written classical music, like one of my favourites who I keep banging on about, Ennio Morricone. Morricone is a world class extremely famous composer who, besides his film music which is mainly classical in nature, has written a lot of stand alone classical music that I have never heard and would love to hear, even some very avande garde pieces.

I have no objection at all to pop music composers being the subject of CotW, I think Mary Lou is a great composer, and I don't mind the occasional pop music on R3, in fact I love it, I love variety, but R3 is primarily a classical music station and classical music composers should take priority. Doing a pop music composer twice when there is a very famous classical music composer not even touched yet I find rather odd.

Rich

[NatBalance]

Actually, on reflection, if the CotW library is not complete (Carmichael and Mary Lou Williams not there), perhaps Morricone has been done. I think it would have to have been many many moons ago for me to have missed it. Does anyone know?

[Bryn]

I find it strange that Donald will redo many composers and do pop music composers like Hoegy Carmichael and now even do Mary Lou Williams again (pretty sure he has already done her although she's not down in the library) but yet he won't do some composers who have written classical music, like one of my favourites who I keep banging on about, Ennio Morricone. Morricone is a world class extremely famous composer who, besides his film music which is mainly classical in nature, has written a lot of stand alone classical music that I have never heard and would love to hear, even some very avande garde pieces.

I have no objection at all to pop music composers being the subject of CotW, I think Mary Lou is a great composer, and I don't mind the occasional pop music on R3, in fact I love it, I love variety, but R3 is primarily a classical music station and classical music composers should take priority. Doing a pop music composer twice when there is a very famous classical music composer not even touched yet I find rather odd.

Rich

The Radio 3 list of composers covered by Composer of the Week is clearly incomplete. Mary Lou Williams was the subject back in November 2019 (the series now being repeated). However, I don't think Morricone has ever been covered, other than in an edition of Sound of Cinema in 2020.

[NatBalance]

Ah, this is a repeat. I see, I guess Donald is taking some well earned leave.