Has jazz run its course?

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

You mean this? Doesn't sound terribly dangerous to me...

I was being ironic. "Dangerous" only to himself. That stuff (clueless political wank) even beats the WRPs demi trot classic Worker's Pagents with Corin Regrave dressed in moleskin trousers. Or a top hat as demanded.


Maoists, Rada, what's not to like.

BN.

[Rcartes]

I was being ironic. "Dangerous" only to himself. That stuff (aka political wank) even beats the WRPs classic Workers Pagents with Corin Regrave dressed in moleskin trousers. Or a top hat.

BN.

Ah, sorry for missing the point!

[cloughie]

What do you mean by 'sofa'?

And aren't you giving the game away concerning your privileged background by using the 'U' 'sofa', rather than the 'non-U' settee or couch?

You're were lucky to get a form way back then! But that's all you need to park on if the music's good!

[Bryn]

What do you mean by 'sofa'?

And aren't you giving the game away concerning your privileged background by using the 'U' 'sofa', rather than the 'non-U' settee or couch?

[Ian Thumwood]

Rcartes

Try this link where you can hear samples of Roebke's excellent , Ellington -inspired octet:-

http://delmark.com/delmark.5014.htm

[Richard Barrett]

Sadly, all I hear (especially from Evan Parker) is noise. And I really don't see that Braxton has extended jazz by any great degree: no step change comparable to, for example, the change form two beat to all four with the move to swing, but just marginal change. And what's the point if it produces stuff that only a tiny minority of people can listen to? I feel the same about, say, Brian Fernyhough; at least Arvo Pärt, for example, produces music it's good to listen to.

With such a limited and limiting outlook I guess it's no wonder you think jazz has run its course! Do you honestly think that the advocates here of free improvisation, and of composers you've never heard of, share your opinion that this music isn't "good to listen to"?

[Richard Barrett]

The ideas proposed by Braxton, etc don't seem radical anymore.

Which ideas do you mean? As far as I can see he keeps coming up with new ones. The music of his I referred to previously is I think as radical a statement as anyone has made in jazz/improvisation for some decades. Same for the recent work of the (in some cases former) members of AMM, like the duo recordings by John Tilbury and "Kevin" Rowe. But if you don't like the sound these things make and it all sounds like "noise" to you, or if like Rcartes you're swayed by audience numbers (& if that's the case why listen to jazz at all? there are far more popular musics around these days!), I don't expect you'll be very sensitive to how that "noise" is evolving and expanding.

[MrGongGong]

Sadly, all I hear (especially from Evan Parker) is noise.

Why "sadly" ?

[Bryn]

As an out and out aural masochist I am off to hear Evan, John and Eddie tonight at Cafe OTO.

Monday's Jo3 was a good tonic for me. Just a shame that the horrible noises made by EP and JB were not available in a duo as well as in solos.

[Richard Barrett]

As an out and out aural masochist I am off to hear Evan, John and Eddie tonight at Cafe OTO.

Very good. I wish I could be there. Twelve days ago I had the privilege of being an EP sideman in Amsterdam, and, now I think about it, in a later set that evening he did play that well-known noise entitled "Caravan".

[Rcartes]

With such a limited and limiting outlook I guess it's no wonder you think jazz has run its course! Do you honestly think that the advocates here of free improvisation, and of composers you've never heard of, share your opinion that this music isn't "good to listen to"?

Obviously I don't think that advocates of free music share my opinion, I just disagree with them.

Which ideas do you mean? As far as I can see he keeps coming up with new ones. The music of his I referred to previously is I think as radical a statement as anyone has made in jazz/improvisation for some decades. Same for the recent work of the (in some cases former) members of AMM, like the duo recordings by John Tilbury and "Kevin" Rowe. But if you don't like the sound these things make and it all sounds like "noise" to you, or if like Rcartes you're swayed by audience numbers (& if that's the case why listen to jazz at all? there are far more popular musics around these days!), I don't expect you'll be very sensitive to how that "noise" is evolving and expanding.

New ideas, maybe, but for me they are simply microchanges, so although the music may be going somewhere it's only as far as the next house, not a different continent - which is what Louis Armstrong, Lester Young and Charlie Parker were able to do.

As for being swayed by audience numbers, I'm not - or I'd be listening to the slop purveyed by such as One Direction or Andre Rieux.

Very good. I wish I could be there. Twelve days ago I had the privilege of being an EP sideman in Amsterdam, and, now I think about it, in a later set that evening he did play that well-known noise entitled "Caravan".

Not that it means a great deal, but in Caravan you've managed to pick on the one tune played in jazz (outside of 12th Street Rag) that I really can't abide!

[Richard Barrett]

although the music may be going somewhere it's only as far as the next house, not a different continent - which is what Louis Armstrong, Lester Young and Charlie Parker were able to do.

That of course, just like what's "good to listen to", is a matter of opinion, don't you think? One could also come to the conclusion that the breakout into free improvisation, the abandonment of tradition instrumental lineups and functions, the inclusion of the new electronic instrumentation, the new structural possibilities that parallel developments in contemporary composition, and so on, are at least as profound in terms of taking the music to new places as any innovations before them.

As for being swayed by audience numbers, I'm not

Yet you did say "what's the point if it produces stuff that only a tiny minority of people can listen to?" - if that isn't taking audience numbers as some indication of the validity of a music, what is it?

[MrGongGong]

Maybe there is a case for some of the "traditional" Jazzheads to change the thinking that defines many improvised musics as "Jazz" in the first place ?

Some (obviously) have come from that root.

[Rcartes]

That of course, just like what's "good to listen to", is a matter of opinion, don't you think? One could also come to the conclusion that the breakout into free improvisation, the abandonment of tradition instrumental lineups and functions, the inclusion of the new electronic instrumentation, the new structural possibilities that parallel developments in contemporary composition, and so on, are at least as profound in terms of taking the music to new places as any innovations before them.

Maybe, but in doing so, haven't you completely lost the original point of jazz?

Yet you did say "what's the point if it produces stuff that only a tiny minority of people can listen to?" - if that isn't taking audience numbers as some indication of the validity of a music, what is it?

That's correct, but it's surely a matter of degree?

[MrGongGong]

Maybe, but in doing so, haven't you completely lost the original point of jazz?

Which is ?

The "original point" of the saxophone was to be a portable instrument for Belgian military bands. Learn one size and you can play them all, you can play it in the rain and it's easy to carry.