Has jazz run its course?

[Quarky]

A fair question, and I don't really know how to answer it best. Of course what I've said is my view rather than some kind of objective statement, it couldn't be otherwise, so to an extent the problem is mine, I suppose. But pretty well everything else here would fit in the category of personal views, wouldn't it?

Let me put it another way: how would you say jazz had developed, if at all, since, say, the 1960s?

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My view, based on a not insignificant amount of listening, is that Jazz since the 1960's, and Classical Music in the first part of the 20tth Century, "bifurcated" , in the Chaos theory sense
( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bifurcation_diagram ). That is up until that time, it was following a generally linear progression (Dixieland, swing, bop), but then it splintered in several different directions, because musicians did not have a common view about a "way forward". I don't think that is a criticism of Jazz or Classical Music; that is what happened.

For me, the more significant question is "Where am I/ You going?". Do I want just to listen to music, or do I have the resources to do the real thing and practise on an instrument? What do I want from music? Relaxation? Easy Listening? To follow musical developments wherever they might lead, without preconception? Or perhaps I'm just interested in Mozart, and might devote my entire listening resources to his compositions and recordings.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Let me put it another way: how would you say jazz had developed, if at all, since, say, the 1960s?

Oh, I wouldn't! My interest and love of Jazz is a fairly recent thing - but I was deeply moved and excited by Evan Parker's 70 min set with the Mark Solborg Trio last November. Not sure if someone in their 70s counts as representing the most recent wave in the current (apologies) Jazz scene. I was really responding to your blanket rejection of all contemporary Arts in your OP, which didn't correspond to my own experience. The idea that Alpie suggests that some people might "argue" that "classical" Music has "also run its course" raises the question, what do these people actually know of the contemporary repertoires? If they haven't encountered Bernhard Lang, Pierluigi Billione, Chaya Czernowin, Bryn Harrison, Manfred Werder, Rebecca Saunders, Liza Lim, Olga Neuwirth or any of the composers I mentioned in my last post, then what exactly are the criteria being used for such a comment to be described as a genuine "argument"?

I must confess to never having heard of any of Aaron Cassidy, James Saunders, Evan Johnson, Tim McCormack, Joanna Baille, Michael Maierhof or Richard Glover. A quick look shows that Cassidy has just edited a book entitled Noise In And As Music, which doesn't immediately grab me as one to look out for.

Okay - so this, again, is your opinion; but for the suggestion of your OP to hold water, then this work needs to be known, otherwise it's just an expression of (in the literal sense of the word) ignorance. As far as my own preferences are concerned, many of the composers I've named - and several others - are producing work that keeps the tree growing; producing new branches, allowing birds to nest, and, of course, one or two falling leaves that ... well the metaphor expands. The point is new ideas, new sounds, new ways of communication and expression are still going on, still vital. You may not like them, but that's often been the nature of the new. If there is a problem, it's that the new work doesn't get the publicity it merits. (And it's not just Music - don't like Tracey Emin? Try Lorna Simpson, Mael Matthews, Robert Gober, Lygia Pape ... )

People are still living = New Art is still thriving. There is no "last wave".

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

try Craig Taborn's work

[Rcartes]

Just had to nip out to the plumber's merchant, and the drive gave me the time to think about this, and realised that my original post can be parsed into two parts:

(1) I don't like the way jazz is going. This is a purely judgemental thing, comparable to I love melons/hate bananas - and is the main factor in my reference to the Joe Lovano concert , which wasn't meant to be a definitive comment anyway, it was more of an aside.

(2) (And I hope this doesn't contradict (1) above too blatantly), jazz isn't going anywhere anyway. This is, or asserts to be, an objective statement (or at least judgement): apples are good for you/lemons are sharp.

Does it help to separate the two elements in this way? It's (2) that needs discussion, because who (apart from me) cares about (1)?

[Richard Barrett]

Michael Maierhof ... (just to name some people born since 1970)

The Michael Maierhof that I know was born in 1956.

As MrGG says, it depends on what you mean by jazz. The jazz tradition that began in the early part of the last century has touched and been touched by and intertwined with others ever since it began. How has it developed since the 1960s? What a strange question. What about Coltrane, Miles, Cecil Taylor, Ornette, Anthony Braxton, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, to name a few people who took part in its development during the 1960s, all of whom have continued that development since then, together with many others? I suppose some might claim that what such people are doing isn't jazz, but I doubt that King Oliver would have recognised Keith Jarrett's music as jazz either, so again it depends on what the word means to you. To me what it's called is not particularly important. Many of today's creative musicians draw on all kinds of strands of tradition in their work, not necessarily (NB Eine Alpensinfonie) to recycle it, but to continue its evolution and sense of discovery.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The Michael Maierhof that I know was born in 1956.

Now you're just Splitting hairs.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

When jazz was "going somewhere" it was rooted in a particular community and tradition which informed and supported it. Via politics, economics, culture etc. No longer the case. All the rivers have been sold. All the solids melted into air.

"And will there still be singing?" - Brecht

Only the box sets.

BN.

[Rcartes]

The Michael Maierhof that I know was born in 1956.

As MrGG says, it depends on what you mean by jazz. The jazz tradition that began in the early part of the last century has touched and been touched by and intertwined with others ever since it began. How has it developed since the 1960s? What a strange question. What about Coltrane, Miles, Cecil Taylor, Ornette, Anthony Braxton, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, to name a few people who took part in its development during the 1960s, all of whom have continued that development since then, together with many others? I suppose some might claim that what such people are doing isn't jazz, but I doubt that King Oliver would have recognised Keith Jarrett's music as jazz either, so again it depends on what the word means to you. To me what it's called is not particularly important. Many of today's creative musicians draw on all kinds of strands of tradition in their work, not necessarily (NB Eine Alpensinfonie) to recycle it, but to continue its evolution and sense of discovery.

Well, I agree it depends on what you define as jazz, and certainly there are people who have abandoned the term altogether and refer to improvised music instead (and I don't mean people like Yusef Lateef, whom I interviewed once and, having started with a question about jazz, was subjected to a 30-minute harangue about the wrongness and ill associations of the term... I'm also not referring to the 60s critic Rex Harris, who once made the sublime comment to the effect that, if Coleman Hawkins hadn't taken up the saxophone he might have amounted to something in jazz). And I agree also that King Oliver wouldn't, to his disbenefit, have recognised Keith Jarrett's music. And maybe I should have said the 1970s rather than the 1960s so as to include Coltrane and Miles's later work, though that definitely falls within the context of my (1) in #19 above. But how, exactly, have Anthony Braxton and Evan Parker taken jazz forward (or even sideways)? I can't see it.

[Rcartes]

try Craig Taborn's work

I did try the Taborn link, but with respect to Calum, it didn't strike me as substantively different from, say, Keith Jarrett's work. Have I misjudged it? Should I listen to more of it?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

there is a huge amount of music here on a free commons license including jazz .... an amazing resource that answers the question by demonstration - try the Digital Primitives tracks

yes i find Taborn quite different to Jarrett but not unrelated

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Evan Parker is The Devil. He has 666 engraved on his tenor and casts no shadow.

Me, I'm sticking with Buddy Tate.

BN.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

jazz isn't going anywhere anyway. This is, or asserts to be, an objective statement (or at least judgement): apples are good for you/lemons are sharp.

But it's still subjective: a road may go to Burnley - you might not wish to go to Burnley, but the road is still going "somewhere". Once in Burnley, you notice a lot of rubbish, but eventually find the Mechanics' Institute, the canal-side walks, a not negligible Blues Festival - and realize that you can use other routes to get you to the Forest of Bowland, or Manchester, or Kendal.

[Richard Barrett]

how, exactly, have Anthony Braxton and Evan Parker taken jazz forward (or even sideways)? I can't see it.

If I listen to their work I can certainly hear it. In what ways? Well there's expanding the range of saxophone technique to begin with, particularly in Evan's case, I think that's fairly clear. Then expansion of the sonic range and complexity of an improvising ensemble, as in Evan's electroacoustic work, which also proposes new ways of structuring the music. On the other hand, new ways of structuring the music have been central to Braxton for many years and continue to be, as for example in 9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006 which take the whole tradition (and contemporary composition too) and integrate all of this together into something not just new but with enormous potential for future evolution in my opinion. Those are a few anyway.

[MrGongGong]

Evan Parker is The Devil. He has 666 engraved on his tenor and casts no shadow.
.

Evan is the sax god IMV

[Beef Oven!]

Evan is the sax god IMV

" solo performance at the First Existentialist Congregation in Atlanta, GA"