Are contrafacts plagiarism ?

[Lat-Literal]

"You could argue". You could also argue that it debases, trivialises, decontextualises and severs the artistic intent of the original. But hey, the original would necessitate a listener effort so that's not going to happen. I mean, art should be served on a plate, with fries.

BN.

Yes - you could argue that too. I was going to suggest that an original like Soweto Kinch has probably not be sampled but then I discovered I would have been wrong. He is on "Snake F***ers and Androids" by Verbal Kent and Kaz One "featuring" Alltruisms, Soweto Kinch and Sunny Jim which in turn samples "Pink Elephants on Parade" by Ned Washington, Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace. This is not necessarily a good thing when it sounds like the sort of multi-layered global businesses designed to ensure that no one can be held responsible.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

What I object to (being 113) is jazz being considered as just another colouring box to be plundered for novelty, fake authenticity and/or hipness. But as music becomes aural toothpaste, cheap, downloadable and disposable, that's a probable outcome. We end up with a bathtub of "stuff". Well deserved.

BN.

[Lat-Literal]

What I object to (being 113) is jazz being considered as just another colouring box to be plundered for novelty, fake authenticity and/or hipness. But as music becomes aural toothpaste, cheap, downloadable and disposable, that's a probable outcome. We end up with a bathtub of "stuff". Well deserved.

BN.

I get that but my main issues are with modern production and especially vocal styles.

Really can't stand the manner in which singing was changed after 2000 to not singing.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Yes, I was listening to a mid 1950s record of Carmen Macrae (with Ray Bryant) today and thinking, not another version of My Funny Valentine? But she actually "sings" it with technique and wit and real invention...and it's stunning. Actually "sings" it.

BN.

[Lat-Literal]

Yes, I was listening to a mid 1950s record of Carmen Macrae (with Ray Bryant) today and thinking, not another version of My Funny Valentine? But she actually "sings" it with technique and wit and real invention...and it's stunning. Actually "sings" it.

BN.

I find Carmen McRae stunning.

Recall very well - 2011/12? - having a discussion in this very place about having just found her and, well, what do you think?

It was all very positive.

I've bought CDs since.

(Miles Davis considered her to be the best female jazz vocalist)

Carmen McRae - Old Folks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfjYUpo92N0

(I think she "holds" the audience here as Holiday often could)

[Serial_Apologist]

Norma Winstone said somewhere that Carmen McRae was one of her biggest influences. I think in both cases the fact that Norma sounds very little like Carmen indicates something much deeper than the usual citing of similarities

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Ronnie Scott, who was indifferent to most singers, also said she was the one exception. And she had the music background, a pianist long before any name recognition as a singer. Worked as such with Benny Carter etc. I think she's a knockout, really inventive without being overblown, technique in abundance but not for show, and a really dry wit and sensibility.

BN.

[Richard Barrett]

What I object to (being 113) is jazz being considered as just another colouring box to be plundered for novelty, fake authenticity and/or hipness.

Yes. Personally I object to any music being used in that way. I participated the other day in a conversation on Another Social Media Site where a Dutch musician who lives in Australia was asking for opinions about his visual art and its use of motifs from Australian indigenous paintings. A couple of actual Australian indigenous people weighed in on the argument and said very clearly that any such "inspiration", given the history of white Australian oppression of the aboriginal peoples, should stem from a deep study and understanding of the original work, a collaboration with aboriginal artists, and at the very least the permission of aboriginal elders. I thought well who am I or any non-aboriginal person to argue with that. But it made me think: appropriation of artistic or musical motifs from oppressed peoples has been rife from times when those people had no voice to give an opinion on the matter, even the small and often ignored voice that native Australians have now. Not just sampling of jazz for fake authenticity, but, going back further, the way that the music of African Americans was appropriated by white musicians throughout the 20th century. What about the ethics of that?

[Ian Thumwood]

"Cultural appropriation" is a phrase that I had never heard until a few years ago but it is something that I feel is a bit of a minefield that I am not entirely convinced by. The most obvious example in music has got to be in the Blues which is typically a "Black" music and something that is distinctly "blue collar" yet the a good proportion of practitioners are now probably white. I don't consider white blues musicians as stealing someone's culture but it does get quite bizarre when you hear French blues musicians playing this music with an over-whelming Gallic accent. I feel that most blues musicians will probably be quite pleased to encounter their music being disseminated and it is fair to say that you could easily listen to players like Derek Trucks without realising that he was white. If the music / art is good, it doesn't really matter and it will stand or fall on it's own merits. I think that this is a dangerous game to play and feel that the whole aspect of cultural appropriation could get quite stupid if you consider artists like Picasso being influenced by Paeliolithic art. Take things to their legitimate conclusion, does this mean that white jazz musician's work is not valid?

The cut and paste disregard of historic musical performances within modern music culture is pretty shameful although I think that Jaimeo Brown is probably one musician who has used field music as a basis for something different - a kind of roots + 'Trane work out. His album "Transcendence" is quite intriguing in mixing field hollers with J D Allen's blazing tenor backed by the leader's ferocious drumming. This does seem "authentic" and certainly does not lack integrity and if you consider Brown's musical background as well as the fact that guest Geri Allen was a ethno-musicologist.

[Richard Barrett]

I feel that most blues musicians will probably be quite pleased to encounter their music being disseminated

And someone from outside their tradition and culture getting the attention and royalties? Perhaps not. The point I got pretty strongly from the aforementioned discussion about indigenous Australian art was that a non-indigenous person doesn't get to have an opinion on whether they would be "pleased" to see the influence their work has. I don't expect any white people ever asked anyone whether it was ok to play blues - they simply wouldn't think in that way. It's accepted that the music belongs to everyone. As you say, "Take things to their legitimate conclusion, does this mean that white jazz musician's work is not valid?" It's a bit late for that now! But it seems that indigenous Australians don't think it's too late to make it clear that the appropriation of their visual art by white artists is not ok with them. Makes you think.

[Ian Thumwood]

I totally agree with the Australian art thing but as I understand things the issues with indigenous inhabitants of Australia are understandably sensitive. Someone told me a story a few months ago about a archaeological project which unearthed evidence regarding the early inhabitants of Australia and that this information was ultimately suppressed because of the potential furore that might have followed. This is alluded to within this article:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory_of_Australia

I think the issue of authenticity in art is quite interesting and especially so in music because it is very difficult to guess someone's ethnicity by a recording even though most styles of music have a strong ethnic identity in itself. I think this makes music unique amongst the arts but it is not uncommon for Western artists to be influenced by other cultures and make something of it that is individualistic and not derivative.

Getting back to the topic of Contrafacts, one of the reasons Be-bop had so much cultural pulling power in the late 40's was that the technical prowess required to perform the music is alleged to have separated a supposedly more technically accomplished generation from earlier performers. The whole contrafact issue became central to this with the themes bolted on to the chord sequences of standards being increasingly complex and requiring more technique to play. I find Charlie parker's tunes really tricky to perform and they are next to impossible for me when you read over a Latin play-a-long. For all it's sophistication, the music really only becomes compelling with truly great improvisers and I sometimes feel that many of the lesser players in this period were just playing exercises. The Savoy box set that was issued about a year ago is full of this kind of stuff which palls into significance when matched with Parker's best work where the heads and solos equally offer an innate beauty. In the hands of lesser musicians, there is the fear that the music just becomes an exercise. At it's extreme with performers like Lennie Tristano, I get the sense of the flow of ideas actually being superior to the original structure of the music. In some ways, I wonder whether Tristano was born too early and how much better his music could have been once shorn of the dependence of standards upon which to exercise his genius. His contrafacts on the solo Atlantic album offer the best notion of what Bach might have sounded like if he had been a be-bopper.

[Lat-Literal]

Yes. Personally I object to any music being used in that way. I participated the other day in a conversation on Another Social Media Site where a Dutch musician who lives in Australia was asking for opinions about his visual art and its use of motifs from Australian indigenous paintings. A couple of actual Australian indigenous people weighed in on the argument and said very clearly that any such "inspiration", given the history of white Australian oppression of the aboriginal peoples, should stem from a deep study and understanding of the original work, a collaboration with aboriginal artists, and at the very least the permission of aboriginal elders. I thought well who am I or any non-aboriginal person to argue with that. But it made me think: appropriation of artistic or musical motifs from oppressed peoples has been rife from times when those people had no voice to give an opinion on the matter, even the small and often ignored voice that native Australians have now. Not just sampling of jazz for fake authenticity, but, going back further, the way that the music of African Americans was appropriated by white musicians throughout the 20th century. What about the ethics of that?

Erm, I don't wholeheartedly disagree with any of what you say and my heart is in it but, personally, I didn't know about the children who were abandoned to the streets owning not a comb. Ruby Hunter taught me that first and as she was an exponent of aboriginal soul it is worth saying that the musical aspects of that soul are hardly in any narrow or deep tradition.

What annoys me is there isn't one accessible version of "Down City Streets" by her that in any way gives it its worth even in its context. She had the ability to turn it into something way beyond the bland 1990s production but then she was ill for a long time. It's Archie Roach's essentially - that is the cleanest and over-produced available version but, boy, is it a song that screams out for the right new roots treatment. Such a moving song deserves so much better than another "Sting" treatment". They all deserved much better but did what they could do. That meant selling out to a contemporary western style in the 1990s - once one's over that disappointment it is even more moving. The way they reached out. I saw most live.

Archie Roach - Down City Streets - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZPhwEwXEdw

Ruby Hunter - Down City Streets - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt95Tkdz_RM*

(*This is the one I love for all of its flaws - she was the real deal and always moved me)

[CGR]

Yes. Personally I object to any music being used in that way. I participated the other day in a conversation on Another Social Media Site where a Dutch musician who lives in Australia was asking for opinions about his visual art and its use of motifs from Australian indigenous paintings. A couple of actual Australian indigenous people weighed in on the argument and said very clearly that any such "inspiration", given the history of white Australian oppression of the aboriginal peoples, should stem from a deep study and understanding of the original work, a collaboration with aboriginal artists, and at the very least the permission of aboriginal elders. I thought well who am I or any non-aboriginal person to argue with that. But it made me think: appropriation of artistic or musical motifs from oppressed peoples has been rife from times when those people had no voice to give an opinion on the matter, even the small and often ignored voice that native Australians have now. Not just sampling of jazz for fake authenticity, but, going back further, the way that the music of African Americans was appropriated by white musicians throughout the 20th century. What about the ethics of that?

Mmm... and the appropriation of European late romantic harmony by black American musicians to create modern jazz in the first place ?

What about the appropriation of the English language, the language of Shakespeare and Milton, by the rest of the world to drive international corporate greed and captialism.

Just saying.

[Richard Barrett]

Mmm... and the appropriation of European late romantic harmony by black American musicians to create modern jazz in the first place ?

What about the appropriation of the English language, the language of Shakespeare and Milton, by the rest of the world to drive international corporate greed and captialism.

Just saying.

The point is not just the appropriation itself, but the fact that it forms a continuity with a history of oppression where indigenous peoples' lands and in very many cases their lives taken from them, their voices forcibly silenced, their self-determination denied, and so on. Your examples presuppose a symmetry which isn't there. (See the thread on the Chineke! orchestra.)

[CGR]

The point is not just the appropriation itself, but the fact that it forms a continuity with a history of oppression where indigenous peoples' lands and in very many cases their lives taken from them, their voices forcibly silenced, their self-determination denied, and so on. Your examples presuppose a symmetry which isn't there. (See the thread on the Chineke! orchestra.)

I'm not into that middle-class liberal guilt stuff. I just enjoy the music.