The Wiley Sheppard Brand, all within Hines sight

[Serial_Apologist]

I only caught a bit of JLU with the singer as I was listening to the autopsy on the local radio regarding the fiasco at St Mary's yesterday afternoon. However, if there was ever a statement that needed shooting down, it must be this one!!

1. You suggest that it is ok to perform written Classical music but not jazz as it is improvised music that must reflect it's times. I believe that the "Trad band" played a number by Jelly Roll Morton. Most people would consist Morton to be jazz's first significant composer - the ground zero for jazz composition. A lot of records were actually carefully written charts and not wholly improvised. Read the Schuller book on "Early Jazz" and that will give you a glimpse of his genius and why his music should remain in the jazz repertoire.

Well I acknowledge Morton's importance - of course! The history of jazz is the constant alternation between the impact of arrangement/structure on its evolution, and of improvisation on its context. I would still nevertheless argue that, post Morton, it has been improvisation that has had the bigger claim on driving the music forward. This is in no way to underestimate Morton's influence on what led to that point where improv really took off, which was the decade after the likes of Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins found they had more room to stretch in small groups because they were less restricted by the arrangement, and the language had reached the point where it needed to shrug off those restrictions to reshape what would come to replace them.

2. The other tune performed was "San" which , I believe, was an arrangement by Bill Challis. If if is ok to perform Brahms, why not work by Challis?

There's nothing intrinsically wrong, but what weight does one accord this in the pantheon of significance when there can be much more interesting stuff to hear on R3 jazz, but which we don't get to hear?

3. This is the first time that I have heard earlier styles of jazz performed on JLU. It is totally under-represented on the radio.

3. As far as I am aware, Ms Herbert and her husband have been on JLU twice during the course of the current football season . I have turned off on both occasions . Granted it may be clever and quite sophisticated, but it just seems too cute and lightweight. Not really jazz. Jelly Roll Morton would not have bee impressed!

I don't see much point in listening to something that is essentially a reproduction, divorced from the circumstances in which it was forward-thinking; but I agree with you about Gwyneth Herbert!

4. Why do you consider that earlier jazz musician's ability to express themselves by limited experience ? This is clearly a poorly judged statement. I think that the appeal of earlier jazz is strong because they do express their experiences better in their music. It is more personal and more individualistic. Whilst musicians today have bags more technique, it certainly doesn't make their music more compelling and is prone to lead to more monotonous music.

The greater variety and individuality to be found in early jazz is down to the fact that stylistically the music had yet to cohere, and there was so much still to discover. Jazz was "learned" on the bandstand - the way some of the best on offer today still is, but, as with everything, standardisation is always a danger encouraged by academicism and packaging, a facet of capitalism jazz is by no means immune from.

5. What is curious it that you love the free jazz / Improvised music scene. I can appreciate this too but it is worthwhile noting that a lot of this music has changed very little over the last 50 years. Go back 50 years before the explosion of the avant garde and Jelly Roll Morton had yet to record. Basically, a lot of the Free Jazz music is closer from a chronology to Morton's time than our own.

I would say that, as with "serious" modern classical music, the advances that have been made in the music, in terms of sophistication, complexity and technique to match, have made for a longer period of time for absorption than was the case, say, in the 1930s. All the advances are going to take longer to take on board. Those who revert to earlier periods either have a point in rejecting jazz's advanced evolutionary pathways, or the music has lost its nerve. Returning to standardisation and academicisation, these tendencies are understandable if jazz is to survive in political climates unpropitious to its promulgation and advocacy: some of the young players one speaks to are quite frank in saying they chose jazz as a more creative area of music making than composing; and when you observe so much of what goes under the rubric of "new music" today, who can be surprised?

6. At what point do you say that it is unacceptable to perform music from jazz's past. Where would you stop? Say no to Morton, Ellington , Fletcher Henderson, Monk, Kenny Wheeler and Andrew Hill as all these musicians have passed. What about Chris McGregor ? Surely any BoB re-union is no different from Jelly Roll Morton as these charts date from over 40 years ago? How about Buck Clayton ? Do we put his music in the skip because it is no longer "reflective of a complex world?! I think not. In your argument, there is no credibility in performing this music and it is a pointless exercise revisiting a composer whose music crystalized big band swing / mainstream jazz despite the fact that it has musical merits and is great fun to listen to. At what point did jelly Roll Mroton and Buck Clayton reach their sell by date ? Hoe much shelf life has Kenny Wheeler's music got. Should we cease trying to explore unperformed works by Herbie Nichols just because they were written in the 1950's or does the fact that they are written make this ok ?

Some of the above are nearer to our own time than others; beyond the fact that what we have in common with peoples of all ages and races are the basic needs of shelter, food, warmth and recognition, the further we are from the sources of art and music the less we are able to identify with the motives that lent their art and music their characteristics. We kid ourselves we can identify with people who, to exaggerate for the sake of substantiating the general point, had no notion of being respected by white people, or no intellectual framework yet established for fending off political ideas most open-minded people of today should recognise to be reprehensible; and this is especially the case with jazz, a form whose spontaneity vouchsafes the honesty of its makers - at least while they are on the bandstand! I think that for this reason alone, trying to re-create their manner of making music, specifically jazz music, involves a certain level of dishonesty, and is essentially sentimental in that it seeks to freeze the dynamic ongoing flow of the music at a stage onto which one projects one's idealised images of what one would like it to have been like.

I think the definition of jazz is very broad but the idea that improvised is evolving and reflecting a more complex world is a generalisation. Granted that there will be things like the Herbert concert that make me cringe and have limit connection to the jazz I listen to, I think jazz has always been varied even in the early 20's when there was an ideological battleground between orchestrated and improvised approach to jazz. Later the likes of Eddie Condon would record tracks like "Carnegie Drag" in response to Goodman's concert in 1938. There have always been multiple strands running in the music and not everybody has been cutting edge. Even cutting edge musicians have recorded mainstream stuff. Most fans these days can see the connection between the different styles of jazz and can listen to all.

I don't think one can re-create past jazz styles or idioms in the way one can make a reproduction 18th century mahoganny dining table to fit into a Georgian house. It's the difference as I see it between craft and art. One can compose a pastiche score or re-create the Ellington band of the early 1930s for a film about America in the Depression, but is this art? It's easier to do a Mozart-styled orchestral piece for a period movie than a jazz piece about the Cotton Club because the former is about trying faithfully to reproduce instructions on a score - which jazz can never be chiefly about, please? The past in jazz is to be approached through the lense of the present, this being my understanding of what Benny Goodman's Carnegie Hall concert of 1938 was in fact partially about, and what the AACM "tradition" continues to be about.

It is always worthwhile reading your posts , SA as you are by far the most eloquent poster on here but I think in this instance you have over generalised. Earlier styles of jazz get a raw deal these days. Better off expressing your annoyance at the stuff on JLU that purports to be jazz but which isn't.

Off to play squash.......

[Old Grumpy]

I only caught a bit of JLU with the singer as I was listening to the autopsy on the local radio regarding the fiasco at St Mary's yesterday afternoon.

Must admit as a Southampton graduate (1981) I had to look this reference up - I had no idea the Saints had moved to St Mary's!

Regarding local radio autopsies - can they not find anything better to broadcast than a bunch of disgruntled (invariably) men discussing what might have happened if? Just get over it and move on!

OG

[Ian Thumwood]

Must admit as a Southampton graduate (1981) I had to look this reference up - I had no idea the Saints had moved to St Mary's!

Regarding local radio autopsies - can they not find anything better to broadcast than a bunch of disgruntled (invariably) men discussing what might have happened if? Just get over it and move on!

OG

But the thing is , if you are a supporter. you cannot get over it and move on. You are forced to suffer when your manager elects to play the season with one forward up front and then wonders why we don't win matches.

[Ian Thumwood]

I seem to recall an interview benny Goodman gave where he regarded Fletcher Henderson as his "Mozart" and this was why he continued to feature his arrangements when he was still commissioning the likes of Gil Evans and Tadd Dameron to write for his Russian tour.

I think we need to get over the idea of jazz being increasingly more sophisticated as it has evolved. I concede that it went through a "learning process" throughout the decades 1920-60's but during the 20's the music was still sophisticated enough to inspire Milhaud to composer "La creation du monde" and by the end of the decade, Ellington had already produced a body of work which would have earned his reputation in jazz. Even as the likes of Hawk and Pres were redefining saxophone playing, there had been similar advances in jazz composition as diverse as Bill Challis, Don Redman, Fletcher Henderson, Spike Hughes , let alone the whole coterie of arrangers who manifested themselves amongst the greatest Swing bands. I would add the likes of Mary Lou Williams, Edgar Sampson, Eddie Sauter, Benny Carter, etc to this list. All proficient composers and, in the case of someone like Sauter, a kind of precursor for Gil Evans.

I love this era of jazz but have always felt that it had largely shrugged itself of any "primitive" elements by about 1926 and by the following year was already "modern." Earlier pianist's like James P Johnson would go on to write extended works whereas some swing era arrangers like Will Bradley ended up in "then" contemporary music. You could also throw someone like Raymond Scott in to the mix, even though he was not strictly jazz.

The weird thing is that this is jazz repertoire which is being dissed. I do enjoy hearing some of these original arrangements performed. It can be fascinating. However, there is no need to be entirely faithful to the original and it is equally relevant to use this material as a spring board. Musicians as diverse as Charlie Mingus, Gil Evans, Bob Brookmeyer, Henry Threadgill, Steve Bernstein, Dave Douglas and Wynton Marsalis have all found something useful within earlier repertoire that has seen them return to it at various times. It is still relevant and does not need a jump start. Where do you think bands like AEoC take their cues from ? Even Miles was not above recording material originally performed for McKinney's Cotton Pickers in the late 1920's. I would rather hear this material written by jazz musicians for jazz musicians than Broadway standards or the intellectual cabaret music of Gwyneth Herbert.

The more I listen to so-called "early jazz", I have more and more admiration for these musicians. They created a whole genre from scratch and I thin current musicians owe them for this. I just think that you cannot divorce all styles of jazz from each other. If you listen to Freddie Keppard, you should be able to understand Lester Bowie. There is no difference.

Picking up on the political thing, many of these jazz musicians were militant. The likes of Frankie Newton and one of the Ellington trombonists ( I think it was Juan Tizol) were highly politicised and the Fletcher Henderson was notorious for the band's musicians dislike of white people. I believe it was Tommy Ladnier who went to Russia in the 1920;s and was very influenced by Communist ideas. These musicians were not unique. People like Fletcher Henderson were already mixing with the cultural elete in the early 1920's and he was involved in the pioneering "black" record label Black Swan. Jazz has always been left wing and I think you will find that there are some quite unusual association with the likes of record promoter John Hammond sympathetic with the American Communist Party and jazz clubs like Café Society having a decidedly left-wing clientele. Even the likes of Benny Goodman walked in enlightened circles, being Hammond's brother on law at one point and also have an affair with Billie Holiday as well as including the likes
of Hampton, Wilson, Catlett and Christian in his band at different points. A large significant proportion of Goodman's arranging staff was Black.

In a nutshell, there was actually really little that the be-bop generation could teach those musicians in the 1930s that was new because the earlier generation had already done the groundwork. The reason we are still talking about music written in the 1920s and 30's is because it was good. It was noticeable that the audience like this music. If it was poor, Morton's music would have faded in to obscurity. This applies to many artists of this period and their music deserves to be respected and performed.

[Serial_Apologist]

The fact that 1930s audience liked the music was no guarantee of quality, any more than today, unless you think people in general were more sophisticated then than now: viz numbers like "Loch Lomond" used as gateways to the quality repertoire. I'm not saying never draw on material from earlier times, but reflect it through the prism of how jazz has progressed in the meantime, that being the way to pay homage, imv. But I take on board what you say about the radical leanings of a number of the personalities pre-bebop - my ignorance showing there! I think we'll have to differ on the qualitative step forward bebop represented, Ian.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

The fact that 1930s audience liked the music was no guarantee of quality, any more than today, unless you think people in general were more sophisticated then than now: viz numbers like "Loch Lomond" used as gateways to the quality repertoire. I'm not saying never draw on material from earlier times, but reflect it through the prism of how jazz has progressed in the meantime, that being the way to pay homage, imv. But I take on board what you say about the radical leanings of a number of the personalities pre-bebop - my ignorance showing there! I think we'll have to differ on the qualitative step forward bebop represented, Ian.

These debates are now so repetitive and sterile they are bald men arguing over a comb. Whether jazz is alive, dead, using from the past, ignorant of its past et al is not changed by three blokes arguing on a website fading to grey. Whatever jazz was, it is not now. Just as labourism died with the conditions that created it, so did a form of "jazz". It is perfectly legitimate to prefer that form (I do) or to reject it. No one holds the "keys", still less three aging white guys with time on their hands. There is no priesthood, no recognised scripture, no flock, no reincarnation. If jazz was once "a religion" with a trinity and ssociated saints, there's certainly no second coming. We are all atheists now.

[Quarky]

While always wanting more of them, in the light of what they've done in other contexts in the past, I could have done with more of Andy Sheppard and John Parricelli than the novelty cuties of Ms Herbert and the trad reproduction stuff at the start and close of JLU. People always answer my objections to Trad jazz by saying, "Well, you're surely not objecting to orchestras performing Mozart and Brahms, are you?" But that's scored music, one plays what's written down; jazz is an improvised music that has evolved, and in reflecting the world has become more complex; reversions to earlier stages seem tantamount to returning to a stage when one's ability to express was restricted by limited experience. I wouldn't listen to this in my local.

Apologies if this thread has already been consigned to the mortuary, but I think S_A's reaction is fair enough - that's his viewpoint.

But this episode of JLU was a concert as part of the Edinburgh Festival, where I guess the potential audience would be pulled in from a wide range of people attending the festival, with varying musical tastes. May be more like a Jazz Prom.

Why was it broadcast as part of the Jazz package on R3? Well, there may be potential R3 listeners that are interested in Jazz but are not hard core Jazz fans.

An analogy with Classical music may be reasonable. After all there is a huge range of music that falls within the classical Banner, and not all of this will appeal to everybody.

Didn't mind JLU - just had to adjust my listening ears downwards.

[CGR]

... I guess the potential audience would be pulled in from a wide range of people attending the festival, with varying musical tastes. May be more like a Jazz Prom.

Why was it broadcast as part of the Jazz package on R3? Well, there may be potential R3 listeners that are interested in Jazz but are not hard core Jazz fans.

...

That's been the standard BBC Radio 3 argument for dumbing down for decades.