R3 hates jazz and is trying to kill off jazz on the radio

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

all the progs have been playing plenty of modern and contemporary jazz, mainly to showcase the London Jazz festival .... however it is all very late at night ....and not as much as there used to be ...

i find trombone shorty in the commercial shcmaltz or somewhat baaaaad categories meself, but not bad and not much jazz really ...

[Alyn_Shipton]

Calum
What do you mean about not as much as there used to be? In 2000 there was Impressions/ Jo3 after April, (1.5 hours). Jazz File (0.5 hours), Jazz Notes (2 hours) and Jazz Record Requests (45 mins) per week: total 4.75 hours. Now there is Line up (1.5 hours) J03 (average 1.5 hours) Library (1 hour) and JRR (1 hour). I make that 5 hours - and until September, with repeats of JL an extra hour a week as well. So it's pretty much constant, if not slightly better. And better by far than the 60s, 70s and 80s. And in 2000 only Jazz File and JRR were on during daylight. Nothing much has changed - apart from a short period when either Legends, File or Library were on in daylight hours. Much better to think what might be the consequence for Jazz in the wake of the BBC's budget savings.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Alyn .. nothing will dissuade me from the view that jazz on R3 should be scheduled better, have fewer repeats, and benefit from a wider variety of programmes as in the past ....

[Pilchardman]

Fewer. But yes, I agree.

[old khayyam]

Thinking about a wider spectrum of jazz programming, i was about to comment how hard it would be to avoid categorizing Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, Ornette Colman, etc, as anything other than 'Black' jazz, owing to their overt racial conciousness. But on reflection i thought 'Transcendental Jazz' might be a better description, for many reasons.

Then it occurs to ask, and it might sound like a silly question, but can anyone think of any white 'transcendental jazz' artists?

[Pilchardman]

can anyone think of any white 'transcendental jazz' artists?

Jan Garbage?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

interesting question ...

i think a case could be made for transcendentalism in the Tristano School ... a complete and disciplined internalisation of harmony until freedom of improvisatory creation is achieved


similarly Ran Blake's intense focus on a body of work by one artist ... days of listening and discussing nothing but e.g. Sarah Vaughan has a certain cloistered search fro the inner essence about it .....


but these are methods not forms of expression as such ....

[Serial_Apologist]

Transcendental - the infinitude of possibilities? The moments between order and order when pattern dissolves before being repatterned into perceivable regularities? Or, more likely, given the general tendency one may detect in listeners/observers to feel they need *some* element to cling onto for purposes of comprehensibility, it's usefulness for descriptive purposes may be analogous to outlining the limits conventional linear logic can elucidate experience as rendered intelligibility in words. What one can grasp within the net of passing thought remains caught in the trap of preknowledge; the transcendental is always outwith the known in this sense; though as Calum implies above it may be reached through the known, at the point of "recognition" (analogous with orgasm) the transcendental leaves the known behind - or maybve more accurately incorporates it into memory in the sense that thought thinks itself without being commanded.

With my apology for a definition in place, I can't see any reason why the transcendental in jazz be restricted to black music, American or otherwise. That said, the first time I became aware (and spiritually turned on) by its manifestation is the section during John McLaughlin's solo on "Funky Tonk" from Miles's "Live-Evil" in which the sheer accretion of harmonic and polyrhythmic complexity eventually blows the music apart like that orgasm, and one enters another realm: some kind of inevitability resulting ineluctably from accumulating contradictions at a certain point of working things up beyond a certain point with received practices and ideas.

Schoenberg got there first, in my mind, in his String Quartet Op 5, first half of. Imagine, notating chaos!!! Ferneyhough gets nearest these days in modern composition. People prefer the known - look what the unknown is doing to politics right now! There things need carefully nurturing into a state of preparedness; we wouldn't then be needing last rites.

S-A

[old khayyam]

I am both brave and honest enough to admit to being completely alienated by those three responses so far, though i'm sure its down to my lack of knowledge.

At the risk of creating the longest thread in the history of the internet, it occurs to me that the term 'transcendental' (if that be the term) means, in the context of black conciousness, 'transcending social oppression'; so white musicians wouldnt have (had) this to overcome.

So white transcendental jazz cannot exist, unless the musicians stated they were attempting to transcend some other boundary, such as the limitations of music itself, of their instruments, or of human existence per se.

That would open the doors to quite a wide spectrum of artistes indeed, so we would probably have to limit ourselves to only those who have deliberately stated their transcendental intentions.


Are you still with me, or am i rambling?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

that is not what i would understand by transcendental old khayyam, except in the narrow sense of exceeding some limitation or constraint ..... indeed by your own definitions your question becomes logically impossible ...

[old khayyam]

Hmm, yes. I suppose we can either stick to the original question of - Are there any white transcendental jazz artists? Or risk our necks in the deepend with - What is the definition of transcendental jazz?

Or possibly avoid such musings entirely and talk about the quality and quantity of jazz coverage on R3..

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

nah stuff R3 ....

[Pilchardman]

I am both brave and honest enough to admit to being completely alienated by those three responses so far

Are you sure you're not just making up new definitions to words, then wondering why nobody understands you?

[old khayyam]

Are you sure you're not just making up new definitions to words, then wondering why nobody understands you?

Strange reply. I rather thought i was being honest enough to say i dont understand you, and that i havent heard of the ('WT') artists mentioned. In other words, please continue/explain.

>Transcend: to rise above; to overcome<

[Pilchardman]

Transcend is a different word to transcendental.

While I agree that you can't look at the New Thing without looking at civil rights, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, I had always thought of the description of Trane's music as "transcendental" as being a reference to his spirituality. A tune like Alabama is absolutely political, but Trane's music in general, his approach, his way of getting under the notes, is informed by his spiritual quest.

Now, I'm the wrong person to talk to about that, because I'm an atheist. I do think humans have spiritual needs, but to me that doesn't imply the supernatural. In my view, all great music is spiritual, but in a non supernatural way. Indeed, the simple act of making music is spiritual, in the sense that it taps into our species being, and satisfies a deep need. My reply - Jan Garbage - was flippant. I don't like Garbrek, or the New Age drivel I hold him responsible for. To me Garbrek (and even worse, his followers) have no substance. Trane, Ornette, Albert Ayler, etc had substance. In truckloads.

I like Calum's suggestion of Ran Blake. He has substance, while being meditative. If you don't know Blake, try to get hold of All That Is Tied. It's stunning. However, I don't think it'll be transcendental in the way you mean.

Forgive me if I seemed curt in my previous post, it's just that you came up with another idiosyncratic usage earlier when you seemed to have a meaning for the phrase "good time music" which I still haven't understood.