Call The Jazz Police!

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Haha, 'jazz purist' turns out to be a pretentious, humourless knob. Whoda thunkit? :rolleyes:

Maybe was momentarily possessed by...

128907542628085244.jpg
:eek:
 

zeesandwich

New member
Went to a concert last night with Zakir, Skunker M, Selvaganesh, Mandolin Srinivas, and Sivamani for nothing. The first two songs were great with even the spotty Skunker in great form and the Sivamaniac was surprisingly restrained leading me to believe he'd been smacked around enough by life to decide that he was not gonna go through it being an annoying asshole. How stupid I am! Shortly after, Zakir H and co abandoned the stage to U Srinivas and the Sivamanimal. They played some interesting stuff for a bit with Srinivas in scorching form. Until Sivamanifest destiny decided, "U Srinivas, eh?! More lilke FUCK U Srinivas!" Sivamanigga got so offensively loud that Srinivas realised he could do one of two things

1) Try to top this by playing the mandolin with his teeth and setting it on fire
2) STFU and wait for the madness of the Sivamini to subside

It took an enormously long time in subsiding during the course of which SivarseMani scratched himself while wandering around in a suit of armour, did disgusting things with a couple of mineral water bottles and finally assailed a large suitcase, before - yeah! his piece de resistance - smacking a kettle drum over and over like an angry retard. After this, they had a classical lite song that went on for longer than necessary with Skunker going on about his 'Bunsy' which leads me to believe it is about having your burger stolen at McDonalds. Then Selvaganesh and Zakir both got their solo slots and these were devastatingly brilliant; they jammed a little towards the end and it was an evening well spent over all. It would have been terrific though if they hadn't informed Sivamanic depression about the venue change and left him hanging about at the Gateway of India while the rest of the guys got done with the concert at Dadar.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
Is 'creative' jazz' an excusable euphemism for abstract noodling, farts, skronks and squeals devoid of rhythm or harmony?

Is 'jazz purism' an excusable euphemism for lifeless mimicry? for creative fascism, for death worship, for repugnant neo-con revisionism which attempts to stifle the true descendents of our forebearers, to silence real artists who bring life and vitality to tradition?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/dec/21/wynton-marsalis-jazz-purist-fan

fuck this ignorant noise and anyone who buys it.
 

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
I confess to worshipping the dead...:D Without actually worshipping anyone...

Oh, it's a tough choice...neo-con Trad Improv reactionary fascist radicalism...can't I just sit on the fence? Fact is I take neither side in this war. Marsalis can sometimes make a fine noise to my ears....and the pure Noiseists can do what the hell they like. I'm all for artistic freedom...

I once watched performance which involved taking a trombone apart and blowing rasberrieis through various parts...I tell you, it was the most excruciatingly funny thing I'd ever seen and along with my friend had to hold my sides whilst creased up in agony to stop laughing out loud in an auditorium contaning about twenty people. The man involved in this case obviously didn't have my sense of humour.

As you probably know, Miles made a funny quip about Dolphy way back...then went on to make his own perverse form of 'Jazz' which many wouldn't have recognised as 'Jazz'. Mind you, I now think he had a point when he advised JC to take the damn horn out of his mouth...but that's another matter....perhaps.

I don't think the artists involved here are true descendents of anything but their particular strand of sound-making...much less Jazz or even Free Jazz as in Ornette? Ornette as Dr Frankenstein? There's a case to be made, I'm sure...but even his 'freedom' of 50 yrs ago sounds...'musical' compared to pure Improv, doesn't it?.

What would Mingus, who said jazz was the sound of surprise, make of these noodlers? My guess is he wouldn't rate them much...I must get Derek Acorah to ask him...
 

woops

is not like other people
Is 'jazz purism' an excusable euphemism for lifeless mimicry? for creative fascism, for death worship, for repugnant neo-con revisionism which attempts to stifle the true descendents of our forebearers, to silence real artists who bring life and vitality to tradition?

fuck this ignorant noise and anyone who buys it.

Christmas day righteous jazz RAGE
I love Dissensus
Big up Confucius
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
After road rage and air rage, and eventually jazz rage, what comes next: cheese rage? toilet rage? UNIX rage? perfume rage?...
 

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
It's carnage when jazz factions go to war...

I'm not telling anyone that I'm a fan of Philip Larkin's jazz criticism, that's for sure...
 

zhao

there are no accidents
I confess to worshipping the dead...:D Without actually worshipping anyone...

i will be forever devoted to louis armstrong, but if you open your mind ears a little more and let go of silly dogmas a bit, you will find that his, and all the other classic greats', legacy of revolutionary innovation is alive and KICKING, in the 21st century.

Oh, it's a tough choice...neo-con Trad Improv reactionary fascist radicalism...can't I just sit on the fence? Fact is I take neither side in this war. Marsalis can sometimes make a fine noise to my ears....and the pure Noiseists can do what the hell they like. I'm all for artistic freedom...

i can not make out what you are delineating as the "choices" with your garbled string of words. are you placing fascism on the side of the free-improvisers??? if you are you are out of your mind. for the free players never ever became outraged at anyone else doing their thing, and used authority to marginalize them.

the free players are the marginalized ones, just like their ancestors who invented Jazz Music 100 years ago. and the Marsalis camp of fascist creeps are just like the music establishment in the beginning of the 20th century, angrily shouting this or that "is not music", and frantically putting their fearful labels on everything.

and it sounds to me like you are for sure taking a side in this war - you pay verbiage to "artistic freedom", but it's nothing more than sound bytes, for you clearly sympathize with the neo-cons.

I once watched performance which involved taking a trombone apart and blowing rasberrieis through various parts...I tell you, it was the most excruciatingly funny thing I'd ever seen and along with my friend had to hold my sides whilst creased up in agony to stop laughing out loud in an auditorium contaning about twenty people. The man involved in this case obviously didn't have my sense of humour.

"i once watched this group of 4 or 5 negroes playing saxophones and trumpets in very very WRONG manners. they were jumping around the stage, hollering and hooting and making all kinds of vulgar ungodly noises, acting like a buncha god damned chimpanzees. I tell you, me and my friend had to run for the exit but no one else seemed to be bothered by that disgusting garbage. what the hell is wrong with this world?!"

As you probably know, Miles made a funny quip about Dolphy way back...then went on to make his own perverse form of 'Jazz' which many wouldn't have recognised as 'Jazz'.

whatever made miles say what he did during the blind test that day, it can not be taken as an authoritative remark which describes his assessment of Dolphy as an artist. no, not from someone who deeply admired Stockhousen and Xenakis.

Mind you, I now think he had a point when he advised JC to take the damn horn out of his mouth...but that's another matter....perhaps.

you are getting the context wrong, i hope not willfully. Trane at the time was on a stream of consciousness thing, and had trouble resolving his spontaneous compositions:

John Coltrane asked Miles Davis's advice on how to end a solo because Trane was having difficulty finding a place to end. Miles answered in his raspy whisper, "Take the horn out your mouth."

I don't think the artists involved here are true descendents of anything but their particular strand of sound-making...

you are wrong.

much less Jazz or even Free Jazz as in Ornette? Ornette as Dr Frankenstein? There's a case to be made, I'm sure...but even his 'freedom' of 50 yrs ago sounds...'musical' compared to pure Improv, doesn't it?.

you are stereotyping an entire field of new jazz music even more diverse in practice, process, sound and aesthetic than traditional jazz, and discounting countless free improvisers who are very much "musical", in the way you mean.

and the more out there stuff sounds "unmusical" to your calcified sensibilities, and those of people like you, only. don't take your closed-mindedness or senility for law, and think everyone shares, or should share, your myopic view of what is or isn't "jazz".

What would Mingus, who said jazz was the sound of surprise, make of these noodlers? My guess is he wouldn't rate them much...

you make yoursef sound silly man. if i were you i would not have used that righteous quote from Mingus to illustrate the falsehoods which come out of your mouth.
 
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slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
All right, calm down...I'm not against you or your opinion, so less of the insults. I'm improvising as I write and throwing out questions which you've so considerately answered.

I ain't dogmatic or, as I said, wishing to take sides on this debate. I've plugged Sun Ra and Ornette, for instance, long and hard down the years...many years of talking about, promoting, DJ-ing and writing about jazz, so don't mistake me for some mouldy old fig.

I found an Improv gig funny - so shoot me. Isn't there a danger that supposed supporters of free expression in music get so rabid at the sound of different opinions to theirs that they come across as dictators themselves? Free music - yes...freedom of choice regarding musical preference - NO!

Pure Improv or 'Free Music' players today are marginalised...oh, I wonder why. This isn't America when Miles got coshed or strange fruit hung from the trees, so I don't think the 'outsider' card counts for much today - poor things - so they're laughed at or ignored; I doubt they'd expect much else.

I only suggested (forgive me) that Improv today in it's purist state owes as much if not more to other strands of music apart from Jazz...just as the Chicago mob in the 60s would have no doubt drawn inspiration from sources other than Bop.

Trane had trouble with his teeth too, but Miles' quote does make me laugh. I'm not one of those who slavishly support anything a great artist does although I respect JC enormously. But where he found himself at the end makes me think he should have held on to what was said to him when he was in the D&D band. Perhaps my point was that over-indulgence on his part was not necessarily a good thing. As you say, he was having 'problems'. Some translate that into an example of 'Free Jazz Genius', I suppose.

Since you're quite sure of the clear lineage being debated here, I'll take your word for it that Mingus would approve (along with everyone whoever played in a New Orleans marching band). I like to be surprised by music, but it never surprises me how outraged the guardians of righteous opinion get when someone says something they disagree with. And I repeat, I'm not on the side of the 'neo-cons' if that means denying the validity of players with integrity making far-out sounds.

Our response to all art is personal according to education/taste/bias/mood etc, so I'm sure you're not pretending to be a fan of everything made in the name of 'Jazz' (righteous variety) and trying to take some high moral ground on this matter.

Yours, in senility (now, where's me pipe, slippers and Marsalis albums...I'm sure I left them somewhere...)
 

zhao

there are no accidents
that's cool. i don't think you're the enemy, and i myself have often found Peter Brotzmann and similar skronkists not enjoyable in the least... but Trane's later work i think is truly transcendent. as is Albert Ayler...

nothing personal, i had to come down hard, for the principle of the thing. for The War.

happy new years slim.
 

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
It's war all right - US against THEM, just choose your enemies more carefully. ;)

By the way, my take on various post-war Jazz artists can be found in this:


Happy New Year to you.
 
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