Category: Music

I’ll start with the shout out. Mike Reed appears to be blogging. Mike is a musician and music presenter in Chicago. I’ve mentioned him here before, an again, in full disclosure, must say that he is a friend of mine, we have played music together, and the Open Ears Music Series is greatly influenced and inspired by the Emerging Improvisers series that Mike started and runs with Josh Berman. Mike calls the blog “Thinking Out Loud,” although it shows up as “Free Time” in my rss reader. You can read it at his website, www.mikereedmusic.com.

My next thoughts were triggered by a review of Mike Reed’s Loose Assembly – The Speed of Change. My intention here isn’t necessarily to disagree with Stef’s review (although I think I liked the CD more than he did), but to point out some common thinking that is revealed by the reviewer’s choice of words.

“Soulstirrer” starts out well, but then falls back in mainstream rhythm and melody. The same can be said about some of the other tracks, such as “Garvey’s Ghost”, a Max Roach composition, which is relatively bland here, and “Tezetaye Antchi Lidj”, a Mulatu Astatqe composition, that sounds too joyful (and not raw enough) for the dark, bluesy and sensitive atmosphere on the rest of the album.

What I found thought provoking here was the idea that “fall[ing] back on mainstream rhythm and melody” could be used as a derogatory description, and the idea that it is possible for music to be “too joyful.” I get that some people like what they like, and want to hear that all of the time. I also get that a unified vibe for an album can be a good thing, but if I can get my noisy-free-jazz jones in the same place that I can hear beautiful rhythm and melody, AND get my joyful vibe on, then that is the place I want to be, as both a listener and performer.

The January 2009 issue of All About Jazz New York has a great piece on p.11 by Kevin Dorn called “How to completely miss the point of music.” Step 1 is “Take stylistic labels very seriously” and part of that instruction is: “Before you play, decide in which style you are going to perform.” Ultimately, we may all be better off if we can learn to listen and create in a manner that is free from the expectations of style, and open to all of the music that has already been made, or is still awaiting discovery.

There is a sometimes rather large pile of magazines in my bathroom. It is an odd mix of my music magazines and my wife’s wife magazines. For some reason, today I dug down in the pile and came out with the December 2006 DownBeat, the one with Sun Ra on the cover.

There is an article/interview featuring Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, and George Lewis in that issue. There is a great passage in which Lewis is addressing history.

We’re looking at the paradox that you want to have the history or experiences, but at a certain point, history becomes meaningless and should just not exist, otherwise you become its prisoner. That’s a common conceit. To be without history means you’re not responsible and can sort of do what you want. From my standpoint, as a descendant of slaves, I don’t want to be disconnected from that history, because people tried to erase it, and we spent all that time getting it back. But I want to be able to abandon it when necessary, to reach these other places that I want to go.

As a musician that sees myself as coming out of the jazz lineage, that relationship with history can be a tricky one. I like the idea of being able to “abandon it when necessary,” which also leaves the idea of embracing it when necessary as well.

Check out this interesting Wall Street Journal take on the slight return to improvisation in classical music. Especially dig the last sentence of the first paragraph I quote below.

Making Up the Classics – WSJ.com:

“Violinist and composer Mark O’Connor, who improvised a two-minute solo passage while performing one of his own compositions at Carnegie Hall last month, says performers have to relearn how to be creative, in part because their training places so much emphasis on the flawless execution of another person’s creation.

‘One of the reasons we don’t see more improvisation in the academic setting is because at some point in our education system, the creative composers were separated from the virtuosic performers. Some of that is starting to be broken down now,’ says Mr. O’Connor, who learned to improvise by studying jazz and folk music and now coaches young musicians in improvisation at UCLA, Harvard and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Once rare outside jazz departments, such workshops have become more common in recent years. Last month, a group of piano majors at Juilliard gathered in a classroom with two grand pianos and took turns improvising in the style of Bach, Chopin and Beethoven. None had studied improvisation before, and most were hesitant. The teacher, visiting pianist David Dolan, chided them for playing too carefully and challenged the idea that the performer’s job is merely to execute a composer’s intentions perfectly. ‘Do you think Chopin would authorize you to change his text?’ he asked the 10 students, who seemed stunned into silence. ‘Chopin wouldn’t only authorize you, he would push you to do that.'”

Being back in school at the moment, and surrounded by academic approaches to music, it really hits home for me that we spend too much time categorizing music, and not enough time embracing and exploring it all.

Music – In the World of Classical Music, Titles Rarely Have Anything to Do With the Works – NYTimes.com

The NYT article linked above takes an interesting look at the titling of pieces. I can’t say that I agree with all of it, but it is thought provoking. Kozinn seems shocked that Penderecki’s “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima” was titled after the fact and not composed with the intent of making that statement. Does that make the statement less effective?

I tend to fall into the camp that believes that the listener/experiencer provides his own meaning. After we write/play the music, and give it a title, it is out of our hands. The listener will make of it whatever she likes. As long as the music moves the listener in some way, I feel like I have accomplished what I set out to do. If a title makes that process of discovering personal meaning more fun or mysterious or confounding, then that is even better.