Category: Thoughts

Creativity and distractibility

The Wall Street Journal Online posted an interesting article that looks at creativity and attention deficit. The basic idea is that distractions can lead to creative discoveries.

Such lapses in attention turn out to be a crucial creative skill. When we’re faced with a difficult problem, the most obvious solution—that first idea we focus on—is probably wrong. At such moments, it often helps to consider far-fetched possibilities, to approach the task from an unconventional perspective. And this is why distraction is helpful: People unable to focus are more likely to consider information that might seem irrelevant but will later inspire the breakthrough. When we don’t know where to look, we need to look everywhere.

My wife always busts my chops because I am an unrepentant eavesdropper. I can’t help but to listen to interesting conversations that are happening in my vicinity. Maybe that is just a sign of my creativity, and not some moral deficiency.

Why I de-faced or “This corporate Facebook obsession will be dangerous”

Sometime ago, I deleted my Facebook account. Then a few months ago, I had to start another one, because a professor of mine wanted to do some of the class online discussion on Facebook. That class ends soon, and I will de-face again. Here is why:

I don’t want to be forced into a system that is controlled by a single entity. I think it becomes dangerous. The world wide web was built on the premise of open standards and open access. Sir Tim Berners-Lee recently wrote a great article for Scientific American on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the world wide web. The whole thing is a worthy read, but I will quote only a few paragraphs here:

The Web evolved into a powerful, ubiquitous tool because it was built on egalitarian principles and because thousands of individuals, universities and companies have worked, both independently and together as part of the World Wide Web Consortium, to expand its capabilities based on those principles.

The Web as we know it, however, is being threatened in different ways. Some of its most successful inhabitants have begun to chip away at its principles. Large social-networking sites are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web. Wireless Internet providers are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals. Governments—totalitarian and democratic alike—are monitoring people’s online habits, endangering important human rights.

If we, the Web’s users, allow these and other trends to proceed unchecked, the Web could be broken into fragmented islands. We could lose the freedom to connect with whichever Web sites we want. The ill effects could extend to smartphones and pads, which are also portals to the extensive information that the Web provides.

The idea that I can link to any site on the web, and any site can link here, and any user can follow those links is foundational.

From Hypebot:

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg used last week’s Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco to share his most sweeping vision yet of how Facebook will fundamentally change the music, film, TV and media industries within the next five years. Zuckerberg believes strongly that insurgent entrepreneurs will “reform” the music, film, TV, news, e-commerce and perhaps many other industries using Facebook as a platform. Facebook will then profit from the value that it has added to the new landscape through advertising and, perhaps, other partnerships.

I saw a billboard today (along I10 in Baton Rouge) for a well known brand of vodka. The website listed on the billboard was the company’s Facebook page. I don’t get it. It’s not like this company doesn’t have its own web presence. I have been told that companies like Facebook, because it has “all those users”, but “all those users” are also available on the open web, plus many more.

Have we forgotten about the last days of AOL, when they were trying to control our internet experience? We should heed the warnings of Sir Berners-Lee and be vigilant for the open web. We will be in trouble if it slips away while we aren’t paying attention, and the curmudgeon in me wants to say that that is exactly what Facebook would like to happen.

Why do we insist on underestimating our audiences?

The idea for the post you are reading was in part instigated by this post by Andrew Durkin about this post by Anthony Dean-Harris, and the procrastination inertia was broken by these two tweets by Lucas Gillan.

To summarize quickly, in case you didn’t read all the stuff I just linked above: Anthony is afraid to play Nels Cline on his radio show, because he thinks it will drive away listeners, and Lucas linked to a video of Christian Scott on Jimmy Kimmel Live and then asked, “I really wonder what the studio audience and viewers at home, most of whom probably don’t even know who Thelonious Monk is, thought of it.”

There are so many places to go with this, but I’ll start with, why do we insist on underestimating our audiences? People like honest music, even if they don’t know it already, or know or understand the history behind it. As one piece of evidence, I offer up this man. It is not at all uncommon for me to talk to people at the Open Ears Series that will tell me that they don’t really know jazz, and just wandered in to the club, but enjoyed what they heard. (NB- Open ears usually programs fairly left of center, and sometimes just downright weird stuff) Audiences sense honesty and react to that. One doesn’t have to know Monk or his music to get into a young man making a passionate musical statement. BTW Scott’s tune on Kimmel wasn’t all that out. It was just a guy wailing over a simple harmonic vamp, while the drummer went nuts. If he played guitar instead of trumpet, we would have called it classic rock.

It is our job as musicians, radio programmers, bloggers, and friends to spread the word about good music. It is not our job as musicians to guess what people want to hear, it is our job to make the music that we hear, and do it honestly. It is not the job of radio hosts to pander to some perceived infantilism in the audience, it is the job of radio hosts to play good music. We don’t need to pander to audiences, or even nurture audiences. Good music will do the nurturing, all we have to do is let people know that they are welcome to come and listen and make of the music what they will. We just have to invite them in. They’re grown ups, they can listen for themselves.

That for which we should all strive

Meet The Jazz Audience: Michael Jones : A Blog Supreme : NPR:

“I’ve never heard anything like it. This is what jazz should be about. No programs—just all heart. I’m so happy that I can’t describe it.”

NPR’s jazz blog has been doing these cool “Meet the Jazz Audience” pieces, and I love this one. The audience member we meet is named Michael Jones, and he is being interviewed during the Powerhouse Sound set at this year’s Newport Jazz Festival. His reaction should be the goal of every performer.

Kansas City Star on jazz tribute shows

Click the link to read the whole thing. I love the last line of the quote.

Too many jazz tribute shows leave little room for innovation – Kansas City Star:

“Concert and club presenters sometimes fret that jazz doesn’t bring in crowds like it used to. But is booking tribute shows the way to bring the crowds back or to build a new audience for the future?

Some tribute shows make a populist appeal. (Hear the Sinatra hits! Hear swing played the way it used to be played!) Some try to serve as gateways to greater jazz appreciation. (Celebrate the 80th anniversary of the classic recordings by Blind Willie Dunn’s Gin Bottle Four! Hear an evening of Wayne Shorter’s music played by people whose fees are lower than his!)”

(Via @accujazzradio.)

Are The Meters jazz?

It was my turn to cook dinner for the family tonight. I had my iPod on shuffle, and “People Say” by The Meters was playing while I waited at the Taco Bell window for our food. The lady (shift manager at Taco Bell) stuck her head out and said, “oooh, you listening to some jazz tonight?” All I could muster in response was, “yeah, well, some Meters.”

Prior to that moment, jazz and The Meters occupied fairly different parts of my genre consciousness, but maybe they are pretty much the same thing to the general public.* That made me wonder, “are The Meters jazz?” What does it mean if they are? What does it mean if they aren’t? Does it matter?

I consider myself a jazz musician essentially (at least when I am forced to chose a side in the genre wars), AND I play in George Porter’s band, The Runnin’ Pardners.** George is one of The Meters, and we play some of those tunes. I don’t suffer any existential angst while doing that, it is actually quite fun. Does the word jazz even mean anything any more (did it ever)? To the lady at Taco Bell, The Meters sounded like jazz, I hold up Ornette Coleman as one of my favorite jazz musicians, yet I am sure it would be quite easy find someone to tell me that neither of those are jazz (or even very close to jazz).

Does genre segregation help us find other music we will like, or does it saddle us with unnecessary (and counter-productive to musical enjoyment) expectations, or both? No conclusions yet, just thinking out loud (or at least in writing).

* I have long maintained that genre segregation is bad, and will write at length about it at some point.

** BTW George Porter & the Runnin’ Pardners are playing Aug 6 in NOLA and AUG 8 near Denver, come say “Hi!”

The 100 Greatest Jazz Albums of All Time

Amazon.com MP3 Downloads: The 100 Greatest Jazz Albums of All Time

Ok, this should probably be titled “The 100 Greatest Jazz Albums you can download from Amazon,” but still, I’m a sucker for lists. I usually go in looking for what I will scream about, but this one hit me with a pleasant surprise. Kind of Blue is not #1, but it is in the top 5 and rightfully so. They have Ornette rockin the #1 spot. I’m not sure that The Shape of Jazz to Come is even my favorite Ornette record, much less my favorite jazz record, but it is a seminal recording, so I’m cool with it. There’s plenty of other stuff to argue about further down the list, but I’ll leave that alone and bask in the glow of Ornette getting props.

Dial “M” for Musicology: Thinking with the ear

I just recently started reading this blog, and I can’t remember how I got turned on to it, but I really like today’s post. There’s a fairly long quote below. Click the link to read the whole thing.

Dial “M” for Musicology: Thinking with the ear:

“Last time I wrote about performance as a series of deliberative acts vs. performance in a ‘flow state’ and thought about what understanding of self and volition these two states entail. It got me thinking about an old friend — let’s call him Chuck — who was a music undergrad at the same time as me and with whom I played a little chamber music. This guy was one of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life, a sponge for languages, ideas, literatures, whole fields of endeavor. His intellectual restlessness manifested itself in his approach to music; he was a seriously deliberative musician. When we played together, he would plan out everything that would happen in every phrase, every little pause and inflection worked out along the axis of a carefully-prepared analysis. And I, being at that time convinced that such an analytical orientation was indispensable for proper interpretation, went right along. I enjoyed the crossword-puzzle aspect of our rehearsals, the satisfying feeling of figuring out and verbalizing what he and I were to do at any given moment of the piece. But Chuck’s playing never lost a certain stiffness, a certain lack of organic cohesion—everything he played sounded as if it were made out of Tinkertoys. And it never really grew past a certain point, as Chuck admitted himself, which is why he ended up doing something else with his life (and meeting with a great deal of success). 

I’d go so far as to say that those musicians like Chuck, musicians who think of performance as a highly deliberative act, are at a disadvantage.”

Beginning of Jazz Fest and other craziness

We are into the second weekend of Jazz Fest, and I still haven’t written anything about the first. Here’s the quick and dirty recap.

Last Thursday night, George Porter Jr and the Runnin’ Pardners kicked things off at Southport Hall. We don’t get to play together too often, but every time we do, it is a real treat. That night was extra special for some reason. Everyone was playing great, and we all had lots of fun. I’ve been playing with that band for 6 years or so now, and still at least once per gig George and Russell do something that is so bad that I have to put my horn down and laugh (or scream or something). It is nights like that, that remind me how lucky I am to do what I do.

Saturday was a totally new experience for me. I volunteered at one of the Jazz Fest beer tents (well they sell soft drinks too, but mostly beer). The Band Booster Club for my step son’s high school band works at this drink tent to raise money for the band. That’s a side of Jazz Fest that I hadn’t imagined, and it was fun. When you are at the Fairgrounds, be nice to those folks, they work hard. While hauling the 40 lb bags of ice was fun, the highlight of my beer tent time was working the station near the Fais Do Do Stage during the Del McCrory Band set. Those guys were SLAMMIN’.

Tuesday night, my quartet played at the Open Ears, and we had a great time. My old buddy Charlie Wooton was there and played a bit. He and I, and the Italian drummer Marcello Bennetti played a nice trio. Of course Ray, Dave, and Tommy sounded fabulous as always on the quartet stuff. There should be audio evidence on the Open Ears site…eventually.

Today, I was at the Fairgrounds, playing the Economy Hall tent with Ronnie Kole. I have to give some props to the sound crew in that tent. The stage sound was excellent, and people told me the front of house sounded good too. That’s not always a given at Jazz Fest, so thanks guys.

I caught a little bit of Kidd Jordan and Clyde Kerr with the Louis Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp Alumni Band. Kidd and Clyde have taught at that camp for years. It would have been cooler if Kidd would have had his own band. I understand that they want to show Kidd enough respect to have him play, and they aren’t brave enough to give him a whole set, but he is so much better in the right setting. He never plays halfway, so to stick him with a group that only halfway goes where he is going is lame. His set 2 years ago with Clyde, Alvin Fielder, William Parker, and Joel Futterman was great. I wish they’d program that again.

After our set, I caught a bit of the George Wein Newport All Stars. Besides Wein on piano, it was Randy Brecker, Anat Cohen, Howard Alden, Esperanza Spaulding, and Jimmy Cobb. They did mostly tunes that were not quite as old 40 years ago at the first jazz fest in New Orleans. I’d never heard Esperanza Spaulding on anything other than her record. She sounded good. Her bass playing was right there, and she sang “Prelude to a Kiss” with an anything but straight delivery. I had heard a lot about Anat Cohen, and heard a few recordings, but today was the first time I heard her live as well. I enjoyed what she played. Despite the safe repertoire, she didn’t stay in the safe spots.