[78-L] fwd: Marsalis makes the world safe for pure jazz^

Tue Dec 22 16:13:50 PST 2009

S*it Carey, not sure whom you're addressing; I didn't make slams of earlier styles, I like stuff from the 1890s forward. 

Pops. Duke, Jelly Roll, Hawkins, Lucky Thompson, Bird, Dexter, Cootie, Mingus, Milton Brown (esp. Bob Dunn), hundreds and hundreds more. However, 'repertory' music (that is 'recreative' music ) is to me generally kind of dull (like much of Marsalis' work), as often, I've already heard it before, even when the 'record' is new. 

As a musician myself, I understand completely why Trane, Jackie McLean, Ornette, Miles in the 70s and others didn't want to be 'repeater pencils' as Prez put it, playing the 'same ole, same ole' for their entire careers.

I like the Miles/Trane band from the '50s, I like the Quartet and the Quintet (and would love to hear the band w/ Wes Montgomery), I also like Ascension and Coltrane Live in Japan & so forth, and it matters not to me one way or the other whether you do or not - no worry, I'm not taking it personally, as I've been getting abuse for liking Trane for 40 plus years, ever since my high school buddies claimed he was 'masturbating' the sax. 

It has always kind of bugged me why people feel obligated to trash it just because they don't happen to like it. I look at the mid-60s exploration of sax styles as very much related to 'freedom' music, and the civil rights movement, just as Big Jay McNeely, Illinois Jacquet, Willis Jackson and others of that vein from the 78 era were. 

Got lots of Ornette records, can't think of one where he 'honks' (and honking is ok with me). Saw Primetime (OC) in 1983; the folks I talked to who didn't like it said 2 things: there was too much going on for them to follow and it was too much like dance music. I thought it was wonderfully elaborate to listen to and also made me want to dance, just as I would at a Sun Ra show. 

I'm quite capable of liking 'old school' and still being open to new ideas and concepts. Have seen a Don Byas quote a number of times where Byas says (in a positive manner) that Albert Ayler played the sax the way he, Byas, had wanted to when he was a 12 year old kid learning how to play, meaning that Albert was playing how he wantred to play, not how others thought he should play. When Roscoe Mitchell of the AACM first saw Ayler, in the late '50s, he said he didn't get it for years afterward. It is, after all about expressing the self, not being a jukebox for other folks. I'd much rather play something that I want to hear, than some junk that I have not the slightest interest in hearing myself. 

peace

Gene

--- On Tue, 12/22/09, Cary Ginell <soundthink at live.com> wrote:

From: Cary Ginell <soundthink at live.com>
Subject: Re: [78-L] fwd: Marsalis makes the world safe for pure jazz
To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
Date: Tuesday, December 22, 2009, 6:25 PM

I agree with Biel. The cognoscenti tell you that Coltrane's later period was the supreme climax of his creativity. Pigeon pellets! For me, it was his pre-Giant Steps era, when he played funky blues-influenced soul jazz with Miles and the Prestige crowd. These are jazz snobs - the ones that tell you to listen to honkers like Ornette Coleman, Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, and their ilk. You don't HAVE to like it. It's the far left-wing of jazz, but we don't have to cotton to it and we don't undermine our own credibility by admitting not to like it. The same, in reverse, goes for Dixieland, the conservative right wing of jazz, which is viewed by the pseudo-intellects as gutter jazz. The definition of jazz is that there is no definitions anymore. Jazz forms mutate as wildly as each year's flu bug - and as infectiously. Like whatever you want, but don't foist your taste on others. That's something, however, that "Professor" Marsalis is too egotistical to admit.
 HIS taste IS jazz. Self-serving twit.

Cary Ginell

> From: mbiel at mbiel.com
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:16:27 -0700
> Subject: Re: [78-L] fwd: Marsalis makes the world safe for pure jazz
> 
> From: Taylor Bowie <bowiebks at isomedia.com>
> >>> I don't want anybody proclaiming themselves to be the
> >>> guardian of the definition of jazz...that includes me,
> >>>  you,  and Mr. Marsalis.   Taylor
> 
> From: eugene hayhoe <jazzme48912 at yahoo.com>
> >> Amen.
> 
> I also agree, so I will amend my earlier remarks.  It is jazz, however
> it is sh*tty jazz.
> 
> > What's the link?  Julian Vein
> 
> Why?  What crimes against humanity do you wish to confess to under the
> torture of this dreck?  Anyway, try:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofDWbrPfKGA  
> and there will be links to other parts of this "concert" and enough
> other stuff to fully equip your own Gitmo.  I note that this concert
> took place in Florida.  Instead of hanging chad, they should have hung
> Larry.
> 
> >> I'm betting you don't like Albert Ayler or
> >> late period Coltrane either then Mike?
> 
> BINGO!!  I've discussed this before, I have the master tape of one of
> Coltrane's last concerts, at Temple University a month or so before he
> died.  He played non-stop for over an hour and there were dozens of
> musicians who wandered on and off the stage during the concert -- we
> have no idea who.  The engineer back in the radio studio forgot to start
> the tape until a couple of minutes after he started playing, partially
> because the planned lead-in introductions didn't happen because Coltrane
> just wandered on stage behind the MC and started playing before a word
> was spoken!  So the beginning -- where he actually played the melody --
> is lost.  I do know that the Coltrane estate is supposed to have a copy
> of the tape because I made a copy for his manager a few weeks after
> Coltrane's death.  It was part of the deal to allow the live broadcast. 
> Everytime I heard about a new posthumous Coltrane release I expected
> this concert to come out, but it hasn't.  I also loaned the tape to
> someone about 30 years ago who cut it in half to fit on 7-inch reels and
> creased up that portion all to hell because the jerk had never learned
> how to thread a tape reel properly without creasing the tape.  About 5
> years ago when this subject came up on the list I pulled out the tape,
> spliced the middle, tried to flatten it, and wound it properly back onto
> a 10-1/2 inch reel to let the creases flatten and the tape relax back
> into its proper size.  I still haven't gotten around to transferring it
> off.  I'm not sure I can sit thru it again. 
> 
> I don't think I've heard Albert Ayler.  I'm assuming that I shouldn't.
> 
> Mike (ah, listen to that pure 1000 Hz tone) Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  
> 
> 
> Michael Biel wrote:
> > I was prepared to be very upset about this, because Marsalis is one of
> > the world's greatest doofuses, but you know something, that Spanish fan,
> > Rafael Gisbert, was right. This isn't jazz. In fact, it isn't music.
> > It is sh*t. It is uninspired random noodling that a group of 11-year
> > olds would be embarrassed to play after three months of music lessons.
> > Check this crap out on YouTube. I've had this bilge on for fifteen
> > minutes and I am ready to admit that I was the mastermind of 9/11,
> > I stole the Arbeit Macht Frei sign, I kidnapped Patti Hurst, I was
> > the grassy knoll shooter, and I leaked the hydrogen bomb plans to
> > Stalin. It has that effect on you.
> 
> I am going to listen to a test-tones record to try to cleanse my ears.
> > Mike Biel mbiel at mbiel.com
> =============
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David Lennick" <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
> 
> Jazz Promo Services wrote:
> > http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/dec/21/wynton-marsalis-jazz-purist-fan
> >
> > Wynton Marsalis seeks purist fan . . .
> > The legendary jazz musician wants to give a present to the jazz buff in
> > Spain who complained to the police that the music at a gig wasn't 'jazz'
> > – and has asked the Guardian to find him. Problem is, we can't . . .
> >
> >
> > Related Story
> >
> > Found: the jazz purist sought by Wynton Marsalis
> > Jazz websites rattle with fierce debate after Wynton Marsalis offers
> > present to fan who complained at Larry Ochs gig
> >
> > http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/blog/2009/dec/21/jazz-purist-found-wynton-marsalis
> >
> >
> > Jazz legend Wynton Marsalis has come under criticism for supporting
> > Gisbert's complaint. Photograph: PR
> >
> > Well, that didn't take long. If the Guardian's crowd sourcers can spend
> > hours trawling through _Tony Blair's complex accounts_ for the reward of
> > a Steve Bell cartoon, then the offer of a deluge of Wynton Marsalis
> > recordings mentioned in _Shortcuts this morning_ was bound to have an
> > instant impact.
> >
> > The jazz legend wanted to send a large part of his 70-plus catalogue
> > of recordings to the anonymous Spaniard who_ called police to a jazz
> > festival because the music being played was not, he insisted, jazz.
> > Marsalis just needed to find him. Now Rafael Gisbert, a jazz purist from
> > the Madrid dormitory town of Alcorcon, has stepped forward.
> >
> > Credit goes to our friends at El País newspaper, who shared this
> > morning's story with us. "All I wanted was my money back," Gisbert tells
> > me. "I'm honoured that a great jazzman supports me."
> >
> > Marsalis's people are today being a little coy. "Wynton never planned on
> > it going public," says Jono Gasparro, the star's assistant, who asked
> > the Guardian to help track Gisbert down. "All I know is that he wanted
> > to send him some music."
> >
> > Perhaps the coyness is because jazz websites are rattling with fierce
> > debate over the time-worn question of "what is jazz". Marsalis has
> > offended a few people, not least the musicians in the Larry Ochs Sax and
> > Drum Core who were playing when Gisbert called the cops.
> >
> > Scott Amendola, one of Ochs's drummers, accuses Marsalis of seeking
> > cheap publicity. He suggests we write something about all those who
> > disagree with the Marsalis view of jazz and about how the trumpeter
> > hurts "thousands of other 'jazz' musicians in the world".
> >
> > Marsalis has Gisbert's phone number and email address. It's his move.
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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