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

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Julian Vein" <julianvein at blueyonder.co.uk>
> Cary Ginell wrote:
> The problem I have with the so-called "free jazz" is that it doesn't
> have the element common to other forms of jazz: a groove. If a Cecil
> Taylor fan can find a groove in his music, more power to him, but I've
> sampled quite a bit of it and just do
>  n't care for it. Maybe I'm not "deep." Maybe I can't see the poetry in
> Coltrane's late-career squawks. But that's fine. I won't deny them their
> place in jazz. But I will deny them a place on my shelves. Even so, I
> won't condemn an entire period without cause. That's why I love Eric
> Dolphy and the work he did on Coltrane's "Africa Brass" sessions on
> Impulse. There is some of it that is accessible to someone like me. So I
> keep listening.
> =============
> I'm not sure what you mean by "groove", but Taylor's music is not random
> as it may appear to some. Compare his solo on "E.B." (Candid) with a
> solo he plays with Ayler on the Revenant box set. They're virtually
> identical--when I heard the latter I was able to whistle along with it!
>
> I only got to hear "Africa Brass" properly in recent years, and found it
> was a disappointment, in that there is no "punch line" to the
> performance, it just drifts on and on. Regarding his Impulse! quartet
> recordings, I was playing these recently and thought to myself, "this is
> pop music!" They came in the aftermath of his Atlantic "My Favorite
> Things". Something akin to Jonah Jones's "Muted Jazz". And McCoy Tyner's
> piano playing is always a pain in the butt.
>
> I have most of Coltrane's work, but don't necessarily like it all--much
> of it was purchased because it was cheap. Pruning time will come 
> eventually.
>
The problem is that we have NO way of knowing. in avant garde "free form"
"jazz," whether the players are actually trying to communicate (musically) a
message, or whether they are simply making "random noise" with their
instruments...since both would sound much the same! As well, traditional
forms of jazz had a certain degree of "fun" built into them (as well as
a degree of musical familiarity)...the listener could dance to the music.

One of the best extant "New Orleans Revival" jazz bands has played
Saturday afternoons at Grossman's Tavernette in Toronto for going on
forty years; their music often inspires very young children to try and
"dance along!" I can't imagine this occuring with post-modern "jazz"...?!

Steven C. Barr