On Fri, 23 Aug 2002 16:19:24 -0700 skip Heller wrote:
You seem to imply that he could have spent his energy in a more creative way... He is dead, right? What do we know? If he had moved to Hollywood to write soundtracks, I might have agreed with you. I miss what he could have done if he had not died so young, not what he might have done during his life, for what he did is almost untouchable (IMNSHO).
About all we know of art -- past trivial and speculative theororizing -- is what we like. As for whether he would have done a different kind of great work had he come to Hollywood to write music in the service of film, I have no idea. If you see film music as a dead end and are using it to insult me,
I did not intend at all to insult you (I did not know you were writing music for films)! My reference to Hollywood was just the usual cliche of the artist having to compromise to make a living (like Faulkner and his salt mines). Anyway, I did not create the cliche that working for Hollywood is like selling your soul to the devil :-). And yes, there is a lot of film music that I like (although I could survive without Zorn's ones).
it's not gonna work, because the best of film music is as amazing as the best of any other genre. If Trane had moved to Hollywood and aspired to be the next John Williams, obviously it would be a cop-out. But if he had come here and was writing on the level of a Jerry Goldsmith or a Kenyon Hopkins, it would have been a whole other kind of greatness.
As to any musician's output being "untouchable", it gets real touchable the minute he offers it for sale and someone gets to decide whether he/she got the desired value for the $. I think it's ridiculous that Coltrane is sacred & untouchable but Prince isn't.
But Coltrane died young and at its peak in creativity (or close since for many that peak was in 1964). Coltrane is not a holly cow, but he is the closest I can imagine of one (and for good reasons). Patrice. PS: Skip, you almost seem in sync with Stanley Crouch :-) (read the last issue of DOWN BEAT).