Skip nails it with this: ""Contemporanaiety" doesn't enter into the same realm as real live individual expression -- which probably does much to explain why certain people (Raymond Scott, Beefheart, Sun Ra) are perpetually being rediscovered." The notion that new generations ain't gonna get (insert critical touchstone here) is silly, a generational hubris. I'm 30, so I came to "Revolver" and "Pet Sounds" and "Ascension" and "Funhouse" long after they were recorded, and yeah, coming to "Ascension" as a fan of Naked City and Borbetomagus was less shattering than I'm sure it was for fans of "Giant Steps," or "A Love Supreme," but what makes great records GREAT is withstanding the test of time on both a large scale - seducing new generations of listeners - and a small one, rewarding years of repeated listening. It's important to remember, too, that most teenagers hearing "Revolver" for the first time are not the children of record collectors, so they're coming out of a very restricted commercial radio context & thus "Revolver" will still sound pretty alien. Chris Selvig
on 3/16/03 5:41 PM, Chris Selvig at selvig@earthlink.net wrote:
coming to "Ascension" as a fan of Naked City and Borbetomagus was less shattering than I'm sure it was for fans of "Giant Steps," or "A Love Supreme,"
true. the opposite side of the coin is that those post-quartet records were even more hotly debated than dave douglas seems to be of late. but they seem to have found their way into the lexicon in such a way that GIANT STEPS or even A LOVE SUPREME never could. the achievement is just too different. GIANT STEPS is an extreme technical watershed. ALS is more a conceptual watershed. ASCENSION is more like a willfull breakaway from the head-solos-head accomplishments Trane accomplished earlier in his career. I think the fact that it was Trane making the statement carried at least as much weight as the music, through sheer force of personality. -- skip h http://www.skipheller.com
Chris wrote to zorn: CS> It's important to remember, too, that most teenagers hearing CS> "Revolver" for the first time are not the children of record CS> collectors, so they're coming out of a very restricted commercial CS> radio context & thus "Revolver" will still sound pretty alien. Having come up in the early-mid 70s, I feel called to pose the following rhetorical question: Which do you (generally, not Chris specifically) suppose was more shocked, the person coming to _Anthem of the Sun_ after 5 months of hearing _The Grateful Dead_, or the one coming to _Anthem of the Sun_ after 5 years of hearing _American Beauty_? -- Jim Flannery newgrange@talmanassociates.com When you can't give anything, you can also receive nothing. Through giving, you also receive. You can never stop giving. When you have nothing more to give, you're dead. -- Mustafa Tettey Addy np: John Fahey, _Red Cross_ nr: Claude Debussy, _M. Croche the Dilettante Hater_
There's one thing that's kind of bothered me about this whole discussion, and it's really just a minor point, but have you guys considered the many people (both at the time of release, and now) who don't really care for albums such as 'Revolver', 'Kind Of Blue', 'Trout Mask Replica', 'The Shape Of Jazz To Come' or whatever, regardless of their timeless or touchstone quality? At the same time, there may be people who flip through their parents' record collections, finds some 70s record which has been deemed as crap by 'anyone who matters' and simply love it. That's really one of the great beauties of music, it can hit different people in such different ways. But screw this musician vs. non-musician thing (I am a musician, in case you're wondering) - a musician certainly may hear things that non-musicians don't, but similarly a non-musician may hear things that a musician doesn't. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm happy to have complex music like Stravinsky as background music, or listen closely to Weezer to analyse their melodic structures and chordal movements... Julian.
Skip nails it with this: ""Contemporanaiety" doesn't enter into the same realm as real live individual expression -- which probably does much to explain why certain people (Raymond Scott, Beefheart, Sun Ra) are perpetually being rediscovered." The notion that new generations ain't gonna get (insert critical touchstone here) is silly, a generational hubris.
on 3/16/03 7:59 PM, Julian at germ@iinet.net.au wrote:
There's one thing that's kind of bothered me about this whole discussion, and it's really just a minor point, but have you guys considered the many people (both at the time of release, and now) who don't really care for albums such as 'Revolver', 'Kind Of Blue', 'Trout Mask Replica', 'The Shape Of Jazz To Come' or whatever, regardless of their timeless or touchstone quality?
actually, I'm right there with you as to a lot of the stuff that's lasted through the ages (trout mask has never done it for me the way certain other beefheart has, and my feelings about ornette coleman are well-documented in these parts).
At the same time, there may be people who flip through their parents' record collections, finds some 70s record which has been deemed as crap by 'anyone who matters' and simply love it. That's really one of the great beauties of music, it can hit different people in such different ways.
well, that's the stuff that becomes timeless for you and forms some part of your tradition. i kind of doubt that KIND OF BLUE fits into Weezer's aesthetic tradition, and certainly this has done nothing to negatively impact Weezer's ability to speak in their musical language.
But screw this musician vs. non-musician thing (I am a musician, in case you're wondering) - a musician certainly may hear things that non-musicians don't, but similarly a non-musician may hear things that a musician doesn't. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm happy to have complex music like Stravinsky as background music, or listen closely to Weezer to analyse their melodic structures and chordal movements...
Musicians really have to struggle to maintain their innocence with regards to how other people make their music work (which may explain why, for me, the Ramones represent a certain mysterious perfection). as for complex music as backgound, why not? sometimes the more complex stuff fits the mood. -- skip h http://www.skipheller.com
actually, I'm right there with you as to a lot of the stuff that's lasted through the ages (trout mask has never done it for me the way certain other beefheart has, and my feelings about ornette coleman are well-documented in these parts).
Hmm yes, but you seem to be side-stepping the point slightly. I wasn't so much talking about those four albums in particular. You said something about 'Revolver', for example, having a certain 'fresh' quality which would or could still be perceived by a new listener today. I wouldn't disagree, but you seemed to be ignoring the large number of people who might not care for it, whether they heard it the day it came out, or today. I'm not saying that I'm necessarily one of those people.
as for complex music as backgound, why not? sometimes the more complex stuff fits the mood.
Well yeah, that was my point. Only your comment in another email implied that there were certain ways to listen to certain musics. I was just saying it didn't necessarily have to be the case... Julian.
on 3/16/03 8:47 PM, Julian at germ@iinet.net.au wrote:
Hmm yes, but you seem to be side-stepping the point slightly. I wasn't so much talking about those four albums in particular. You said something about 'Revolver', for example, having a certain 'fresh' quality which would or could still be perceived by a new listener today. I wouldn't disagree, but you seemed to be ignoring the large number of people who might not care for it, whether they heard it the day it came out, or today. I'm not saying that I'm necessarily one of those people.
I don't think I know anybody who really cares about music who doesn't have certain time-tested genre classics which they love, even if those genres are painful for this crowd to think of (big fans of Eagles/Jimmy Buffett type stuff). I guess my thinking is that different people have different tastes, but their basic need for music that represents something akin to heritage is something that runs through music consumers of every genre, whether it be be bop or hair metal. I hope this answers the question more fully. It's a great question that invites a lot of thought. As for "certain ways to listen to a given piece of work", I didn't mean that as "there is the one true way". But you do have to be open to whatever that piece of music may have in store, and you have to be in a mental place where you're receptive to whatever is designed into that music, or you'll just plain miss out on what it has to offer. That's the "how" aspect for me. I listen to a lot of really frenetic stuff as background music when I'm stressed, just so I feel like the atmosphere is right up in it with me, if you know what I'm saying. -- skip h http://www.skipheller.com
skip Heller wrote:
actually, I'm right there with you as to a lot of the stuff that's lasted through the ages (trout mask has never done it for me the way certain other beefheart has, and my feelings about ornette coleman are well-documented in these parts).
You're always well-documented in these parts, Skip. :-) I was thinking about Ornette Coleman today when you said this:
Before you dismiss anything made by an artist as thorough and scrupulous as Dave, you'd better listen a bunch more. I didn't hear as much in the music as I needed until about the fourth listen, and now I'm hearing all these wonderful surprises everytime I put it on. It's a pretty compelling record if you know how to listen to it.
I could (and basically did) say the same thing about Ornette. But it's all about the ears, isn't it? But then you wrote this:
Efren's dismissal of Dave's new work as "clumsy", "unnatural" "so worn" and words like "he does" and "this is" undercut any implication that he's speaking about his own personal taste, and instead is making a pronouncement as if to Dave's current abilities as an artist.
Efren said "I find". The rest you simply read into his comments. They were clearly personal and subjective--a bit of anguish about being let down. As for this:
On the other hand, if you know how to make a better record than FREAK IN, I'm dying to hear it.
I'm still waiting for you to do a better one than "Free Jazz", Skip. :-) And to make this a full day of disagreements, I'm going to beg to differ with you both on the impressionistic film critic Pauline Kael (there are a zillion better ones than her) and the NYRB, whose anti-intellectual neo-chutzpah has been well noted. (I do however agree with you as always about politics and that asshole who stole the White House. And to be frank, petty debates about music in the face of the human disaster that's going to take place in Iraq is obscene. If only the Iraqis had such luxury right about now).
I think you have the mistaken impression I'm a cheerleader for critically acclaimed records only, which is understandable based on my last post. I'm not - for one thing, I'm a big fan of the 45RPM single, not really the format for jazz at all & Important Rock Critics generally only bother with LPs, preferably double LPs. Beatles records aside, my parents' record collection was HORRID when I was a kid - Anne Murray, fer chrissakes - but I've certainly stumbled across great stuff at random thumbing through record store racks. On the other hand, if you're a serious listener, you should be familiar with the important recordings in the genres you love. Tough work with jazz, given that Ellington alone has around 200 records in print. A lot of people just don't care about "Revolver," or only like a song or two (isn't that the usual rationale for P2P users?). And someone with an informed distaste for a critically beloved record is fine - I'd guess any serious music fan hates a few of them, and thinks some other records are criminally underrated, if not ignored outright. Chris Selvig
on 3/16/03 9:13 PM, Chris Selvig at selvig@earthlink.net wrote:
I think you have the mistaken impression I'm a cheerleader for critically acclaimed records only, which is understandable based on my last post. I'm not - for one thing, I'm a big fan of the 45RPM single, not really the format for jazz at all & Important Rock Critics generally only bother with LPs, preferably double LPs. Beatles records aside, my parents' record collection was HORRID when I was a kid - Anne Murray, fer chrissakes - but I've certainly stumbled across great stuff at random thumbing through record store racks.
I feel your pain. My parents were all about Neil Diamond and John Denver. As for the 45, singles were a great format for jazz until people decided that anything that came in at less than seven minutes somehow lacked credibility. As a child of punk rock, import and indie singles often were my lifeblood, and I totally miss the mystery they had about them. I wish the single would come back.
On the other hand, if you're a serious listener, you should be familiar with the important recordings in the genres you love.
True, true.
Tough work with jazz, given that Ellington alone has around 200 records in print.
But you could really have a representative Ellington collection with about 20 of them in your racks.
A lot of people just don't care about "Revolver," or only like a song or two (isn't that the usual rationale for P2P users?).
To be truthful, the Beatles catalog is one of the few that people at large seem to be interested in all of.
And someone with an informed distaste for a critically beloved record is fine - I'd guess any serious music fan hates a few of them, and thinks some other records are criminally underrated, if not ignored outright.
That's a thread you probably DON'T want to suggest around here, unless you want Joseph Neff and I nominating the whole 79-82 Rough Trade catalog... -- skip h http://www.skipheller.com
participants (5)
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billashline＠netscape.net -
Chris Selvig -
Jim Flannery -
Julian -
skip Heller