jazzery reruns

[calimac]

I was hardly surprised that the jazz/classical fusion concert I attended last weekend got good reviews from both the local daily (reg required) and weekly papers. Indeed, I expected that everyone would like it except me. My experience is that the majority of symphony-goers, especially elderly ones, actually prefer jazz, MOR, and Boston Popsery to the masterpieces of the symphonic repertoire - that's what they listen to on the stereo at home - and get enthusiastic about any opportunity to hear it in the concert hall. And I have no objection to this, except insofar as I am no less selfish than they, and would prefer to hear the music that I like. An orchestra that leans very far in the jazz/pops direction will simply no longer receive my custom. The box office might sell more tickets that way, but that's no excuse because it would sell yet more tickets if it abandoned classical music altogether and booked the Rolling Stones into the Oakland Coliseum. If you're going for a niche audience, you have to decide which niche.

(My own ideal program? Well, MTT once played a Beethoven and a Shostakovich symphony in the same concert. They didn't mix very well, as the composers' forms of discourse are so different, but both individual works were my kind of music.)

Time to respond to some of the comments I received on my previous jazzery entry:

sartorias grew up with jazz, so lack of familiarity is not what causes her to perceive that most of it lacks both melody and structure. These are elements I too like in music - melody takes precedence for me in folk and pop, structure in classical - and I too am most drawn to that jazz which I perceive as having it. (Jazz vocals? No, they seem to me to have a quality I can only describe as anti-melodic. I can't abide Billie Holiday, or anyone like that, at any price.)

baldanders names Ellington, Mingus, and Threadgill as "the most composition-leaning" of major jazz composers. I don't object to any of those guys as musical wallpaper in a used book store, where I've heard them all, but I have no emotional, or even intellectual, response to their music whatever. I've trained myself to like some classical music that did not initially appeal, but I always started with some kind of response.

An anonymous poster (but I think I know who) asks, "I wonder if anyone who goes in to a concert expecting not to like it can come out changed?" If one's expectation is based on ignorance, or on not expecting the performers to be capable of the achievement they can produce, absolutely. It's happened to me. If, however, the expectation is based on a thorough understanding of one's own tastes and preferences in repertoire, then no, I am unlikely to change my opinion. Why should I?

kip_w asks me not to go listen to his favorite, Art Tatum. OK, I won't.

He also says he can find some good in almost any genre. I agree. I've found a few jazz pieces I like. I once heard a country album I rather liked. (It was by Dolly Parton; it was also by Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, which probably helped.) I once even found a rap song that I liked, though it wasn't a genre rap song. (It was "One Night in Bangkok." It's mostly rhythmic speaking to a beat track - it's a rap song.)

voidampersand says that to learn to love jazz one should learn to dig the blues. Yes, but what's going to teach me to dig the blues? Immersing myself in these musics for decades in used book stores hasn't helped.

I haven't heard the Gubaidulina Offertorium that he describes, but while Gubaidulinia is a very difficult composer, the kind of musical metamorphosis he describes makes sense to me both intellectually and emotionally, whereas I do not follow what jazz musicians do to a popular tune.

alanro, taking off on another point, shares my aversion to Richard Strauss. But one Jennifer, replying to him, suggests his Piano Quartet as nice and Brahmsian. I don't know that particular work, but I expect I would agree. It dates from 1885, and very early (pre late 1880s) Strauss is an entirely different composer whom I rather like. His Suite for Winds, Op. 4, is a real charmer.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

So with you on blues, and on jazz vocals.

[alanro.livejournal.com]

I am also unfamiliar with Strauss' early (pre-1888) work in general (and his Piano Quartet in particular), and would be willing to listen to it given the description above. A quick online search reveals that Strauss' early work is not often recorded, however.

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

I don't know if one can learn to like the blues. Come to love them, yes. My sister would be a good one to ask. She studied classical cello, piano and voice, and got deeply into music theory in her studies. (Much as I love music, she is the one who got all the talent.) Then she had a boyfriend for a while who was a blues guitarist, a really good one. I had a several chances to see him play, and a couple of them rate among my very best musical experiences ever. Anyway, my sister told me once that it took her a while to appreciate what the boyfriend and his friends were doing. Then she had an aha moment where she realized the jazzy stuff they were playing was very interesting in the time dimension, that they were doing with rhythmic patterns something similar to what classical music does with melodic patterns. On the other hand, when they would relax by playing reggae music, she could appreciate at most one song and then she was off to do something more interesting such as knitting.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Steve Reich is a classical composer who plays with rhythm patterns, and I have no trouble grokking him. It must be very different from whatever blues performers do with rhythm patterns.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Sounds odd when you put it that way.

I got a response to an old comment I wrote back in Virginia from somebody who's affiliated with an orchestra whose maestro is contemplating programming Sheherajazz in the future. I hope it happens. It's not often you hear a real travesty, but this is one in spades, and it's just too much fun to listen to. You hear Sheherazade going along for a bit, and then all of a sudden -- SHAZAM! -- Skip Martin's Video All-Stars take it away! It's very brassy 1960-vintage commercial jazz! Then -- shazam -- back to the real thing, and so on, back and forth it goes, like the two combos are playing in different studios, and at the switch that decides which one gets recorded, there's a crazy monkey!

I listened to more Art Tatum today. He's the one they meant when they said "God is in the house." All the technique in the world. The specific album is a set of tapes recorded in Ray Heindorf's basement (Warner Brothers' musical director for years -- his recording of An American In Paris was the first one I really liked). Tatum's rings click on the keys, and after each performance there's a tiny scattering of applause from the lucky, lucky guys listening to him play. My office partner used to laugh at that -- this awesome performance, and then three guys clapping.

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

I was supposed to do Richard Strauss' "Four Last Songs" on my master's recital which never happened. My voice teacher adored Strauss. I preferred Schubert's and Brahms' art songs.

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

Oddly, I guess, I love jazz but have little patience for the blues. Jazz, like rock/pop, is such a broad church with so many styles, structures, voices, and moods that it's difficult for two people to even agree what it is. Blues seems to me to be built around a set of chord progressions and a set of moods, and both of those things limit it so much that except in small doses it bores me.

I'm not going to try to talk you into liking jazz, of course, but it's hard for me to imagine a more perfect wedding of structure and melody than Duke Ellington.

Sort of on a tangent, do you like Milhaud?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Milhaud is not on my list of favorite composers, no. (Checking my handy little database here, I find he is 94th in my list of composers by how much music of theirs I have.) But only a small part of Milhaud's work is really "jazzy": as with Copland, it was a period he went through. I like Copland much more, even his "jazzy" works. Also Bernstein. If there's a generalization applicable here, it's that I like American music more than French.

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

Copland has never really grabbed me; there are probably a dozen 20th c. Americans I like more, starting with Piston, Sessions, Harris, Carter, Coates.

And yeah, I like the French composers a lot, or at least Milhaud, Honegger, and Poulenc. Jazz was my entry point to Milhaud, but I like or love almost everything I've heard, and that's a lot. I have a very spotty jazz collection, but Milhaud's probably in the top five of stuff I have (my catolog is woefully out of date). The Six Little Symphonies is my favorite.

(I'm not sure, but I suspect the composers I have the most by would roughly be:

1. Martinu
2. Beethoven
3. Shostakovich
4. Milhaud
5. Robert Simpson
6. Villa-Lobos
7. Maxwell Davies
8. Vaughan Williams
9. Bax
10. Delius

And I go on binges. Hindemith is moving up the list. I would have more by Robert Simpson and Vagn Holmboe if I could find more.)

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

Er, I mean I have a very spotty classical collection.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I find lists interesting, and may post some of my own statistics some time. I like Piston and Harris, but for me Carter is another Richard Strauss (only if it's very very early work), and none are at the top of my American composer list, which starts with Cowell and Hovhaness.

My favorite French composer is Saint-Saens, so ...

Martinu! I enjoy his music, which I once called "crisp, crunchy" in a review, but I haven't been moved to enlarge my collection. LvB, DSCH, and RVW are all favorites. I'd listen to more Simpson if I weren't so busy admiring his books on two other favorite composers, Bruckner and Nielsen.