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Yea,in the book "3Shades of Blue" They were all piling on Evans in the 70s.
Originally Posted by Christian Miller
The author, James Kaplan is very good at finding quotes from Miles about how he felt about musicians' careers after he left his band. Miles said that Bill Evans never sounded as good after he left his band and went out on his own, than when he was in the Sextet. "It's a strange thing about a lot of white players-not all-just most- that after they make it in a Black group they always play with all white guys no matter how good the Black guys treated them ," Davis said. "Bill did that, and I'm not saying he could have had any Black guys better than Scott and Paul. I'm just telling what I've always seen happen over and over again."
This would have been news to Jack DeJohnette, who played with Evans from 1968 to 69.... Kaplan goes on to quote Ethan Iverson, "I think Bill could have done something different-- he could have had more Black musicians in his trio. He could have reached out, after being anointed by Miles Davis, and tried a bit more than he did."
Then in 1965, John S. Wilson lashes into Evans in DB, calling his music little more than superior background music. Readers reacted with a flurry of letters, both pro and con Evans.
Later on Jon Baptiste defends Evans , saying that his use of overdubbing on "Conversations with Myself" was more innovative than anything Trane or Miles did, and compares it with what is going on in hip-hop, currently.
But the pressure by critics and certain players kept piling on, and Richie Beirach asked him why he didn't pursue fourth voicings like McCoy did, since Evans had invented it in the chords to So What? Evans replied that "it wasn't lyrical enough".
Of course Evans got his fourth voicings from Scriabin, and Glenn Gould used to call Evans, "The Scriabin of Jazz".
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05-23-2024 03:37 PM
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Yeah I feel that professing a love for Bill is about the most basic thing you can do haha. Say anyone else - Ahmad Jamal, Bud of course. Even Errol or Oscar lol.
Evan’s music is beautiful of course. It was also massively influential on legions of … ivory ticklers.
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I had my biggest awakening that 12-Tone wasn't for me when I listened to every 12-tone piece of music I could find. After listening to everyone I could, I found that I loved the fast movement of Wallingford Riegger's "Sextet For Piano and Winds" Originally Posted by sgcim
Riegger was along with Gunther Schuller, the leading exponent of Schoenberg in the US.
Then I read the liner notes to the album, and Riegger states that he abandoned the 12-tone technique for the fast movement, finding a Modal approach much more conducive to the ideas he wanted to explore in that movement.
That clinched it for me, because I deplored the rest of the piece.
Later, I was further vindicated when they had us study Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano, where he finally tried out the serial technique.
To me, it sounded like a comedy record, satirizing the use of Stravinskian ideas in the 12-tone idiom.
The idiot Music History teacher further compounded the surrealistic experience by saying to the class. "Do you see how Stravinsky's style is still recognizable, even when he used the 12-tone technique?"
I wanted to blurt out, "Yeah, if you like Bugs Bunny cartoons!", but I just wanted to pass the class without any hassles.
Yet further vindication came when I found Gunther Schuller's 1962 Essay to a graduating class of composition students, where he exclaimed to the students," We have to do something! Serial music is emptying out the concert halls! Revolutionary concepts in music have taken 20, maybe even 30 years to catch up with the public's taste, But it's been almost 50 years since the adoption of Schoenberg's Twelve Tone system, and things are getting worse, not better!'"
I rest my case.
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I really don't know what the term "free jazz" means - other than music that has no fixed harmonic structure but that's not saying much. The term had meaning when applied to Ornette or Cecil Taylor but I think it's obsolete now.
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Wonderful music. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
The film didn't appeal at the time due to the gore (however presented). I wonder if the musicians had to watch it. Occupational hazard, perhaps.
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My take on AG stuff is simple: Do I like it or not? Am I happy to sit through it with enjoyment or not? Does it tickle my fancy or not? Frankly, if it doesn't then to blazes with it.
As Miss Jean Brodie said, 'For those who like that sort of thing, that's the sort of thing they like'.
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I've always liked some AG, but structure ended up being the most essential approach to music for me. I usually listen to structured music but always enjoy a change of pace of some good AG. I don't care for dumbassery type AG tho lol. I like Mark's music and guitar vegas's music here on the forum. My favorite jazz musician is Monk and my favorite rock act is Nirvana. Both traditional with some AG element.
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To be more honest, the truth is I like making funny noises occasionally, I've done lots of it. But I wouldn't necessarily be happy sitting watching someone else making funny noises, if you see what I mean. Nor would I expect others to be glued to my weird stuff at all.
But I use that stuff to break the usual patterns of functional harmony before going back to it. What I've never understood is how the 'free' players can do their discordant style all the time. I don't see what they get out of it.
Personally, after a while, my brain craves something orderly, sensible, logical, even sweet. I couldn't live with clashing, conflicting sounds all the time, I don't think it's quite human.
I don't know, maybe Derek Baily went home, put on some Beethoven, breathed a sigh of relief, and smiled the evening away happily
Last edited by ragman1; 05-24-2024 at 11:44 PM.
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I want to post this interview with Joshua Rifkin . It’s rather long but very interesting, and Rifkin seems to have been one of those guys who is interested in and at least dabbled in seemingly everything. (The interview is much wider ranging than the title suggests.) Originally Posted by sgcim
Anyway one amusing corner of music history, is when he talks about the heavy serialists - of which Rifkin was one - hearing the Beatles for the first time and having a huge crisis in confidence and basically saying ‘what the hell are we doing?’ with many quitting composing altogether (and others I suspect doubling down as a sort of Adornite railing against the Culture industry, hanging on in academia.)
It seems to me that the only people today who are really genuinely interested in serial music are jazz musicians. I like a lot of what might be termed pre-serial expressionism and post-serialism (such as later Boulez). Webern was as good as it got for the twelve tone era, i like that he didn’t overstay his welcome.
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Yea... it's still going on. It's just difficult this century. Generally more with younger musicians... or when $ isn't a problem.
I played a coffeeish house in SF last night where music gets let loose LOL.
Generally you need chops or at least some rhythmic skill for developing the Form etc..
Personally still love it... up to the point where it becomes noise. Yea... I know....
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What's all this about cereal? I thought we were talking about vanilla still? Or was that a different thread?
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Nice.
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Sorry, my fault, now it's Public. Try again!
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Glad you liked it. The girl did just the right thing :-)
That was Brighton on the south coast. Great town.
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In their alone time...
What do they create out of "thin air"..
structured harmony be dammed..non-melodic melodies..chord forms that hurt and maim gentle voice leading
Bill Evens was not playing for anyone..but for Kind of Blue
Frank Zappa played a bicycle..
Jimi Hendrix Played a Kazoo
we can call it the science of sound at some point..organize it and call it music..of some kind
is playing Strangers in the Night over Wild Thing avant guard..? Blue Moon over Sunshine of Your Love--or is it just love..or confusion..
relax and float downstream...
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Same Originally Posted by ragman1
To be more honest, the truth is I like making funny noises occasionally, I've done lots of it. But I wouldn't necessarily be happy sitting watching someone else making funny noises, if you see what I mean. Nor would I expect others to be glued to my weird stuff at all.
But I use that stuff to break the usual patterns of functional harmony before going back to it. What I've never understood is how the 'free' players can do their discordant style all the time. I don't see what they get out of it.
Personally, after a while, my brain craves something orderly, sensible, logical, even sweet. I couldn't live with clashing, conflicting sounds all the time, I don't think it's quite human.
I don't know, maybe David Baily went home, put on some Beethoven, breathed a sigh of relief, and smiled the evening away happily
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Interesting interview, but I wish they had spent more time on his work for Judy Collins. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
It's funny that both he and Gunther Schuller found their way out of the 12-Tone Death Cult (as I call it)by becoming involved in Joplin's ragtime music. Even the composition teacher I had who preferred Schoenberg over Webern, had a great Ragtime group with a well-known classical clarinet player.The other teacher I had, who preferred Webern over Schoenberg, would get into brutal arguments with him if he left the door open when he was practicing a Joplin piece, by slamming the door to his office and yelling out "Keep the door closed if you're going to play that garbage!!!"
The Webern guy was one of Nadia Boulanger's favorite students, and hated any non-classical music. He even started booing and cursing a performance of the Schoenbergian guy's symphony at the school.
He got his comeuppance when his daughter wrote a best-selling book about how he would sexually abuse her when she was a little girl.
Another 12-tone fanatic, George Rochberg, abandoned the Cult when his young son tragically died. He tried to write a piece for him using the 12-tone system, but found it was literally incapable of being expressive! He went back to tonal music with a vengeance.
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Liking Schoenbergs serial music? I didn’t think that was allowed? Originally Posted by sgcim
(I heard Boulez conduct Schoenberg’s piano concerto once. I guess he mellowed.)
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In the early 70's we billed ourselves as 'Live Jazz Excorcism'. One of the highlights of my career was having my amp unplugged by someone who couldn't stand what I was doing.
All the talk about Web & Sho reminds me how I used to try to jam along with them when I was a teen. I bought a record or two. I guess I was working on my ears and broadening my vocabulary?
Paid off 20 years later when I worked with a modern composer. He was abstract expressionist or something. We performed a score he wrote for an Off-Broadway thing at American Place Theatre. That was another big highlight. We got paid for 2 weeks of full time rehearsal and had a total blast working together on the music. Fully scored BTW.
Shout out to my dear old friends Christopher Thall and John Jowett. Jowett was in NY for Julliard. Me and him are Canadian. Chris's mom was too but he was born on Long Isl. One of the other guys asked what's up with all this canuck stuff. I told him it was a plot to infiltrate American culture and replace it with Canadian culture. I called us the Royal Canadians.
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David Bailey is a photographer. Derek Bailey did not enjoy music that was composed with no space for improvisation. I doubt he would have any time for the serial music that somehow has crept into this discussion. However, as his book and television series reveal, he was interested in all kinds of improvisation. Originally Posted by ragman1
To be more honest, the truth is I like making funny noises occasionally, I've done lots of it. But I wouldn't necessarily be happy sitting watching someone else making funny noises, if you see what I mean. Nor would I expect others to be glued to my weird stuff at all.
But I use that stuff to break the usual patterns of functional harmony before going back to it. What I've never understood is how the 'free' players can do their discordant style all the time. I don't see what they get out of it.
Personally, after a while, my brain craves something orderly, sensible, logical, even sweet. I couldn't live with clashing, conflicting sounds all the time, I don't think it's quite human.
I don't know, maybe David Baily went home, put on some Beethoven, breathed a sigh of relief, and smiled the evening away happily
But that would be of no interest to you. You do not understand his music, so you accuse him of insincerity. You lack the imagination to appreciate how musicians could make music you cannot understand, so you malign their motives. You play what you call 'funny noises' as some kind of light relief from your ordered life. You admit you do not understand those of us who improvise freely, but that does not stop you dismissing such music. You assume free music is all discordant, which is far from the truth. Perhaps if you listened, you would learn; perhaps not.
Someone on Reddit's r/jazzguitar was asking why jazz guitarists are so conservative, compared with the players of other instruments. I don't know the answer, but it seems the mouldy old figs always succeed in excluding anyone who does not play the standards, in the approved manner.
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On the contrary, I know quite a lot about Derek Bailey, just got the name wrong (now corrected). He used to play straight jazz as a club, studio and dance hall musician, you know, for at least 15 years and was regarded as a good player. That was before he got fed up with it and took up the experimental stuff. Originally Posted by Litterick
I didn't accuse him of insincerity. In fact, I didn't accuse him of anything.You do not understand his music, so you accuse him of insincerity.
What is there to understand?You lack the imagination to appreciate how musicians could make music you cannot understand
I never mentioned motives.so you malign their motives.
I didn't say that. I said I didn't know what they got out of playing that kind of music all the time. It wouldn't satisfy me, personally.You admit you do not understand those of us who improvise freely
I haven't dismissed it at all. I not only do it myself sometimes but I'm posting about it.does not stop you dismissing such music.
I didn't say that either. But certainly most of it is discordant otherwise it wouldn't be called 'free' music.You assume free music is all discordant, which is far from the truth.
Obviously I've listened otherwise I couldn't talk about it.Perhaps if you listened, you would learn; perhaps not.
I've rarely seen so many inaccuracies and misquotes in one post! Are you feeling all right?
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Never seen it! Originally Posted by Peter C
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Derek Baileys sound world was influenced by Messiaen and Webern, according to him.
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Originally Posted by ragman1
You wrote, "I don't know, maybe David Baily went home, put on some Beethoven, breathed a sigh of relief, and smiled the evening away happily." I take that to mean you think he was insincere. And there is not reason free music must be discordant.
I cannot be bothered responding to the rest of your comments. It would only provoke another condescending response. Consider the matter closed.
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Very well, but not till I've answered the two points you made. First, the line about Derek Bailey was light-hearted. It was a joke. I was trying to make a humorous contrast. Like saying after Sir Adrian Boult finished conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra he went home, grabbed a beer from the fridge, put on his favorite Black Sabbath record and danced naked round the living room for a bit of light relief. Do you see? Just a bit of fun. Originally Posted by Litterick
I know not all free jazz is atonal. I like Pharoah Saunders a lot, for example.
Anyway, here is one of my experimental masterpieces. It is definitely not discordant. You'll like it.
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