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05-21-2024, 03:37 PM #1Enlightened Rogue Guest
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Last edited by Enlightened Rogue; 06-01-2024 at 01:12 PM.
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05-21-2024 03:37 PM
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I love a lot of it.
I find the best "out there" stuff is usually by folks with good technical skills who could be "in," if they wanted to...but they choose out.
Eric Dolphy is a prime example of this. And later period Trane, of course.
You always run the risk with music of taking something too far outside convention and it brings the "that isn't jazz" crowd out. There's the "that isn't Art" crowd too, but sometimes that's valid...when the art is all concept and no execution...it gets lame fast. I remember a guy in art school, he did a painting of a fetus. It was very weak, technically. And then at critique he sprayed cow's blood on it, there was some statement to it, I forget, because that shit is forgettable. The critique however, was memorable: "Who cares what the statement was, your painting wasn't any good."
Or maybe that's like the people out there who just want to make noise...that's fine too, but it's emperor's new clothes music, to me.
Painting I suppose can be a little different...the history is so long, compared to jazz. If you can come up with something really new, it can be exciting...Pollock...I really liked the abstract expressionists...and I love non-representational art. To me, that stuff looks like jazz sounds.
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Gotta have earplugs when viewing Kandinsky.
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I think it’s interesting and some of it is extremely moving (Matana Roberts). Other examples of it can be alienating. I used to appreciate it more but have felt burned out it due to a sense that people in this scene get away with faking it big time.
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
To me, I don't really pay attention to things being in or out, just if it moves me. So I end up listening to smooth jazz followed by something John Cagean followed by outlaw country followed by west coast cool jazz to... well you get the idea. Speaking as a listener, there are often interesting things in every genre. Sometimes avant-garde is too self-consciously trying to be weird, when it's actually just retreading the same ground as things from decades ago. Unless it is finding new life in it, it's probably not going to be interesting to me for very long.
The worst "out" stuff is crap that tries to use the "avant-garde" or "experimental" as a way of excusing it's lack of content.
Henri Matisse -> I really like those color cutouts he did at the end of his life. Just colored paper and scissors!
Eric Dolphy -> esp with Charles Mingus
Wassily Kandinsky -> I also like Piet Mondrian and his absolute rejection of, uh, angles that weren't 90 degrees.
Ralph Towner and his group Oregon -> especially when Collin Walcot was still with them
Jackson Pollack -> he's one of the few Abstract Expressionists I have never really gotten into.
Der Blaue Reiter group of artists 1911-1914 -> In Berlin there's a museum dedicated to Die Brücke, the rivals of Der Blaue Reiter.
and Charles Mingus -> esp with Eric Dolphy (!)
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I like Song X
Does that count ?
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Oregon is not free jazz, I think the genre, which they pretty much founded, is called "world music" - or "new age" if it's mediocre (which could never be said about Oregon).
It's hard to define what free or avant-garde jazz is, the innovators created their own musical language or style, people like Ornette Coleman (who now-a-days is considered pretty much mainstream) Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Sam Rivers, late John Coltrane with Pharoah Sanders, Andrew Hill, Anthony Braxton, Paul Bley, and many more.
Guitar wise, Derek Bailey may be considered the father of the domain - check out: Ballads - Derek Bailey | Album | AllMusic
Here is Al Music's definition of the genre:
Avant-Garde Jazz Music Artists | AllMusic
At one time I listened to a lot of this type of music, two of the best concerts I ever attended were by Sam Rivers and Sun Ra, the latter not due solely to the music but for the stage show that came with it: elaborate costumes, dancers, and Sun Ra's huge multi-colored organ that resembled an alien space craft. It was a psychedelic trip without the psychedelic drug.
Sam Rivers was just remarkably inventive musically, this album illustrates that:
Streams - Sam Rivers | Album | AllMusic
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Originally Posted by Enlightened Rogue
Pat made a recording with Derek Bailey, which I have not heard, just noticed it on All Music:
Tap: John Zorn's Book of Angels, Vol. 20 - Pat... | AllMusic
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Derek Bailey: "There was this shop on Charing Cross Road. I used to work there Saturdays; and if somebody bought a guitar, they got a lesson with me, free. Their first lesson, imagine that; what a start."
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I like this simple definition: the term avant-garde refers to innovative or experimental concepts or works, or the group of people producing them.
That leaves lots of room for me to listen to and look at a lot of different styles that were once, or are now considered avant-garde. It's about commitment and the spirit of adventure.
And while there's fakery going on in free music, there's plenty of folks faking it in other genres too. Somehow that criticism doesn't stick to them in quite the same way though.
For some good current and interesting free playing I like Mark Kleinhaut. Especially with the cello.
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Originally Posted by ragman1
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Boom! Crossover with the film score thread
Shore had rather interesting early career…
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Originally Posted by Enlightened Rogue
Is there really an avant garde these days?
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Originally Posted by Enlightened Rogue
Shhh, it's hard enough trying to pass myself off as a guitarist
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
I roughly agree with Richard Danto that the history of art has essentially stopped, and now the focus is on personal expression which happens to be mostly autobiographical…and really anything goes.
On the other hand, there are doubtless new arts, new extensions of old art forms and [insert tedious discussion of AI.]
Edit: I’ll just add that the work produced by my favorite contemporary artists is significantly derivative of much older artwork, the way Yann Kebbi’s stuff looks just like Saul Steinberg’s stuff.
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In the recent book "3 Kinds of Blue" they start attacking Bill Evans for not being 'modern enough after he left the Miles Davis Sexet. He responds in the 70s, about "This preoccupation 'what's the most modern' instead of who's making the most beautiful, human music.[the most modern may very well be the most beautiful as well,but to make just avant-garde the criteria has gotten to be almost a sickness, especially in jazz".
Last edited by sgcim; 05-22-2024 at 09:20 PM.
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Originally Posted by sgcim
Just trying to just be different or more modern has nothing to do with artistic creation. Too predictable: all it creates is baseless ego trash.
BTW, I love a lot of the music that Bill would be talking about here, and I love Bill just as much.
What does 'most modern' mean today? One day in the future, human and beautiful will be the avant-garde.
[insert tedious discussion of AI.] (thanks Kirk!)
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Two immediate reactions to the Warelis, et al. material: First, I suspect that they're used to each other--the bass and drums both seemed to anticipate what the piano might be about to do. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Second, I listened to a lot of stuff like this 50-60 years ago when I was exploring electronic music, musique concrète, and such. (The bits of Derek Bailey I've heard also occupy this space.) As it turned out, it didn't wear well with me--the records (as in LPs) have languished on the basement archive shelves since we moved to this house in 1977.
I find the terms for these areas of art interesting--they're metaphoric, but then, lots of descriptors are. But I wonder, "Free from what?" and "Ahead of what garde?" Are these artists scouting out into enemy territory? Or just unknown territory? (I have no problem with calling it art--though I reserve the right to add an adjective like "bad" or "banal" or "boring" or "annoying.")
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Originally Posted by ccroft
I went to one teacher, and he said that he hated Schoenberg, but loved Webern, and wanted me to write some Webern stuff. Next semester I went to another composition teacher, and he told me he loved Schoenberg, but he said Webern just sounded like a bunch of farts!
That's when I realized I would just get my degree and get out of there. I got a teaching degree, and never looked back. The new fad in classical music is all this woke crap. It's dead, but don't worry, jazz will follow the same path and die, too, if it's not dead already.
Academia has a way of "icing and scrimping" the creative act (to quote Henry James,by way of William Gaddis) till they're lifeless.Last edited by sgcim; 05-23-2024 at 03:09 PM.
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Originally Posted by Mick-7
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Originally Posted by Enlightened Rogue
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Originally Posted by sgcim
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Originally Posted by Enlightened Rogue
But if you are doing something new, that must be the case by definition. Evaluation has to come from within - did it feel right etc?
It’s much less scary to make art that has a concrete well defined aesthetic. But that cannot obviously be new.
I’m not dunking on the latter. In fact the idea of self consciously pursuing the first idea of art is apparently a very modern idea. However, we do tend to celebrate those that went out on a limb. Novelty can also be surprisingly incremental in hindsight, although I don’t get this feeling so much from 20th century art and music.
I also have very little respect for the self conscious drive towards novelty for its own sake. I don’t get this sense from Ornette’s music - like all the best art it’s organic.
These days, I think we are in a more classical mindset. It’s hard to say though. In many ways mainstream culture has become much more narrowly defined.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.Last edited by Christian Miller; 05-23-2024 at 07:18 AM.
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Originally Posted by Enlightened Rogue
Anyone convert BH terminology?
Yesterday, 11:16 AM in Theory