Wynton Marsalis on the importance of aggressive inspiration in education ...

[Litterick]

I am struggling to see the relevance of this discussion of the status of the musician in post-mediaeval Europe to jazz. The conditions in which jazz emerged, in America in the early decades of the twentieth century, were entirely different.

[Lionelsax]

I am struggling to see the relevance of this discussion of the status of the musician in post-mediaeval Europe to jazz. The conditions in which jazz emerged, in America in the early decades of the twentieth century, were entirely different.

It's about how music was taught or transmitted. Conservatories killed orality the same way they killed Western music.
Music industry, publishers and maybe some instructors (even if they want the opposite) are also responsible.

[ruger9]

I am struggling to see the relevance of this discussion of the status of the musician in post-mediaeval Europe to jazz. The conditions in which jazz emerged, in America in the early decades of the twentieth century, were entirely different.

Not to mention the "history" they needed to learn back then was much smaller than today. ALOT of music has been made since then!

[Litterick]

It's about how music was taught or transmitted. Conservatories killed orality the same way they killed Western music.
Music industry, publishers and maybe some instructors (even if they want the opposite) are also responsible.

But they are talking about the status of the musician in the Esterházy court, and elsewhere in early modern Europe. Conservatories are another matter.

[Lionelsax]

In the past thirty years, I have had the good fortune to teach thousands of bands and an incalculable number of students in diverse settings. Though each situation is unique, students share many of the same concerns in pursuit of a more profound relationship with music and with life through music. Every style of music presents distinct challenges which demand the development of different skills. Jazz requires creativity, communication and community.

Through improvising we learn to value our own creativity; through swing we coordinate our communication with others; and through the blues we learn to find and celebrate ‘meaning’ in the tragic and absurd parts of life that afflict every community. Certainly three things worth learning. I believe jazz revolutionized the art of music by vesting the individual musician with the authority to ‘tell their story’ and by positing that an even larger ‘story’ could be told, by choice, by a group of equally empowered musicians. Our educational system has yet to be retooled to accommodate that revolution. Of course there are some educators pointing the way, but many still view this music as exotic, mysterious and unteachable. Some jazz lovers believe the music can’t be taught in schools when, truth is, it can’t be taught THE WAY we are teaching it.

How many decades must we watch these faulty methods fail? It’s time to begin an earnest national effort to teach our kids the glories of jazz. Not a way to play scales on harmonies, or some jazzy misrepresentation of rock tunes, but an engagement with the stories, songs, rhythms, and the lives of those who made this music so vital— from the inspired dancers who blanketed this country in the 1930’s to the many earnest and eager kids now in jazz programs all over the world, to the local musicians playing their hearts out in small clubs everywhere.
Jazz is life music and education is not anti-life.

To achieve greater success in producing students who play inside the reality of this music, the modern teacher should consider combining various methods of instruction:

1) The gradual, graded, literature-based method employed in most traditional music education. Students should perform music of the great composers and arrangers, from Bill Challis to Don Redman, Duke Ellington to Gil Evans and Charles Mingus and so on. A selected and graded canon makes the compositional victories of the music obvious and provides a practical way to assess progress; performing the "best of" of all eras creates a more informed, sophisticated, and technically proficient musician who is better equipped to influence the tastes of listeners as well as develop and defend a comprehensive art.

2) A method that focuses on the substance of all periods of jazz instead of segregating them by decade and arbitrarily assigning greater value to later styles. In this way, free expression (which encourages experimentation and the focusing of personal intentions) and early New Orleans music (which is rich in melody, danceable groove, and triadic harmonies) is taught concurrently to beginners. More structured and/or rigorous harmonic and thematic material is covered later. The initial instruction should be entirely aural in imitation of how we learn to speak our mother tongue. (By the time we study the mechanics of English we have employed them for years). Teaching jazz is sometimes confused with teaching theory. Instead of learning what scales to play on which chords, we should be thinking about HEARING ideas in the context of harmonic progressions and understanding what those ideas mean.

3) A method that teaches vernacular grooves and dance as integral to jazz. For example: a New Orleans two groove is different from a Texas two, or the Kansas City two or a Nashville two. The 12/8 blues-rock shuffle is different from the Afro- American church 12/8…. on and on. Each groove has its own characteristic, meaning, and dance. I call this ‘root groove’ teaching. Many of these grooves were achieved after years of distillation. It’s a shame to discard cultural victories in lieu of grooves that machines can play, or old-timely, corny reductions of the actual groove, or no groove at all. A jazz musician should be able to convincingly play a wide cross section of American vernacular music. Let’s teach our kids how to play the most essential part of our music—-the rhythm—-with authority and feeling and lets encourage all kids to improvise. Of course most are shy at first because it sounds so bad, but any activity (playing ball or singing or doing almost anything) takes time for little ones to develop. The seeds are always there. It’s up to us to tend to them with love, concern and intelligence.

In all of my years of teaching, I have encountered all types of directors. Regardless of philosophical differences, I have found them to be principally concerned about the education of their students. They often ask me to comment on the most common problems confronting the modern jazz ensemble (after improvisation). These are a few suggested solutions to issues I have encountered with bands throughout the world:

1) Implement good listening habits. If students don’t listen to the type of music they play in band, there is no way they will sound good playing it. You want your students to develop their musical taste as well as their playing. At the beginning of each rehearsal have the students listen to a great piece of music. Assign weekly listening and put aside time to discuss what was heard.

2) The band is just too loud! The median volume of a jazz band today is a soft. It should be an intense mp, with a powerful and dramatic f. Rehearse the band at pp so they become accustom to hearing each other while playing. Also, the acoustic bass and rhythm guitar are a great check to balance the power of drums. Checks and balances in the rhythm section were developed over decades of playing. Why should they be discarded so easily for a less favorable result? Jazz is constant communication. Above a certain volume communication becomes very difficult.

3) TEACH a piece of music when rehearsing. Students should know how we get from one theme to the other and what musical devices are used for what effect. Knowledge of form and function lead to a much more listenable performance. Furthermore, improvised solos require detailed listening because you are required to respond with some degree of appropriateness to music as it’s being invented. After playing a piece, ask members of the band to recall what the soloists played, then have the soloists explain what they were doing.

4) Embrace the dance beat orientation of jazz. There is such a proliferation of non-swinging styles bearing the name of jazz; it’s hard to know what to teach. Samba has a principal rhythm, mambo has a rhythm, rock has a rhythm, Jazz has one too: Swing! It is such an elegant, supple, and dynamic rhythm constantly evolving; it must be tended to with care in the same way the most serious Latin musicians tend to the clave.

5) How to make students want to learn … hmmm …. My father used to say, :You can bring a horse to water but you can’t make him thirsty." The best way I’ve found to combat the haze of uninspired participation that engulfs some of our young is for the director to be aggressively inspired. Yeah, that’s what we need to do out here: stay inspired no matter what.

And encouraged that we are not alone.

But they are talking about the status of the musician in the Esterházy court, and elsewhere in early modern Europe. Conservatories are another matter.

How comes you can't understand ?

[Litterick]

How comes you can't understand ?

If you were to read the posts immediately preceding mine, you might understand.

[m_d]

Well, how’s your 1920s/1930s jazz guitar? Because that’s the thoroughness wynton means. You can see this in action at the Julliard, where James Chirillo has written the syllabus for jazz guitar. You start with Nick Lucas and Eddie Lang…

for my part I think swing guitar has helped me understand bop and everything after - but this is the kind of historical background Wynton is talking about. I think it has helped me, but I know plenty of jazz guitarists who wouldn’t be interested in that early stuff at all, and who play great. And of course others who fall in love with an specialise in that era (like the equivalent of baroque lutenists but in jazz.)

I do wonder if that’s like insisting someone who wants to play Chopin or for that matter, Contemporary music, on the modern piano to first play HIP interpretations of early baroque music on harpsichord. The instrument and technique are different, not just the music. It’s not a bad thing per se, but it is a fairly uncompromising take imo.

The only jazz guitar teacher I ever had was a guy I rank among the top five, or three jazz guitarists I ever heard - right up there with the greats we all know, even though he never became famous, and didn't record anything as far as I know. Well, he had that same broad concept of the guitar, from Freddy Green to the modernists at that time, like Scofield or French fusion master Louis Winsberg. His rhythm playing was unmatched, solidly rooted in Freddy Green but more expanded harmonically and with four, up to five note chords (as three, down to one note chords don't make sense if playing by oneself). It was "historically charged" with all kinds of influences, but rooted in the roots of the music. Wynton in his great moments gives that impression too, my teacher was very Wyntonian in that sense. Also in the sense of flawless technical mastery. He could not have played like that otherwise. There would not have been an Andrés Segovia (what an incredible musician, Segovia) otherwise. It's an absolutely, undeniably classical approach to learning jazz, read Thinking in Jazz. It's just the way it is! A whole lot of us have been influenced by the rock guitar learning ethos a bit too much, that tolerance for... slopiness. His was an incredibly powerful and swinging comping style (with a 1.5 to 3 mm pick) which virtually nobody can do that I've heard, and frankly I find the majority of comping that I hear to be atrocious. From there, he could go back and forth between chorus lines and chords in absolutely seemless fashion, stuningly beautiful, timeless stuff. Like a fool I only kept one recording of the lessons.

[Christian Miller]

The only jazz guitar teacher I ever had was a guy I rank among the top five, or three jazz guitarists I ever heard - right up there with the greats we all know, even though he never became famous, and didn't record anything as far as I know. Well, he had that same broad concept of the guitar, from Freddy Green to the modernists at that time, like Scofield or French fusion master Louis Winsberg. His rhythm playing was unmatched, solidly rooted in Freddy Green but more expanded harmonically and with four, up to five note chords (as three, down to one note chords don't make sense if playing by oneself). It was "historically charged" with all kinds of influences, but rooted in the roots of the music. Wynton in his great moments gives that impression too, my teacher was very Wyntonian in that sense. Also in the sense of flawless technical mastery. He could not have played like that otherwise. There would not have been an Andrés Segovia (what an incredible musician, Segovia) otherwise. It's an absolutely, undeniably classical approach to learning jazz, read Thinking in Jazz. It's just the way it is! A whole lot of us have been influenced by the rock guitar learning ethos a bit too much, that tolerance for... slopiness. His was an incredibly powerful and swinging comping style (with a 1.5 to 3 mm pick) which virtually nobody can do that I've heard, and frankly I find the majority of comping that I hear to be atrocious. From there, he could go back and forth between chorus lines and chords in absolutely seemless fashion, stuningly beautiful, timeless stuff. Like a fool I only kept one recording of the lessons.

Wahey. Another thinking in jazz fan!

the problem is the world depicted in Thinking in Jazz no longer exists, even in NYC. Wynton’s project is presumably to transplant as much of that tradition as he can into the academy. I think this is something he shares with the majority of jazz educators actually (at least the ones who are real jazz musicians).

It seems to me that Wynton’s way of doing is more historically oriented than others and because of this, the comparisons with classical music are natural especially as he’s been somewhat successful in moving jazz into these same cultural spaces - Lincoln Centre, Julliard etc. I get the feeling that Wynton would be comfortable with the classification of jazz as African American Classical Music. In this I think he represents quite an old fashioned view of the music perhaps more typical of his father’s generation. (Which is not to say I entirely disagree with it)

would it be unfair to say part of Wynton’s project is to make jazz fundable? As David Byrne points out in his book, the majority of funding from private sources such as wealthy philanthropists has always been focussed on prestige recipients - the opera, the symphony etc. Perhaps jazz can attain some of this cultural prestige. That too will change its social aspects, as much as the academy.

I don’t think any of this is a bad thing, or really a good thing. I see Wynton as doing what he thinks is the best course of action, and this approach may be inevitable. However artistically, Wynton tends towards traditionalism compared to a lot the current scene.

[Lionelsax]

I want to say something : rootless music.

[Christian Miller]

I am struggling to see the relevance of this discussion of the status of the musician in post-mediaeval Europe to jazz. The conditions in which jazz emerged, in America in the early decades of the twentieth century, were entirely different.

True, but maybe less than you think.

More generally, you could talk about the Gola tailors tradition of West Africa (detailed in the book Situated Learning) which has similar properties. Or meat cutters. Or Navy Surveyers. Or my dads apprenticeship in bookbinding. Apprenticeship systems are pretty universal and predate the liberal arts education model by centuries, possibly thousands of years. These learning environments all have certain characteristics in common.

‘Thinking in Jazz’ is the best source I know for detailing how this worked in the jazz community, including hilarious stories about the tension between the Community of Practice and institutions such as Berklee. And as Jimmy Blue Note points out Berklee itself used to be more of a trade school - a finishing school for young pros.

Incidentally Conservatoires were not always LA institutions. They began as charitable institutions mostly for waifs and strays. Robert O Gjerdingens books (music in the Gallant Style and Child Composers) go into them in some detail. Naples in C17-18 was a pretty poverty ridden place. These conservatoires made Naples the most musically influential place in Europe for decades. Later the Paris Conservatoire used a similar model for the C19-early C20. Eventually they morphed into what they are today, less distinguishable from LA institutions and bound by the same criteria for accreditation.

[Christian Miller]

I want to say something : rootless music.

yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think Classical music as it exists today is rootless at all; but I think it represents a less organic community of practice than it did.

in some ways it’s quite a capitalist viewpoint; there has to be an organic demand for the art. Well, capitalist, maybe the wrong word as I am talking about a pattern of human artisanship that predates feudalism, let alone the Industrial Revolution, and I certainly don’t see an artisan model of music learning as alien to a worker owned cooperative for instance (perhaps the opposite!)… but what I mean is that Communities of practice are fundamentally situated in commercial activity. That’s one of their fundamental characteristics. They are not supported by state funding or the donations of the wealthy. The wealthy - the ruling class - may well be patrons but their interactions are transactional in this case. Carnegie may enjoy having his name on the concert hall, but the Duke wants his harpsichord sonata by Tuesday.

it is not clear to me that art can be socially engineered because the criteria for state funding is subject to ideological pressure. One example was the tying of generous funding for arts to outreach and social uplift goals during the Blair government. While a laudable goal, these projects have been a failure by every metric.

We instead got some nice concert halls patronised by the middle classes and gentrification of the surrounding neighbourhoods.

A more grandiose failure is the Venezuelan El Sistema model which was briefly fashionable in the UK. It’s an interesting story!

There’s been some really interesting and quite controversial manifestations of this in the UK recently, for example English National Opera losing funding via the arts council. Some see this cultural vandalism, but the decision was made not due to the small government conservatism of the Sunak administration many suspected but in fact due to cultural diversity argument made by the Arts Council that many jazzers might agree with and have echoed for several decades (ie why should classical music receive the lions share of state funding? Why should these institutions expect to have their funding applications rubber stamped each year?)

So those are some things I learned from my Masters haha…

No matter what, if any side, you identify with these arguments are bound to rage back and forth. Big societal question for sure, of value, but to me they represent something other than the kind of straightforward ‘getting on with it’ in art that I respect and admire. How can anyone do art if they are concerned with filling out their funding proposal to please the (non music) criteria of a third party? And yet somehow my friends and colleagues deal with this all the time.

(Some of the most prominent artists we have - I’m thinking of Boulez, Wynton and a few others - have obviously been effective in making these types of ideological arguments.)

im not against state funding of the arts btw; but I think there’s a lot to think about and these things tend to attract extramusical arguments as they do in music education because they are perceived as less ‘subjective.’

[Christian Miller]

Btw I’m not simply ‘stanning’ for apprenticeships over LA education. There are things about the former that are profoundly iniquitous. Otoh it strikes me that over time our modern education system has become in part a quest for accountability and checks and balances in education. This has manifested in all sorts of ways I would support as expressions of democracy, and I wouldn’t actually want to go back to the 1730s or 1950s or whatever.

It’s complicated and there’s a lot to learn.

[James W]

yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think Classical music as it exists today is rootless at all; but I think it represents a less organic community of practice than it did.

in some ways it’s quite a capitalist viewpoint; there has to be an organic demand for the art. Well, capitalist, maybe the wrong word as I am talking about a pattern of human artisanship that predates feudalism, let alone the Industrial Revolution, and I certainly don’t see an artisan model of music learning as alien to a worker owned cooperative for instance (perhaps the opposite!)… but what I mean is that Communities of practice are fundamentally situated in commercial activity. That’s one of their fundamental characteristics. They are not supported by state funding or the donations of the wealthy. The wealthy - the ruling class - may well be patrons but their interactions are transactional in this case. Carnegie may enjoy having his name on the concert hall, but the Duke wants his harpsichord sonata by Tuesday.

it is not clear to me that art can be socially engineered because the criteria for state funding is subject to ideological pressure. One example was the tying of generous funding for arts to outreach and social uplift goals during the Blair government. While a laudable goal, these projects have been a failure by every metric.

We instead got some nice concert halls patronised by the middle classes and gentrification of the surrounding neighbourhoods.

A more grandiose failure is the Venezuelan El Sistema model which was briefly fashionable in the UK. It’s an interesting story!

There’s been some really interesting and quite controversial manifestations of this in the UK recently, for example English National Opera losing funding via the arts council. Some see this cultural vandalism, but the decision was made not due to the small government conservatism of the Sunak administration many suspected but in fact due to cultural diversity argument made by the Arts Council that many jazzers might agree with and have echoed for several decades (ie why should classical music receive the lions share of state funding? Why should these institutions expect to have their funding applications rubber stamped each year?)

So those are some things I learned from my Masters haha…

No matter what, if any side, you identify with these arguments are bound to rage back and forth. Big societal question for sure, of value, but to me they represent something other than the kind of straightforward ‘getting on with it’ in art that I respect and admire. How can anyone do art if they are concerned with filling out their funding proposal to please the (non music) criteria of a third party? And yet somehow my friends and colleagues deal with this all the time.

(Some of the most prominent artists we have - I’m thinking of Boulez, Wynton and a few others - have obviously been effective in making these types of ideological arguments.)

im not against state funding of the arts btw; but I think there’s a lot to think about and these things tend to attract extramusical arguments as they do in music education because they are perceived as less ‘subjective.’

I dislike expressing receipt of state funding for art as 'socially engineered' - it's no less so than leaving things for the market to decide. And I for one do consider the loss of funding for ENO as vandalism - and I dislike the fact that jazz and classical music has to essentially argue over peanuts while the really commercial music rakes it in; in such a situation I would expect the state to cough up.

I could be mistaken but weren't jazz musicians (including the originators of bebop) aided in no small part by New Deal schemes? Which ended up being cut decades later in the 80s...

[ruger9]

Wahey. Another thinking in jazz fan!

the problem is the world depicted in Thinking in Jazz no longer exists, even in NYC. Wynton’s project is presumably to transplant as much of that tradition as he can into the academy. I think this is something he shares with the majority of jazz educators actually (at least the ones who are real jazz musicians).

It seems to me that Wynton’s way of doing is more historically oriented than others and because of this, the comparisons with classical music are natural especially as he’s been somewhat successful in moving jazz into these same cultural spaces - Lincoln Centre, Julliard etc. I get the feeling that Wynton would be comfortable with the classification of jazz as African American Classical Music. In this I think he represents quite an old fashioned view of the music perhaps more typical of his father’s generation. (Which is not to say I entirely disagree with it)

would it be unfair to say part of Wynton’s project is to make jazz fundable? As David Byrne points out in his book, the majority of funding from private sources such as wealthy philanthropists has always been focussed on prestige recipients - the opera, the symphony etc. Perhaps jazz can attain some of this cultural prestige. That too will change its social aspects, as much as the academy.

I don’t think any of this is a bad thing, or really a good thing. I see Wynton as doing what he thinks is the best course of action, and this approach may be inevitable. However artistically, Wynton tends towards traditionalism compared to a lot the current scene.

Well said. Personally, I get much more from listening to Wynton talk history (like in Ken Burns' JAZZ series) and reading his books, then I do from his actual music. But that's OK- having a positive impact is always good, regardless what it is.

[ruger9]

yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think Classical music as it exists today is rootless at all; but I think it represents a less organic community of practice than it did.

in some ways it’s quite a capitalist viewpoint; there has to be an organic demand for the art. Well, capitalist, maybe the wrong word as I am talking about a pattern of human artisanship that predates feudalism, let alone the Industrial Revolution, and I certainly don’t see an artisan model of music learning as alien to a worker owned cooperative for instance (perhaps the opposite!)… but what I mean is that Communities of practice are fundamentally situated in commercial activity. That’s one of their fundamental characteristics. They are not supported by state funding or the donations of the wealthy. The wealthy - the ruling class - may well be patrons but their interactions are transactional in this case. Carnegie may enjoy having his name on the concert hall, but the Duke wants his harpsichord sonata by Tuesday.

it is not clear to me that art can be socially engineered because the criteria for state funding is subject to ideological pressure. One example was the tying of generous funding for arts to outreach and social uplift goals during the Blair government. While a laudable goal, these projects have been a failure by every metric.

We instead got some nice concert halls patronised by the middle classes and gentrification of the surrounding neighbourhoods.

A more grandiose failure is the Venezuelan El Sistema model which was briefly fashionable in the UK. It’s an interesting story!

There’s been some really interesting and quite controversial manifestations of this in the UK recently, for example English National Opera losing funding via the arts council. Some see this cultural vandalism, but the decision was made not due to the small government conservatism of the Sunak administration many suspected but in fact due to cultural diversity argument made by the Arts Council that many jazzers might agree with and have echoed for several decades (ie why should classical music receive the lions share of state funding? Why should these institutions expect to have their funding applications rubber stamped each year?)

So those are some things I learned from my Masters haha…

No matter what, if any side, you identify with these arguments are bound to rage back and forth. Big societal question for sure, of value, but to me they represent something other than the kind of straightforward ‘getting on with it’ in art that I respect and admire. How can anyone do art if they are concerned with filling out their funding proposal to please the (non music) criteria of a third party? And yet somehow my friends and colleagues deal with this all the time.

(Some of the most prominent artists we have - I’m thinking of Boulez, Wynton and a few others - have obviously been effective in making these types of ideological arguments.)

im not against state funding of the arts btw; but I think there’s a lot to think about and these things tend to attract extramusical arguments as they do in music education because they are perceived as less ‘subjective.’

Wow. Dude, if you ever write a book let me know- I'll be reading it.

[AllanAllen]

I don't think Duke Ellington is that far from Classical and the comparisons of the two fields are fine.

[Litterick]

True, but maybe less than you think.

More generally, you could talk about the Gola tailors tradition of West Africa (detailed in the book Situated Learning) which has similar properties. Or meat cutters. Or Navy Surveyers. Or my dads apprenticeship in bookbinding. Apprenticeship systems are pretty universal and predate the liberal arts education model by centuries, possibly thousands of years. These learning environments all have certain characteristics in common

Yes, I suppose. Apprenticeship was common in businesses that made things, including art and architecture. Mediaeval guilds ensured consistency in training at a time when public institutions of further education were inconceivable. But does apprenticeship apply to jazz, except in an informal sense? I have not read Thinking in Jazz (I ordered it from the library a couple of minutes ago), but my understanding is that most early jazz musicians learned the basics of music from a parent, an instrument tutor, or in a marching band; they learned jazz from mentors. At least, many of Whitney Balliett's interview subjects, men born at the turn of the century, learned these ways. Jelly Roll Morton's father was a bricklayer and trombonist. Sidney Bechet's father was a shoemaker and flautist; his older brother was a dentist and trombonist; when times were hard, Bechet and Tommy Ladnier opened a tailoring shop.

[DawgBone]

y

in some ways it’s quite a capitalist viewpoint; there has to be an organic demand for the art. Well, capitalist, maybe the wrong word as I am talking about a pattern of human artisanship that predates feudalism, let alone the Industrial Revolution, and I certainly don’t see an artisan model of music learning as alien to a worker owned cooperative for instance (perhaps the opposite!)… but what I mean is that Communities of practice are fundamentally situated in commercial activity. That’s one of their fundamental characteristics. They are not supported by state funding or the donations of the wealthy. The wealthy - the ruling class - may well be patrons but their interactions are transactional in this case. Carnegie may enjoy having his name on the concert hall, but the Duke wants his harpsichord sonata by Tuesday.

it is not clear to me that art can be socially engineered because the criteria for state funding is subject to ideological pressure. One example was the tying of generous funding for arts to outreach and social uplift goals during the Blair government. While a laudable goal, these projects have been a failure by every metric.

We instead got some nice concert halls patronised by the middle classes and gentrification of the surrounding neighbourhoods.

Dead music seeks state funding.

It happens over and over in the marching band world. Antiquated, dead music still exists because a few people, the educators, have a nice little racket happening for themselves and get that state gov cash to keep flowing. Music that can't stand on it's own two legs and generate an audience should die, not rob other people of the tax dollars to keep the wheels greased. I see it like high school and college sports, the teachers and coaches get a nice check while the boots on the ground work without compensation. I guess they get a loaner horn out the deal. What cultural benefits are gained by pumping other people's money into a musical corpse? The money suck gets larger and larger and larger. All so a football team can have some brass on the field.

The best guitar pickers I knew never pursued regular gigging beyond about 25 years old because the benefits racket of the educational system is too comfortable to turn down. So once the partying/getting laid M.O is done with it's time to jump ship for something cozy. Jazz is in real danger of becoming a dead music like classical where the only thing turned out by it's educators is more educators because there is little to no opportunity to earn a living there. There is no scene to support jazz, or maybe rathe it's that there is little to no jazz music that can stand on it's own legs. No vocals, no dance tunes, just some very cerebral dudes blowing a horn that sounds out of key to the average listener or some ding dong using a harmonizer during his leads, blech.

Jazz went from working class music to music of upper middle and upper class people. Via educational systems this means the players are also now upper middle class and upper class people so no real need to hustle gigs or change the music model for expanded audiences because financially most of it's practicioners are well off. This is why I don't see a couple jazz type groups in my area with non grey hair aka college age people aggressively pursuing gigs. Because anyone hard core about it WOULD be able to gig regularly playing jazz around here but it ain't gonna be a guitar and a tenor soloing all night without end. Old guys don't need to gig, they already have money. Trust fund babies don't need to gig, they can use social connections to get a nice job teaching or scrape by on inherited cash or mom's generous nature. As the saying goes, those that can't do, teach. Those that can't teach, teach gym.

[Christian Miller]

Wow. Dude, if you ever write a book let me know- I'll be reading it.

Thanks for reading!

[Christian Miller]

I dislike expressing receipt of state funding for art as 'socially engineered' - it's no less so than leaving things for the market to decide.

Perhaps social engineering is an emotive way of putting it, but New Labours attempts to tie arts funding directly to social outcomes is tied to an ideological project an attempt to engineer improved social outcomes through contact with the arts. A laudable one imo, but not ultimately successful.

And I for one do consider the loss of funding for ENO as vandalism - and I dislike the fact that jazz and classical music has to essentially argue over peanuts while the really commercial music rakes it in; in such a situation I would expect the state to cough up.

Ok. Why? Why should the state cough up to subsidise unpopular music? Should the tax player for the bill for what what may effectively be vanity projects? (This is the neoliberal argument)

The problem is that it’s a hard argument to answer actually. I don’t feel comfortable answering ‘yes’ for myself and yet I have received funding for tours. I am more comfortable going through a third party funding body where I feel at least they like my music.

Maybe you think as I do music is beautiful and life changing without need of further justification, but that is not how the argument has been made for a long time. Maybe it was more the case before Thatcher… but then assuming finite funding, who gets it and who doesn’t? Do we deliver this decision making into the hands of a clique of paternalistic mandarin figures? (Tbf it seemed to work pretty well in the 60s haha)

in Chavez’s Venezuela for instance the argument was made that classical music was inherently improving and would have positive social outcomes. This argument has a long history, for example we need only look at the Clockwork Orange as a satirical response to that argument from the 1960s…. So people have clearly been making it for a long time. Was it Aristotle who believed certain modes should be withheld from the lower castes to encourage social harmony?

So if that’s your view it makes sense to find the opera, and maybe the Lincoln centre jazz orchestra but not hip hop projects. If it’s not your view, it’s hard to know what to preference. Does London need more culture at the expense of the regions, and so on.

Fund everything? If that were a reality as opposed to an ideal, if there’s a state body we’d still have to write grant applications. In fact there is funding out there for jazz, but the application process is not a dead cert even for those who have been successful in the past. Ask Ant for instance.

I could be mistaken but weren't jazz musicians (including the originators of bebop) aided in no small part by New Deal schemes? Which ended up being cut decades later in the 80s...

I don’t know, and I’d be interested in learning more about this.

[RLetson]

These learning environments all have certain characteristics in common.

Every occupation is a mystery and invites apprenticeship--see Measure for Measure, IV.ii. (We're only a day out from Willie's birthday, and in any case I've always loved this scene.)

But on the matter of funding of music and the training therefore: Who plays, who listens, who pays? Dawgbone's free-market reading of music environment suggests an end-game in which live-music activities would be dominated by industrial-scale production complexes: big-ticket concert tours by mass-appeal figures who are in turn supported and promoted by mass-media-based organizations--the arena-event model.

Where I live--a mid-size metro area of a bit under 100K--music gets presented in the following ways: Some bars still book bands, but I see more singles and duos than classic rock/country outfits. Tribute-band concerts are mounted by some of the most skilled rock outfits and play commercial houses of 100+ seats here and in the Twin Cities suburbs. One bar--which fronts a 100-seat auditorium that features tribute-band concerts--hosts open mikes, small-time singles and combos, and a weekly jazz session run by the guys I've mentioned here before--skilled and enthusiastic players who make their livings elsewhere. Most Thursdays, the audience outnumbers the band.

The rest of the music scene is dependent on various subsidies. The Chamber Music Society (40 years of first-rate concerts) needs a whole raft of state and private grant money to keep bringing in string quartets and such. The Folk Music Society gets a very modest grant (which I write) to ensure our solvency. For both organizations, venues are very low-cost--churches for the Chamber Music Society and a church and a restaurant for us folkies. Even touring commercial shows benefit from subsidies, since they book the biggest non-university space, our restored vaudeville theatre, which is also supported by arts grants.

So--what would the St. Cloud music scene be like without subsidies? My suspicion is that it would be tribute bands, touring pop acts, and pass-the-hat scale players. The overhead costs of presenting music require subsidies or high ticket prices/cover charges.

BTW, I'm not sure what "dead music" is. I do know something about the demographics of audiences and the costs of training and maintaining artists capable of presenting demanding work. And I've been able to see a bit into the sausage-making machinery of arts-board funding, so it's not like I'm some starry-eyed idealist.

What, I wonder, would our cultural landscape look like if we left the culture biz entirely in the hands of the free market? (As though the free market actually exists as something other than an ideal-gas-law concept.)

[James W]

Perhaps social engineering is an emotive way of putting it, but New Labours attempts to tie arts funding directly to social outcomes is tied to an ideological project an attempt to engineer improved social outcomes through contact with the arts. A laudable one imo, but not ultimately successful.

Yes, it's an emotive way of putting it - removing that funding (i.e. 'austerity') is no less ideological though, an attempt to engineer society for the worse.

Ok. Why? Why should the state cough up to subsidise unpopular music? Should the tax player for the bill for what what may effectively be vanity projects? (This is the neoliberal argument)

Answer - obviously yes, but I wouldn't call them vanity projects and not necessarily unpopular music, simply music that needs help being actualised. I have in mind Birtwistle's Mask of Orpheus an ENO production/performance of which I saw in 2019. Yes, tax Ed Sheeran to afford more stuff like that.

The problem is that it’s a hard argument to answer actually. I don’t feel comfortable answering ‘yes’ for myself and yet I have received funding for tours. I am more comfortable going through a third party funding body where I feel at least they like my music.

Maybe you think as I do music is beautiful and life changing without need of further justification, but that is not how the argument has been made for a long time. Maybe it was more the case before Thatcher… but then assuming finite funding, who gets it and who doesn’t? Do we deliver this decision making into the hands of a clique of paternalistic mandarin figures? (Tbf it seemed to work pretty well in the 60s haha)

I do think that, yes. I would much prefer to have in power a clique of paternalistic mandarin figures who care about the arts for everyone rather than those who effectively know the price of everything and the value of nothing. I guess they would have to consult with experts on music (or whatever other art) to decide who gets funding and so on.

I don’t know, and I’d be interested in learning more about this.

I think it's a yes - google didn't lead me anywhere when I searched for New Deal specifically helping jazz musicians though. I might also have in mind The Great Society projects of the 1960s, many of whose achievements were reversed from the neoliberal 80s onwards.

[Christian Miller]

Every occupation is a mystery and invites apprenticeship--see Measure for Measure, IV.ii. (We're only a day out from Willie's birthday, and in any case I've always loved this scene.)

But on the matter of funding of music and the training therefore: Who plays, who listens, who pays? Dawgbone's free-market reading of music environment suggests an end-game in which live-music activities would be dominated by industrial-scale production complexes: big-ticket concert tours by mass-appeal figures who are in turn supported and promoted by mass-media-based organizations--the arena-event model.

Where I live--a mid-size metro area of a bit under 100K--music gets presented in the following ways: Some bars still book bands, but I see more singles and duos than classic rock/country outfits. Tribute-band concerts are mounted by some of the most skilled rock outfits and play commercial houses of 100+ seats here and in the Twin Cities suburbs. One bar--which fronts a 100-seat auditorium that features tribute-band concerts--hosts open mikes, small-time singles and combos, and a weekly jazz session run by the guys I've mentioned here before--skilled and enthusiastic players who make their livings elsewhere. Most Thursdays, the audience outnumbers the band.

The rest of the music scene is dependent on various subsidies. The Chamber Music Society (40 years of first-rate concerts) needs a whole raft of state and private grant money to keep bringing in string quartets and such. The Folk Music Society gets a very modest grant (which I write) to ensure our solvency. For both organizations, venues are very low-cost--churches for the Chamber Music Society and a church and a restaurant for us folkies. Even touring commercial shows benefit from subsidies, since they book the biggest non-university space, our restored vaudeville theatre, which is also supported by arts grants.

So--what would the St. Cloud music scene be like without subsidies? My suspicion is that it would be tribute bands, touring pop acts, and pass-the-hat scale players. The overhead costs of presenting music require subsidies or high ticket prices/cover charges.

BTW, I'm not sure what "dead music" is. I do know something about the demographics of audiences and the costs of training and maintaining artists capable of presenting demanding work. And I've been able to see a bit into the sausage-making machinery of arts-board funding, so it's not like I'm some starry-eyed idealist.

What, I wonder, would our cultural landscape look like if we left the culture biz entirely in the hands of the free market? (As though the free market actually exists as something other than an ideal-gas-law concept.)

Tbh I don’t know too much about economics, but I know that people advocate and oppose what they think of as the ‘free market’ without it necessarily having anything to do with what, say, Adam Smith envisaged. I’d be very careful about making societal or political prescriptions here. It’s more about how it works for the musican.

Otoh I love Peter Bernstein’s characterisation of jazz as ‘too small to fail’ - as long as you have a nutter who can rent a sports hall who can get a few hundred people in and you sell tickets you have a jazz gig. It’s a micro economy. Otoh it seems like what I would think of as the rentier class are squeezing out microeconomic activity. Cf the demise of the 55 Bar. But that’s a separate flamewar lol.

As a musician the bottom line is I think most of us attach some value on our capacity to earn income through making music. I think professional
musicians place quite a lot of value on their ability to earn money this way as it reflects their ability and skill. I was talking about this over dinner with a friend the other day actually, she basically this. It’s not that they want to be rich, it’s that they want to earn a living from doing something they love and are good at. Would something like UBI affect this? I don’t know.

Joe Boyd credits the creativity of the late 60s London music scene to the availability of ample social security with few questions asked, for instance. Maybe something UBI would stimulate the music scene. Give musicians money to live and let them work on their art.

otoh I wonder if I would simply find it demotivating. Or go down a ‘Cones of Dunshire’ style rabbit hole.

I think that reflects the thing quite a lot for me. I have to feel there’s a reason for music to exist beyond exercising my private obsessions. That said I may seek funding to record a new album haha.

[James W]

What, I wonder, would our cultural landscape look like if we left the culture biz entirely in the hands of the free market? (As though the free market actually exists as something other than an ideal-gas-law concept.)

Good question - my guess is, the 'dead' music wouldn't die, it would just be even more cut off from the general masses of people.

So Dawgbone's ideas are the truly elitist ones. Like I say, it's that price of everything/value of nothing idea. I firmly believe everyone should be able to access and indeed have exposure to quality art irrespective of how much money they have.

[AllanAllen]

There is no scene to support jazz, or maybe rathe it's that there is little to no jazz music that can stand on it's own legs. No vocals, no dance tunes, just some very cerebral dudes blowing a horn that sounds out of key to the average listener or some ding dong using a harmonizer during his leads, blech.

Here's the real problem. To the average person, jazz is purposely awful music that doesn't make sense or sound good. Because of the cerebral horn guy and ding dong with a harmonizer.