[NewMusic] Thought Crime

[Phillip Greenlief]

Nice post by Mssrs Slusser and Perkis.

I wanted to comment on these two posts:

Perkis:
It's just too far out of the racist American worldview to see jazz as
the multicultural/multiracial product it is, in which black artists have
provided the leadership. Where's the political constituency that would
support that view of it? It's actually one of the few successes in US
race relations, a real composite cultural product.

PG:
The idea that culture is an important aspect of community and even
national identity is an important one, and yes, the "leaders" are
hesitant to place a black face at the helm of said leadership. For
decades (starting in the 1930's) it was the black musicians (starting
with Coleman Hawkins and Sidney Bechet) that went to Europe as "jazz
ambassadors". They brought American culture to Europe and other places
and we have all seen the amazing things that have come in the wake of
that sharing of culture. It's important to acknowledge that - very
important.

I believe it's just as important today to see improvised music as the
descendant of that act of sharing a culture. Yes: today we have many
people of many cultures coming together to share in the act of creating
culture through improvised music. That's a beautiful thing in the face
of our "competitors": multi-national corporations that serve up
pre-packaged crap that doesn't feed the body/mind/spirit in any
meaningful way. Their work is to milk society of its coffers, no matter
how small (as low as the cost of a can of Coke) and to give back very
little. Improvisers ask for little (well, they might ask for a lot but
we tend to get a little) and offer something that allows us to
communicate in an emerging language that is unique and constantly
changing.

Perkis:
Of course now that much of the current activity called jazz is really
some kind of museum-piece nostalgia trip, it's not that surprising that
the racial make-up of the current practitioners and fans doesn't match
the racial balance among the innovators.

PG:
This is what I alluded to in my post last night - the music isn't really
vital in the way that it was when it reigned in the bop era or the free
music era of the 1960's. Now it's nearly a subscriber-only audience. The
spontaneity has been bled from nearly every corner of jazz.

I've asked many of my African American friends (musicians and
non-musicians) why they think young black musicians are steering away
from "jazz", or are not better represented on the "scene". Many of those
friends (a good deal of them non-musicians, for what it's worth) feel
that the youngsters know there isn't money waiting for them there, and
they're not so willing to embrace the music and culture of their
grandparents (fair enough!). You can see this view represented in
popular films. A recent quote from "Freedom Writers" (not a bad film -
it actually has a lot of stuff in it that I've faced in the classroom
and when confronting Byzantine administrations)...

The quote: "I don't see anyone that looks like me (black) with anything
in their pockets unless they're dribbling a ball or rappin' a lyric".
This sentiment, expressed in a film that is representing a certain
moment in history (Los Angeles during the Rodney King trials - circa
1991) may be a bit dated and naïve. Surely lots of African Americans
have joined the middle class since the civil rights movement. But to a
youngster, however, it's easy to see the world in these kinds of black
and white terms. Even though the sentiment rings a bit false today, you
can certainly see where it's coming from in terms of a moment in time
and the word of a generation that produced NWA and Public Enemy.


Slusser:
The saga is on the front page of the Chronicle again this morning.  A
cowering Yoshi's pulls its all white CD, and will go to the expense of
securing the rights
to recordings more representative of ....?....its bookings?....the
critics...? the
 complainers...?

I was glad to have Orin Keepnews brought into the discussion. He
basically said it was just a dumb mistake and a terribly small deal.

PG:
We (improvisers) gave up on Yoshi's some time ago in terms of
representing us. I'm impressed, in some small way that "public opinion"
swayed their thinking. On the other hand, I'm of a similar mind with
Keepnews: it's kind of stupid for a lot of reasons (financial and
otherwise...you're never going to please EVERYONE when you make a
compilation like that). 

The truth is: those folks over at Yoshi's are fucking clueless.

Slusser:
An upshot of this is that Yoshi's is concerned enough about their
reputation to spend money to make a better impression in the market.
This may be good news for jazz fans, for that's an indication of someone
in for the long haul.  

PG:
Well, "long haul" can be interpreted here with some irony. It's
interesting that at the same time, Yoshi's is planning on closing its
Jack London Square location and heading to SF (Fillmore District). They
originally said they wanted to keep the Oakland location open while
opening another venue in SF. When that was the plan they were willing to
reveal, they said that their audience at Jack London Square didn't
include a lot of SF listeners, and that by opening a venue in SF they
could tap into a new listener's pool. They were confident that the "old
Yoshi's" (more irony, right?) would continue to serve audiences from the
east bay and beyond.

Slusser:
At the end of the article, it also indicates that Muscarella only has
half the festival booked at this point.  

PG:
I'm almost certain (without checking) that this information was included
in the first article as well. So yeah, they jumped on complaining
quicker than they jumped on trying to get a gig...maybe...

Slusser:
Again, what this is doing on the front page of the Chronicle has me
mystified.   
Are they trying to get more black people to pick up the paper?  

PG:
They're desperate - they'd have to be considering how often they call me
to become a subscriber.

Slusser:
I'm glad PG pointed out that (vocal critic) saxophonist Howard Wiley has
not lacked in major public appearances lately.  (I actually like his
playing and concepts.)

PG:
He's a good musician and a good tenor player! I have nothing against his
musicianship, nor do I really care if he sounds off.  I was just making
a point...the guy works quite a bit for someone who's playing the role
of the neglected.

Slusser:
People confuse race and culture, but if the overwhelming majority of
music I heard in my formative years was jazz, R&B and blues, how is that
not inherent in my culture?

PG:
I've made this point before on the list, but it seems terribly apropos
here. When I was young the AM radio (the most popular radio at the time
- you could hear it everywhere - at friend's houses, at the corner
store, the gas station, the pet shop, pretty much everywhere you went)
played music from many different cultural avenues. 

In the space of an hour, you could hear Jimi Hendrix, Smokey Robinson,
Cream, Beach Boys, Platters, Eric Burdon and the Animals, Chuck Berry,
Hugh Masekela, Aretha, Martha and the Vandellas, (the entire tidal wave
of motor city girl groups), Simon & Garfunkel, Richie Valens, Mamas &
Pappas, Fats Domino, the Seeds, etc. etc. etc.  

Yes, I was influenced by that (how is that not my culture - indeed!) -
not only the bands themselves, but the mix - the variety of sounds and
feelings that came through the radio grille. And because I was exposed
to black culture at an early age in this way (through music and by
hanging out with my neighbors), it was impossible not to have respect
for the folks who were getting razed by the national guard over in Watts
(less than 10 miles from where I lived). Those images of fire-hoses
spraying people in the street, countless houses and small businesses
burning, and tanks rolling down Jefferson or Crenshaw Streets remain
burned in my memory.

So it was impossible not to put the simplest of equations together:
these folks that were getting killed and having their houses burned to
the ground by the police were living breathing human beings that sang
songs about the same stuff that the white boys and girls were singing
about (love and hope, and of course: heart-ache). To an impressionable
kid, this was the beginning of seeing the deep pockets of lies that the
media and politicians and the armed forces concoct for the sake of
keeping a race of beautiful people on their knees.

Radio today is as segregated as the south was in the 1950's. Yes, you
can dial in lots of stations and find a mix of things. But stations
today are "specialized", which is a lie we are told in order to ensure
segregation.

Slusser:
(Jazz started as a MIXTURE of cultures, and has had all kinds of
participants
from its earliest days.)  Can music be intellectual property?  How can
you keep your brain from absorbing it? Am I committing a THOUGHT CRIME
when I spontaneously break into something jazzy in my head or on stage
because of my race?  That's as reactionary as the NeoCons policing your
bedroom.

PG:
Indeed. Who wants to think about sources all the time. It's a smoke
screen that gets hoisted so we can ignore the "message" any particular
music may have to offer. If the music doesn’t have a message - fair
enough - it still keeps us self-conscious, and that action is always
good for keeping us fearful and separate. Despite the intention or
meaning of any kind of music (which is wholly irrelevant for some of
us), it also keeps us from truly experiencing the music (or expressing
it), which is the worst outcome of all.