[NewMusic] slusser's article

[George Cremaschi]

Jacob wrote:

> hmmm....Am I the only one here interested in  discussing Slusser's article? 
> Or is everyone just so enthralled in counting gender heads....blah blah

Well, that's the way to get people to want to have a discussion:
berate them!


> Also, I'm not sure I buy your equation of textural innovation in pop music 
> to textural innovation in improvised music, since per your example in the 
> first instance, it seems to be an attempt to fill in a gap left by the dumbing-down 
> of popular music were in the case of later seems to be dues to a conscious move
> away from idiomatic references. 

I think there's some truth to both ends. Were Hendrix and Clapton 'dumbing-down'
the music as they were innovating new sonic textures? Perhaps, but only to
their less talented followers - Hendrix and Clapton etc, of course, were fully 
capable of writing and performing harmonically, melodically, and rhythmically 
rich music. Only later did a bunch of effects pedals become an excuse for not 
knowing how to play.

Same with 'non-idiomatic' free improv: the early practitioners knew exactly
what they were moving away from, and usually were accomplished 'straight'
musicians, which informed their music in a way that often eludes someone who
takes a late Derek Bailey recording as the starting point.

So the starting points seem to be the same - folks who were moving away from
forms they had more or less absorbed and mastered, worrying less about form
and overt complex harmonic movement, and focusing more on tone, timbre and
texture. The real divergence seems to happen in the second and third generations,
in some ways more 'pure', but in other ways less connected, and more specialist.

-George
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