[NewMusic] Bassist Paul Rogers on improvised music (LukeWestbrook)

[jon_raskin at yahoo.com]

I would posit community, which at this point in the bay area, is strong and vibrant in terms of the quality of ideas, music and the number of people that organize concerts and series. 
The market place isn't the only gathering place, and the individual being a loner because the task of self discovery and the work of creating art doesn't mean not coming to the "commons".  . 
Nuture and struggle are intertwined for me and striving for music truth is not the path of least resistance.
The cumpulstion and joy I find in it is hard to quantify as it is hard to undertand that so many don't share the same enthusiasm.
The has to be a bit of tilting at windmills and, as we joke in Rova, banging your head against a wall" to get a perspective.

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-----Original Message-----
From: "luke at westbrookmusic.net" <luke at westbrookmusic.net>

Date: Sun, 09 Mar 2008 22:34:24 
To:<newmusic at music.mills.edu>
Subject: Re: [NewMusic] Bassist Paul Rogers on improvised music (Luke
	Westbrook)


I think to properly analyze this predicament or chasm between artistic
integrity and daily bread, you have take a really broad view.

I think for the most part when you trace music back to its roots you find
that in practice it was much more integrated into daily living, more of a
collective expression that required and included everyone in a community.  I
would also wager a bet that when the music making was over even the more
skilled musicians in the "tribe" had to till the fields.

This of course gave way in time to "specialization".  I will spare you the
amateur history lesson and skip ahead to our present condition where every
person is a culture of one and enjoys a sort of independence that could
never have been possible before now.

I would argue that to be "Avante Garde" is to be at the cutting edge of your
own ideas, it is a sort of conscious divorce from the collective. I would
say there is a trend in human history towards ultimate individuation. You
can see it in music most clearly in cases where the person controls every
aspect of their artistic and entrepreneurial process from conception to
distribution.   

I think anyone in this tough business knows the price you pay for walking a
path away from the tribe, its harder to find food alone.

Fame and recognition are also inexorably wrapped into this "problem". We
have all been indoctrinated equate fame with success to some degree.

To be honest I don't know what solutions to offer.  I have the suspicion
though that there needs to be a paradigm shift in order for music making to
survive into the 21st century.

Luke Westbrook

---
luke at westbrookmusic.net
http://www.westbrookmusic.net/
http://www.myspace.com/lukewestbrooktrio
http://www.youtube.com/Westbrookmusic




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