Autumn Music and Reading
Jason Kuznicki on Oct 30th 2005
I’ve updated the sidebar to reflect some of our recent posts about music. One favorite of mine lately is Terence Blanchard’s Flow, which has become something like my personal soundtrack this fall.
I must be getting old. I’ve reached the jazz stage.
Honestly, I’m terrified of recommending anything about jazz. I’m worried that some jazz expert will post a question about some hopelessly arcane technical aspect of the music, about which I know absolutely nothing. I’ll then be revealed for the gigantic phony that I am.
Or maybe he’ll just look at my recommendations and say, “Oh, I see,” with a condescension that practically drips off the screen. Then I’ll have to go back to listening to Aerosmith like I did in high school and forget all about trying to like grown-up music.
I’ve also added a link to James Herrick’s The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition, which I am finding an intensely frustrating but very revealing book. I hope to have a review up in the next few days.
Filed in The Bistro, The Bookshelf
– Honestly, I’m terrified of recommending anything about jazz. I’m worried that some jazz expert will post a question about some hopelessly arcane technical aspect of the music, about which I know absolutely nothing. I’ll then be revealed for the gigantic phony that I am. –
That’s easy. Just avoid all references to Kenny G. If you say that that’s the kind of jazz you like, then they’ll think you are a phony. Otherwise you’ll be okay.
If Kenny G were to perform a cover of Trent Reznor’s “Reptile,” I would gladly buy it.
[...] Kuznicki’s got a point about jazz. It’s been so over-intellectualized that much of the fun is taken out of it for most people. I don’t mean that we shouldn’t ask questions about art or seek a deeper understanding of music, including jazz. The problem isn’t ideas, the problem is intellectuals. They’ve screwed up a lot in this world, and jazz along with it. Just try reading John Szwed’s biography of Miles Davis. It’s a good enough biography on the whole, but Szwed can’t resist getting into the technicalities of Davis’ music in ways that are just so much babble to most people. [...]
There is a strange tendency among jazz fans to over-analyze the music; my own preference is to leave much of the technical stuff to the experts and remain blissfully in awe of what the musicians are doing–an awe deepened by having only a dim understanding of how they are doing it. I think part of the intellectualism has grown out of a deliberate effort to make jazz a kind of chamber music, America’s “classical” tradition. I’m not entirely averse to that effort, but I don’t like the condescension that comes along with it either.
There was an interview in the New York Times recently with tenor saxophone legend Sonny Rollins, in which Rollins expressed a reticence to name any tune he had ever recorded that he was completely proud of. While in my opinion Rollins has no reason to be so modest, the fact that he was ought to give the condescending jazz fan pause before he gets too proud of himself for listening to the music that Rollins plays.