Ben Ratliff and Alex Ross were online on Nov. 8 to chat about this article. Read the transcript.
Alex,
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StumbleUponYou mention the positive benefits of mixing the new with the old in concert programs. I would really like to see that mixture, even to extremes, in the work of a single composer or bandleader, or in a single piece of music—the really, really new with the really, really old. That's it! That's Bo Diddley, and John Coltrane, and the best Louis Armstrong, and a lot of Cuban music, and a lot of Brazilian music.
Do you get this from some of the new classical music you write about? Do you get it from Adams or Golijov? I don't get it from a lot of younger jazz musicians. Well, a little bit: I hear it in saxophonists Stacy Dillard, and J.D. Allen, and Bill McHenry, among others. I hear it in the drummer Paul Motian, who is not young, but thinks that way. I keep hoping to hear it more.
One of the best things I ever saw was at Carnival in Bahia, Brazil, in 1999, when the band Timbalada came through on its Carnival float. The float had half-naked women on each corner, painted with African designs. The band had about 30 drummers playing Afro-Brazilian rhythm, as well as electric bass and electric guitar and a trap drum-set. The float said "Timbalada online" in digital letters. Carlinhos Brown, the leader, was wearing some sort of white Indian cloth and red basketball shoes and a turban, and singing a song about how he was a pharaoh. The song was only about a month old but everybody knew it, little kids and old people. The whole thing was fully ancient-to-the-future, in the phrase of the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
At the same time, I have been brought up with the idea that subcultures are sexy as hell, and subcultures are pretty much engineered to keep older people out, right? They gather late at night … they don't advertise very well … they're great for just as long as you don't know about it. I like to see commitment however I can get it. Death-metal shows, raves, tiny jazz clubs, whatever. Doesn't even have to be teenagers. There's a subculture for Czech polka in Nebraska, and it's a subculture of 65- to 80-year-olds.
On the topic of "Rite of Spring" shock versus contemporary shoulder-shrugs: Do you think that the Internet is kind of leveling out different eras and schools within classical music? There's always been this hierarchy. Same with jazz. Very stratified. In the not-so-distant past, it was always harder to find out about people on the losing end of cultural history: You discovered this as soon as you tried. Now it is equally easy to find out about Mozart as it is to find out about Hermann Nitsch, the Austrian guy who does those symphonic ritual happenings with slaughtered cattle and ritual crucifixions and really turgid music. It doesn't mean that more people will see either performances of Mozart music or Nitsch's things; it just means that both are equally ennobled by ready information. Do you think that at some point there's going to be deep confusion about what's really important?
Ben
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Remarks from the Fray
The day my local orchestra advertises a concert of modern-day Hollywood film score music is the day I'll by my next ticket. Dances with Wolves, Star Wars, Superman, Batman, Unbreakable, and even The Untouchables have soundtracks with incredible music by such modern-day greats as Danny Elfman, John Williams, and Hanz Zimmer. You want good jazz? The soundtrack to Sneakers is definitely worth a listen...
You want to get younger generations interested in "classical" types of music? Then start playing more music that was written in the last 30 years or so. There's plenty of it out there at your local film theater every week and none of it has the pretentious snobbery of a long dead master attached...
--Ashman
(To reply, click here)
There's an important characteristic of rock (and some pop) that separates it from Jazz and Classical--and its not just "simplicity" or "accessibility." It's sound design.
In my experience, classical music and Jazz are primarily concerned with the arrangement of notes. There are tons of different philosophies of melody, harmony, counterpoint, etc. that abound in both types of music. But it seems to me that the primary question that Classical composers and Jazz improvisers ask themselves is "what note goes here?"
Rock is more concerned with the tonal characteristics of the note (or song) than it is with the harmonic relationships of the notes. What makes a band or artist distinctive has more to do with the sounds they employ in crafting songs, as opposed to the types of chords or melodies they generate. To me, true rock music emerged in the 1960's, when the technology emerged to allow for more interesting manipulation of electronic signals, and a growing appreciation for world music. One of the best examples of this is Jimi Hendrix, who wrote great songs--but more or less redefined the idea of what a guitar could sound like.
Further proof of this lies in the fact that rock cover bands are, as a rule, lame. If I go to see a Nirvana cover band, I lose more than if I go to see the London symphony perform Mozart. Mozart and Kurt Cobain are dead, but his musical legacy was more in his notes than Cobain's was; the sonic qualities of his guitar, voice, (let's not forget Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic) are what really made his songs great to listen to.
--jwschmidt
(To reply, click here)
(11/6)