|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
76.214.238.65
In Reply to: RE: Michael Brecker et. al posted by belyin on January 18, 2022 at 20:52:09
Early Brecker, before neck problems, is
great.
Hear him with James Taylor?
How about The Guerilla Band?
Can take Ayler in one minute segments...
I think he perfected the Double Teeth Emboucher.
Edits: 01/19/22Follow Ups:
Sure, if I were producing a session and needed a sax player I and everyone else would call Brecker. He was a great session player and an excellent sideman if you liked his sound. My point is none of my favorite sax players were ever session players and almost never sidemen in their mature periods because I find iconoclasts and sui generis musicians much more interesting than just great players.
"My point is none of my favorite sax players were ever session players and almost never sidemen in their mature periods because I find iconoclasts and sui generis musicians much more interesting than just great players."
I agree completely with the above.
But there'a another point here. Rick knows a lot of sax players as people which is a whole other situation and one which sets him apart from those who only know the recordings themselves and have no personal connection. I know this myself because my job for over 30 years has been as a psychologist specialising in musicians. In my job I was completely uncritical of the 2,500 or so musicians I worked with - this is what's known as "unconditional positive regard" in coaching. So I really don't need to take any lessons in supporting my fellow musicians - I built my whole life around it.
But now I'm pretty much retired it's liberating to be able to speak freely. I have opinions just like anyone else does and I'm simply being honest about what I do and don't like. Some players I'm pretty passionate about and I've frequently posted tracks I love on the forum. If I didn't love music, why the hell would I have been a musician all my life? And of course other players leave me cold.
If we are not free to say what moves us and what leaves us cold without being criticised for "negative shit", what is the point in having this forum at all? So some of us are not fans of Michael Brecker and some of us find Miles' actual trumpet playing uninteresting, whatever great things he did in the wider context of his career. Deal with it.
nt
I too know many musicians--albeit not 2,500 plus, and live in the small musical world of New Orleans. The tight rope between being supportive while maintaining one's critical faculties is hard to negotiate. Now that my beard is grey I find it easier to say my piece; it is socially acceptable to be an old crank but never a young one. And a critical faculty is necessary for growth. I find myself wondering why many young musicians are doing what they are doing. I am happy to hear any of them have a clear answer, but even if they don't I think they need to see it as a valuable question. A straight up honest answer like "I take every gig I can get because I need to pay the rent" or even "This schtick is a bit of a hustle but it really gets over" offers a clarity well beyond playing just what they think is expected of them. As a listener, I want to hear people play music they have a deep personal connection too and not just making the changes or making the gig. No matter what the genre or form, if you don't make it your own I loose interest. As has been said many times, "All artist borrow, great artists steal."
If I'm not hip to them I'll check their music out.
If we are just talking about "iconoclasts" at the top of my heap would be Monk, Mingus, and Ornette. After that, in no particular order: Rashaan Roland Kirk, Coltrane, Miles, Sonny Rollins, Cecil Taylor, Lester Bowie, Misha Mengelberg, Michael Moore, Lester Bowie, James Blood Ulmer, David Murray, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Kidd Jordan, Carla Bley, Albert Ayler, Steve Lacy, Milford Graves, Eric Dolphy, Wadada Leo Smith for a start--plenty others as well.
It is obvious that we have very different perspectives, and as far as I am concerned that is totally cool--it is what makes a world. And to me, jazz is a world that contains multitudes not just one true path.
I like, own recordings by and listen to music by most of the musicians you listed. Surprised if you've been around this joint for a while and don't know that. I'm gonna reply more later. Gotta go food shopping.
I apologize; I think in part I was responding to someone else and it got crossed up with responses to you. A few points to your post above: Gioia was actually the one writing in critical support of Michael Brecker and wondered why other critics ignored him. I posted another writer to try to give an answer to that. And of course I did make a blanket statement about jazz education. I know plenty of amazing musicians who teach. (All great musicians teach in one way or another, whether in a formal institution or not.} I was thinking of the more narrow , almost "pre-professional" jazz programs of which our local program at the University of New Orleans (or at least did) exemplifies, where "jazz" is taught as a more-or-less fixed practice with a definite Marsalis/Crouch canon as opposed to more open ended music programs. This attitude is exemplified by a published local writer--a Stanley Crouch/Albert Murray disciple--who flat out told me Cecil Taylor was a fraud and that David Murray couldn't play a C Major scale to save his life. And I have had UNO jazz students tell me that Kidd Jordan couldn't read music--a man who taught music for 50 years, who played in the pits for every locally appearing Broadway show and artists like Tony Bennett and Lena Horn, toured with Ray Charles, and contracted horn sections for local appearances by Aretha Franklin and Steve Wonder--all because they couldn't relate to his full on free jazz explosion when left to his own devices. To me that is a put down and very different from saying I don't relate to someone as an artist no matter how great a player they are.
The late Chicago legend Fred Anderson who was a mentor to so many young musicians at his Velvet Lounge jam sessions would always say when some musician would complain about some one else's playing, "Well, that is just the way they hear it." We all hear differently, we all want different thing from musical experiences and that also changes over time and from day-to-day.
nt
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: