Criticism (quite serious)

[Tim S]

Would any other musicians be as enervated as I to read Kevin Jones in the Australian this morning announcing that on receipt of a new, mostly original CD he goes straight for the standard tune because players are judged best by how they deal with the familiar? The critical standard here may not be high (please judge for yourselves), but this seems a scandalous admission. I'm signing this because I really, really care.

[Kenny]

Tim, I agree. I'm not sure scandalous is the word, but it certainly came across as a bit shocking.

Kev's a mate of mine, so you can be sure I'm going to give him plenty of grief about this, conservative old fogey that he is.

Actually, I think I know where he was coming from, but perhaps he was a bit more assertive about it than he meant to be.

On albums where there are both originals and standards, I am always intrigued to hear the latter but relish the former as the real meat of the matter. Unless, of course, there many standards and a token oirginal.

But ultimately, after those first few listens, it matters not a bit which is which so long as things are cooking.

And perhaps it is easier to ititially enter a player's musical mind through a standard. But standards being a better basis for judgment? Tough call.

What does shit me is - and I may be being unfair, but I am being honest - is the endless stream of albums with token guest artists.

I'm weary of hearing otherwise fine albums by, say, a trio that have a sax on one track, a trumpet on another and singers on two more.

No reason why such things can't work, but my feeling is that at the moment it's all crap.

It's especially prevalent with releases from the majors - e.g. Dr John's new one on Blue Note. Guests up the wazoo.

[Vicki HB]

It doesn’t surprise me at all, takes a few less listens perhaps? But wait aren't you supposed to review the whole recording? For Jones to admit it, hmmm… brave or just honest? At least we know now what we are dealing with, Tim!.

To defend anyone working as a journo for Murdoch of Fairfax these days I don’t think you get a huge amount of time for quality work. But to write about someone's art IS a huge responsibility that shouldn’t be taken lightly, if you aren’t going to make the effort then let someone else who'll give it the attention it deserves do it instead, thank you.

I find the idea of solo art critics in any media outlet useless anyway. The "stars out of five" thing is an insult to our intelligence: a clapometer to register the noise of a one-person audience. The sound of one critic clapping or not.

I prefer the idea of having a couple of opinions at least on the matter of any work of art without having to read several publications. In fact, a music magazine I used to edit in the UK way back in the 80s t'was my policy to have two reviewers of all recordings written about. Ancient times but if Margaret and David can do it with film on TV why not publications?.

Nowadays, when I write about music, which is less as I move more towards film, if I don’t like it, I just don’t write about it, because what is the point? Writing about any art form for me, is to help bring people to something new perhaps, and maybe something they might also find enjoyable or moving.

[isaacs]

Tim, I read it in the Oz and didn't think it was so "scandalous". He didn't say he ONLY listened to the standard, that would indeed be highly scandalous. Vicki it seems you interpreted it that way with your "But wait aren't you supposed to review the whole recording?". As long as they ultimately hear the whole recording I don't really care how they get to that, if they want to share that they always read the liner notes first, or always eat pork chops in their pyjamas while they listen it's no big deal, they're entitled to some personal autonomy. It's their business if they want to pick an isolated track to start with, for whatever reason. I also don't find it so remarkable that there is a particular interest in how a musician who is mainly concerned with original material plays a standard, I generally find that very interesting and revealing too. Basically, I'd hope that at some point in the exercise they'd listen to the whole album in the track order as in many (but far from all) cases that is an important part of the artistic statement. But be fair, Kevin says that he sometimes picks out an isolated track to start with, we don't know that he doesn't subsequently listen to the whole thing in the correct order. Let's not be the Jazz Police here, certainly not by twisting and exaggerating a pretty innocent "confession" about working methods and how he finds a "way in" to a recording that doesn't really amount to much one way or the other. How about scrutinising the actual writing?

[Kenny]

Some juicy, through-provoking issues here, to which I have been giving much thought, this being the first opportunity I have had to pursue them.

So, for Mark, Tim, Vicki and anyone else interested...

****

I can understand why musicians would find this particular phrase in this particular review a bit shocking, implying as it seems to that the artist's work will forever beheard/assessed/judged/whatever through the lens of the past.

But - as covered by Mark and Vicki above - there areother ways of looking at it.

****

Vicki's comments about the Fairfax and Murdoch empires, and the lack of time/space for "quality work" have some validity, too, but again there are other perspectives.

I am reminded, fondly, of the shock and indignation expressed by Eric Myer in a long-ago edition of Jazzchord, where - after a meeting with a couple of Sydney journos - he was miffed to have to report that journalists had priorities other than support for the jazz community.

The interests of said community and the media need not be mutually exclusive, and the situation is not black and white - my own paper continues to co-sponsor the MIJF, for instance, and prides itself on the breadth of its CD coverage (not just jazz, but generally).

But I suspect that even those organs (I dunno - The Times? The NY Times?) that once saw themselves as playing integral roles in their respective arts communities have long since more closely aligned their arts coverage to the needs and wants, perceived or otherwise, of their readers.

Tim talks of a "critical standard", but again, for much the same reasons, I'm not sure that such a term is all that
useful or applicable to Australia.

Is there a jazz equivalent in Australia of "literary criticism"? I'm not sure. Perhaps Mark's CD reviews and other articles at this site qualify.

Which begs the question: Why are four of the six Bells judges from the mainstream press (even if two of us also have radio gigs)?

And a fair enough question it is, too. I don't have the answers. Perhaps the judging should be peer-based, as with the Wangaratta and Freedman gongs.

I do suspect, however, that either of these extremes would be better than wordy practitioners of jazz criticism.

****

Mark raises some interesting issues about listeners/reviewers/critics respecting the much-agonised-over playing order of an album's tunes.

In general, I agree, but ... actually, there's several buts.

There are some albums I don't play (let alone play on radio) unless I know or think I will have enough time to listen to them all way through. For example, Kind of Blue, Black Saint, Tomasz Stanko's last couple of efforts and so on. To pick tracks at random from these "suites" seems to completely divorce them from vital context.

And I really like how Mark, on his live album, split four old-style pop tunes with Footprints, a standard of a wholly different kind and feel.

But I think any artists who bristle at listeners/reviewers tampering with the playing order of a recording are simply not keeping up with how people listen to recorded music these days.

The truth is, I use my CD player's Random a LOT.

Partly that is due to the amount of material I try to keep up with, especially in the office, which I where listen to all the non-jazz stuff that is part of my job.

It is also very useful for reissues, where the track count can be well above 20, and sometimes even more, and the music was mostly recorded as single tunes for 78rpm release anyway.

But it also partly due to the length of CDs and family life.

How many people have the time to play one, two, three or more CDs all the way through 60-70 minutes, and how may times a week? Not me, or at least not very often.

Perhaps playing order should be seen as something preferred rather than sacrosanct.

I'm sure there are recording types in the world somewhere who no longer see the random/shuffle button as an enemy but as a challenge - and perhaps a really inspiring one - on the way to a whole new way of listening.

Certainly, I know there are novels that readers can start anywhere they please.

And this also reminds of LP records (Frank Zappa?) I have read about that had two separate programs per side. Which one you got just depended on where and when your stylus hit the platter.

[isaacs]

Kenny I think that peer assesment works for the National Jazz Awards and the Freedmans because those are age-restricted competitions. So the people who do the judging are older and wouldn't be able to enter anyway which neatly demarcates it.

If the Bells were to be judged by peers, it would be very hard to find people who themselves would not be likely candidates for nomination in at least one of the categories, producing an awful mess. You can't have conflict of interest and people wouldn't agree to be judges very readily if it thus obliterated their prospects for nomination.

Now - on these self-same Bells. You and Vicki have been very cute and coy today in your postings. The MIJF site hasn't been updated so I am sure I am not the only one who would be interested to know the finalists. Spill!

[Kenny]

Graeme Bell Lifetime Achievement Award: Allan Browne, John Pochee, Donm Burrows.

SAAB Australian jazz Artist of the Year: Paul Grabowsky, Jamie Oehlers, Phil Slater.

Singapore Airlines Best International Album of the Year: Keith Jarrett, Up For It (ECM); Joe Lovano, I'm All For You (Blue Note); Tomasz Stanko, Suspended Nigh (ECM).

Grand Hyatt Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year: Felix Bloxsom, Aaron Choulai, Matthew Joddrell.

Yamaha Best Australian Contemporary Jazz Album: Paul Grabowsky, Tales of Time and Space (Warner); Mike Nock's BigSmall Band, Live (ABCJazz); Phil Slater, Strobe Coma Virgo (Newmarket Music).

Australia Israel Cultural Exchange Best Australian Jazz Vocal Album: Vince Jones, Gold (Universal); Michelle Nicolle, The Crying Game (ABCJazz); Alison Wedding, The Secret (ABCJazz).
B&B Design Best Australian Classic Jazz Album: Bob Barnard, BB's Jazz Party (NIF NUF); Moovin' & Groovin' Orchestra, Catfish Row (Newmarket Music); the Society Syncopators, Now Your Are Talking My Language (Newmarket Music).

APRA Best Australian Jazz Ensemble of the Year: The Necks, Alister Spence Trio, Julien Wilson Trio.

TarraWarra Wines Best Australian Jazz Venue: Bennetts Lane (Melbourne), Hyde Park Hotel (Perth Jazz Society), Side-On Cafe (Sydney).

Voting and information: www.mijf.org

[vi kee]

Oi, Kenny did you cut and paste the bloody press release? The sponsors will be happy, let's hope Rehame monitors this forum.

OK Mark some more info just for you:

Mr Bell was way cool, so why isn’t HE a judge?

Did we mention the red convertable Saab with the MIJF logo on it parked outside the Hyatt Hotel?

And there was the state of the art audio visual presentation - a riveting piece-to-camera/talking head of Sr Carlo Pagnotta, the new Artistic Director of the Umbria/Melbourne International Jazz Festival, he was reading out the lucky finalists from a piece of freshly faxed paper.

Speaking of Italians, my Uncle Guido who lived in Ostia, often proclaimed: "There is politics in every sausage!" Guido had a fondess for Mussolini (aarrgh), that I still can’t forgive, but I'm off the subject- he was right in relation to this very special occasion, there certainly were a lot of bangers and snags of varying proportion at that launch. Bad puns intended.

Lots of middle aged people in black (I wore pink, darlings) many of whom I didn't recognise who are probably worth schmoozing.

Whoops some of the board of the MIJF aren't able to pronounce Joe Chindamo's name correctly, but then he wasn't nominated, so what should the man expect!

Some of the younger musicians don’t seem to own irons. They won’t need one when they are sitting in their red Saabs anyway probably.

[Tim S]

Perhaps it's a vain hope, but I'm inclined to put together a CD having given a great deal of thought to the order in which the tracks will be presented, imagining that the listener might give the record a chance to make its point by inserting it into the machine and pressing 'play.' If there is a standard tune on the record, its significance is more to be understood through its relationship with (and even perhaps its position among) the other selections, whereas the listener who extracts it from its context first up and holds it to the radiant light of the Jazz Tradition is, I'm afraid, missing the point. After you've heard the album through - dare I hope even for a couple of times? - then of course you are completely at liberty to do whatever you want with it, and perhaps there will be something to be drawn from a comparison between my and someone else's interpretation of a standard. I am the first to acknowledge and invite the individual interpretations of artworks that constitute so much of their meaning, the first to admit that the listener may bring to a recording an interpretation of which the people who made the recording are unaware. This interpretation may even benefit the people who made the recording, and enlarge their own concept of their music. But is it really too much to ask that someone who is going to write about this music might make a slightly greater effort to meet it on its own terms? Might it not be that the selection or exclusion of standard tunes had a broader purpose than making the seniors feel included? All of this seems so anathema to the idea of jazz policing that I am confounded in trying to answer the charge. And if asking these questions isn't scrutinising the writing then somewhere, way back, I think I may have missed something quite important.

[Kenny]

Tim, I don't think anyone here was wanting you to face any sort of charges!

FWIW, I always try to listen to new (contemporary) releases from the first track on - in first and several subsequent listens - for the very reasons you have just explained.

But I suspect there are as many different ways of listening to albums, and new albums in particular, as there are listeners - and the same doubtless applies to reviewers, critics, whatever you want to call them.

Just human nature.

[isaacs]

After you've heard the album through - dare I hope even for a couple of times? - then of course you are completely at liberty to do whatever you want with it, and perhaps there will be something to be drawn from a comparison between my and someone else's interpretation of a standard

Tim I don't mean to use the term "jazz police" in a heavy way, I think we all do a bit of that, I know I do. Sometimes we also go a bit too far, I know I sometimes do, maybe even now. However I would still say that your quote above does to my mind indicate that you are crossing the line a bit. I think an artist is entitled to expect that the critic will listen to the album through in track order, I've already said that firmly. Nothing Kevin said indicates that he doesn't always do that, despite in some cases by his own admission picking out an isolated track first for whatever reasons. So I think for a start we should give him the benefit of the doubt and not assume that he doesn't listen to the whole album in order at some point. That's the first point, but an important one to make because it seems Vicki (I assume not having read the review) interpreted your post as implying that he ONLY listened to the standard. I think we all would wholeheartedly agree that that would indeed be a scandal.

But your quote above I think still does "police" things a bit, especially your contention from your first post that it is scandalous to do other than you prescribe. I don't think it is reasonable to say that a critic is only "at liberty" to play an isolated track AFTER they have heard the whole album in track order as you say above. I really do think that is going too far. You receive the album, you should without a doubt listen to whole thing - and in order at some point because artists often put a lot of thought into the order. But if you want to play an isolated track to begin with - for whatever reasons - and are forthcoming enough to share that you have done that publicly then I honestly think it is overdoing it to say this is a scandal and to so wholeheartedly decry the individual concerned.

Also, I didn't think you were really critiquing the actual review which was my other point. You're criticising the reviewer's working methods, which you learned about within the body of the review because he was candid enough to share them. But that's not really the same thing as critiquing the actual writing which I thought would be more productive than denying and decribing as scandalous the personal liberty of a critic to choose to listen to an isolated track first in some instances. You would need to show the product of that working method in the actual review and show how it is negative. In this way, if there really is a problem in his working methods producing questionable writing, the problem would (and should) be evident WITHIN the writing itself independent of whether or not he chose to share one of his methods of working with his readers.

Just by way of analogy: if you were an art critic of course you have to step back and look at the painting as a whole - a vital part of the exercise. But should we police the eye-movements of the art critic and hold them accountable if they are intially drawn to a particular section of the painting before gleaning the whole picture! That would be getting close to an Orwellian "thought crime".

[anon]

But if postmodernism has taught us anything, its that the intentions of the artist are, in effect, irrelevent. Harsh but true. You can hope someone listens to something the way you want, the order in which you want, and take out of it what you want, but at the end of the day, it often doesnt work this way. Youve just got to put it out there and hope for the best. Complaining about the way someone digests your work is just a waste of time.

[Tim S]

Well at least that's one better than invoking Orwell, which always seems to betray a profound lack of imagination. Listen (in any way you want): I'm not fussed by how you interpret the music. Interested, but not fussed. I'm thrilled by the inevitable variety of reactions. If the music can be interpreted variously then surely that's a testament to its power. You take part in the musical act by listening, by thinking. No doubt everyone will find favourite tracks, and return to them more frequently, and/or use the shuffle button. Of course, obviously, fine, fine. But for a reviewer to try to turn a recording to his or her own ends so immediately, for a critic in the national daily to be hidebound by so reactionary a mode of reception, for the efforts of composers in Australia right now to be held to be of secondary importance or significance to the standard repertoire, here and now, is just a wee bit naff. Read back and you'll find that's all I was saying.

[V i c k i]

Yes yes yes, all your points are valid but what about that red Saab guys? Gee whiz, I am the only female posting on this thread and I'm the one talking cars? Something is odd here, surely it must be 'Jazz World'!

Back to critiques - I did read it and I was amazed by the frankness but I think everyone's points are valid to varying degrees.

I agree with Mr Stevens, you should listen in order at least a few times initially. Imagine reviewing a movie where you ff to the middle bit first as that is where the 'famous best scene' is?

But…journos are subject to editing beyond their control e.g. last week on radio, one of our staff was the victim of a rush job edit which made it seem that we were critical of another agency working in Afghanistan when in fact he had been talking about Iraq. Broadcaster needed 20 seconds for something else, but cutting the interview changed our whole message, which could have caused huge problems with the other humanitarian agency. The journo concerned had no idea his piece was cut until we contacted him about it. I believe TV news is the worst for this kind of thing, so lets hope E news (Entertainment news on Foxtel) doesn’t start covering original jazz, mind you they might give Kenny a new gig!

[Kenny]

Hell yeah! Me and my mortgage would be ever so grateful!

I'd gladly, for a high price (by my standards), shit-can free jazz (anything to the left of Ella Fitzgerald) and talk up smooth jazz as the new New thing.

Mind you, the nasty Jamie Cullum review I penned a month ago has almost certainly done for me in that regard - and is possibly the kind of thing that explains why others now control the paper's entertainment content.

AJ keeps on razzing me about it, so I guess he must be jealous.