tall poppy grower

[second hand music]

Just thinking,

most jazz players these days tend to play second hand music.
The tend to be caught in the Vortex that is bebop, and Trane and all that amazing music that was about a particular time in history. Civil rights etc.
YES the music was potent and vital and amazing...but the times we are living in now are also very vital..or maybe the word complex is better. There is ALOT going on, even though many people arent paying attention, (even when there are race riots in their own back yard)...now why is there so little music reflecting these times.Why do people still play with these American jazz affectations?

What music is a true reflection of our times

Kevin? Adrian?Mark? Tinky?

Certainly not alot of the so called Jazz music?
Im not saying music has to reflect our times but I am saying that alot of the music we all love so much from the 60s or whatever was about those times, it was a reaction to those times....and few improvising musicians these days address their own life, they seem too busy trying to sound like some other guy.
I like 'OK computer' by Radio head, for this reason. Charlie Hadens Lib Orch...is ..OK..but not really hitting the spot not like Dylan did, and he was un unwilling messiah anyway...Coltrane Alabama,

[tinky]

well tpg that is an interesting question but not one I think can be given a definitive answer, just a shot, which I will try.
For a start, all styles can be looked at as second hand music. I mean reallyyyyy, is there a new style of music? Thats a biggun.
I personally dont give a shit. I just play where I'm at. Now on reflection of my body of work that has changed quite a bit. My first coupla albums were very derivative of the 60's jazz thing, so what, I was mid 20's exploring that stuff, I did it ok, but art,,,, maybe not. As Ive traveled along a bit I think things have grown and got away from that base. My new one with Grabba/Rex/Edie doesn't sound American to me, I think it contains all the elements you talk of, it reflects my times.
The problem with any of this is the perception of the indivdual. Lots of people may hear my music and simply say that has nothing to do with modern Australia, or has any cultural relevance to them what so ever. Thats fair enough for them, thay can have their opinnion. Mine is that my music does address the issues it needs to for me and others can follow their own path, but they must stay out of my way.

[sb]

Sounds like you need to get off your ass and go shopping TPG. There's heaps of new music happening all over the place that isn't promoted the way someone like Dylan was. The music industry is going independent and it means the consumer has to work hard to find the good stuff (and bad).
In 20 years people can decide whether or not the music addressed social issues.
Support independent labels producing the kinds of recordings that the big dudes won't put out.

[johnnymastropaulos]

Jah.

well put sb.

The issue of social relevence (as framed by tpg in the context of "reactionary" and "anti") is a hard one in this day. The power of (popular(ish)) music to force social change (like dylan or coltrane or holiday's strange fruit or country joe and the fish or most of the shit from the 60's and a fair whack of the 70's) is now almost redundant. The context has changed. Traditional forms of protest don't work (the biggest rally in australian history against the iraq war had ABSOLOUTLY NO EFFECT) so why should musicians frame their social relevance in the same way as they did in the 60's?

There are some underground melbourne bands that use some of the "anti" techniques of the 60's: TZU and The Hoodangers come to mind, but they combine these with other ideas.

a fine melbourne trumpet player once told me he played music that was not explicitly "anti" anything, but that he found that the very act of making music that was different to that of mainstream culture was a profoundly radical act.

I'm not sure I entirely agree, but I do think that being socially relevant is not the rocket science that the TPG's of the world pretend that it is.

Chris Tanners Virus is (in it's crudest interpretation) a re-hashing of musical ideas created in the first half of last century, but it is also a celebration of fitzroy culture, and is all the more pure because it does so without being constricted by art-school ideas of "social relevance"

Same goes for 12 tone diamonds. I'm not saying they're not an innovative super-group, but they are highly 80's fusion. However, those guys play with a purity that comes from the fact that they simply play WHATEVER THEY WANT TO.

I can see this same purity in Tinkler, in Julien, in Steve Maggs, in... well the list goes on.

so my point is: fuck social relevance. even considering the issue is a contradiction to it's purpose.

if I want to play be-bop. or trad jazz, or fusion, or coltrane style free jazz, or show tunes, or radio head, or bob dylan or ANYTHING then that's socially relevant to me.

I live in a city and a country whose subculture defies boundries of style and era. that's the music I hear, thats the society I live in.


where do you live tpg?*






*sorry if that sounds a bit nasty, I just left it in cos it sounded a bit sorta "I'll be back" Gov. Swarznegger style.

[johnnymastropaulos]

Also, would like to compliment tpg on his A+ grade trolling.

[isaacs]

"if I want to play be-bop. or trad jazz, or fusion, or coltrane style free jazz, or show tunes, or radio head, or bob dylan or ANYTHING then that's socially relevant to me"

I have held off responding to this thread, but I couldn't have said it better myself. If there is one thing of value in this "postmodern" era it is the idea that all stylistic directions are valid, and that value arises from content not form.

And the corollary is that if there was one thing that was valueless and oppressive in the modernist movement it was the idea that musical evolution was linear and that artistic value inherently lay in subscribing to the prescribed stylistic parameters that were "modern".

[johnnymastropaulos]

ay.

I tried to hold off from the words modern and post modern because I find them a little stupid, but you're quite right mark. The precise point that I was trying to make was that most good music/art created in the current climate is post modern just by it's very approach. The ideas created by the post modern movement (often quite self conciously) have become widely (and more often than not unconciously) accepted and created a pure aproach to post modernism unfettered by a desire to be post modern. (post modern five times in the one paragraph)

and, in post-script: one of the greatest post-modern geniuses of our age (in my opinion) is whoever wrote the lyrics to "isn't it ironic" from alanis morisettes jagged little pill.
seriously - think about it: a song about irony - that tries to give examples of irony, none of which are ironic, which is, in itself, ironic. genius.

[tinky]

modern?-no
post modern?-no
po po mo
po po mo
po po mo
po po mo
po po mo

[isaacs]

Yeah Johnny I also agree about the modern/postmodern terminology. It shouldn't be a cant.

Those terms are just sometimes useful as talismans to signal something as a common currency so people have common ground in what they are alluding to, but then they probably should be quickly discarded before they become articles of faith.

Actually, just for the fun of playing with terminologies of artistic movements I once thought that if I was to define myself I would coin the term supra-post modernist. I tried post-post-modernist but that wasn't quite right, it just suggested catching the next wave again, rather than partially riding certain parts of an existing wave more by default because you were going in that direction anyway and if it helps kick you along why not.

[Kenny]

I often think of myself as a post-Evening Post man. And post-Otago Daily Times, post-Dominion, post-Gisborne Herald, post-Herald, Post-Age and post-Sunday Herald. Post-Age? Give that man a stamp!

[isaacs]

:-)

[johnnymastropaulos]

post-modern-icono-clastic-expiala-docious could be a good term for your music mark.

look, really we're moving into some dangerous territory. some critical theory nerds might be watching and then they'll take over the website and kill cartman and say things like "Fluxus" and "Descarte" and "CFI care" "Form" and "Deconstructionism" and then we'll be in heaps of trouble and all the thugs will leave, and then I'll leave, and then it'll be just mark, vicki and kenny desperately trying to bone up on what the hell baudrillard was talking about just to keep up.

[Vicki h b]

Johnny: so you are a punk after all!

My cat has the same first name as you, but he is really cute.

[Vicki HB]

PS I have no need to "Bone up on Baudrillard" as Jean and I were shagging off and on for most of the 70s. He stole a lot of my ideas too, the punk.

[johnnymastropaulos]

was it real or virtual shagging?