Post by bxckxtrxdxr on Jan 23, 2006 12:53:35 GMT 10
This is in response to an issue raised in the New ABC FM jazz show thread about "world music".
If memory serves, the term "World Music" was originally coined by Don Cherry in the early 60s. He was using it to refer to his desire for integrating non-western structures, rhythms, pitches and timbres into his jazz and free improv practices.
Here's a link to a good article by Howard Mandel on Cherry:
www.jazzhouse.org/library/index.php3?read=mandel4
The debate that seemed to be occurring in the ABC thread was around the "World Music" that became re-branded and popularised in the 80s, particularly by Peter Gabriel's Real World label. This kind of "World Music" was a sanitised fusion (in the worst sense of that term) of elements of non-western heritage, classical, devotional, folk and improvised music traditions with classical Western harmonic, melodic and equirhytmic practices.
For my taste, the 80s appropriation was in very poor taste! But nowadays, more "authentic" (ie: relevant and unsanitised-for-western ears), recordings of non-western music are so available as to make the term redundant.
So, in relation to the Jazz tradition, I think Cherry's version of "World Music" was a logical progression in Jazz's development and maturation, particularly in the 1960s, and therefore, probably does have a place in a radio show dedicated to contemporary developments in jazz.
If memory serves, the term "World Music" was originally coined by Don Cherry in the early 60s. He was using it to refer to his desire for integrating non-western structures, rhythms, pitches and timbres into his jazz and free improv practices.
Here's a link to a good article by Howard Mandel on Cherry:
www.jazzhouse.org/library/index.php3?read=mandel4
The debate that seemed to be occurring in the ABC thread was around the "World Music" that became re-branded and popularised in the 80s, particularly by Peter Gabriel's Real World label. This kind of "World Music" was a sanitised fusion (in the worst sense of that term) of elements of non-western heritage, classical, devotional, folk and improvised music traditions with classical Western harmonic, melodic and equirhytmic practices.
For my taste, the 80s appropriation was in very poor taste! But nowadays, more "authentic" (ie: relevant and unsanitised-for-western ears), recordings of non-western music are so available as to make the term redundant.
So, in relation to the Jazz tradition, I think Cherry's version of "World Music" was a logical progression in Jazz's development and maturation, particularly in the 1960s, and therefore, probably does have a place in a radio show dedicated to contemporary developments in jazz.
