Ethnic Influnces

[Baked Bean]

" I will tell you that the future of jazz drumming as I see it implies the study of tablas, of Indian drumming."

I found this quote from a Billy Hart interview on all about jazz... Whats people's opinions on the quote and on the sublect of ethnic musical influences in general??

[paulgrab]

What does 'ethnic musical influences in general' mean? The history of jazz is a story of an energy which constantly refeshes itself through interaction with the world around it. Its power to persuade resides in its not belonging to any ethnicity. If you go down the 'ethnic' track, you eventually wind up in Wyntonworld, where the stars and stripes loom large, and immigration is strictly limited.

[Baked Bean]

I more heading towards Asian and middle eastern influences and peoples exposure or performanace of them

[kingkazoo]

To use the word "ethnic" is a bit silly really. All music has roots in ethnicity of one type or another, and all that happens is that the further on we move, the more things are mixed. Some call this dilution, others progress.

As for the study of tabla, I'm not so sure it's special enough to be a singular direction for a great heritage. Rhythm is only limited by our imagination. I don't think the Indians are necessarily doing something that nobody else could possibly imagine. Why not Korean drumming for that matter? Or Bata drumming?

[isaacs]

I remember once Warren Fahey - well known purveyor at the time of "world music" recordings at the Sydney record store Folkways - was sitting next to me at the the Strawberry Hills Hotel listening to the Mike Nock Trio. Warren basically said "It's great and all that, but it's just a drumkit. The music would be so much better with an extra person in the band playing ethnic hand drum or something". It was clear what he meant.

I resist the idea that any given Western music project would be inherently "improved" by the gratuitous introduction of non-Western elements, although I acknowledge that it may be more marketable that way in the current artistic climate.

Do we walk up to Indian musicians and tell them they should add a timpani? We would recognise the chauvinistic arrogance and presumption in that, but it's not as clear when a Warren Fahey or other "progressive" does it in reverse.

I'm not decrying overt Western/non-Western musical cross-fertilisation projects at all. But there is no reason why a traditional Western musical form in and of itself cannot offer it all if that is the choice being made. I celebrate the continuation of Western traditions whether they be a piano recital, symphony concert or a jazz trio gig. (By the way African-Americans are citizens of the Western world so I see jazz as a form of Western music).

Many "progressive" people reflexively celebrate the continuation of traditional musical forms in non-Western musical lineages and then sneer "conservative" when the same thing occurs within Western music.

The music speaks or it doesn't. If you want to make a deep and renewed fusion with a non-Western tradition (say John MacGlaughlin and Trilok Gurtu) FABULOUS! (remembering that Western music is already a mongrel of mixed influences, just like the English language). But the quality of the music in and of itself is what counts, the rest is cosmetic.

[paulgrab]

I'm not sure I agree with you, Mark. Simply assuming jazz is a "traditional Western musical form in and of itself" is in my opinion drawing the longest of bows. The weight of history, and the incendiary speed of its development suggest that it is of course related to some traditional Western musical forms, but 'in and of itself' might stand outside that paradigm. It is precisely that which makes it so dynamic.

[kingkazoo]

I think perhaps the weight of history is exactly that which is killing the amazing dynamic nature of jazz.

[aka]

[quote author=paulgrab "I'm not sure I agree with you, Mark. Simply assuming jazz is a "traditional Western musical form in and of itself" is in my opinion drawing the longest of bows. The weight of history, and the incendiary speed of its development suggest that it is of course related to some traditional Western musical forms, but 'in and of itself' might stand outside that paradigm. It is precisely that which makes it so dynamic. [/quote]"

But Jazz is a creature of the Western musical world..granted it had its antecedence in the mix of New Orleans with Spanish marching music and the black slave musical influences,,...but it grew up in the USA and I think should be kind of celebrated for that..

Of course it's mutated so much since then to become the magnificent creature it is....because of it's inate adaptability and freedom to welcome other music forms (via its musicians) it can work so well with other cultures...other cultures have improvisation as a greater or lesser feature of their music...
but there is a subtle distinction that Jazz has..
it's not a problem just an historical fact...

[isaacs]

paulgrab said:

I'm not sure I agree with you, Mark. Simply assuming jazz is a "traditional Western musical form in and of itself" is in my opinion drawing the longest of bows. The weight of history, and the incendiary speed of its development suggest that it is of course related to some traditional Western musical forms, but 'in and of itself' might stand outside that paradigm. It is precisely that which makes it so dynamic.

Paul, my use of the phrase "in and of itself" was in another context, where I suggested that any Western musical form had the potential "in and of itself" for dynamism. That point was made as a polemic against those suggesting that the only way forward now was through ingestion of non-Western influences, as if these Western traditions were fossilised.

Regarding jazz, my claim was simply that "I see jazz as a form of Western music". I'd stand by that one.

Clearly there is much in jazz that "stands outside" earlier Western paradigms, indeed jazz shattered many of those paradigms. But the regular shattering of paradigms by dynamic new energy has since the Renaissance been itself a hallmark of Western culture at every level, so I would argue that the very things that might seem to give jazz its "outsider" status also in the end make it firmly part of Western tradition not the least because jazz has flowered within that tradition against the odds.

Jazz certainly came in from the outside, and it is tempting to thus conclude that its "outsider" ethos is germane to the dynamic interchange that took place. But evident too is the very real dynamism of the Western tradition itself which was mutable enough to assimilate it.