Poor Conversationalists = Free Jazz Musicians

I have little patience for people that:

a) talk too much
b) interrupt conversations without sufficient reason (sufficient = some piece of information that benefits all participants of the conversation)
c) don't listen to or ask questions of others
d) monopolize conversations
e) use speaking volume and aggression to bully in conversation

For those that are guilty of such behavior the conversational elitist in me says "your mama didn't raise you right".

Playing in bands can be the ultimate in group communication; it's a panacea for a conversational elitist like me. Most forms of music employ structures that provide cues for when things are supposed to happen and perhaps most importantly a foundation for things *to happen*. There's a safety that forms provide creating an artistic environment in which participants can relax, listen and rely on the consistency of the form's structure while they focus on their role within the ensemble and how they contribute to the overall musical creation.

Take for example a jazz quartet (piano,bass,drums and sax) playing jazz standards or bop heads; most likely the sax player will perform the melody while the piano comps chord changes, the bass outlines the chord progression and rhythmic patterns while the drummer keeps time. The tune itself most likely uses the AABA form or some variation thereof. Once the melody has been played the tune will open up for solos over the form of the tune and there will be some designation as to who will solo when. There may also be 4s traded - this is type of call and response solo in which musicians trade solos after playing for 4 bars.

The statement of the melody over chord changes sets the context of the musical conversation and focuses both musicians and listeners - it says "this is why we're here and we are all in agreement about why we're here, this is the ground we're going to cover while we're here and this is the context in which it will be expressed". It's all quite lovely and simple.

Solo time comes and new ideas are introduced, we get to listen to each musicians point of view over that well established context.

After the solos there maybe a restatement of the melody and this serves as an affirmation and recapitulation of not only the fundamental ideas express within the structure of the song but also the interpretation that's occured during the solo section hopefully encompassing the artistic upshot of the solo section.

It's all very lovely - we have a conversational topic and opinions of individuals that get expressed not only in a civil fashion but in such a way that they contribute to a greater artistic good that all can enjoy and benefit from. What pleasure!

I'd say that it wouldn't be unreasonable to compare a good conversationalist to a good modern jazz musician.

Poor conversationalists on the other hand . . . . maybe they are just free jazz musicians at heart?

Do a quick wikipedia lookup on 'free jazz' and here's what you get:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_jazz

"Typically this kind of music is played by small groups of musicians. In popular perception, free jazz is loud, aggressive, dissonant and in general full of sound and fury. Many critics, particularly at the music's inception, suspected that the abandonment of familiar elements of jazz pointed to a lack of technique on the part of the musicians. Most free jazz musicians use overblowing techniques or otherwise elicit unconventional sounds from their instruments. Today such views are more marginal, and the music has built up a tradition and a body of accompanying critical writing. It remains less commercially popular than most other forms of jazz."

Interesting - let's take this apart a bit - I often judge poor conversationalist as "loud, aggressive, dissonant and in general full of sound and fury". Characterizing their conversational contributions as rife with "overblowing" seems appropriate. And most certainly, in my infinite conversational wisdom, would view them as having a 'lack of technique'.

But if I label poor conversationalists as free jazz musicians am I giving them too much credit?!

Thelonious Sphere Monk



I love this man, his contribution to jazz, who he was as a human being, the demons that he wrestled with and the music that he made are a message to me.

Speaking Versus Being Silent

I really do like being quiet, more and more conversation seems futile to me. People don't listen or they don't ask questions. Seems like most of the time people are just waiting for an opportunity to talk - not an opportunity to engage in discussion where there is an exchange of ideas. Participating in what feels like a competition for air time just seems like a waste of energy. I can't get it up for the fight anymore. I just don't have it in me.

Silence is golden. This is where I find peace. And it seems more and more like not only the safest place to operate from but the sanest as well.

"Silence is a source of great strength." ~Lao Tzu

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." ~Aldous Huxley

"Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music." ~Marcel Marceau

My Beating Bursting Heart - There Will Never Be Another You (Or Me)

I'm alive. It's been a long time since I've felt this alive.

My heart is pounding not with thoughts for another but with thoughts for myself. Yeah, it sounds narcissistic as all hell. And perhaps the root of all narcissism starts with the affinity for who you are within yourself. But whatever the case maybe, I finally get it - why it is of absolutely the utmost importance for one to truly love oneself.

I'm in a handful of situations that I ought not to be because within them I am not valued for what I am worth and capable of. Within the last week these situations and the urgent need for me to do something about it and stand the fuck up for myself has been brought to my attention.

Something has shifted and instead of looking at all of this with disdain and dread I am excited at the prospect of doing something better for myself. It's been years since I've felt this way but I remember feeling this way growing up and dreaming of leaving home.

I'm in good place to make these changes. I've already gone rounds with my ego and met the groundless highs it can lead me to when left unchecked. I also understand that without some sense of ego and self affinity I can steer myself into scenarios that are totally inappropriate for me to be involved in.

Such a precarious balance living one's life as an advocate for oneself never mind living one's life as creator - artist - manifestor. It is one thing to merely exist and quite another to take the helm and become the master of one's destiny - to acknowledge and embrace *choice* as it hangs in the air with each step one takes.

I am wholly aware of the potential grandiosity of these statements and in another time would have scoffed at them. But today I understand. They are not made with some idea that truly mastering one's destiny equates to the manifest destiny of imperialist regimes. Quite the opposite really - you are the only person that can become and be who you are - this task can be completed by no other and thus it is of the utmost importance for you to embrace who you are, who you are to become and the journey that lay before you in doing so.

There's an old tune - a standard that I learned during an ear training class at Berklee - I'm reminded of it now and while it has overtones of romance and nostalgia it makes note of the truth that you must be you because there's no one else that can.

"There Will Never Be Another You"

Words and Music by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren

There will be many other nights like this
And I'll be standing here with someone new
There will be other songs to sing, another Fall, another Spring
But there will never be another you

There will be other lips that I may kiss
But they won't thrill me like yours used to do
Yes, I may dream a million dreams but how can they come true
If there will never ever be another you

There will be other lips that I may kiss
But they won't thrill me like yours used to do
Yes, I may dream a million dreams but how can they come true
If there will never ever be another you

Finally Outright Copping Some Style

I've long been in resistance to claiming styles to describe my musical efforts. In truth I didn't "have" a style or influences in the beginning. I fumbled around for years trying to deny all the jazz that I'd soaked up after playing in the dreaded high school big bands. Some people look back on their time in those outfits with nostalgia; I look back and see myself cringing thinking that unfortunately playing in one was the only way my parents would allow me to play music. I was probably wrong or maybe not regardless I knew at the time that I had no interest in pursuing a career as a jazz musician or composer.

I clung to all of my nascent musical instincts and kept them in hiding through the musical meat grinder that was the Berklee College of Music. There's a place where you can really lose your inspirational shit - any shred of naive brilliance or creativity awaits a pantheon of soul crushers with all kinds of negative bullshit up their sleeves. Eh- Berklee had some good stuff - I can't say it didn't - but there really was such a thick leviathan of fear/intimidation and attitude that one had to wind their way through as a student - we really should have been the ones getting paid to attend.

I was a decent sax player - but between a shitty student model horn and a lack of strong affinity with the complex harmonics of be-bop jazz I was fucked as an alto sax player in the context of Berklee. I related more to the fucked up sax lines I heard over Psychedelic Furs tunes than those Charlie Parker lines I memorized. I wanted to play rock and roll - most any flavor would do - so while at Berklee I picked up electric bass and with the assistance of Danny 'Mo' As In Motown' Morris learned to play r&b bass lines. I was saved. But still styleless ..... Berklee was so much about imitation that I never absorbed r&b and took it to a place where I could call it my own. At least I wasn't completed alienated stylistically from what I was playing.

Post Berklee I struggled to establish some kind of style for myself as a songwriter. There'd been a seeming explosion of pop female singer songwriters all doing the 'angry edgy chick' thing - think Alanis Morissette, Tori Amos and PJ Harvey. I'd gone straight to the source in my discovery of Diamanda Galas. I ran across her recordings while I was working at Tower Records on Mass Ave in Boston and then via a girlfriend at Barnard College in New York City. She had power that Tori, Alanis and PJ couldn't dream of and I wanted to align myself with her. On top of that Diamanda's musical background is based in jazz and I could identify with that and she'd grown up in sunny California and escaped to create a fascinating and dynamic (to say the least) career for herself as a proud member of the avant garde.

The problems with copping Diamanda's style - at least in my head - was that a) I don't have the insane "virtuosity" that she wields as a weapon b) I know her and feel like somehow given that I can't match her virtuosity I'm asking for a ass beating copping her style. These thoughts did not however stop me from screaming like a banshee while singing for the band 'The Never Meter' from '97-'99 here in San Francisco. Maybe I should trace this influence back to Yoko Ono - on second thought - nah.

With hindsight I realize that I'd put myself under immense pressure as a young musician/writer to come up with something *new*. Why something new? A handful of ridiculous factors the most pressing of which was the $79,000 bill that my parents laid on me (and have since rescinded) for my education at Berklee. I figured I had to get right on the edge to make enough money and/or notoriety to use to pay off my debt; bring my vocal insanity vis a via Diamanda Galas into a rock context that could be commodified and I'd be golden. Ahhhhh - the logic of a 24-27 year old.

Oh and did I fail to mention the fact that somewhere between 7-11 years of age I thought I was the reincarnation of Bach or Beethoven and was here to create some kind of musical innovations. I can't remember which one I thought I was - but I did. I told John Lurie about this one night hanging out at his place watch re-runs of Rosanne - his response "maybe you are." My life just can't get any better.

Okay so now years later - no band, barely starting to write again over the last six months, and *still* struggling to understand how people chose to be (if they in fact actually do chose) influenced by style and how they use style as a guideline to write music. I suppose in truth, I've got style, I can probably play just about anything, all those years of improv over changes pay off in my facility to just fucking play.

I'm taking an electronic music class through Cellspace and while we're basically just a little over 1/3 of the way through the course it's fascinating to me to learn that all these electronic styles have very specific idiomatic qualifications. I don't know why this strikes me as odd - but it does. I suppose having grown up deeply entrenched in the style of jazz I never really took the time to think about how people learn to play a certain style of music - but in order to do so somehow, somewhere one needs to learn what tempos, rhythmic patterns and structures typify a music. This is a no brainer - so why did I just somehow magically expect myself to *know* this stuff and never give myself the space to learn it. I guess if you grow up thinking you're Bach you're kind of fucked in the 'space to learn' department. Never considered that - in fact I think I relied on that idea so that I wouldn't have to learn - I'd just *know*.

Oy - well now I'm in a better position to cop style - and I'm going to relish in the learning, picking and choosing.