Sent you a message, sent you an e-mail

I've spent the holiday weeks rediscovering the joys of the internet: browsing clips on YouTube, and rediscovering the radio station functions on last.fm (hat tip to James Hale). One site in particular has really piqued my interest, though - Indaba Music. After many years of attempts for musicians to jam together, whether in real-time or not, Indaba seems to have married some of the better concepts of Music/Web-2.0 of the past couple of years. I first read about the site in October when they were running a remix competition with The Roots, one of many contests they have held. Similar to Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Dave Douglas and of course the Biennale project, The Roots put the stems of "Criminal" (from Rising Down) up on Indaba for anyone to remix; the contest part of it entailed that the top 10 would proceed to a second round, and the winner would be invited to work on a session live with The Roots. I signed up to participate but never got around to it.

The latest project goes one further: K-Os has put up stems of his entire forthcoming record, and will release a companion remix record drawn exclusively from Indaba submissions. I've remixed three of the songs.

Now lest anyone think that Indaba is geared strictly to the hip-hop or electronica communities, previous competitions have featured Yo-Yo Ma and Joe Lovano. In addition to the competition, members can upload their own sessions, private or public, and collaborate with others. I find it a highly organized system: when browsing sessions, the genre of the project and what the leader is looking for come up as tags. While the membership can be skewed towards hip-hop and electronica, I've seen that some forward-thinking jazz musicians such as Vijay Iyer, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Greg Osby and Meilana Gillard have profiles up; I've even discovered the profile of Brainerd Blyden-Taylor, a choral director with whom I worked in Toronto. Indaba looks truly promising in finding new collaborators and seems to be an efficient method of sharing ideas. I still love recording live-off-the-floor, as evidenced by the Indigone Trio album. I prefer, if at all possible, to work shoulder-to-shoulder with collaborators, as Heliponto and I did at the Red Bull Music Academy. Failing that, swapping files via e-mail, or in a streamlined session, may lead to new creative avenues.

Late additions

...to the blogroll, that is. I've belatedly added Peter Breslin's Stochasticactus to the list; like me, he's a musician/radio jockey, and often brings up quite challenging issues in the state of improvised music. Also stirring the pot is The Improvising Guitarist (whom I long thought was the alter ego of Stanley J. Zappa - my apologies to both of them), with a fabulous cache of essays on gender, race, and identity within music.

A non-music blog (blasphemy!) has been added: Freshwater Mermaid, a fellow Montrealer with acerbic wit and great insight into local, national and international issues. If you dig deeper into the blog, you'll find excerpts of a novel-in-progress. It may well be complete by now, I'm not sure.

The mighty Helen Spitzer, who helmed CBC's Brave New Waves for 8 momentous weeks before the show's untimely demise, has left the blogosphere for now. Jesse Jarnow is on vacation. Under the Mediatrics banner, a belated welcome to Hank Shteamer.

***

Steve has word that Tonic will shut its doors mid-April. When that headline popped up in my RSS feed, I was stunned. Tonic had become an integral part of my NYC experience, and I will miss it terribly. I'm working on a eulogy for PanPot right now.

***

The final show of Indigone Trio's March residency is tonight at Le Parc des Princes. We've broken in drummer Phil Melanson admirably. 8:30 pm, 2 sets of original compositions by ourselves and other people.

***

The other night, I was working on a new piece for BMI at my local Second Cup, and it was easily the strangest crowd I've ever experienced there: two tourists, above and beyond expecting waitresses at a Second Cup, spouting the most disjointed conservative rhetoric I've heard outside the O'Reilly Factor (accusing the recent Quebec election of not having issues - I suppose health care and education aren't issues enough - as well as accusing Canada of being a lefty-pinko land of lollipops and roses sufficiently out of touch with the reality of the rest of the world as the US sees it)*; two women rather loudly gossiping about the ineptitude of the returning officers and other scrutineers; and one guy who, after intently watching me work, started rambling at me about various quasi-related subjects.

* - the true irony: these guys were sitting right beside me, while the piece I was working on was catalyzed by my friend organizing the benefit concert for Darfur.

Metacritic

Ethan's interview with Stanley Crouch, David R. Adler's review of Crouch's compilation Considering Genius, and various other bits and pieces spurred this line of thought.

Much has been made of the Internet bestowing the privileges of mass media to anyone who has the mere seconds it takes to register an account, especially in the wake of Idolator's rogue Jackin' Pop extravaganza. Much of it has been a pity party from mainstream media, decrying the fact that indeed everyone now has the power to be a critic, or gatekeeper, or kingmaker, or whatever self-inflating pundit term may be coined the future. But when many mainstream critics have ossified in their tastes, is it really such a bad thing to have a burst of new voices?

Reviews should take the music (or film/production/play/etc) on its own merit, and the ideal critic is one who is as transparent and as catholic as possible. Much of music has a goal, whether it be programmatic music or a concept album (or both), and the best reviews should aptly demonstrate whether it succeeds or fails at achieving said goal. Nate Dorward's rules of reviews are ones I attempt to follow. In my small portfolio of published reviews, I think I've only ever panned a couple of artists here, and I view those as neophyte and immature mistakes. (I still stand by some of the opinions though - you can't call twenty minutes of the same damn thing two different tunes, unless they're parts I and II. Sorry.)

But it's scathing diatribes that bring the audiences and sell the magazines, which is why IAJE will intentionally pit Bob Blumenthal against Christian McBride; it's why people still talk about Pitchfork's over-the-top reaction to a mundane album; and it seems to be the only reason Down Beat still has the Hot Box. Anyone who's read DB for any length of time will know that John McDonough usually doesn't want to have anything to do with free improvisation or electronics (heaven forbid it should be free improvisation WITH electronics); and that John Corbett will praise anything with hefty amounts of "crazy experimental freedom." Jim Macnie and Paul de Barros are the more moderate voices in the box. But as a reader, I don't even look at McDonough's and Corbett's reviews for substance anymore: I know their tastes and I can tell just by the artist and/or label whether they'll like the record or not. Arthur Kaptainis of the Montreal Gazette makes it abundantly clear, in nearly every new music review he's forced to pen, that he feels it's a chore to attend concerts made up of music post-Schoenberg. Again, as an educated reader, I know exactly what to expect if it's a new music review with his byline. And I feel sorry for the readers whose only exposure to this music is through superficial tripe.

Writers like Crouch, whose biases precede them, get in their own way and in the way of their subjects. Crouch's reputation for "driving the thresher," and his acute ability to entirely miss the point, overshadows the majority of his contribution to the critical canon. And I welcome the opportunity blogging has given the unexpert critics, in the form of passionate listeners and musicians, to level the playing field, so that if major critic X didn't like this weekend's new music premiere, there's just as much of a chance via one's search engine of choice to find a review that maybe, for once, addresses the music. Blogs (for the most part) don't have to answer to editorial mandates or advertising dollars, and that's truly liberating for honest and respectable criticism.

No one is life itself

For the Montrealers that read this blog (and those that are coming here via Panpot), I hereby welcome you and remind you that I'm playing tonight (February 23, 2007) with the reworked, revamped Indigone Trio. Tonight we welcome drummer and avid bicyclist Phil Melanson into the trio, with Alex Mallett holding down the bass, as always. We hit at Les Conneries (2037 St. Denis), at 8:30 pm.

NB: Please take careful note of the address - 2037 St. Denis - as that's the only marking on the door. It's the door beside venerable punk bar Café Chaos. I nearly missed it myself on the way to Groove Night. Again, that's 2037 St. Denis.

More Indigone Trio news to follow shortly.

***

Mwanji and Pat have already picked up on this - Dr. Jazz has graciously posted a transcript of Ornette's untelevised acceptance speech. As I read it, I was reminded of Ornette's address at IAJE 2006. Much like his music, it was a powerful speech as he made it, and had some sort of inner logic to it, though when I tried to repeat it to others who weren't there it lost all its meaning and effect.

What you gon' play now?

There's a couple of very touching essays remembering the departed up now around the web.

Firstly, Christian McBride went on a burst of blogging at the beginning of the new year. I'd like to draw attention to his ultimate blog, not intended to be a memorial but functioning as one for the late Godfather of Soul. Read some of the subsequent entries, as well. McBride's experiences with Soul Brother No. 1 give Mr. Brown a human element that not many people saw.

Secondly, as has been linked a lot today, trumpeter Randy Sandke remembers his buddy Michael Brecker over at Rifftides.

And thirdly, Destination Out has a massive Alice Coltrane tribute. Jay and Drew, I salute thee.

Salon answers

On the Pulse blog, Joe Phillips has put up some substantive debate for composers, performers, and the like. I'm going to repost excerpts here for some context, but for the full talking points, check the link.

I. ...work/composition is not complete until it has been observed or heard [and subsequently] evaluated by an audience. ... a good work of art is one that (as you experience it) “makes you want to jump up and get out of there” and go and create something yourself. How do you view this statement (especially in relationship toward how your own compositions are received by the public)?

The best concerts I've seen usually make me want to hit the practice room, seriously write my butt off, or investigate their artistic tradition. Sometimes it has less to do with wanting to copy the musicians/composers in question and more about being inspired and rejuvenated. There must be an analog to this sentiment among non-musicians/non-artists, but I can't figure out what it would be - maybe "I wish I could do that," or regretting having quit piano lessons in early adolescence.

I agree that composition - and any performing art - is incomplete unless it has been disseminated in some way, which is why I always felt that my high school Shakespeare readings should have been determined by what was being staged that year and not by a predetermined curriculum. The audience doesn't necessarily hold the final judgement on a work, but the act of having a piece performed, even if it's just for a jury of my peers, adds a dimension to it. Composition can be such a hermetic practice that the ability to have my colleagues critique it in a reading session takes me out of my own headspace and allows me to re-evaluate my work in a more objective setting.

II. ...with the rise of modernism (in art) in the early 20th century, there came a disconnect with audiences—an “antagonism” between the artistic creator and the consumer of the art. ... “This is my essential criticism of modernism, whether perpetrated by (Charlie) Parker, (Erza) Pound, or (Pablo) Picasso: it helps us neither to enjoy nor to endure.”

Do you agree or disagree with Bayles’ and/or Larkin’s statements/premises? How do you as a composer/performer, balance artistic and commercial viability in your own work? In the presentation (i.e. performances) of your works? What other composers/performers do you feel balance artistic and commercial viability well? Is this even necessary?

I have little patience for pedantic or academic work. If I have to read the program notes for a piece to make any sort of sense, the composer should merely become a poet or author. Spare me the tedium. And as many jazz musicians have spouted over the years, the stage is not the practice room. Tell a story, etc. To effect the jumping-up-and-getting-out reaction that Laurie Anderson mentions above, the piece/improvisation/art has to stem from an honest and sincere place.

I firmly believe that it's obvious whether a musician is honest or whether they're bullshitting. Conviction is an easy thing to hear. If I tried to play a Djavan tune verbatim, it would come off quite crass, honestly, both to me and to the audience. But any cover I play, I endeavour to approach it from a place of true admiration and appreciation, and to make it my own in some meaningful way. There's a lot of songs I love and love to play in private, but that I would rarely, if ever, program on one of my own gigs, because I don't feel I have anything of myself with which to imbue it.

That said, there's more factors at play in the 20th century reception of art aside from the rise of modernism. The rise of alternative forms of entertainment, such as radio, cinema and television, created this idea of competition for attention. Half the threads on NewMusicBox and the like seem to be about how to get listeners out to concerts, and to entice them away from their Wiis (Wiiae?) and TiVos and various other entertainment devices. Additionally, the iPod and internet is the pinnacle of music dissemination, with the ability to get nearly any music at any time and listen to it anywhere. Four hundred years ago, music could only travel by way of printed scores and performance. Home entertainment was in the form of children learning instruments, home concerts and salons.

I've said it before: it's amazing what mere exposure will do to generate an audience. I don't want to get on the political soapbox about mainstream media insulting the intelligence of its viewers and listeners, but I think we really do underestimate what people will gravitate toward if they're even given the opportunity to hear it.

As a composer and/or performer how do you generate audiences for your performances? How does audience reaction to a piece affect your future writing? your programming? Do you think about the audience when writing?

I don't think about the audience when I'm writing. Composition is a very selfish task: I'm writing for me. I write what I want to hear, sometimes even as a form of personal catharsis. When I wrote "Driscollage" as a tribute to Chris Driscoll, I did it as a coping method. I couldn't get the melody out of my head after I heard the news. The potential reception of it never entered my mind. I do, however, think about the audience in terms of programming, but again, it's based on how I, as a listener, would want to hear a set of music. As for generating audiences, I haven't ever modified my music to gain more listeners, and I hope I never have to. If my music has changed, it's been for personal reasons and growth, not to kowtow to commerciality.

Can you recommend any composer, group, or recording that balances the artistic with the popular (or at least commercial successful)?

Radiohead. Paul Simon. Ethel. Maria Schneider. Tom Waits. The current crop of [shudder] crossover projects (Kronos playing Sigur Ros, Alarm Will Sound playing Aphex Twin, So Percussion double bills with Matmos) seem to be coming from a genuine appreciation for the music as opposed to a record producer's grand marketing idea.

I'd like to bring up David Lewis' review of Golijov's Ainadamar on AllMusic. He writes:

In Ainadamar, Golijov plays it safe, ... almost sounding like a zarzuela or, at worst, like Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita with better music. ... The serious subject of Ainadamar does not defeat the fact that its music sounds commercial, as well crafted as it is. ... [T]he lack of risk-taking in Ainadamar is tantamount to Golijov moving into another camp of composers -- some might say on his way up in the world, but others may decide that it's "out."

If all operas were as direct and accessible as Ainadamar, one wouldn't need to pull teeth to get audience members. Lewis seems to consider "melodic" as a synonym for "commercial," and I can't fathom why any composer or musician should become an apologist for melody. And what of the idea of balancing the weighty subject with lighter music? Not all opera has to be buried under Wagnerian gravitas. The biggest detriment facing "classical" and "jazz" music is that its purists risk putting it not merely in a museum, but in a bubble. The best art is not insular, but connected to the entirety of its traditions and social contexts - both of its time and timeless.

Administration

Added a couple of overdue names to the blogroll.

Jesse Jarnow first came to my attention as a pre-eminent writer in the jamband scene, and has since proven to be a first-class blogger and podcaster (on the Ropeadope site) with varied taste. He also posts mp3s and whimsical fiction from time to time.

Dr. Jazz and I have crossed many a cyberpath. It's always refreshing to see musicians involved with the industry and journalism side of things. As a saxophonist (I'm unsure of his activity in the Philly or NYC scenes as he seems pretty busy with his day job), he's got a very frank memorial of Michael Brecker up now.

Notes: I'm hosting World Skip the Beat on CKUT on Monday, January 15, noon EST. As always, you can tune in online or download from the archives. The playlist will appear here after the show. You can check out the playlists of previous Jazz Euphorium shows here.

Words of wisdom from the world outside

The Idolator Jackin' Pop poll is finally up. It's a massive list, and I haven't parsed it all yet, but the various breakdowns in the demographics section are revealing. It's also nice to see some non-pop critics like James Hale and Alex Ross get in on the action, and that Christgau is as omnivorous as ever. NPR covers the Internet rebellion against the Voice, with Sasha Frere-Jones providing insight.

I've been channel surfing over the holidays, and sometimes land on the best-of/worst-of/encapsulate-the-year-in-an-hour shows on MuchMusic and its sister stations. One little bit struck me, from a MuchMoreMusic wrap-up, lambasting some starlet-du-jour and stating, "If talent actually mattered, everyone would love this guy!" I don't disagree - Ron Sexsmith is among the top songwriters in Canada - but it set me on a train of thought about the industry, reminiscing of the buzzwords from the Future of Music Coalition meetings in October.

If the kingmakers - or at least their writers and on-air personalities - prefer substance over style, then why isn't Ron Sexsmith given similar rotation to Fergie? Or even a fraction of it? (This is assuming music videos still made up the majority of programming, which is not the case.) A yearly tradition is Ed the Sock (a sock puppet meeting of Oscar the Grouch and Triumph, for the non-Canadian readers) openly mocking the fromage of whatever year, which usually happen to be the most highly played videos in MuchMusic's repertoire. I guess the 15 minutes of fame doesn't care if it's comprised of bad press.

Is the mainstream still really that commercial, or is it a case of all the alternatives in the indie world split the vote? With all the press and adulation Gnarls Barkley got, I still only saw the video twice, and have only heard "Crazy" on radio a handful of times.

It's an invitation across the nation

Oh, what the hell. Here's my two cents in the Bad Plus survey extraordinaire:

GIVE US AN EXAMPLE OR TWO OF AN ESPECIALLY GOOD OR INTERESTING:
1. Movie score. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Jon Brion).
2. TV theme. Animaniacs.
3. Melody. "Oceano" (Djavan); "No Surprises" (Radiohead); "Better Git Hit In Yo' Soul" (Mingus)
4. Harmonic language. "El Espejo" (Guillermo Klein - go bitonality); "My Funny Valentine" (arr. Brookmeyer - go chromaticism!)
5. Rhythmic feel. "Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further?" (Lee Dorsey - Allen Toussaint and co.)
6. Hip-hop track. "Paragraph President" (Blackalicious); "Elektro4 for President" (Elektro4 & Bombay Sapphire feat. illyB)
7. Classical piece. The Miraculous Mandarin Suite (Bartók).
8. Smash hit. "Layla" acoustic version (Eric Clapton - a lot of people dislike this version, but I think Chuck Leavell is killing, and the laidback, rolling blues groove is great).
9. Jazz album. Speak Like a Child (Herbie - a front line of doubles, fantastic harmonies and textures in great compositions. One of the discs I never leave home without.)
10. Non-American folkloric group. Soweto Gospel Choir, Mystère des voix bulgares.
11. Book on music. A Cure for Gravity (Joe Jackson).

BONUS QUESTIONS:
A) Name an surprising album (or albums) you loved when you were developing as a musician: something that really informs your sound but that we would never guess in a million years: The most formative record may be the least apparent one - 52nd Street (Billy Joel). Also, A Go Go (John Scofield with Medeski Martin & Wood).
B) Name a practitioner (or a few) who play your instrument that you think is underrated: Uri Caine; Fred Hersch.
C) Name a rock or pop album that you wish had been a smash commercial hit (but wasn’t, not really): Spirit Trail (Bruce Hornsby).
D) Name a favorite drummer, and an album to hear why you love that drummer: Tony on Herbie's Maiden Voyage. Honourable mention: Joey Baron on Dave Douglas' Soul on Soul - the disco 4-over-3 break on "Waltz Boogie" cracks me up every time.