catachresis
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2004
- Posts
- 2,795
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Quote:
I'm not saying that Wynton encompasses American jazz at all. Rather, I'm suggesting that, in a time when American jazz is being appraised and received as a canonical heritage that must be preserved from corruption and dilution, Wynton and his crew are acknowledged to be the semi-official curators and gatekeepers. Hey, I'm a traditionalist myself--I'm not manning the barricades or threatening to burn anybody's bra or sousaphone. I have just started to feel like the things that the Kennedy Center crew release are a little smug and sterile: not fully conserving but not really innovating either.
'And I'm a jazz conservative. I'll listen to stride piano all day long.
Quote:
It was a silly reference to an old They Might Be Giants tune about what happens to visionary musical innovators who encounter the realities of the music biz.
For everyone with dollar-signs
In his eyes
There must be hundreds
Who look at you
As if you're some-kinduv
Rhythm Section Want-ad
--No Others Need Apply
To the Rythm Section Want-ad
I'll tell you why.
Quote:
I was always knocked-out by Jorge Rossi, the Spanish drummer who played on Brad Mehldau's first albums. Rossy has been a phenomenally nuanced drummer who channels the subdued energies of classic bossa nova rhythms. I saw him play with Mehldau twice and thought that Rossi was at least as subtly talented as the pianist.
| Originally Posted by tru blu /img/forum/go_quote.gif I must say it's always a bit funny to me that folks are still taking shots at Wynton…at this point he's too easy a target and I think anyone who pays a little attention to jazz realized a loonnnngggg time ago that there's much contemporary jazz in the U.S.A. that has absolutely nothing to do with his orbit. |
I'm not saying that Wynton encompasses American jazz at all. Rather, I'm suggesting that, in a time when American jazz is being appraised and received as a canonical heritage that must be preserved from corruption and dilution, Wynton and his crew are acknowledged to be the semi-official curators and gatekeepers. Hey, I'm a traditionalist myself--I'm not manning the barricades or threatening to burn anybody's bra or sousaphone. I have just started to feel like the things that the Kennedy Center crew release are a little smug and sterile: not fully conserving but not really innovating either.
'And I'm a jazz conservative. I'll listen to stride piano all day long.
Quote:
| Umm, not sure, but are you offhandedly suggesting that the rhythm section is too important in American jazz? All I can say to that is, "Yikes!!" |
It was a silly reference to an old They Might Be Giants tune about what happens to visionary musical innovators who encounter the realities of the music biz.
For everyone with dollar-signs
In his eyes
There must be hundreds
Who look at you
As if you're some-kinduv
Rhythm Section Want-ad
--No Others Need Apply
To the Rythm Section Want-ad
I'll tell you why.
Quote:
| All that said, last night I finally got the chance to hear a fantastic drummer I discovered on an ACT disc a couple of years ago: Ramon Lopez. He's from Spain, and he was on a gig with the pianist Agustí Fernandez and the British bassist Barry Guy. Lopez used many of the expanded things drummers do nowadays (alternating hand-percussion with stick work, playing brushes), but his sense of timing was truly his own. A musician who'd played with him before said to me later, "Yeah, Ramon doesn't play drums…he plays Ramon." That's about as good a recommendation as I can give. |
I was always knocked-out by Jorge Rossi, the Spanish drummer who played on Brad Mehldau's first albums. Rossy has been a phenomenally nuanced drummer who channels the subdued energies of classic bossa nova rhythms. I saw him play with Mehldau twice and thought that Rossi was at least as subtly talented as the pianist.
