The Grammys!

In my second blog, I talked about the female figure in jazz and considered the ways in which jazz as a whole has dealt with gender discrimination. I mentioned briefly Esperanza Spalding, the new up-and-coming jazz bassist/singer with a killer image and great talent. This next blog is sparked by the latest post by Patrick Jarenwattananon in A Blog Supreme. In essence, the author notes the jazz surprises in the 2011 Grammy Award nominations and notes that Spalding received a nomination for best new artist, yet did not receive one for best new jazz musician. As Jarenwattananon did, here is the full list of Grammy Nominees.

My first reaction to this is enthusiasm. It seems like finally a jazz musician is touching America just as deeply as Drake and the teen heart-throb Justin Bieber, whom both appear on the nominee list alongside Spalding. With Best Song nominees such as “Fuck You” by Cee-Lo Green making the list makes me wonder what America really considers to be great and progressive music. (Don’t get me wrong. This particular song has a sweet beat and is appallingly catchy. I just would not deem it the Best Song of the Year.)



In the categories having to do with jazz such as Best Jazz Vocal Album, Best Improvised Jazz Solo, and Best Instrumental Jazz Album (Individual or Group), Spaulding’s name does not appear. This makes me wonder how this reflects upon her success as a musician, an artist, and a performer. It also makes me consider the question of how much Spalding’s commercial success outweighs her musical accomplishments. My feelings are similar with the success of Norah Jones Grammy success in 2003, another woman whose image may have boosted voter confidence.

Overall, I am pretty pleased with the nomination. After all, this particular category is not called Best New Jazz Artist, but Best Artist overall. This category has always been dominated by pop stars and I don’t recall a jazz artist ever finding themselves in this specific category. And as for who will win the title of Best New Artist, that I cannot say. Trying to compare Spalding with Justin Bieber is just… something I never thought I would have to consider. What I do know is that the Grammy Awards are not always all about musicianship and talent, so I am sorry to say that Bieber might just come out on top for this one.

Christmas Time!

It was November 5^th when I first heard Christmas music on the radio this year. I thought that was pretty ridiculous. And then I noticed last week that Wynton Marsalis released a Christmas album this year with Wycliffe Gordon, Victor Goines and many others. It made me think about how much jazz has been used in Christmas music. From Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas to numerous jazz vocalists producing albums full of Christmas music, jazz has become a mainstay in the American Christmas soundtrack.

Christmas music is a giant industry and we hear it on the radio constantly for 2 months out of the year. Most of what we hear is not religious and just has to do with the modern tradition of being with family and gift-giving. Christmas has become much more of a family tradition than a religious celebration. I know lots of people, myself included, who never go to church, yet keep a pine tree in their living room every December. So Christmas music is no longer sacred, but it’s become a folk tradition.

Jazz began as a folk tradition, learning traditional tunes and telling stories. So it’s only natural that jazz has become such a huge medium for creating an American tradition of telling new Christmas stories. We sing about Santa Claus, chestnuts roasting, and snowy weather and these American stories are best told through America’s own music.

It is important to remember tradition and Christmas and Jazz both have such a rich tradition in America. I think it’s great that we have created our own national version of this widely celebrated holiday, even though a lot of it can be a bit annoying. I’d prefer if we could at least wait until Thanksgiving to start the constant influx of Christmas music.

Finding your own Identity

Every one has an identity. Rather, they have several things to identify with that make up who they are.

I am white.

I am male.

I am from New Jersey.

I like baseball.

I was raised Roman Catholic.

None of these are particularly interesting or extraordinary, but they define who I am by creating a set of experiences that I have known throughout my life. I have never really felt what it’s like to be in a minority (besides being a Mets’ fan in a sea of Yankee’s fans), but I imagine it allows a much clearer sense of identity. Whether it is race, culture, sexual preference, gender or anything else with a strong history of identity, you can choose how to let it into your life in different ways.

You can shun it, disassociate yourself from it and assimilate yourself to the norm.

Or you can exploit it, allow it to permeate all that you do, and when people look at you they can say, “Wow, that person is one specific thing!”

Or you can simply embrace your identity, let it influence who you are, but not let it become your entire being.

Vijay Iyer and Rudresh Mahanthappa discuss this at length in their conversation transcribed in the article Sangha: Collaborative Improvisations on Community. Vijay and Rudresh are both Indian American jazz musicians who have seen success in the US for the past 15 or so years. Both have a strong identity of their cultural roots, but have gone through phases of how they let into their lives.

Rudresh, speaking about how an entertainment lawyer was trying to sell him as blatantly Indian says,

“You need to pigeonhole yourself further, because you’re just a wild card. Here you are, you’re Indian American but you’re playing jazz, so you don’t fit into any preconceived notion of what a jazz musician is supposed to be. It all seems so edgy, if we could put you in a box, that way people could understand.”

Rudresh seemed uncomfortable with the fact that this lawyer wanted to take this angle. Both Rudresh and Vijay express throughout their conversation that they just want to be considered as jazz musicians and be judged on the merit of their music. While they do admit that they have explored Indian music and it can sometime have strong influence on their compositions, that is only a part of what their music means and it becomes part of their music’s identity.

On the whole I agree with Vijay and Rudresh’s ideas that although racial identity (or any identity) may have an influence on your art, it doesn’t and shouldn’t have to be the point of it. Hopefully, listeners will listen to the music without putting a label on it and just decide whether or not they enjoy it.

I think it’s great that identity and upbringing can have an influence on how one writes music, but it I don’t think it can ever be the focus. No one person is ever just one thing and that’s what makes everyone individual. If you’re able to embrace the individuality of yourself and everyone around you can begin to appreciate all art just for what it is.

Problems in Education: an Exercise in Efficiency

With the thought-provoking presentations in today’s discussion, I have been thinking of the sources for problems in our education, and specifically jazz education. Jazz in either performance or education must run very efficiently stay viable, let alone lucrative. Think about the modern jazz artist: the ability to recognize, play, and even live-transcribe hundreds of standard songs with endless creativity and variety across gigs lasting hours. With this skill in mind, not even counting artist compositions, doubling skills, or ability to take audience requests, a newly-formed jazz ensemble can gig or record often with little or no rehearsal time. This level of flexibility and efficiency is not expected out of classical musicians, yet comparable talent in the classical world is often met with greater financial reward.

Why do we have grades? Even if we could devise a meaningful way to critique and motivate each individual student in each class, this would compromise the efficiency of the program, its viability, and therefore its ability to meet the needs of future students. As for jazz educators who know they are accepting too many students to sustain in the field, they are also subject to other pressures. I find it difficult to believe that I would turn down an opportunity to teach some eager students at a school that wanted my services and could sustain my living. As far as being honest with each individual student, I don’t think teachers should sugar-coat anything but should not be too quick to judge who they think can make it in the field. Maybe they should, I am not quite sure; I just know that teachers have been discouraging to me and it has only spurred me to success as I have tried to prove them wrong. This is only true for my skills in which I have confidence; when teachers have mirrored my internal criticism, it quickly becomes an obstacle and a detriment to my education, when it could have been only a minor struggle.

I don’t bash efficiency for the institution, if you know what you’re getting before you sign up, because the institution functions only if it can create enough output with its capital. However, large classes and firm academic structure make for a sub optimally efficient education for each individual student, and the student should take the initiative to search for learning opportunities in the real world. Unfortunately it is hard to motivate students in this way if they aren’t motivating themselves, and the reward is only a slight improvement for students who are not ready to be ambitious in the real world.

In my own education I have balanced public school, the conservatory, and private mentorship outside of the school setting. As I have been exposed to more methods of education consumption, I have been acutely aware of the areas in which I lack education or could have learned much more efficiently. With this in mind, it is a paradox to say that I found this hodgepodge of educational systems to teach me the most in the least amount of time.



BY THE WAY, MAKE SURE TO CHECK OUT THIS YOUTUBE CLIP---SUPER FUNNY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLW5KINBw9s

You are all racists and sexists!

I would like to talk about some taboo subjects, as they at times hinder meaningful collaboration. I talked today in my presentation about the “feminism pill” being hard to swallow because men feel they are unfairly being cast as the enemy, but in reality often face the same challenges women do. The truth is, both men and women often stand in the way of fair treatment across the gender border, even women against women and men against men. Women often support hurtful stereotypes such as displaying themselves provocatively in their media sources such as their publicity packages and facebook pages, using this to try to allure more patronage. I see this as very different as sexuality being a form of self-expression. It’s a matter of where you would like to put your control border…do you want to control only yourself, or do you want to extend your borders out to control other people? When I conduct my interviews to round out my term paper, I will be asking the following questions:




“How do you feel men are affected by issues of sexuality and marketing? What kinds of choices in self-representation do you see with male artists and do you think this fundamentally differs from the stereotypes afforded to women? “


It would be silly to say that oppression is equal for men as it is for women, or for white people as it is for black people. However, we shouldn’t dismiss their less-voiced complaints. But are women judged on different criteria, or just more harshly on the same set of criteria?


I heard an Ethnic Studies professor give a lecture during my undergrad, which she started by saying, “If you are white, you are a racist.” I am white and became obviously offended by this remark, but as she spoke she clarified and redefined the word “racism” to include many subconscious acts. Racism doesn’t have to be intentional to be wildly hurtful. She talked about “white privilege,” which is the concept that through generations of cultural stigma and whites enjoying more wealth than blacks, white people have had more opportunities and incentive to pursue education, lucrative jobs, and status (this not a groundbreaking idea, but I use it to set up the next concept.) By simply holding on to white privilege, white people support this inequality, although it is natural and presumably healthy to want to preserve the greatest opportunities for oneself. Unfortunately, white privilege is impossible to escape as it is impossible to escape your skin. We are not even fully aware of the opportunities afforded to us due to skin color, or gender, and thus support harmful systems without realizing it.


No, I don’t mean anything hurtful when I say, “you are all racists and sexists!” I don’t mean just men, or just white people; even those of us with the best intentions should become aware of what’s really going on.


Posted by UrbanDiction

XXL: The Bigger the better!

So, why'll sitting in my room drinking my second pot of coffee for the day, I was again listening to my most favorite composer of all time, David Maslanka. However, he hasn't come out with anything new in a little while, and I can only listen to his 8th Symphony be helplessly played by the Illinois State University Wind Ensemble so many times. So, I turn my attention to the other 42.7 days of music I have sitting on my computer. And I happened to come across some Jazz! All right!

Looking through, I honestly thought that none of my jazz collection would be cool or hip enough for the likes of my fellow peers. So I skimmed through again, thought to myself, "I like big band music too much to not write about it" and started writing. So here we go!

A good friend of mine gave me a CD entitled XXL: Gordon Goodwinds Big Phat Band a while back, and sad to say I thought I had lost it. Luckily, due to the technological age we live in, I told him this, and he gave me another. As I finally listen to it now, I wonder why I haven't listened sooner! Ever hear of Gordon Goodwind? Ever see the movie The Incredibles? He arranged the ending credits to the movie, and won a Grammy in 2006 for it. Pretty hip, if I do say so myself. Take a listen if you want.

This CD is so much fun to listen to, with of course a few exceptions of pieces that I just skip whenever they come along. One track called "The Quiet Corner" is drenching with smooth jazz, and would most likely be heard in elevators across Americas shopping malls. I also suggest not listening to it when your alone with anyone...they might get the wrong impression. Another track I would skip is "Comes Love", which sounds too much like an American Idol audition than anything else.

However, the rest of the CD is great! The clarinet solo in "Thad said no" is very well performed, and probably my most favorite track on there has to be "Hunting Wabbits." It's Gordon Goodwinds take on the classic Warner Bros. cartons of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, and it makes me smile every time I listen to it. Goodwind also has an incredible arrangement of Mozart's 40th Symphony in G minor on this CD. Sometimes when you hear jazz arrangements of symphonies like this, most writers do not do them justice. This one however is a very classy arrangement, and just like the rest of the album, it's very fun to listen to.

So if you're looking to get back into listening to big band, I would say this is a good place to start. It's a tight group, the soloists are outstanding, and the music can just put you in a good mood.

Artistic Genius as Primitive Being

“…aesthetic pleasure in the beautiful consists, to a large extent, in the fact that, when we enter the state of pure contemplation, we are raised for the moment above all willing, above all desires and cares; we are, so to speak, rid of ourselves.”

The lofty artist has always been seen as somehow above the rest of society. This quote from early 19^th century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer shows that long before jazz, the true artist was seen as entering a state that was not at all physical, but existed only on a spiritual level. What Schopenhauer was getting at is that a human achieves art by leaving behind all the burdens of the material world and becoming something more than human. This same concept can be applied to the “hip” jazz musicians of the mid-twentieth century.

In Ingrid Monson’s article, “The Problem with White Hipness,” she talks a lot about how jazz artists were viewed as primitive beings that existed only for the music. The hip artists seemed unconcerned with worldly problems and were always seeking the more spiritual side of life. She points out that “negative social behaviors could be transformed into positive markers of artistic genius.” I think this perspective is very related to Schopenhauer’s philosophy of purity of being. Whether it be through the use of drugs or just being completely absorbed into the aural sensation of the music, jazz musicians seemed to step up to that next level of being in the 1950s. This is when jazz truly became known as an artform instead of a simple means of entertainment. Fans of jazz at the time really felt they saw the transformation from human to artist when they watched these performers.

I find it interesting that over a century before the primitive view of jazz musicians made them seem more artistic, people were philosophizing about separating body from mind and mind from society to make art truly beautiful. This shows that jazz became an established transformative and moving artform through this concept of hipness.