50 Years

"Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney" (braddelaparker)
12/09/2014 at 14:51 • Filed to: jazzlopnik, coltrane

is a long time to be the single most important article of post-classical music ever made. Needs to get comfortable, though, because it's going to retain that moniker for a long, long time.

DISCUSSION (9)

ttyymmnn > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
12/09/2014 at 15:27

the single most important article of post-classical music ever made

That's quite a statement, but you may well be right.

ACESandEIGHTS > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
12/09/2014 at 15:32

This reminds me of a few things [note: Bob Loblaw, this is in no way in reference to you]:

1) That name dropping Coltrane or Davis instills in the name dropper some sort of cultural cachet, instantly setting them apart as urbane, accomplished, tuned into the postwar cultural zeitgeist that exists to this very day... [note: Bob Loblaw, this is in no way in reference to you.]

My wife once said "I knew you weren't some sort of f'ing poser because you never actually said 'Miles Davis,' but you actually owned old copies of his albums and kept them on your shelf and listened to them." This being the exception because everyone else she had heard form the name had been doing so solely to impress, with her revulsion having been the result. This means nothing to nobody except me, but you guys know some jazzman namedroppers. You're picturing them right now.

2) My frienemy National Public Radio had people commenting on the current state of music and one person in particular (Branford Marasllis maybe? Some annoying white NY-centricist?) had this to say: I am struck by the amount of people I ask to name important, lasting pieces of music who reply with the titles of pop songs, i.e. because they weren't properly acquainted with symphonic or jazz pieces, they of course would name some random rock and roll rubbish.

It seriously got me to wondering though: how does jazz bear the standard of The Most Recent Music Made Worth Listening To? Symphonies are done; they fold up shop every day; classical music makes a great resource for movie and television soundtracks; less than one percent of people surveyed will have spent any meaningful amount of money or time in pursuing chamber music performances or buying similar media. Move on to jazz, and you have a slight increase . It's more accessible, more varied, hipper and you can dance to it. Sometimes.

Why scoff though at, say, the reissue of The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street as non-jazz, non-symphonic pop music? In a few short years, anyone who appreciates it will be considered an old fuddy duddy. So what do you say we stop trashing "What Came After Jazz" as "Meaningless Pop Music," lest the Baby Boomers lay rightful claim to their title of cultural arbiters and the only generation that matters. [note: Bob Loblaw, this is in no way in reference to you]

I guess the question is: what succeeds symphonic (cold and boxed up) and jazz (wheezing and fading fast), if not pop music? This does sort of feed into what you just said, Bob Loblaw. What happens now?

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > ACESandEIGHTS
12/09/2014 at 17:00

Bookmarking this for later to come back to when I have time to give a thoughtful, drawn-out answer, but suffice to say:

1. Your analysis of jazzman name-droppers is spot on. The first response to my posting of this tune on my Facebook was "Davis and Coltrane are the shit." Die. Please. Now. Lone exception: you can name-drop Monk, mostly because I've yet to meet someone who leads with Monk who didn't know their shit.

2. I don't even start with the Marsalis family. They've got a real fucked up vision of what "jazz" is. Wynton barely acknowledges the import of post-war jazz, and Branford thinks white people have contributed nothing to jazz. I don't have room for either train of thought in my life.

3. Jazz is in no way, shape, or form the only modern music worth listening to, and I'll generally ignore anyone who tries to engage me in conversation with that line after hearing that I'm in to jazz. It is, however, in my mind, the last great frontier in music that has been conquered.

The reason A Love Supreme is so important is not because it was the last great jazz album (that's both debatable and unimportant), but because it fundamentally changed jazz music and simultaneously, through its legacy, pop music. I can't think of any other singular album that has produced an effect even close to the magnitude of the lasting effects of A Love Supreme. It marked a sea change in jazz music (it brought modality and spirituality to the forefront), and inspired an entire generation of pop musicians (pop being used loosely to cover just about any type of radio-play music you can imagine).

4. Pop music absolutely succeeds jazz, and already did long ago, really around the time that this album came out. Following this period in jazz was a marked change in pop music from simply fun listening to something that could have guts and meaning, something that could leave a lasting impression. I certainly won't say that A Love Supreme or even Coltrane himself were responsible for that change, but it/he was very much a part of the change in the environment in which music was made. It's hard to hear that album and go back to simply playing pop music; I think the commentary from the multitude of pop/rock musicians that gained notoriety in the 60s and 70s (Duane Allman's epiphany after seriously listening to this album is but one such example) and the impact of the culture of jazz upon them is proof enough.

Coltrane isn't my go to jazzman these days, and hasn't been for a long time, but his ubiquity and relevance is without question. He is the window for the layman into the greater world of jazz, and after exploring the commercially apparent Coltrane tunes, this album is the album that most often provides the impetus for a casual listener to begin to dig more deeply into that world.

ACESandEIGHTS > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
12/09/2014 at 17:06

No further questions, Judge. Seriously, I'd say you covered it.

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > ttyymmnn
12/09/2014 at 17:07

It is, and it's loaded with equal parts subjectivity and objectivity. Its subjective merits can absolutely be debated, but it was the fulcrum for a sea change in the world of jazz and possibly the most-cited inspiration for the heaviest hitters (musically, not commercially, although the two aren't mutually exclusive in this context) of 20th century popular music.

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > ACESandEIGHTS
12/09/2014 at 17:07

Muchas gracias. What started as an attempt at conciseness, well, failed. That seems to happen a lot when discussing jazz.

ttyymmnn > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
12/09/2014 at 17:17

I agree. It's just that as I was studying music history back in the day, we learned to be careful about statements saying anything was "the one thing" or "the most important" thing. There are always exceptions. But there's no question that you can look at works like Montiverdi's Orfeo , Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier , or Stravinksy's Rite of Spring , and say with some assurance that they were absolute game changers. Examples like these are rare, but they certainly exist.

ACESandEIGHTS > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
12/09/2014 at 17:17

Strange to think though that there's a evolution in everything at some point.

Whale oil gave way to crude. Boilers nixed by combustion engines. Jazz by pop music. And here we are in a time where radical change has already happened and stagnation has seen us recycling what was new over and over again. No, history hasn't ended, and we haven't even solved major problems facing society and the Earth, but this is important: what comes next in music . Haha.

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > ttyymmnn
12/09/2014 at 23:58

Superlatives and music should rarely collide, for sure, and I do my best to avoid it. This one just gets my subjective benefit of the doubt, ha.