Customer Reviews

Blue: The Murder of Jazz

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Musicians like myself are frequently amused by polemic like these. In the first place, most workaday (but in many cases, top-drawer) jazz players I know probably couldn't even afford admission into Lincoln Center to hear what all the shootin' is about, a fact that in itself speaks volumes about how little has changed in the BUSINESS of music and how its establishment totally disrespects its practitioners.

Having said that, I think Nisenson had a hell of a lot of courage to "tilt at windbags" and go after the high and mighty the way he did. Personally, for what it's worth, I happen to agree with his assessment of things. If he were a musician worrying about career, etc., the smart money would say to keep his mouth shut. There is currently a surfeit of gifted musicians across the stylistic spectrum that can only be termed "disenfranchised", for many of the reasons Nisenson alludes to (eg.: ageism, commercialism, Crow-Jim, control of the industry by the few, critics falling in line with the "sainted one" and his minions the better to advance their own phoney-baloney careers, etc.). Nisenson cuts through this malarkey to expose this. Whether one agrees or disagrees with his assertions, he deserves credit for his courage and for "afflicting the comfortable". He raises issues that need raising. Perhaps after reading this, musicians will finally realize that there is strength in unity AND diversity, and that we are all on the same side in the pursuit of our individual visions of beauty.

An irritating book. The argument is easily dismantled once someone picks up Nisenson's strategy. He speaks of the "spirit" of jazz and its constant violation by the "neoclassicists" who obsess with eliminating what Nisenson identifies is that spirit. I don't leave convinced that Nisenson has captured "the" spirit and "the taming" of that spirit.

Tom Piazza's book sends a message that is the complete inverse of Nisenson's. The neoclassicists are the vanguard for the "sprit" of jazz.

Both books are so fundamentalist, emotional and subjective in their perspectives that neither will change the mindset of anyone who has or has not chosen sides in these "jazz wars."

Sometimes I wonder if the bulk of jazz musicians really believe they are in a war or if the war is something that exists in the minds of critics and fans. It's hard to tell since Piazza and Nisenson seem uninterested in conversing with what they see as the fundamentally heretical opposition.

Piazza's book is worse because he doesn't attempt doesn't even attempt to structure his thoughts into the form of a coherent argument. Nisenson, at least, is more thoughtfully committed to providing the reader a completed work, which is a polemical work. That's not a problem in itself. However, it is so polemical and so obsessed with the social influences, personalities, words, and "anti-jazz" spirit of neoclassicism that he doesn't bother analyzing actual specific pieces of music that they make. He just keeps claiming that "neoclassicists" lack what "Miles called 'that thing." He tries to define "that thing" throughout most of the book by examining the jazz eras for their "innovative" and "reactionary" elements.

However, the book is thoroughly unconvincing because NOT ONE, NOT ONE, piece of music by the "neoclassicists" is analyzed for content. It's just all "anti-innovation," disembodied from "social environment," dispassionate, and cold. He simply categorizes a huge body of work as being anti-jazz neoclassicism. I find Nisenson to be as reactionary as the "straw man" he is criticizing or, should I say, condemning to hell.

Nisenson and Piazza are fundamentalists convinced that they have perfect conceptions of the essence of jazz. They create straw men but Nisenson is far less lazy in crafting his staw man and developing his conception of jazz's essence. Piazza just expects to do no work and have everyone buy into his argument.

Nisenson's book is overly repetitive, too whiny, and too detached from the creation of those he despises. I REPEAT: NOT ONE, NOT ONE, NOT ONE RECORDING BY the so-called "neoclassicists" is analyzed for content. Books like this don't have to be written by the most scholarly of music critics. I just want to see an attempt to get at the content of the real rather than the hypothetical music of those that jazz writers identify as being in the destructive opposition.

I warn readers of books like this. Please be careful of these lines drawn in the battlefield and the labels/categories assigned in the heat of battle. Listen to music carefully, reflect on it, record your own responses and feelings on its content. Be very skeptical when writers avoid the actual content of the music they are criticizing. Piazza and Nisenson are amateur social scientists/philosophers making an artform of overstatement about musical trends they refuse to examine for musical content.

They both know a lot about music but they both obsess and speculate so much on the social motivations of their perceived opposition that they willfuly neglect an examination of the actual music created by that opposition.

Musician and author, Bill Cole writes in his biography of John Coltrane, "In music the course has been to investigate the structural manifestations of jazz and put importance on THAT far exceeding its worth and to call THAT scholarship. 'In structural [mode analysis], where form is held to determine content, its value is inflated beyond all reason, with the result that an analysis of how a thing is shaped or done is virtually now regarded as supplying the key to the essence of its being...'" (page 51) This consideration becomes particularly relevant in regards to the arguments presented by Nisenson in this book. Nisenson concentrates his attention on the work of Wynton Marsalis and those who reside under his banner at Lincoln Center, reprimanding the Wyntonians on many levels. For one, jazz has ALWAYS been the idiom of pioneers: Satch, Hawk, Duke, Dexter Gordon, Monk, Bird, Dizzy, Miles, 'Trane and many others who defied the conventions of their time (which was not often favored by the press.) It has ALWAYS been essential of any significant player to have a style of one's own. When the author consider's Wynton's musicianship in this regard, Mr. Marsalis seems to fall short. This is not meant to imply that Mr. Marsalis lacks overall ability. Marsalis DOES know how to play the trumpet well. His proficiency, however, never transcends technical understanding of forensic "correctness." As a player he aspires for historical accuracy (according to what he and his PURPORT to be "The Jazz Tradition") rather than dauntless individuality which is its own tradition. As a player, Wynton sounds like everyone who preceeded him. The real tragedy of this is that he is lauded for it. Another reprisal posed by Nisenson is of the hubristic position taken by the neo-classicists in that they feel entitled to imperiously ordain to the jazz community what is and is not "authentic." You don't have to be a genius to understand why no single criterion can define a music so diverse... esspecially when the principles are so stringently ultra-conservative. Nisenson takes a detailed inventory of the narrow parameters by which the neo-classicists appraise the value of an individual's work and then spends the majority of the book applying these standards to each generation in jazz's genealogy. The revelation of this is that when this dogma is applied, too many musicians central to the jazz tradition are discounted. One other issue addressed is the overall politics surrounding the situation at Lincoln Center. Nisenson makes an astute observation that the musicians seem to be following the critics which certainly IS NOT indigenous to the jazz tradition and is certainly to the detriment of ANY art form. Another observation is that Jazz At Lincoln Center seems to have hiring policies and programing that tend to exclude white musicians. When the classical establishment was accused of the same practices it was considered not only racist, but unacceptable. It is hard to imagine calling it by any other name when the circumstances are reversed. There is also something to be said for the quality of performances that take place under the leadership of Mr. Marsalis. The itenerary seems less about educating the public about the merits of jazz as it does to finance Wynton's fleet of groups who churn out rather watered-down, logically "safe", risk-free interpretations of music that was once compelling for being none of the above. I gave this book three stars because someone NEEDED to write this book. Nisenson is not an outstanding writer by any stretch of the imagination. There are times when I felt as though he presumed too much and did not explain enough, but for the most part he presents his accumen with efficiency and takes his time to present us with the evidence. As Leroi Jones said in his book "Black Music", "A bad solo, no matter how well it is played, is still a bad solo." I would contend in defense of this book with the following - A valid point, regardless of how poorly stated, is still a valid point. Nisenson pleads exuberantly, if not elloquently, for an art form that teeters perilously on the verge of extinction at the hands of its' paper heros.

This book was a lot of fun to read even if the "controversies" of jazz critics seem like a "tempest in a teapot."

The theme of this book is simple - that ongoing innovation is an essential part of the history of jazz, and that continued innovation is necessary for the vitality of the art. While the tone of the book is at times a bit polemic, it is also informed by a passion for the music. This makes the book far more interesting to read than a simple lifeless recitation of the facts of jazz history. The book is actually an interesting and informative survey of the of the history of jazz and innovation in jazz. He also makes some very interesting points about the impact of jazz education and record companies on the recent evolution of the music. Artists, he says, are signed too young, when they've been trained in school and not trained through "paying their dues".

I found the book to be compelling reading. I don't agree 100% with his assessment of certain artists and developments. Nissenson appreciates "free jazz" and "fusion" far more than I do. But I would definitely recommend this book to any student of jazz, or to anyone who wants to be more informed about the music.

When I started reading this book, it was at a time when I was a rock and blues fan trying to get into jazz and understand it better. One question I always had at the back of my mind was, "Why is it that I usually like jazz records from the Fifties better than jazz records from the Nineties?" Another was, "What separates good jazz from bad?" Nisenson answers those questions in spades. I can understand some of the criticisms of the book in the reviews below, but despite its title, Blue: The Murder Of Jazz is a great book for beginning jazz fans to increase their understanding of the music. Serious jazz listeners will love it or hate it depending on their point of view, but I found it to be a quick read and highly informative.

There are some judgements in this book that I agree with. Stanley Crouch is indeed an arrogant,aggressive blowhard. Albert Murray is a barely-veiled Crow Jimmer. Much of Wynton Marsalis' playing is dull, and some of his larger-scale works just don't come off at all.

Yet the book is rather silly. I use the word "book" out of courtesy and for lack of a better one; this is a collection of columns or articles rather than a real book. What we have here is a long magazine article stretched out to book length by endless repetition of the same arguments, evidence, even the same anecdotes and turns of phrase. A good editor could, by eliminating the sloppy, overblown writing and the numbing repetitions, easily have cut this book by scores of pages without doing any violence to the author's argument.

That argument has some very serious problems. It rests on the following assumptions, never argued for but simply asserted. 1) History--not just jazz history but all history--is divided into discrete "times", epochs, or periods; 2) each of these eras has one and only one spirit or way of thinking which is unique to it; 3) artists, and jazz musicians in particular, must "reflect" or "express" that spirit if they are to make vital, living, valid art, art that "is based on the lives they are living in the here and now". This pop-Hegelianism sometimes takes downright laughable forms--Charlie Parker's music speaks to us about the era of World War II, the Holocaust, the atomic bomb, etc.,etc. But the way in which an abstract, non-representational art such as music relates to the larger world of opinions, emotions,events, and attitudes of its time and place is far more complex and controversial than Nisenson seems to realize. Why, for example, doesn't Charlie Parker's music arise out of his listening to the playing of Lester Young, Chu Berry, and Don Byas? It's much clearer, and more consistent with the testimony of the musicians themselves,that jazz musicians play what comes into their heads as a result of listening to other jazz musicians past and present, than that they are expressing or reflecting some "spirit of the time".

It's abundantly clear what Nisenson doesn't like: Wynton Marsalis,Joshua Redman, Lincoln Center jazz, Crouch, Murray. It's absurd and offensive, however, to speak of these men as "murdering" jazz, i.e., committing on the art form an act of deliberate criminal violence. But more importantly, despite his calls for "innovation" and "creativity", it's not at all clear what jazz the author does like after Coltrane,Coleman, Miles Davis,Cecil Taylor, and fusion. Has nobody done anything good in jazz since then? If yes, then jazz lives. If not, then, as another reviewer says,jazz has problems far deeper than the evil machinations of a handful of stiflers and mummifiers. I'd make the following (not at all original) suggestion. It took jazz about sixty years (1920-1980,more or less) to avail itself of all the resources developed in the Western musical tradition over five centuries--polyphony, harmony/tonality, tonal ambiguity, polytonality, atonality, etc. It has tried to assimilate/utilize various sorts of folk music, Western and non-Western, so far without much success (except for the blues, of course). It might be that jazz is now an improvised music which is at the same resourceless, audienceless dead end as contemporary composed music--"resourceless" in the sense of having nothing available to serve as the basis of some new development comparable in magnitude to, say, bebop. Some presently unforseen and unforseeable person or factor may arise that will change this situation, but we can be pretty certain that strident demands for innovation, creativity, and "music that reflects the actual lives we live in the here and now" won't do so. And, given that situation, it's not clear that the "repertory" (what Nisenson calls the "revivalist" or "neo-classical") response is in principle invalid, let alone murderous. As far back as the 1940s, James P. Johnson, for one, spoke of a jazz future in which all jazz musicians would be able to play,and would play, in the styles of more than one period of jazz, just as classical musicians may play Bach one night, Bartok the next.

In the end, I'm not sure just how interested in jazz as music Nisenson is; as another reviewer notes, there's no discussion of even one specific piece of music in the entire book. Nisenson seems interested not so much in jazz as an art form, but in jazz as an "expression" or "reflection" of other things; in some vague way the music speaks to him of personal growth,self-transformation, creativity,freedom, democracy, equality, giving voice to the spirit of the times, and so forth. But whether jazz does this, ever did it, or will do it in the future, is quite beyond the ability of any polemic to influence in the slightest, particularly one as poorly argued and poorly written as "Blue".

Even though Nisenson can be a less than pristine prose stylist, I found his book to be well thought out, and an effective manifesto against the current state of jazz. I attend jazz concerts frequently, and although the "young lions" are always appreciated by the audiences for their chops (and their nostalgia value), the performers who hit the audience hardest are those who speak with their own musical voices. This book helps to explain why, and also helps me answer my questions: "Why can I never get enough Miles Davis CDs?" and "Why do I feel I've got quite enough Wynton Marsalis CDs?" I suspect the one-star reviews this book has gotten here are due more to the reviewers' bias toward neoclassicism than a sound judgment of the book itself. Give it a try, and bring an open mind, something most neoclassicists don't seem to possess.

Nisenson's central premise in "Blue" is that it is the very spirit and nature of jazz to be played 'in the now', music representing the specific time and place of its practitioners; this is the reason why he denounces Wynton Marsalis and his 'neo-classicist' ilk, as they have removed a music from its original context and rendered it empty, inauthentic, narrowly defined and devoid of freedom and innovation.

This is a valid enough point, but Nisenson is missing something when he specifically cites these latter-day musicians for the 'murder of jazz'. He breaks down, era by era, the history of innovations (and resistance thereof) in jazz, leading up to the advent of fusion. He then accuses the 'revivalists' of "building a bridge to the past, not to the future" by reinstating what many consider to be the most truly evolved version of jazz, the style of post-bop or hard-bop as played in the '50s and '60s. I would submit instead that Marsalis and company filled what had been a void altogether with this re-establishment of jazz; by the end of the '70s, there was basically nothing left of jazz, the promise of fusion having long since become a corrupting, distorted, commercialized monster in which all the depth, vitality, and nuance of jazz had been vanquished. This reactionary re-affirmation of real jazz was probably necessary and far from the heinous, stifling occurance Nisenson makes it out to be.

It is true, however, that such a revivalist movement was only useful in this original context, as a means to the end of putting jazz back in the consciousness of people, recreating a backdrop which had withered into nothingness, out of which new evolutions and innovations could emerge and again propel jazz forward - rather than the end in itself its acolytes obviously intended it to be. Marsalis and his arrogant, narrow-minded cronies like critic Stanley Crouch have indeed done harm outside of their initial usefulness by imposing a conservative agenda and a false, confining definition of a 'jazz tradition' which they seek to preserve under glass and celebrate as an inert art form denied of its inherent essence to be improvised or evolved any further. Nisenson does jazz a service by calling them on it, but this should not have blinded him from the reality that jazz had already dried up before the Marsalises had even registered on the scene, and that intitally, even in giving jazz old life, they also gave it a chance for new life. Indeed, there are a host of worthwhile, challenging jazz artists, stretching forms and pushing boundaries, who have arisen in the past two decades amidst the presence of a jazz establishment that may not have been there without Marsalis' (or Columbia's) call to arms, and jazz once again is alive and has a real future. Even as opposed as the Marsalis/Crouch mentality is to new developments, these people did help ensure that jazz survived through a period of dryness unprecedented in its history, and should at least be credited for that. It's clear that, even if Marsalis and his Lincoln Center program isn't ready to move on, many others far outside the realm of its overstated influence are. The future of jazz, much like its present, lies in individual contributions, singular rather than congregational interpretations of 'time and place'.

Another fault I find with Nisenson is that he throws a blanket statement of irrelevance and inauthenticity over anything created in the vein of earlier forms of music (implementing dogmatic demarcations of purity and impurity similar to those for which he criticizes Crouch), ignoring some of the very original and compelling artists and compositions which should not be condemned simply because they have incorporated a pre-existing form. Certainly genuine creativity and expression can still be achieved even though the form doesn't 'belong' to the 'realities of their generation'. If a music has been refined to its ultimate incarnation as it was in the heyday of Blue Note, Impulse, and Prestige, then who is anyone to say it must never be played or touched again? Surely jazz can not be restricted to this form alone, but there just as surely is room for its occasional re-creation, rather than relegating certain forms as rigidly belonging to specific eras of the past and hereafter banished from contemporary performance. Additionally, one may well ask in the directionless wake of the self-implosion of free jazz and the nightmarish dead-end of post-Miles Davis fusion: epochally speaking, where else, exactly, could jazz have gone, and where else can it even be expected to go in the furture that can be truly different from anything done before and still resemble jazz?

Nisenson's historical narrative was enlightening for me, but even though he uses it to illustrate his point of the changing nature of the music and how it contrasts with the staid mindset of the conservative 'young lions' of the late 20th century, it may be tiringly pedantic reading for those more familiar with the chronology of jazz. (Incidentally - or perhaps not - as already cited in many of these reviews, Nisenson's prose leaves much to be desired. But then, so does mine...) "Blue" is a passionate, provocative polemic which is certainly worthy of consideration, but I think his indictment of the neoclassicists for 'murdering' jazz is rather hyperbolic. In truth, they did their part to sustain it and, insomuch as that any form of jazz, past present or future, is flexible enough to accomodate new voices and expressions within it, it isn't something that can ever really die completely as long as creative, expressive musicians exist.

Nisenson brilliantly defines the art of jazz as innovation. He sketches the history of the music from Armstrong to Marsalis and explains how innovation has always been at the forefront regardless of its erratic popularity.

For the first time ever, Marsalis and the "neoclassicists" are taking the inventive music and merely mirroring what has already been done. This step backwards into hard bop is killing the foundation, the defining concept of jazz; innovation.

Nisenson kept me interested in every word. His no-holds-barred style had me wondering what he was going to write next. Not only are his criticisms harsh and straight forward, but he also supports them with many examples and references.

This should be a required text for every youth of jazz that has grown up in the "Neoclassicist's" regime. It is truly an awakening novel to the problems of our current situations in the arts.

Though repetitive towards its conclusion, this is one man's passionate exploration of an opinion; to expect a technical analysis of music or a thorough presentation of the history of jazz is to miss the point of the narrative. Nisenson was accused of not addressing the music he discusses specifically, but in all fairness, he does so on general terms with the clear aim of appealing to both musicians and general listeners. What emerges from his observations is not so much an adequate thesis on the so-called "death of jazz," but rather an attack on pretense, namely that of the neoclassicists who have deemed themselves the torch-bearers of the "jazz tradition." In this respect, Nisenson is correct in his assessment of those who judge the parameters of jazz too narrowly and impose their views as objective historical assessments of the genre. However, stressing "innovation" is in itself a limitation; I share Nisenson's view that jazz throughout its history and via its most notable artists has exhibited a profound vitality that can only come from searching for new directions and nurturing personal styles--but "innovation" is only one factor that may shape an art form. One of the reasons people still enjoy the jazz eras that produced Miles Davis, Coltrane, etc. is because these artists were in an ideal environment to create and shape their visions. We live in an age where music, unfortunately, is no longer about just music. Consider the media baggage: videos, promotions, images, websites, endless recordings in a variety of formats, hybrid genres, gimmicky categories--it's a whirlwind of clutter. Add this to the fact that everything is studied by marketing, advertising, and focus groups, and it becomes impossible to wade through it all; one may lack time, interest, or both. What is actually "new" anyway? Don't we get into philosophical problems here? Coltrane was new to me the first time I heard him; I wasn't alive when he was playing. Then you have bands that "innovate" just to show people that they can; I've heard unclassifiable music (which can be a great thing) that comes across as a chopfest, with musicians trying to stick everything they know into a piece. Though awed on occasions--and certainly respectful and open-minded, I can't say I would want to listen to it repeatedly. Finally, all of these so-called "jazz wars" come down to the ear of the beholder, so to speak. Each listener has unique expectations; for some, all music must be meaningful, profound, and innovative; for others, it doesn't even matter. Nisenson has a point when he emphasizes that no one should have the audacity to declare himself an authority in what is or isn't the "jazz tradition" and who can or can't play it. Marsalis has said that "innovation isn't necessarily art," and I agree with that as well. All in all, there's nothing wrong with personal preferences as long as you withhold judgment. We look at our past and declare certain artists as shapers of the genre's direction (i.e. Miles Davis)--but at the time, I believe they were just being themselves, and we, with the benefit of hindsight, construct these neat histories to make sense of it all. This book poses good questions to think about, so most jazz fans should find this an entertaining read.