A few years ago, I had sent my materials to a college in the hopes of winning a teaching job in their jazz program. The school was quite a distance from New York, so the search committee decided that it would be best to administer a preliminary interview by telephone. This is becoming more common and understandable. Indeed, a SKYPE interview would save a lot of time and money. ( I also had a phone interview for the position I have now.) This was my first phone interview, and it was actually quite unsettling, mostly because every time I answered a question, I couldn't get any sort of visual feedback. I got this strange impression that the committee members were sort of dark and unfriendly; however, I was able to convince myself that it was only the technological medium which gave me that impression. " Oh, it's only because I cannot see their faces. I'm sure they are nice people." (When I did make the trip and actually met the panel, I realized my first impression was correct.)
Many of the questions were strange to me("If a student comes to you with a complaint regarding another faculty member, what do you do?"), but one in particular stood out to me. " Yes, Mr.
Colligan. We received your CD, "Blood Pressure," along with your resume. I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm just wondering.....this CD is all original compositions. Do you know any jazz standards? Do you teach jazz standards?"
I'm betting if any of my students read this, they might be quietly chuckling. I almost didn't know how to answer; first of all, if they had bothered to look at my resume, they might have seen all of the vocalists I worked with, and all of the older jazz legends I was fortunate to work with, and maybe they would have deduced that perhaps I know at least a few standards. Indeed, I don't know anywhere near as many as Harold Mabern, who apparently knows around 5000 tunes( he's forgotten more tunes than many of us have ever learned.) Nevertheless, I
Harold Mabern: has forgotten more tunes than you have ever learned!
spent many hours and years learning standards and playing standards on gigs and playing standards in all keys. I'm really trying to insist that my Portland State University students learn jazz standards. Our jazz camp, "The Shed," is based around a list of 20 tunes that we all work on during the week. Furthermore, I LIKE the standards, and I like playing them, and I think learning and knowing certain standards is an unavoidable part of becoming a jazz musician.
However, I also love to compose music. My original reason for trying to improve as a pianist was because I wanted to be a composer. I think developing as a composer is what turns musicians into artists. Improvisation and composition are so similar, and one can inform the other. I love to write new tunes or pieces or songs because it's really my own world and I have total power over everything in that world. I love to bring new songs to a band and see what they do with the material; maybe they'll play it like I hear it, or maybe they will bring a whole new perspective.
I don't think an artist has to be always breaking new ground to be relevant, but I do think there has to be some lean towards newness to be relevant. Be it new music, or a new take on a standard, or an arrangement, or a group of musicians who have never played together, or something, I think this is the beauty of jazz and the beauty of art; there are infinite combinations of notes, chords, rhythms, and musicians that can make us pay attention.
I guess the contradiction lies in this insistence on standard repertoire but also an insistence on
innovation. I think the view of jazz at the moment is plagued by this contradiction in terms. Indeed, the wide spectrum of variety that you will hear by groups or artists classified under jazz will make your head spin. ( Years ago, I was at Newport playing with Cassandra Wilson. On the same bill was Maceo Parker, Celia Cruz, Dave Douglas and John Zorn, and Boney James and Rick Braun!) So you will hear guys playing standards, or all originals, or a mixture, or perhaps they will play NO tunes and play completely improvised music. All of these things will be called jazz.
Now, just to gain a perspective, in the more contemporary world of rock, pop, hip hip, and country music, I would argue that in terms of material, there is a constant need for new material. There is no prerequisite for playing "standards." Dave Matthews Band isn't validated by their performance of "Johnny Be Good," or "Rock Around The Clock" or some Beatles tunes. Kayne West isn't expected to perform "Fight The Power" by Public Enemy. Toby Keith isn't validated by performing Conway Twitty songs. I'm not saying that those artists didn't learn or don't know any classic songs. I'm just saying that we don't ask or expect them to perform "classic" material, or "covers" as they say. We, or should I say, their fans, expect them to play their own music, and if they didn't, they would be considered "unoriginal." I'm not saying those artists are great; however, I think we could agree that, for better or for worse, those are relevant artists in the recent music marketplace.
All of this being said, where does jazz stand in this? Do we need to think the same way? I believe it's worth considering, only because jazz, since 1959, has been declared dead time after time. The prevailing wisdom is that jazz is dead because other forms became more popular and jazz fell by the wayside. I believe that one of the concepts Nicholas Payton was driving at during the whole "BAM" mishagos was that jazz might be dead because it's been put in a box. "What IS jazz? THIS is jazz! THAT isn't jazz!" So is jazz evolving, or is it not? If a young musician plays a standard, is this part of the evolution? If a musician of any age plays original music for an audience that wants to hear "standards that we know," then what does that mean for jazz?
Sometimes, we as musicians have little choice; when a record label tells you to record standards, or a
club owner or promoter tells you to play more standards, and then the critic writes, "this group isn't breaking any new ground," then what? Sometimes it seems to me that jazz is caught in this horrible Catch-22, where it's either too new or too old. What is the solution? Any solution has risk. My personal philosophy has been versatility. Learn standards AND write originals. Be able to play tradition AND be able to play free. You might eventually gravitate towards something more specific, but that's normal. Cecil Taylor isn't going to get called to play standards with a singer. But what does he care? He's FREAKING CECIL TAYLOR!
I suppose some folks who hear my latest CD, "The Endless Mysteries," might hear(or see) all originals and wonder "Yeah, but does this dude know any standards?" Well, you only have to go back a few CDs; I released "Living For The City" in 2011 and it's all tunes you might know. I haven't decided what my next project will be; I have it narrowed down to either a completely improvised recording or a Christmas Album. Or, perhaps a tribute to Conway Twitty......
It's weird. I don't really consider myself a pop music person at all. However, I do remember spending Sunday afternoons in the 80's with my sister listening to Casey Kasem count down the Top 40 on the radio. I didn't buy too many of those pop albums, but my sister had some of them. I was more into jazz and classical music; however, if you are a high school student in any era, it's hard to avoid the "music of your generation". Now, like anybody who hears music from their youth, I get nostalgic when I hear Michael Jackson, or Duran Duran, or Prince, or Tears for Fears, or any of the one hit wonders from that era. But, even though I actually liked some of these songs at the time, I was still a bit of a snob. Though now, some of the 80's pop music could be considered high art compared to today's songs.(I mean 80's songs had INTROS, instrumental INTROS, for crying out loud. And sometimes, they even had cheesy tenor saxophone solos. Do any songs on the radio now have instrumental SOLOS? I'd like to know...)
Makes any music sound GREAT!
Furthermore, as a working adult, it's now actually easy to avoid that stuff. (See my anecdote about my Dad who had never heard of Cyndi Lauper, under "Blue Skies"...) I thought I was somewhat out of the loop, but not completely. Again, much of what I hear these days on the radio is really not listenable to me. I will give anything a chance, but my patience wears thin. I guess if you are high on ecstasy and/or absinthe, gyrating around one of those boom sic boom sic clubs at 3 in the morning, then songs don't have much need to be listenable. I have no problem with music that is only dance oriented. But can we also have music that is popular, danceable, and listenable? Is that too much to ask of the music industry?
Last week, my father-in-law was in Portland for a visit. He had rented a car, so we were driving to Toys-R-Us to get some toys and such for my son Liam. Mr. Politzer had set the Sirius station to Pop, and most of the music, which came to us via satellite, was horrendous. And then this song called "Someone Like You" came on, and I said, "Who is THAT?" I had never heard the song. And Mr. Politzer, who I don't think of as a musician at all, said,"that's Adele, she's the hottest thing in the music industry right now." And then it sort of rang a bell; another recent hit of hers (that melodically almost sounds like "Crazy" by Cee-Lo) called "Rolling In the Deep" I had heard before. But this song, "Someone Like You" was extremely refreshing in it's only-vocals-and-piano acoustic purity, something you rarely hear nowadays. Not only is Adele's contralto voice really rich and distinctive (also something you don't hear much on the radio, what with everything auto-tuned and robotic sounding), but the message of the song really struck me. If you've ever loved and lost (which I assume is a universal, unless you married your high school sweetheart and lived happily ever after, or you are a robot...), then you can feel Adele's pain.
Soon to Be Released in Canada.....
Those of you who DON'T live in the ivory tower of snobby musical academia are probably saying, "Ugh, we heard that song when it came out, liked it, and now we are sick of it. Get with the program." OK, don't be a jerk about it! In my defense, when the song came out in January of this year, I was living in Winnipeg, in Canada! They JUST got Michael Jackson's "Thiller" up there. I think next year, they are FINALLY getting Phil Collins "No Jacket Required".....Public Enemy's "Fear of A Black Planet" is probably still 10 years away from being released. ( I joke with my friends in the North, but they have a lot of rules concerning a certain amount of Canadian Content in their broadcasting, which is apparently why you cannot watch HULU in Canada. It's a quota system; supposedly no Canadians listened to Canadian music before 1971, when the Canadian Content system that, yes, they call MAPL(like the maple leaf, groan....), went into effect. They should have waited a few years, when the band RUSH became popular; then they would have something Canadian to listen to.....)
Indeed, anything very popular in the world nowadays has a pretty short shelf life, due to the constant media saturation of youtube and the internet. I read this about "Someone Like You" on Wikipedia:
"The song was banned from being played in the Opus ii store in Dublin because the workers were tired of customers trying to play the song on their keyboards.The workers put a sign on the store which stated "Strictly NO Adele". A shop assistant said "It's become the piano equivalent of 'Stairway To Heaven'. Everyone thinks they can play it. The sign was a bit of a joke, but the song can drive you mad." Joanna Corscadden, an assistant manager at the shop said: "It is a very popular song, and it gets played over and over again. You get sick of songs when you hear them so often. So after hearing the same song played about four to five times in about half an hour, one staff member put up a sign stating 'strictly no Adele'. We will remove it if people are genuinely offended by it but people are still entitled to play, and they are continuing to do so. They [customers] called us piano shop fascists but did not get the correct name of our shop."
The competition for people's attention is astounding, and because entertainment is so instantaneous, it's a wonder that any song can capture anyone's attention for more than 5 minutes before some video of a Indonesian orangutan doing bong hits and dancing to becomes the talk of the global village. However, Adele's song is still a popular song (hence the "Strictly No Adele" policy in the Dublin music shop, ha ha). What struck me was that I'm supposed to be a music teacher, and I was completely unaware of one of the most popular songs of the year. How did this happen? Why is there such a disconnect between music teachers and popular music?
There is a book I read a long time ago called "Highbrow/Lowbrow:The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America" by Lawrence Levine, which talks about how between the 19th century and the later 20th century, the lines we re drawn between art for the masses and art for the elites. I think the effects of these lines are more prevalent than ever. Unfortunately, the definition of "elite" has changed. There was a time when the monied class was expected to have high cultural standards-expected to read certain books, to go to the symphony, to see certain plays. I think that idea has been dead for a long time. I question whether the Wall Street elites support the symphony, or go to museums, or read anything besides "The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People". I'm not convinced that they listen to jazz; if so, jazz clubs would be booming and all the jazz musicians I know would be working 6 nights a week!
I think you could make a case that the elite culture and the mass culture have almost reversed, in a sense. When we think of intellectuals, we think of starving artists, or music students, or college professors, jazz musicians. Most in that group are not out clubbing with Paris Hilton. People like Hilton, with more money that God, are out spending their inherited cash, listening to the lowest of the lowbrow music there is. (I have not done the research, this is just a conclusion I have arrived at off the top of my head. Maybe I'll do my Doctoral Thesis on The Reversal Of The Cultural Elite in America. Yeah, that sounds scholarly....)
I'm constantly questioning the importance and relevance of my art and my teaching. I don't want to stay in the ivory tower all the time. I want to know what goes on in the real world, for better or for worse. We have known for a long time that the majority of music students don't make it in music. Why not? Is it because of the industry? Or is it because we as music teachers have our heads in the sand? I and most other music teachers teach what they know. Much of what I know comes from when I came on the jazz scene in the late 1980's and moved to New York in the mid 90's. The music scene, industry, whatever you want to call it, is in comparison almost unrecognizable now. So why should I continue to teach as if nothing has changed? How much of a dinosaur do I want to be?
"Yeah, my teacher is making me play this Lady Gaga song on my recital...."
Now, I do believe that students have to know the basics. I believe that if a music student can learn jazz,learn to read music, and develop their ears and technique on their instrument, that they theoretically can play anything. However, I want students to have an awareness of any and every avenue for success. Does this mean that we have to start teaching Adele songs, or God help me, Lady Gaga songs? I can't say for sure. In any case, I want to somehow bridge the gap between the study of music and the real music world. I think that is important, if music schools are going to continue to exist.
