Doug on Music today

What follows is an excerpt from Doug Wamble's blog (You can read the entire text at www.dougwamble.com/): "What I get curious about is when critics in the media, as well as musicians, tend to look down upon those who retain jazz's fundamentals, while they celebrate loudly those who consciously choose not to swing and not to even acknolwledge the blues. If someone makes a record with jazz instrumentation but the basis for it is 20th century classical music or hip-hop, that is heralded as 'moving jazz forward', while a similarly individual musician who chooses not to be ignorant of the blues is accused of 'stifling' jazz or playing 'museum music'. It would be like sitting down with a pile of kumquats, crushing them, putting them in a pitcher with sugar and water and having people write articles about it as a 'major development in lemonade innovation!' Meanwhile, someone else could cultivate a lemon tree orchard using time-tested, organic farming techniques and after some time, pick the fresh lemons, squeeze them by hand, add unbleached cane sugar and water from a well, let it cool naturally and serve it up over ice in a clean glass with a fresh slice of lemon on top. Those same authors would then say that the organic farmer is out of touch with modernity and is stifling what's 'going on today' in lemonade production.

"In music, the press continually heralds the musicians who purposefully avoid any resemblance of swinging and who buy into the notion that the blues is passe in jazz. This, to me, reeks of racism on a very subtle level, even when the musicians being heralded are not white. But if the governing influnce of the music seems to be rooted more in forms of music not created by African-Americans, that gets reported as being 'innovative' and 'fresh' and 'forward looking'. While jazz musicians from the beginning have been influenced by music outside of the Black American experience, it has never been the dominating force.

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"So you combine the media influence with the advent of young musicians who consider tradition to be a joke, and it becomes conventional wisdom that in order to be artistically valid in jazz, you have to make your music sound as little like jazz as possible. Not to mention that some recording musicians are so beholden to the press that they invite the writers into the studio to give direction.

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"It isn't about how many solos you've learned or how well you can imitate someone else. Mimicry is an essential part of the equation, though. Because music is a language like any other that can best be learned through listening and imitating, you have to go through that. But the real challenge is finding your voice as a jazz musician while not ignoring the past 100 years. I laugh at people who scoff at Louis Armstrong's music as though it isn't as germane to the proceedings as, say, playing 'Giant Steps' in 13 keys, blindfolded, in 11/8 time while your cousin wears a chastity belt onstage standing next to a DJ. The latter is called 'a new direction for jazz', while the former is 'museum music'.

"I marvel when I hear a real master play music. Last time I saw Wayne Shorter play with Herbie, Dave Holland and Brian Blade, I was taken aback at Wayne's approach. But you can't get to that level unless you know from whence you came. Wayne is perhaps our best example of how to find freedom by having an acute awareness of structure. The blues is all up inside of his sound. He understands the folk tradition of jazz, and his explorations into classical and world musics have only added to his approach, rather than replacing the fundamentals. Duke Ellington, my hero, was the same way. He took the music of the world and played it through the filter of an American jazz musician. 'Arabesque Cookie'? Nuff said.

"Today in New York, musicians seem to play in order to impress those who play their same instrument. They permutate patterns and scales and 'hip lines' until everyone basically sounds the same. This is perpetuated continually when those who reject that method wind up sounding better. Instead of being praised, like in the old days, they are hated upon and called phonies and mimics, even though that isn't the truth. Much like in the media, there's no longer a premium put on the truth. Instead, we have people who want to reject the influence of African-Americans on jazz music coupled with those who would rather perpetuate mathematical matrices than do the hard work of learning what jazz is all about. The yell and scream unless you say that whites are just as important in creating jazz. Then, they bond together not only to advance their own agenda, but to actively vilify those who reject their philosophy. While I could really care less about the musical choices of these people, I do feel duty-bound to fight against the part of them that, to me, is a proponent of subtle yet acidic racism. Whites can play and always have played great jazz throughout history. But the roots are there for all to hear, and everyone, regardless of race, should honor that. In the end, though, history will be the judge of all of us".

You can read the entire text at www.dougwamble.com/