(no subject)
Ohhhhhh oh oh oh poor bebby is ill! He is he is. However, I have not taken a sick day, as yesterday I not only went to work but with the UTMOST heroism stayed on the telephones until 5.15 despite the facts that a) I felt hella crappy b) my nose was running at a rate such that I got through one entire toilet roll between before lunch!!! Which left me a bit stuck after so I had to keep getting up to steal work's toilet roll hehehe. Because the chemist's didn't sell tissues. Now I have tissues, however, but my sinal fluid has all congealed now into a headache for me. heeeeeee! I tell you though explaining benefits comings and goings to Citizens' Advice when all you want to do is clear your nose out once and for all is not one bit of fun.
And today, I'm on leave anyway. But I'm supposed to be going to see an exciting mini festival at the Brudenell tonight and tomorrow but I don't know if I'll be able to!! At least tonight. But I guess we'll see. I'm only really....tired. But my nose is bright red and probably flaking too.
Having sidelined Robert Wyatt and his hilarious and masterful lyric and song writing, I say Soft Machine were a little bit boring. At the same time 'Virtuality Part 1' does have a really stupendous bass solo, that I'd never noticed before. Which was nice :) I'm bound to say though that a bunch of white guys from down south playing accomplished jazz-fusion are less appealing than the same bunch playing comedy quirky prog. With an occassional knowing nod towards the successes of post-war jazz!
Apparently Charles Mingus said once that he couldn't understand why Europeans would ever play jazz, since jazz is specifically black American folk music. And there's plenty of European folk for the whole continent, as things stand! I thought that implied a rather intriguingly unusual view of why people like the music they do like: something more like a 'structural-cultural' explanation instead of a individual one. Or, perhaps, anyone's going to agree that both factors are relevent in one person's musical appreciation... but Mingus' comment suggets that the balance ought to be much further in the structural direction than the individual.
Ugh!! I just coughed up some phlegm. I forgot that happened sometimes.
I suppose it's also a view that sees musical value as being much more relative than transcendent. So, you know, the crazy polyrhythms and wild energy of Charlie Parker fulfil just the same musical function as the somewhat more staid metres of conventional European folk, in an unbridgably different cultural context. Even though they do, in fact, sound very different.
Myself I would be inclined to demur from this view. ;) I think that the cultural relativity of a person's music taste is not wholly insurmountable. And more generally, although it is interesting to suggest that - for example - the uniquely horrifying experience of slavery brought about a uniquely firey and rebellious music, cultural factors like that are surely only one part of the story. After all the difference between people in one social group is always considerable!
So I don't think it should surprise us that Europeans do sometimes like to play jazz. At least, no more so than that anyone plays any music at all! And that being such an obscure question I think Mingus' contribution is welcome if untenable :)
What does annoy me is white people making a career out of feeble pastiches of what was exciting black music 20 years beforehand. But would it be worse than black people doing the same thing? hmmmmmmmmmmm. I'll get back to you ;P
And today, I'm on leave anyway. But I'm supposed to be going to see an exciting mini festival at the Brudenell tonight and tomorrow but I don't know if I'll be able to!! At least tonight. But I guess we'll see. I'm only really....tired. But my nose is bright red and probably flaking too.
Having sidelined Robert Wyatt and his hilarious and masterful lyric and song writing, I say Soft Machine were a little bit boring. At the same time 'Virtuality Part 1' does have a really stupendous bass solo, that I'd never noticed before. Which was nice :) I'm bound to say though that a bunch of white guys from down south playing accomplished jazz-fusion are less appealing than the same bunch playing comedy quirky prog. With an occassional knowing nod towards the successes of post-war jazz!
Apparently Charles Mingus said once that he couldn't understand why Europeans would ever play jazz, since jazz is specifically black American folk music. And there's plenty of European folk for the whole continent, as things stand! I thought that implied a rather intriguingly unusual view of why people like the music they do like: something more like a 'structural-cultural' explanation instead of a individual one. Or, perhaps, anyone's going to agree that both factors are relevent in one person's musical appreciation... but Mingus' comment suggets that the balance ought to be much further in the structural direction than the individual.
Ugh!! I just coughed up some phlegm. I forgot that happened sometimes.
I suppose it's also a view that sees musical value as being much more relative than transcendent. So, you know, the crazy polyrhythms and wild energy of Charlie Parker fulfil just the same musical function as the somewhat more staid metres of conventional European folk, in an unbridgably different cultural context. Even though they do, in fact, sound very different.
Myself I would be inclined to demur from this view. ;) I think that the cultural relativity of a person's music taste is not wholly insurmountable. And more generally, although it is interesting to suggest that - for example - the uniquely horrifying experience of slavery brought about a uniquely firey and rebellious music, cultural factors like that are surely only one part of the story. After all the difference between people in one social group is always considerable!
So I don't think it should surprise us that Europeans do sometimes like to play jazz. At least, no more so than that anyone plays any music at all! And that being such an obscure question I think Mingus' contribution is welcome if untenable :)
What does annoy me is white people making a career out of feeble pastiches of what was exciting black music 20 years beforehand. But would it be worse than black people doing the same thing? hmmmmmmmmmmm. I'll get back to you ;P