Tag Archives: John Coltrane

Jason Marsalis redux

(more thoughts on jazz nerds, nerdy jazz, and jazz history)

by Peter Hum
Ottawa Citizen
June 15, 2010

On the Los Angeles Times‘ music blog, writer Chris Barton yesterday shared a lengthy message he received from drummer Jason Marsalis, who was keen to move forward in the discussion he sparked with his now-infamous and entertaining Jazz Nerds International rant.

If the whole Jazz Wars topic interests you, I’d advise you to read all that Marsalis wrote — it is strong and opinionated, but more nuanced, thoughtful and stimulating than his detractors might expect. I’ll limit myself to excerpting two passages, and in each case I’ll offer a bit of support for what Marsalis wrote.

First, Marsalis clarifies what he means by jazz nerds in this passage (which I’ve adorned with some bolding for emphasis):

Let’s define a jazz nerd. A jazz nerd, or JNA for short, is a jazz student who reduces all music to notes and concepts only. JNA worships complexity while ridiculing simplicity. JNA will hear groups lead by Dave Holland and Wayne Shorter and will marvel at the complex musical structure but ignore the historical substance behind their music. JNA saxophonists will listen to and worship the music of Mark Turner, Chris Potter, Michael Brecker, and other modern players but ignore the musicians that have influenced their music such as John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Warne Marsh, and Sonny Rollins. JNA will hear the music of James Brown and say that it’s no big deal because it only has two chords. JNA looks down on blues as “simple” while wanting to play endless non-melodic eighth and sixteenth notes over All the Things You Are in 7/4 straight feel. By the way, a slow blues is boring. Better yet, swing is actually uninteresting and straight feel is actually more “challenging” and “exciting.” Instead of embracing both, the JNA worships one while ridiculing the other. Speaking of that, 4/4 is “old” while 9/8, on the other hand, is “new.” A basic drum groove is boring unless you fill it with lots of notes. To the JNA, that’s modern music. So to recapitulate, JNA reduces music to as many complex notes as possible while ignoring the simple elements and history behind the notes.

The bolded parts of Marsalis’ essay are consistent with comments I’ve heard from other seasoned jazz musicians, including ones who don’t fall into the neo-conservative camp that many would place Marsalis in.

For example, Canadian saxophonist Jane Bunnett has commented on the historical short-sightedness of jazz students she had encountered. She told me that today’s students “don’t know the history of the music. They know Brad Mehldau, but they don’t know Teddy Wilson. They know Joshua Redman, but they don’t know Dewey Redman.”

Almost identically, Fred Hersch in an interview last week told me that every young pianist he knew wanted to sound like Mehldau, but was not interested in delving deeper into roots of jazz piano, learning about musicians such as Teddy Wilson or Jess Stacy. Hersch said that younger players don’t need to sound like the old giants, but they do need to “internalize” their playing, understand why they played what they did, why they thought they way they thought, and so on.

I’ve had one Canadian jazz educator express similar thoughts in a recent conversation with me. He says he has noticed that especially in the last few years, jazz students are increasingly disinterested in older jazz, which he suggested meant jazz before 1970.

And then there’s my most recent encounter with jazz ignorance. It’s not quite the same thing, in that the musicians were not complexity-loving, straight-8th playing, odd-meter worshipping jazz nerds. However, these young musicians, who are in fact reasonably accomplished, played Invitation at a jam session and because their knowledge of the tune was based on how it appears in The Real Book, they got the form wrong over and over, neglecting to take the book’s so-called coda with every chorus. For their edification, here is Invitation, played correctly.

When Marsalis refers to “nerdy” music that is complex and does not acknowledge the appeal of simplicity and the grounding principles of traditional jazz, I’m reminded of what pianist Frank Kimbrough told me, namely:

One thing I’ve noticed in recent years is music that sounds like it’s conceived and composed with computers, and I’m usually not very fond of it. Much of it is overly clever, and requires musicians to be tied to the paper, which is anathema to me. I want to hear cats listen to each other, not struggle to play a part and not get lost, playing in their own little world, too busy trying to read to listen to anything going on around them. The upside to it is that there are some ridiculously good musicians out here, many of them quite young, who are able to play anything that’s put in from of them, even if they can’t look up from their music stands. But do they listen? If so, great; if not, it doesn’t matter how “good” they are.

Similarly, Hersch last week expressed his disdain for music that he arose when “hip cats are playing hip shit for hip cats.” By that, I think he meant music students playing what Marsalis would regard as jazz-nerd music for music students. I’ve also read a DownBeat article in which Kurt Rosenwinkel, the hero of many a jazz-guitar nerd, make similar statements about what he called “insider jazz.”

How does one get beyond whether the music on the page is nerdy or not? Consider what drummer Matt Wilson told me last year:

My stuff is not too hard… I’m proud of it, actually, they’re easy. I like ‘em easy so that I can see what people can do with them. I’m big into how people can look at something and go with it. And go from there.

Sometimes I’ve played some music that’s more difficult and I find it really satisfying and more challenging…

As long as the music doesn’t get in the way of the musicians, I think it’s pretty cool. But when the music inspires the musicians and gets stuff out of them, it’s really great. That’s what all the good writers and arrangers, all those conceptualists do. They know how to usher people into an environment and allow them to play with it and see what can occur. I dig that part of it.

Further to his reflections about the lack of interest in jazz history, Marsalis coined another phrase — one that may not be as catchy as “Jazz Nerds International,” but which resonates with me. That phrase is “innovation propaganda,” and Marsalis explains:

if you don’t study the history of jazz, or music for that matter, the good news is that you have an out clause. Jazz magazines and writers created this flavour of Kool-Aid named “innovation,” and when a musician drinks “innovation kool-aid,” you believe the following principles:

1. Jazz has to move forward into the future.
2. We can’t get stuck in the past with hero worship.
3. Swing is old and dated. We have to use the music of today.
4. Jazz is limiting. You must take a chance by bringing in current styles.
5. I don’t care about the past. I have to do my own thing.
6. We’re past playing American songbook standards. That’s yesterday’s music.

To be very brief: I agree with 1 and 2 and the last half of 5, but disagree with 3,4, the first half of 5 and 6. But a few months ago, I wrote this very long post in which I argued that innovation in itself is not the alpha and omega of jazz, and that self-expression and a commitment to beauty on one’s own terms are at least as important for good jazz.

In a related post, I’ve argued that in jazz, personal authenticity matters more than cultural relevance.

The last words (for now) go to two Canadian musicians who gave the Marsalis missive a read and commented on my Facebook page:

Manitoba pianist Michelle Gregoire wrote me:

“OK I read it – I’ve been trying to figure out why the older I get, the more I feel drawn to the earliest pianists and I can just never get enough of the Blues. I find more and more in it, and I can’t get enough…. My music needs to say something, and I think at this age I know what my voice is, and I want it to speak. I’m not worried about the kids too much, cause to me they are just getting some tools together. As they hopefully continue to grow and develop as people, I think their sense of musicality could grow as well. Jason is about the same age as me, so his point of view is certainly interesting. I totally agree — inclusiveness is the trick. Because the more tools the kids have, the more they’ll have to find their voices…each person is a total and unique individual, and not everyone will fit into the boxes people like to create….everyone has the right to find themselves in some way and have the same experience all the greats had when they truly did their thing.

Ottawa-raised, Montreal-based guitarist Steve Raegele, whose beyond-jazz CD, Last Century, I reviewed, wrote:

I think this only matters if you worry about whether people think your music IS jazz. Beyond the pragmatism of playing with musicians with training (which for me means people who at one point played “jazzy jazzer jazz”) I have no need for the jazz litmus test. I can’t really get into his concerns. It’s more of a marketing issue.

Music is has the potential for infinite variation. Worrying about whether it carries the proper number of signifiers of an increasingly vast checklist of past musics is just as ridiculous as asserting that your music need not have any signifiers at all. Music can do whatever the hell it wants. Artists can blend however much or little of the past they choose to. Whether anyone cares to listen is another question, but if the only concern is pleasing people, I think it’s pretty clear what to do. What does one do, however, when this attempt to curry favour with a fickle public falls flat?

Spot the Jazz Nerds — and show them some respect

by Peter Hum
Ottawa Citizen
May 20, 2010

Earlier this month, I featured this provocation from drummer Jason Marsalis.

… which prompted responses from several jazz musician/bloggers I know. Some agreed with Marsalis. Others repudiated his “false dichotomy.” I took a break then from wading yet again into the jazz-wars debate, but figure now I might as well step back into those murky waters again, even if I generally feel there are much more important matters for jazz-oriented people of all stripes to invest their energy in.

I’ll summarize Marsalis’ argument. He sketches, quite humourously, a division between the constituents of “Jazz Nerds International” and other jazz musicians who belong to an unnamed faction. Maybe Marsalis would simply call them the “good guys” in this battle. JNI consists, he says, of young musicians in their teens and in college who eschew playing jazz standards and don’t love swinging. Instead, they play compositions with a straight feel, often in odd meters, with “boring, chromatic solos and a million notes an hour.” They play for fellow JNI musicians rather than for non-musician listeners, who can come to doubt their tastes. Marsalis recommends that listeners “run away” from JNI music and keep the faith with music that has “melodies you can sing along to.”

Before offering my two cents, I’ll suggest that you read:

Montreal organist Vanessa Rodrigues’ response, in which she agrees “99-per-cent” with Marsalis.

Montreal-based clarinetist James Danderfer’s response, in which he agrees that “institutionalized jazz music hasn’t placed nearly enough emphasis on the core element of expressing emotion to audiences” But Danderfer continues: “On the other hand, it’s music dude! People should be allowed to do whatever the hell they want to! If some guy wants to play jazz music for himself (possibly in 5/4 too) then let him. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Meanwhile, on the blog of Montreal pianist Joshua Rager, saxophonist Becky Noble commented:

What bothers me about the so called “jazz wars” (popping up online all over the places these days!) is the idea that there are two camps; the purists and modernists. I think the reality is that most people actually fall somewhere in between on the spectrum. To be quite honest, I just don’t buy the idea that a significant percentage (at least significant enough to be ranting about) of young musicians are shunning the history, abandoning melody, refusing the learn the standards, playing 30-minute solos void of meaning. Please, tell me where these people are???!!! Because in my experience studying and playing, I don’t think I’ve met one.

In my opinion some of the more successful “jazz” musicians today have been able to meld the art form’s history with modern influences, to create their own unique voice. I mean, that’s what Bird did. Miles. Coltrane. Bill Evans. All of them. Let me cite five contemporary examples, off the top of my head: Brad Mehldau, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Dave Douglas, Brian Blade, Seamus Blake. All are “hip”. You can clearly hear the entire history of their respective instruments when they play. They can swing like crazy, they aren’t afraid to play a blues or in 4/4, and they also play chromatically and often in odd meters. They play standards and they also compose beautiful music. The don’t sound like anyone else, and they just happen to be some of my favourite musicians.

I agree with SOME of the “essence” of what Marsalis is saying, but I think what I don’t like, and what bothers me, is the way he says it. It just seems so negative and extremist; painting a highly complex picture much too black and white. It reeks of intolerance to my ears.

I agree wholeheartedly with Noble. (And yes, I agree with her in agreeing with Marsalis, insofar as I hope that standards and swinging will never be forsaken by contemporary and future jazz players, even as I assert that jazz is flexible and pliable enough to grow with the inclusion of other musical aspects and influences.)

To reiterate a question that Noble rightly asks: Who are the jazz nerds that Marsalis so vehemently opposes? I don’t think it’s good enough for Marsalis to say — if he’s serious — that it’s simply the students in jazz schools who are woefully misguided. Surely these students are influenced by any number of established musicians who work (prominently, but not exclusively) in the odd-time, straight-eighths, chromatic nerd zone. It’s reasonable to assume that Marsalis is not denigrating the students, but also their influences too. Would today’s Jazz Nerd elders include:

Saxophonists Dave Binney and Mark Turner?

Drummer John Hollenbeck and his Claudia Quintet?

Saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, in a group playing a pieces that “built on two measures of 5 followed by a measure of 9, and this is then gradually speeded up through metric modulation, using the 8th note triplet as a subdivision”? (The only reason I know this bit of nerdy esoterica is that bassist Ronan Guilfoyle provided it in this post that will fascinate rhythm nerds.)

Saxophonist Steve Coleman? (He seems like the nerdiest of the batch, but in a likeable way,

Frankly, I think if Marsalis would do better to name the alleged ringleaders of Jazz Nerds International rather than simply besmirch its rank and file — not because I would be keen on any resulting controversy, but because if he wants to be taken seriously, then he ought to move beyond a straw-man opponent. Or he should argue that his beef with mediocre students rather than the proficient pros.

I also think that the impulse that Marsalis is railing against — the move beyond standard repertoire and swinging — is some years older than he is, and that this historical context ought to be kept in mind. Think of bebop nerdily extending the language of swing, Miles Davis and Bill Evans investigating the use of modes in jazz more than 50 years ago, John Coltrane investigating tone rows with Miles Mode in 1962, and for that matter, performing the kind of epic, set-long songs that Marsalis slams. These are just a few classic examples of music history’s jazz nerds in action. In other words, there were jazz nerds long before Marsalis was drumming, and there will be jazz nerds ever after, in spite of what he said.

I have to wonder if Marsalis in the clip isn’t just exaggerating for the sheer, blustering fun of it. He’s criticizing the worth and validity of a great swath of music, and I’d prefer to think he’s being deliberately outrageous rather than monumentally arrogant. (Note: to be fair, there are many anti-Marsalis, anti-tradition folks who have struck me as equally blunt and heavy-handed in their statements.)

Stepping back, I side with Marsalis in affirming the value of playing music that revels in swinging, and in playing jazz standards with a whole-hearted embrace of their tradition. I also agree with Marsalis that jazz, however it sounds, ought to be played to connect with and move listeners (optimally, through a feeling of personal commitment, not through pandering manoeuvres). But these affirmations can be made without a simultaneous takedown against music that may not sound like the music that Marsalis makes, but may even appeal to jazz fans who don’t feel the artificial need to choose sides.

Jazz war, anyone? Jason Marsalis vs. ‘Jazz Nerds International’

by Chris Barton
Los Angeles Times
May 21, 2010

Have you, as a listener, been suffering under the influence of Jazz Nerds International?

Jazz critic and blogger for the Ottawa Citizen Peter Hum wrote a terrific post Thursday on the latest installment in what’s become known as “the jazz wars,” a long-running culture clash pitting the music’s traditionalists — personified by nearly any member of the gifted Marsalis family — versus what could be considered jazz’s new guard.

A little background: This new guard encompasses some of the most acclaimed, adventurous artists in jazz today — Christian Scott, the Bad Plus, Vijay Iyer and the Claudia Quintet, just to name a few who have been featured in this space — as well as anyone who followed in the footsteps of late-period John Coltrane and “Bitches Brew”-era Miles Davis. A hardcore traditionalist would argue that these musicians, though talented, may be playing interesting music but it’s certainly not jazz.

Recently examined in the documentary “Icons Among Us,” there’s a lot of remarkable stuff going on in modern jazz that incorporates influences from across the musical spectrum, stretching into odd time signatures and generally treating jazz as the boundlessly creative, free-thinking genre it is.

While on the opposite side, the traditionalists argue that truest form of jazz involves all-acoustic instruments, a swinging rhythm section and, if possible, some really sharp suits.

In the video posted on Hum’s blog (and after the jump), drummer Jason Marsalis offers an amusing warning against “Jazz Nerds International,” his term for young musicians who have a “selfish” view of jazz, eschewing the standards of the genre in favor of “abstract solos” and odd-metered straight rhythms. The end result, in Marsalis’ view, is music that alienates its audience and exists only for the appreciation of fellow musicians.

The jazz blogosphere reacted with a number of eloquent responses, and while I agree with Hum that Marsalis is being intentionally over-the-top for a mock-PSA tone, his point speaks to an ongoing problem. If jazz is not being declared dead, it’s being monitored by an aesthetic police force that builds walls around the genre, fending off rogue elements from violating its purity.

In the end, the war is ultimately pointless because there’s room for both sides. Of course the roots of jazz are vital and demand attention from anyone who would play or listen to it. It’s hard to imagine many of the gifted if cutting-edge artists in jazz being any less appreciative of past masters than, say, upstart indie rock artists who learn from and expand upon decades-old records in their collection
But to argue that all musicians who plug in, play a song in 7/8 or dive into a paint-peeling solo for as long as their muse carries them aren’t part of the tradition does the music a disservice. Like all broad, nebulous genre labels, the boundaries are in the eye of the beholder.

Is an interview with the forward-looking jazz blog NextBop, Esperanza Spalding summed up this expansive view of jazz wonderfully. “We need all the aspects of it [jazz] and that’s OK,” she said. “We need the Wynton Marsalis and we need the Anthony Braxton and we need a Chris Botti and we need Christian Scott…. Jazz can be anything but maybe the only element that’s there across the board is that people are creating it in the moment.”

Do you agree? Or is jazz done a disservice by a big-tent approach?

Ellis and Jason Marsalis Talk Back

Alex Rawls talks to Ellis and Jason Marsalis about An Open Letter to Thelonious, teaching and traditional jazz. “When you deal with language to describe music, you’ve got a problem,” Ellis says. “I remember talking to a guy who was a player, and he said, ‘I’m really into traditional jazz,’ and he started rhyming off Charlie Parker, Monk, and all these guys.”

by Alex Rawls
offBeat Magazine
April 2008

While we’re talking, Ellis Marsalis takes two calls and ignores another. Spring in New Orleans is a musician’s busiest time, and not only is Marsalis playing the French Quarter Fest and Jazz Fest, but he’s promoting his new album, An Open Letter to Thelonious (ELM). He and Irvin Mayfield also released Love Songs, Ballads and Standards (Basin Street), and today he’s at NOCCA to teach a master class to his son Jason’s students.

An Open Letter to Thelonious is a family affair. Jason plays in Ellis’ quartet, and both contributed liner notes. Ellis recalls the one missed opportunity he had to meet Monk, while Jason analyzes Monk’s sense of rhythm, dubbing him “the first unofficial funk musician.”

We’re in NOCCA’s performance hall, and Jason was talking about his efforts to teach his students to play traditional jazz just before the recorder started. Ellis is talking about his efforts to document traditional jazz that emerged from playing it with a good band.

Ellis: I started to write down all the things we played, each song. I did it over three nights, so I had a pretty good list. I thought about writing out more than a lead sheet, actually the piano accompaniment; now I’m trying to make myself get started on this project. [laughs]

Part of what Jason is talking about is the inability of those who find themselves in a teaching position to get prepared music to present to students from that idiom. The traditional jazz idiom has a lot of music, and it’s structured in such a way that all of the elements of western music are in it—the key signatures, the modulations, the tempo. Now that I’m confessing that [gesturing at the recorder], I’ve got to do it. I don’t think something like that could be done anywhere but New Orleans.

This goes to something I’ve been thinking about for a while—what does it mean to be traditional? How do you best honor a tradition? Does a player have to play in the idiom, or is it in the composition? How is tradition manifested?

Ellis: First of all, when you deal with language to describe music, you’ve got a problem. I remember talking to a guy who was a player, and he said, “I’m really into traditional jazz,” and he started rhyming off Charlie Parker, Monk, and all these guys. It’s not his fault if he’s from Detroit or Chicago or L.A. The documentation isn’t set in such a way so that it will allow him to get a complete perspective.

When you think of European art music, the documentation by the various composers over 300, 400 years helps to understand some of that, at least from the 15th Century on. One thing that may be missing is a certain relationship that those composers had to the gypsies. You found references to dances—Hungarian Dance, number this or that or the other. Talk about Rodney Dangerfield, they don’t get no respect! America is a little too young to have that kind of thing happen. If enough of us can start trying to make certain kinds of documentation…

One of the things that was lost in certain kinds of European music—I don’t know how much time after Beethoven—was the ability to improvise. There are stories about when Czerny, who was a student of his, would be turning pages for him and there would be no notes on the page. He hadn’t even written it down. That improvisational process, eventually, they lost.

If it’s still in Europe, maybe it’s over there, but people who learn to play that music here, they go to the conservatory and improvisation isn’t even part of that. I think that as a part of American history, this is a necessary cog in the wheel. I’ve been telling Jason for years, “Whatever you do, write it down. Make some notes.”

I’ve seen some situations where some of the jazz stars have begun to be used in institutions to come in and do workshops. I look at some of them and say, “I don’t want them anywhere near my students.” They play well, but you have to do a certain amount of reflective thinking or what you end up doing is teaching in the abstract, which is why students can’t read, or why they can’t do math.

There are some things we have to do to assist in that process.

Thankfully, there are enough recordings of the earlier music by some of the top players so that can be a great reference point.

I would have to think that over the years, you’ve heard people play traditional jazz and get it wrong.

Ellis: I was one of them. I stood in the driveway with Albert “Papa” French, who played with “Papa” Celestin, and had his own band with his sons, Bob and John. Papa French, said, “Some of you young guys need to play this music because we’re about to lose it.” I said, “Yeah, man. You’re right.”

In my mind, I was thinking, “I don’t want to play that old stuff.” That degree of ignorance was profound with me. Eventually, I’m playing with the Storyville Jazz Band, which is Bob French’s group, at Crazy Shirley’s on St. Peter and Bourbon in the early 1970s—so I wasn’t a spring chicken. I started playing a stride solo and everybody in the band started to laugh. I didn’t know why they were laughing because I was serious. I wasn’t trying to caricature the music. I tried it again and got the same response.

I started to do some research. I went and really listened to Jelly Roll and Willie “the Lion” Smith. I realized these guys have ideas peculiar to this style of music. If you’re going to play this, you’ve got to be involved with those ideas—the rhythm of the ideas, the melody, and all of that. I started working on that. The next time I played a stride solo, I didn’t get the same response, and I realized I was on the right track.

Right around the corner from Crazy Shirley’s was Preservation Hall, and Willie Humphrey and Percy and them would come by on the way to work. Some of those old guys came in one night while I was playing one of those solos, and the guy looks and goes, “Mmmm hmmm, okay,” and I knew just from that gesture that I was on the right track.

Let’s jump forward to the Monk record. I’m always fascinated when a musician approaches another musician’s work. How do you decide which pieces to do?

Ellis: Well in this particular case, Jason was sort of the brains behind most of that. The idea was to approach Monk’s music with a certain kind of groove without tarnishing what Monk had put there. I went through a similar thing with Marcus Roberts, which was a dual-piano thing. We did one or two pieces of Thelonious Monk, and Marcus would say that we have to be very careful that we don’t superimpose our stuff on top of Monk.

We have been talking about doing a Monk record for a long time. Monk’s music is not easy to play and the degree of difficulty is less in technical facility and more in conceptualization of where he was coming from. A lot of what you have to listen to determines the results of what you play.

Jason: The best description that I read of that was from Orrin Keepnews—and this really put a lot of perspective for me on Monk’s music—he said, “You know, it’s kind of like when you are at a jam session and musicians start playing ‘Blue Monk.’ They solo for about 20 minutes, then they look around and say, ‘What’s the big deal about Monk?'”

There is an essence of Monk’s music in terms of melodic, rhythmic and harmonic formation that should not be taken for granted. It’s easy to take a Monk tune and play over it, but it’s different when you try to play the music and still have the essence of what he was about still there. That’s the challenge when trying to play his music.

The rhythm element is what drew me to Monk first. How he phrased lines. Even inside the phrases, exactly where the notes fell always felt so personal and idiosyncratic.

Jason: He was definitely a master at using rhythm and space. I noticed with his own tunes just how strong the rhythm would be in those melodies.

Who was responsible for the selection of the pieces?

Jason: It was a combination of both. My father brought up the idea of doing a Monk record a while back. I believe what got the ball rolling was when we played this one quartet performance with “Epistrophy.” We played it in a way that was arranged slightly, very subtly. I liked the way it went, and I started thinking maybe we should pursue this album. There were some things that I picked and some things that my father picked.

Was there anything you decided was too him to do, or requires us to move too far, or just did not want to do?

Ellis: Nothing that I can think of. I think what we did on that CD is a pretty fair representation of Monk, in a wider sense. We did “Crepuscule with Nellie”—I wouldn’t even know how to solo off of that. I did decide to do “‘Round Midnight,” but I decided to do that as a piano solo. I messed with that tune and I even thought of forming a string quartet of that tune a long time ago, and I did not get too far.

I think Jason mentioned it in the liner notes about the grooves. There is a story going around about Monk—a guy, a drummer I think, and he was kind of new to Monk’s music. He asked Monk, “What do you want me to do?” Monk said, “Swing.” The guy said, “I understand that, but after that, what then?” “Swing some more.”

So you had the idea of applying specific grooves to Monk?

Jason: The only tune on there, honestly, that I really wanted to do was a tune called “Teo.” A few years ago I heard a recording of this tune on Live at the It Club, and I was first interested in it because I never heard it. No one ever plays it. Monk has written hundreds of tunes and there are a lot of tunes that have slipped through the cracks and are not played very much. I checked it out and I think, okay this isn’t bad, but after eight bars I started hearing a funk groove. So when we decided to do the record, I said this is one tune we have to do.

I recently rehearsed that with some students from here, and I think that my description may have confused the drummer a little bit. I said, “Think Monk and the Roots’ drummer Questlove and the stuff he does with DeAngelo.” I think that threw him off, but really, rhythmically you can do that with a lot of Monk’s tunes.

You talked about playing Monk with Marcus Roberts; he said we have to be careful not to put ourselves all over this. Isn’t part of the business of playing it to find how you interact with that person’s work?

Ellis: Yeah, but I think what Marcus is saying when in reference to the term “superimposed” is that, like I’ve heard this one pianist who did a Bud Powell tune called “Hallucinations.” When the solo came, there was no harmonic reference to “Hallucinations” at all. It was all about whoever this pianist was and his stuff. You can make an argument for that saying that’s what jazz does, and it’s true, but if you approach what you’re doing philosophically, you try and do the best that you can with the melody, the harmony, and the rhythm. Those three components.

I remember once Tommy Flanagan told me something. I was in Europe at one of those festivals, and it always leaves you wanting to play. You go over there, you do 45 minutes then you’re done. There was a space under the hotel in which there was a piano against the wall, and I went over to the piano because I felt like playing more than the 45 minutes. I started playing “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” just fooling around with it. When I finished, I saw Tommy was sitting over there against the wall, and I got up to go and speak to him. As I got close to him, he said, “You forgot the verse.” I don’t think I even knew there was a verse, so I went home and got the music and there was the verse. I recorded it again with the verse.

I think there is a certain amount of specificity that is necessary from where I am coming from philosophically. Coltrane was guilty of this all the time; he didn’t care much about the melody. He played it however it came out. You owe the composer of the tune, whether it’s Richard Rogers or Jobim. If you are going to play the melody, play the melody. Then when you get ready to solo, that’s on you.

Are you a ‘jazz nerd’? Jason Marsalis revisits and clarifies the term

by Jason Marsalis
Los Angeles Times
June 15, 2010

In the wake of causing a minor firestorm in the online jazz community last month with a playful video decrying the influence of “jazz nerds,” drummer Jason Marsalis e-mailed me a clarification this morning that both expands on the definition, shares his inspiration for the video and offers further talking points that amount to a calling for a truce in the so-called Jazz Wars.

As a few commenters on the post argued, the crux of Marsalis’ issue with so-called jazz nerds isn’t necessarily the use of complicated structure, multi-genre influences or odd meter (citing his own work with adventurous young saxophonist John Ellis as an example, a point also made by Pop and Hiss commenter nash61ce). In one part of a four-page statement, Marsalis argues that his point was a question of adding those elements without a working knowledge of jazz’s rich history and instead opting for complexity for complexity’s sake in composition.
“[A jazz nerd, or JNA for short] will hear groups lead by Dave Holland and Wayne Shorter and will marvel at the complex musical structure but ignore the historical substance behind their music. JNA saxophonists will listen to and worship the music of Mark Turner, Chris Potter, Michael Brecker, and other modern players but ignore the musicians that have influenced their music such as John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Warne Marsh, and Sonny Rollins.

JNA will hear the music of James Brown and say that it’s no big deal because it only has two chords. JNA looks down on blues as ‘simple’ while wanting to play endless non-melodic eighth and sixteenth notes over ‘All the Things You Are’ in 7/4 straight feel. By the way, a slow blues is boring. Better yet, swing is actually uninteresting and straight feel is actually more ‘challenging’ and ‘exciting.’ Instead of embracing both, the JNA worships one while ridiculing the other. Speaking of that, 4/4 is ‘old’ while 9/8, on the other hand, is ‘new.’ A basic drum groove is boring unless you fill it with lots of notes. To the JNA, that’s modern music. So to recapitulate, JNA reduces music to as many complex notes as possible while ignoring the simple elements and history behind the notes. This kind of music will have audience members sitting on their hands suffering boredom.”
Interestingly, Marsalis goes on to argue against what he believes is another troubling trend in modern jazz, “innovation propaganda.” Couched in part as a defense of the “young lions” counter-revolution of the 1980s that celebrated jazz of the 1950s and ’60s (a movement vigorously championed by his family), Marsalis writes, “Starting from 2000 up to now, the majority of today’s music started to reference rock, hip-hop, pop, R&B, and world music. That’s great except there’s a catch. Almost NO music before 1990 is referenced in the majority of music played today.”

While the idea that the “majority” of contemporary jazz disregards Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and the entirety of the jazz firmament sounds like a stretch, Marsalis’ overall tone with regard to the modern versus “neoclassicist” “jazz wars” is one that advocates for inclusion from both sides.
“Here’s the reality about music. Genres are neutral, all music is old and music is information. The 20th century has produced lots of music. Rather than dividing it up with categories like ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ or ‘old’ and ‘new,’ it should be viewed as a century worth of information.There’s information in Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Louis Jordan, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, The Beatles, Cecil Taylor, Jimi Hendrix, George Clinton, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder, Weather Report, Michael Jackson, Public Enemy, Genesis, Nirvana, Common, John Legend just to name a few. Hundreds upon thousands of artists in numerous genres were left out, but the point is this music is all available for any musician to employ, or be employed rather.

There are those that complain of narrowing music through categories. My complaint is about narrowing music through dates. There’s information that can be incorporated in music from 1900 to 2000 in today’s context. Jazz is an open architecture that includes everything from genres to history.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself, actually. Ultimately, as one who is a strong advocate for the first of the “innovation kool-aid” principles that Marsalis later lists in his statement — “Jazz has to move forward into the future” (and I’d wager that Marsalis values that point as well) — the question of whether a so-called traditionalist or so-called modernist perspective is the best way to move jazz into the future isn’t a question at all. All sides of the music, every influence, artistic whim and sonic preference are welcome and worthy of consideration. That sort of freedom is what keeps jazz so vital in the first place.

There’s plenty of food for thought throughout Marsalis’ statement — give it a read and weigh in with your thoughts. He ends the piece by writing, “I’m glad we are having this conversation,” and I have to agree.

— Chris Barton

The Definition of a Jazz Nerd

I’ve been lucky to grow up as a privileged musician. I’ve been surrounded by a considerable amount of information and various influences from different genres of music. As a high school and college student, jazz students I knew were very knowledgeable about music and hungry for even more. Then in the early 2000s, something happened. While performing with some of the new jazz students relocating to the New Orleans area, I noticed something missing in their music. As I became familiar with their compositions and solo performances, my suspicions were confirmed; while their music was often complex with a different mood, it was unfortunately lacking in knowledge of the jazz tradition.

These musicians did not take sufficient time to investigate jazz before 1990, nor did they have a belief in that music. I then realized that these musicians did not have many opportunities to play outside of the classroom situation. Therefore, playing jazz for an audience was not part of their musical experience. As I traveled the country, I began seeing this as a trend. Jazz students would play an abundance of notes in an abstract manner without an understanding of basic melodic content.

During this time, I overheard a musician describe hearing music in which musicians played notes and patterns over complex chord changes as “nerd music”. That term struck a chord with me because that was the same thing I was hearing from college students, and some professional musicians, around the country. At that moment I realized the trend that was happening with jazz music and I coined the phrase “JNA,” the Jazz Nerds of America.

As I traveled to Europe and Canada, I discovered common attitudes were pertinent to my observations. Jazz musicians in both countries said the same thing is happening with music students in their respective regions. At this point I’m getting notoriously disturbed about the new music I’ve been hearing. Finally, in a conversation with my father, he told me of a set he attended at a New York jazz club and heard music that I would describe as being played by JNA members. He noticed that the band members had their heads buried in the music and made no eye contact with the audience. He also observed a very attentive audience working hard to like what they were hearing. Basically, instead of enjoying the music, they were expending energy in an attempt to connect with what was being played.

At this point I decided, as a bandleader, to warn the jazz audience about the JNA. When I would tell my story, it would be part musician/part raving street preacher to elicit laughs from the audience. I would advise them to run away from “nerd music” as fast as they can. One night in Toronto, I told my JNA story to the audience and Keita Hopkinson, someone who was helping put together the show, wanted to film my rant on his iPhone. I agreed and he posted it on YouTube.

I recently received a phone call from band mate and pianist Marcus Roberts and he mentioned that he received an e-mail about my “jazz nerd” video and that it was getting a lot of attention over the Internet. I did a Google search on Jazz Nerd International and lots of entries appeared. It was humorous that JNA was getting this much attention. The articles were also interesting reads. The only troublesome aspect was that my views were misconstrued and misdirected into another conversation contrary to what the video was about. Some of the blame falls on me because a lot of the musical examples presented in the video were done in a vague fashion. This is why I have decided to write an essay to explain what my problem with the “jazz nerd” is all about.

Let’s define a jazz nerd. A jazz nerd, or JNA for short, is a jazz student who reduces all music to notes and concepts only. JNA worships complexity while ridiculing simplicity. JNA will hear groups lead by Dave Holland and Wayne Shorter and will marvel at the complex musical structure but ignore the historical substance behind their music. JNA saxophonists will listen to and worship the music of Mark Turner, Chris Potter, Michael Brecker, and other modern players but ignore the musicians that have influenced their music such as John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Warne Marsh, and Sonny Rollins. JNA will hear the music of James Brown and say that it’s no big deal because it only has two chords. JNA looks down on blues as “simple” while wanting to play endless non-melodic eighth and sixteenth notes over “All the Things You Are” in 7/4 straight feel. By the way, a slow blues is boring. Better yet, swing is actually uninteresting and straight feel is actually more “challenging” and “exciting.” Instead of embracing both, the JNA worships one while ridiculing the other. Speaking of that, 4/4 is “old” while 9/8, on the other hand, is “new.” A basic drum groove is boring unless you fill it with lots of notes. To the JNA, that’s modern music. So to recapitulate, JNA reduces music to as many complex notes as possible while ignoring the simple elements and history behind the notes. This kind of music will have audience members sitting on their hands suffering boredom.

Now, I must make a brief statement about odd meters. In the infamous video, it seemed as though I was attacking odd meters. Anyone that knows my music would rightfully label that hypocrisy. It isn’t the time signatures I was attacking but rather the highly indifferent approach JNA would employ in the name of creating music. They play all odd meters the same way, straight and medium-to-fast. They’re not interested in bringing a variety of grooves and mood to odd meters. Furthermore, a jazz nerd will have music that will modulate from 5/4 to 9/8 to 7/4 in a matter of measures while playing a barrage of notes that make no sense. Therefore, as an audience member you actually can’t tell what the band is playing since there’s no clarity of chord movement or rhythm. This approach to odd meters can work, as exemplified by tenor saxophonist John Ellis’ composition “Bonus Round,” but cluttering the space doesn’t help the music. The music student has fun but the audience has nothing with which to connect and therefore is sitting on their hands, again.

As far as today’s music is concerned, I do have a problem with another trend that isn’t exclusive to the JNA, but it affects jazz music, and JNA members usually believe in it. It’s what I call “innovation propaganda.” It is rooted in the fact that starting in the 1980s and through the ’90s, there were jazz musicians interested in the history of the music. They wanted to explore jazz music from the ’50s and ’60s, a period of music that their generation hadn’t previously explored. While there was an audience for this music, there were jazz writers and musicians who excoriated them as “neoclassicists” who were bringing jazz backwards and were not moving the music forward. However, starting from 2000 up to now, the majority of today’s music started to reference rock, hip-hop, pop, R&B, and world music. That’s great except there’s a catch. Almost NO music before 1990 is referenced in the majority of music played today. But if you don’t study the history of jazz, or music for that matter, the good news is that you have an out clause. Jazz magazines and writers created this flavor of kool-aid named “innovation,” and when a musician drinks “innovation kool-aid,” you believe the following principles:

These principals sound as though they have the best of intentions, but what I’ve found is that this point of view actually mirrors the same narrow-minded point of view that the “traditionalists” are being accused of. “Traditionalists,” apparently, are only interested in music from 1900-1969. With the majority of the new music, music after 1969, and sometimes 1999, is the only period of interest. Here’s the reality about music. Genres are neutral, all music is old and music is information. The 20th century has produced lots of music. Rather than dividing it up with categories like “traditional” and “modern” or “old” and “new,” it should be viewed as a century worth of information. There’s information in Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Louis Jordan, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, The Beatles, Cecil Taylor, Jimi Hendrix, George Clinton, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder, Weather Report, Michael Jackson, Public Enemy, Genesis, Nirvana, Common, John Legend just to name a few. Hundreds upon thousands of artists in numerous genres were left out, but the point is this music is all available for any musician to employ, or be employed rather. There are those that complain of narrowing music through categories. My complaint is about narrowing music through dates. There’s information that can be incorporated in music from 1900 to 2000 in today’s context. Jazz is an open architecture that includes everything from genres to history.

In closing, there are those who wonder why do I bother? Why am I so outspoken about music? Why not let the music speak for itself? Why am I wasting my time with this subject instead of practicing? Well, I’ve been inspired by music for many years from all walks of life, and to be honest, I’m bored with the majority of the new music being played today. Newer musicians are being selfish by not including a wide range of history and only thinking of themselves over the music. But there’s a bigger problem; I’m not alone. Earlier, I mentioned that jazz had a larger audience with music that was apparently “retrogressive.” Now, today’s music is hailed by some as pushing jazz into the future, but guess what? The audience has dwindled and there are magazine articles asking if the music is dead. Furthermore, the response to my “jazz nerd” video is interesting because there are musicians who disagree with me, but not as many non-musically trained jazz fans share the same view. They’re collectively known as the audience, remember? The fact is that the jazz audience could care less whether any music is “new” or “innovative.” The audience pays their hard-earned money to hear a good show. I’ve talked to many audience members who feel the exact same way I do and are just as frustrated as I am with most of the new music. The problem is that because of “innovation propaganda,” they feel guilty if they don’t like the music. They feel that it’s their fault for not understanding the “intellectual capacity” of it, so they work hard at trying to enjoy the music when they aren’t in the first place. This, in my view, is part of the reason why the jazz audience is getting smaller.

Is there a way to solve this problem? The only solution I have is to restructure the academic curriculum in university programs to be inclusive of all music and introduce students in elementary school, 4th through 12th grades, to music studies. The best thing for a musician to do is not to divide music by years or genres, but by basing it on at least a century’s worth of information. The more, the merrier. Where this will take the music, we shall see. But this approach of unity is more intriguing than division and jazz music can truly grow into the 21st century. In the meantime, I would like to thank those who have commented on my impromptu video and I’m glad we are having this conversation.

A quick word on “Jazz Nerds International”

by David R. Adler
Letlerland
June 15, 2010

Now that he’s issued a truly interesting follow-up, I’ll take the bait and weigh in on Jason Marsalis’s recent rant against “Jazz Nerds International” — i.e., young musicians so obsessed with being cutting-edge and complex that they ignore the history of the music and, perhaps more important, the need to connect with an audience beyond their fellow JNI peers.

Like many others, I objected to the sweeping generalizations and straw men in Jason’s first argument, on video. Complexity per se is not the issue, nor is playing in odd meters — lots of people do it well and without sacrificing an ounce of soul or emotion or historical awareness.

But in his new statement, Jason hits on something important when he attacks “innovation propaganda” in jazz. Ben Ratliff, in his recent book Coltrane: The Story of a Sound, calls it “future-mongering.” I would describe it as an arm-folding mentality — particularly prevalent among some of my fellow jazz critics — that demands every new CD be some sort of shocking bolt from the blue, something that sounds utterly unlike the jazz we’ve come to expect. Or else, yawn.

Now, I love bold new sounds in music as much as the next person. But ultimately I think this is a bullshit, ahistorical criterion to impose on everyone who picks up a horn, not to mention an ungenerous way to approach listening. It’s the artist’s intentions that matter — and if the intention is clearly not to turn the jazz world on its ear, then it’s ignorant to write the music off for failing to do so.

What irks me the most about “innovation propaganda” is that it misrepresents the enormous struggle involved in learning to play jazz well. Years ago I knocked Stuart Nicholson for arguing that the embrace of neo-bop in the ’80s reflected that decade’s thirst for instant gratification. Learning bebop is instantly gratifying? Clearly, here is someone who never sweated it out on the bandstand or in the practice room, trying to crack the infinite riddles of a music all too often derided nowadays as “conservative.”

Oddly, though, I detect some of the same flippant disdain for hard-working young players in Jason Marsalis’s salvos. “I’m bored with the majority of the new music being played today,” Jason writes, and it’s a sentence that could have come straight from the arm-folding critics, the innovation propagandists he so detests. In any case, I couldn’t disagree more. I am anything but bored.