CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE...
by Ellery Eskelin
This article was written for the Hat Hut website were you can also view the article.
To help launch the new Hat Hut web site I was asked by Werner Uehlinger to write a
piece concerning quotes from reviews I've gotten which may have surprised me or told
me something about my music that I didn't know. Criticism is a tricky one. I don't
like to engage in it myself as I always come back to the conclusion that criticism is much
more about the person doing the criticizing than that which is being criticized.
I've gotten my share of positive and negative reviews but they really don't affect
me as long as I know that I did exactly what I wanted to do and am satisfied with the results.
Nothing else really matters. Even as I enjoy getting positive reviews I must be honest
and say that the problem still exists that in spite of the fact that criticism is only one person's opinion it is too often written in the language of objective fact.
I won't touch upon the issue of personal bias as that's probably the basis for another
article entirely but I will say that I prefer to read criticism that is able to transcend a writer's personal tastes, taking into account a broader perspective. So
rather than take Werner's idea literally I thought it would be more interesting to
explore the factors that might influence a writer's perception of today's music.
I should point out that these are often the same ideas and concepts taken for granted by fans
and musicians as well.
Recently I was contacted by Bill Meyer on behalf of Jazziz magazine for an interview.
Jazziz had asked for an "article about your 'organ trio' (their words)", referring
to my band with Andrea Parkins on accordion and Jim Black on drums. This wasn't the
first time I'd heard someone refer to the band as an organ trio but I'm still a little
surprised when it comes up. It's a legitimate issue but it's not an accurate summation
of this band at all. While we refer to the organ trio thing from time to time, taking elements apart and putting them back together in various ways, it's always within
the greater context of everything else we do, the accordion being the focal point
for me. Bill and I spoke a bit about this issue and he pointed out that a jazz writer
would be more likely to use the organ trio model than a writer like himself who came to
jazz from rock. It may not matter in the end if you keep the writer's background
and orientation in mind (assuming you know it) but I'm not sure how often that happens
especially with the absolutist language that is often used. We shouldn't force new jazz
into an old jazz framework. By concentrating solely on the connections, the more
important aspects of what's unique about the music are missed.
At the risk of blowing my own horn I'll take this opportunity to speak for myself
concerning how I think about composing and playing. In jazz, improvisation has traditionally
been approached as variation and development of a written melody or theme. I enjoy turning this equation around, having the improvisation function independently as
a contrasting element to the written material, not a development of it. It's not
always about tension and release (the traditional paradigm of western music), it's
often about structure and shape. In the process I may use recognizable musical fragments (organ
jazz or otherwise) but I'm not thinking in terms of genre. I'm thinking in more abstract
and formal terms. The point is to listen to how these various elements are organized rather than simply say that they all co-exist in a given piece of music. I
structure my pieces based upon my perceptions of the unexpected ways in which daily
events in our lives often unfold. We don't always know what it means when weird shit
happens and that's OK. Sometimes questions are more interesting than answers.
Over the years I've been compared to at least twenty other well known saxophonists
ranging from Archie Shepp to Michael Brecker and Stan Getz, but I'm most often categorized
as being part of the Ben Webster lineage (as opposed to the Lester Young lineage). I'm flattered but my immediate reaction is to wonder just what the fuck Ben Webster
would have thought about that. He wasn't one of the players that I concentrated on
in my early years and to be honest I can't feel comfortable saying that my sound
is much like his in terms of where it really comes from even as there are certain similarities.
Retro-mindedness notwithstanding, I think the whole notion of a lineage is getting
a little played-out since the environment that produced that type of genealogy is
now gone. Players these days draw from so much language (jazz and otherwise) that these
lineages are increasingly obscured and broken. In my attempts to get as much sound
and variety out of the horn as possible it's unavoidable that I'm going reflect other
players to certain degrees simply by virtue of the fact that just about everything
that's possible on the horn technically and sonically has been done already. Rather
than squeeze myself into a corner looking for the last vestiges of possibility within
the sonic range of the tenor saxophone I embrace all this past sound and try to use it
in new ways and in a presentation of my own. I like to think that my sound has a
relationship to the classical string quartet. I like that warmth of tone (but with
a crisp articulation) as well as the feeling of movement that is created when more than one
instrument is playing. In an attempt to capture this sense of polyphony I've spent
a lot of time working on breaking up and reassembling my phrasing, getting away from
eighths notes (the de facto rhythm for most jazz improvisers) while still generating melodic
ideas that have a strong harmonic basis (meaning how I determine my note choices).
Someone in the sixties (I can't remember who) said "it's not about notes anymore".
I think it's always been about notes, (among many other things) and that it's finally
time to reconcile all these elements.
By the way, I've never been one to argue that a writer needs to be an expert on the
techniques of music (musicians are not better critics by virtue of technical knowledge)
but harmonic language is a huge area of jazz. It's somewhat akin to the idea of syntax and the words one chooses to express themselves. It's a defining issue among players,
one that deserves more attention in the press.
So what does it mean to be original in this day and age? On the surface new music
today may seem less overtly radical than it was thirty five years ago but let's investigate
that further. A line could be drawn from the beginning of jazz until the sixties,
when tonality was finally broken open (it happened in classical music as well, though
much earlier). Once all the rules had seemingly been broken it became increasingly
difficult to shock listeners with new sounds (not that that was always the point)
as there were no longer the confines of song form and conventional concepts of sound production
to pit one's self against. Harmony was largely thought of as a dead end and thus
brought with it the end of a certain way of looking at innovation, namely that progress always needed to proceed linearly along past lines. The concept of postmodernism
probably begins here even though it doesn't gain popular usage until much later.
Even so, there still remains is a strong residual effect in much of today's thinking
that new innovations in jazz must still emerge from concepts of swing and theme and variations
on song form in order to be valid. For example, the dated terms "inside" and "outside"
(first used to describe a player's approach to traditional harmony) are still in usage even though they fail to address the fact that there is an entire movement
of current players who do not operate within this paradigm. Today's players recognize
that free playing had more limits than might have been expected and the game of trying to create a totally new sound has instead become a game of trying to create something
new out of the free music explosion, tying up the tradition and moving on with it,
irrespective of what may be though of as "inside" or "outside". A promoter in Europe
once told me that "the music of the sixties was about searching, the music of today
is about finding". Towards that idea it seems to me that one of the most important
aspects of new jazz for the past ten years has been the myriad ways in which musicians
have risen to the challenge of finding new relationships between composition and improvisation.
Writers need to devise ways of talking about these ideas beyond saying that so and
so is breaking down stylistic barriers. OK, then what? What are the kinds of techniques that person employs? What's original about their language? How does their
sensibility differ from that of their peers?
In the January 2000 "Best of the 90's" issue of Down Beat, new music got some attention
but still encountered dismissive summations like, "no overall trend", to which I'll
point out is a good thing, "new combinations of styles rather than new innovations", to which I'll say you need only look a little deeper and "free players neglect the
tradition", to which I'll point out that free playing is in fact a tradition in and
of itself. Besides, I personally know of very few players free or otherwise who do
not incorporate the tradition in some manner, often in more imaginative ways than their
more retro-minded counterparts. In the same issue I was also disheartened to read
a review of one of my respected colleges (who transcends each of the aforementioned
criticisms) that refers to his music as "speculative terrain". Still, there are some who
are beginning to get the message. Phrases like "off the map music still interacts
and forms beguiling hybrids with boundless sound sources", "the realization that
free music could exist and be improved with a much stronger structural basis" and "the most
interesting and influential music-making was being recorded, encouraged and nurtured
not by a few major labels but by scores of independents" provided more encouragement.
Ray Anderson earns points for stating what every writer ought to know by now, namely
that "there is no single direction to the music. It can't go one way. It's going
in a whole bunch of different ways, and I think that's really good."
With the outdated dichotomy of "mainstream versus avant garde" still in place we're
not going to get very much farther in terms of discussion and criticism. The new
music doesn't really doesn't belong in that paradigm. It reorganizes and recontextualizes
both the old mainstream and the old avant garde along with the input of a whole lot
of outside influences, often changing the rules of the game in the process. Unfortunately,
when too many rules get changed it's often no longer considered jazz by enough of
the cognoscenti for these innovations to get much attention outside of a small core
group of listeners and performers. But it's there. It continues to grow and develop.
Most folks just aren't aware of it. I think that people will look back at this era
and realize that they missed something special and important. Fortunately independent
labels like Hat Hut, Black Saint/Soul Note, Tzadik, FMP, Songlines, Avant, Bvhaast,
DIW, Enja, JMT, Winter and Winter, Knitting Factory, Leo, New World and many others
are documenting this scene. It's a testament to what is happening today and what should
rightly be recognized in the future as a vital part of the music we might call jazz.
Ellery Eskelin
January 2000
New York City
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