This week we have an interview with Black House newbie: Chris Robinson. In addition to playing saxophone Chris is a jazz writer and you can check out his blog : http://outsideinsideout.wordpress.com/
Where are you from and what brought you to KU?
I am from Coeur d' Alene, Idaho, and I've lived in Lawrence for three years come this August. I came to KU to get do a PhD - when I was looking for people I'd like to study with I did a general google search and found out where my advisor teaches - so it turned out to be in the American Studies here at KU.
What don't you like about jazz?
Hmmm...more things than people who know me well might think. How jazz became canonized as a high art form is great, but it has its drawbacks - like having to pay $50+ to see Dave Holland or Branford at that club (not the Blue Room) near 18th and Vine. I mean it's cool those cats are out playing, but a. it's really tough to afford those tickets, and b. you sometimes get the high art crowd showing up because it's an event to be at rather than because they really dig the music. I saw Branford at a really ritzy jazz festival outside Seattle - and it was a really expensive dinner show that the folks who came didn't even pay attention. Branford and his quartet killed, of course, but it took them a long time to get warmed up and there was no energy coming from the crowd. A similar thing happened in May when I saw Miguel Zenon up in Omaha - largely high art folks who gave very little back to the performers.
Another thing I dislike - which might sound strange because I'm a jazz critic - but I really hate whack music writing, especially jazz. Writers who lack basic knowledge and have a weak command of musical terminology are just the tip of the iceberg. When you combine that with disrespectful, ignorant, close mindedness, and smug tone - especially in a negative review - then you just have something that shouldn't be printed and does no justice to the artists who have spent years and countless hours working on their music. And conversely, I hate people who categorically shit on writers, because a lot of us know our shit, can play the music (albeit not at the level of someone like Branford), do our best to respect the artists and understand how much time, effort and money it takes to put out a record, or even be in a position where you can put out a record, and so that bugs me. Sure, there are a lot of shitty writers, but there are a lot of good ones as well.
I also don't like jazz ed programs in colleges and universities as well, but I could go on about that and spare you the details- just the common complaints like everyone sounds the same and play like robots, etc etc etc.
How would you describe the music scene in Lawrence?
Pretty rock based, but for the size of the town I think it's pretty good, in that there's music most nights of the week. I don't get out to see shows as much as I'd like, but I can usually count on there being something I'd be interested in once or twice a week. For example there was a shit kicking honky tonk band with a killer pedal steel player at the Replay last night that I heard while walking downtown with some friends, but we didn't go in, which was good because the cops showed up. You can usually count on cowboys to fuck some shit up. Even though I don't get out much (I'm usually doing homework when people I really want to see are in town) I've caught some pretty good local and touring groups. I'd like to see more jazz acts from KC come over and play though, because I think the rock kids would be down at places like the Replay and the Taproom - might be a way to extend the KC scene out here.
Who are your biggest influences and why?
Too many to list, so I'll try and be brief. For the most part in my playing and writing I hear motivically and in terms of ideas - the ideas I hear in my head aren't really melodically or harmonically based.
As far as playing I am influenced by sound more than anything else: alto players are Jackie McLean (for his swagger and biting, acidic tone) and Paul Desmond (for his melodicism and sound). Even though I am not a very good alto player I try to incorporate what makes them awesome into my playing. Since I'm more of a bari player I take my big band section work cues from Harry Carney, who also has the greatest sound. Pepper Adams and Gary Smulyan are also major influences on bari for their sound and take no prisoners approach. On tenor I go way old school: Ben Webster, Lockjaw - dudes like that. I'm not blessed with crazy fingers, or a very melodic sense, so I look to guys like Lee Konitz for the way they take ideas and deconstruct the shit out of them, trying to get every permutation possible out of seemingly the simplest of figures or motives.
Writing wise: As you can hear from the few little things I've written for the group - I'm really down with Philip Glass and minimalism, although I'm not very good at writing that way. And trying to translate that into a jazz group is a challenge. I'm also really down with John Luther Adams - not the John Adams who did Nixon in China - and the way he writes these massive things that just are. I guess you could call them minimalist, but not in a Glass or Reich kind of way - shimmering, and repeating figures that change so slowly there's no real way to perceive them in a temporal sense. He's influenced by Alaska, where he lives, and the glaciers and tundra, and I love the way he translates physical space into sonic space. When I first heard his music, I think it was the piece For Lou Harrison, I thought that if I knew how to write that would be the music I would want to write. It also turns out he's from Fairbanks, Alaska, where I lived until I was 10. My mom knew his entire family-even the dogs. Even though I wasn't aware of his music until five years ago or so I feel some sort of connection with it - maybe because of being in Fairbanks.
Is Black House worth the drive?
Oh hells yeah! When Rich Wheeler told me about you guys and what you do and all that and suggested contacting you I figured it would be worth it. I'm in that weird space - been a while since being in a music department where there's a ton of people to play with, being somewhat new to the area, living in Lawrence where there isn't too much jazz going on besides the people in the KU jazz program, etc. - so it's nice to play with some like minded people. The focus on bringing in new music is awesome, and being in a group with such great players and writers is really helping me to get fired up about playing and practicing and writing again - which I need. I've also never written for such a large group before, so it's a challenge to take my ideas and approach from a smaller, more improvisational focused group which is what I've mostly done in the past in Idaho, and adapting it for this session's group. Writing has also been good to help me remember all the basic writing rules I learned as an undergrad in music theory over 10 years ago and learning what can be played on what instrument, etc. So this has been really good for me and a great distraction from slogging through my PhD shit.
When I was in college I did some research in which I read every "Downbeat" review that Sonny Rollins ever had. Halfway through I started to realize they basically all said the same thing and were pretty worthless. What is the desired effect of reviews as you see it?
The thing with Rollins, and you still see it, is that he's one of the "heavies," and except for a few folks who didn't dig the stuff after he came back from practicing on the bridge for a few years, you won't see any criticism of him - thus the reviews who pretty much said the same thing. A lot of it, in terms of Rollins, is that if you are reviewing a record that you don't think is great - and Sonny has made some stinkers, no doubt (those Calypso based things, oh dear god) - do you want to be that guy who shits on him? Can you imagine the firestorm from the huge cadre of folks - other musicians, writers, etc - you'd get for that review, even if it was spot on? That's why writing takes a serious set of metaphorical stones (metaphorical because there are a handful of great women writers). I'm guessing the reverence for giants like Rollins has tempered any potential for criticism. There are some people with the guts to call it like they see it, but not many, and those folks have been established for a long time.
In terms of the overall desired effects of reviews - some of it comes down to straight up promotion of an album from a business and publicity standpoint, which I elaborate on in your next question. A lot of it comes down to that. I remember in '04 or '05, before I was writing for Downbeat, that I read a review in DB of the newest Paul Motian/Joe Lovano/Bill Frisell record. I hadn't heard anything by this group, and although I was hip to Lovano and Frisell, and knew Motian because of those Bill Evans records he was on, I had no idea what this group was doing, even though they had been together since the early 80s. The review was done so well that I just went and bought the record. And it was amazing, and is still one of my favorite records of any period, genre, etc. Since that review I have since gone and bought a ton of Paul Motian led projects. Maybe too many. But it all came from that one review. That's why musicians are desperate to get their albums reviewed wherever they can.
For readers, reviews can definitely turn them on to things, even if the review is negative. I remember a ways back it seemed that everything that Paul de Barros hated I loved - so then whenever he wrote a negative review I went and got the record out of sheer principle, and generally really loved them. As a reader if you read reviewers consistently enough to learn their biases, what they like, etc., then that can help you in your buying and get you into new things you might not have checked out on your own. If you know that James Hale likes "x" group or style, and you like that group and that style too, then if he reviews a record that he likes that you haven't heard, then that can turn you on to new stuff.
As a fellow critic I read reviews not only to learn about stuff, but then I'll also cop ways to write about music that find compelling. I also will pay attention for things not to do. I also like checking out reviews of CDs I've also reviewed, either on my blog or for Downbeat - it's always interesting to read someone else's take.
Reviews also function in part, and this isn't really a desired effect, but it's an effect nonetheless, in building the jazz canon and determining the ways in which people talk, think, and write about jazz. In terms of canonizing jazz as an art form reviews probably aren't as important as interviews or feature pieces, probably because they are so short, but they are important in shaping and framing jazz discourse.
How much responsibility do musicians have in actually giving writers something to write about? Is it enough to just release recordings? Should they be more ambitious in creating their own narrative?
One would hope, especially players, that it would be enough to make recordings. But frankly it's not. There are tons of great players out there that deserve to be heard that absolutely nobody outside a small community has heard of. For example, the PLBB, which as you know is awesome - nobody outside the KC metro area has really heard of them. A buddy of mine went into Love Garden here in Lawrence and wanted to buy their disc. The clerks, who are pretty hip and knowledgeable folks, hadn't heard of the group. That's why people like me are bombarded with emails, press releases and CDs - because even a bad review is good press. And the press, blogs, etc., are one way people learn about what's out there. I got an email a few months back from a guy who owns a label whose disc I gave a 5 star review in Downbeat. Apparently that review gave the group a lot more attention, sales, gigs etc.
All this being said, artists should absolutely be more ambitious in creating their own narrative. Some of the best jazz writing I've ever read was by musicians. Ethan Iverson's blog is amazing. The things I see by Vijay Iyer are amazing. And musicians creating their own narratives isn't new, it's just under-recognized because it's for the most part not in Downbeat or JazzTimes or whatever. A lot of attempts at artists creating their own narratives, like Max Roach, Mingus, and going way back- James Reese Europe, have been recognized in the press, but it's overshadowed by non-musician critics and journalists, some of whom really don't know what they are talking about but are perceived as being authorities because they are published in a national magazine or large newspaper. A lot of it also has to do with artists creating their own labels, which Mingus did, distribution, promoting their own concerts, etc. The more artists can create their own narrative the better, because they are players, they are on the inside, and the most knowledgeable people. Although I think having the institution of journalism or criticism or whatever is really important to. Like I said in the first question, reviews, articles, and interviews sell records, for better or worse.
Short answer is that making a great record is not good enough - if you want people to hear it, that is. Whether it's exposure in the press, on college radio, or exposure through artist created narratives - it's necessary.
Two years ago I cancelled my subscription to "Downbeat" because it was at best boring me and at worst making me depressed. Why is it so hard to make jazz interesting to read about? I wasn't even finding good pictures of my heroes to cut out and put up on my walls.
The quick and dirty answer is because it's really hard to make anything interesting to read about - doesn't matter the subject matter, horses, cars, jazz, legos, whatever somebody is into. Writing is hard, and there are not very many people who are amazing writers, and so I think that's part of it.
Another thing, which could be the main reason, is the same reason why I have pretty much stopped reading the articles - it's because for the most part they are not written for people like you or me. You're a serious player, you've read a ton, you've listened a ton - I'm guessing here that these articles are not for people who are as into the music as you are. For the most part the feature stories, whether in Downbeat, JazzTimes, whatever, bore me to tears. Not because they aren't for the most part well written, it's just that there is rarely nothing new in there for me. Every once in a while there will be an article about somebody I don't know much about, so I'll check those out. But for those folks who keep appearing every few years in DB - eh, I don't really care much about reading for that. Am I interested in reading about Pat Metheny again? Nope. So combine that you are probably not the main audience, with the fact that writing is stupid hard, that could answer your question. I go to other places to read and learn, the blog Destination Out is a great education for me because it covers a lot of music I'm not very familiar with, as is Wax Poetics - even if a lot of the material in there isn't jazz related. I also love Signal to Noise, but a lot of the time it's because it focuses on pretty out shit - a lot of shit that doesn't get into DB or JazzTimes, and that's more of what I'm interested in reading about than more mainstream artists.
I can't speak to the photographs. A sweet photograph section would be awesome. One of my favorite mountain bike magazines has poster quality photographs in every issue. Shit, I should suggest that to my editor. You could be on to something. I can't think of any photos that aren't small or don't have a title or text on them.
Another thing I've notice from hours of "Downbeat" reading is that as the music declined in the seventies, the writing grew ever more toothless. Why is that?
I couldn't say for sure. By toothless I assume you mean that there was less strong and scathing criticism? (And I think you're right, there was a lot of terrible jazz in the 70s, but I am now getting into a lot of the weird fusion shit recently - Mwandishi, Eddie Henderson, Don Cherry - I think it's pretty sweet, and Miles' shit I don't think gets enough avant-garde cred, imho) If that's the case there could be a few reasons, which are basically educated guesses on my part.
In the 70s criticism, not just limited to jazz criticism, you had a new generation of critics and editors that was entering the fold, people the same generation of Gary Giddins. So the folks who were the old guard of critics, people like Leonard Feather (who moved out to LA in the 70s and primarily wrote for the LA Times) and Barry Ulanov (who might have died before the 70s, I can't remember), were being slowly replaced by the new folks, who had a different worldview and take on what criticism should be. You've read a lot of Downbeat, so you know that in the 40s through the 60s, and especially the 40s, there was just some nasty shit being thrown around by critics - and very often aimed at other critics who had different aesthetic viewpoints. Part of the reason why a lot of the writing in the middle part of the century was so vitriolic and at times polemic (and therefore really fun to read) was because every time a new style popped up - bebop, cool, free, etc - that seriously challenged the world view of a ton of writers, thus you have John Tynan's claim that Coltrane and Dolphy were "anti jazz." By the 70s, with the exception of fusion - Bitches Brew, Herbie's Mwandishi, Mahavishnu, etc - which was almost thoroughly dismissed by the old guard (I'm thinking of Leonard Feather categorically dismissing everything Miles did after say '69), you didn't have any real new stylistic revolutions, just reinterpretations and recontextualizations of shit that had been done before. I.E., there wasn't a whole lot new for people to get really angry about.
In the 70s you also had the decline of the Black Nationalist Movement and Civil Rights, so a lot of the social criticism that was attached to jazz, especially avant garde jazz, was no longer in the mainstream. In the 70s you didn't see roundtable discussions of jazz and race in the pages of Downbeat like you did in the 60s. There was plenty of criticism that kept its teeth so to speak, but it wasn't to be found in the mainstream press, whether Downbeat, the NY Times, etc. A lot of it, especially that written by black activists like Amiri Baraka, was published in independent and very small magazines like Cricket that never really got off the ground and into the mainstream. A lot of the criticism and canonization of jazz by black writers also began to take new forms - the traditional 300 word record review of 1500 word profile were often not the standard form of criticism - thus you had poetry, fiction, and other forms that many people might not consider to be "jazz criticism" (this is something I am discussing at length in my dissertation) that can be seen to serve the same function as traditional criticism. Then in the early 80s you've got black writers like the literary theorist, poet and novelist Nathaniel Mackey writing experimental fiction which I argue has the same canonizing function as mainstream criticism. There is great writing in the 70s and the early 80s, but for the most part I think a lot of it moved out of the pages of Downbeat or newspapers and into places that are harder to access.
In terms of Downbeat and the other mainstream music press, I'm also guessing that along with the entrance of a younger group of critics you had a younger group of editors who probably had new editorial policies in general. As you know, jazz in the 70s was not doing so well and was no longer popular music, its market share declined, etc. Downbeat went from being published weekly up through the early 60s, then bi monthly, then once a month as it is now. I'm guessing that because of jazz's commercial decline (except for all those god awful disco records which must have sold because there are so many of them out there) the press couldn't afford to be as scathing in their reviews, as I'm guessing that they were trying to support jazz. In the 70s, if you read a lot of the editorial columns and feature articles there's a lot of "jazz is dead" shit going on, so I'm guessing the press didn't want to dump on an art form it was thinking was on its death bed.
As a musician, I look at someone like Stanley Crouch and think that the way jazz writers make a career for themselves is by picking a contentious position, backing it up with convincing sounding bullshit, and then harping on it for 30 years. Am I wrong about this?
I'd say that what you say about Stanley Crouch and the way he has made a career for himself is pretty spot on. But I'd be careful to say that all jazz writers do this, because I don't think this is the case - it's just that Crouch and those like him have such high public profiles and don't actually represent the views of the majority of critics. Crouch has been saying some pretty whack shit for a long long time. His comment about Lionel Ritchie being a "horse faced negro" has always stuck with me for some reason. Not that because it has anything to do with jazz, but because that just shows you Crouch's attitude, I guess. There's a few things about Crouch and how he's managed to stay around for so long saying some pretty ridiculous things. First, is that no matter how you feel about what he says, I think he's a pretty damn good writer - he can turn a phrase with the best of them. And that's what makes what he says seem that much more relevant - like you say, he's able to make his views pretty convincing. Second, he's done a fantastic job at attaching himself to the music and aesthetic philosophies of major players and movements, especially Wynton and the other Neo-Con, Young Lions, or whatever you want to call them. Crouch wrote all of the liner notes to Wynton's early records and along with Albert Murray (who I don't really have any problems with at all) has been a strong champion of Wynton, so the more exposure Wynton got the more exposure Crouch got. And along with this is the fact that the musical movement that Crouch supported was not just about the music or saying hard bop influenced jazz was better than other jazz on a purely musical basis. Because jazz, and especially hard bop, provides African Americans with a lot of cultural capital, Crouch's persistence in his views, especially as jazz being solely a black art that has to swing, be based on the blues, and have that "Spanish tinge" (whatever the fuck that means) is one way to give African American musicians ownership of the music and to insulate themselves from musical styles that have too many European influences, or are too 'Eurological' as George Lewis would say. That's one reason why Crouch and those like him dump on black musicians like Anthony Braxton and others who have strayed too far from the Africanist influences on jazz.
In short, I see Crouch's criticism as a socio-political project as opposed to being based on primarily musical judgments. Because his philosophies ring true for a whole lotta folks and because he's such a good writer - that's why I see him as being able to hang around for so long, even if his views are pretty objectionable, and maybe even damaging to the progress and evolution of jazz. But I think in terms of mainstream jazz criticism people like Crouch are in the minority. And I think you can see the slow death of the validity, or perceived validity, of the views of Crouch and the Neo-Con school from the '80s and early '90s. Just check out the folks that are winning or placing high in the critics polls in the Village Voice, Downbeat, etc. Rudresh Mahanthappa just won best alto player in the Downbeat critics poll, and his shit is nowhere near the philosophies of Crouch, et al, so I think you're starting to see a change in the way critics are valuing jazz. Which is a good thing, because Crouch is becoming a dinosaur, which will allow more innovative people to receive much deserved recognition.
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