Guimarães Jazz 2012. jazz: unnecessary explanations

AUTHOR: IVO MARTINS

EDITION: Guimarães Jazz Annual Journal #7 - Câmara Municipal de Guimarães/ Associação Cultural Convívio/ A Oficina DATE: November 2012

“The joy felt in recognizing something is quite powerful; however, the joy of setting eyes for the first time on

something which one has dreamed about is nonetheless so, and the first time, obviously, depends on the second.”

(1) Although we are all in complete agreement with that conclusion, in music we prefer to feel delighted by what

we have so often dreamed of as opposed to limiting ourselves to the tasks required by the act of recognition.

Music is the ideal element indeed for striving to delve more deeply into this perspective, one which does not

dominate over or emerge inexplicably in the encounter with the dream, which is a space reserved for great elation

or for great sadness. It becomes a question of comfort between the internal and the external, which can only be

made complete after death. This type of a final “settling of accounts” is the ultimate compatibility play, which as

is said, provides us with a fleeting moment, but one that is strong enough to put questions on the table regarding

which direction is to be chosen when faced with the wide range of possible discovery-making experiences there

are in art, and namely, in our case, in jazz.

We would like to frame the creativity and creative acts of others, or even our own, within movement, and the

meaning that it assumes for itself, that is to say, the meaning of life. “Meaning is an attribute of life, it is life

itself, and this is why life gives meaning to death, and never vice-versa. Death is a silence, a blank space which

requires the entire remaining scope of meaning to bestow intelligibility and excellence.” (2) This encounter, be it

external/internal or doubly internal, is something which cannot be repeated, being unique in its manifestations.

Music possesses this essential attribute, as do all the arts, in its ability to provide meaning, an ethic of sorts, ever

pure in its essentialness, and for this reason it should not be confused with what has come afterward - first the

establishment of an order, then its development into laws and morality. Whoever creates always establishes

within his/her work the proposal of a law which fastens together certain elements which are intrinsically part of

the work, but in the ambiguity saves the work in extemis in that it has already been deemed law. “Man is free

when he comes into an agreement with the gods instead of obeying them.” (3) Ambiguity allows for the possibility

that the work will be successively recreated or reinterpreted over time, saving it from its crystallization into norm.

This feature is a fundamental factor so that the work’s renewal of itself can occur in experience and memory,

which are the elements which comprise myth.

We are far more interested in discovering for the first time that thing which we have so often dreamed about or

hinted at than we are in remaining fixed within the rigidity of principles and norms, which make for one of the

most skillful and inhibiting of prisons. In his writings, Walter Benjamin has alerted us on numerous occasions,

with ample warnings reflecting on the dangers of all the power founded upon the premises of laws, norms, rules,

etc., and how they manage to penetrate or influence the act of artistic creation. Thus, it is fitting that we turn

from assuming the past as a thing which can close upon itself (immediately acquiring validity similar to the

concept of sovereign power) and which strips away the extraordinary capacity to remake itself in a natural and

permanent way. From the outset then it is symptomatic how “the petty, synthetic, post-modernist substitute for

revivalism is «appropriation» which normally signifies an artist of limited talent, blending visionless, ironic

references to the great works of the past. (…) Popular culture is a splendid laboratory for the study of the artistic

dynamics of revivalism.” (4) It “means the budding recognition of a timeless element in a work or style which

appears dated, confined, or limited to a particular period. Therefore, revivalism is crucial for the process of

defining the grandeur of art, a responsibility which is neglected by too many lofty Academies of the present day.”

(5) To narrate the past in this context would be the best procedure, keeping it always open in terms of its content.

Curiously, this has not been the way, or to put it more aptly, it does not seem to be the way that re-editions of so

many musical works of jazz have been seen, analyzed or received (see the numbers of box-set anthologies which

contain all the recordings of certain musicians, the never-before-released and released ones, the possible and the

impossible, in a type of “good for all” package, commercially speaking) which technology currently give us access

to, under the best conditions of quality and comfort and which for strictly non-artistic reasons they have given

counsel to this act or resurrection. In this brazen and aggressive strategy of recuperating the past in such an

unfettered way an enormous lack of respect is shown for everything that is new and to be explored, without the

artist having the slightest notion or act of will in the matter, and which can also indirectly harm (via unfair

competition) the visibility of all the excellent performances which today’s jazz and its artists continue to produce

via the fruit of their hard work and efforts. It should not seem strange that many of the analyses which currently

appear in the various publications have taken on an archaeological perspective and tone, excessively retro,

existing when meant to compare with those analyses that focus on more recent work, and easily and generally

disregarding situations which are occurring in the present. In the analysis of this type of phenomenon, two

important aspects must be kept in mind which will help in denouncing these simulated exhumations, completely

arbitrary and excessive, when the instantaneous reemergence of numerous musical registers are seen, for their

part coming from the widest range of origins, at times with extremely dubious provenance - legal, illegal, pirated,

private, personal - and thus projecting an image closer to something macabre, producing a disturbing feeling of

profaning something and harkening to the dark practices of a real trafficker of contraband.

We would like to center the majority of our attention on the act, in this case, of making music, and on its

strength. “In Aristotle, in fact, if on the one hand strength precedes the act and places conditions on it, on the

other hand its strength seems to be essentially subordinate to the act.” (…) “Aristotle takes pains to insist that the

autonomous existence of strength, in the fact that is clear to him that the harp player maintains his strength

intact even when he is not playing, and the architect maintains his strength to build intact even when he is not

building anything.” Therefore, so that strength does not always immediately disappear with the act but maintain

its own consistent nature, it is also necessary that it pass into an act, that it be essentially the strength of not

doing (doing or being), or in other words, as Aristotle notes, that it also be non-strength (adynamia).” But how,

within this perspective, does it pass into an act? If all the strength (of being or doing) of performing is also,

originally, the strength of not performing (not being or doing), how can one possibly carry out an act? “The

answer is contained in a definition that constitutes one of the sharpest tests of one’s philosophical genius, and in

being so, it has been misunderstood many times. «A thing holds strength for that which in the passage of the act

to that which it is said it holds strength, nothing can be unless it also cannot be» (Metamorphoses 1047a, 24-26)”

(6) From this we can take it that nothing is resolved from all the recordings of the acts occurring in the past, as

they pertain to the converse of the non-act. We are compelled to admit that the recorded work of music in this

context is always a hardly scrutinized object, even if placed in confrontation with what has been performed and

improvised by a jazz musician at some point in his career given that he has been unable to create anything during

his lifetime. “What reigns, above all, is the act which is performed and which merely suppresses the strength of

non-being, allowing itself to exist, giving of itself.” (7)

When people insistently attach analyses to a certain time frame, they turn it into a delimited space in time, a

chronologically organized period of time operating under precepts to which History has been able, in one way or

another, and at times in a sadly ridiculous way, assume and transform the matter into a thing that is certain and

reliable. “In fact, the phenomena of history, which we always seem to repeat, does not have rational causes. “To

say (as is usually done) that they are caused by human nature is commonplace.” “We were taught to respect

certain people who acted in such an absurd way, and we even considered them great men. We were used to being

subservient to the political wisdom of those in political authority, and all these phenomena are so exceedingly

familiar that so few of us hardly even notice when mass human behavior throughout the discourse of history

shows itself to be stupid, repugnant and undesirable.” (8) In addition, it bears noting that the previous

conclusions state that “to articulate the past in historical terms does not mean that one has knowledge of it

exactly as it took place.” (9) The past is immediately linked to the stimuli which surrounds it, a reliable and

certain thing where other points of reflection are lost which might otherwise have much more useful elements to

offer in the process of understanding and which present complementary and creatively interesting potential. As

Hegel said, “what experience and history both teach us is that neither the people nor our governments have

learned even the slightest bit from history, nor have they ever acted according the precepts set forth by History.”

(10) Are people really aware of the limitations of this historical perspective although the horizon appears to be

unmovable? We all have our own doubts, yet we have grown to see more clearly those most basic indicators of the

lack of freedom - most notably the lack of freedom of thought - which has become victim to the insistent and

continuous repetition which transforms a commonplace and meaningless act, enabling it to take on all the

features which allow it to become an integral part of history (or of yet another history). The role of the narrator

is that of the chronicler of history, par excellence. “The primacy of information has, in our day, contributed

decisively to the extent that the art of narration has become quite rare.” (11) The narrator is no longer a chronicler

of history, and from now on, he has permanently taken on his inescapable and current status of having ‘nothing

to explain’ (we intentionally recall the increasingly noticeable lack of the constituent elements of myth in our

daily lives - experience and memory) which, for so many people, is expressed in the innocuous singular or simple

response that we resign ourselves to choose to believe.

We would like to touch upon other questions related to those that we have already addressed. It is interesting to

reflect as well upon the present-day meaning of the act of giving counsel or advice, which can and should also

represent an important sharing of experiences, which is always useful in whatever entrepreneurial activity it may

be, even though the efficient application of such principles may depend greatly on the credibility of the person

giving the advice. “Practical interest and sage advice make up part of the essentially hopeful character of

narration.” (…) Naturally, the ability to give advice depends on the validity of the narrator’s very own experience

or on the unwavering trust placed in the memory that is preserved and transmitted. And if no one trusts their

experience any longer and tiresome skepticism shakes at the foundations of memory, the notion of advice is

transformed into an utter sham or the key to despair.” (12) Once again we cite Walter Benjamin, “ ‘Advice,

interwoven in the strands of life, is wisdom. The art of narration is nearing its end because the extinction of the

epic nature of truth, which is wisdom, is approaching.’ Yet on the other side of truth is science, which does not

give advice, but which legislates and which has contributed to the erasing of the moral tracings which any well-

lived experience might retain within the moral of the story. Conquered wisdom gives way to acquired

information.” (13) We are thus struck with a clear feeling that at the present time what has been deemed critical

activity is quite unable to reach the ethical and humanizing validity on par with advice-giving. It stands before

more or less mercantile acts where commerce and industry are almost always associated with business interests,

and which in this case is mere parody. The work of art, given that it has lost its aura due to continuous profane

handling, has now increasingly become a luxury item, subject to sales strategies as if it were any old product

which is hoisted for no other reason than to increase its consumption. The critiques with greater or lesser

intimacy with the subjects involved will fulfill their role as terrorist. They appear as the need to seal this

destructive hemorrhage off from an attitude of seeking, in which the latter may act in a way diametrically

opposed to a merely hopeful posture of the subject when confronted with what has simply been provided him.

When everything began to be placed at one’s disposition (with the most sophisticated skill), ready to be leisurely

enjoyed, the ontological grandeur of seeking is lost in the passing to the smaller and meager act of simple

recognition, ending up in complete paralysis of that which is served up to us solely and exclusively as an object of

mass consumption.

Perhaps it might be interesting to put forth some ideas which give evidence that we think it possible to be clearer

within the wide range of viewpoints. We return to the need to reserve for ourselves a space which is totally free of

memory and experience, bearing in mind that all true narration, being a form of truth that is objective, is also

paradoxically always ambiguous. In his book, “The Open Work,” Umberto Eco extends this ambiguity to all

facets of artistic constructions, which in turn can be manifested in the fact that, for example, a musical structure

need not necessarily determine the structure that follows it; that is to say that there is no longer a tonal center

which allows something to interfere in the following movements of discourse, meaning a crisis in the principle of

causality on the general plain. “In the cultural context in which a bi-polar logic (the classical aut aut between

true and false, the either-or scenario of any given object and its opposite) is no longer the only instrument

possible for gaining knowledge, there appear many multi-purpose logic schemes which pave the way, for

example, for the indeterminate to be the valid result of cognitive functions (in this context of ideas), and thus we

have the poetics of a work of art deprived of its necessary and predictable result in that the freedom enjoyed by

the performer acts as an element of the discontinuity which contemporary physics has recognized, seen not as the

reason for disorientation but as the inseparable aspect underlying all scientific verification, and the observable

and irrefutable behavior of the sub-atomic world.” (14) Thus, highly provocative concepts arise - chance, the

indeterminate, the improbable, the ambiguous, the multi-faceted - which indicate that there exists a process of

rupture in relation to the traditional order in which Western culture deems as immutable and which is identified

as the objective structure of a world. The conventional is appreciated acritically, and what is truly new is

criticized with scorn, as Walter Benjamin states, to which more must be added given the feeling that a difference

between the act of recognizingand the act of seeking is implicit there. Unlike the act of recognizing, ‘to seek’

possesses within its essence an incessant movement toward reformulation, one with its very own dynamic,

requiring of the protagonist much more than a simplistic and acritical assimilation. Simple in primitivism and

innocence in that the senses are being used, and acritical in conformism, hetero-direction, gregariousness, and

the massification which is the very consequence of a non-moveable acquisitions process and full of standard

elements of understanding, as if this were an automatic and programmed assembly line. Seeking reveals itself in

this context to be a wonderfully rich manifestation of the myriad stimuli from which it becomes possible to

reconstruct successive landscapes using the same perspectives. It stands out for its profound grandeur amongst

the variety of combing elements possible, that which can be called the state of helplessness, which solely due to

its being judged on a social level as being synonymous or a symptom of weakness, is for this very reason is

rejected and disguised in the most ridiculous forms that appear associated with certain sexist concepts which

from the outset hold vital importance when the intent arises to find expeditious procedures for the notion of what

is power and the act of seeking. The state of helplessness which is presented as one of its most clarifying elements

demonstrates that seeking must always include the anguish of the mourner in that seeking brings about ever-

lasting feelings of loss and incapacity when faced with the presence of a reality totally out of our grasp, a fact

which we are compelled to confront. We are tempted to quote the words of Goethe: “The greatest happiness for

the thinking man is to have fathomed the fathomable, and to quietly revere the unfathomable.”

Another way to approach the work of art resides in the assertation that there are indeed many ways that the work

situates itself with respect to its innumerable destinations and recipients. This comes about at the center of a

complex network of power relationships. For the sake of more easily maneuvering about within these always

difficult concepts, we would like to mention that it is also reasonable to analyze and bear in mind the external

effects. Here it is a question of the external aspect which is reflected in the variety of tasks that have successively

taken form around you. The power to convince, persuade, and formulate opinions therefore also allows for the

formulation of a truth. Hannah Arendt calls truth constituted in this way, “factual truth.” Given the fragilities it

displays and the elements which comprise it, it is quite different from philosophical truth. In explaining its

differences, we must right away note that “philosophical truth refers to man as One, it is not political by nature.”

(15) “Thus in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson affirms that ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident’

because he wanted to keep the fundamental Oneness of men out of the argument, out of the debate on the

American Revolution; such is the case of mathematical axioms which should express ‘the beliefs of man’ which

‘do not depend on his will but rather involuntarily follow the evidence offered to his mind.’ But to say that ‘we

hold these truths self-evident would recognize, without our being aware of it, that the affirmation ‘all men are

created equal’ is not evident but rather demands agreement and assent - that equality, having a political

meaning, is a matter of opinion and not a ‘truth’.” (16) “Today, when practically no philosophical statement, for

as audacious as it may appear, is taken seriously enough to put the philosopher at risk of his life, then the rare

opportunity to see a philosophical truth politically verified has been lost.” (17) In this way, opinion (supported by

factual truth) is worth what it is worth. It is not only the factual affirmations which do not contain principles on

which men can act, making them manifest in the world, but it is also their own content which refuses this type of

verification. Whoever speaks the truth of a fact, in the improbable eventuality of wanting to risk one’s life for a

particular fact, would be committing a type of error.” This mistake, now having become an event, would take on

weight of such comic and tragic dimension at the same time that we would be obliged to find its explanation in

the absurd, realizing the great disproportion between the value of the meaning of the act and its final result - the

person’s death. Opinion emerges in the present day as being associated with a communication process that is

saturated with information and quite contaminated by changeability, and thus has an extremely short lifespan

because beyond the fact that its qualities depend on the knowledge and goodwill of those who use and regard it,

and whose credibility is guaranteed by their impartiality, integrity, and independence, the very media used in the

process of communicating is in crisis. We quote Hannah Arendt once again, who states: “While the liar is a man

of action, the one who speaks the truth, whether he speaks rational or scientific truth, never is one.” The power to

convince and persuade others will thus be another road, if one can consider it to be a pathway. In Hobbes, for

example, we encounter the conflict between two opposing faculties, «solid reasoning» and «powerful eloquence»

with the first being built on the principles of truth and the other on opinions and passions, noting that human

interests are different and variable. For many it remains a choice within reasonable reach, but after the passing

of a certain amount of time we only seem to encounter the vestiges of ephemeral, empty, and unbearable objects

without our feeling any pressing need for their replacement. The principle of permanent removal of stimuli as the

essential nature of a survival mechanism destroys itself on the path to self-regeneration. Music seen only from the

outside looking in can well be represented by the metaphor of the serpent who feeds on its own body. Granted

that it is undoubtedly more within our grasp to recognize than to feel given that this capacity to feel also becomes

sparks the notions of incapacity, doubts, and anguish which will never be comprehended without rigorous and

serious efforts. They cannot be controlled because their origins are not known; this exploratory activity demands

an attitude that is unpretentious and free of preconceived notions. Power, as a way to act upon what is external

and based on the violence of laws is easier to tolerate than fear, which is horrendously painful to bear because it

lives in intimate association with the anguish of a mourner, an act of seeking which can only be carried out via

profound and prolonged introspection, one of self-control, which is magnificently explained in the Eugen

Herrigel book, “Zen in the Art of Archery”. Thus, we must admit above all that “eminent amongst the essential

modes of truth-telling (…) are the solidity of the philosopher, the isolation of the wise man and the artist, the

impartiality of the historian and the judge, and the independence of the fact-finder, the witness and the

reporter.” (18) When we place ourselves upon an immense surface undergoing constant change (jazz), which is

felt in bundles of perceptions whose origins we can only completely explain with difficulty and which in order to

locate or know we must possess the knowledge of survival (the act of managing to live with sparse means and

resources), we are immediately obliged to understand the immense number of objective and subjective variables

which interact amongst themselves and which permit the most extraordinary associations as well as numerous

and complex results. “Man contains within himself a partner from whom he cannot be free, his interest is not to

live in company with either an assassin or a liar,” says Hannah Arendt on the subject. “No one refuses to

recognize that communication technologies imply a growing immateriality in the relationships with different

worlds. This undoing of human permutation is not just a pop-up, fashionable idea; it is produced with the

multiplication of networks and channels, the speed of information traffic, and the proliferation of television

images…. Is this a sign of a society based on emptiness? (…) Are we before a shattered and fragmented reality,

one we can no longer take hold of since reality is wholly made up of communication subterfuge? How impossible

it is to deceive ourselves with an “other” reality which is really just a masquerade! Such an abstraction of the

world does not impede one from feeling emotions, existing, or becoming passionate given that the distributors of

feelings appear as quite formal, their power to pry into our daily thought-habits notwithstanding. Ideologies will

retain a certain fictitiousness, offering the false appearance of freedom of expression which will always allow for

the belief that free will may return. (…) Communication technologies have taken the classical relationships

between subject and object and torn them into pieces.” (19.

The desert and the sea for quite a long time have been places devoid of points of reference, and because of this

have risen to mythical status as being inhuman. External-ness is an aspect which offers a type of easiness,

allowing for the variety of stimuli which emanate from those places to provide conditions of recognition and self-

recognition which are essential for feeling the safety and trust that is so fundamental for dealing with daily life.

The Oxford English Dictionary’s main heading for the word “trust” defines the term as “safety or credibility in

some quality or attribute of a person or thing, or in the truth of a statement.” (…) At the same time, as safety and

trust are seen as being closely linked (…) in a situation of safety, a person can react to disappointment by blaming

others; in a situation of trust, a person must assume part of the guilt for himself and feel sorry for having placed

trust in someone or something.” (20) It is noteworthy to observe how the medium in which we construct our

relationships increasingly assumes the absences of a place, or in other situations, the excessive and repetitiously

homogenous presence of a place called non-place. We see emerging the primal need for a person to self-identify

in the midst/in the medium of others so that the time for integration can begin afterwards, yet after the

construction of identity. The conventional, as in what is full of references, thus becomes a powerful mechanism

for attraction and therein our normality within socially accepted rites is confirmed by the representation of

everything that is duly explained, normalized, and regulated. What is more of note is knowing what to be and

how to be amongst those things that are new, as this comes with risks, always different, and always inadequate at

explaining everything. Knowing can be understood as “a something” which is lost, always at that exact moment

following, and lost as standing before the totality of knowing. We live surrounded by so many insufficient and

fragile approximations of what is offered up as art today. The erasing of the self. “The individual, paradoxically,

should deny him/herself permanently if he/she intends to be a bit thought about in this society.” (21) What does

it mean at the present time to be the disseminator, the critic, the promoter, the producer or the manager of a

product which is also commercial and involves interests which have nothing to do with jazz as art? Might there

still be some way to properly keep separated and sealed off each one of the aforementioned functions? Are there

not enough indicators to conclude that the necessary conditions may not well appear upon the shapeless

landscape of jazz and art, especially the curious complicities and peaceful promiscuities among these activities?

Let’s return to Walter Benjamin. “Even in the most perfect reproduction, something is missing - the here and now

of art - its unique existence in the place where we encounter it.” It is nevertheless in this unique experience, and

only there, that the story fulfills the discourse of its existence to which it had been submitted. The here and now

of the original constitutes the concept of authenticity.” (22) These issues may well present one of the more

significant problems which concerns jazz as improvised music precisely because it takes up the question of the

value of its forms of authenticity. Existing recordings represent an infinitely small part of the jazz legacy which

has been lost forever, and the pieces which have been restored and selected by the advances in technology are not

enough to satisfy its historical mission rightly. In addition, the number of publications which we have access to

each year, in most cases, suffer from an eager formality which can be summarized in unavoidable influences

upon the act of recording, removing more and more of its meaning. Jazz, like no other music or art form, must

endure this terrible failing - that of improvisation - which has historically been viewed as being more or less

equivalent to a chronic lapse of memory, and whose existence is hindering the resolution of the problem. “With

the wide variety of methods available for technical reproduction of the work of art, the likelihood of one’s being

exposed to the work has increased in such a powerful way that this quantitative gap between the two poles that

existed in the past has now been translated into a qualitative alteration of Nature. In the beginning, the work of

art, due to its absolute weight set firmly on the inherent value of worship, was transformed mainly into an

instrument of magic which would only later be recognized as a work of art. In the same way, the work of art

nowadays, due to its absolute weight set firmly on the inherent value of being performed, has become a

composition with totally new functions, those which highlight what is most familiar to us - the artistic - and

which perhaps afterwards may come to be recognized as accidental.” (23) Some think that we can take up some

of the questions asked previously and apply them to jazz when we begin to look at its principles - its value as

worship based on an instrument of magic which comes from its origins and the de-phasing which exists relative

to Black cultural roots, felt first within an environment sympathetic to slavery and later in a racist society. If the

initial value as worship is transformed into a work of art, jazz’s problem of being improvised music causes even

more trouble when it comes to the ability to reproduce the music in space and time. Brecht said that when the

work of art is transformed into merchandise, we will have to abandon the concept most cautiously if we do not

want it to be ourselves who wipe out the purpose. The piece will have to go through a phase of “not being treated

as an optional detour from the right path since what is happening to it is a radical change, the erasing of its past

to such an extent that if the old concept were recovered (…) it would not spark any memory of what the thing in

the past meant.” (24) Here we would like to briefly touch on the musician, quoting Eisler: “In the evolution of

music, in the production as well as in reproduction, we must learn to recognize the process of rationalization

which is growing stronger and stronger… records, films with sound, machines which make music, in the

production as well as in reproduction of music they can sell wonderful pieces of music…like merchandise sold in

tin cans.” (24) These issues touch upon the new need to place or situate music in such a way as to eliminate the

antagonisms between performer and listener, and between technique and contents. “It has always been one of

art’s most important tasks to create demand whose total satisfaction has not yet been achieved.” André Breton

notes that “the work of art only has worth to the extent that reflections of the future vibrate in it.” (25) We add,

“All pioneering creative acts of seeking, fundamentally new, exceed their own expectations. When a work’s main

requirement is to provoke public scandal, what is there to say about the limits of creativity?” once it has been

transformed into the opposing attitude, in that which is held by the majority as conventionally accepted as

normal in art and has negated forever the place where it had stepped off from. “When we deal with the “higher”

senses of vision and hearing, we are accustomed to having attitudes more akin to producers and not consumers.

We are perfectly content to use the nose for pure fun, but we watch and listen for enjoyment. The majority of the

use of vision and hearing in urban life is functional. Event recreational listening leans toward functional ends -

we go to a concert to relax, to tell ourselves and others that this is the time to stop and listen. Many people go to

concerts the way they practice sports, as some type of duty (even if they are not professionals).” A quote from the

Jacques Attali book - Noise: The Political Economy of Music, as found in The Skin of Culture by Derrick de

Kerckhove. But they will say that there are people who are able from the beginning to repudiate whatever type of

feeling of scandal even when they listen to music. Certainly this right is not being questioned, but this gets us

nowhere. How many songs were misunderstood in their own time? How many works gained recognition so many

years after their composers or performers had died? How many insults? How many acts of injustice? How much

disagreement? Nothing has pulled the work astray; nothing has diminished its significance and importance.

10.

But if people regularly get along poorly with each other because of something that relates to their inability to take

risks in some unknown territory, and if they express their anguish and insecurity which flows out of that, then

that is fine. Yet here emerges “an old complaint about the masses which seek out diversion and fun when art

requires contemplation from the observer.” This is a question of common space. Might this be a distracted

examiner of things, also someone who rejects value as worship, this being symptom of the deepest alterations in

critical acumen? There are too many sounds for communication to happen without someone getting lost on the

way, irreparable in a world where the trite day-to-day reigns in total bliss. Aldous Huxley wrote: Technical

progress has led us to become ordinary… technical and rotatable reproducibility have made it possible for a poly-

copying of image-writings (and songs). Greater schooling in general and relatively higher wages have created a

larger population which knows how to read and knows how to acquire written and illustrated (and recorded)

material. To make this material available, a substantial industry has been created. But the gift of art is something

rare, the result of which is that at any time and place, the majority of global artistic production has shown itself

to be of inferior quality. But today the percentage of residuals from global artistic production is greater than

ever… Prosperity, the gramophone, and the radio created an audience of listeners whose consumption of music

grew disproportionately with regard to overall demographic growth and of course with regard to the normal

growth in number of talented musicians. Such a situation will remain as long as people continue to consume

images, reading and listening material in excess.

11.

To discuss jazz in the present, and from the perspective of to be or not to be, seems totally upside down, contrary

to the fundamental elements which aid in understanding the artistic phenomenon. Today when all types of

uproar is heard in response to what we are given, those things imposed in the name of a set of more-or-less

consensual and majority-based opinions (you only need look around you to know what we are talking about), it

might be well, at the very least, to manifest a type of non-conformism, resistance, rebellion, and freedom, most

decidedly in the freedom of thought. There are no longer good reasons to discuss what jazz is; this is sheer

hopelessness for whomever stands to the contrary, given the memory of jazz and the experiences of up and

coming musicians who are committed to the exploration of their passion-infused talent. This type of analysis

which reduces the internal and the external is a road to nowhere. In the nothingness of starting at zero for the

entirety of creative endeavors (or the attempts at such), the slightest thing is prevented from growing. In the land

of nothingness it is easy to draw up laws - one only needs power (for example, the law of the jungle where the

strongest wins); however, we are focused on the construction of mechanisms of control and application, leaving

the mission of creative activities to its own devices. As has been said, jazz lives out its manifest ability to

constantly renew itself which necessitates a free space for it to fulfill its destiny. To listen more is to know how to

encounter the sound behind the sound, beyond the hectic city life and the cacophony of the media. To listen more

is to learn along with David Hykes and the Harmonic Choir, and yes, over the centuries we have obliterated the

harmonics of sounds that have supported meaning, the only ones we are able to hear. For centuries we have not

been able to hear the divine subtleties of the resonance and the combination of environmental harmonies. John

Cage said that silence was the sum of all sounds in the environment. He might also have said that silence is alive.

To feel more is more important, though. Paracelsus said that the ear is not an extension of the skin, but that in

fact the skin is an extension of the ear. It is evident that after we learn to read and write, we close within our skin

the silent content of our minds. We learn to use our skin as an exclusionary device. We come to recoil from touch,

from body contact, from being close to other people’s bodies and from our own, more than from anyone else’s.

Thus, the skin can only give us pain. It needs the protection of layers of clothing. Other people’s touch can only

hurt. Our privacy demands protection from guilt.” (27)

12.

One might think that the state of things might be of benefit to someone. And we return to earlier statements that

there are myriad ways to look at the world. So it is obvious that we always have excuses for the mistakes of the

past, the destruction and replacement of myths; everything is perpetuated as more of the same and it continues to

be more of the same. To take up Bill Evans and his work, this musician (as with all musicians) feels the

imperative to play, but certainly he has played far better live than can be heard on his recordings. Published

recordings (various versions of the same song, takes, etc.) allow for reproduction but also open the stage for

trivializing the work by the never-ending opportunities to hear the music again and again, and in a plethora of

contexts, so many of which are utterly foreign to original concept. When it is said that “certain types of music

disappear after a fleeting moment, and others last a lifetime stored in our arms, legs, minds and even in the

heart. When I play something really good, something strange happens in my ears: after I play it I heard a

humming which echoes in the room as if my ears had become a type of radar, capturing everything that was

happening around me. Normally, my access to ambient noise is selective, not the least all-inclusive. If I have no

need to hear the sound, I do not listen for it unless it is truly intrusive. But in this case, it was as if my playing had

turned my body into a system for programmed monitoring to detect the expansion of the self. I was able to hear

more, and more deeply than was usual. I thought it was the musician’s reward. Needless to say that it gave me

supreme enjoyment. To date, I do not really know if my improvisations worked well because of this special sound

quality, or if this special sound quality was due to my performance. One thing is certain - to play this way helped

me to change from a more written mode to a more oral mode. More than ever, we need this.” (28) Jazz is not an

administrative super-entity with innumerous zealous benefactors up above who “manipulate” everything, but

rather a creative activity which respects human freedom and, instead of intervening in events, helps people to

carry them out and react with them in the light of faith. At this moment, making the facts more holy is not in play

but rather finding a meaning and a hope beyond and despite these facts.

13.

A digital recording enjoys the characteristic of always being moment that can be fortuitous to either a greater or

lesser degree. At a concert, things happen more or less in the same way, the intensive listening moment placed at

everyone’s disposition and afforded by the various processes of recording and reproduction manages to remove

the aura of a work which defines itself “as a unique manifestation of madness, for as close as it might be;” it

represents nothing more than the formulation of the piece’s value as worship in categories of spatial and

temporal reception. Once again from Walter Benjamin: “It is clear that the secularization of the work which

follows alienates the work from the initial value as worship, supplanted by the singularity of the artist or the

aesthetic performance conceived by the observer.”

14.

“The reproduced work increasingly becomes the reproduction of a work, freeing itself from the parasite’s

existence of ritual,” This distancing brings two new and indispensable elements to the fore - the artist and the

audience - who emerge as intervening factors, active in their resolution through time(s) and space(s). The

recording, the concert - they always bring a movement to a close, which curiously, could be reproduced today

audio-visually in the most diverse of contexts. From here, any approach taken regarding the content errs from the

outset in its enormous fragility in comparison with the totality of the work, the life of the author, and his/her

moments of seeking. Leonardo da Vinci compares painting to music using the following words: “Painting is

superior to music because it does not have to die as soon as it has been given life, as occurs with poor

music…music which fades away as soon as it appears is inferior to painting which becomes as eternal as the use

of varnish.” An interesting idea although one which itself loses its luster after many years, and for reasons of a

technical nature.

15.

"The reproduced work increasingly becomes the reproduction of a work, freeing itself from the parasite’s