I always wanted to do a radio show for this some how. Or a mix, but this seemed to make the most sense. So, without further ado, here is my "audiothesis," recorded Tuesday, Dec. 15th, from 8-10PM.
Songs played are:
You make me feel so good - Bobbi Humphrey
Think Twice - Donald Byrd
Footprints - A Tribe Called Quest
Think Twice - Ralph Myers and the Jack Herren Band
Hornets - Herbie Hancock
Watermelon Man - Herbie Hancock
Lanquidity - Sun Ra
A Love Supreme (edit) - Alice Coltrane
Disco Medley
It's Just Begun - The Jimmy Castor Bunch
Heather - Billy Cobham
'93 Til Infinity - Souls of Mischief
U-Love - J Dilla
Referenced but not played:
And the seminal Hip-Hop recording, "Rapper's Delight," that used a DJ-looped instrumental made from the above:
I'll have a more in-depth writeup to follow. Thanks for listening, and let me know what you think/if you have any questions.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
more thoughts, 12/7
and still...even when it's easier to type things out bit by bit like this, I still struggle to get anything down and make time for it. I'm going to just start with a copy of the "areas to look at" from my previous post to get me thinking and to reference. Then take it where it goes.
There are many areas to look at:
-What I've learned specifically through this project and process.
-What I had in knowledge, collection, techniques, expectations, etc. coming into this (and the lens I brought, which was mostly that of an inquiring DJ who is in an intellectual pursuit, not the other way around...or some other iteration of it)
-What foci I want to use - existing music (recordings), production techniques, playing techniques, DJing and beat-making techniques (as instruments as well)
To follow up on my thoughts about Eshun's book, I have a few things to say that are informed by further research. I read an article review and criticism of Eshun's book, More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction, and a book by Craig Watkins, titled Representing: Hip Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema, that gets at many points I couldn't initially reach on my own. One result of Eshun's creative use of language and exploration of content is that I find it hard to make my own criticisms. Thus, I'll begin with what Alexander Weheliye says in this article, "Keepin' It (Un) Real," and then add my own on to that.
Though he acknowledges the originality and value of Eshun's writing with its focus on getting deep into songs, sounds, technologies, there is also the fact that Eshun ignores or chooses to not address many social factors. I would say in exploring the space of these songs and artists, he leaves out the social spaces from which the artists and songs were created. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's in my selfish desire for more that it becomes a problem. I could make some of those connections, but I also value his focus and style of writing, which I can't begin to grasp...I don't really consider myself a writer.
But, Eshun wanted to do what he did, and that's what we have - this amazing piece exploring sound, writing about it with a language as complex and creative as itself. I guess my resolution is that even though his text is sometimes confusing in its complexity, I have to fight the temptation that goes along with that sensation of bewilderment to think the book is therefore beyond question. Like I said above, I haven't figured out how to do that. All I know is that sometimes things feel wrong...music holds many meanings and not all of them are futurist nor innovative. Soho's hot music
is founded on a "repetitive" one bar loop of the piano, upright bass, and drum work. This was, I would guess, the impetus for the song. Soho aka Pal Joey aka Joseph Longo probably either was listening to the song for enjoyment and hearing that part hit the "sample that" nerve, or he was searching for samples and happened to hear that part of "Skain's Domain" and it elicited a similar effect. That is the usual story of sampling, at least, when it isn't tied to a particular "purpose" (other than moving people's bodies).
And while Joey Longo maybe didn't have a political reason for his piece...like, say...Public enemy sampling Malcolm X "too black..too strong," there is value and maaaad talent in his ability to hear sample>recognize potential>tinker>add other instruments and affects>move people on the dancefloor. So...it's not so simple.
That's where one of my interests in DJing lies: the line between moving people and moving theory..or maybe not line, but the spectrum. People fall all along that in their processes of music making and philosophies on it, and there is the added consideration that the effects of their musics may not match up in the same way as their philosophies. There is all kinds of great stuff on either end, but there's also stuff in the middle and these are the kinds of things I'd like to be able to play personally, and move people with. There is a history of these kinds of songs as well - one being "Can you feel it (Martin Luther King Jr. Mix)" by Mr. Fingers aka Larry Heard.
Another thought is: could it be that we (academics/researching people) don't have a language or process with which to attempt to approach DJing and music making for all it can be? I would say that is most-likely a no. There is a mental aspect of this, but in the dancer's body (and mind) lie potentially different conclusions and feelings than the academic who accesses it through a sometimes very heady way. And then there's also Eshun who accesses the Afrofuturist musics through a different but still very heady discourse. And then there's all kinds of other approaches...but Eshun has the deepest look so far at the music that I (and Weheliye) have seen. It's difficult to say, also, because "the dancer" has different relationships and motives with music than "the Academic."
Music is both physical and representative of the body (at least pre-studio-only-musics where bodies were used in producing sound through instruments) and mental. Eshun touches on this - the move into the studio for the entirety of music production cut off the body: amputation.
As I explored earlier, I think DJ's fall into this in different ways through the forms and styles of their playing. DJ's involve their bodies in different ways. Some are dancers, and so come at playing from the perspective of "playing what they'd want to hear on a dancefloor" some are all about technique and acquiring skills with which to express themselves. This holds much significance for me, being a DJ who spends a lot of time listening to and playing what has been claimed as Afrofuturist music, someone who would like to be a dancer but feels restrained in many ways, and someone existing in and navigating (though sometimes resisting) an academic setting. Like Eshun lays out in his intro, I also don't believe that investigating songs and sound will "kill" the music, as he cites many UK music publications claim. I've heard similar sentiments, at least about house and later, more popular/exposed styles. It's just an excuse to leave it at the same old conversations, profiles, etc. "...[The] entire British dance press...constitutes a colossal machine for maintaining rhythm as an unwritable, ineffable mystery. And this is why Trad dance-music journalism is nothing more than lists and menus, bits and bytes: meagre, miserly, mediocre" (Eshun, -007). Eshun writes from a perspective unique to the UK and the music scene there, but I would argue that much of the same characteristic exists in US music journalism. The magazines I've read more often focus on artists, sometimes they tell a story about their personal musical progression, how their new album is different from the last, etc. I've never read anything even close to Eshun's writing. It's really fresh and inspiring. It makes sense to me that the language used to describe music that's futuristic, experimental, revolutionary, varying levels of each, can be quite effective and productive when it reflects that in its form/style as well. Theory and practice - praxis - where each informs the other and feeds back into a lifelong/neverending cycle that takes the whole - whether that be a person, a movement, a music - to a higher level.
...more later...getting sleepy and need to post something..
There are many areas to look at:
-What I've learned specifically through this project and process.
-What I had in knowledge, collection, techniques, expectations, etc. coming into this (and the lens I brought, which was mostly that of an inquiring DJ who is in an intellectual pursuit, not the other way around...or some other iteration of it)
-What foci I want to use - existing music (recordings), production techniques, playing techniques, DJing and beat-making techniques (as instruments as well)
To follow up on my thoughts about Eshun's book, I have a few things to say that are informed by further research. I read an article review and criticism of Eshun's book, More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction, and a book by Craig Watkins, titled Representing: Hip Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema, that gets at many points I couldn't initially reach on my own. One result of Eshun's creative use of language and exploration of content is that I find it hard to make my own criticisms. Thus, I'll begin with what Alexander Weheliye says in this article, "Keepin' It (Un) Real," and then add my own on to that.
Though he acknowledges the originality and value of Eshun's writing with its focus on getting deep into songs, sounds, technologies, there is also the fact that Eshun ignores or chooses to not address many social factors. I would say in exploring the space of these songs and artists, he leaves out the social spaces from which the artists and songs were created. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's in my selfish desire for more that it becomes a problem. I could make some of those connections, but I also value his focus and style of writing, which I can't begin to grasp...I don't really consider myself a writer.
But, Eshun wanted to do what he did, and that's what we have - this amazing piece exploring sound, writing about it with a language as complex and creative as itself. I guess my resolution is that even though his text is sometimes confusing in its complexity, I have to fight the temptation that goes along with that sensation of bewilderment to think the book is therefore beyond question. Like I said above, I haven't figured out how to do that. All I know is that sometimes things feel wrong...music holds many meanings and not all of them are futurist nor innovative. Soho's hot music
is founded on a "repetitive" one bar loop of the piano, upright bass, and drum work. This was, I would guess, the impetus for the song. Soho aka Pal Joey aka Joseph Longo probably either was listening to the song for enjoyment and hearing that part hit the "sample that" nerve, or he was searching for samples and happened to hear that part of "Skain's Domain" and it elicited a similar effect. That is the usual story of sampling, at least, when it isn't tied to a particular "purpose" (other than moving people's bodies).
And while Joey Longo maybe didn't have a political reason for his piece...like, say...Public enemy sampling Malcolm X "too black..too strong," there is value and maaaad talent in his ability to hear sample>recognize potential>tinker>add other instruments and affects>move people on the dancefloor. So...it's not so simple.
That's where one of my interests in DJing lies: the line between moving people and moving theory..or maybe not line, but the spectrum. People fall all along that in their processes of music making and philosophies on it, and there is the added consideration that the effects of their musics may not match up in the same way as their philosophies. There is all kinds of great stuff on either end, but there's also stuff in the middle and these are the kinds of things I'd like to be able to play personally, and move people with. There is a history of these kinds of songs as well - one being "Can you feel it (Martin Luther King Jr. Mix)" by Mr. Fingers aka Larry Heard.
Another thought is: could it be that we (academics/researching people) don't have a language or process with which to attempt to approach DJing and music making for all it can be? I would say that is most-likely a no. There is a mental aspect of this, but in the dancer's body (and mind) lie potentially different conclusions and feelings than the academic who accesses it through a sometimes very heady way. And then there's also Eshun who accesses the Afrofuturist musics through a different but still very heady discourse. And then there's all kinds of other approaches...but Eshun has the deepest look so far at the music that I (and Weheliye) have seen. It's difficult to say, also, because "the dancer" has different relationships and motives with music than "the Academic."
Music is both physical and representative of the body (at least pre-studio-only-musics where bodies were used in producing sound through instruments) and mental. Eshun touches on this - the move into the studio for the entirety of music production cut off the body: amputation.
As I explored earlier, I think DJ's fall into this in different ways through the forms and styles of their playing. DJ's involve their bodies in different ways. Some are dancers, and so come at playing from the perspective of "playing what they'd want to hear on a dancefloor" some are all about technique and acquiring skills with which to express themselves. This holds much significance for me, being a DJ who spends a lot of time listening to and playing what has been claimed as Afrofuturist music, someone who would like to be a dancer but feels restrained in many ways, and someone existing in and navigating (though sometimes resisting) an academic setting. Like Eshun lays out in his intro, I also don't believe that investigating songs and sound will "kill" the music, as he cites many UK music publications claim. I've heard similar sentiments, at least about house and later, more popular/exposed styles. It's just an excuse to leave it at the same old conversations, profiles, etc. "...[The] entire British dance press...constitutes a colossal machine for maintaining rhythm as an unwritable, ineffable mystery. And this is why Trad dance-music journalism is nothing more than lists and menus, bits and bytes: meagre, miserly, mediocre" (Eshun, -007). Eshun writes from a perspective unique to the UK and the music scene there, but I would argue that much of the same characteristic exists in US music journalism. The magazines I've read more often focus on artists, sometimes they tell a story about their personal musical progression, how their new album is different from the last, etc. I've never read anything even close to Eshun's writing. It's really fresh and inspiring. It makes sense to me that the language used to describe music that's futuristic, experimental, revolutionary, varying levels of each, can be quite effective and productive when it reflects that in its form/style as well. Theory and practice - praxis - where each informs the other and feeds back into a lifelong/neverending cycle that takes the whole - whether that be a person, a movement, a music - to a higher level.
...more later...getting sleepy and need to post something..
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
final thoughts...
Rather than letting things stew in my mind, I'm going to try something different. Writing some each day on here until I get somewhere. Trying to figure out what to do about music for my radio show and paper combo that will be my "final" project. Though this is part of me...and it will be ongoing as I try and figure things out. I have, at the most, 2 weeks (and at the least, 1 week) to prepare and execute my radio show for this project, so I'm trying to think about what to do about material.
There are many areas to look at:
-What I've learned specifically through this project and process.
-What I had in knowledge, collection, techniques, expectations, etc. coming into this (and the lens I brought, which was mostly that of an inquiring DJ who is in an intellectual pursuit, not the other way around...or some other iteration of it)
-What foci I want to use - existing music (recordings), production techniques, playing techniques, DJing and beat-making techniques (as instruments as well)
I don't:
Feel I have a great grasp of musics of various decades (if one were to break them down arbitrarily that way). This has to do with the availability of examples in many cases, as well as the nature of most of the writing about Jazz that I've followed, which hardly mentions songs. It's a strange scenario, where, in the moment, these recordings were probably quite important but nothing compared to the real live musician - but at this point that's all that remains. And there are so many musicians who passed on without ever recording or who have been lost in the conversations about Jazz and its history/ies.
I'm relying on what youtube tells me. I've found interlibrary loan to be less than helpful...telling my items are out of region.
I'm trying to figure out a way to include DJing techniques into the discussion. I think I'll be using Kodwo Eshun as a serious cornerstone to a lot of my arguments, especially those about technologies and advancement. Though this is also a time to question some of the things he says about progress. I've heard, what feels like many times, Wynton Marsalis cited as a contemporary bastion of Jazz styles from previous eras, living in the past, refusing to let Jazz grow through him. I think this is an interesting argument, and I hope to include that in there somehow. What's also interesting....a few seconds of his "Skain's Domain" was sampled to make a B-girl/B-boy and house anthem called "Hot Music," by SoHo. "Hot Music" wasn't pushing the boundaries of house music or sample-based stuff....I didn't have to be innit in the minute to know that. It's a loop that someone picked out...they had a good ear, but it wasn't revolutionary or necessarily "taking it to the next level."
+One thing I think is interesting about Eshun's arguments though is that they seem to leave out the discussion of music as uplifting, captivating, and things of that sort. So, where he is talking about technological advances or theorizing of existent forms and styles (RAMM∑LLZ∑∑), there seems to be left out the section about how people feel in reaction to music and arts. While there have been technological advances in the manipulations of sounds that can shred one's mind or blast off into inner space and things of that sort, there have been advances in the techniques employed to manipulate listeners' emotions - both within individual songs, and within "sets" (be they of the band or DJ varieties). Hmmm...
More L8R
There are many areas to look at:
-What I've learned specifically through this project and process.
-What I had in knowledge, collection, techniques, expectations, etc. coming into this (and the lens I brought, which was mostly that of an inquiring DJ who is in an intellectual pursuit, not the other way around...or some other iteration of it)
-What foci I want to use - existing music (recordings), production techniques, playing techniques, DJing and beat-making techniques (as instruments as well)
I don't:
Feel I have a great grasp of musics of various decades (if one were to break them down arbitrarily that way). This has to do with the availability of examples in many cases, as well as the nature of most of the writing about Jazz that I've followed, which hardly mentions songs. It's a strange scenario, where, in the moment, these recordings were probably quite important but nothing compared to the real live musician - but at this point that's all that remains. And there are so many musicians who passed on without ever recording or who have been lost in the conversations about Jazz and its history/ies.
I'm relying on what youtube tells me. I've found interlibrary loan to be less than helpful...telling my items are out of region.
I'm trying to figure out a way to include DJing techniques into the discussion. I think I'll be using Kodwo Eshun as a serious cornerstone to a lot of my arguments, especially those about technologies and advancement. Though this is also a time to question some of the things he says about progress. I've heard, what feels like many times, Wynton Marsalis cited as a contemporary bastion of Jazz styles from previous eras, living in the past, refusing to let Jazz grow through him. I think this is an interesting argument, and I hope to include that in there somehow. What's also interesting....a few seconds of his "Skain's Domain" was sampled to make a B-girl/B-boy and house anthem called "Hot Music," by SoHo. "Hot Music" wasn't pushing the boundaries of house music or sample-based stuff....I didn't have to be innit in the minute to know that. It's a loop that someone picked out...they had a good ear, but it wasn't revolutionary or necessarily "taking it to the next level."
+One thing I think is interesting about Eshun's arguments though is that they seem to leave out the discussion of music as uplifting, captivating, and things of that sort. So, where he is talking about technological advances or theorizing of existent forms and styles (RAMM∑LLZ∑∑), there seems to be left out the section about how people feel in reaction to music and arts. While there have been technological advances in the manipulations of sounds that can shred one's mind or blast off into inner space and things of that sort, there have been advances in the techniques employed to manipulate listeners' emotions - both within individual songs, and within "sets" (be they of the band or DJ varieties). Hmmm...
More L8R
Thursday, November 12, 2009
A Case for the DJ
This past week, Fred Ho visited Macalester and the U of M through the Mellon Mays fund. I also purchased a book of revolutionary Jazz album artwork, called Freedom Rhythm and Sound: Revolutionary Jazz Original Cover Art 1965-83
(here is a link to the publisher's store, where their description is posted). It's compiled by Gilles Peterson, internationally acclaimed Radio DJ and "tastemaker," and Stuart Baker, who started the Soul Jazz Records shop and later the record label of the same name to release new music and reissues (the shop's name was changed a few years ago to Sounds of the Universe). Peterson is also involved in the label by means of finding talent, and also "digging" for rare pieces to unearth as one of their reissues. To make that clear, Soul Jazz started as a store, and continues to be one in the UK. The international/abroad online branch of the same store was created under the name Sounds of the Universe, and the store began carrying all different kinds of styles of music (in addition to the soul and jazz they specialized in prior). They also release music...most of it is pretty cool. Here's a link to an interview with Stuart Baker done by Know the Ledge, if you're interested in knowing a bit more about transitions with the store/label.
More will be coming on this later - I have an idea to use the book and the forthcoming 4LP compliation that was supposed to be released alongside it as a feature study - but in the meantime I just read this great article on the book (which I will also use in that research), written by a Kevan Harris, and am thinking about how the music represented herein relates to what I've covered so far (both posted about, and read about/experienced but not yet posted about - especially things like the advent of recorded music covered in Blues People and what that meant for artists, as well as Fred Ho's visit to Macalester and what he said about music returning to the communal process that it used to be - which, as I understand his perspective, contrasts directly with any fixed recordings of it). It is with great luck and privileged access that I have been able to see Fred Ho and then purchase this book that portrays the revolutionary jazz lineage from which he draws his style and theory. I wish I had taken the risk of asking Fred what he thinks of the DJ, who is most-certainly a musician in my mind. But I'll be honest, I was intimidated and this was when I was coming down with the sickness...I couldn't engage mentally as I wish I could have.
Here is my point of worry/query - I feel moved by these things, both in theory and in sound (though, aside from when I heard Fred Ho play, the rest of my experience with what could be called "revolutionary jazz" has been listening to records, which only represent what was present at the moments of recording, but not the moments of my listening - the way artists change and adapt sounds for a certain setting, in reaction to who they're playing with, the communities they inhabit, the racism both ongoing structurally but every-day in the personal, changing relationships to the instruments they play, the list goes on... are left out and I am left with, if anything, a "recorded on someday of somemonth, 19somethingsomething," which will never explain what a recording meant), and I'm trying to understand the significance of such music, within the histories of music, the lives of the people that played it, heard it, listened to recordings of it, wrote about it, reported on it, slandered it, made up lies about it - good or bad - etc... for my own consumption of it, but also so that with my DJing, I can incorporate it as well. In my understanding - which has come from hearing many DJs play, and also talk about their crafts and philosophies of what they do, both person to person, but also through books, interviews, documentaries, etc. - I would argue that "the DJ" has the potential to, in a post-modern kind of view, become an artist playing a set of instruments. And I would also say in defense of my claim (if I were to present this to Fred Ho or something ridiculous like that) that within all of the history of DJing and up until the present, there has been and continue to be places for subversive and revolutionary action. Part of the rise of what became known as hip-hop DJing, for example, was the subversive act of having fun in the decimated, neglected Bronx (and on the city's dime, at that, since they were tapping into light city light posts for power!) that was only possible after a gang truce (which was led by people within the Bronx as they came to see the power structures looming overhead as the enemy not each other). Even as DJing has become established in certain spheres like weddings, clubs, etc. and designated specific spaces in which it is appropriate (now one must get a permit to play music in a public park and must stop after dark - at least that's the rule in St. Paul/Minneapolis), methods have been developed to slip in education and communicate with the people directly - the dancers - to send a different message than the perceived "clubbing experience" might be expected to. Here are some points:
+There are notes: if you'll consider the individual songs that a DJ selects to be such.
+There are ways to play/arrange these notes in succession or at the same time: songs being mixed over/into/out of each other to form the DJ's "song(s)." One could consider a mix-DJ's song to be an entire mix, while the example following is what would be a "turntablist's" song: Kid Koala doing his introduction as well as "Drunk Trumpeter," where he "plays" trumpet through an already existing recording by altering notes in their pitch (slowing down the platter or speeding it up), placement, repeating, cutting out, etc.
+There is the ability to create new sounds by scratching with a record. This involves manipulating both the record, with one hand, to make sounds and the mixer, with the other, to control when the sound is on or off. With this, a turntable can be played literally like an instrument in that a sound can be played with varying changes in volume and force, velocity can change, which affects the pitch. It can be melodic and/or rhythmic. There is also, believe it or not, a form of notation for scratching (though no parallel exists with mixing records together). Get ready. Also, note the white sticker strips on the labels of the records that allow him to visually recognize where the beat is - it will be featured below with the technique of looping a breakbeat.
+There are established instrument types, usually two turntables and one mixer to select mediate the two sources of sound. They are the products of only a few decades of intense innovation, modification, and simplification as well. I'm not familiar if there are accounts of the creation of other instruments - aside from the "drum kit," which took form in the early 1900's - but the phonograph seems to be a very unique case. What had been a technology of leisure and radio for decades faced new demands as club DJs in the US, kids in the bronx, and dancehall selectors in Jamaica (at different times - this didn't all happen at once! - though they certainly informed each other) were demanding different things of turntables than had ever been required in their previous uses. And if music and instruments are thought to have been developed in communal settings and processes, the contexts in which these DJ's were demanding the rebirth of the turntable in the capacity of an instrument certainly reflected the communal in the music - many people together: the DJ(s) and the dancer(s)/watcher(s), who I would say are both equally important parts of the equation.
The new features were added to turntables as required (pitch adjustment, for example, being added as club DJ, Francis Grasso, needed it to blend disco, rock, and soul songs in the 60's/70's that did not share the same original tempo). Mixers were developed as amps proved insufficient in mixing tracks. Just like artists form connections to their acoustic (or electric) instruments, here too there are characteristics that people become connected to, though they are in mass-produced electronics. Many DJs, for example, swear by the Technics 1200 turntables, which have been made roughly the exact same (except for probably differences in part sources and such, over the years) since the 1970's when they were introduced. So, when you think about that, just like there's a "typical design" for a trumpet or string bass, there is a constant and established standard and norm for turntable design as well.
With mixers, things have been a bit different. The tables were in existence before DJs, but mixers were not specialized for DJs until the demand presented itself in the form of, again Francis Grasso. Mixing boards existed before for use with radio broadcasting and recording, but DJs took that technology and customized it for their own applications. The concept of a crossfader between two channels was never necessary until DJs wanted to switch quickly from a record on the left turntable to a record on the right table without having to alter their individual volume levels. That was more of a necessity, as I understand, for hip-hop DJs. The first actual DJ mixer was created by a guy named Bozak for Francis Grasso to use in the club and featured a new innovation, the ability to cue, or preview, a track you plan to play in your headphones, without it coming out the main speakers. This has held incredible changes for DJs.
(Here's a side note about two different styles of mixer available today, digital and analog - though digital mixers almost completely dominate the market - and the different sounds they produce. To try to describe this quickly: digital is often seen as bad among audiophiles and even just people who collect and play vinyl, who aren't necessarily trying to obtain "the best sound" as are the former. Vinyl, afterall is an analog format, so it would make sense that the mixer and other electronic components the sound must travel through before coming out speakers be analog also. Analog came before, and is in many ways more direct - the needle on the record vibrates when it runs over a beat or sound of any kind, this vibration is picked up as an electric wave or signal, which is sent through the wiring of the turntable into the mixer, which either lets the wave through or not depending on the settings, it travels to the amplifier which bumps up the strength of the signal to an audible level and sends it out to speakers, the cones of which move in and out, hopefully replicating the vibration picked up by the needle. Your ear picks up that movement of air molecules by the speaker cones as sound. That was not short, nor was it all...here's digital: all is the same except what happens in the mixer - it gets a signal, then the wave is translated into binary code, 1's and 0's, processed however your mixer is set to process the volume, maybe adding digital effects like echo or filters, etc., and then translated through those parameters and sent back out as analog, because amps/speakers always need an analog, electrical signal/pulse. It might seem ok, because it comes back out as analog in the end, but it's not (to the trained ear)! This process of double translation inevitably leaves out part of the original signal. This is most often noticeable in sub-bass - the kind you feel vibrate your chest on a large system. This is also a concern and point of heated debate among DJs with regard to digital music. Most music is now recorded and mixed digitally, so even if one buys a record, it is a record of a digital file (and I can't be sure of what kind of quality most artists use when creating songs digitally or when mixers mixdown a track in a computer program), and will never be as full of a sound as if it were analog. It's hard for me to explain...this may not be of too much help, but I've seen a few different explanations under company websites. Here is one from sony...
It is true that digital recording and editing is more convenient and could be reproduced infinitely, hypothetically, where analog tapes and records wear out after multiple listens (the needle on the groove creates friction and affects the shape of the groove over a long period of time), but where distortion is kept in check, the analog recording will be a full copy of whatever sound was made, where digital will be only part because of sampling rates and such. If this sounds unfamiliar at all, it's because this is not much of a concern for the general public, as a 128 kilobytes-per-second(kbps) MP3 (the standard, more or less, and default setting for iTunes when importing a CD) is hard to distinguish from a better quality MP3, an MP4, a WAV file, or others. On most mid-range and cheaper headphones, it doesn't make much difference, and that's what most people listen to it seems like. BUT, in the club, it's a different story. Ask most DJ's who have experience playing digital files ALONG WITH vinyl in a club and many will say it's a noticeable difference - my brother being the first to inform me of this and demonstrate. The record filled up the room in a way that was noticeably different from the 128kbps MP3. In comparison, the MP3 sounded a little light...if one came on after the other, a literal energy shift would be notable because the speakers wouldn't be reproducing as accurate and full a signal.)
And while it's on my mind, another thing about musicianship that I've noticed is: regardless of equipment/instrument quality, the person is what matters. Street drummers in Chicago on Michigan Ave (the "Magnificent Mile"), I've seen a few times over my years growing up, they usually play on combinations of 5-gallon plastic drums, garbage cans and their lids, sinks, and every time, whether a group or a solo performer, it's always been amazing. It is important to think about the relationship to drummers in bands, of course, who are not the sole sources of sound nor points of focus, and how that affects my perception. There are different things at stake in each situation, different contexts (solo or part of a band), etc. But check 7:25 for an interesting visible link to hip-hop. Street musicians, street dance. This is a clip from the documentary "The Freshest Kids" about the history of b-boy/b-girling:
The drummer featured in the video is clearly very skilled - he can get many different sounds out of his instruments, he can hold a pretty consistent beat (important for people moving to it - though, and I can't remember where I read this but, no dancer is a perfect dancer and that isn't stigmatized, so it would only be fair that the imperfections of human drumming or any instrument playing be viewed likewise), and he adapts to this situation well, which is evidenced by him visibly getting down to the dancers, and them visibly getting down to his beats/presence (I also think it's interesting how the style of dance known as b-boying, represented in that video, was created to the soundtrack of DJs who were looping up drummer's breaks from records and extending them, as well as to boomboxes playing tapes of songs with breaks or the radio. So, in this video clip above, the recording is no longer a substitute - the dancers are with the real thing, and both the dancers and the drummer are improvising on the spot - but also, given the history of the dance styles they were using, the drummer had to adapt to what the DJs had established as the soundtrack to that style of dance: breaks! It's like taking it back one step past the DJ and back to the drummer, it has interesting characteristics unique to that interaction. In terms of dance, it's mostly talked about like anticipating the song, but what happens when the beat has to anticipate the drummer too, because it's played by a human, not a recording? Potentially some cool stuff, as the video shows.) He has modest instruments, if you would say even that, and he does amazing things with them that I only wish I could someday do (I say that as someone trying to learn currently). DJs similarly have been able to pull off amazing feats with inadequate and/or broken equipment. As mentioned earlier, Francis Grasso, the "pioneer of the blend" (seamlessly mixing two songs together to transition), was doing this before he could alter the speed of the record in any lasting way (with a pitch control), but he was able to blend songs by slowing down or speeding up the record manually. He could just use a finger on the record to spin it temporarily faster or rubbing the edge of the record to slow it down temporarily. What I'm getting at may be about quality, but the deeper issue I think could be called "fluency" (if one considers learning an instrument to be like learning a new language) - if one is fluent and intimate with an instrument, they can become one, I believe. Fred Ho brought this up - his baritone has his DNA in it, where the brass has patina, the pads where his fingertips rest have indents to match his touch - as much as he has adapted to his instrument with years upon years of practice, his instrument has adapted to him during that time as well.
It would be interesting to also look at what one is able to express and how. Ho played in a way I had never heard, and clearly unique. I heard a friend say that Ho was able to reach notes on a baritone sax that he couldn't even reach when he played alto and tenor sax. Wow. I don't know much about sax or any brass instrument, but that sounds remarkable and quite powerful - it definitely was to hear it. Another thing I noticed was a technique he did of what seemed like popping the reed so as to make a quick and sharp sound of a note as well as a percussive snap. The term he used for it escapes me now. In this act, he added percussion to his baritone sax playing, which is also new to me. To think of it theoretically, when I try, I feel that these are two characteristics of his playing and sound that are revolutionary. He is redefining the way he plays his saxiphone against conventions of technique, and in contrast to what a saxiphone (and a baritone, at that) is supposed to be used for. No longer is it just a smooth, relaxing melody-maker. He certainly incorporated that in parts of his playing, but he also played in ways I would describe as loud, jolting, violent. I see a potential bridge to the Harris article from Dusted in which he says of revolutionary jazz in the late 60's and 70's: "At its most innovative, thoughtful, and, therefore, threatening to the jazz bought and relaxed to by mainstream America, black experimental music in this period could act like an unwanted détournement." This is an important point for me in locating what some of the social context was for this music and art around its point of creation and recording/production.
To get back to my defense for DJing as a form of music-making,
+there are different styles of filling sonic space:
>One song played in its entirety, sometimes with "dead air" before the next. This can be because of a mistake, like not having the next track picked out in time (which I sometimes find myself doing), or it can be intentional, such as the case with David Mancuso:
"Getting into high end audio I realized how much nuance there was in the record and also that the record should stand on its own. I don't want to interfere with what the artist intended or the integrity of the recording cause that's the artist's message so I play the record from the beginning to the very end. Occasionally, if I had one of those DJ friendly records where it starts off going boom-boom-boom for thirty seconds or more I would time it to begin a little later... In order to get Class-A sound, you had to get rid of the mixer. So what happens is you find a way to keep the flow going so there's no space unless you intended it to be that way."
This follows an ideology about DJing and sound reproduction that requires mixing techniques to be limited to those that do not manipulate the record - in a sense, Mancuso avoids the technological advances that have allowed DJs greater control over their performance and tried to let the music stand on its own, but chooses how it is juxtaposed with others to create something new and an experience that goes along with it. What he believes and practices currently, as far as I understand, is that the recording should be respected as the work of the musician (what should also be noted is that most often he is not playing records from major/commercial labels, known to screen their arstists' work and intentions - he plays a lot of independently produced and circulated music, and a lot from small labels that allowed much greater artistic freedom and control over the finished products), and should be presented with the most clear sound possible (valuing clarity and accurate sonic reproduction of a record rather than loudness and extreme amounts of bass). I find this really interesting, and it reflects greatly his upbrining with music being a kind of escape from chaotic or upsetting conditions around him - something that could raise his life energy, as he calls it. (for more info, here's an interview with him on discomusic.com, from which I borrowed for the above). That is a certain technique as it applies to also a theory of playing - DJ as channeler, and a simple selector, mood-setter.
>A song played, then another song started or "cut" in. This requires a bit of technological explanation. Before DJ's had their own special mixers, as described above, they hooked up their turntables to an amplifier - the old kind, with the large knobs, potentially a long radio dial, and various inputs...the kind one might use for a "home entertainment center." Some amplifiers had enough inputs for two turntables, sometimes two amplifiers would have to be hooked up individually to two turntables, and then spliced into one speaker system so a dj could switch from one turntable to another on the same sounds system. There was no convenient mix, none of that...it all came later as Mancuso, Grasso, Grandmaster Flash, and others pioneered their own technological advances for personal use. The cue feature, as I have read/seen in interviews, was created by both Grasso and Flash, but for different uses (Grasso was said to have made a cuing system before Bozak came to him with the prototype mixer, which is how Bozak knew to add the feature to his mixer). Grasso was working in discothechues, and in order to realize his vision of manipulating the energy of the dancefloor, he needed more control over his music. Thus, cuing allowed him to preview his incoming track so he knew when to drop it and, after pitch controls were added to turntables, he could match the beats of the incoming song with those of the already playing song for a seamless mix, which will appear lower as another technique (some info on Grasso). Grandmaster Flash was inspired by Kool Herc and Bambaataa, who could cut two copies of the same record back and forth to extend the break (this is all encapsulated in about a million sources...Can't Stop Won't Stop, by Jeff Chang, is a great place to find it - there's a chapter all about Grandmaster Flash and his technological and turntable wizardry). He learned this technique, but he also saw much room for improvement. Herc and Bam were great, but they couldn't have exact accuracy because they were doing it all by sight (they would cue their records up by the markings they made - just like Rob swift in the video above) and Flash, who, as a child, was really into technology, fixing things, learning how things work, etc. (not that he isn't now, that's just how the story goes) wanted a way to hear the incoming record. So, he made it. Here's a video to hopefully make more sense of it...it doesn't show the process of marking where the break is, etc. but if you look closely, you can see a black line at the hypothetical 12 o'clock (respective to the DJ, not the camera lens) that he keeps pulling it back to before he cuts the record back in.
My reasons for covering all of that are to pay tribute to a part of DJing that is easy to overlook because...many reasons. The music is now "dated," many of the styles are no longer widely relevant, or the scene in which they thrived and were developed are no longer in existence or in the same form (hip-hop is the obvious one), or techniques broke off into their own subcultures that may or not be thriving, but are now equally secluded from the public consciousness (here I'm talking about turntablism - the development of the technique I just detailed and scratching, as foundations, into a full style of music creation. The X-Ecutioners, Rob Swift, and Kid Koala are examples of more palatable or well-known turntablist artists, though many do not release music, just compete, or not compete and do for personal satisfaction).
What is so hard for me to think is that all of this "theory" that I now can outline on this blog was never so clear in the moment. It was a feeling "there shouldn't be a break in between songs, the dancefloor doesn't like it," or "I want to make that better," and something was done. People were innovative, they tried new things that hadn't been thought of before. In many cases technological innovations followed slowly behind these "pioneering" DJs who were making their equipment do amazing things it was never dreamed it could do by its designers. Though I'm not trying to essentialize the DJs - just as much as a DJ is important for playing music, they are informed by their crowd, and they share the experience of a night, event, day in the park, chill-out, etc. This holds (with the exception of the bedroom/home as the grounds for practicing technical abilities) the potential to be a very communal process.
>There are smooth transitions from one song to another which were pioneered by Francis Grasso, who, at his height, was known for laying two tracks over each other for 2 minutes, regularly. It's important to note that these are not electronically made songs (aside from, of course, the recording technology and maybe keyboards and such - no drum machines) - they had live drummers, who have been known, historically, to miss beats, not play a steady rate, and not play each note at the same loudness where it seems they should. This was a feat that many DJs no longer can claim to be within their repertoire. It's amazing, and I wish I could experience that in person. But many of the DJs to develop this ability to such level have since passed away - Grasso, Larry Levan, Ron Hardy, and of course the non-superstar DJs who have been obscured by the "shining stars" of DJing history. It's mostly in New York that such spaces still exist, and I haven't ever been there...not yet.
Most often this technique currently finds itself within clubs as the old standby or norm. Being that most songs are made electronically, or can be altered to be perfectly in-time all the time, DJs no longer have to focus so much on holding a mix - they can set two songs together and let them overlap for minutes without having to touch any settings. During this time, they can mix in other songs (on a third turntable). Here's Jeff Mills, a widely known techno artist from Detroit, considered part of the second-wave of Detroit Techno artists, if I'm not mistaken, who did a video called "Purpose Maker." Here is "part 1" of that:
He moves extremely fast, and appears in control and comfortable in his space, with the equipment and his body using. This is a bit of a different concept than what I'm trying to talk about, however, which is live and "unplanned" DJing sets. The ones where someone is playing in a club, at an event, or for fun and does whatever happens in the moment. This is just to show, mostly the use of three turntables in a high quality video. Examples of such techniques in a club setting are available but usually of low sound quality, video quality, or both.
The ability of the DJ to mix smoothly between songs allows for a mood to be sustained and manipulated. As Grasso figured out and spread on to other aspiring DJs, there is great power behind the decks, and it's easy to play with people's emotions. The introduction of these techniques gave DJs an added advantage that dancers were not prepared for. Grasso's DJing, as well as that of his protege's, one being Levan, changed people's lives in profound ways - or, at the least, contributed to the clubs where people's lives changed. To these DJs, however, it wasn't just blending, but also what a jolt of a new song being brought in unannounced and abruptly - cut in, as described above - that belonged to their repertoires. They would use anything at their disposal.
This kind of conglomeration and attempt at synthesizing and utilizing as many techniques as possible seems to be the trend I see with established, and I'd consider maybe more "subversive" DJs who I've heard speak - the ones who have played clubs, house parties, events like gallery exhibits, weddings and know what it's like to have to play to a particular audience and understand that, but still bring their own technique and spin to it (haha...). These include my brother, DJ Bozak, and DJ D Double to name two. I heard both say that in a club, there are boundaries - that people are there to have fun, to dance, to party, to have a good night, and they can't do that if a DJ is doing their own thing all night. It's about compromise - and there are ways, as a DJ, to put a twist on that idea that you're just gonna play what's hot, whatever the people want. It's a power struggle - because clubbing has become, for many patrons, about going to a particular location for its ambiance, it's drink specials, because that's where friends are, whatever, and a lot less about a particular DJ and any kind of commitment or connection to her/him (unless one is a superstar DJ like Tiesto or whathaveyou). Thus, it becomes kind of a give and take - (to give an example of D Double's) I'll play this hot Lupe Fiasco song, "Kick, Push," but I'll also play the sample for the strings, which is an old Filipino song. This becomes especially important when considering that you may bring some style that people don't want to hear. He said it like this (this is paraphrased, from memory): if I'm playing in a club to a Filipino crowd, and that crowd that night doesn't like hip-hop, I have to educate - there are ways to open people up to stuff and get them thinking and reconsidering. That is where his example of the Lupe Fiasco song comes in. There is a connection, and then people start to question. Or, another case is something I've seen my brother do where he'll play "Clear" by Cybotron (from the first wave of Detroit Techno: Juan Atkins being the head of the group):
and then drop in Missy Elliot's "Lose Control:"
This all gives me hope, as a DJ, that I can someday do great things with the notes that I learn to play and incorporate into my repertoire. I am drawn to certain things, and I find that changing with time as I feel myself connected to certain people, communities, ideas and how those change. If anything it will only ever amount to a map of my interests and what I had access to at particular moments. The examples of Keepingtime and Brasilintime projects are really inspiring for how DJs as artists can collaborate with other instrumentalists:
And, of course, groups like Linkin Park and Portishead have included DJs as well. It has crossed over in many ways, but within those contexts, I hardly see the DJs using the full capability of their instruments as others may be in the groups. It is important to note, however that both of those groups would not be categorized as jazz (though certainly Portishead's downtempo trip-hop vibe should be partially attributed to hip-hop that sampled jazz and created a sound on which they gained at least some inspiration). I'm interested in revolutionary jazz and where hip-hop and DJing connect with that and how they can still do so. It would be interesting also to think about ways that revolutionary jazz records could be manipulated and/or contributed to by DJs to remix the message and statements of the artists for a contemporary day and current meaning. But also, taking into account my position as a white man who DJs, that I would have anything to do with that seems questionable to me. I support what they say, and I want to make room for that, not do my own thing with it, at least as of now. I can't figure out a way to feel comfortable about manipulating something I know to be political in the manner of a turntablist - maybe to mix it into something or mix something into it, but not to deconstruct it or scratch over. That is the issue of playing notes that are entire songs in themselves - they have their own existent meaning and purpose before I play them. I put them in new context and that can do so many things to the meaning of individual songs, and to "my" entire song which is the combination thereof. With projects such as keepingtime and brasilintime, it becomes a communal process again, and the choice of songs for DJ manipulation could then become one of the entire group for the purpose of their creative process and what they intend to mean.
(here is a link to the publisher's store, where their description is posted). It's compiled by Gilles Peterson, internationally acclaimed Radio DJ and "tastemaker," and Stuart Baker, who started the Soul Jazz Records shop and later the record label of the same name to release new music and reissues (the shop's name was changed a few years ago to Sounds of the Universe). Peterson is also involved in the label by means of finding talent, and also "digging" for rare pieces to unearth as one of their reissues. To make that clear, Soul Jazz started as a store, and continues to be one in the UK. The international/abroad online branch of the same store was created under the name Sounds of the Universe, and the store began carrying all different kinds of styles of music (in addition to the soul and jazz they specialized in prior). They also release music...most of it is pretty cool. Here's a link to an interview with Stuart Baker done by Know the Ledge, if you're interested in knowing a bit more about transitions with the store/label.
More will be coming on this later - I have an idea to use the book and the forthcoming 4LP compliation that was supposed to be released alongside it as a feature study - but in the meantime I just read this great article on the book (which I will also use in that research), written by a Kevan Harris, and am thinking about how the music represented herein relates to what I've covered so far (both posted about, and read about/experienced but not yet posted about - especially things like the advent of recorded music covered in Blues People and what that meant for artists, as well as Fred Ho's visit to Macalester and what he said about music returning to the communal process that it used to be - which, as I understand his perspective, contrasts directly with any fixed recordings of it). It is with great luck and privileged access that I have been able to see Fred Ho and then purchase this book that portrays the revolutionary jazz lineage from which he draws his style and theory. I wish I had taken the risk of asking Fred what he thinks of the DJ, who is most-certainly a musician in my mind. But I'll be honest, I was intimidated and this was when I was coming down with the sickness...I couldn't engage mentally as I wish I could have.
Here is my point of worry/query - I feel moved by these things, both in theory and in sound (though, aside from when I heard Fred Ho play, the rest of my experience with what could be called "revolutionary jazz" has been listening to records, which only represent what was present at the moments of recording, but not the moments of my listening - the way artists change and adapt sounds for a certain setting, in reaction to who they're playing with, the communities they inhabit, the racism both ongoing structurally but every-day in the personal, changing relationships to the instruments they play, the list goes on... are left out and I am left with, if anything, a "recorded on someday of somemonth, 19somethingsomething," which will never explain what a recording meant), and I'm trying to understand the significance of such music, within the histories of music, the lives of the people that played it, heard it, listened to recordings of it, wrote about it, reported on it, slandered it, made up lies about it - good or bad - etc... for my own consumption of it, but also so that with my DJing, I can incorporate it as well. In my understanding - which has come from hearing many DJs play, and also talk about their crafts and philosophies of what they do, both person to person, but also through books, interviews, documentaries, etc. - I would argue that "the DJ" has the potential to, in a post-modern kind of view, become an artist playing a set of instruments. And I would also say in defense of my claim (if I were to present this to Fred Ho or something ridiculous like that) that within all of the history of DJing and up until the present, there has been and continue to be places for subversive and revolutionary action. Part of the rise of what became known as hip-hop DJing, for example, was the subversive act of having fun in the decimated, neglected Bronx (and on the city's dime, at that, since they were tapping into light city light posts for power!) that was only possible after a gang truce (which was led by people within the Bronx as they came to see the power structures looming overhead as the enemy not each other). Even as DJing has become established in certain spheres like weddings, clubs, etc. and designated specific spaces in which it is appropriate (now one must get a permit to play music in a public park and must stop after dark - at least that's the rule in St. Paul/Minneapolis), methods have been developed to slip in education and communicate with the people directly - the dancers - to send a different message than the perceived "clubbing experience" might be expected to. Here are some points:
+There are notes: if you'll consider the individual songs that a DJ selects to be such.
+There are ways to play/arrange these notes in succession or at the same time: songs being mixed over/into/out of each other to form the DJ's "song(s)." One could consider a mix-DJ's song to be an entire mix, while the example following is what would be a "turntablist's" song: Kid Koala doing his introduction as well as "Drunk Trumpeter," where he "plays" trumpet through an already existing recording by altering notes in their pitch (slowing down the platter or speeding it up), placement, repeating, cutting out, etc.
+There is the ability to create new sounds by scratching with a record. This involves manipulating both the record, with one hand, to make sounds and the mixer, with the other, to control when the sound is on or off. With this, a turntable can be played literally like an instrument in that a sound can be played with varying changes in volume and force, velocity can change, which affects the pitch. It can be melodic and/or rhythmic. There is also, believe it or not, a form of notation for scratching (though no parallel exists with mixing records together). Get ready. Also, note the white sticker strips on the labels of the records that allow him to visually recognize where the beat is - it will be featured below with the technique of looping a breakbeat.
+There are established instrument types, usually two turntables and one mixer to select mediate the two sources of sound. They are the products of only a few decades of intense innovation, modification, and simplification as well. I'm not familiar if there are accounts of the creation of other instruments - aside from the "drum kit," which took form in the early 1900's - but the phonograph seems to be a very unique case. What had been a technology of leisure and radio for decades faced new demands as club DJs in the US, kids in the bronx, and dancehall selectors in Jamaica (at different times - this didn't all happen at once! - though they certainly informed each other) were demanding different things of turntables than had ever been required in their previous uses. And if music and instruments are thought to have been developed in communal settings and processes, the contexts in which these DJ's were demanding the rebirth of the turntable in the capacity of an instrument certainly reflected the communal in the music - many people together: the DJ(s) and the dancer(s)/watcher(s), who I would say are both equally important parts of the equation.
The new features were added to turntables as required (pitch adjustment, for example, being added as club DJ, Francis Grasso, needed it to blend disco, rock, and soul songs in the 60's/70's that did not share the same original tempo). Mixers were developed as amps proved insufficient in mixing tracks. Just like artists form connections to their acoustic (or electric) instruments, here too there are characteristics that people become connected to, though they are in mass-produced electronics. Many DJs, for example, swear by the Technics 1200 turntables, which have been made roughly the exact same (except for probably differences in part sources and such, over the years) since the 1970's when they were introduced. So, when you think about that, just like there's a "typical design" for a trumpet or string bass, there is a constant and established standard and norm for turntable design as well.
With mixers, things have been a bit different. The tables were in existence before DJs, but mixers were not specialized for DJs until the demand presented itself in the form of, again Francis Grasso. Mixing boards existed before for use with radio broadcasting and recording, but DJs took that technology and customized it for their own applications. The concept of a crossfader between two channels was never necessary until DJs wanted to switch quickly from a record on the left turntable to a record on the right table without having to alter their individual volume levels. That was more of a necessity, as I understand, for hip-hop DJs. The first actual DJ mixer was created by a guy named Bozak for Francis Grasso to use in the club and featured a new innovation, the ability to cue, or preview, a track you plan to play in your headphones, without it coming out the main speakers. This has held incredible changes for DJs.
(Here's a side note about two different styles of mixer available today, digital and analog - though digital mixers almost completely dominate the market - and the different sounds they produce. To try to describe this quickly: digital is often seen as bad among audiophiles and even just people who collect and play vinyl, who aren't necessarily trying to obtain "the best sound" as are the former. Vinyl, afterall is an analog format, so it would make sense that the mixer and other electronic components the sound must travel through before coming out speakers be analog also. Analog came before, and is in many ways more direct - the needle on the record vibrates when it runs over a beat or sound of any kind, this vibration is picked up as an electric wave or signal, which is sent through the wiring of the turntable into the mixer, which either lets the wave through or not depending on the settings, it travels to the amplifier which bumps up the strength of the signal to an audible level and sends it out to speakers, the cones of which move in and out, hopefully replicating the vibration picked up by the needle. Your ear picks up that movement of air molecules by the speaker cones as sound. That was not short, nor was it all...here's digital: all is the same except what happens in the mixer - it gets a signal, then the wave is translated into binary code, 1's and 0's, processed however your mixer is set to process the volume, maybe adding digital effects like echo or filters, etc., and then translated through those parameters and sent back out as analog, because amps/speakers always need an analog, electrical signal/pulse. It might seem ok, because it comes back out as analog in the end, but it's not (to the trained ear)! This process of double translation inevitably leaves out part of the original signal. This is most often noticeable in sub-bass - the kind you feel vibrate your chest on a large system. This is also a concern and point of heated debate among DJs with regard to digital music. Most music is now recorded and mixed digitally, so even if one buys a record, it is a record of a digital file (and I can't be sure of what kind of quality most artists use when creating songs digitally or when mixers mixdown a track in a computer program), and will never be as full of a sound as if it were analog. It's hard for me to explain...this may not be of too much help, but I've seen a few different explanations under company websites. Here is one from sony...
It is true that digital recording and editing is more convenient and could be reproduced infinitely, hypothetically, where analog tapes and records wear out after multiple listens (the needle on the groove creates friction and affects the shape of the groove over a long period of time), but where distortion is kept in check, the analog recording will be a full copy of whatever sound was made, where digital will be only part because of sampling rates and such. If this sounds unfamiliar at all, it's because this is not much of a concern for the general public, as a 128 kilobytes-per-second(kbps) MP3 (the standard, more or less, and default setting for iTunes when importing a CD) is hard to distinguish from a better quality MP3, an MP4, a WAV file, or others. On most mid-range and cheaper headphones, it doesn't make much difference, and that's what most people listen to it seems like. BUT, in the club, it's a different story. Ask most DJ's who have experience playing digital files ALONG WITH vinyl in a club and many will say it's a noticeable difference - my brother being the first to inform me of this and demonstrate. The record filled up the room in a way that was noticeably different from the 128kbps MP3. In comparison, the MP3 sounded a little light...if one came on after the other, a literal energy shift would be notable because the speakers wouldn't be reproducing as accurate and full a signal.)
And while it's on my mind, another thing about musicianship that I've noticed is: regardless of equipment/instrument quality, the person is what matters. Street drummers in Chicago on Michigan Ave (the "Magnificent Mile"), I've seen a few times over my years growing up, they usually play on combinations of 5-gallon plastic drums, garbage cans and their lids, sinks, and every time, whether a group or a solo performer, it's always been amazing. It is important to think about the relationship to drummers in bands, of course, who are not the sole sources of sound nor points of focus, and how that affects my perception. There are different things at stake in each situation, different contexts (solo or part of a band), etc. But check 7:25 for an interesting visible link to hip-hop. Street musicians, street dance. This is a clip from the documentary "The Freshest Kids" about the history of b-boy/b-girling:
The drummer featured in the video is clearly very skilled - he can get many different sounds out of his instruments, he can hold a pretty consistent beat (important for people moving to it - though, and I can't remember where I read this but, no dancer is a perfect dancer and that isn't stigmatized, so it would only be fair that the imperfections of human drumming or any instrument playing be viewed likewise), and he adapts to this situation well, which is evidenced by him visibly getting down to the dancers, and them visibly getting down to his beats/presence (I also think it's interesting how the style of dance known as b-boying, represented in that video, was created to the soundtrack of DJs who were looping up drummer's breaks from records and extending them, as well as to boomboxes playing tapes of songs with breaks or the radio. So, in this video clip above, the recording is no longer a substitute - the dancers are with the real thing, and both the dancers and the drummer are improvising on the spot - but also, given the history of the dance styles they were using, the drummer had to adapt to what the DJs had established as the soundtrack to that style of dance: breaks! It's like taking it back one step past the DJ and back to the drummer, it has interesting characteristics unique to that interaction. In terms of dance, it's mostly talked about like anticipating the song, but what happens when the beat has to anticipate the drummer too, because it's played by a human, not a recording? Potentially some cool stuff, as the video shows.) He has modest instruments, if you would say even that, and he does amazing things with them that I only wish I could someday do (I say that as someone trying to learn currently). DJs similarly have been able to pull off amazing feats with inadequate and/or broken equipment. As mentioned earlier, Francis Grasso, the "pioneer of the blend" (seamlessly mixing two songs together to transition), was doing this before he could alter the speed of the record in any lasting way (with a pitch control), but he was able to blend songs by slowing down or speeding up the record manually. He could just use a finger on the record to spin it temporarily faster or rubbing the edge of the record to slow it down temporarily. What I'm getting at may be about quality, but the deeper issue I think could be called "fluency" (if one considers learning an instrument to be like learning a new language) - if one is fluent and intimate with an instrument, they can become one, I believe. Fred Ho brought this up - his baritone has his DNA in it, where the brass has patina, the pads where his fingertips rest have indents to match his touch - as much as he has adapted to his instrument with years upon years of practice, his instrument has adapted to him during that time as well.
It would be interesting to also look at what one is able to express and how. Ho played in a way I had never heard, and clearly unique. I heard a friend say that Ho was able to reach notes on a baritone sax that he couldn't even reach when he played alto and tenor sax. Wow. I don't know much about sax or any brass instrument, but that sounds remarkable and quite powerful - it definitely was to hear it. Another thing I noticed was a technique he did of what seemed like popping the reed so as to make a quick and sharp sound of a note as well as a percussive snap. The term he used for it escapes me now. In this act, he added percussion to his baritone sax playing, which is also new to me. To think of it theoretically, when I try, I feel that these are two characteristics of his playing and sound that are revolutionary. He is redefining the way he plays his saxiphone against conventions of technique, and in contrast to what a saxiphone (and a baritone, at that) is supposed to be used for. No longer is it just a smooth, relaxing melody-maker. He certainly incorporated that in parts of his playing, but he also played in ways I would describe as loud, jolting, violent. I see a potential bridge to the Harris article from Dusted in which he says of revolutionary jazz in the late 60's and 70's: "At its most innovative, thoughtful, and, therefore, threatening to the jazz bought and relaxed to by mainstream America, black experimental music in this period could act like an unwanted détournement." This is an important point for me in locating what some of the social context was for this music and art around its point of creation and recording/production.
To get back to my defense for DJing as a form of music-making,
+there are different styles of filling sonic space:
>One song played in its entirety, sometimes with "dead air" before the next. This can be because of a mistake, like not having the next track picked out in time (which I sometimes find myself doing), or it can be intentional, such as the case with David Mancuso:
"Getting into high end audio I realized how much nuance there was in the record and also that the record should stand on its own. I don't want to interfere with what the artist intended or the integrity of the recording cause that's the artist's message so I play the record from the beginning to the very end. Occasionally, if I had one of those DJ friendly records where it starts off going boom-boom-boom for thirty seconds or more I would time it to begin a little later... In order to get Class-A sound, you had to get rid of the mixer. So what happens is you find a way to keep the flow going so there's no space unless you intended it to be that way."
This follows an ideology about DJing and sound reproduction that requires mixing techniques to be limited to those that do not manipulate the record - in a sense, Mancuso avoids the technological advances that have allowed DJs greater control over their performance and tried to let the music stand on its own, but chooses how it is juxtaposed with others to create something new and an experience that goes along with it. What he believes and practices currently, as far as I understand, is that the recording should be respected as the work of the musician (what should also be noted is that most often he is not playing records from major/commercial labels, known to screen their arstists' work and intentions - he plays a lot of independently produced and circulated music, and a lot from small labels that allowed much greater artistic freedom and control over the finished products), and should be presented with the most clear sound possible (valuing clarity and accurate sonic reproduction of a record rather than loudness and extreme amounts of bass). I find this really interesting, and it reflects greatly his upbrining with music being a kind of escape from chaotic or upsetting conditions around him - something that could raise his life energy, as he calls it. (for more info, here's an interview with him on discomusic.com, from which I borrowed for the above). That is a certain technique as it applies to also a theory of playing - DJ as channeler, and a simple selector, mood-setter.
>A song played, then another song started or "cut" in. This requires a bit of technological explanation. Before DJ's had their own special mixers, as described above, they hooked up their turntables to an amplifier - the old kind, with the large knobs, potentially a long radio dial, and various inputs...the kind one might use for a "home entertainment center." Some amplifiers had enough inputs for two turntables, sometimes two amplifiers would have to be hooked up individually to two turntables, and then spliced into one speaker system so a dj could switch from one turntable to another on the same sounds system. There was no convenient mix, none of that...it all came later as Mancuso, Grasso, Grandmaster Flash, and others pioneered their own technological advances for personal use. The cue feature, as I have read/seen in interviews, was created by both Grasso and Flash, but for different uses (Grasso was said to have made a cuing system before Bozak came to him with the prototype mixer, which is how Bozak knew to add the feature to his mixer). Grasso was working in discothechues, and in order to realize his vision of manipulating the energy of the dancefloor, he needed more control over his music. Thus, cuing allowed him to preview his incoming track so he knew when to drop it and, after pitch controls were added to turntables, he could match the beats of the incoming song with those of the already playing song for a seamless mix, which will appear lower as another technique (some info on Grasso). Grandmaster Flash was inspired by Kool Herc and Bambaataa, who could cut two copies of the same record back and forth to extend the break (this is all encapsulated in about a million sources...Can't Stop Won't Stop, by Jeff Chang, is a great place to find it - there's a chapter all about Grandmaster Flash and his technological and turntable wizardry). He learned this technique, but he also saw much room for improvement. Herc and Bam were great, but they couldn't have exact accuracy because they were doing it all by sight (they would cue their records up by the markings they made - just like Rob swift in the video above) and Flash, who, as a child, was really into technology, fixing things, learning how things work, etc. (not that he isn't now, that's just how the story goes) wanted a way to hear the incoming record. So, he made it. Here's a video to hopefully make more sense of it...it doesn't show the process of marking where the break is, etc. but if you look closely, you can see a black line at the hypothetical 12 o'clock (respective to the DJ, not the camera lens) that he keeps pulling it back to before he cuts the record back in.
My reasons for covering all of that are to pay tribute to a part of DJing that is easy to overlook because...many reasons. The music is now "dated," many of the styles are no longer widely relevant, or the scene in which they thrived and were developed are no longer in existence or in the same form (hip-hop is the obvious one), or techniques broke off into their own subcultures that may or not be thriving, but are now equally secluded from the public consciousness (here I'm talking about turntablism - the development of the technique I just detailed and scratching, as foundations, into a full style of music creation. The X-Ecutioners, Rob Swift, and Kid Koala are examples of more palatable or well-known turntablist artists, though many do not release music, just compete, or not compete and do for personal satisfaction).
What is so hard for me to think is that all of this "theory" that I now can outline on this blog was never so clear in the moment. It was a feeling "there shouldn't be a break in between songs, the dancefloor doesn't like it," or "I want to make that better," and something was done. People were innovative, they tried new things that hadn't been thought of before. In many cases technological innovations followed slowly behind these "pioneering" DJs who were making their equipment do amazing things it was never dreamed it could do by its designers. Though I'm not trying to essentialize the DJs - just as much as a DJ is important for playing music, they are informed by their crowd, and they share the experience of a night, event, day in the park, chill-out, etc. This holds (with the exception of the bedroom/home as the grounds for practicing technical abilities) the potential to be a very communal process.
>There are smooth transitions from one song to another which were pioneered by Francis Grasso, who, at his height, was known for laying two tracks over each other for 2 minutes, regularly. It's important to note that these are not electronically made songs (aside from, of course, the recording technology and maybe keyboards and such - no drum machines) - they had live drummers, who have been known, historically, to miss beats, not play a steady rate, and not play each note at the same loudness where it seems they should. This was a feat that many DJs no longer can claim to be within their repertoire. It's amazing, and I wish I could experience that in person. But many of the DJs to develop this ability to such level have since passed away - Grasso, Larry Levan, Ron Hardy, and of course the non-superstar DJs who have been obscured by the "shining stars" of DJing history. It's mostly in New York that such spaces still exist, and I haven't ever been there...not yet.
Most often this technique currently finds itself within clubs as the old standby or norm. Being that most songs are made electronically, or can be altered to be perfectly in-time all the time, DJs no longer have to focus so much on holding a mix - they can set two songs together and let them overlap for minutes without having to touch any settings. During this time, they can mix in other songs (on a third turntable). Here's Jeff Mills, a widely known techno artist from Detroit, considered part of the second-wave of Detroit Techno artists, if I'm not mistaken, who did a video called "Purpose Maker." Here is "part 1" of that:
He moves extremely fast, and appears in control and comfortable in his space, with the equipment and his body using. This is a bit of a different concept than what I'm trying to talk about, however, which is live and "unplanned" DJing sets. The ones where someone is playing in a club, at an event, or for fun and does whatever happens in the moment. This is just to show, mostly the use of three turntables in a high quality video. Examples of such techniques in a club setting are available but usually of low sound quality, video quality, or both.
The ability of the DJ to mix smoothly between songs allows for a mood to be sustained and manipulated. As Grasso figured out and spread on to other aspiring DJs, there is great power behind the decks, and it's easy to play with people's emotions. The introduction of these techniques gave DJs an added advantage that dancers were not prepared for. Grasso's DJing, as well as that of his protege's, one being Levan, changed people's lives in profound ways - or, at the least, contributed to the clubs where people's lives changed. To these DJs, however, it wasn't just blending, but also what a jolt of a new song being brought in unannounced and abruptly - cut in, as described above - that belonged to their repertoires. They would use anything at their disposal.
This kind of conglomeration and attempt at synthesizing and utilizing as many techniques as possible seems to be the trend I see with established, and I'd consider maybe more "subversive" DJs who I've heard speak - the ones who have played clubs, house parties, events like gallery exhibits, weddings and know what it's like to have to play to a particular audience and understand that, but still bring their own technique and spin to it (haha...). These include my brother, DJ Bozak, and DJ D Double to name two. I heard both say that in a club, there are boundaries - that people are there to have fun, to dance, to party, to have a good night, and they can't do that if a DJ is doing their own thing all night. It's about compromise - and there are ways, as a DJ, to put a twist on that idea that you're just gonna play what's hot, whatever the people want. It's a power struggle - because clubbing has become, for many patrons, about going to a particular location for its ambiance, it's drink specials, because that's where friends are, whatever, and a lot less about a particular DJ and any kind of commitment or connection to her/him (unless one is a superstar DJ like Tiesto or whathaveyou). Thus, it becomes kind of a give and take - (to give an example of D Double's) I'll play this hot Lupe Fiasco song, "Kick, Push," but I'll also play the sample for the strings, which is an old Filipino song. This becomes especially important when considering that you may bring some style that people don't want to hear. He said it like this (this is paraphrased, from memory): if I'm playing in a club to a Filipino crowd, and that crowd that night doesn't like hip-hop, I have to educate - there are ways to open people up to stuff and get them thinking and reconsidering. That is where his example of the Lupe Fiasco song comes in. There is a connection, and then people start to question. Or, another case is something I've seen my brother do where he'll play "Clear" by Cybotron (from the first wave of Detroit Techno: Juan Atkins being the head of the group):
and then drop in Missy Elliot's "Lose Control:"
This all gives me hope, as a DJ, that I can someday do great things with the notes that I learn to play and incorporate into my repertoire. I am drawn to certain things, and I find that changing with time as I feel myself connected to certain people, communities, ideas and how those change. If anything it will only ever amount to a map of my interests and what I had access to at particular moments. The examples of Keepingtime and Brasilintime projects are really inspiring for how DJs as artists can collaborate with other instrumentalists:
And, of course, groups like Linkin Park and Portishead have included DJs as well. It has crossed over in many ways, but within those contexts, I hardly see the DJs using the full capability of their instruments as others may be in the groups. It is important to note, however that both of those groups would not be categorized as jazz (though certainly Portishead's downtempo trip-hop vibe should be partially attributed to hip-hop that sampled jazz and created a sound on which they gained at least some inspiration). I'm interested in revolutionary jazz and where hip-hop and DJing connect with that and how they can still do so. It would be interesting also to think about ways that revolutionary jazz records could be manipulated and/or contributed to by DJs to remix the message and statements of the artists for a contemporary day and current meaning. But also, taking into account my position as a white man who DJs, that I would have anything to do with that seems questionable to me. I support what they say, and I want to make room for that, not do my own thing with it, at least as of now. I can't figure out a way to feel comfortable about manipulating something I know to be political in the manner of a turntablist - maybe to mix it into something or mix something into it, but not to deconstruct it or scratch over. That is the issue of playing notes that are entire songs in themselves - they have their own existent meaning and purpose before I play them. I put them in new context and that can do so many things to the meaning of individual songs, and to "my" entire song which is the combination thereof. With projects such as keepingtime and brasilintime, it becomes a communal process again, and the choice of songs for DJ manipulation could then become one of the entire group for the purpose of their creative process and what they intend to mean.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong
I would like to start, this time, with Martin Williams: not from his chapter on Armstrong, but on Bix Beiderbecke, subtitled: "The White Man's Burden." I'll restrain myself from quoting two whole pages, which is what I really want to do, but here are some of the most catching excerpts:
- 'One problem in any discussion of jazz and race involves a holdover liberal cliche from the 'thirties. Having heard so many racial generalizations that are destructive, demeaning, or absurd, we have become afraid of any kind of generalization. It might help to clarify matters to return to the well-worn phrase...that "Negroes have natural rhythm," which has become horrendous' (61-62). He makes the case for this argument in his introduction, as i refer to later...but to continue:
- 'But what if blacks did have "natural rhythm"? Would it be a sign of inferiority to have "natural rhythm"? Is it insulting to say that they have dark skin"?' I'm not sure this reasoning adds up... But, he knows I'm feeling that way, so he starts pulling at anything he can: "Does it imply an inability to treat Orientals as individuals to say they have black hair or brown eyes?...Is it not the truth, rather than a counterstatement, that shall make us free?" (62). Well...first, I would say check how your language provides a counterstatement to your own point. The nature of defining a group (especially, as in this case, a group he would call the "other" from his privileged position as white, male, jazz critic) necessarily projects some kind of group uniformity and unity onto a bunch of individuals by lumping them under one term. The thing is, he uses the word "Oriental," which has its roots in European imperialism and colonialism - he ends up sabotaging his own attempt at proving his "acceptance of all and hope for equality." Certainly there's more to be said...I don't have words at the moment. And I also acknowledge what I've analyzed in Williams' writing is from the future (relative to his writing), and provides a clarity that may not have been present at the time...though I can't help but think there is really no excuse for such language, and the thought that goes behind it. But then, that also gets into why he thought it was OK to mention justice in relation to his conversations about black male jazz artists - what did he think of his own role as a white jazz critic, who could be payed much money to listen to jazz and write about it, while many musicians were working jobs in addition to playing to make ends meet? Many questions. But, finally, for now:
- 'It would be perfectly easy to show that not all blacks have "natural" rhythm nor very good acquired rhythm necessarily.... Still, it seems to me perfectly valid to say... that black jazzmen in general have had fewer rhythmic problems than white jazzmen' (62-63) This, perhaps, could be easily explained with support from LeRoi Jones' Blues People. It's hard to say whether Williams' claim is essentializing a characteristic in black people, or whether he's just trying to explain the process of American socialization that African slaves and their descendents went through over generations (and what happened to their musical traditions and self expressions in the process) that included the blues, and thereby jazz, as part of daily life, not something to "do" as with white artists. In the intro (to The Jazz Tradition) he says, "My sense of human justice is not, I hope, dependent on the assumption that black men could not have a natural rhythm [Williams' italics]. Differences among peoples do not make for moral inequality or unworthiness, and a particular sense of rhythm may be as natural as a particular color of skin and texture of hair. No, it does no damage to my sense of good will toward men or my belief in the equality of men, I trust, to conclude that Negroes as a race have a rhythmic genius that is not like that of other races, and to concede that this genius has found a unique expression in the United States" (7-8). It's a bit ambiguous, but the last sentence does hint that perhaps he's following his argument backward through slavery to Africa. And it is here that Williams takes again from the tradition of white critics and writers, putting forth his idea without, apparently, feeling it necessary to support it with evidence or history. In the process, this time, he glazes over a vital topic - one that Jones more or less constructs an entire book, Blues People, around! - making no attempt to explain the process by which African rhythms (at the very least) evolved through the hundreds of years of slavery (not to mention how the musical traditions the enslaved West Africans brought with them were, first, forced to go through many changes to comply with the rules of slaveholders, and then also interacted with the European musical traditions present in the U.S., and further changed, post-Emancipation, as a result of class stratifications in black communities and differing ideological stances - allegiances to the white man, Jones may say, which watered down the blues (as it was a direct link to slavery, which they wanted to forget in order to assimilate) - which caused further shifts in blues and jazz styles, etc...) There is much dialogue to be analyzed between the two texts.
But, to get to the topic of my post...enter Louis Armstrong. To be honest, I knew little of him coming into this project. His was one of the first names I can recall connecting to jazz, and as a result, he's always held some gravity in relation to the style (however vague that was until now). Thus, it wasn't much of a surprise to read Szwed's assertion in Jazz 101: "Louis Armstrong is arguably the most important musician that the United States has ever produced" (109). Quite a large claim to make. Surely, to some that's the case. Hence, arguably, he occupies this position - but Szwed doesn't follow it up with a very strong argument for why this is the case.
On Armstrong's sound, coming into the project, I'd heard an album or two that my mom has, but I'm pretty sure it was his later stuff, mostly vocal, and I wasn't listening as actively as I have been throughout this last week or so. My difficulty now has been finding sources, and I feel any sense of the "sounds of the times" I've gleaned from listening is somewhat superficial. I'm ALSO listening to recorded remnants - single instances of the ongoing performance and innovation of these songs, which were never created to be recorded musics, but came out of expression, out of living life, as Jones argues.
The texts I looked at dealt with Armstrong in different ways. It seems he's almost so much of a star that some writers may not feel it necessary to describe in depth his contributions and his history. But also, they are very different in style - Jazz 101 is really, as I said in a previous post, a brief skimming of the surface of jazz styles, artists, and histories, while Blues People, on the other hand is a deep look at the roots of blues and jazz, the processes by which they were created and constantly recreated/reinterpreted, and the people involved in the process (not just artists, but the whole of black society and white society - and their changes through time). Williams on the other hand is the critic. He talks a bit about artists in their times, their styles and contributions, but then also song analysis.
So, to get to it:
Armstrong comes from New Orleans, playing first the cornet, then the trumpet. His style developed amidst the transition that Jones describes, brought about by the forced cohabitation (after segregation laws were passed at the turn of the century) of the Downtown black "middle class" (Creoles, gens de couleur, and mulattoes) with the Uptown black belt. "...It was the connections engendered by this forced merger that produced a primitive jazz. The black rhythmic and vocal tradition was translated into an instrumental music which utilized some of the formal techniques of European dance and march music" (139). (This is surely not the history of the origin of jazz, but one strain of what would later become known as such.) There were artists playing on riverboats, spreading the style up and down the Mississippi, but also local artists developing within New Orleans, and then also spreading their styles up to Northern cities like St. Louis and Chicago. Armstrong was one of these artists who made the move North, following his mentor, Joe "King" Oliver, who had moved up a few years earlier and established his own group, the Oliver Creole Jazz Band. Here is where Armstrong really began to shine, it seems - under the guidance of his mentor, and in the smaller ensemble-style groups.
Each text I refer to that directly addressed Armstrong and his influence mention how he brought with him a shift of focus. The solo artist became a focus for creators and listeners, leaving the coherence and shape of the entire band as more of an afterthought. This also reflected in music-making.
During this same period, a different class relation to blues and jazz was influencing the way Northern players created and played jazz. As Jones describes, 'By the late twenties a great many more Negroes were going to high school and college, and the experience of an American "liberal" education was bound to leave traces. The most expressive big bands of the late twenties and thirties were largely middle-class Negro enterprises. The world of the professional man had opened up, and many scions of the new Negro middle class who had not gotten through professional school went into jazz "to make money"' (160). What began with the classic blues singers, like Bessie Smith and Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, had by now become an established notion - that one could make a living off of music (and the performance of it, i.e. to white audiences).
These artists coming out of the black middle-class were most often classically trained, and could read music, they had "...moved away from the older lowdown forms of blues. Blues was not so direct to them, it had to be utilized in other contexts" (160).
How Armstrong relates to these college-educated artists - Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, and Jimmie Lunceford are a few examples - is unclear in any of these texts. The only clear delineation is that they play in big-band styles and in a more strict scripted style, while Armstrong developed the smaller ensemble-style playing, bringing more of the blues improvisational style with him into his solos. But I feel like there must have been more crossover than I can see as of now. Williams brings this up: "...Louis Armstrong has been treated by some as a sort of embarrassment. He has functioned as a vaudevillian and, partly because he uses the stage manner that many black and white performers employed during the 'twenties and 'thirties, he has been dismissed as an Uncle Tom" (48). It is also understandable that people may view him as somewhat of a "sellout" based on Szwed's brief biography of him: "he was as well known in radio and motion pictures as he was on recordings and live performances, and later, during the Cold War, he toured for the State Department and became a spokesperson for the United States" (109) Based on the history that Jones provides, these assertions match up fairly well. Armstrong gave white America a black music they could enjoy. Either directly because of his own music and performances, singing and/or playing the trumpet, and/or through those he influenced - Bix Beiderbecke, to name one, was a white cornet player from Davenport, Iowa, who was captivated the first time he heard Armstrong play with King Oliver's band in 1923 (Jones, 147) - Armstrong's sounds were heard and praised by white listeners of jazz.
Perhaps the specifics of Amstrong's significance will become clear as I go further in my research, but, then again, Armstrong may not be the best focus. I've only just touched on the information held within Blues People (which will need to serve as a solid reference for any further work). I would like to look at how DeVeaux and Peretti interact with it in a future post, as Peretti brings a certain sociological lens, and DeVeaux's challenges to history and knowledge production may create a great discourse with Jones' research. In addition, I saw a great many parallels to the history of hip-hop represented in Jeff Chang's, Can't Stop, Won't Stop, in Jones' descriptions of blues and jazz in the United States. I'm greatly interested in teasing that out, and going further into the hip-hop realm. But really, they seem to have a lot of similar characteristics. As Jones puts it: "The Negro's music changed as he changed, reflecting shifting attitudes or (and this is equally important) consistent attitudes within changed contexts" (153, Jones' italics). This could provide the base form some interesting comparison to hip-hop. After reading Blues People, the mental image I have is looking a lot more like a continuum than various separate "genres," and I'm eager to see where that thought leads me.
- 'One problem in any discussion of jazz and race involves a holdover liberal cliche from the 'thirties. Having heard so many racial generalizations that are destructive, demeaning, or absurd, we have become afraid of any kind of generalization. It might help to clarify matters to return to the well-worn phrase...that "Negroes have natural rhythm," which has become horrendous' (61-62). He makes the case for this argument in his introduction, as i refer to later...but to continue:
- 'But what if blacks did have "natural rhythm"? Would it be a sign of inferiority to have "natural rhythm"? Is it insulting to say that they have dark skin"?' I'm not sure this reasoning adds up... But, he knows I'm feeling that way, so he starts pulling at anything he can: "Does it imply an inability to treat Orientals as individuals to say they have black hair or brown eyes?...Is it not the truth, rather than a counterstatement, that shall make us free?" (62). Well...first, I would say check how your language provides a counterstatement to your own point. The nature of defining a group (especially, as in this case, a group he would call the "other" from his privileged position as white, male, jazz critic) necessarily projects some kind of group uniformity and unity onto a bunch of individuals by lumping them under one term. The thing is, he uses the word "Oriental," which has its roots in European imperialism and colonialism - he ends up sabotaging his own attempt at proving his "acceptance of all and hope for equality." Certainly there's more to be said...I don't have words at the moment. And I also acknowledge what I've analyzed in Williams' writing is from the future (relative to his writing), and provides a clarity that may not have been present at the time...though I can't help but think there is really no excuse for such language, and the thought that goes behind it. But then, that also gets into why he thought it was OK to mention justice in relation to his conversations about black male jazz artists - what did he think of his own role as a white jazz critic, who could be payed much money to listen to jazz and write about it, while many musicians were working jobs in addition to playing to make ends meet? Many questions. But, finally, for now:
- 'It would be perfectly easy to show that not all blacks have "natural" rhythm nor very good acquired rhythm necessarily.... Still, it seems to me perfectly valid to say... that black jazzmen in general have had fewer rhythmic problems than white jazzmen' (62-63) This, perhaps, could be easily explained with support from LeRoi Jones' Blues People. It's hard to say whether Williams' claim is essentializing a characteristic in black people, or whether he's just trying to explain the process of American socialization that African slaves and their descendents went through over generations (and what happened to their musical traditions and self expressions in the process) that included the blues, and thereby jazz, as part of daily life, not something to "do" as with white artists. In the intro (to The Jazz Tradition) he says, "My sense of human justice is not, I hope, dependent on the assumption that black men could not have a natural rhythm [Williams' italics]. Differences among peoples do not make for moral inequality or unworthiness, and a particular sense of rhythm may be as natural as a particular color of skin and texture of hair. No, it does no damage to my sense of good will toward men or my belief in the equality of men, I trust, to conclude that Negroes as a race have a rhythmic genius that is not like that of other races, and to concede that this genius has found a unique expression in the United States" (7-8). It's a bit ambiguous, but the last sentence does hint that perhaps he's following his argument backward through slavery to Africa. And it is here that Williams takes again from the tradition of white critics and writers, putting forth his idea without, apparently, feeling it necessary to support it with evidence or history. In the process, this time, he glazes over a vital topic - one that Jones more or less constructs an entire book, Blues People, around! - making no attempt to explain the process by which African rhythms (at the very least) evolved through the hundreds of years of slavery (not to mention how the musical traditions the enslaved West Africans brought with them were, first, forced to go through many changes to comply with the rules of slaveholders, and then also interacted with the European musical traditions present in the U.S., and further changed, post-Emancipation, as a result of class stratifications in black communities and differing ideological stances - allegiances to the white man, Jones may say, which watered down the blues (as it was a direct link to slavery, which they wanted to forget in order to assimilate) - which caused further shifts in blues and jazz styles, etc...) There is much dialogue to be analyzed between the two texts.
But, to get to the topic of my post...enter Louis Armstrong. To be honest, I knew little of him coming into this project. His was one of the first names I can recall connecting to jazz, and as a result, he's always held some gravity in relation to the style (however vague that was until now). Thus, it wasn't much of a surprise to read Szwed's assertion in Jazz 101: "Louis Armstrong is arguably the most important musician that the United States has ever produced" (109). Quite a large claim to make. Surely, to some that's the case. Hence, arguably, he occupies this position - but Szwed doesn't follow it up with a very strong argument for why this is the case.
On Armstrong's sound, coming into the project, I'd heard an album or two that my mom has, but I'm pretty sure it was his later stuff, mostly vocal, and I wasn't listening as actively as I have been throughout this last week or so. My difficulty now has been finding sources, and I feel any sense of the "sounds of the times" I've gleaned from listening is somewhat superficial. I'm ALSO listening to recorded remnants - single instances of the ongoing performance and innovation of these songs, which were never created to be recorded musics, but came out of expression, out of living life, as Jones argues.
The texts I looked at dealt with Armstrong in different ways. It seems he's almost so much of a star that some writers may not feel it necessary to describe in depth his contributions and his history. But also, they are very different in style - Jazz 101 is really, as I said in a previous post, a brief skimming of the surface of jazz styles, artists, and histories, while Blues People, on the other hand is a deep look at the roots of blues and jazz, the processes by which they were created and constantly recreated/reinterpreted, and the people involved in the process (not just artists, but the whole of black society and white society - and their changes through time). Williams on the other hand is the critic. He talks a bit about artists in their times, their styles and contributions, but then also song analysis.
So, to get to it:
Armstrong comes from New Orleans, playing first the cornet, then the trumpet. His style developed amidst the transition that Jones describes, brought about by the forced cohabitation (after segregation laws were passed at the turn of the century) of the Downtown black "middle class" (Creoles, gens de couleur, and mulattoes) with the Uptown black belt. "...It was the connections engendered by this forced merger that produced a primitive jazz. The black rhythmic and vocal tradition was translated into an instrumental music which utilized some of the formal techniques of European dance and march music" (139). (This is surely not the history of the origin of jazz, but one strain of what would later become known as such.) There were artists playing on riverboats, spreading the style up and down the Mississippi, but also local artists developing within New Orleans, and then also spreading their styles up to Northern cities like St. Louis and Chicago. Armstrong was one of these artists who made the move North, following his mentor, Joe "King" Oliver, who had moved up a few years earlier and established his own group, the Oliver Creole Jazz Band. Here is where Armstrong really began to shine, it seems - under the guidance of his mentor, and in the smaller ensemble-style groups.
Each text I refer to that directly addressed Armstrong and his influence mention how he brought with him a shift of focus. The solo artist became a focus for creators and listeners, leaving the coherence and shape of the entire band as more of an afterthought. This also reflected in music-making.
During this same period, a different class relation to blues and jazz was influencing the way Northern players created and played jazz. As Jones describes, 'By the late twenties a great many more Negroes were going to high school and college, and the experience of an American "liberal" education was bound to leave traces. The most expressive big bands of the late twenties and thirties were largely middle-class Negro enterprises. The world of the professional man had opened up, and many scions of the new Negro middle class who had not gotten through professional school went into jazz "to make money"' (160). What began with the classic blues singers, like Bessie Smith and Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, had by now become an established notion - that one could make a living off of music (and the performance of it, i.e. to white audiences).
These artists coming out of the black middle-class were most often classically trained, and could read music, they had "...moved away from the older lowdown forms of blues. Blues was not so direct to them, it had to be utilized in other contexts" (160).
How Armstrong relates to these college-educated artists - Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, and Jimmie Lunceford are a few examples - is unclear in any of these texts. The only clear delineation is that they play in big-band styles and in a more strict scripted style, while Armstrong developed the smaller ensemble-style playing, bringing more of the blues improvisational style with him into his solos. But I feel like there must have been more crossover than I can see as of now. Williams brings this up: "...Louis Armstrong has been treated by some as a sort of embarrassment. He has functioned as a vaudevillian and, partly because he uses the stage manner that many black and white performers employed during the 'twenties and 'thirties, he has been dismissed as an Uncle Tom" (48). It is also understandable that people may view him as somewhat of a "sellout" based on Szwed's brief biography of him: "he was as well known in radio and motion pictures as he was on recordings and live performances, and later, during the Cold War, he toured for the State Department and became a spokesperson for the United States" (109) Based on the history that Jones provides, these assertions match up fairly well. Armstrong gave white America a black music they could enjoy. Either directly because of his own music and performances, singing and/or playing the trumpet, and/or through those he influenced - Bix Beiderbecke, to name one, was a white cornet player from Davenport, Iowa, who was captivated the first time he heard Armstrong play with King Oliver's band in 1923 (Jones, 147) - Armstrong's sounds were heard and praised by white listeners of jazz.
Perhaps the specifics of Amstrong's significance will become clear as I go further in my research, but, then again, Armstrong may not be the best focus. I've only just touched on the information held within Blues People (which will need to serve as a solid reference for any further work). I would like to look at how DeVeaux and Peretti interact with it in a future post, as Peretti brings a certain sociological lens, and DeVeaux's challenges to history and knowledge production may create a great discourse with Jones' research. In addition, I saw a great many parallels to the history of hip-hop represented in Jeff Chang's, Can't Stop, Won't Stop, in Jones' descriptions of blues and jazz in the United States. I'm greatly interested in teasing that out, and going further into the hip-hop realm. But really, they seem to have a lot of similar characteristics. As Jones puts it: "The Negro's music changed as he changed, reflecting shifting attitudes or (and this is equally important) consistent attitudes within changed contexts" (153, Jones' italics). This could provide the base form some interesting comparison to hip-hop. After reading Blues People, the mental image I have is looking a lot more like a continuum than various separate "genres," and I'm eager to see where that thought leads me.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Corrections v.1
Before I post on Louis Armstrong - corrections/missed citations from last post (10/8-9; final paragraph):
This is Reed, and I'm out...till noon tomorrow.
- Perhaps there have been hundreds, I know I've hear a few, but the specific source of the assertion about blogging being a democratic form of journalism and knowledge production/dispersal came from the article, "Trapped in between the Lines: The Aesthetics of Hip-Hop Journalism," by Oliver Wang, which is included in the collection Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop, edited by Jeff Chang. Therein, Wang says: "Blogging was a more democratic medium [than print journalism], but improved access didn't necessarily translate into different, let alone better, writing.... There was also a question of attitude. The lack of accountability made it far easier for online writers to be mean, vicious, or just snarky at whatever artists they choose. Although there was much cheerleading going on, never had so many self-professed fans generated so much negativity against hip-hop artists" (172)
- The final sentence of my last post makes great assumptions about what kind of documentation was being made during the development of jazz at its various points around the country. It is not within my knowledge whether jazz was written about outside of the white-operated print outlets. I would guess, after reading Blues People, by LeRoi Jones, that there probably was some writing being done about jazz by black writers. But if it were by and/or for the working-class, laboring black population (those, he refers to as descendants of the field slaves), writing would have been done in addition to work - just as musicians outside of the mainstream have always held down other jobs in order to support their expression, love, hobby, talent, vice, whatever you want to call it. Thus, we would see more prolific writing around the World Wars, and a sharp decline during the depression. Perhaps I'll address this more later in my research... In addition, with education rates for black youth being so low - at least in the South where many styles emerged (field hollers, spirituals, blues, New Orleans/Dixieland jazz), what purpose would writing serve to a population that, historically in this country, was not allowed to keep any documentation, and had to rely on other forms of communication for transfer of ideas and creation of histories? I don't know. Then again, there could have been writing by the black middle class, members of which, Jones argues, were repulsed by any black musical form that reflected their African forebears and the history of slavery in this country - a memory thought necessary to erase in order to assimilate and become citizens. To follow Jones' argument, the writing of the black middle class would be aimed at white men, trying to prove their allegiance to the country, and subsequently, deservance (is that a word?) of all the rights and privileges of citizenship. Further, that would mean that when big-band swing styles were in full effect, verging on pop, these black middle class writers would have been first to praise them, support claims of Benny Goodman as "King of Swing," etc. and renounce other, "blacker" forms of jazz - in which one could still hear the blues.
This is Reed, and I'm out...till noon tomorrow.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
What is Jazz?
As good a place as any to start such a venture: the definition.
What is Jazz? It's not something I can truly say - if I've gathered anything, it would be easier to say what it is not than what it is. There are certainly conventions that characterize Jazz forms, some that have developed over the last century or so, some have dropped off the map, and some have come and gone. Szwed mentions this in his book "Jazz 101." Therein, he outlines styles, compositional elements - a general history of "objective" traits, at least during the first section of the book. These are, no doubt helpful, necessary, even.
But I don't believe in a definition of Jazz beyond those. A tradition as old and complex cannot be wrapped up with a ribbon in one definition. In many ways, this parallels efforts to claim and define another form and culture I identify and am more fluent with - Hip-Hop. Hip-Hop has traceable roots, much like Jazz, but the closer and closer to an origin point - "The moment Hip-Hop was born!" - the fuzzier the details get. People's personal accounts start to conflict - who's exaggerating/who's downplaying? The weaknesses of history-writing (as a process the greater U.S. society puts so much stock in - or has) are stressed in these situations - where subjective accounts are all we have. But with so much disagreement about when and where Jazz began - and with few to no surviving artists or fans from that era - it almost seems irrelevant to spend as much time focused on that, as looking at other aspects of the culture - at what we do have.
So, then...what do we have? The music itself? Here I will take a tip from Martin Williams - he warns against reading too far into songs, as we risk projecting our reaction to music as the meaning it holds. I believe an auditory history is one of the only possible ones available at this point, though it should be approached with caution. The roots of Jazz could surely be traced sonically, but do there even exist enough records to piece this together? Did there ever? Not addressed in what I read of Williams' book, nor Szwed's, is that the percentage of active artists who end up recording is always very low (and was especially before our current technology had proliferated, especially with CD burning and MP3 sharing capabilities so widely available). This means, more or less, that the diversity of sounds that existed all over the country during the formative years of what became known as Jazz never existed beyond that point (and this, as with many notes I make, is true for any period). Here it may be hard or impossible to create this solid sonic timeline of the evolution of sounds that influenced and became Jazz. It is certainly a positive (and fun) process to go through, but at this point it will only create a partial history, and one that continually looks to unidentifiable origins. Then where else does one turn?
With a musical style, and, indeed, culture, that has affected millions of people - across many lines of difference - definitions become less important, each being personal. What, becomes my focus, instead, is the sharing of a multiplicity of stories. These, together create what we know as "Jazz." Just as Hip-Hop means something different to me than any other person in the world. These are both communal forms - they are performative, they have "scenes" surrounding them, often only locally. That said, I don't think anybody should feel free to claim Jazz, to claim to know it, what its "essence" is, or the like, without first taking into account the position they bring to the conversation (and that's, if those things are even knowable). For example, it is accepted across the sample of readings I've done thus far that Jazz has its roots in the experience of African Americans. But to put this in my own words: within their own bodies, black originators housed a unique confluence of musical expression and creative voice that reached back in some ways to Africa - even if the work is not necessarily politicized as such, the very existence as an "other" signifies the history of African slavery in the U.S. - and was also very rooted in that experience in the United States and its history - both experiences within the continent and on the way here, but also the European traditions influencing what "North American Culture" or, maybe more accurately, society, presented to them. This, of course, could be said about every artist of every kind from every style of music - and art in general. But it's so important that that never be forgotten, no matter how many decades pass. The changes and innovations that have pushed along the style since the earlier forms of Jazz, then into bebop and swing mid-twentieth-century, and to what one could currently hear at the Dakota Jazz Club have not erased the origins or history. But, they perpetuate a synthesizing and dynamic form.
Jazz is like a tree, with its roots going ever deeper, as people continue to look back at early innovators, as Hip-Hop artists dig through and sample Jazz, synthesizing it and coming out with something not entirely new, but different (but is it also Jazz then? Is Hip-Hop Jazz?!), and while all of that is happening, its branches grow ever-higher, searching for new directions, innovations, and styles.
The struggle to answer this question is evident, as I stated earlier, of the limits of our current approach to history writing. For better or worse, the "Hip-Hop generation" has at its disposal many recent technological developments that allow a much broader group of listeners (and non-listeners) to comment on and write the histories of Hip-Hop. Blogs, like this, provide outlets for the creation of histories and archives - THE democratic medium for self-expression, as hundreds have pointed out - by anyone who has access to computers and the internet. While there is the characteristic lack of accountability in such an unmediated source, with a lot of disengaged and disengaging writing posted, there are many people invested in their work. I hope to be another of those who contribute to the discussion. It's unfortunate such a range of expression was not available during the rise of Jazz to document that process.
That's Jazz as of 10/9/09
Readings used:
John Szwed, "Jazz 101" (Sections: 1, 2)
Martin Williams, "The Jazz Tradition" (Intro)
Burton Peretti, "Jazz in American Culture" (Intro)
Future readings:
Scott Deveaux "Constructing the Jazz Tradition" (reread)
Amiri Baraka "Blues People"
Kodwo Eshun "More Brilliant than the Sun"
Further reading in Szwed, Williams, Peretti
What is Jazz? It's not something I can truly say - if I've gathered anything, it would be easier to say what it is not than what it is. There are certainly conventions that characterize Jazz forms, some that have developed over the last century or so, some have dropped off the map, and some have come and gone. Szwed mentions this in his book "Jazz 101." Therein, he outlines styles, compositional elements - a general history of "objective" traits, at least during the first section of the book. These are, no doubt helpful, necessary, even.
But I don't believe in a definition of Jazz beyond those. A tradition as old and complex cannot be wrapped up with a ribbon in one definition. In many ways, this parallels efforts to claim and define another form and culture I identify and am more fluent with - Hip-Hop. Hip-Hop has traceable roots, much like Jazz, but the closer and closer to an origin point - "The moment Hip-Hop was born!" - the fuzzier the details get. People's personal accounts start to conflict - who's exaggerating/who's downplaying? The weaknesses of history-writing (as a process the greater U.S. society puts so much stock in - or has) are stressed in these situations - where subjective accounts are all we have. But with so much disagreement about when and where Jazz began - and with few to no surviving artists or fans from that era - it almost seems irrelevant to spend as much time focused on that, as looking at other aspects of the culture - at what we do have.
So, then...what do we have? The music itself? Here I will take a tip from Martin Williams - he warns against reading too far into songs, as we risk projecting our reaction to music as the meaning it holds. I believe an auditory history is one of the only possible ones available at this point, though it should be approached with caution. The roots of Jazz could surely be traced sonically, but do there even exist enough records to piece this together? Did there ever? Not addressed in what I read of Williams' book, nor Szwed's, is that the percentage of active artists who end up recording is always very low (and was especially before our current technology had proliferated, especially with CD burning and MP3 sharing capabilities so widely available). This means, more or less, that the diversity of sounds that existed all over the country during the formative years of what became known as Jazz never existed beyond that point (and this, as with many notes I make, is true for any period). Here it may be hard or impossible to create this solid sonic timeline of the evolution of sounds that influenced and became Jazz. It is certainly a positive (and fun) process to go through, but at this point it will only create a partial history, and one that continually looks to unidentifiable origins. Then where else does one turn?
With a musical style, and, indeed, culture, that has affected millions of people - across many lines of difference - definitions become less important, each being personal. What, becomes my focus, instead, is the sharing of a multiplicity of stories. These, together create what we know as "Jazz." Just as Hip-Hop means something different to me than any other person in the world. These are both communal forms - they are performative, they have "scenes" surrounding them, often only locally. That said, I don't think anybody should feel free to claim Jazz, to claim to know it, what its "essence" is, or the like, without first taking into account the position they bring to the conversation (and that's, if those things are even knowable). For example, it is accepted across the sample of readings I've done thus far that Jazz has its roots in the experience of African Americans. But to put this in my own words: within their own bodies, black originators housed a unique confluence of musical expression and creative voice that reached back in some ways to Africa - even if the work is not necessarily politicized as such, the very existence as an "other" signifies the history of African slavery in the U.S. - and was also very rooted in that experience in the United States and its history - both experiences within the continent and on the way here, but also the European traditions influencing what "North American Culture" or, maybe more accurately, society, presented to them. This, of course, could be said about every artist of every kind from every style of music - and art in general. But it's so important that that never be forgotten, no matter how many decades pass. The changes and innovations that have pushed along the style since the earlier forms of Jazz, then into bebop and swing mid-twentieth-century, and to what one could currently hear at the Dakota Jazz Club have not erased the origins or history. But, they perpetuate a synthesizing and dynamic form.
Jazz is like a tree, with its roots going ever deeper, as people continue to look back at early innovators, as Hip-Hop artists dig through and sample Jazz, synthesizing it and coming out with something not entirely new, but different (but is it also Jazz then? Is Hip-Hop Jazz?!), and while all of that is happening, its branches grow ever-higher, searching for new directions, innovations, and styles.
The struggle to answer this question is evident, as I stated earlier, of the limits of our current approach to history writing. For better or worse, the "Hip-Hop generation" has at its disposal many recent technological developments that allow a much broader group of listeners (and non-listeners) to comment on and write the histories of Hip-Hop. Blogs, like this, provide outlets for the creation of histories and archives - THE democratic medium for self-expression, as hundreds have pointed out - by anyone who has access to computers and the internet. While there is the characteristic lack of accountability in such an unmediated source, with a lot of disengaged and disengaging writing posted, there are many people invested in their work. I hope to be another of those who contribute to the discussion. It's unfortunate such a range of expression was not available during the rise of Jazz to document that process.
That's Jazz as of 10/9/09
Readings used:
John Szwed, "Jazz 101" (Sections: 1, 2)
Martin Williams, "The Jazz Tradition" (Intro)
Burton Peretti, "Jazz in American Culture" (Intro)
Future readings:
Scott Deveaux "Constructing the Jazz Tradition" (reread)
Amiri Baraka "Blues People"
Kodwo Eshun "More Brilliant than the Sun"
Further reading in Szwed, Williams, Peretti
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