From: ujwb@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Jeff Beer)
Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.music.bluenote
Subject: Re: r.m.bluenote --> r.m.jazz + r.m.blues (was: rec.music.jazz)
Date: 28 Sep 92 16:42:21 GMT
Organization: Educational Computing Network

In article <RSHAPIRO.92Sep28120124@kariba.bbn.com> rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro) writes:
>In article <Bv9wJ6.9FM@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> ujwb@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Jeff Beer) writes:
>When I said the innovations "came with" these non-blues songs, what I
>meant was that he chose *these*, rather than blues, as his vehicle. I
>didn't mean to suggest that it was the songs themselves that somehow
>brought the innovations with them. On the other, I did mean to suggest
>that blues form did not provide a good basis for his explorations; and
>that much else, along with blues, went into his version of jazz. Blues
>wasn't any more important than any other factor.

I disagree even more.  The 12 bar blues were just as important as the
Rhythm and Cherokee changes.   I don't know if anyone has done a
statistical analysis of his compositions, but he wrote many tunes on the
blues.  He also wrote 12 bar blues tunes with substitute changes, using
roughly the same pattern as he did on the A section of Confirmation.
There were other tunes with different albiet less radical substituion
changes.  Blues wasn't important in any other factor?  I simply cannot
understand that.  So much of his style is loaded with idiomatic blues
phrases.

>Yes, this was one of the claims I was making.
>
>   But that is isolating the technique from the aesthetic.
>   You could turn the argument on its head and say he expanded the blues
>   aesthetic so it incorporated these advanced harmonic procedures.
>
>One could say that. But what blues players picked up on this
>expansion? None that I know of. The bebop revolution didn't have much
>of an affect on blues musicians. Likewise other jazz innovations --
>there was no free-blues movement, for instance (note that discussions
>of Capt Beefheart's music, which might be described as free blues,
>generally take place on the de facto rock newsgroup, r.m.misc). I
>think this head-turning is pushing the bounds of credibility.

I think you find a lot of blues bands with Charlie Parker style
saxophone players.

>As for the breakthrough, I'm not sure we really disagree. Do you
>really want to claim that the aesthetic of Salt Peanuts or Ko Ko is a
>blues aesthetic? If so, you'll have to present some arguments, as it's
>certainly not obvious. If not, then isolating the technique from the
>aesthetic doesn't really matter, because the aesthetic isn't blues
>anyway. 

Salt Peanuts has a lot of call and response riffs that are common in
blues.  I am sure I could go to the score and point out melodic
lines using the blues scales.  Not now, I don't carry it around with
me.  Also in the solos.
>
>This notion of using a "blues aesthetic" as a basis for r.m.bluenote
>is kind of a tricky business. You haven't quite said what you mean by
>blues aesthetic, but the way it's often described seems to imply that
>any music with deep feeling or emotive expressiveness partakes of this
>aesthetic. But that's awfully general, on the one hand, and too
>restrictive on the other. Too general because it would imply, for
>instance, that the great bulk of country music, which is deeply
>expressive and often borrows blues forms, belongs on r.m.bluenote.
>And too restrictive because it would imply that some contemporary
>improvised music which explicitly rejects emotive expressiveness,
>music which I think we all agree belongs on the jazz newsgroup doesn't
>belong there. I don't think the very general notion of a blues
>aesthetic can be used to sort out the Usenet hierarchy.

Of course, when you talk about aesthetics, it is a subject in which
rigorous definitions are not possible.  There is much about blues and
jazz that are different, but I think there is an essence in common.
There is not much more I can say.  There are musical features which can
be spelled out,  but that doesn't necessarily mean something on an
emotional level. The classical example I used earlier illustrates this. 
I don't hear it in country music.  As for the contemporary forms, see
below.

But I feel there is one, and you can find it in the majority of jazz
musicians.

>   I think there is some essence of the blues that is at the heart of all
>   styles of jazz.
>
>Unfortunately, if we try to identify what that essence might be, even
>in vague terms, we run into the problems of the blues aesthetic
>described above. I really don't think there is any such essence, not

see above

>least because jazz is such open-ended music. Jazz doesn't have any
>single essence, blues or otherwise. Forcing it into a blues aesthetic,
>even a very general one, is just a fetter; ask Derek Bailey. 

Although it is open ended, it also is very tradition based in all its
forms, including the one the Derek Bailey is a part of.  When you
consider the charactaristics of the traditions, then I think you find emotional
essence that I am talking of.  Individual players may have exceptions,
but as you look into the movements they belong to, you will find more
of the blues roots.

Jeff