From: ujwb@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Jeff Beer)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Subject: Re: Dizzy Gillespie - RIP (sob)
Date: 10 Jan 1993 15:46:18 -0600
Organization: Educational Computing Network
NNTP-Posting-Host: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu

In article <ALLMUSIC%93010720451815@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU> MASUDA@SJSUVM1.BITNET (Mike) writes:
>
>IMPO, I think that the next innovation in jazz will incorporate
>other senses, like visual arts.  Lighting has been a part tof the live
>set for a long time, but I think with the advent of computer generated
>graphics and real-time holography (in the near future), there will be
>more for the artist to control.  MIDI will play a big part in the
>control of these things.

Sun Ra has done multimedia things like that.  But remember, the grits
and gravey of jazz is the interaction in improvisation, if you go from
the music of Louis Armstrong to Ornette Coleman, that is as much 
constant as any stylistic feature.  Although both are steeped in the
blues.

>Other things to consider:  Drums do not have to be the way they are now.
>Drum kits were derived from the "contraption" put together by
>percussionists back in the early 1900s for early jazz combos.
>It is a handy configuration, having a snare and a kick with a few
>toms and cymbals for good measure, but it should not be the
>ultimate configuration.  In India, tabla drums are used--why not
>see where this leads to?  How about MIDI tabla sets?  Or electronic

Oh yeah, look at Han Bennink and Tony Oxley.  They have real lost-and-found
drum kits.

>It's not a matter of creating a new style of jazz anymore, because jazz
>has become so varied, it is near impossible to create a new niche
>that no one has ever thought of doing.  All of the permutations
>and fusions have probably been done in jazz.  I think it is a matter
>  /* deleted stuff */
>(this is the 5 step "evolution" I saw in musical trends.  If it holds true
>(and there are many on this list who say this scheme is poppycock), then
>we are at a standstill in jazz evolution, UNTIL there are new genres of
>music invented to fuse WITH (pardon the preposition at the end of the
>sentence).  This is where world music comes into play as a key role in
>the direction of jazz in the future.  Fusion did it, because it opened
>the floodgates to all possibilities.  Jazz can be anything now, short of
>pink noise.

Again, I think for now all the world music has been mined.  It has looked at
India, Brazil, Africa, Bali, Japan, Latin America, where else can you go?

I remember riding on a Greek boat to an island, with the Greek music
playing.  Could this ever become jazz-ized?  Probably not.  I only heard
one piece that I felt might possibly work over in a jazz concept.

Although, I always wonder with all the Indians in the U.S. now, in New
York and Chicago, that a jazz drummer from the Indian community doesn't
emerge with a lot of the Indian rhythm concept.  Don't know if it will
happen, I don't think the Indian tradition of learning music immigrated
with them.  The only one I know is Trilok, but there certianly could be
more.

But still, I think there could be a new style, and it could even be tonal
and all that.  Most of jazz is tonal, from the European classical
tradition, but it is clearly not European classical music.

>As long as jazz is something tasty, I'll bite.

Or how about, jazz is out to lunch, but that is where I like to eat!

Jeff
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