I’ve never really understood free jazz and nobody I know who likes it has ever convinced me that it’s anything more than a petulant and obscurantist rebellion against convention and a platform for primadonnas an irritant.
I say that from a position of profound ignorance – I can hardly tell you how profound. I’m bound to get in trouble for this from at least one quarter.
Nevertheless, I’m averse to free jazz I feel I’m destined to remain ignorant about free jazz.
So it tickles that bad arguments are becoming known as ‘jazz’ (can’t point to any examples – just something I’ve noticed lately). The type of bad argument that’s, like free jazz, an unending rudderless deviation peppered with squawks, aimlessly repetitive and ultimately ending up nowhere.
Hey – doesn’t Gilad Atzmon play jazz? I wonder if it’s free? Bet it is.
Jazz certainly is a dirty word.
According to the Viz profanisaurus, “Jazz” is a type of magazine; also known as a Grot, Scud, Grumble or Bongo mag. Therefore “free jazz” bust be the sort of bongo mags one would find disassembled and discarded under hedges in parks near secondary schools.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_%28word%29#Association_of_jazz_with_sex
I love anything free, and I love a few Jazz artists, like Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Keith Jarret, Jack DeJonette.
Gilad Atzmon, on the other hand, gets on my nerves whatever form he chooses for his pompous self-righteousness.
[audio src="http://blip.tv/file/get/107ans-theEvilsGirlsElectro219.mp3" /]
In a kind day
You met a kind girl
and this kind girl
have a kind smile
then
you got to the park with the lovely girl
and then
you met people
who walk on
cool flowers
the kind girl
want to kiss you
and you kiss her smoth lips
then the kind people walk on your kind flowers and
watch out your girl
and then your so jalous
then find other park
with other flowers and may be tries
and then fine girl
tell you something strange
she ask you if you yould like to go
with her in a fine town
if the fine girl
ask you that
have to ask yourself
the folowing and important question
where did people go ?
who is behind the miror ?
the kind men find kind girl
didn’t knew that she was the slave of another bad master
If you’ve got spicy in your brain
know that the way you take
bring you to the evil’s girls
Many jazz artists resented the word and preferred more specific terms like bebop, hard bop, etc. As Sidney Bechet wrote, jazz “that’s a name the white people have given to the music.”