Working within the medium
While visiting London this summer I attended a solo jazz/electronic music performance at The Spitz. I enjoyed the music for the most part, but one aspect of the performance just wouldn't stop nagging me all night. The solo performer played keyboard and a variety of interesting electronic devices. He was a jazz pianist; clearly well-versed in be-bop and hard bop styles. My difficulties with the evening's music don't reside in the performer's abilities but rather the performer's conception of the solo electronic performance.
The term allochthonous is often used in the context of geography and refers to, for example, a collection of rocks l that is found in a location where they are not indigenous. This is the perfect description for what I heard this night at The Spitz. All of the material played was allochthonous, meaning that the it was originally conceived for a group. You would expect to find it in a quartet setting but instead it was part of a solo performance. I'm not saying that this was a bad programming choice on the performer's part. Rather, I observed that the nature of the performance did not creatively rectify the incongruity between the music and a solo musician.
The best example I can draw from that evening was the performance of the tune "Angelica" by Duke Ellington (from Duke Ellington & John Coltrane). On the Ellington/Coltrane record this piece is played by a jazz quartet: drums, bass, piano, and tenor saxophone. In this setting the musicians are listening to each other, interacting musically, improvising around the melody, and playing solos.
The solo electronic performance was, interestingly, exactly the same. There was a melody with bass and percussion, a keyboard solo, and a loose version of the melody to conclude. The version of "Angelica" I heard at The Spitz took the same overall shape as the performance of the Ellington & Coltrane recording. Why? I couldn't help from letting this interrupt what would have been an otherwise enjoyable night out listening to music.
I think that the difficulty I had lies in the idea that live electronic music has, rather than define its own traditions, unquestioningly taken on many of the traditions of other music. It's a very interesting idea to perform "Angelica" on electronics, but why do it as it has already been done for years by numerous jazz quartets? Live electronics present many possibilities beyond the means of a quartet—why not celebrate these possibilities and use them to craft something truly original?
Francisco López has an excellent essay that addresses a similar concern, entitled "Against the Stage". He writes:
"What is more important, I believe, is that by blindly following this tradition [rock, pop, or jazz performance] it wastes the potential for strengthening a most important breakthrough in music of perhaps historical proportions."
López's point here addresses his concerns with performance and audience reception of electronic music whereas my thoughts are more focused on specific matters of musical arrangement. However, I believe that what we are discussing can be thought of as two sides to the same coin. When electronic instruments are used in a performance, things change musically. And this is what was so frustrating about the performance I attended. That night things didn't change musically.
I titled this entry "Working within the medium." That's exactly what should have been done that night at The Spitz. If one's medium is live solo electronics then do something that can only be done with live solo electronics. Don't attempt to create a performance that forces the medium into something that it is wholly unequipped to do. As musicians we should be dedicated to looking for the possibilities afforded by, for example, live solo electronics. Once these possibilities have been discovered then start working out how "Angelica," "Take the Coltrane," "My Little Brown Book," and the rest of the Ellington/Coltrane record can be interpreted. Ask how a song or musical idea can be best expressed given the medium of a performance. But don't rehash old models. It's just too damn tedious.
The term allochthonous is often used in the context of geography and refers to, for example, a collection of rocks l that is found in a location where they are not indigenous. This is the perfect description for what I heard this night at The Spitz. All of the material played was allochthonous, meaning that the it was originally conceived for a group. You would expect to find it in a quartet setting but instead it was part of a solo performance. I'm not saying that this was a bad programming choice on the performer's part. Rather, I observed that the nature of the performance did not creatively rectify the incongruity between the music and a solo musician.
The best example I can draw from that evening was the performance of the tune "Angelica" by Duke Ellington (from Duke Ellington & John Coltrane). On the Ellington/Coltrane record this piece is played by a jazz quartet: drums, bass, piano, and tenor saxophone. In this setting the musicians are listening to each other, interacting musically, improvising around the melody, and playing solos.
The solo electronic performance was, interestingly, exactly the same. There was a melody with bass and percussion, a keyboard solo, and a loose version of the melody to conclude. The version of "Angelica" I heard at The Spitz took the same overall shape as the performance of the Ellington & Coltrane recording. Why? I couldn't help from letting this interrupt what would have been an otherwise enjoyable night out listening to music.
I think that the difficulty I had lies in the idea that live electronic music has, rather than define its own traditions, unquestioningly taken on many of the traditions of other music. It's a very interesting idea to perform "Angelica" on electronics, but why do it as it has already been done for years by numerous jazz quartets? Live electronics present many possibilities beyond the means of a quartet—why not celebrate these possibilities and use them to craft something truly original?
Francisco López has an excellent essay that addresses a similar concern, entitled "Against the Stage". He writes:
"What is more important, I believe, is that by blindly following this tradition [rock, pop, or jazz performance] it wastes the potential for strengthening a most important breakthrough in music of perhaps historical proportions."
López's point here addresses his concerns with performance and audience reception of electronic music whereas my thoughts are more focused on specific matters of musical arrangement. However, I believe that what we are discussing can be thought of as two sides to the same coin. When electronic instruments are used in a performance, things change musically. And this is what was so frustrating about the performance I attended. That night things didn't change musically.
I titled this entry "Working within the medium." That's exactly what should have been done that night at The Spitz. If one's medium is live solo electronics then do something that can only be done with live solo electronics. Don't attempt to create a performance that forces the medium into something that it is wholly unequipped to do. As musicians we should be dedicated to looking for the possibilities afforded by, for example, live solo electronics. Once these possibilities have been discovered then start working out how "Angelica," "Take the Coltrane," "My Little Brown Book," and the rest of the Ellington/Coltrane record can be interpreted. Ask how a song or musical idea can be best expressed given the medium of a performance. But don't rehash old models. It's just too damn tedious.
