marjorie says...
In his commentary on Counterpunch, jazz pianist George Duke laments what he calls the Europeanization of jazz music, claiming that as an art form contemporary musicians are moving jazz away from it African American roots. He makes the point that jazz is not about perfect execution, like a classical piece should be, but rather all about improvisation and attempting new ideas during performance. Here is an excerpt from the article:
“Now this is important, because many young jazz pianists sound like they have rehearsed everything down to the last sixteenth note. And even if they haven't, it feels that way. Most of the playing I've heard is virtually mistake free.
“But something is missing! I have to look hard to find that free expression of emotion, living on a tight rope, experimenting, trying difficult passages and maybe not totally executing it correctly but making the attempt.
“I've always felt that Miles Davis' blown notes were part of his musical canvas. If he played all the notes spot on, would his music have felt the same--I doubt it!
“And if that's true, then perfection must be overrated, at least as far as jazz is concerned.
“Yeah I know, I can hear it now--"the pursuit of perfection is a noble quest for any artist." That's true --but when technique becomes more important than telling a musical story or surfing the wave of spontaneous thought, then I believe it is a misguided quest.”
I love that last sentence. As I was reading this, I couldn’t help but think that perfection is overrated in terms of many things. In this sense, for instance, the classical music of political philosophy would be ideology. And to play it perfectly would lead to a bit of rigidity in ones thinking. I guess my preference is to think of political philosophy as being more akin to jazz…found everywhere, from our base communities all the way to up on high. I can think of more analogies as well. Something tells me this is going to be the theme of my Tuesday...
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