RE: Living Music

[shandley <shandley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Good question.  My $0.02:

Then the question of interpretation of one's "lived expression" becomes an
issue: case-in-point John Coltrane, inspirer of legions of (likely) bogus
saxophone-toting spiritualists, very much (socially) a product of his
historical situation.  The "late" Coltrane (1964-7) seemed utterly baffled
when asked about why his music was "angry," and equally bewildered by the
Marxist jazz critic Frank Kofsky's attempts to situate him in the Black Power
movement.  Was anyone "right"?

I suppose my point is that the "it" in question is highly ambiguous, and that
Marilyn Manson and Ani Difranco (herself super-talented, IMHO) say LOTS of
things.  Did Charlie Parker play "like" an alcoholic and heroin addict?  For
that matter, did John Coltrane play "like" a vegetarian and clean-and-sober
individual, or "like" a spiritualist, or "like" a revolutionary?

I think it's clear that life experience can have tremendous, encompassing
effects on an artist's work, but I also think Parker and Manson and DiFranco
are perfectly willing to mystify their professions and pull us into a weird
formalism with statements like that, implying that there is no separation
between the artist and art, and that studying one is incomplete w/o studying
the other.

Sorry for the decidedly non-Frank-related post.  Back to lurk.

-----s, who is excited as all get out by the prospect of the new Evan Parker
Electroacoustic album, whether Evan "lives it" or not.

>"If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn."
>   --Charlie Parker
>
>ani difranco has a similar line in one of her songs,
>
>"If you don't live what you sing about, you're mirror is going to
>crack."

>...But somehow these lines by Parker and by
>Difranco seems, intuitively, correct.
>
>split,
>ken