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5. Toward a Blues Aesthetic
- University of California Press
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109 Ralph Ellison makes the above comment (1964b, 224–25) in a review of Robert Reisner’s Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker (1962). He feels that Reisner—who recounts an apocryphal tale of how Parker got the nickname “Bird” but does not explore the myriad implications of nicknames and their signification of movement from given to achieved status—has missed the opportunity to uncover something of Parker’s importance for those who gave to him and continued to use the nickname . In somewhat similar fashion, commentators on African American musics have frequently focused so narrowly on the surface features of jazz performance that one barely glimpses in their work what else might make the music meaningful. These analysts have, in effect, recounted stories without exploring the myriad ways of reading them and their significance. This chapter examines some of the meanings that emerge from jazz performance based on statements by musicians regarding their approaches to musical events and their interpretation and evaluation. Through identification of their common concerns, I propose that they have developed and operate within the parameters of a set of normative and evaluative criteria that I call a “blues aesthetic.”1 In defining that aesthetic, I explore its foundations in African American culture and other, parallel and competing, discourses and aesthetic formations. chapter 5 Toward a Blues Aesthetic Symbolic birds, myth and ritual—what strange metaphors to arise during the discussion of a book about a jazz musician! And yet, who knows very much of what jazz is really about? Or how shall we ever know until we are willing to confront anything and everything which it sweeps across our path? —Ralph Ellison, “On Bird, Bird-Watching, and Jazz” 110 | Blowin’ the Blues Away musicians’ normative views of jazz performance In their normative statements about jazz performance and jazz audiences , the musicians interviewed for this study express a number of concerns that, taken cumulatively, express a considered vision of how one has to approach the varied facets of “musicking.”2 Those concerns can be characterized as the importance of having an individual voice; developing the ability to balance and play with a number of different musical parameters in performance; understanding the cultural foundations of the music; being able oneself to “bring something to the music ”; creating music that is “open enough” to allow other musicians to bring something despite or because of what has been provided structurally or contextually; and being open for transcendence to “the next level” of performance, the spiritual level. All are important for the ability of a musician to communicate with listeners and other performers, individually and collectively. Below, I discuss those concerns and how each has been explained by the musicians consulted for this study. Perhaps the chief concern of every musician I interviewed, whether formally or informally, is having an immediately distinguishable individual sound. The word sound refers not only to timbre but also to particular usages of harmonic, rhythmic, and textural resources in performance and composition. The way in which such individual sounds are achieved varies from instrument to instrument, and from musician to musician, but a number of variables, including both motivated and unmotivated decisions, enter into the process. For players of wind instruments, for example, the embouchure (the position of the mouth relative to the instrument ), the type of mouthpiece, the manufacturer of the instrument, and the amount of air blown into it are among the factors that determine the timbre of an individual’s sound. Players of string instruments such as the guitar write their sonic signatures through their techniques (plucking with fingers or plectra made of various materials), the size and type of strings they use, and the manufacturers and materials of their favorite guitars, as well as through their preferred amplifiers and settings for equalization and electronic effects (such as reverberation and chorus). Players interested in achieving such distinctive sounds listen and practice diligently to determine what type of sound pleases them or expresses their particular attitude(s) toward music. Pianist Bruce Barth says that he is constantly absorbing ideas and techniques from the playing of other musicians. When he sits down to practice, however, he focuses on those [44.213.80.174] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 12:04 GMT) Toward a Blues Aesthetic | 111 ideas and techniques that seem “unique to him,” that is, the ones that are most appealing to him, and he tries to “amplify them and develop them” (Barth 1994). Similarly, the saxophonists I interviewed tend to start their...