![]() ![]() …It is hard to name Armstrong in the same sentence with Mozart or Stravinsky, but not difficult at all to mention Ornette Coleman or Anthony Braxton with those heavy-weights of classical music. Most books on the history of jazz music, even the ones published very recently… tend to devote 80–90% of the pages to jazz before the Sixties, and then to quickly summarize (with countless omissions) the last 40 years… The paradox, of course, is that a lot more has happened “since” the 1960s than “until” the 1960s… by far, the greatest contributions of jazz to the history of humankind came in the second half of the century, for example with composers (repeat: composers) such as Charlie Mingus, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane. Unfortunately, there are few guides to modern art jazz that are aimed at the beginner. The best guide I know of is by Piero Scaruffi, who rightly complains: “Art jazz,” as I use the term, refers to that subset of jazz music that, rather than faithfully savoring the old styles, or re-interpreting old standards, tries to express new musical ideas, a la most modern classical music. See also: A beginner’s guide to modern classical music.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |