Posted on 12/18/2009 9:43:09 AM PST by Still Thinking
Hat tip to Radley Balko for this one.
Just when you thought you'd seen it all...no. To the ever-growing list of insults to human dignity we can now apparently add the musical categorization police.
Jazzman Larry Ochs has seen many things during 40 years playing his saxophone around the world but, until this week, nobody had ever called the police on him.That changed on Monday night however, when's Spain's pistol-carrying Civil Guard police force descended on the Sigüenza Jazz festival to investigate allegations that Ochs's music was not, well, jazz.
Let's put aside, for the moment, that what we call "jazz" is just about the most loosely-defined genre of music there is. It's like the catch-all bucket for anything that doesn't fit a more well-defined category. Put aside as well that it is usually recognized as an American art form, and here we have Spanish police passing judgment on an American performer working in this American art form.
All that aside, we still have here a person who expects full well to be able to call on the state to act as his personal strong-arm, to enforce his own will upon peaceable others, and a state absolutely willing to throw its weight around when nothing that could remotely be called a crime has happened.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
Very funny. Career prospects for musicians are bleak.
Well, I missed him but I'm very familiar with the world's weakest union having been a member for quite a long time. ;0) Let it lapse before I moved to virginia, however.
I was a professional brass player - classical and jazz/big band - for over 20 years until I got hooked by those new-fangled computer thingies and got into high tech for awhile.
The perfect accompaniment to Yoko Ono vocals! [who stepped on the cat?]
Looked at that link you posted.
Well, for Free Jazz, that’s on the very tame side IMO.
I’m no fan of Free Jazz, but here’s my take on that particular style: Impossible to listen to as a recording. That would be like volunteeringly sticking a screw driver though one’s eardrum. Decidedly unpleasant. Should only be experienced (note ‘experienced’ as opposed to ‘enjoyed’) as a live performance.
Now then, Larry Ochs (as per your link)? Heavenly harmony...compared e.g. to a Peter Brötzmann gig I happened to attend (why? why?) back in about ‘83 or so in the living room of a Berlin apartment (perhaps he was hiding from the Spanish Inquisition?)...err, yes, weird and the crowd was rather small.
To paraphrase Frank Zappa: Free Jazz makes you wish you were dead AND it does smell funny.
≤}B^)
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