'Deconstructionist' Music

yeah, i know, even so

would like to learn a bit more about 19th century bway stuff tbh

yes, the jazz of the 20s was integrated or at least available to the broadway shows of the 40s, and i think the swing end of things in the 30s was available to them too

i don't think it was called broadway at that point, it was called music hall, right?

I think the style of musical theater is just a fusion of opera and other theatrical music with the popular music of the day. So during the jazz age it absorbed jazz, and in the '60s we got Hair and Andrew Lloyd Weber.

i mean, this is said to be the big pop number from the first modern-style broadway musical (instrumental version):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PREholMWYUQ

damn those dudes must be old by now. what year was that modern-style broadway musical? 1930?

xpost re: musical theater

each bit has its own independent thing from opera and other theatrical music, like music hall has its own musical vocabulary, broadway has a separate one, "show tunes" have their pieces

but yeah always it absorbs the other popular music of the day ... because like all popular music that's just what it does

it's from the black crook (ahem), had its broadway premiere in 1866!

he means JAZZ not BOP

There's a distinct continuity there though. Gershwin brought a 20s jazz influence into musical theater, then bop musicians in the '40s were heavily influenced by Gershwin, so by the time Coltrane covered MFT I don't think it's fair to say that there was a discontinuity between jazz and musical theater.

ha so probably a historically accurate take by the cornet crew

god only knows

well "oh show tunes how square" at least.

you cannot reasonably be arguing that 1) show tunes aren't a little square and/or 2) that hipness has nothing to do with jazz, right? there is an inherent squareness to showtunes that gets unsquared by jazz!

I mean, the irony is kind of that - jazz in the 50s/60s is cool as fuck, everybody knows it, it's a scene to make if you're hip; I think maybe when a non-jazz tune gets bop treatment there's that element present in almost any cover version of "look at this, a tune you might not have noticed is hip really is plenty hip" - but that is irony! Not the mean ol', bad ol', irony-as-insult that people seem to have in mind here, but literary irony - ironic juxtaposition of modes. It's a thing I think!

you cannot reasonably be arguing that 1) show tunes aren't a little square and/or 2) that hipness has nothing to do with jazz, right?

we live in a post keith jarret's sweaters era of jazz

benny goodman?

i agree that having " a love supreme" is almost as hip as having a sound of music LP

you cannot reasonably be arguing that 1) show tunes aren't a little square and/or 2) that hipness has nothing to do with jazz, right? there is an inherent squareness to showtunes that gets unsquared by jazz!

...I mean, the irony is kind of that - jazz in the 50s/60s is cool as fuck, everybody knows it, it's a scene to make if you're hip; I think maybe when a non-jazz tune gets bop treatment there's that element present in almost any cover version of "look at this, a tune you might not have noticed is hip really is plenty hip" - but that is irony! Not the mean ol', bad ol', irony-as-insult that people seem to have in mind here, but literary irony - ironic juxtaposition of modes. It's a thing I think!

― we don't wanna miss a THING!!! (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, September 5, 2012 3:16 PM (24 minutes ago)

aero completely, ridiculously otm at this point. have to chalk any argument up to challops.

first on the agenda that tuesday was greensleeves, a traditional english folksong which had become a staple in the quartet's repertoire. the cynical might attribute it's inclusion to the success of my favorite things the year before - it is after all another jazz waltz with a simple melody. more likely commercial considerations just happened to concide with coltrane's own interests - the first of a succession of jazz waltzes which he used to further explore the waltz format.

Greensleeves is included because Coltrane, in recent months has been studying folk music ... "it's one of the most beautiful folk melodies i've ever heard ... it's written in 6/8 and we do it just as written"

david wild from the reissue is the first, dom cerulli on the original is the second

I mean, the irony is kind of that - jazz in the 50s/60s is cool as fuck, everybody knows it, it's a scene to make if you're hip; I think maybe when a non-jazz tune gets bop treatment there's that element present in almost any cover version of "look at this, a tune you might not have noticed is hip really is plenty hip" - but that is irony! Not the mean ol', bad ol', irony-as-insult that people seem to have in mind here, but literary irony - ironic juxtaposition of modes. It's a thing I think!

ok sure. that's a pretty large leap from where the conversation started which was the idea of being "openly hostile or critical" of a genre and of the implication that My Favorite Things was an innovator of that attitude within jazz.

"a tune you might not have noticed is hip really is plenty hip" is a different attitude than "this tune is really not hip so isn't it funny that I would lower myself to cover it" or "this tune is really not hip so let me obliterate it beyond recognition" which are both dynamics that are arguably at play in certain rock covers mentioned itt. Or even "this tune is considered hip but it's really kind of trash so I'll cover it in a deliberately horrible way."

that also otm

xp

"my favorite things" LP is made of two gershwin compositions, one cole porter and one rodgers & hammerstein. nowhere in the original liner notes does anyone make note of any of the "square" sources, except at one point coltrane notes that lester young taught him to appreciate simplicity as a springboard to more complex expression (this idea is more vaguely pointed out than i make it sound)

and I'm not really convinced that the kind of irony you're talking about is so superior to the cynical, sarcastic amoeba irony you dismiss. basically to find MFT ironic you have to think it's sooo weird that a hip jazz cat would deign to listen to such square white music as Rodgers and Hammerstein which is kind of an adolescent and musically provincial attitude.

xp

nah i'm pretty sure he thought ella was a dunce

the late great is persuaded that there was neither ever hip nor square and certainly neither term ever had anything to do with jazz

and I'm not really convinced that the kind of irony you're talking about is so superior to the cynical, sarcastic amoeba irony you dismiss. basically to find MFT ironic you have to think it's sooo weird that a hip jazz cat would deign to listen to such square white music as Rodgers and Hammerstein which is kind of an adolescent and musically provincial attitude.

no you don't! this is your baggage on the word "irony" - you're hauling a bunch of assumptions and bizarre accusations to the table to stick to your point, which is rooted in zero. " it's sooo weird that a hip jazz cat would deign to listen to such square white music as Rodgers and Hammerstein" <--- this exists in your brain, but seems so attackable to you that you place it externally. nobody's saying it, except you.

maybe what coltrane, et al. were trying to do was posit that "hip" and "square" were meaningless signifiers...and moreover that perhaps it was hip TO BE square.

les rallizes denudes = music as event-machine!

i think he might have genuinely enjoyed "my favorite things" and "greensleeves"

greensleeves is a fuckin' jam who fronts on greensleeves???

lol upper m

i think he might have genuinely enjoyed "my favorite things" and "greensleeves"

the only people who contest this are the phantoms in yr brain tho

that's how i usually describe ILXors to my IRL friends

lol

do I know you by an old screenname I can never keep track of who people turned into

I'm singing greensleeves right now

one time in like school or something we were reading the canterbury tales and had to do some sort of performance based on diff stories and I went up in front of the class and sang greensleeves for like 5 mins because I forgot to do my hw

that strat did not work as well in math class

kids do your hw or you'll post itt

you might remember me as v4hid or m00nsh1p. otherwise our only connection is i think some superfans of yours from encinitas.

oh no shit! dude some of yr thoughts on music had a real impact on how I listen way back glad to know which person you are.

maybe what coltrane, et al. were trying to do was posit that "hip" and "square" were meaningless signifiers...and moreover that perhaps it was hip TO BE square.

^^^

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Maple

"who banded together with the intent of becoming the numismatists of rock and roll."

haha, who changed this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1ZUYOIh8Wg

also how did this thread digress into a huge debate about coltrane and his ostensible kitschiness?

the usual way--one poster made a claim, two hundred posters registered disagreement.

i just listened to "my favorite things" yesterday with my family and was struck by how straight the reading of the song sounded

my parents who are definitely jazz squares and rodgers/hammerstein fans did not jump out of chairs and go "wtf is this madman doing to this song?!?"

When I read DL's opening post a few minutes ago I immediately thought "Big Flame!" - seems to me they were doing something close to what Dog Latin was on about in the mid-80s, in a post-punk / indie context. The reason I mention this is because they referred to themselves (half-jokingly I assume) as "cubist" - their last single was entitled "Cubist Pop Manifesto" and cubism might be a better comparison for the tendency DL was getting at than deconstruction?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KrkJ28c0fk

There's something to watch, not the most "cubist" of their stuff but whatevs.

Cheers Tim, I'll check this out.