'Deconstructionist' Music

but let's clear - your claim is that to hear irony in jazz renditions of non-jazz tunes is to misread what the players are doing, is that right? fine if so, I think you're imputing all kinds of alien stuff to the claim of irony, just making sure

No. I just think the importance of that irony is vastly overstated in the case of MFT. And "jazz renditions of non-jazz tunes" is the entire foundation of jazz!

And I think this line of thinking sets up a weird dynamic where a black artist can only take influence from a white artist in an ironic way.

No. I just think the importance of that irony is vastly overstated in the case of MFT.

yeah I mean - I agree with this, as I say, I think there's a mild irony, an awareness of contrast and of transformation, but if there are people claiming there's a sarcasm (as we might imagine in Zappa covering something from a B'way show) that's obviously wrong. But I don't know that there are such people!

well there are people itt calling MFT kitsch, which would make the cover more ironic than if you don't consider it kitsch.

coltrane had played 'surrey with the fringe on top' with the davis quartet, what, three years before?

also your original mention of MFT was in the context of contenderizer's "talking about music that seems to establish a kind of love/hate relationship with a specific genre. music that is in some sense of that genre, yet remains openly hostile to or critical of it"
xp

but i'd want to claim, or at least be willing to concede

i. 'surrey with the fringe on top' is (by the standards of r+h, or any external standard) really f'n bad
ii. 'my favorite things' actually isn't
iii. it's not hard to hear *things going on* in coltrane doing 'my favorite things' that aren't going on in 'surrey' (which is on ... cookin' with? relaxin' with?)

I guess you could argue that jazz criticizes musical theater by stripping away the corny and sentimental lyrics and entire theater aspect and using it as raw harmonic and melodic material. The problem for me is that I think MFT supports two contradictory ironic readings:

The current popular reading: Coltrane the hip jazz guy covers a piece of square white kitsch and makes it hip
or
IMO, a reading that may have been more accurate to the time: A piece of popular, acclaimed "high art" music is recontextualized as underground club music.

the popular reading is based on a contemporary understanding of the worth and relevance of musical theater which doesn't reflect it's actual status and cultural dominance in 1961.

its like skrillex covering u2

i. 'surrey with the fringe on top' is (by the standards of r+h, or any external standard) really f'n bad

I disagree. The rhythm is interesting as is the repeated note which then jumps up higher at the end of each line. pretty easy to see why it would work in a jazz context.

'surrey with the fringe on top' is (by the standards of r+h, or any external standard) really f'n bad

"Surrey" was the absolute favorite song of the African-American woman who used to host a jazz program locally. I probably heard every jazz version extant via her show, and I'm sure she didn't view it as square white kitsch. I'm inclined to side with wk's second reading.

the popular reading is based on a contemporary understanding of the worth and relevance of musical theater which doesn't reflect it's actual status and cultural dominance in 1961.

SUPER OTM

OTM w. a big red cape and yellow S on its chest

this isn't a case of coltrane covering show tunes, its him doing jazz changes over what was a much-beloved - and deservedly so, it's very beautiful - popular song at the time from a broadway show that actually had - for the era - very serious undertones

nowadays we're like "oh show tunes how kitschy" or whatever like he's going into peaches & herb territory. no.

the late great your contention that there's no discontinuity whatsoever between bop and Broadway is just...weird? no one is saying "oh show tunes how kitschy" though it's necessary to keep making that claim for the argument of total continuity between John Coltrane & Rogers & Hammerstein going I guess

i like "surry with the fringe on top". what's not to like?

also, it seems to me that the "meaning" of a given jazz piece is less dependent on the choice of head/tune than what's subsequently done with it. there may have been irony or even mockery in miles' choice of "surrey" or trane's choice of "my favorite things", but the musical result seems to unify more than divide, to embrace rather than draw lines.

your contention that there's no discontinuity whatsoever between bop and Broadway is just...weird?

there's no discontinuity, there's a continuum

both are equal parts tin pan alley, right?

jazz just has some new orleans thrown in the mix and broadway has, i dunno, something else

ha i stand corrected i guess

i just really don't like 'surrey with the fringe on top', i can't really provide a rationale for it

yeah again, the biggest link between bop and broadway is probably Gershwin!

no one is saying "oh show tunes how kitschy"

but you kind of are?

no, I'm not

jazz just has some new orleans thrown in the mix and broadway has, i dunno, something else

music hall iirc

yeah, that's what i was thinking

well "oh show tunes how square" at least.
xp

music hall iirc

and uh... jazz.

Gershwin and Cole Porter had fully integrated a jazz influence into musical theater and jazz musicians had absorbed their influence back into jazz before Coltrane was even born.

i wouldn't leap to describe bway showtunes as a fusion of tin pan alley and jazz though. tin pan alley + music hall makes more sense to me, though jazz definitely figures in.

he means JAZZ not BOP

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."