[Dixielandjazz] Chet Baker and Lack of Melody

[Dan Augustine]

I think that it's possible that the limits of human perception limit art.

In literature, stories can become character studies, or intricate 
macaronic plays on words.

In art, line and color can each become so hard to follow that 
representation of worldly objects disappears.

In music, melody can drift ever farther from harmony, and rhythm 
starts to shed pulse.

For the great mass of humanity, art in words, in pictures, and in 
sound is never very far from speech and everyday life.  For those of 
us who create art in these media, or for those of us who like to 
experience ever more complicated patterns in these arts, it's like 
eating spicy food.  The more you eat and can stand, the spicier you 
can stand and prefer.  Also, over time, every style of art tends to 
become more and more intricate within its own style.  To the appeal 
of the senses is more and more added complexity for the mind. 
Eventually a reaction to this over-complication will generate a 'new' 
simpler style based on but antithetical to the old one.  Art, as all 
things human, goes in cycles, which are really spirals, in three not 
two dimensions.  Old elements are dropped, new techniques are tried 
out, and the new beginning occurs again.

But for every 'advance' in art, you lose part of your audience. 
Eventually the artists will be functioning at (for their style) a 
very high level, but the audience for that style will have 
correspondingly shrunk.

Stay tuned.  It'll come around again.  Until then, like what you 
like, without apology.
-- 
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**  Dan Augustine  --  Austin, Texas  --  ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu
**    "When one day an arctic traveler played a recorded song by one
**     of the most famous European composers to an Eskimo singer,
**     the man smiled somewhat haughtily and stated: 'Many many
**     notes, but no better music.'"
**               -- Curt Sachs _The Wellsprings of Music_
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