[Dixielandjazz] Jabbo Smith--who's scatting?/evolution in the arts

[Marek Boym]

>
> > I object to seeking "stylistic evolutionary link(s)" to this or that
> musician (or author, or painter, for that matter).
>
>
>
> I can't agree with a blanket rejection of stylistic links among
> practitioners of the arts. The artists themselves commonly acknowledge that
> others were influences in developing their styles and then taking the art
> in different, personal directions.


Influnce is one thing.  Sure, Louis influenced most subsequent (qand even
contemporary and older) trumpet players, and Bix influence countless white
and many black hornmen.  But "links?"  They were all artists, some more
individual than others.  None was a "link."

Yes, I doubt the wole "evolution" concept of art, but I wouldn't call an
artist (or artiste) a "link."

> I've heard that Dizzy once said to Louis, "No you, no me."



I have read that Miles Davis said: "No Louis, no me."  So?  So Gillespie
was invluenced by Armstrong, not by some "links!"


> I realize that some folks dislike the word "evolution," but the term
> doesn't necessarily imply that the subsequent form is superior to, or even
> more complex than, its antecedents.


That's what the term implies, after all.  It does not imply degeneration*.*


> "Smooth jazz" is an example IMO of a sub-genre that lacks the vitality and
> invention of the modern jazz it sprang from. If Eric Satie is one of the
> originators of ambient music, the woo woo stuff I hear today is a
> devolution. I've been trying to latch on to current free jazz on youtube



I don't hear that "free jazz," or not so free (what does that mean,
anyway?) have any connection whatsoever with jazz.

, but it doesn't seem to be more expressive than good bop, swing, or early
> jazz.




> Revivalist jazz of the banjo-and-tuba variety grew from early jazz, but if
> it has ever touched on the creativity of the music it references, I haven't
> heard it.



I wonder.  How about Turk Murphy, for example?  And while the revivalist
jazz grew out of early jazz, it became a separate style.  I do not quite
see why Bob Schultz, for example, is less creative than, say, Thomas
Jefferson.  Of course, there were revivalist musicians such as Bob Wilber
or Kenny Davern, but I've tried to stay with the "banjo-and tuba" variety.



> Not all of those examples will hold up, but in the larger picture the
> history of the arts is reasonably seen as evolutionary, even when new forms
> spring up in dialectic protest of their predecessors.
>

Lord Tennyson said "a poem is a poem is a poem."  The same reasoning can -
and should - be applied to music and other art forms.
Cheers,
Marek

>
>
>
> > I object to seeking "stylistic evolutionary link(s)" to this or that
> musician (or author, or painter, for that matter).
>