Hello,
A hundred years ago or so, when women did not all look the same and screech like ancient hinges, and strip malls were just a nightmare in a squirrels mind, I wrote a Jazz column for a newspaper. It did not last long as I was eaten up by the WT and became a Regular Pioneer with an irregular notion and a pile of scruffy S8's.
I well remember one issue in which I took great exception to a comment made by Duke Ellington which seemed to me to be far to general and subjective to make much sense. These were, you must remember, the days of experimentation, not just in music but in every avenue of life. Days before Reality TV and greasy little rap singers, honed on drone. Days, even before Disco gum, 'careers' and the such. This is my shallow defense for being far too small a person to see his point.
Like most young people throughout history I thought that what I had to say was actually important and had not been said, generally with much more flair by others, hundred of times before. Youth, as Bernard Shaw once attested, is wasted on the young. I reckoned that the Duke should step aside and gracefully retire before the final score was announced.
His statement :
"Music cannot be categorized - Neither into Jazz nor Classical, not into Rock or Folk or Soul or anything else.... There are only two kinds of music - Good and Bad".
I have knocked around the trade for a long time and met some first class musicians, recorded with a few, written for some, failed many others, but for some reason this weekend these words have drifted in and out of my mind and I have finally understood what the Great Duke meant. It has taken a long, long time, but now I really understand.
Do you? How do you identify what is good and what is bad music?
HS