Category Archives: Performance

Style & Canon

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Style is much larger than a happy mix of canon and jargon. In fact, it can be downright incendiary.


(Photography by Jillian Hakala)

The week before last, my partner Matt Borghi and I – together known as Teag & PK – had a couple local radio spots. The first was a part of 89.7’s Coffee Break and featured a brief interview, during which we were asked the dreaded question: what type of music do you play? We offered a lengthier-than-necessary non-answer (telling the host what styles we don’t play as opposed to those we do), hopefully hiding our annoyance – not with the host, but with the question. We abhor discussing it. As I touched upon in this post, our collaboration features many different musical avenues: one night we’ll feature electronic ambience and improvisation, the next it’ll be completely acoustic and Matt will improvise vocal blues a la Son House (and well, might I add). Simply saying “folk” does more to exclude a large chunk of what we do than cast a wide net. We’re not bluesy enough for the blues-ers, not folky enough for the folkies, and not jazz enough for the jazzers. Instead we are what we are and quite happy with that. (Although it does present an ongoing PR problem.)

I mention this because “style” in general has been a personal nuisance for many years. A label, on paper, may just be a single word – folk – or handful of words (post-hardcore [huh?]), but in context it presents a multitude of problems. If something is “folk,” then what kind? Appalachian? Woody Guthrie? Hungarian? Ani DiFranco? If none of those, does the label then somehow do a disservice to those disparate forbears? If it’s completely different, why use the label at all? Simply because it’s acoustic and not on commercial radio?

A few weeks ago I finally watched Jazz In The Present Tense: Icons Among Us, the 2009 documentary that “answered” (to put it lightly) Ken Burns‘s Jazz. Now, I know that people love to complain about the Ken Burns behemoth, and I’ll be the first to jump all over it. After all, it spent ~19 hours exhaustively discussing everything jazz from 19th-century roots music through hard bop, but then gave ~45 minutes of lip service to the 1960s avant-garde and highlighting Young Lions of whom Wynton Marsalis approves. Cute. But for all its sins, Burns admittedly did a lot of good – the archival material alone is worth the time and money. And it does a wonderful job of presenting jazz and its beginnings as a product of African American culture, and (rightly) how the music fits into the context of US race relations. However, perhaps the biggest fault (or virtue, depending on your viewpoint) is that the whole documentary is based upon a particular canonical view of jazz and its stylistic definition. It really is pretty solid for the first 5 or 6 episodes, but becomes exponentially narrower as the series progresses. It goes from being all-inclusive  to a museum exhibit, allowing access only to those musicians (curators) who once associated with those now-or-soon-to-be-dead icons. (Wynton played with Art Blakey and therefore is the designated torch-bearer, right?) As one of my favorite professors in graduate school said, “Classical music is now mainly an amusement park for old people.” (This coming from a harpsichordist.)

Enter Jazz In The Present Tense. While the documentary of course features many contemporary musicians from the broader jazz spectrum, it’s thesis has to do with the word “jazz” itself. Whereas Burns (and Wynton, or rather Wynton via Burns) stated This is jazz, JITP asks What is jazz today?. The answers come from all sides – Terence Blanchard, John Medeski, Bill Frisell, Wynton Marsalis, Nicholas Payton, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Robert Glasper (his newly-released Black Radio is getting much press), Donald Harrison Jr., Marco Benevento, and more – and it’s quickly evident that these disagreements aren’t  slight. For example, Harrison’s obsession with both hard bop and his association with Art Blakey would even make Wynton blush. The divide between the more traditional jazz-is-anything-up-through-hard-bop and jazz-needs-to-keep-changing-to-stay-alive camps is quite evident. The filmmakers also take some time to focus on the word jazz‘s parallel in rock: jam band. I was very refreshed to see that, as “jam band” is more of a bad word than anything according to many musicians. After the Grateful Dead, most bands who featured improvisation wanted to be called anything but a jam band, a problem that continues to this day. Of course, Herbie was the one to perhaps best state the problem, saying, “The term jazz, in a sense perhaps, is its own worst enemy.” Herbie, one of the last remaining living legends – literally – is still light years beyond not only many of his peers but also the younger generations, both artistically and intellectually. (One of the many reasons I hold him on such a pedestal.)

[Side note: I couldn’t help but literally laugh out loud when Nicholas Payton appeared on my television as the first interviewee, spouting his nonsense. For those at least peripherally aware of online jazz “debates,” he’s heated up the blogosphere the last few months with self-righteous, incoherent rants, stating that jazz is now dead and that we should call what we think of as jazz “Black American Music” instead. Payton’s new term isn’t the problem – it’s his schizophrenic non-explanations of it. He does make compelling points now and again in his various blog entries, but the ongoing argument as a whole is…something. NPR’s perennially-disappointing A Blog Supreme has given Payton’s tripe far more attention than it’s due. If you’ve seen #BAM on Twitter, that’s probably why…]

Of course, this isn’t a film review. My viewing the documentary, coupled with the recent radio spot, are simply two instances out of countless similar experiences I’ve had. But the whole dilemma of style isn’t just an matter of definition, but one of context, as it’s reliant on many factors. One such factor is canon. Every style has its major works that serve as hallmarks. However, once you scratch the surface, you become aware of just how deep the rabbit hole can go, as not everyone will agree on everything. As with the two jazz documentaries, Burns was comfy with most styles through Hard Bop (except for Cool/West Coast), and Icons found almost no consensus on anything.

The classical canon, and expectations of students’ familiarity with it, has stuck in my craw for many years. Going to college and graduate school for (mostly) classical performance is interesting for a saxophonist, considering the instrument is only ~165 years old. Consequently the instrument’s repertoire is only a fraction of the size of the flute’s, violin’s, or piano’s. This causes two issues: 1) saxophonists, unlike most other classically-oriented instruments, are immersed in contemporary music, but 2) this also causes a deficit in performing and knowing older (Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, early Romantic) literature. While most classical saxophonists probably couldn’t pick out the second movement of one of Beethoven’s string quartets, we also can pick out and understand the sequenzas of Luciano Berio better than most other classical musicians. Does that mean that classical saxophonists are somehow “less than”? No, it’s just a different animal. Speaking for myself, I have an interest in many of the older/other styles and genres, specifically Renaissance and Baroque music and Wagner. (The latter goes deep.) And my personal (not just academic) interest in orchestral music has really deepened these last couple years. But of course home base, classically speaking, is still contemporary music. (To reference another recent internet meme, I’ve been correcting a musical blind spot. With much enthusiasm.)

I definitely agree that in order to learn a particular style of music (be it a broad category such as classical or jazz, or perhaps narrower like heavy metal), one should be intimately familiar with both the style’s history and the details of its evolution and various iterations. But I don’t believe that it ends there. Not at all. Those who’ve forged ahead to create something new – large or small – have almost always included some sort of outside source or influence. Besides, regarding the above jazz discussion, the biggest argument against the jazz-must-continually-evolve-and-include-outside-styles crowd is that it overlooks or even disregards earlier styles. Following that logic, however, why is it that pre-Hard Bop purists are allowed to do the same for later styles without similar condemnation?

As regular readers know, I’m equal parts classical, jazz, and pop. (Only in that order for alphabetical reasons.) I cringe each time I write, say, or type “classical and jazz saxophonist,” or anything else to that effect. Honestly, I just consider myself, plainly, a “saxophonist” or “musician.” And frankly, at the end of the day, the only canon I’m really concerned with is my own – the canon that has shaped me. As a musician, I’ve worked for years on developing my own personal style and aesthetic. Much work indeed remains to be done, and I’ll arguably never be complete. If someone were to assemble the canon of Michael Teager’s musical education, there would of course be saxophonic references – Coltrane, Liebman, John Harle, James Carter, etc. – throughout, but it would also include the music of the Top 5, Elton John, Richard Wagner, nineties rock, and ECM, just to name a few. Yes, I know A Love Supreme forwards and backwards. (And rightly place it above most other works of art, where it belongs.) But I’m just as familiar with Crash, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, and Aenima (to focus on ’95-’96). And they’re just as important to the musician I am and continue to become as any other “major work.” I discussed this latter point slightly over a year ago here.

It’s not that I think standard repertoire need be diminished or negated, but room must also be made on the pedestal for other, more individualized preferences. In fact, such personalization should be encouraged. While younger generations are becoming more open-minded, it seems that the old guard, especially in classical music, jazz, and other academically-associated musics, remain set in their ways. Slowly but surely, the boundaries are eroding.

This topic has many tributaries, and if I go any further you’ll need breadcrumbs to find your way back. But it does tie together. Style – jazz, classical, folk, blues, rock, etc. – is more than just a word, like it or not. It implicitly suggests and entire tradition and repertoire. Even slight deviations from a stated style can jar the listener, promoter, booker, and/or critic, taking me back to the introductory anecdote about Teag & PK‘s “style.” What do Matt and I call our project? Does it matter? It seems to be in our interest to avoid  such categorizations, or simply make one up just to end the discussion. Common problems we’ve encountered are:
• We’re not “folk” because of the sax (and occasional electronics)
• We’re not “jazz” because of all the verse-chorus songs
• We’re not “blues” because it’s too folky
• We’re not “rock” because it’s guitar and sax
• We’re not “indie” because…we’re not hipsters? 🙂 (We still haven’t figured that one out.)
• Those ambient improvisations? What the hell are those?!?

And to top it off, we really don’t care what it’s called. We’ve considered calling it “acid folk” – not to be confused with “psych folk” – just to have something consistent. And it doesn’t offend any purists we may encounter along the way. When Matt’s canon – ambient, rock, Flight of the Conchords, and blues that Alan Lomax would approve of – meets mine the result is something beyond either of us. It’s also beyond simply picking one style and sticking to it.

The result is what matters. Not what we call it.

Gear

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I recently decided I wanted to invest in some new hardware for a couple of my saxophones. There are a couple ligatures and mouthpieces that need to be improved upon if not replaced. On top of that, I’ve recently been experimenting with different tenor reeds. While many  saxophonists would find this sort of thing exciting, I don’t.

I’m not a gearhead. Never have been, and likely never will be. I occasionally like to know what certain saxophonists use only out of intellectual curiosity, but it ends there. I care about my own setup of course, but to a certain extent. All of my saxophones and related hardware are of course professional grade, but I’ve never been one to be on the constant search for the “perfect” mouthpiece, neck, etc. Everything I have was selected after much testing and comparing (e.g., my alto saxophone was the best of 13 I play-tested; mouthpieces, etc. were also similarly chosen). Changes have been made along the way, however I tend to largely work with what I have. And even though I have all Selmer saxophones, that is because those are what I was happiest with when shopping around. The Selmer v. Yamaha (Selmer v. Yamaha v. Yanagisawa v. Keilwerth) debate interests me as much as the Apple v. PC v. Linux debate, which is to say not at all.

For many of my peers and colleagues (past and present), such an investment is just the beginning. I can’t tell you how many other saxophonists I know who have spent years searching for the next perfect mouthpiece, reed, ligature, neck, and even horn. Really? Really. I can understand it to an extent. Instrument technology is continually improving, often allowing for more options and flexibility. However, unlike advancements in computer technology, new models don’t necessarily negate their predecessors. I’m sure that if one took all the time spent thumbing through catalogues and/or vendor websites and spent it practicing tone fundamentals, a relatively similar amount of progress may occur.

Before anyone tells me that I think gear is completely irrelevant, allow me to say that I do think it matters, but only to a degree. I believe that once a certain threshold is met, user error is more to blame than mechanical error. Tone and projection can be affected a myriad of ways by a new/different mouthpiece, and that, coupled with personal taste, means that not everyone will play the same thing. When it comes right down to it, you sound like you. If you’re happy with your sound, great. If not, perhaps its time to look in the mirror as opposed to your instrument case. A few anecdotes that have stuck with me:

• In 2003 I saw James Carter milling around the vendor area at World Saxophone Congress XIII. JC is arguably the best technician of the instrument alive today, and he attended the conference (an almost exclusively classical event) simply to test horns, mouthpieces, etc. Being a big fan, I loitered around the vendor area just to hear him do his thing, free and up close. And no matter what he played, he sounded unmistakably like James Carter. I saw walk by one table and presented with a neck screw by one vendor who claimed it would really free up his sound. (!?!) Carter gave him an ARE YOU HIGH? look, tested a horn with and without the magical screw, and claimed nothing changed.

• In 2006 I saw the Dave Liebman Group at Ann Arbor’s (unfortunately extinct) The Firefly. They played two sets, and during the first set I noticed Lieb was playing on a new Yamaha tenor (either an EX or Z model) which was brought by a regional Yamaha representative to court the guru. For the second set, he switched back to his standard Keilwerth (his partner) tenor and still sounded like Lieb. (I attended the show with my friend Drew Whiting, and we both noticed a slight timbral difference at the very bottom of the horn’s range, but we’re both saxophonists and were visually cued to listen in for a difference.) Although Liebman’s tone has changed over the last four decades, I would hardly attribute it to one or two of the hundreds, if not thousands, of iterations his setup has undergone through the years.)

• Throughout my undergraduate study, I had a classmate who was obsessed with mouthpieces, reeds, and ligatures. Every few months his setup would change slightly. (Occasionally he would say something to the effect of, “James Carter plays on _____ mouthpiece. I’m going to get it.”) All that time and money invested in continuing to basically sound like himself, squeaks and all. JC was nowhere to be found. I’m sure one cause for the long-term occasional chirping was that his muscles and mind were unable to focus on his sound via one specific setup.

That being said, my temporary search for new gear continues. Regardless of how annoying it may be (though it of course is always fun to get a new toy of some sort), I can rest assured that purchasing the next ligature or mouthpiece will mark the end of this search, not the beginning of another.

(Pictured above: My toys.)

On New Music

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I think a lot about “New Music.” Part of my preference for it is my Classical Saxophone perspective: (relatively) “new” instruments require new music to create a lexicon. And while not all new music (especially for saxophone) may be of high quality, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Another reason for my dwelling on New Music is from a teaching perspective. In my Music Appreciation classes, I always expose my students to New Music and some of its related concepts. I don’t care that they like it, and they know it – I simply want them to experience it, and to be able to explain their (dis)liking it.

I’ve started a number of drafts of what would have been this post over the last few months, only to delete them all. Each time the article has branched off in a different direction. Instead of trying to encapsulate everything in a single post, I decided to cover each item separately. For this first article, I’d like to start with an anecdote from last year.

As mentioned in my previous MTH-V post, I attended Belgian new music ensemble ICTUS‘s Austrian premiere of Harry Partch‘s The Wayward. Their performance was part of the “Kunst aus der Zeit” (“Art of Our Times”) series, the small new music branch of the annual Bregenzer Festspiele. I was able to arrange for my students and myself to attend a closed rehearsal, and I attended the premiere two nights later. For those unfamiliar with Partch (and I’m guessing that’s most everyone reading this), in brief:
• Partch is one of the many, and arguably one of the least-known outside of musicians’ circles, composers who pursued an “American Sound” in the 1900s
• He pursued not only an American sound, but sought to create a new musical system based largely on microtonality
• Not stopping there, he constructed his own instruments to properly convey this new musical language
• Corporeality: “The dramatic fusion of human speech, music, and movement, and inseparable combination of these parts into a larger whole.”
• For more (better!) Partch information, explore Corporeal Meadows and HarryPartch.com.

CONTEXT:
Before going further, I should mention that I’m no Partch expert. My combined assigned reading in undergraduate and graduate school of his life and music totaled maybe ten paragraphs, one selection on a CD, and a VHS clip. And as for my teaching, he received, until this point, brief mention, if any, as an example of Twentieth Century tendencies. My unfamiliarity was actually one of the big reasons for my excitement for this performance.

The Wayward includes all of the above aspects, and is arguably his most-known work (relatively speaking, considering none of his music is “known”). Another way to put it – this was the one piece I knew of his offhand. Because his music was written for instruments he constructed, he receives little-to-no-performance outside of a few “Partch ensembles” (mostly run by his surviving associates and students). Unlike a standard classical work, one can’t simply purchase a score, assemble musicians, rehearse, and perform. This is largely why it took a half century for the Austrian premiere to occur. (The Wayward‘s four parts were composed in various stages from the 1940s to the 1960s.) That being said, ICTUS went about their performance in a drastically different manner. Instead of reconstructing the required instruments, composer Tim Mariën re-orchestrated The Wayward for performance on common (often fixed) instruments. Hence ICTUS’s more “traditional” approach. (And controversial, according to members of the aforementioned Partch ensembles…more on that later…)

TEACHING:
The Wayward‘s biggest, and arguably most well known, movement/section is “U.S. Highball.” It illustrates a hobo’s transcontinental railroad journey, using vocal techniques more reminiscent of sprechstimme and American folk than more classical means. That programmatic context, along with the above bullet points, was pretty much all the preparation I gave my students before we attended the rehearsal. (That, with a dusting of, “You’ll think it sounds weird and likely incorrect, but please remember that the musicians are 110% serious about the piece…and it’s supposed to sound like that.”) My reasoning was that I wasn’t as concerned about their becoming intimately familiar with Partch specifically, but rather I wanted to lightly prepare them to hear a type of music they’d never heard before or since. In my judgement, having them experience the music live with little-to-no context would be a great experiment of sorts. (After attending the rehearsal, we had a comprehensive debriefing, both with myself and also with the organizer of the new music concert series.)

In a portion of their final reflective essays, I asked my students to select and explain both their favorite and least favorite of the musical events they attended throughout the course. While only one or two listed Partch as their favorite – one or two more than I had expected! – only a couple listed it as their least favorite. (The winner of that category was actually Judith Weir‘s opera Achterbahn, the world premiere of which we attended.) On paper, one would likely expect Partch to be the outright loser for an audience of non-musicians, but that is perhaps the problem: it’s what is expected on behalf of musicians (in this case, academic musicians). For those who listed it as neither, most students told me that they enjoyed it much more than they had anticipated, and that it showed them that contemporary music didn’t have to be something to necessarily fear or avoid. And part of their reason for accepting it (and even enjoying it) as they did was the fact that we attended a closed rehearsal. They were able to witness the ensemble occasionally start, stop, tinker, argue, and refine the music. It was a peek behind the curtain for something that, to them, could have otherwise been simply organized chaos.

Their overall positive reception caught me off guard. Pleasantly.

As evident in the article, this experience has stuck with me for a variety of reasons:
• I simply enjoyed the performance (and being able to attend the rehearsal).
• It was great to expose my students to such a rare piece of music.
• It was great to see something most academically-oriented musicians see as “out there” go over well with such a general audience. (The room full of Austrians at the premiere seemed to really enjoy the performance as well.)

ON NEW MUSIC: Advocates, The Ivory Tower:
Now, what does this have to do with concerns over “New Music”? Frankly many, but I’ll try to isolate just a few here. The first has to do with we musicians who advocate and perform such music. This unexpectedly, but welcomely, came to life in the comments section of my previous MTH-V post. I was taken to task, and rightfully so in a sense, by Jon Szanto. He curates Corporeal Meadows, a wonderful online Partch resource (one that I had actually used a few times myself before and after attending the Austrian performance), as well as having known Partch at the end of his life. He presented a very valid point: the ICTUS performance was not authentic, as it featured a re-orchestration for traditional instruments, and therefore the music was drastically cheapened. Amusingly, he said comparing ICTUS to Partch was like comparing the Portsmith Sinfonia to the Berlin Philharmonic. 🙂

I can’t argue with that. I’m a Partch novice, and the above performance was simply an introduction. In areas I’m much more comfortable and knowledgeable, I’m equally picky. For instance, one of my pet peeves is classical saxophonists obsessing too much over transcriptions. I hate to break it to my colleagues: Bach didn’t write for the saxophone. Neither did Mozart. As valuable – and necessary – as that music is to our technique and understanding of older styles in our practicing, it needn’t be the focal point of the instrument. Now and again it’s perfectly fine, but after a while you’re conveying more of an inferiority complex than anything, in my opinion.

This question of authenticity is proper for debate. After all, musicians should always look to honor the music. But when it comes to reaching listeners and advancing our art, the context changes. As Jon rightly noted, the Berlin Philharmonic is great. Amazing, actually. However, most laypeople don’t experience the Berlin Philharmonic. Instead they attend local, regional, and university orchestras, most of which are more akin to the Portsmith Sinfonia. Then, assuming they enjoy themselves, perhaps they’ll take a greater personal interest, discover more music, and eventually listen to (or even see) top tier ensembles such as the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. As I told Jon, I remember attending performances of local classical and jazz ensembles in middle and high school, but now that I am one such performer I pretty much only seek out those top tier ensembles for performances. (Local rock scenes can function much the same way.) In this case, Jon and I agreed that ICTUS served this function for me. I was able to experience Harry Partch’s music live in some fashion, something most of my colleagues can’t claim, and now I’d like to eventually see “the real thing” (Partch music performed on Partch instruments). Since then I’ve invested in recordings and plan to purchase more.

ON NEW MUSIC: Audience:
This brings me to the final point (for this article, at least): reaching an audience. One of the biggest complaints among New Music enthusiasts is that no one besides fellow musicians wants to listen, or at least no one seeks it out. Fair enough, I suppose. But where is most of this New Music performed? In the United States, outside of major metropolitan centers, it’s largely relegated to university campuses (and associated churches and community centers when new music artists are on tours). That’s hardly getting it out there to the public. Of the many recitals I gave and/or attended while a student, rarely was there someone in the audience who wasn’t a friend, family member, fellow music student, or non-music student meeting a class/assignment requirement.

Perhaps one solution would be to take the show “on the road,” so to speak. Maybe instead of giving a performance in a university recital hall, it’s moved to a local space in town and off campus. I know some former classmates of mine did this with a (SCENE) & Heard It series at East Lansing’s (SCENE)Metrospace. Instead of waiting for the new ears to come to the performer, the performers can bring the music to new ears. Advertise it alongside local rock, jazz, and hip-hop acts. Put it in similar venues. Maybe even a double-bill of disparate but complementary acts/ensembles. What if – gasp! – you didn’t wear a suit or tuxedo to perform? Outside of my music appreciation course, my students didn’t have advanced musical knowledge when attending ICTUS’s performance, yet most of them quite enjoyed themselves. The setting was casual (granted it was a rehearsal, but the actual premiere didn’t require formal attire either), offering one more welcoming layer – or rather removing one more intimidating layer – to the first-timer. (Along those lines, The Corporeal Group asks similar questions [see bottom of page] about Partch’s music specifically, but those can also be applied to new music generally.)

Similarly, more “traditional” venues and series must be brought up to date. After the initial Occupy Wall Street protests, you may remember a number of comical OWS parodies. One that floated around music nerd-dom (of which I’m of course a member) was “1% of music students do 99% of the practicing.” Amusing, but it definitely had a point. Another that packed some punch was the following:

Very true. I know that music directors and money-managers want to appease their financial supporters, but perhaps their revenue base (i.e., patrons) would increase if they updated their programming. Works by Schönberg are still considered aesthetically challenging by many groups (100 years later, mind you…). Okay. But you could throw in that or Berg along with recent works by Torke, Colgrass, or Ades and still have time to open the show with some Haydn for good measure. I remember hearing this NPR story a few years ago about regional orchestras that banded together to co-commission new music by Joan Tower and finding much success. The move added cachê to these smaller groups’ reputations, added new music to their repertoire, created buzz in their communities, and possibly yielded a number of first-time concertgoers.

Obviously I’ve not covered everything here. There are many things I’ve missed (intentionally or otherwise), and I’ve provided more questions than answers, but it’s a start. Food for thought, if nothing else. It’s been my experience, at least with students, that they’re much more receptive to contemporary music when they see it performed live. Even if they don’t particularly love the musical style, the live experience at least causes them to respect and/or appreciate the work that goes into it.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read or heard, “It was way better than I had expected,” or, “It was better in person than listening to the CD.” Definitely something to consider. If we performers take chances on the audience, perhaps audiences will taken chances on us.

Artistic Direction & “Choice” (TPK Edition)

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Having moved back to Michigan, I’ve resumed collaborating with my good friend and partner Matt Borghi full time. We’ve been working together for a few years – performing, improvising, rehearsing, recording – both in The Elevator Conspiracy and in various separate endeavors. We understand each other quite well, musically and personally, which makes playing together a real treat. That, coupled with our eclectic collective taste and experience, helps to make us a pretty versatile duo.

Our current project – Teag & PK – is still in its beginning stages but the initial discussions, rehearsals, and performance (pictured above) have all been interesting, surprising, and satisfying, both intellectually and artistically. One facet of our discussions revolved around style and direction. Our past collaborations have gone in a variety of directions: acoustic folk, electronic ambient, rock, mostly improvised, mostly arranged – diverse, but all satisfying. Therefore we discussed whether we’d focus on one style or have an “anything goes” approach. In preparation for our first gig, we decided to head in an acoustic (acoustic guitar, voice, saxophones/flute), singer/songwriter direction.

But, for a variety of reason – gear, environment, where the live energy eventually took us – our first gig quickly evolved from an acoustic “folk” style to something much more rhythm & blues- (the real R&B) and rock-based. We were quite surprised, and rather happy with it. That particular style hadn’t entered our discussions once, yet, without even acknowledging it to one another on stage, we enthusiastically went where the music asked us to go. Now, with that gig behind us, we’re looking at our project from completely different angles, and considering options possibilities we previously hadn’t.

It just goes to show that no amount of planning or decision-making is fully effective in a vacuum. (Even with so much time and effort already spent…) We were aware of this abstractly all along – we had a number of “let’s see how this goes live” moments in rehearsal – however it was still surprising to have such a powerful reminder on stage. We had considered many things, but they all went back to what we – Matt and myself – wanted. It may sound corny, but we hadn’t fully considered what the music itself wanted, and that vote holds the ultimate veto pen. While there are still a number of kinks to work out, we’re excited to see what upcoming gigs over the next couple months hold in store for us…

George

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George Carlin’s birthday was a little over one week ago. He would have been 74. Now, I strive to keep this a music-oriented blog despite my other deep interests (politics/current events and stand-up comedy). However, Carlin is worth mentioning here because he’s artistically relevant to one of this blog’s recurring topics: aesthetic authenticity.

Without getting too deep into it, I consider him to be one of the greatest minds and voices of the twentieth century. Seriously. (I have all of the HBO specials and most of the albums to prove it. 🙂 ) Yes, he was “a comic.” But he was also so much more. Though there were strains of it when we started out in the 50s, eventually his material was more akin to philosophical, linguistic, satirical, and political essays peppered with jokes, as opposed to a series of one-liners mixed in with anecdotes. It didn’t matter whether or not you agreed with his point of view; the goal was to open the listener’s mind to new ways of analyzing topics or issues. This is something he was very consciously aware of, as evidenced in this interview, during which he says he eventually considered himself an essayist who performed.

Last year I read Last Words (his autobiography, published posthumously), and was struck by just how obsessed he was throughout his career with identifying and honing what he called “my authentic voice.” This of course is arguably the primary dilemma for an artist – truly expressing oneself. Whether you’re a fan or not, this book serves as a masterclass of sorts in authenticity. In case you’re unfamiliar, Carlin started out as a very straight-laced, mainstream, and commercially successful act in the 1950s.The 70s, however, saw Carlin reintroduce himself as the real George: hippie, counter-culture provocateur, and social critic. Two excerpts from the cleverly-titled chapter “The Long Epiphany” wonderfully distill this process:

1. “But mainly I had to explain myself to me. What had been pulling at me all this time, dragging me away from the old approach and toward the new, was the lack of my voice in my work. The absence of me in my act. I would say, ‘I wasn’t in my act. I was all these other people.’ And I would introduce them all, the old familiar characters, one by one, to make the point.” (p. 146)

2. “I would no longer deal with subjects that were expected of me, in ways which had been determined by others. I would determine the ways. My own experiences would be the subject. I went into myself, I discovered my own voice and I found it authentic. So, apparently, did the audiences in the coffeehouses I was now playing. And while I was back to making no money, when they laughed now it felt great. I was getting votes of confidence for the path I had taken. They were reaffirming something that I felt and now was able to think through as well as feel. It meant I was right. Which strengthened my resolve to carry this through.” (p. 152)

[Note: Imagine my surprise, and joy, in reading Dave Liebman’s endorsement of this book for similar reasons in his May newsletter a few weeks ago.]

These words ring as true for me now as they did upon first read. It’s great – necessary – to have influences, and it’s equally important to emulate them. However, eventually one must move beyond his/her influences and training to develop the inner voice that’s dying to get out. I implied this in an earlier post, and hope to delve deeper into the topic at some point. For now, though, I simply want to highlight George…

I was fortunate to see Carlin perform live three times. It was very interesting for me, both as a fan and as a performer, because all three performances were in preparation for what became his final HBO special, It’s Bad For Ya (2008). For context, the actual special was recorded March 1, 2008. The performances I saw were as follows: January 2007 (Ann Arbor, MI), July 2007 (Las Vegas, NV), March 2008 (East Lansing, MI). I note this because I was able to see the material develop from scattered notes to a scripted, seamless 60+ minute performance. It was a tremendous peek into Carlin’s creative process. Some highlights:
January 2007: He informally took the stage with a stack of loose notes and papers and prefaced this show with (I’m paraphrasing): “You’ll have to excuse me, as this won’t be like the shows you’re used to seeing on HBO and hearing on record. I have a whole new hour of material, in no particular order, and I don’t know just how any of them work just yet. This is more of a test drive, but I promise you’ll laugh.” AND I DID! That night was one of the hardest I’ve ever laughed. But he was true to his word – it was more akin to alternative comedy than Carlin’s traditional style of rapid-fire storytelling and joke-telling. He would take a paper from his stack, remind himself of the joke/outline, extemporize, then move on to the next note.
July 2007: No notes; a cold open with no disclaimer. Six months later, the material was now in its third or fourth draft. You could tell that there was a set order and that he was working out the rhythm. Also, a number of topics were dropped, while a few new ones had been incorporated. Just as funny. 🙂
March 2008: By this time, the HBO special had been taped/aired (live). Carlin’s trademark style had returned, and the show was by then a well-oiled machine. The material’s order had once again been changed, but the overall content remained unchanged. Final draft, no further revision. Vintage GC.

So, a few nuggets of GC info and memories. To close, I’d like to highlight arguably my favorite Carlin essay (as I’m sure he considered it). It addresses his favorite topic: language. Specifically, it’s an all-out assault on one of his worst enemies: euphemisms. Part of his obsession with language was that because we think in language, then the better and clearer we use language the better we can convey our thoughts. I’ve gone through it probably 100 times (the live performance from 1990’s Doin’ It Again is priceless) and find it just as funny and thought-provoking as the first.

George Carlin: Euphemistic Language

*Update*: Here’s the live version form Doin’ It Again (slightly NSFW):