Lucas Gonze quiet music

As a guitar player who loves some jazz, I am sad that jazz guitar is mainly bad. Breezin‘? More like cheesin’! OMG funny. Even the absolute best jazz players are 80% weak. Wes Montgomery’s recordings are mainly easy listening. Pat Metheny is unacceptable at all times. John Scofield? Dude. I have listened closely to all the jazz guitar gods and though I have heard glimmers of good they are scarce.

Yes, right, there are exceptions but they are so few that they prove the rule. Charlie Christian in the late 30s. Julian Lage. The soul faction, like Charles Earland, but they weren’t jazz proper. Django, but his concept was an evolutionary offshoot.

What do the exceptions have in common? Their sound. They had (and in the case of Lage, have) good taste. They were/are good on an artistic level.

Vocalists? No. Jazz vocals must not be tolerated. And no, not Ella Fitzgerald. And not Chet Baker. Billie Holiday is the only fish in the sea. That’s a lot of non-fish swimming around.

Sax on the other hand is mainly worthy. To suck you have to work at it. Kenny G, obviously. But otherwise even mediocrities are pretty decent. It is physically impossible to play jazz baritone badly.

Jazz bass has an even better record. 95% rad. Even this rando journeyman makes me happy.

Wait, you need a science experiment? A pretty decent jazz singer with a pretty decent jazz bass player, where the vocals are painful but the bass is a complete pleasure? You’re welcome: Sheila Jordan and Harvie Schwartz.

But wait, this only applies with standup bass and not electric. Electric fretless jazz bass playing is usually painful.

So here’s my hypothesis, and I mean it as a general Theory of Everything for jazz: it’s in the instrument. Jazz came into being because of certain instruments and good jazz will only ever exist on those instruments.

The obstacle is that good vocals or guitar or electric bass on a jazz tune turn it into something else. Soul jazz can have incredible guitar, and that makes it soul. Lonnie Smith is jazz until the minute he gets a killer guitar behind him. Kassa Overall is a jazz band with great vocals, and that makes it not jazz.

My most recent Disquiet piece is part of a really good dance production in Armenia. The whole piece is worth a watch, but my part comes in at 9:42 (and again over the closing).

It makes me happy to become part of a thriving creative flow – not just the choreographer Ida Manserian, but also the dancers and the audience. Thank you, Ida. And thanks to Marc Weidenbaum for the Junto.

What she used in the music was the way the tension is released. The music and dance open up, relax, become calm.

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Update: I said Turkey the first time out, which is why that is the place name in the post slug. That’s wrong. It is Armenia.

The Children…’s Blues is a Primal Yowl

Q-Burns Abstract Message interviewed The Children… on his blog.

I’m struck by the way he used a personal blog for publishing something valuable to the world. The band is new but notable because of the predecessor bands, which were important in the pre-grunge postpunk world.

I like the band’s instrumentals but didn’t dig the singing. A singer is a pose machine. How they posture is most of the job. I don’t like the way he stands in front of a mirror.

Ellipses in band names: “The Children…” includes those dots. They are written in. I’m good with that. It’s creative. Band names are ultra-small poems, and the dots help give this one life.

One reason this blog is such a solitary experience is that blogs are dead. Things aren’t aggregated from scattered sources, they are published within a distribution site.

I don’t like it, but can’t do anything about it short of creating an aggregator, which would be a tech project that took me away from music.

By a Mr. Niklas Lukassen

While I’m writing a series of posts about how I can make my music less self-serving, I need to ask how I can make this blog less self-serving.

I think people land here and immediately read it as something akin to a friend’s flyer for their own show. It’s an ad for their self-serving creative life. If you’re going to their show, it’s a favor. They’re not helping you, you’re helping them, no different than helping them move or giving them a ride.

I have tried to make this blog more valuable by incorporating other people’s music, but those posts get no more interest than posts for my own music.

I despair.

David Michael Curry solo viola on Soundcloud

What is my music FOR? How can I make a contribution? One answer is balm. Solace. Painkiller. Healing.

Dreams heal too. You have a bad experience, or you’re afraid of something, and your dream reflects it in a way that lets you process. Music is not just metaphorically similar to dreaming, it works the same way in your life.

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A ChatGPT session:

Here are some band name ideas related to anesthetic:

1. Sedation Station
2. Numb Rhythms
3. Ether Echoes
4. Twilight Tunes
5. Morphine Melodies
6. Anesthetic Ambience
7. Dreamland Dose
8. Novocaine Notes
9. Faint Frequencies
10. Insensate Serenade
11. Opiate Orchestra
12. Hypno Harmony
13. Chloroform Chords
14. Lidocaine Lullaby
15. Benzodream Beats

These names play on the idea of anesthesia, sedation, and the dreamlike state it induces.

–ChatGPT

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Prompt: What is the saddest music by Scott Joplin?

Scott Joplin, known as the “King of Ragtime,” is renowned for his lively and infectious compositions rather than for creating sad music. However, one piece that might be considered among his more melancholic works is “Solace: A Mexican Serenade.” While it retains some of the syncopated rhythms characteristic of Joplin’s ragtime style, it has a slower tempo and a more introspective mood compared to his other compositions. Though not overtly sad, it carries a certain wistfulness that some listeners interpret as melancholic.

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ChatGPT prompt number two: “bands with names related to anesthesia”

While there may not be bands directly named after anesthesia, some bands have names that evoke a sense of numbness, altered states, or dreamlike qualities, which could be indirectly related. Here are a few examples:

1. Sleep – While not directly related to anesthesia, the name evokes a sense of altered consciousness and relaxation.
2. Dead Meadow – The name suggests a dreamlike or altered state, akin to being under anesthesia.
3. Morphine – This band’s name directly references a powerful pain-relieving drug, which is sometimes used in anesthesia.
4. The Flaming Lips – While not directly related to anesthesia, the name conjures up surreal and dreamy imagery.
5. The Velvet Underground – Again, not directly related, but the name suggests a state of altered consciousness or dreaminess.

These bands may not have names explicitly related to anesthesia, but their names evoke feelings or concepts that could be tangentially related.

–ChatGPT

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No, I’m wrong about “Solace” being about the death of Scott Joplin’s wife.

Bethena: A Concert Waltz was the first piece Joplin wrote after his wife, Freddie, tragically died of pneumonia in September 1904, 10 weeks after their wedding.

—Classic.fm

Still not that sad. Not that real. It feels forced. He was trying to find redemption already, too soon.

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This blog is about my own music, and in a way this post is inward looking, but it is written to connect emotionally, to serve a purpose, to entertain, to give people who stop by a satisfying moment. Despite the vanity of making music, I wrenched my gaze away from the mirror and tried to be of use.

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Ask yourself what is your music for. There is plenty already. Why make more?

What is the good reason to exist? Why disturb the silence? What makes it better than ambient sound?

Commit to making a contribution to the world.

As part of the practice behind Hélène Vogelsinger’s modular synthesizer compositions, she explores abandoned places, connecting with their energies to create immersive moments.

For her Patch Notes performance, she serendipitously stumbled across an abandoned castle in the French countryside.

Patch Notes