I've always seen Brahms as a sort of John Lewis figure-- a guy trying to hold on for dear life to the formalism he honestly believed was the right thing and largely doing dry work in the process.
sh
good call. and what you said about Zorn vs Javon and jazz purism seems right on. There's a certain quality of taste that goes further than technique. Steve Coleman's pretty ass-whuppin at his finest, like in Strata Institute, but sometimes his projects exhibit a lack of taste, and his playing suffers from it. Zorn's sense of melody is almost always compelling, regardless of its complexity or accuracy over the changes. and whoever said Zorn is weak at free improv obviously wasn't at the Bailey/Zorn/Baron/Workman sets at Tonic a spell back. damnation.
on 11/20/02 9:10 AM, Steve Smith at ssmith36@sprynet.com wrote:
Of course, Beethoven *did* scramble for commissions and he did long for official positions at various times, a longing that went unfulfilled. The first truly, completely independent composer was apparently Brahms, who accepted only a handful of commissions in his entire life and otherwise supported himself through publishing and by touring as a piano not-quite-virtuoso. The irony, of course, is that he was arguably a far less innovative creative force than were Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.
Steve Smith ssmith36@sprynet.com NP - nmperign & Jason Lescalleet - "Such Is a Refrigerator, or Even Happiness," 'In Which the Silent Partner-Director Is No Longer Able to Make His Point to the Industrial Dreamer' (Intransitive)
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