on 5/27/02 1:13 PM, Remco Takken at r.takken@planet.nl wrote:
Their bodies of work reflect, transcend and sometimes even predict our times to the extent that you can not longer speak about style.
You don't think Stravinsky had periods that were totally about style? Am I listening to SYMPHONY IN C wrong? Or SPILLANE? Or JOHN COLTRANE & JOHNNY HARTMAN? You're absolutely right, you even prove here that you know exactly what Stravinsky is about in his individual works. But I wouldn't spend one second listening to Symphony in C at this point in my life, when I would ignore the fact that it belongs to the Stravinsky body of work. It's in HIS oeuvre, that it makes the most sense, it being written in 1940 as a neoclassical 'style' work.
I think the fact that it's a neoclassical effort is as much a factor as that it is by Stravinsky. As much as I see it belonging to Stravinsky, I see it as belonging to a place in time and musical thinking at the moment. Stravinsky, at that phase of his career, was not at his most rebellious.
The Hartman lp with Coltrane was a complete surprise to me, I listened to that one with my mouth wide open: Skip, you got me there afa style is concerned.
I'd say inside vocal standard jazz ballads is a style, and a really defined one at that. The way the band plays on that record is very definitely not the way they play on something like "Alabama", which is also a ballad. The choice of material on that record also is definitely well within the strictures of that style.
As for Zorn: if he wasn't transcending style in his work to the mad extent as he does in his better works, I would be half as interested. I feel that some of his metal collaborations are *just* exercises in style, his own metal-based projects are more: wild pieces of new music in a vast body of work never to be catched in another style than the one he invented himself.
I think of them as explorations within a style or with specific reaction to a style. SPILLANE is definitely all about that.
skip h
NP: jerry lee lewis, the mercury years vol 1 (a great example of a genius dealing with a set style)
I heard his sister (is that Linda) on a Van Morrison record. She sounds as an exact copy of Jerry Lee, I wouldn't be surprised if they had the same piano teacher back home.
Regards, Remco Takken immediately starts playing an old favorite: Jerry Lee Lewis live at the Starclub in Hamburg
Now you're talking MUSIC. skip h