3 October 2007

3 October 2007
Mark Twain
United States of America

Dear Mark,

The first week of festivals is over and done with-quite an experience in many, many ways. The concerts in St. Petersburg presented some amazing, and not so amazing, international acts. I may have witnessed both some of the best improvisations that I have ever seen; unfortunately, this was balanced by some mediochre ensemble playing, but all in all it was a great program and I believe that it had an overwhelming positive impact on the music scene.

But, as you may have guessed, I have not only an observation, but a string of soapbox pontifications to go with it...

So here it is...in spades...

I truly enjoyed the company of, shall we say, the more 'mature' group of artists-the one's in my age bracket and older. We discussed art and philosophy, we talked about music ranging from Bach to Punk to Bulgarian dance, and all were well versed on these subjects-3 of us had a pre concert jam session in the green room on a Bulgarian rhythm-wonderful!

The...ahem...younger musicians: those in their, oh, 20s and maybe early 30s (though I can't count on that, they may have all been in their 20s...they all look alike at that age), were very much into the idea of 'noise' and only the experiemntal side of things with little knowledge, or caring for, older or non-experiemntal forms. To them, these other musics were not even to be considered art...just disregarded and banished to a 19th century concert hall. This, unfortunately, is not a unique situation: have taught at the college level for 15 years, I have encountered this sentiment again and again from music students and I find it very distressful.

Last evening, I ran into one of the younger participants on my way to a concert-when I mentioned that I was going to see a Schubert piano recital, the look I got was such that one gives when a sandwich is found after 6 months of being MIA. "Why would you want to see that? Dead music!", was the basic nonverbal response. I feel I dropped many a wrung in that person's eyes, but, too be honest, who cares? Not I...the concert was sublime and inspiring, much more so then that particular participants presentation a couple of days earlier.

When I taught a year long class in Jazz History at the New England Conservatory, I received the same look many times. Today's jazzers (many of whom don't understand SWING-see my earlier letter) believe that jazz began with Bebop in the 40s and that everything beforehand was, well, crap. When I told the class the first week or so that Bebop would not be discussed until February and that we were going to start 'at the beginning', the impact was, for lack of a better word, unfavorable. I love Bebop, but it's like saying that the Beatles created popular song-I love the Beatles, but it didn't start with them.

Ethnomusicology has a great word: "Roots Music". I love this word. I mentioned to an Ethnomusicologist that I was playing a concert of Balkan music, he said that it was my Roots Music-yes, it is. The term is mostly cultural and ethnocentric, but I believe that it can be applied to many other aspects of the performing, and visual, arts.

The great artists don't live in a vacuum of their own selfknowledge. Picasso, Stravinsky, Bird, John Lennon, all knew their history and understood where they were in relation to it. The Beatles were a product of 1950s American Rhythm and Blues-they were mostly a cover band until the mid-60s, playing Chuck Berry and Little Richard and the Isley Brothers. They knew. They understood where they came from. Great artists can all paint in the styles of their predecessors, just as great composers can write in the style of Bach and Mozart, as those artists had to do with generations before them-they get it, they understand their Roots Music.

I am not a Musicologist; I don't even play one on TV. I do love history, though. I love all aspects of history, not just artistic, but human-art is, afterall, influenced by society. Why then is there such a lack of knowledge, and care to know, the past-one's specific past, not as an individual, but as an artist. How can one be a composer with out knowing COMPOSERS? How can one be an instrumantalist without understanding the history and evolution of the repertory of one's instrument? How can someone paint knowledgeably without knowledge of the masterworks. You don't have to embrace and copy, yes it is from the past-but you have to see where YOU came from to understand where IT is going!

Speaking of Roots, I must end this letter on maybe not on a sad note, but on a whistful, meloncholy one: one of my high school athletic heroes passed this week-American Champion discus thrower Al Oerter. I never saw him compete (his hayday was the 50s and 60s), but as somewhat of a champion discus thrower myself in high school with asperations of the Olympics, he was an inspiration. Even more so since after his athletic career he became an abstract artist and helped to foster artistic studies for young athletes. Today would also have been my father's 75th birthday; amazing to think that he passed 9-1/2 years ago. As Roots go, one looks to their parents to see where they come from-they look to their children to see where they are going. I don't have children, but I hope that as a teacher and a creative artist, I can help to foster the understanding of the past while making strides to build for future generations something that they can use as their Roots.

Until next time,
Demetrius