Last August, I moved to Denver, Colorado at the behest of my Mother upon finding out that my Father had a heart attack. He didn’t pass, but it made me consider the shifting forces around my life in music and take action. Yes, the first reason to come home, was to tend to family, but there were other reasons that made it an excellent idea. For instance:
How has the music scene, jazz or otherwise, changed and how does that affect me?
If you have read any of the blogs on the site, you can get an idea of what I think about the development of jazz, and contemporary music as a whole. Is it getting “worse”, or “better”? Since the evolution of jazz in the last 40 years has been overwhelmingly conservative, I decided early on to be ready to promote and present change in my music that represented new considerations in a changing world. So I started to listen to other forms/styles of music more seriously.
The trend has been to the common person and what he has to say about his/her world. So, our purpose as musicians and artists has changed. The “agenda” is different. All over the country social justice is on the front burner. Artists create art for arts sake still, but social justice is becoming the new challenge. As usual the arts are there to pick up the ball and run with it. I myself am in the process of looking for new collaborators. I’m looking for my “mash-up!!!
How has it changed to affect my music?
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What are its needs now?
Simply, to set goals. Almost 30 years ago I felt that if I studied writing formally I could see a future enough to do just that. So I did, and felt the expansion. “Theme and Disintegration for Nine Instruments” is based on the Classical idea of Theme and Variations familiar to all of us. But something happens to its usefulness. This idea of how change occurs through History is spoken best by composer-conductor Pierre Boulez:
“History as it is made by great composers is not a history of conservation but of destruction
– even while cherishing what is destroyed”.
Pierre Boulez: Conversations with Celestin Deliege
Eulenburg Books London 1975
The theme slowly devolves until its attributes are all almost unrecognizable. Then what has happened? Disintegration actually creates uselessness! So a new agenda occurs. How to express this great idea in a piece? More to come on that!
