did miles ever talk about ‘jazz culture’
I can’t find the quote I’m looking for about Miles telling off Wynton Marsalis for the latter’s talk about needing a return to “tradition in jazz” with a quip along the lines of “innovation is the primary tradition in jazz,” but I did find this from Eric Nisenson, interviewed about his book Blue: The Murder of Jazz.
EN: Basically Marsalis, Murray, and Crouch are very conservative people who try to make jazz safe for a middle-class bourgeois audience. But jazz has always been a music that was relevant to its time, a music that reflected the artist’s place in the moment. It’s not like that anymore because of adherence to the strictures of a very limited and limiting concept of tradition. If anything, innovation is discouraged because if you accept such narrow strictures, then true innovation — building on the true expansive tradition — is simply not possible. Marsalis’s conception of jazz is similar to his conception of classical music: you must learn the tradition and play within that very narrow context. When Miles Davis saw young guys playing bebop in the early 1980s, he used to say, “Why are they doing that? We did that in 1954. Didn’t we do it right the first time?”
UEP 6/12/2012
1. UKnwDmnWll
2. UDntCmeHme
3. UDoWhtUDoWhnUDo
4. UDntCmeHme (Marcus, P.I. Remix)
5. UKnwDmnWll (Chants Remix)
rev$$$$. Rhythm & Bass.
(Source: jordansargent)
Is that the Chants remix of “UKnwDmnWll”? It damn well is.
(Source: chantssound)
6/12/2012
rev$$$$. Rhythm & Bass.
(Source: nevver)
Reverend Dollars’ long-awaited (at least in these quarters) UEP will finally be released June 12th.
UShldBXctd if UGtMDrft.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode was born in Lagos, Nigeria in April 1955, the second child of Chief Babaremilekun Adetokunboh Fani-Kayode and Chief Mrs Adia Adunni Fani-Kayode, their third child was Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, a Nigerian politician and who was the former Minister of Aviation for Nigeria.
This prominent Yoruba family moved to Brighton, England, in 1966, after a military coup and the ensuing civil war. Rotimi pursued his secondary education in England where he went to a number of private schools including Brighton college, Seabright College and Millfield then moved to the USA in 1976 to complete his education. He read Fine Arts and Economics, gaining a BA, at Georgetown University, Washington DC and gained an MFA at the Pratt Institute, New York in Fine Arts & Photography. Whilst in New York he became friendly with Robert Mapplethorpe and later admitted to Mapplethorpe’s influence on his work.
He returned to the UK in 1983. He died in a London hospital of a heart attack whilst recovering from an AIDS related illness on the December 12, 1989. At the time of his death, he was living in Brixton, London with his partner and collaborator Alex Hirst.
Although admitting to some influence by Mapplethorpe’s earlier work, Rotimi Fani-Kayode pushed the bounds of his own art much further, exploring sexuality, racism, colonialism and the tensions and conflicts between his homosexuality and his Yoruba upbringing through a series of images in both colour and B/W.
His work is imbued with the subtelty, irony and political and social comment that one would expect from an intelligent and observant black photographer of the late twentieth century. He also contributed much to the artistic debate around HIV and AIDS.
He started to exhibit in 1984 and was involved with nine exhibitions between then and his death at the end of 1989. He has since had his work featured posthumously in many exhibitions and retrospectives. His work has been exhibited in the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Italy, Nigeria, Sweden, Germany, South Africa and US. In 1987 along with Mark Sealy he co-founded AUTOGRAPH ABP and became their first Chair. He was also an active member of The Black Audio Film Collective.
He was a major influence on young black photographers in the late 1980s and 1990s. Following Alex Hirst’s death in 1992 there was some controversy over attribution of his work, a discussion that still continues.
“My identity has been constructed from my own sense of otherness, whether cultural, racial or sexual. The three aspects are not separate within me. Photography is the tool by which I feel most confident in expressing myself. It is photography therefore — Black, African, homosexual photography — which I must use not just as an instrument, but as a weapon if I am to resist attacks on my integrity and, indeed, my existence on my own terms.”
the first book of jazz
written by langston hughes
illustrated by cliff roberts
music by david martin
published in 1954, it was the first children’s book to review american music.
reverend dollars, uknwdmnwll
A long time coming, this is track 1 off my new UEP, coming 6/12/2012.
rev$$$$. Rhythm & Bass.
adiah, no one
So good. Adiah’s “Drumz” with Desloc Piccalo was my favorite track of last year, and this one captures that same generous summer vibe.
Ladder for Booker T. Washington, 1996, by Martin Puryear.
At the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TexasFrom the moment you came into this worldA ladder was placed in front of youThat you might escape.From earth you became plant,From plant you became animal.Afterwards you became a human being,Endowed with knowledge, intellect, and faith.Behold the body, born of dust –How perfect it has become!Why should you fear its end?When were you ever made less by dying?When you pass beyond this human form,No doubt you will become an angelAnd soar through the heavens.- Jelaluddin Rumi,excerpt from “A Garden Beyond Paradise”
