DrumEatDrum
Platinum Member
for a jazzman to talk down other view points is quite.. how should I put it..unjazzy?
...
Any time these sorts of topics come up, that thought comes to mind.
I'm not really familiar enough with Wynton's music catalog to comment one way or another on his him per se.
But what I've noticed, or at least my perception, is back when I was young, and I'd picked up Modern Drummer magazine and read interviews with Elvin, Tony or whomever, a constant theme was innovation, and doing something different. Respect the music, drive the band, and do something different.
These days when I picked a magazine, and read an interview with a more modern jazz artists, I see more comments along the lines of "respecting history" "honoring the past" "attempt to do what so-and-so did."
Which always strikes me as a bit odd. I'm going back to the earliest days of jazz, the art form has been based on new ground. from dixie land to swing to be-bop and post-bop, the idea was to not repeat the previous generation and do something different. But it seems others these days would rather take what's been done and lock it up in a neat box and not let it breathe. Which, you know, it's nice that some people are willing to be the historians, but at the same time, I though the lessons from the greats was to take what's been done and move forward.
But as I said, maybe that's just my perception of being a 40 and having read Modern Drummer for 23 years as opposed to when I was 17 and was reading such interviews for the 1st time. And the fact I rarely spend much time listening to jazz compared to back when I was younger.