By Pat Metheny
As much as I encourage and value the need to understand the roots of
this music, in the most specific and detailed ways possible, I also
feel that it is worth noting that most attempts to recreate the past
in jazz, even by musicians attempting to recreate their OWN pasts,
while often enjoyable, have rarely been made of the fabric of that
elusive material that seems to be present whenever and wherever there
are musicians who are pushing, and remaking in the likeness of their
OWN generation, the boundaries of the music.
In this sense, I believe the form is actually somewhat unforgiving.
It seems to DEMAND, in fact, that each new generation makes peace
with something specific that is uniquely theirs. There is something
about THAT particular negotiation that informs the music with a kind
of living, breathing, molecular structure than can never be recreated
or even accurately simulated by any other means. Whether it is the
addressing of a newly invented musical instrument technique or
technology or even the reaction to something that they aren't crazy
about in the previous generations, this is an essential element that
ALL of the most successful generations in jazz have had in common;
that they have sophisticatedly illuminated some aspect of their
culture in a way that could not be found in any other form -- or
at any other time -- and therefore have NATURALLY drawn an audience
to it that was attracted to jazz to find out something, in return,
about themselves.
For this reason, I always encourage musicians (who are of course
citizens of the world first, and jazz musicians second) to address
ALL of the music that they love and that they are attracted to as
people, regardless of it's style, regardless of it's content, as
a unified set of materials when they consider their full options
-- and potentials-- as modern day jazz musicians.
Of course, for a lot of you who are students out there, you may
be thinking, "What the hell is this guy talking about, I just want
to sound good and not make too many clams at the next jam session
when I take my solo on "Autumn Leaves" !!" And yes, I agree
absolutely that that may well be the first item on your "to do"
list. But I feel this too, and this is something that I've noticed
over the years and throughout the music's evolution: that when you
are around a certain age -- I would say that that age generally
falls sometime between 12 and 22 -- you actually have access to
something, a certain kind of energy, that is really valuable,
something really rare, and something most people never have
again to quite the same degree of intensity at any other point
in their lives.
It seems like somewhere about that time in a musician's life, you
can hear the emerging sound of your OWN generation of musicians.
It lives inside of you, and it often rings loud and clear. And it
often sounds nothing like anything that has ever been heard before.
Listen to THAT as closely as you can. Listen to it with the same
attention and curiosity that you reserve for your heroes on records.
My contention has always been that jazz is, and I hope will always
be, a form of folk music, but a very, very serious and sophisticated
folk music. Almost a kind of scientific folk music. When I say
folk music, I am talking about the tradition of musicians using
every aspect, all the materials, all the sounds and moves and vibes
and spirits of their time in a musical way. The attempts to make
jazz something more like classical music, like baroque music for
instance, with a defined set of rules and regulations and boundaries
and qualities that MUST be present and observed and respected at
all times, have always made me uncomfortable. That's not because
I am not all for jazz being given that kind of respect, but because
I feel that the basic desire for self-expression -- in whichever
of its manifestations that its participants care to address at a
given time -- is such a primary presence in the fabric of what
makes "jazz" JAZZ, that it is CRAZY to NOT take advantage of
that fact by relegating it to some predetermined model of
supposed authenticity.
And, please, let's never forget that this is a genre built
to harbor irreverence, or even dissent, in addition to earnest
devotion. The diversity of jazz is a big part of what makes
the street-level variety of the form so vital.
What I mean by that is that right now, there are probably kids
in this room that have their finger on a certain pulse that none
of us over 25 could likely ever even imagine. And in that pulse
possibly lie the ideas that could very well alter the future
course of jazz, keeping it current and alive. And if this music
WILL survive as a primary point of departure for a young kid's
dreams, it will be because he or she feels that their investment
in it as individuals will result in something that they can
really call their own, not something they are borrowing or simply
emulating, but rather something that they can show to the world
that is uniquely theirs and SOUNDS like it is theirs.
To the educators out there that are saying, "Yeah, that's all great
and everything, but it is hard enough for me to get the kids to
all play in tune and stop and start together at the same time on
their way through a basic chart...", I understand, and I agree
completely that the teaching of the fundamentals of the music
is central and essential.
But, just as one example, let's say one day next semester you
might look up, and there may be a kid that is hanging off to
the side who would love to participate somehow. And say in this
case he may even have a beat-box or a microphone or a turntable
or a computer, or who knows what else under his arm. And he is
curious. Maybe ... go ahead and invite him in. Jam with him.
Have one of the kids write or make up some kind of a piece to
do with him. To some, this may seem like the worst kind of
anti-jazz, even, god forbid, "fusion"!! Or they might see
it as an encounter that, while maybe being fun, could never
result in "REAL" jazz at all.
But to me, it would be EXACTLY that kind of gesture -- a gesture
of inclusion and curiosity and communication and HOPE -- that IS
the spiritual engine of jazz. It is THAT spirit that has kept
jazz's momentum going forward so successfully for all these years,
in spite of whatever cultural blockades have been erected along the way.
I guess what my message here is today, as we all launch off
into our various extremely individualized little niches within
the larger community of jazz and music, is that the openness
to experiment, to really be in the moment, not only the specific
musical moment, but the larger view of time and culture, is not
really an option for jazz musicians at any level -- it is a
necessity if the music is going to go on.
I know that in my own work, I love playing standards, I love
playing the blues and working on trying to make sense of the
infinite details that all of my favorite musicians throughout
history have laid out so generously for our examination and
enrichment. But I also know that for every hour I spend working
on those essential, fundamental materials, I need to spend 3 more
hours working on how I can reconcile those materials with the
vital information that has to do with the things that I see and
feel and hear around me each day, things that are real to me
right now, right this second. And I also humbly acknowledge and
accept that my reality is, for better or for worse, DIFFERENT
and incomparable to any one else's -- not the least, probably,
my biggest heroes in jazz history.
Each band director or educator here has his or her own reality,
with its own limitations, and its own potentials. Each student
here has their own reality, their own cache of materials learned,
and I am certain, a far larger cache of things that they need
to know.
The challenge that I make for myself each time out, whether it
is a single note, a single gig, a new record, whatever, is first
of all to try to sound good and deal with the material and the
situation at hand in hopefully an effective and musical way, but
also to try to find some aspect of what I can offer to that
moment in time that honors and respects the less quantifiable
qualities of the tradition that I am talking about. A tradition
that includes -- and demands --pushing it, pulling it, questioning
it, and even changing it.
As musicians, educators, journalists, industry executives, students,
all of us, we all have an exciting opportunity to take jazz to places
it has never gone, to turn it into a music that millions of people
everywhere (people that don't even know how much they love it yet)
will find out what WE all already know: that the nature of this
music has the ability to transform people, to enlighten them and
enrich them in ways that ONLY this music can.
But in order for that to happen, we all have to rise to this
challenge, and it's a big one: the challenge to recreate and
reinvent the music to a new paradigm resonant to THIS era, a new
time. It's simply not gonna cut it to just keep looking back,
emulating what has already been done with just a slightly different
spin on it. We have to get to work to a degree that we haven't
seen for a while now on a broad level within the jazz community;
we have to get our collective imagination working hard on a vision
that is more concerned with what this music can BECOME than what
it has already BEEN.
We need to put on more interesting and better concerts! We need
to make more interesting records that really connect with people!
We need to play better! We need to practice more! -- WE NEED TO
MOVE THE MUSIC FORWARD! You know what excites me? The thought of
a kind of jazz that sounds NOTHING like the jazz of the 20th
century, that is an entirely different thing, a new kind of animal;
but one that is still unmistakably connected to the larger jazz
tradition. The 20th century is over. The challenge for us is
to discover what that new thing might be through our own individual
research, by rising to the occasion of the upcoming centennial of
this music's birth with ideas that honor the premise of resonant,
organic innovation that has been the hallmark of the form from day
one, the kind of innovation that springs naturally from the curiosity
that is imbedded in everyone who gets hooked on jazz. It's there,
collectively, between us. All we have to do is listen hard to find
it, identify it, and it will grow into something special and unique.
Along the way, mistakes WILL be made. Not all things tried will
work out. But that impulse, the impulse to TRY THINGS, is perhaps
the most attractive -- and sometimes the most underutilized --
intrinsic quality that the promise of jazz education offers to its
students. If young people can really view their time spent learning
about jazz as something that will offer them an outlet to dream about
things that are resonant and applicable to their day to day lives,
man, we would see an explosion of interest in participating in jazz
education that would dwarf even the amazing growth that has happened
over the past 30 years.
I can't wait to hear what everyone is going to do here over the next
few days, and over the next few years! Thanks so much for listening.
