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Music and the Creative Spirit
Greg Osby: A Candid Conversation
Lloyd N. Peterson Jr.
Lloyd Peterson is the author of the book "Music and the Creative Spirit"GO: Well, I think the conditioning that takes place for understanding has to be dealt with at a very young age. It's very common for us musicians to see entire families coming out to see us in Europe. They come out to see pure bona fide American jazz that's not cut or watered down and recognize it as a valid and credible United States export. They cultivate this thinking in the minds of the young people, so when they grow up, they appreciate it as something to be embraced, to be treasured and virtued. And that's what we need to deal with in this country because most people identify the music as my grandfather's music or something heard in cartoons or in the backdrop for a slapstick comedy, silent films or something ridiculous. That's the association and imagery it conjures up when they hear jazz. The only thing that serves as a bridge for younger people and jazz is probably hip-hop, and they just hear it in snippets. They may hear a sampled fragment from a jazz recording, but they can't identify the source of the artist, or where it's from or what period it represents. It's throwaway. It goes in one ear and out the other, and they really don't retain that information.
And unfortunately, the most prevailing so-called jazz presentation right now is this so-called "smooth jazz," which really isn't jazz at all. And the people that are popular within that whole structure, they're really not jazz musicians. They're pop musicians, and what they play is pop music. If you take the vocalist out of any pop song or Mariah Carey song, what you have is this so called smooth jazz. It's the same environment, the same sugar coating, the same instruments, and it has the same disposable nature. Even the improvised elements are very much prepared. They play the same way all of the time, and it adheres to a formula, which isn't about individuality. Jazz now has to find a way to shake the association of being under the same umbrella and grand veil of so-called smooth jazz—instrumental jazz. You have to learn how to appreciate the elements, the relationships, know the history, how things work and the lineage of it to develop an appreciation for it. It's not an easy sell.
LP: Do you think we have become a society that no longer has the patience to be challenged and is only open to things that are easily accessible?
GO: Americans in particular—perhaps not so much in Europe because they don't have the same access to a lot of things that we do. I find that people from other countries read more, but yes, Americans have short attention spans, since we're victimized by the multimedia-ness of contemporary culture with emphasis on what is visual and not necessarily what's heard. Yeah, we're suffering. But all things are cyclical, and these things have to run their course. They have to because how many pretty girls and belly buttons can you stand?
LP: Is it more difficult for young musicians to be creative today?
GO: When I came to New York in 1980 or so, and then officially moved to New York in late 1982, there were tons of jam sessions. In every major borough—Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and certainly Manhattan, with the exception of Staten Island—there were jam sessions. You could go on a daily basis and see who was hot and who wasn't. We listened to the new musicians in town to see if they were ready to compete or if they needed a few more months to hone their talent. You could weigh your skill level against the more accomplished players and find out exactly what your weak points were and what you needed to work on. But all of that is gone. There are only a few places for a younger player, and you have musicians lining up out the door to get in and have their 15 minutes of fame. And by the fact that there are not many places to play, these musicians get up and overstay their welcome. They're frustrated, so they get there and play a long time, and by the time the night is over, most have not had an opportunity to play. So I don't know what to tell a young cat to do. They ask me, "Where should I go?" and I don't know. There are only a couple of places to play, and there are too many musicians; therefore, they only get a chance to play in school, but that's not the same thing because they are only playing with people on their own level. One guy is sad, and so they are all sad, and it's hard to weigh yourself against a group of sadness.
LP: Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor
b.1929
piano
said, "Music has a lot to do with a lot of areas which are magical rather than logical; the great artists, rather than just getting involved with discipline, get to understand love and allow the love to take shape." How much of your music is from love, and how much from this other place that Cecil Taylor describes?
