I've had a lively correspondence going with one of the blog stalwarts and pillar of decency, Stanley Zappa, about Canada, his adopted home. He tells me about how their art support system works and I give him background on how it ended up the way it is. He sent me some questions from some convened panel up there and they are hilarious.
1. What theory best captures the nuanced relationship between the
recording, storage and transmission of improvisation?
2. How should funding policies be modified given the relationship of
improvising ensembles to the media they employ?
3. How have new interactive technologies affected the creation and
reception of improvised music?
Evidently another panel convenes in Guelph with more gems.
1. How does the cultural and social instrumentality of improvisation
determine an aesthetics of improvisation?
2. How should an appropriate aesthetics of improvisation impact
policy with regards to arts funding and pedagogy?
3. As a society how might we work towards a more robust emphasis on
an endorsement of improvised arts given a new understanding of their
aesthetics?
Justin DesMangles addressed the core of this more skilfully with poetic insight from Rene Menil.
Canada, it's not your fault that you didn't drag millions of Africans to your lands to chop cotton in the taiga for free and it was pretty cool that many found shelter during the days of the Underground Railroad but you do need to move beyond this odd academic self consciousness that seems to have all the worst aspects of the EU and the US with none of the good ones.
Look, our NEA doesn't waste time on this navel gazing shit. It assumes that the various idioms grouped under 'jazz' and 'improvisation' have some merit...academics and public consensus covered that.
So we allocate our effort to figuring out how to get the stuff over, get it money and help it improve it's game plans. We don't play these ridiculous riddle games like some art sphinx entity. We let the 'private sector,' liberal arts colleges like Bard, fart around with thesis' and 'why is there air' questions. You've had since Tocqueville to know this about us.
Canada, you are embarrassing yourself with this wooden earnestness. It makes you look very insecure. Look, I understand you are stuck between a rock...us.. and a hard place, the North Pole, (although we do seem to be melting it a bit with all our carbon).
We tried to steal your land back in 1812 and we've been chiseling you ever since with weird boundary disputes. Remember when we tried to jam Maine all the way to the Saint Lawrence? Good thing Lord Ashburton covered that. And you still have these ridiculous ass pimple places we sliced over that boundary line in Minnesota and that odd speck of Point Roberts in Seattle. Is that thing idiotic or what?
And what about that stupid 'pig war' in the San Juans? I know, we're a handful and so invasive you had to make content laws for your media industry to keep our slop from burying you. I've listened to your pop radio coming down the flat run of Puget Sound from Victoria. It isn't half bad. I always liked Martha and the Muffins.
Quebec has the best handle on our more elaborate jazz stuff and yet it ever ponders ditching the Pommy rest of you. You had a thing at Banff and Cecil Taylor was reportedly impressed to find a moose there. But most of the stuff spraddled around is as dry as the Atacama. And we are so over your heroine Ms Krall. We don't care that her guitarist had a fleeting association with Bill Dixon. Besides, she ditched you for Elvis Costello. You are always getting ditched when one a your'n hits the big time, the Band, Joni, Neil. Hey, you still got Rush, right?
Gil Evans and Oscar Peterson bolted too, although Prince Charles and Keith Emerson do love the latter. We had hopes for Coda but it soon became unreadable. Try to find it in your hearts to see that it is not African America's fault that we suck so much. They are pretty painfully aware of it too what with the tea party and all. They have given the world something wonderful and you shouldn't miss out by wasting all your festival money on big ticket stars, your are getting fleeced. There are plenty of engaging artists who won't put you in bankruptcy.
And you have some pretty impressive folks too, who should be coming here more. Nicole Rampersaud comes to mind. And you can always ask Stanley.
1. What theory best captures the nuanced relationship between the
recording, storage and transmission of improvisation?
2. How should funding policies be modified given the relationship of
improvising ensembles to the media they employ?
3. How have new interactive technologies affected the creation and
reception of improvised music?
Evidently another panel convenes in Guelph with more gems.
1. How does the cultural and social instrumentality of improvisation
determine an aesthetics of improvisation?
2. How should an appropriate aesthetics of improvisation impact
policy with regards to arts funding and pedagogy?
3. As a society how might we work towards a more robust emphasis on
an endorsement of improvised arts given a new understanding of their
aesthetics?
Justin DesMangles addressed the core of this more skilfully with poetic insight from Rene Menil.
Canada, it's not your fault that you didn't drag millions of Africans to your lands to chop cotton in the taiga for free and it was pretty cool that many found shelter during the days of the Underground Railroad but you do need to move beyond this odd academic self consciousness that seems to have all the worst aspects of the EU and the US with none of the good ones.
Look, our NEA doesn't waste time on this navel gazing shit. It assumes that the various idioms grouped under 'jazz' and 'improvisation' have some merit...academics and public consensus covered that.
So we allocate our effort to figuring out how to get the stuff over, get it money and help it improve it's game plans. We don't play these ridiculous riddle games like some art sphinx entity. We let the 'private sector,' liberal arts colleges like Bard, fart around with thesis' and 'why is there air' questions. You've had since Tocqueville to know this about us.
Canada, you are embarrassing yourself with this wooden earnestness. It makes you look very insecure. Look, I understand you are stuck between a rock...us.. and a hard place, the North Pole, (although we do seem to be melting it a bit with all our carbon).
We tried to steal your land back in 1812 and we've been chiseling you ever since with weird boundary disputes. Remember when we tried to jam Maine all the way to the Saint Lawrence? Good thing Lord Ashburton covered that. And you still have these ridiculous ass pimple places we sliced over that boundary line in Minnesota and that odd speck of Point Roberts in Seattle. Is that thing idiotic or what?
And what about that stupid 'pig war' in the San Juans? I know, we're a handful and so invasive you had to make content laws for your media industry to keep our slop from burying you. I've listened to your pop radio coming down the flat run of Puget Sound from Victoria. It isn't half bad. I always liked Martha and the Muffins.
Quebec has the best handle on our more elaborate jazz stuff and yet it ever ponders ditching the Pommy rest of you. You had a thing at Banff and Cecil Taylor was reportedly impressed to find a moose there. But most of the stuff spraddled around is as dry as the Atacama. And we are so over your heroine Ms Krall. We don't care that her guitarist had a fleeting association with Bill Dixon. Besides, she ditched you for Elvis Costello. You are always getting ditched when one a your'n hits the big time, the Band, Joni, Neil. Hey, you still got Rush, right?
Gil Evans and Oscar Peterson bolted too, although Prince Charles and Keith Emerson do love the latter. We had hopes for Coda but it soon became unreadable. Try to find it in your hearts to see that it is not African America's fault that we suck so much. They are pretty painfully aware of it too what with the tea party and all. They have given the world something wonderful and you shouldn't miss out by wasting all your festival money on big ticket stars, your are getting fleeced. There are plenty of engaging artists who won't put you in bankruptcy.
And you have some pretty impressive folks too, who should be coming here more. Nicole Rampersaud comes to mind. And you can always ask Stanley.
