Yeah ran out when I wrote the headline but got to 9 later. How long’s a piece of string?
1 Thinking simply because it is jazz, therefore it has merit. Tempting but wrong.
2 Thinking because it is from a certain country it has exceptional merit. Ditto, daddio. Also lame. Wave a flag if you must but that gets tedious – all that wrapping and unfurling.
The consensus conundrum
Lots of lists insist on “avant-ness” by default. Are they really saying there isn’t quality in non-avant output? There often seems to be a triaging of criteria, even when it isn’t explicitly stated in many critical assessments of quality. But the whole exercise isn’t a science. And a consensus can be wrong, particularly when critics are reading lots of other critics or taking the Kool-Aid spun by influential hype merchants & canny marketeers. When the herd moves, it moves.
The active exclusion of traditional jazz is another problem. Many progressive critics simply don’t engage with it, which narrows the conversation before it even begins. If an entire branch of the music is routinely ignored, then any resulting consensus is inevitably incomplete.
I also think that once an artist becomes a celebrity – for example, Jon Batiste – or achieves major commercial “crossover” success, as with Laufey, their work is often judged by different standards. Critics frequently stop reviewing artists once they reach that level, or, if they do continue, they sometimes seem more inclined to pick faults than they were earlier in the artist’s career.
To be fair, there are occasions when that tougher scrutiny is justified. Fame can do strange things to an artist, and success can smooth away the rough edges that first made their work distinctive. That isn’t always an easy transition for fans or critics who preferred the earlier, more adventurous recordings before larger budgets, marketing departments, fast-moving consumer goods brands, or technology companies began shaping an artist’s image.
3 Because it is avant-garde – and so many critics think this – It is better than if it isn’t. Also wayward.
4 Because the tunes are originals they are necessarily better. Yes, you got it – pants.
When anyone starts out to do something creative – especially if it seems a little unusual – they seek approval, often from those least inclined to give it. But a creative life cannot be sustained by approval, any more than it can be destroyed by criticism.
Will Self
5 If it swings – part of the thinking in 3 above, in other words something to be demonised – it’s hokey. Hilarious
7 If the jazzers are badly dressed, like they are wearing a bag yet again, or look as they woke up in a ditch and shop in Asda, don’t look particularly hip and are aged they are wack. While not great on the hygiene front again questionable and highly delulu.
8 If they are young and straight out of some top music college they are that bit more interesting. They sometimes are but often aren’t. Mr Pitiful thinking. And ageist with it.
If you’re not a musician, you know just a nothing sod, and not one of us of course, what you are writing is just the worst thing ever. You can’t even spell! You overuse the word lyrical all the time! You take yourself extremely seriously, wear a cravat or culottes (possibly at the same time), and are known to pompously burble. Oh, and you stink, are rude to waiters, make babies cry and talk over the quietest bits in “my” brilliant ballads all the time. “My” carefully wrought homage to Buddy Featherstonhaugh, even though you are one of only 2 people who know how to pronounce his name properly, was utterly ruined BY YOU – YOU CLOT! The reductio ab asurdum – I do know the difference between fact and fiction, mind – is reliably unearthed and mocked up when jazz expert the fictional Hans Groiner – also a musician, it’s worth pointing out – interviews the very real John Scofield.
9 However accidentally or subliminally achieved, parroting PR guff that is at best a distraction at worst a red herring is not waving but drowning. Again the critic is made to look a total tool if so bamboozled. Not ideal.
10 Getting carried away with the myth and mystique of it and thinking even long dead musicians are your pal isn’t ideal. Somehow you are time travelling. You and Buddy Bolden are bezzy mates and you sit there thinking: *me I could do that* as you start doing air geetar to some juicy bit of Al Di Meola. Spooning dollops of black forest gateau to her loveliness sat next to you, demolishing a few Steins of Verfaultes Frettchen (“rotted ferret”) at German night down the Peckham Half Note, absolutely delighted with yourself, yup: life’s good: rising star Shughie McFee who has hot footed it down from Auchtermuchty stops you feeling jaded.
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