Jazz and all American music

-A.H.P
Preface:I have written this article as of my knowledge any recommendations and corrections are welcome to my mail:- ahp@bsnl.in,

(1) CLASSICAL MUSIC AND JAZZ While it is questionable whether or not the solo piano work of Keith Jarrett or the work of pianist Cecil Taylor is jazz or not (even Cecil says on occasion that he does not consider his music to be jazz), the fact remains that the process (process is different from product, it means the methodology or ways of thinking, creating, and being, for example) of jazz music has informed both these pianists in very crucial ways. Also their pianistic abilities are formidable to say the least and on those grounds alone it is worth listening to both Keiths solo works as well as Cecil Taylor. Anyone familiar with modern classical music (e.g. the composers Schoenberg and Stravinsky and the composers after both of them such as Messiaen) can find parallels in the playing of Cecil Taylor. Cecil does not swing: at least nothing I have heard is linked to this sensibility. Both Cecil Taylor and Keith Jarrett are strongly influenced not only by free jazz, but they identify themselves with this movement.

(2) LATIN AMERICAN MUSIC, CARIBBEAN MUSIC, SPANISH MUSIC AND JAZZ Two excellent pianists from the Afro-Cuban heritage include Chucho Valdez and Gonzalo Rubalcaba, both influenced strongly by jazz music, and both I consider to be excellent jazz musicians. From Brazil there is the excellent jazz pianist Eliane Elias who also has strong links to Herbie Hancock. From Panama we have Danilo Perez, another excellent jazz pianist who is also influenced strongly by Herbie Hancock. From the Dominican Republic we have virtuoso jazz pianist Michel Camilo. Both the pianists Hilton Ruiz and Eddie Palmieri were/are born in New York City, and of Puerto-Rican ethnicity. The late Hilton Ruiz played both Afro-Cuban as well as bebop jazz music. Eddie Palmieri has strong connections to Afro-Cuban and the native Puerto-Rican music forms such as Bomba and Plena, he also has a strong affinity to jazz music and is often collaborating with top flight jazz musicians from New York. Monty Alexander is a jazz pianist strongly influenced by Oscar Peterson, and hails from Jamaica. The calypso and reggae influence can be heard, mainly in his work as a leader. When he plays jazz, he can swing hard and does not reference Latin-America or the Caribbean. The Latin-American music forms connect culturally with both European influences as well as African influences: this is similar to the cultural roots of jazz music that include both the European as well as African influences. One crucial note: jazz music is a unique phenomenon that is a product of the cultures that exist within the USA.

Spanish music as in the Basque culture and flamenco also has parallels with Latin-American music as well as jazz music: this culture has been influenced by both Europe as well as Africa (in this instance North Africa, as contrasted with west and central Africa for the music in the Americas). An excellent jazz pianist from Spain is Chano Dominguez.

(3) AFRICAN MUSIC AND JAZZ From South Africa there is Abdullah Ibrahim (aka Dollar Brand) who produces fascinating music with strong roots in the folk traditions of South Africa, at the same time he is influenced by jazz music and its process. In fact Duke Ellington was impressed by hearing a young Abdullah Ibrahim. A parallel path to Abdullah Ibrahim is the work of American jazz pianist Randy Weston who is listed above, however Randys work is far more connected to the main threads of jazz music, perhaps because culturally Randy is an American: Randy lived for a very long time in Tangier (Morocco) and soaked up the vibrations of that place. He not only has a connect to the music of north Africa, but he also has deep roots in the blues, strongly influenced by both Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk, thus to me he is definitely an important jazz musician, and one of the most individual voices in the history of jazz.

(4) OTHER CULTURES AND JAZZ MUSIC While it is tempting to think that Indian music for example can find connects with jazz, unfortunately nothing deep has happened so far at all. Coltrane was not so much influenced by Indian music forms as the idea behind some Indian music forms: using pedal points to anchor the tonality as well as provide a steady frame of reference, and the goal of music being a conduit to higher states of consciousness. Coltranes music by and large is rooted deeply in the blues and even his so called modal or scalar improvisation has roots in his extensive knowledge of harmony and chord progressions. There is one crucial reason why Indian music and jazz music is by and large incompatible: jazz music is a product of a largely Judeo-Christian culture which has a different conception of the individual and what an individual is supposed to do, as opposed to Indian culture that is definitely non Judeo-Christian, and the relationship of an individual to a collective is extremely different to that of America. Thus even within a music form, the group organization of a jazz music form is ideally democratic even if the group has a leader, but the group organization of say a Hindustani or Carnatic group is feudal: the vocalist for example is the leader of the group, and the percussionists are lower down in the hierarchy. The principle of democracy as it works today in the western world has very deep Christian theological roots. There are also tricky issues with tuning systems (jazz music uses instrumentation which is constructed from an equal tempered tuning system, of course when one plays the blues one uses frequencies in-between the notes). Also the approach of taking some scale from Indian music, translating it to the piano, and then using a combinatorial approach to generate chords out of that scale is extremely faulty: it only shows that the practitioner does not know anything about the development of western classical music harmony that (a) had a connect with counterpoint and (b) used chromatic harmony as in the music of Bach and Chopin: chord progressions that lie outside the main scale, but can generate movement and suspense. Also harmony in western classical music and jazz music is mainly functional: chords function as markers of musical events. In fact if one uses chord

progressions over a melodic improvisation derived from a raga, it is possible, and it has frequently happened that the nuances of the raga are buried with the chords (usually film music practitioners in India use extremely simple chords since they generally do not have an extensive knowledge of western classical harmony). There is no substitute for learning a music form in depth, and a little knowledge is always a dangerous thing, even if it tempting to think one is advancing in knowledge (which is nothing but an illusion). In this instance whether in so called fusion music (which is not really a bona fide music form) or in film music, just because almost everyone does it does not make it musically significant or deep: the majority can be ill informed, misguided or unwilling to actually listen to different music forms with any depth.