OK, this is going to get controversial. I was watching a wonderful classical pianist named Valentina Litsisa on Youtube the other day. She was playing Chopin’s Étude No. 10 – a ferociously difficult piece that she played with amazing aplomb, making light of the technical difficulties and giving the piece a serious lash.
here it is
An amazing performance by a great musician. I was so knocked out by it I watched it twice over, but about half-way through the second time through I suddenly thought ‘It’s amazing but……………. not one note of it is hers” And this set me thinking again about something which I’ve been thinking about for a while. At the highest level – can you compare great classical performers with great jazz peformers? And if you can, who, if anyone, takes the spoils?
I am a huge fan of classical music and musicians - I’ve read biographies of Yehudi Menuhin (one of my heroes), Glenn Gould, Artur Rubenstein, have read and re-read a book of interviews with concert pianists etc. When you read about musicians such as Rostropovich and Menuhin and their close relationship with great composers such as Shostakovitch and Bartok who wrote music especially for them, and you get into the lives they lead and their status in society, you realise you’re dealing with giants of music, by any standard. When you listen to them playing – their technical skill, their extraordinary feats of memory, the subtlety of interpretation, the understanding of the music of the composer etc. this confirms their greatness. All of that is unquestionable as far as I’m concerned - these are great great musicians. But…………
Again that ‘but’ – because, you can’t get away from the fact that these musicians didn’t produce anything of their own. Alfred Brendel is considered a God of German repertoire, and is treated like a god yet we’ve never heard a note of Alfred Brendel’s own work – his whole career has been based on music provided for him by others. Ditto Rostropovich, Oistrakh, Ashkenazy, Stern, etc. etc. It could be that some of these have done some composing, but I don’t think so, and if they did it was a very minor and neglected part of their activity, and not one they chose to feature in their performances.
Now I don’t mean to infer that any player of original music is by definition greater than any musician who is only an interpreter. A hack jazz musician playing a tired and cliché-ridden blues does not inhabit the same universe as a Richter or a Barenboim. But at the very top of the jazz profession, if you take the real giants of jazz, and you compare them to their counterparts in classical music, no matter how great they may be, I think the jazz guys have the edge on them.
Take such musicians as John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, Charlie Parker, and Louis Armstrong - here you have a list of musicians who were (or are) not just great virtuosos on their instruments but extraordinarily creative as well. They combine the virtues that in classical music are usually embodied by two people – the composer and the performer/interpreter. In the case of Armstrong, Parker, Davis and Coltrane, they were not only great players on their instruments, but they changed music itself and their influence was felt far beyond the confines of their respective instruments. Richter was one of the greatest pianists of all time, but how many violinists did he influence? How much difference did Menuhin make to the world of pianism? But Charlie Parker, who was an alto saxophonist, influenced the playing of every jazz performer who came after him, regardless of instrument.
So, the bottom line – I believe that Wayne Shorter is a a greater and more important figure in music than Alfred Brendel, that Ashkenazy does not match up to to John Coltrane – the creator of ‘A Love Supreme, and great as someone like Rostropovich might have been, Miles Davis was even greater. These giant figures in jazz combine instrumental performance at the highest level, with a level of creativity and originality of thought and conception that their counterparts in classical music cannot match.
This opinion is one I’ve only come to recognize recently – I was almost afraid to come to this conclusion – so great is the status of these famous classical performers, and indeed so great was my own admiration for them. It’s almost like heresy to consider someone like Itzhak Perlman to be a lesser musician than someone else – but I have to admit, I DO believe that musicians such as Charlie Parker are greater musicians and more important figures in music than someone like Itzhak Perlman, great violinist and musician though he undoubtedly is.
In the end, does it matter? Probably not – we need the Oistrakhs and Kissins of this world to play all this great music that’s been written for them and their antecedents, just as we need the Parkers and Coltranes for the other stuff. But it does bother me that in general the jazz musicians do not get the status they and their achievements deserve. The great classical virtuosi are treated almost as if they were the creators of the music they play – Brendel being a particular case in point – he is so deified in his world that you’d almost think he WAS Beethoven! These musicians live in a world of privilege and status that even the greatest jazz musicians can only dream about. And it’s this disparity in recognition that bothers me more and more – these classical musicians may be great, but they don’t produce a note of their own music, yet they’re lauded as being the greatest musicians in the world. But the people I believe to be truly the greatest musicians in the world still struggle to achieve anything like the status and rewards they deserve for their achievements.
OK, I’ve stuck my head above the parapet and said it – now discuss!
PS Don’t get me started on how overrated conductors are!
I'm loving this blog and how it entices me to waste what little free time I have any more. Anyway, this is a great topic and one that I have often thought of myself having spent time in both worlds and weighed the differences.
ReplyDeleteWhile I know what you're saying, I think there is an apples and oranges argument here. If we subscribe to the theory that jazz musicians are "spontaneous composers" and are thus engaging in an activity beyond the "mere interpretation" practiced by classical artists, even the best of them (Brendel, Perlman, Pollini etc), then shouldn't we be comparing the great jazz MUSICIANS to the great classical COMPOSERS? Are you prepared to say that Coltrane, Parker, Miles, Duke, great as they undeniably are, are greater than Mozart, Bach, Beetohoven? I'm not. Is what they've given us of as great an artistic value? Unquestionably - at least in my humble opinion.
The other part of the issue is why classical artists (mere interpreters) get far more respect, (not to mention money and fame) than their comparable jazz counterparts. I think some of that is the fault of jazz artists and how we have presented ourselves and our music. I won't name names, but I have heard even some of the great jazz musicians give lackluster and even just plain lousy performances on any given gig. I have never heard, nor can I imagine ever hearing, Alfred Brendel, Izthak Perlman or the Tokyo String Quartet sounding any less than very, very good, ever.
As for the "robot musicians", denigrated by Miles in the quote above, I think that view is disrespectful and ignorant - while acknowledging that Miles probably just wanted to stir the pot and piss people off. Even the most average classical musician in a (good) orchestra possesses skills of craft and interpretation that most jazz musicians, even in this most technically accomplished age, can only dream of. I've seen and heard it first hand. Likewise, even the most average jazz musician in a (good) band possesses skills of improvisation that most classical musicians find a complete mystery ("is what you're playing written down?") Apples and oranges.
Again though, I'm not prepared to say one is better than the the other. They're both great and both necessary and both worthy of respect.
Hi Lindsey
ReplyDelete“If we subscribe to the theory that jazz musicians are "spontaneous composers" and are thus engaging in an activity beyond the "mere interpretation" practiced by classical artists, even the best of them (Brendel, Perlman, Pollini etc), then shouldn't we be comparing the great jazz MUSICIANS to the great classical COMPOSERS?”
Yes, I think we should – in my original piece I very deliberately omitted the classical composers. For me the great composers are comparable in artistic stature to the great jazz musicians. In my opinion, and this is speaking personally, I would even go as far to say that it’s hard to think of anyone who can be spoken about in the same breath as J.S. Bach – classical or jazz. People like Bartok, Stravinsky, Mozart, Debussy, Beethoven and some others are at the very top of the artistic tree, and by any yardstick are among the greatest musicians in the history of humankind. The greatest of the jazz musicians and the greatest of the classical composers share similar abilities and qualities, and understand the totality of music in terms of its conceptual technical, interpretive and creative aspects. If you look back to such performer/composers as Mozart, Beethoven and Liszt I think you’re probably getting the best match to today’s great jazz musicians – people who not only understood music as an intellectual, conceptual and emotional concept, but who also had the instrumental technical facility and performance experience to interpret and play their own music in public.
This kind of super-being – composer/virtuoso performer/interpreter – has almost disappeared from classical music now, and the closest match to them can in my opinion be found in jazz. Someone like Miles Davis or John Coltrane, or Wayne Shorter embody all these virtues and are comparable to these musical giants in their all-encompassing musical abilities. Yet I would argue that the musical public not only don’t see the jazz guys in this way, but they even attribute higher artistic status to musicians who though embodying technical and interpretive greatness, have no creative aspect to their art at all. My posting on this subject is really relating to this – the question of why such higher status is given to musicians whose artistic work is not as complete as those who come from the jazz tradition.
I should say again that these comparisons can only be even entertained at the very highest level, in both disciplines. I take your point that it’s apples and oranges, (this exact point was also made to me by another musician in a private response), but the thing that bothers me the most is the status issue. I don’t think anyone could say that people like Brendel, Pollini and Rostropovich are (or were in the case of Rostropovich), undervalued in western society – they have very high status and receive commensurate financial rewards. Yet they play music written by somebody else. The aforementioned jazz giants played their own music, created a whole new language in some cases and yet are not seen in the same light, don’t receive the same financial rewards, and are not accorded the same status in the pantheon of the arts as the interpretive performers. And they should because they inhabit a different, and in my opinion more complete, artistic sphere to the interpretive performers. To go back to the original point you made in that paragraph, the jazz performers are in my opinion only comparable to the classical composers, but not only do they not receive the same kudos as the composers, they don’t even receive the same plaudits as performers who, no matter how great they may be technically and interpretatively, have never created anything of their own.
And while I take your point that “Even the most average classical musician in a (good) orchestra possesses skills of craft and interpretation that most jazz musicians, even in this most technically accomplished age, can only dream of” – while agreeing with that to some degree, I’ve also seen the other side of it. In one memorable incident the principal oboist in one of the professional orchestras here in Dublin’s first act at the first rehearsal of a new piece of mine was to come up to me and open negotiations with me concerning giving his part to the 2nd oboist so that he (the first oboist) could go home early from the rehearsal and the concert – how’s THAT for artistic integrity!
But to come to one other point you made –
“The other part of the issue is why classical artists (mere interpreters) get far more respect, (not to mention money and fame) than their comparable jazz counterparts. I think some of that is the fault of jazz artists and how we have presented ourselves and our music. I won't name names, but I have heard even some of the great jazz musicians give lackluster and even just plain lousy performances on any given gig. I have never heard, nor can I imagine ever hearing, Alfred Brendel, Izthak Perlman or the Tokyo String Quartet sounding any less than very, very good, ever”
This is a GREAT point! And one I hadn’t considered before. And it opens up a huge can of worms regarding this aspect of music making and the psychology behind it. Ever since I read your response I’ve been thinking about this, and I’d like to think about it a bit more before responding – I think it’s almost like an issue of its own. And when I do clarify my own thoughts on it I’ll write something about it. In the meantime, thanks for the considered response Lindsey and the feast of food for thought!
I've been thinking more too, and while I can't say for sure, I'll bet Sonny Rollins or Keith Jarrett or Herbie Hancock are as well known even among the general public as are the classical interpreters you name. They may even earn as much or even more money when they play - as well they should. Of course none of them are even close to as well known or well paid as certain popular artists (U2, Madonna, et al) but that's another story.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Leonard Bernstein was the last of the "supermen" in classical music; a brilliant pianist, composer, conductor, educator and a pretty fair songwriter to boot.