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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Aesthetics
Aesthetics
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Andrew
325 posts
May 14, 2009
7:26 AM
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All my friends who are into music hear me regularly saying that Jason is the best harmonica player alive (well, he’s easily my favourite), but when I like someone, that doesn’t mean I don’t criticise them. So I’m sorry if I hurt Jason, but that’s the way it is. Various points have been raised in the Jason thread, mostly referring to aesthetics, so I thought I’d move them here, so as not to spoil the Jason thread any further. I’ll put other people’s stuff in quotes and leave my replies unquoted.
“Robert Walser…went back and looked at the cult of personality that had swept through classical music--Paganini, Chopin, etc. He argued that they were the rock stars of their day.”
Yes, but he’s talking about function. I’m talking about form. I doubt if we have time or space to analyse whether they are one and the same thing. I’d refute a call to McLuhan that the medium is the message. The message and the function may be the same thing, but I’m not sure McLuhan cared about aesthetics.
“Anyway, false distinction.”
Maybe we agree. I’m not sure yet
“On the other hand: punk dedicated itself to the idea of "noise."”
Literal noise?
"One man's noise is always another man's music. Jazz was "noise." ("Jungle noise," actually.) Rock was "noise."
Metaphorical noise?
Yes, but neither Blues nor classical music to me are noise. So the question is “is the fusion noise to me, or is it something else?” I’m thinking about it. But it’s complicated because there are many kinds of fusion, and some are just patronising cultural imperialism, another can of worms that I don’t really want to open.
I mean what if, as a trained Classical musician I can hear both when Classical musicians are playing the blues badly and when blues musicians are playing Classical music badly? The problem with that is it sounds like criticism of Jason, and it isn’t.
“Jason puts punk vocals together with blues vocals; he puts classical etudes together with Junior Wells. That's the postmodern touch ; it's a sign of actually living in the present moment”
Hmm, the Modernists, in the sense of the megalithic carvers of cultural monuments, e.g. the big historians like Marx, Mommsen, Ronald Syme (I’m not a historian, so I can’t think of any others) were of the present moment, so I don’t agree with that point. That’s not what postmodernism is about (my understanding of it, anyway). The Modernists simply thought that absolute narrative objectivity was attainable. Postmodernism is taking subjectivity to its extremes (Reception/Translation Theory), it’s taking relativity to its extremes (Cultural Relativity/Philosophy of Science as cultural epiphenomenon). That may or may not describe Jason.
“The old punk is no longer punk, in terms of being a vital contemporary gestural vocabulary that exerts traction and conveys believable rage against the machine. “
In other words it doesn’t have the same function that it did.
“I would however be so bold to add to your excellent post that another big part of Punk is depriving the audience of what they want/expect”
Disagree – which audience, the prepunk audiences they wanted to piss off or the post punk audiences, who did get what they wanted?
In fact, by your criterion (which I don’t dislike), Picasso was more of a Punk than the Sex Pistols were!
“ and/or a "screw you" attitude “
I agree. Mind, my screw you attitude isn’t going down so well (LOL)!
“and I do believe putting classical music at the end of a slow blues“
I say somewhere else that I like your reference to Fuer Elise at the end of the piece, but that I felt that two Classical references was overdoing it. I’m happy if you disagree with that. On the other hand, if the Caprice is going to end up being moved to another location in your repertoire then maybe we disagree less than it appears?
“I must admit that some of Jason's music is a little beyond me.”
You see, put it delicately like this and you get no flak, whereas I’m just as incendiary as Chris (LOL)!
Last Edited by on May 14, 2009 7:35 AM
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Buddha
419 posts
May 14, 2009
8:30 AM
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that's too much to read!!!
I don't think Jason is the best harmonica player alive. In fact I don't even think he's that great of a musician.
However, I think he is a tremendous artist and he has a captivating sound and energy like no other. There are very very few harmonica player I can tolerate and even few that I would consider and influence. Jason is both.
I've made Jason cry a few times with my music and both times were extremely humbling experiences for me. I think he would be quick to you all about my generosity, I wish I could do more for one of the very few people who has been able to affect me on so many levels.
I am honored and proud to call him a friend and brother.
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oda
97 posts
May 14, 2009
8:40 AM
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Buddha, is there any harmonica players (living or dead) that you would consider a great musician? if so, what do you think makes that so?
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Buddha
420 posts
May 14, 2009
8:44 AM
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Howard Levy
William Galison
Toots Thielemans
Mike Turk
Tollak Olstad
Steve Wonder
Tommy Morgan
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sopwithcamels266
42 posts
May 14, 2009
9:15 AM
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Man, I must be getting old I kept seeing this thing (LOL)I have just found out what it meant.So lots of you taking the P... out of me on my posts ha ha.Thats OK no worries.
I'm very old fashioned always have been my mobile phone is steam powered,ha ha , hang on (lol).I don't care for it some how I think I prefer the ha ha.
Andrew: Andrew I dig some of what your saying and thats cool.At the end of the day if we all had the same opinion there wouldn't be a forum.
Heres a thing something that is interesting.A lot of musicians are riddled with insecurity even at the top of the tree.
The reason I come to this is if the Artist is comfortable with what they are doing then they DON'T answer any critics. The only way is with their music.
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jonsparrow
296 posts
May 14, 2009
10:04 AM
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"The reason I come to this is if the Artist is comfortable with what they are doing then they DON'T answer any critics. The only way is with their music."
good point. an jason won 2008 blues harp player of the year. so i think thats enough to classify him as a good musician.
Last Edited by on May 14, 2009 4:43 PM
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The Gloth
40 posts
May 14, 2009
1:51 PM
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There are bands devoted to noise, actually. That's a genre in itself, very different from punk.
Apart from that, I believe there is no "best player in the world" or "best musician" or "best band", whatever. It all depends on who listens.
Last Edited by on May 14, 2009 1:53 PM
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Buddha
421 posts
May 14, 2009
7:56 PM
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before you guys get it into your head that I'm bashing Jason. My order of greatness goes like this
Harmonica Player
Blues/Jazz/whatever genre musician
Musician (meaning musician period above and beyond musician of a certain genre)
Artist
Jason is an artist which to me is above and beyond all else in the music world.
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lumpy wafflesquirt
56 posts
May 15, 2009
7:40 AM
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As they say 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'.
Just because I don't like the sound of something, doesn't mean it is bad, just that it is not to my taste.
Although if something it out of tune or not the tune it purports to be they it could be considered bad. I heard someone play Summertime the other day, the only resemblence to the tune summertime was for about 15 seconds out of a 5 minute recording. Is that bad? it certainly isn't to my taste, but technically he was a good player.
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