After six years together, the couple called off their whole relationship.<br/><br/>After six years together, the couple called off their whole relationship.
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Why Does It Feel Important To Like Rap? (As A Jazz Fan)
by Patrick Jarenwattananon
Enlarge Scott Gries/Getty Images Rapper Mos Def performs with his big band project, an ensemble with traditional jazz instrumentation.
Scott Gries/Getty Images Rapper Mos Def performs with his big band project, an ensemble with traditional jazz instrumentation.
From the department of being unable to MYOB, the other night I eavesdropped on a Twitter conversation about an eclectic top 100 albums of the year list … with no hip-hop on it. There’s nothing wrong about this, of course; a bounty of good records is released every year, and there’s no requirement that anyone who likes music has to pay attention to modern black popular music. (There was no modern R&B, the kind that is heavy on hip-hop aesthetics, on the list either.) But the list was posted by Ted Gioia, well-respected author of several books on jazz and blues, and contains a wide range of jazz and blues released this year. And that juxtaposition struck me as odd. Here’s how it started, between eclectic critic Nate Chinen, pianist Paul Horton (@_NoStress_) and Gioia. This entire conversation is excerpted. @natechinen: In case you were wondering: um yes, it’s possible to have a Top 100 album list in 2011 w/o slightest trace of hip-hop http://tedgioia.com/100best2011.html @_NoStress: @natechinen especially if you don’t actually listen to any hiphop. @tedgioia: @_NoStress_ @natechinen I made picks on the basis of musicianship, creativity, innovation & how much they delight me…and not genre quotas After further inquiry: @tedgioia: @natechinen: C’mon Nate, you know that – with a few exceptions – level of musicianship on hiphop records falls short of jazz, classical, etc. @tedgioia: @natechinen I tend to evaluate music on musical standards, not as lifestyle expression. But list some hiphop picks & I’ll listen. That led to this discussion, with composer Judd Greenstein of NOW Ensemble (among other performing situations): @juddgreenstein: @tedgioia @natechinen I thoroughly disagree. what are you calling “musical” vs. “non-musical” standards? @tedgioia: @juddgreenstein @natechinen E.g. piano technique is a musical standard. Valuing a song because it expresses your lifestyle is nonmusical. @juddgreenstein: @tedgioia @natechinen got it. I think you’re undervaluing the musical technique of MCs and producers. Gioia never relented on this point — even after an additional Twitter exchange last night, sparked by this list — but there seemed to be an agreement to disagree. Eventually, Chinen and Horton contributed suggestions of things for Gioia to listen to, and Gioia said he would, and everybody left Twitter feeling like something got communicated. @tedgioia: @natechinen Cool….I will listen with open ears. Perhaps this old dog can learn some new tricks. Awww. Still, for a 20-something jazz beat writer who delights in, say, “6 Foot 7 Foot” (to pick a song from the last year), this exchange remains odd in a way I can’t fully explain. There’s no logical reason why one shouldn’t be able to appreciate some music but not other music. And yet, in 2011, when so many people ignore modern jazz and listen to contemporary black pop music, I find it jarring to hear from people whose listening habits are the opposite. I’m wondering if anyone has any answers as to why. Before anything else: I’m quite aware that there are many people whose musical tastes are like Gioia’s, some of whom are jazz musicians, and a good deal of whom are older than I am. (The Internet tells me that Gioia is 54.) Again, I can’t find anything wrong with this. There are many valid approaches to appreciating jazz, even today’s jazz, that don’t require you know anything about roughly contemporaneous rap & R&B. Once an artist releases a bit of sound into the world, the interpretation of that sound is out of his control. I just can’t shake the sense that if a wide range of today’s jazz music resonates with you, you somehow “ought” to have some appreciation of hip-hop as well. For one, jazz artists under a certain age — let’s say 40, give or take — grew up in an age where hip-hop and R&B was pop music. This may not be a direct, or even lingering influence in their jazz expressions, but sometimes it is. I don’t hear the James Farm record (#5 on Gioia’s list) or the Ambrose Akinmusire album (#7) existing without the way great beatmakers and DJs have divided time. (For that matter, I don’t think new-guard contemporary classical releases like the one from the aforementioned NOW Ensemble [#8] could have taken place in an age without hip-hop either; Judd Greenstein has divulged that he is writing a Ph.D. dissertation on the “flow” of rappers.) It’s silly to expect someone, even a music writer, to care for every hidden influence on their favorite music. But the presence of hip-hop appears to partly define this era of jazz — a sentiment that is no doubt abutted by its social history. Perhaps you have wrestled with the idea of a black cultural continuum. If you like jazz, you are connecting with a form of African-American-origin popular music; if you like hip-hop, you somehow are doing the same thing. (Especially if you accept Nicholas Payton’s term “Black American Music,” the idea behind so much Internet debate of late.) While it is possible to consider hip-hop and modern R&B to be a radical enough break as to constitute its own genre, it’s also possible to consider its connections to previous incarnations of black pop, to the narrative of a blues tradition, to the expression of what it means to be black or even just “other.” Sound may not be cognizant of skin color, but the ways we make sense of it very well might be. Additionally, jazz lovers tend to be concerned about the popularity of the music. Many of us want to grow the audience, realizing that current low interest will diminish future opportunities to see the stuff. But if jazz fans can’t make sense of today’s popular music, and understand how blues-based improvised music fits into that landscape, it’s hard to know how to direct those efforts toward the people for whom jazz is foreign. Finally, hip-hop’s aesthetics are everywhere, in plain sight and underground, and it seems, well, odd that such a music lover of otherwise eclectic taste would not find a top 100 album to like in it. Now, I don’t actually know how much rap Gioia has listened to. I don’t mean to challenge Gioia’s right to like what he likes, and I certainly don’t want this to become a referendum on the artistic merit of hip-hop. (It’s mostly irrelevant to this discussion, anyhow.) I haven’t listened to nearly all of his favorite records either, and will surely use the list for its primary purpose — turning me on to some interesting music. Gioia has done a lot more intense research into jazz and black music history than I have, and besides, he’s not putting himself fully into the world of contemporary jazz and pop criticism. He just likes a lot of music, and that’s without reservation a good thing. I am saying that this list triggered something in me. My personal appreciation for hip-hop feels somehow inextricable from my appreciation for jazz, especially today’s jazz, in a way that goes beyond “it’s all music.” Speaking only for myself, I feel I would be a diminished writer if I were unable to meaningfully situate jazz performers in a world where hip-hop is both an influence and a context. As you can tell, I can’t figure out the exact relationship; it’s different for every artist anyway. But I am wondering if any of you, of any age and color and experience with this stuff, feel the same way.
Why Does It Feel Important To Like Rap? (As A Jazz Fan)
Tina Brown’s Must-Reads: The Columnist’s Voice
Enlarge Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In response to presidential candidate Herman Cain’s recent “oops” moment, The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan writes, “To know little and to be proud of knowing little is disrespectful of the democratic process, and of the moment we’re in.”
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In response to presidential candidate Herman Cain’s recent “oops” moment, The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan writes, “To know little and to be proud of knowing little is disrespectful of the democratic process, and of the moment we’re in.”
Tina Brown, editor of The Daily Beast and Newsweek, tells us what she’s been reading in a feature that Morning Edition likes to call Word of Mouth. This month, Brown has been considering the voice of the columnist through readings that provide new perspectives on political issues, moral issues and national events.
‘A Caveman Won’t Beat A Salesman’
First up is Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan’s recent piece, “A Caveman Won’t Beat A Salesman,” which uses Walter Isaacson’s recent biography of Steve Jobs to make a point about American politics.
Noonan opens her column with a comment Jobs once made about how great companies decline. She quotes Isaacson’s book: “The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important. The company starts valuing the great salesman, because they’re the ones who can move the needle on revenues.”
In other words, Brown tells NPR’s Steve Inskeep, the salesmen eventually take over — and that’s not too different from what happens in American politics.
“Obama in [Noonan's] mind was also a salesman who really didn’t understand … the quality of the product — in [this] case, you know, America,” Brown says. “She talks about how Herman Cain is also, therefore, an embarrassment to America because Herman Cain also kind of doesn’t respect the product — in this case politics, the democracy, the way the body politic runs.”
Noonan writes that Cain showed disrespect for the democratic process when, earlier this month, he had trouble answering questions about Libya during a meeting with the staff of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Brown says the incident demonstrates a misunderstanding of what it means to run for office; and, according to Noonan, that misunderstanding does a disservice to the GOP by making them look like they’re intellectually unfit to govern. Republicans have a right to be skeptical of the powers of government, Noonan argues, but that’s no reason to cheer the notion that politicians don’t need to know what they’re doing, as some candidates and voters have done.
“I think it’s a terrific piece, and you’d never expect she would get there from the way she starts,” Brown says. “[A] very interesting point of view.”
‘Let’s All Feel Superior’
Brown’s next pick is New York Times columnist David Brooks’ recent op-ed, “Let’s All Feel Superior,” which takes a second look at public reaction to the Penn State scandal and the arrest of the school’s now former assistant football coach, Jerry Sandusky, on charges of sexual abuse.
Brooks writes, “The vanity is the outraged reaction of a zillion commentators over the past week, whose indignation is based on the assumption that if they had been in [former Penn State coach] Joe Paterno’s shoes, or assistant coach Mike McQueary’s shoes, they would have behaved better.”
But in reality and in history, Brooks says, that rarely happens — just look at the Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide. He writes:
“Some people simply can’t process the horror in front of them. Some people suffer from what the psychologists call normalcy bias. When they find themselves in some unsettling circumstance, they shut down and pretend everything is normal.
“Some people suffer from motivated blindness; they don’t see what is not in their interest to see.”
So while some may be critical of McQueary — the assistant coach who allegedly saw Sandusky abusing a child in the Penn State locker room — for not doing enough to stop the abuse, Brooks warns that no one can be sure of how they would react if put in his shoes.
“[Brooks] says [McQueary] could have suffered from the normalcy bias that he writes about, or motivated blindness,” Brown says. “He also then talks about the bystander effect, and he says, ‘So many people do nothing while witnessing ongoing crimes, psychologists have a name for it: the bystander effect. The more people are around to witness the crime, the less likely they are to intervene.’ ”
‘Deadline Artists’
Brown’s last pick contains the voices of some of the country’s most celebrated columnists, including Mike Royko and Jimmy Breslin. Co-edited by Jesse Angelo, Errol Louis and Daily Beast columnist John Avlon, Deadline Artists is a collection of the best newspaper columns from important periods of American history.
The book’s introduction reads,
“Columnists speak in a voice readers understand — their own, but just a bit better. It is the voice of the bar room, the locker room and the smoke-filled back room. It is a voice that comforts and confronts. A great column is both a witness and a work of art — helping people understand the world around them while making them feel a little less alone.”
Angelo, Louis and Avlon write that in the era of fast Internet and punditry, the art of the reported column has become somewhat marginalized; their collection is a way to show the world the value of a good columnist.
“It’s really about how they think and their ability to empathize in a unique and interpretive way, in a sense, both with their readers and the culture,” Brown says. “You really want to feel that the writer is both absolutely in tune with what’s happening in the culture but also has a kind of counterintuitive response to it.”
For Brown, Pete Hamill is that writer. In 2001, Hamill wrote in vivid detail about his experience walking the streets of Manhattan on Sept. 11:
“I start running toward Broadway, through dust 2 inches deep. Park Row is white. City Hall Park is white. Sheets of paper are scattered everywhere, orders for stocks, waybills, purchase orders, the pulverized confetti of capitalism.”
“I thought that was a brilliant way of describing it,” Brown says. “And he wrote that on a dime. He was writing it in the mayhem of that day — that’s what one has to remember.”
Brown points out that at the time, there wouldn’t have been time to look around at what other people were writing, or to marinate on the column for too long.
“It was simply what he wrote with a pure, pure vision and eyes and heart,” she says, “and it reads that way to this day.”
Tina Brown’s Must-Reads: The Columnist’s Voice
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