DOCSLIB.ORG

The News Is Next | Publishing: Essay

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The News Is Next | Publishing: Essay The News Is Next “The times they are aaaa-chaaangin’.” But Bob Dylan never really said whether the changes were for better or for worse. Then again, when the song was written it was hard to tell, probably because it was neither or both. The sixties, chronologically near at hand but just distant enough to qualify as a chapter in history, have become the subject of both critical assessment and rampant nostalgia. Take as examples the wealth of Vietnam films produced a few years ago, Oliver Stone’s The Doors, and JFK, the Public Broadcasting System’s sober miniseries analyzing Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential term, the recently released Forrest Gump, and the soon to be released Panther. These are all proof that the first media-saturated era is being resurrected. The sixties however, already understood itself largely through the televised image, and it is through these images, whether re-broadcast or incorporated into film, that the era is being re-presented. In short, the sixties is the first era whose historical events are able to be mediated almost entirely through television. But our historical perch is a privileged position. Footage used to revive the past is curated with historical and statistical hindsight. Events as reported at the time, particularly by way of nightly news broadcasts, lack a relationship to one another or a sense of causality to give them a broader context. As a series of media milestones, the sixties presented a genuine challenge to the nightly news broadcasts. The myriad sensational events required a style of reporting, which could comfortably modulate information regardless of content. Evening, a work by Stan Douglas, explores the development of Happy Talk, a broadcast news format introduced in the late sixties. As the artist explains in his project description: “Happy Talk: No matter how bad the news is, present it with a happy face. This is what the format suggests on the most simple level, but it also meant the inclusion of ‘human interest stories,’ banter between co- anchors, and new techniques of vocal delivery (narcotic rhythms and peculiar descending inflections) that were a radical departure from the bone-dry style of recitation passed on from radio announcing.” Commissioned by The Society to produce a new work, Douglas chose to focus on an aspect of local television and learned that Chicago was a pioneer of the Happy Talk format. As a series of six reconstructed Chicago news broadcasts, three from January 1, 1969, and three from January 1, 1970, Evening examines a strategic moment in the evolution of television journalism. Television was born with an instinct for the sensational and it seems prophetic that television journalism’s coming of age would coincide with a tumultuous decade whose highlights include several assassinations, the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement. Although many of television’s earliest broadcast journalists are still with us, the news as we know it has changed greatly. Formal developments in the sets, number of anchors, camera placement, and the use of live and pre-taped footage have come a long way since the late fifties. Changes within the broadcast news medium, however, are introduced gradually, making the evolution of conventions difficult to trace. Furthermore, news broadcasts are rarely saved, making episodes with coverage of less spectacular events almost impossible to find. Evening fills an important gap in Chicago’s media history by reconstructing broadcasts from a period in which television’s role as a major force in shaping public opinion was beyond dispute. On one level, the title Evening is obvious. This is the time of day the news is broadcast. But of greater interest is the title’s symbolic function. Evening is set before a darker, less certain, more cynical and dystopian era in United States history. By 1969 and 1970, the euphoric veneer of a post-war United States had been worn to a very dull finish. “Happy Days” had given way to events and statistics which forecast a very restless night. The economic and social reality of widespread poverty, unemployment, and racial strife had gained enough momentum to become a permanent fixture beyond the reach of The Great Society, The War on Poverty, and even the ideals of the Civil Rights Movement. Of the twenty-three stories reported, seven can be traced to the Civil Rights Movement and Black Nationalism, and three are tangentially linked. Featured prominently are stories relating to the Black Panther Party whose Chicago chapter members Fred Hampton and Michael Clark were killed by Chicago Police December 4, 1969; a synopsis of J. Edgar Hoover’s annual report which focuses on the threat to national security posed by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), particularly its Black Caucus; and controversies involving the misappropriation of funds by Adam Clayton Powell and Theodore A. Jones, both high-ranking black elected officials and civil rights activists. As the artist notes, “It should be remembered that Evening addresses the same medium that aided the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s by making local conflicts national and, later, international issues but, within a decade, had begun to represent precipitates of the Movement as unreasoned or fragmented ‘special interests’ lacking historical continuity.” Evening, however, is less about the subject matter of the broadcast than the way in which the subject matter is handled. The three fictionalized stations, WAMQ, WBMB, and WCSL, are each in different stages of adopting the Happy Talk format, with WBMB and WCSL offering the greatest contrast. Whereas WBMB is the most conservative, “maintaining its paternal conventions” throughout both its broadcasts, WCSL is the most entrenched in the Happy Talk format, having adopted the slogan “The Good New Station.” The tone and style of reporting, the discrepancy in the anchors’ ages, the camera placement, and set design define the extent to which Happy Talk was a departure from the traditional format. WBMB’s cumbersome edits are the result of a lone anchor captured in a perpendicular two-camera format. This square presentation has been abandoned by WCSL in favor of dual anchors, filmed on a set designed to accommodate conversation. Situated between these two networks is WAMQ, which makes the transition toward Happy Talk between its 1969 and 1970 broadcasts. Although the distinctions are often subtle, the opening remark of WAMQ’s 1970 broadcast, “It sure feels good to be out of the sixties,” stands out not as a declaration on the passing of a decade as much as it announces a more laissez-faire style of reporting. Fragmentation or “atomization,” as the artist calls it, is a key feature of Evening. As a series of three simultaneous news broadcasts on three adjacent screens, the first encounter with the work proves a challenge to following the deluge of names, places, and acronyms. The artist produced the audio track to approximate a musical score in which “polyphony is used to underline repetitions and differences in editorial treatment.” The cacophony of woven words resulting from the simultaneous chatter of three broadcasters keeps the information from ever being grounded in context. No story ever achieves monumental proportion even when one listens to the track from a single broadcast. In fact, reports such as the first successful heart transplant, a shortage at the blood bank, and an inquest into an assassination are equalized. Events as they are digested by this more theatrical format supersede the call for objective coverage by having their content rendered neutral. As a story achieves closure, meaning and significance are assumed rather than given, and disruptive inquiries which may arise in the viewers mind are quickly laid to rest. Both Evening and Hors-champs could easily be mistaken for television productions of twenty-five years ago, making them genuine anachronisms. They carefully reconstruct that which is overlooked or altogether forgotten and force a more careful examination of the past, particularly as it is inherited through television. They are not recreations, revisions or fictions, but hover in the realm of the “could have been.” Hors-champs is an addendum to the past which focuses on the cultural exchange between Europeans and African Americans during the mid-sixties. The work features a quartet—George Lewis (trombone), Douglas Ewart (saxophone), Kent Carter (bass), and Oliver Johnson (drums)—as they perform Albert Ayler’s 1965 composition Spirits Rejoice. Using a video format derived from the mid-sixties French television music productions of Jean-Christophe Averty, Hors-champs recalls the relationship between European audiences and expatriate jazz musicians in the 1960s. Like Ayler, the four musicians performing the piece either have been or are current expatriates. As it turns out, two of the musicians, Lewis and Ewart, are former Chicagoans and early progenies of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM), an organization whose members gained recognition in Europe in the late sixties and early seventies. Albert Ayler (193671), a tenor saxophonist and composer, is considered among the most ambitious of the sixties avant-garde free jazz musicians. His contributions to music stand among those of his immediate peers John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. Ayler not only left behind a body of strikingly original and profound compositions, but he greatly expanded the range and technique of the tenor saxophone to include sounds far above and below the standard register of the instrument. Whereas Coltrane and Coleman made breakthroughs with respect to the arrangement of notes and, in Coleman’s case, the relationship between musicians, Ayler’s music incorporated the saxophone’s squeaks, pops, honks, smears, and blurs as mandatory elements of the composition. But Ayler’s true ambition lies in his efforts to rebuild jazz to incorporate any form of music.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Temporal Disunity and Structural Unity in the Music of John Coltrane 1965-67
    Listening in Double Time: Temporal Disunity and Structural Unity in the Music of John Coltrane 1965-67 Marc Howard Medwin A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music. Chapel Hill 2008 Approved by: David Garcia Allen Anderson Mark Katz Philip Vandermeer Stefan Litwin ©2008 Marc Howard Medwin ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT MARC MEDWIN: Listening in Double Time: Temporal Disunity and Structural Unity in the Music of John Coltrane 1965-67 (Under the direction of David F. Garcia). The music of John Coltrane’s last group—his 1965-67 quintet—has been misrepresented, ignored and reviled by critics, scholars and fans, primarily because it is a music built on a fundamental and very audible disunity that renders a new kind of structural unity. Many of those who study Coltrane’s music have thus far attempted to approach all elements in his last works comparatively, using harmonic and melodic models as is customary regarding more conventional jazz structures. This approach is incomplete and misleading, given the music’s conceptual underpinnings. The present study is meant to provide an analytical model with which listeners and scholars might come to terms with this music’s more radical elements. I use Coltrane’s own observations concerning his final music, Jonathan Kramer’s temporal perception theory, and Evan Parker’s perspectives on atomism and laminarity in mid 1960s British improvised music to analyze and contextualize the symbiotically related temporal disunity and resultant structural unity that typify Coltrane’s 1965-67 works.
    [Show full text]
  • Cnn Presents the Eighties
    Cnn Presents The Eighties Unfashioned Haley mortgage some tocher and sulphonates his Camelopardus so roundly! Unstressed Ezekiel pistol apace while Barth always decompresses his unobtrusiveness books geotactically, he respites so revivingly. If scrap or juglandaceous Tyrone usually drop-forging his ureters commiserated unvirtuously or intromits simultaneously and jocularly, how sundry is Tuckie? The new york and also the cnn teamed up with supporting reports to The eighties became a forum held a documentary approach to absorb such as to carry all there is planned to claim he brilliantly traces pragmatism and. York to republish our journalism. The Lost 45s with Barry ScottAmerica's Largest Classic Hits. A history History of Neural Nets and Deep Learning Skynet. Nation had never grew concerned with one of technologyon teaching us overcome it was present. Eighties cnn again lead to stop for maintaining a million dollars. Time Life Presents the '60s the Definitive '60s Music Collection. Here of the schedule 77 The Eighties The episode explores the crowd-pleasing titles of the 0s such as her Empire Strikes Back ET and. CNN-IBN presents Makers of India on the couple of Republic Day envelope Via Media News New Delhi January 23 2010 As India completes. An Atlanta geriatrician describes a tag in his 0s whom she treated in. Historical Timeline Death Penalty ProConorg. The present experiments, recorded while you talk has begun fabrication of? Rosanne has been studying waves can apply net neutrality or more in its kind of a muslim extremist, of all levels of engineering. Drag race to be ashamed of deep feedforward technology could be a fusion devices around the chair of turner broadcasting without advertising sales of the fbi is the cnn eighties? The reporting in history American Spectator told the Times presents a challenge of just to.
    [Show full text]
  • Protests in the Sixties Kellie C
    Old Dominion University ODU Digital Commons Educational Foundations & Leadership Faculty Educational Foundations & Leadership Publications 2010 Protests in the Sixties Kellie C. Sorey Dennis Gregory Old Dominion University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/efl_fac_pubs Part of the Educational Leadership Commons, Intellectual History Commons, and the United States History Commons Repository Citation Sorey, Kellie C. and Gregory, Dennis, "Protests in the Sixties" (2010). Educational Foundations & Leadership Faculty Publications. 42. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/efl_fac_pubs/42 Original Publication Citation Sorey, K. C., & Gregory, D. (2010). Protests in the sixties. College Student Affairs Journal, 28(2), 184-206. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Educational Foundations & Leadership at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Educational Foundations & Leadership Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. I U""t SOREY, GREGORY Protests in the Sixties Kellie Crawford Sorey, Dennis Gregory The imminent philosopher Geo'Ee Santqyana said, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (1905). The protests that occurred on American campuses in the 1960s mqy lend support for that statement. This ar#cle will descn·be mcgor events of the protest movement during this period, describe the societal and institutional contexts within which these protests occurred, and will hopeful!J encourage student affairs professionals to examine the eme'E,ing student activism of todqy to avoid the mistakes of the past. Many of todqy 's senior administrators and faculty were college students during the protest era.
    [Show full text]
  • EH9.3 JULYL04 Gallery.Pmd
    gallery NEIL MAHER ON SHOOTING THE MOON ON 22 APRIL 1970, the first Earth Day, citizens paraded, rallied, and protested for the environment with drawings, paintings, and illustrations—but not with photographs—of the entire Earth. No such photograph existed. In 1970, the reigning iconic image of the Earth from space was the first picture shown here, Earthrise, taken by Apollo 8 in late December of 1968. On 7 December 1972, an Apollo 17 astronaut snapped the second photograph below, which quickly replaced Earthrise as the image of Earth from space for an American public ready to “Think Globally, Act Locally.” This essay explores the connections between technology, nature, and narrative in the production and reception of these two popular NASA photographs. While both these pictures are familiar to Americans today, the stories they tell are less well known, surprisingly divergent, and indicate that whether we are hiking close to home with map and compass or rocketing toward the Moon, technology mediates our contact with the environment and in doing so shapes the stories we tell about nature. As important, these extraterrestrial tales also suggest how the relationship between nature and technology in American culture shifted during four of the most turbulent years of the postwar period.1 The technology used to create and publicize these two photographs was nearly identical. Both the Apollo 8 and Apollo 17 missions depended on three-stage Saturn 5 rockets, developed by NASA’s Wernher Von Braun, to transport astronauts far enough from Earth—approximately 240,000 nautical miles—to peer back at the entire planet.
    [Show full text]
  • The Commune Movement During the 1960S and the 1970S in Britain, Denmark and The
    The Commune Movement during the 1960s and the 1970s in Britain, Denmark and the United States Sangdon Lee Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of History September 2016 i The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement ⓒ 2016 The University of Leeds and Sangdon Lee The right of Sangdon Lee to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 ii Abstract The communal revival that began in the mid-1960s developed into a new mode of activism, ‘communal activism’ or the ‘commune movement’, forming its own politics, lifestyle and ideology. Communal activism spread and flourished until the mid-1970s in many parts of the world. To analyse this global phenomenon, this thesis explores the similarities and differences between the commune movements of Denmark, UK and the US. By examining the motivations for the communal revival, links with 1960s radicalism, communes’ praxis and outward-facing activities, and the crisis within the commune movement and responses to it, this thesis places communal activism within the context of wider social movements for social change. Challenging existing interpretations which have understood the communal revival as an alternative living experiment to the nuclear family, or as a smaller part of the counter-culture, this thesis argues that the commune participants created varied and new experiments for a total revolution against the prevailing social order and its dominant values and institutions, including the patriarchal family and capitalism.
    [Show full text]
  • The Avant-Garde in Jazz As Representative of Late 20Th Century American Art Music
    THE AVANT-GARDE IN JAZZ AS REPRESENTATIVE OF LATE 20TH CENTURY AMERICAN ART MUSIC By LONGINEU PARSONS A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2017 © 2017 Longineu Parsons To all of these great musicians who opened artistic doors for us to walk through, enjoy and spread peace to the planet. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my professors at the University of Florida for their help and encouragement in this endeavor. An extra special thanks to my mentor through this process, Dr. Paul Richards, whose forward-thinking approach to music made this possible. Dr. James P. Sain introduced me to new ways to think about composition; Scott Wilson showed me other ways of understanding jazz pedagogy. I also thank my colleagues at Florida A&M University for their encouragement and support of this endeavor, especially Dr. Kawachi Clemons and Professor Lindsey Sarjeant. I am fortunate to be able to call you friends. I also acknowledge my friends, relatives and business partners who helped convince me that I wasn’t insane for going back to school at my age. Above all, I thank my wife Joanna for her unwavering support throughout this process. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF EXAMPLES ...................................................................................................... 7 ABSTRACT
    [Show full text]
  • The 1960S: an Era of Social Change by Irma Bocard
    Index: Introduction Objectives Week 1: The New Frontier Week 2: The Civil Rights Movement Week 3: The Great Society Week 4: The Vietnam War Week 5: Pop Culture of the 1960s/ Counterculture Week 6 : The Women's Movement Bibliography/Annotated Student Reading List Unscrable Review Worksheet The Civil Rights Movement Worksheet Survey For Parents Vietnam Interview Vocabulary - Vietnam War Worksheet Worksheet: Vietnam War Questions Worksheet: Vietnam Interview Worksheet: Activity -The 1960's American History Jeopardy - 1960s Answer Keys The 1960s: An Era of Social Change by Irma Bocard Introduction Camelot and Vietnam, Martin Luther King Jr., the New frontier and the Great Society were the focus of this decade in the United States. The music- songs like "I Want to Hold Your Hand", and "Imagine" and the Beatles were all a part of this exciting decade. The images and events of the 1960s were linked to the events and trends of the forties and fifties. If we take a look at our society today, then we can see the shadows and influences of the past which exist today and influence the present. For example, civil rights became a national priority in the 1960s, although this particular issue began in the decade of the 1950s. The development of the microchip revolutionized the computer industry and started us on our present course being on the information super highway by the ever-approaching twenty-first century. Similarly, the Cold War continued to drive America's foreign policy. After the anti-colonial forces in French Indo-China defeated the French in 1954, the United States supported South Vietnam over Ho Chi Minh's communist government in the North.
    [Show full text]
  • Recorded Jazz in the 20Th Century
    Recorded Jazz in the 20th Century: A (Haphazard and Woefully Incomplete) Consumer Guide by Tom Hull Copyright © 2016 Tom Hull - 2 Table of Contents Introduction................................................................................................................................................1 Individuals..................................................................................................................................................2 Groups....................................................................................................................................................121 Introduction - 1 Introduction write something here Work and Release Notes write some more here Acknowledgments Some of this is already written above: Robert Christgau, Chuck Eddy, Rob Harvilla, Michael Tatum. Add a blanket thanks to all of the many publicists and musicians who sent me CDs. End with Laura Tillem, of course. Individuals - 2 Individuals Ahmed Abdul-Malik Ahmed Abdul-Malik: Jazz Sahara (1958, OJC) Originally Sam Gill, an American but with roots in Sudan, he played bass with Monk but mostly plays oud on this date. Middle-eastern rhythm and tone, topped with the irrepressible Johnny Griffin on tenor sax. An interesting piece of hybrid music. [+] John Abercrombie John Abercrombie: Animato (1989, ECM -90) Mild mannered guitar record, with Vince Mendoza writing most of the pieces and playing synthesizer, while Jon Christensen adds some percussion. [+] John Abercrombie/Jarek Smietana: Speak Easy (1999, PAO) Smietana
    [Show full text]
  • THE 1960S: DECADE of TRANSFORMATION
    BALS Program Spring 2017 _____________________________________________________________________________ THE 1960s: DECADE OF TRANSFORMATION Mondays, 5:30 PM, 640 Mass. Ave Course Overview The 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Bob Dylan. “The Times They Are A-Changin’” is the title of a Bob Dylan song from 1964. Perhaps the title itself encapsulates an emerging mood in America during this decade of transformation. The inclusive years of the 1960s begins with the election of John Kennedy as the 35th President of the United States in 1960 and concludes with the end of the Vietnam War on January 27, 1973. This entire period was, in fact, more than a time of change: it was a time of formation. More than 70 million young Americans of the post- war years – “baby boomers” - were coming of age and not liking the direction America was going. Having experienced the conservative and lucrative post-war fifties with the advent of television, rock & roll and super highways, America’s youth generally rejected any association with their parents’ generation. They experimented with new and radical ways of thinking that powerfully challenged the very fabric of American life. To be sure, many of the revolutionary ideas from the sixties are shaping life in the West today. The 1960s was not only a decade of transformation in American history, but an era of formation and influence that would lay the foundation for gen- erations to come. “The 1960s: Decade of Transformation” is an undergraduate course that will review the political landscape and cultural milieu coming from the Eisenhower post-war era, while examining new and ostensibly radical ideology, protest movements, and counterculture of the period that often united politicians and dissidents in similar causes.
    [Show full text]
  • The Sixties, Kent State, and Historical Memory
    Vietnam Generation Volume 2 Article 29 Number 2 Kent and Jackson State: 1970-1990 1-1995 The iS xties, Kent State, and Historical Memory Scott L. Bills Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/vietnamgeneration Part of the American Studies Commons Recommended Citation Bills, Scott L. (1995) "The iS xties, Kent State, and Historical Memory," Vietnam Generation: Vol. 2 : No. 2 , Article 29. Available at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/vietnamgeneration/vol2/iss2/29 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by La Salle University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Vietnam Generation by an authorized editor of La Salle University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Sixties, Kent State, and Historical Memory Scott L. Bills Writing in the mid-1980s, historian Bradley Smith observed that the formative years of the cold war had “proven unusually resistant to the smoothing arts of historical study.” The era had not taken on a “coherent and composed historical persona. ” “The forties,” Smith noted, “have tended to remain more segmented, more controversial, and more intertwined with present events and current political controversies than most other recent historical epoches....”1 Much the same can be and has been said about the 1960s: a time of great motion and passion, yet a time that seems curiously distant from the pliant present and oddly fragmented in terms of imagery and theme. The sixties often appear now as a disembodied decade, its movements led by charismatic, tragic figures whose visage and ideas sprawled across the landscape— brazen, daring, virtuous, mystical, and inspirational.
    [Show full text]
  • Albert Ayler – Legendärer Und Umstrittenerer Free Jazzer
    Jazz Collection: Albert Ayler – legendärer und umstrittenerer Free Jazzer Dienstag, 13. September 2016, 21.00 - 22.00 Uhr Samstag, 17. September 2016, 22.35 - 24.00 Uhr (Erweiterungssendung) Redaktion: Beat Blaser Moderation: Annina Salis Es war eine kurze Karriere, die dem Saxophonisten Alber Ayler vergönnt war: 1962 stand er erstmals in einem Studio, 1970 wurde er leblos aus dem New Yorker East River gezogen. Dazwischen lagen rastlose acht Jahre, die bis heute nachhallen. Kein Exponent des Freejazz der 1960er-Jahre war so umstritten wie der Saxophonist Albert Ayler. Für die einen hatte seine Musik nichts mit Jazz zu tun, für die anderen war er der Verkünder eines neuen Zeitalters. Ein musikalischer Prediger war er in jedem Fall: Mit hymnischem Gestus, obertonreichem und expressivem Klang und frei fliessendem Rhythmus schrie er seine Botschaft in die Welt. «We play peace!», betonte er immer wieder, - wie das zu hören ist, diskutiert Annina Salis mit der deutschen Saxophonistin Silke Eberhard. Albert Ayler: My Name Is Albert Ayler Label: Debut Track 01: Introduction by Albert Ayler Track 03: Billie’s Bounce Albert Ayler: Spiritual Unity Label: ESP Track 01: Ghosts (First Variation) Albert Ayler: In Greenwich Village Label: Impulse Track 01: Truth Is Marching In Albert Ayler: Love Cry Label: Impulse Track 02: Love Cry Albert Ayler: Holy Ghost Label: Revenant Track VI/1: Thank God for Women Albert Ayler: Music Is The Healing Force Of The Universe Label: Impulse Track 01: Music Is The Healing Albert Ayler: Nuits de la Fondation Maeght 1970 Label: Albert Ayler Estate Track 01: In Heart Only Bonustracks – nur in der Samstagsausgabe Albert Ayler: Meditations Label: Impulse! Track 01: The Father And the Son And the Holy Ghost Archie Shepp – Live In San Francisco Label: Impulse! Track 01: Keep Your Heart Right Track 02: Lady Sings The Blues Don Cherry – Complete Communion Label: Blue Note Track 01: Complete Communion .
    [Show full text]
  • The Avant-Garde 15
    CURRENT A HEAD ■ 407 ORNETTE COLEMAN lonely woman CECIL TAYLOR bulbs CECIL TAYLOR willisau concert, part 3 ALBERT AYLER ghosts DAVID MURRAY el matador THE AVANT-GARDE 15 Forward March T e word “avant-garde” originated in the French military to denote the advanced guard: troops sent ahead of the regular army to scout unknown territory. In English, the word was adapted to describe innovative composers, writers, painters, and other artists whose work was so pioneering that it was believed to be in the vanguard of contemporary thinking. Avant-gardism represented a movement to liberate artists from the restraints of tradition, and it often went hand-in-hand with progressive social thinking. T ose who championed avant-garde art tended to applaud social change. T ose who criticized it for rejecting prevailing standards couched their dismay in warnings against moral laxity or political anarchy. In the end, however, all art, traditional or avant-garde, must stand on its merit, inde- pendent of historic infl uences. T e art that outrages one generation often becomes the tradition and homework assignments of the next: the paintings of Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso, music of Gustav Mahler and Claude Debussy, and writings of Marcel Proust and James Joyce were all initially considered avant-garde. Two especially promi- nent twentieth-century avant-garde movements gathered steam in the decades follow- ing the world wars, and jazz was vital to both. Sonny Rollins combined the harmonic progressions of bop with the freedom of the avant-garde and sustained an international following. He appeared with percussionist Victor See Yuen and trombonist Clifton © HERMAN LEONARD PHOTOGRAPHY LLC/CTS IMAGES.COM Anderson at a stadium in Louisiana, 1995.
    [Show full text]