John’s comments on Jesus Lizard this week, where he noted one of their charms (if that’s the word) was to sound on the verge of falling apart while being completely in control, oddly reflected a discussion I had with BBODG, where I was trying to explain what I liked about Modest Mouse. (The terminology I used came closer to ‘spastic energy’, but the feeling in my head is that the two are similar – it’s the sense that the song is going all over the place and energy is flying but that you’re still being taken on a journey.)
In the interim I’ve been trying to come up with some unifying theory about chaos and control and music, and failing. But I did notice this.
I bought a Charles Lloyd CD the other week, and only when I opened it did I notice that it featured pianist Keith Jarrett and drummer Jack DeJohnette. Now, I have an irrational prejudice against these two – I consider ECM to be the safe, defanged version of avant-jazz, and these two label perennials to be at the vanguard of their attempts to make avant-jazz as bland as possible. But I must confess to hypocrisy, or something, in that I’ve never actually listened to their records. Hence irrational hypocrisy.
Since I was recently in a situation where I was doing a lot of driving and had only three CDs, I gave this CD many careful listens. And one of the interesting revelations was that probably the player that goes furthest out into the sun, most into the land of freedom, is actually Mr. Jarrett, with a piano solo that rides out from the song’s conventional jazz structure into wild woods unknown, and starts slamming away dischordantly.
But just as the wave’s really starting to crest, Jarrett backs away, and retreats into some very safe chord changes, and the song resumes.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what to make of this – I mean, it’s clear he’s got it in him, but he seems to be afraid to fully embrace the chaos. My best conclusion is that it’s an Icarus-like moment where he flew too close to the sun unintentionally, as little of his work elsewhere on the album reflects this freedom. And a fear of freedom is something that no musician is usually better for.
Or is that true? I dunno, but it sounds good. I’ll think about it and post more on the topic next week.
i’m still looking forward to Volume 2 of electronic music that doesn’t suck. i have the same prejudice against the ecm label, which- to be fair, is not unfounded. i know there are exceptions, but the tone of everything they put out just seems to be so even.
oh, all right, I´ll do that next week instead. I can´t do it without talking about the Biennale though, which was absolutely incredible.