Let us deify Sonny Rollins

[Mike Schwartz]

Disgusting really...UN_funny at astronomical levels.....complete garbage.


Jazz Beyond Jazz
Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation

Most scurrilous, unfunny New Yorker “humor” re jazz

August 2, 2014 by Howard Mandel 18 Comments

I’m aghast at The New Yorker’s rip-off of Sonny Rollins’ good name and great heart to slag jazz in the guise of “humor.” A Daily Shouts piece, bylined “Django Gold” (surely a pseudonym) purports to be “Sonny Rollins: In His Own Words” and controverts the very essence of the art form this grand hero has embodied for more than half a century – without raising a chuckle (at least from me). See for yourself – then write the editor a letter saying “This ain’t funny.” Not that jazz is sacrosanct, but this ain’t funny.

Ok, call me sensitive. I was read “The Talk of the Town” as an infant by my parents trying to put me to sleep. I saved my copy of The New Yorker issue containing S.J. Perelman’s last story, as well as Salinger’s “Hapworth 16, 1924″ and In Cold Blood. I’ve always wanted to write something that The New Yorker would publish. As a reader and later budding jazz journalist, I admired Whitney Balliett’s interviews and sopped up the front-of-the-book squibs on who was playing where. The magazine’s neglect of jazz since Balliett retired in 1998 has been regrettable, but all too consistent with mainstream media’s treatment of America’s world-renown cultural signifier.

I have often been amused by The New Yorker’s satires and cartoons. But appropriating and subverting the persona and image (photo by David Redfern) of the NEA Jazz Master/National Medal of the Arts honoree in order to scoff at what he and hordes of other performers do (mostly for self-satisfaction: It’s not like even the best-selling jazz musicians make the big bucks flowing to visual arts stars, major film directors and actors, globte-trotting orchestra conductors, etc.) is nothing to laugh at. The “joke” is based on everyone who stumbles on this realizing it’s the opposite of Rollins’ life and purpose, but yet turns on the seed of punkish resentment sophisticates presumably harbor against the music.

“The saxophone sounds horrible . . . Jazz may be the stupidest thing anyone ever came up with . . .I hate music. I wasted my life.” Oh, yeah, Django, those are real corkers!

To know what Rollins really thinks about things, check out Mark Jacobson’s 2013 interview or view any of Bret Primack’s video posts with the man.

And what’s really wrong about this is that due to the mechanics of search engine optimization, henceforth “Sonny Rollins: In His Own Words” will likely score high in Google searches for Sonny, maybe for jazz, so that unsuspecting readers will be led to think (at least for a moment) that this wonderful, selfless 84-year-old human being actually has come to the conclusion that everything he’s poured his mind, soul, energy into — for decades in the face of society’s bigoted and snooty dismissal, commercial disregard and evidently continuing “intellectual” non-comprehension — has been for nought.

Shame on The New Yorker. What would Balliett, Robert Gottlieb (TNY editor 1987 – 82, editor of Reading Jazz), or such immortal TNY humorists as Robert Benchley, James Thurber, S.J. Perelman 0r Donald Barthelme, author of a genuinely silly New Yorker-published spoof, “The King of Jazz” say? For shame, for shame. Not that jazz is sacrosanct, but “funny” must be funny.

http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondja ... -jazz.html

[bluenoter]

Disgusting really...UN_funny at astronomical levels.....complete garbage.

I have to apologize to everyone. I posted the New Yorker piece, thinking, heaven help me and my aging, sleep-deprived brain, that it was the result of a real interview with Sonny Rollins. I thought that the magazine considered it "humor" because the content was so improbable and outrageous. Then this evening, I took another look and deleted my post (without having seen Mike's post, though apparently it was already there; I can delete older posts).


https://twitter.com/sonnyrollins/status/495376089930559488

[Mike Schwartz]

I'd put it up again to paint the picture.

The writer is some hack who used to write for the Onion.

[Mike Schwartz]

I'd put it up again to paint the picture.

The writer is some hack who used to write for the Onion.

Here it is:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-sh ... lins-words

[Ron Thorne]

To help balance the obnoxious, bush league hack job piece being discussed, here's what a true professional does to help us gain insights into artists such as Sonny Rollins. Here are eight wonderful pieces from Bret Primack, the Jazz Video Guy, which were mentioned above by Howard Mandel.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WfRlyUKv8Y?list=PL4D1134C53AFDEAE7

[bluenoter]

The writer is some hack who used to write for the Onion.

For the record, he's a senior writer at the Onion---present tense.

http://www.theonion.com/contact/ (ninth line of the editorial staff list)

[Ron Thorne]

Please view the clip below for the latest on this dust-up.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2JX9Df77rU

[Mike Schwartz]

another well thought out reaction

http://www.jazzwax.com/2014/08/sonny-ro ... orker.html

[Mike Schwartz]

[bluenoter]

This video is no longer a live feed, but here it is, archived:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYt8B2RkqrM

[Mike Schwartz]

This video is no longer a live feed, but here it is, archived:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYt8B2RkqrM

"they are trying to kill jazz, and they can't kill a spirit."

Sonny Rollins

[Ron Thorne]

Fine, jazz is easy to mock. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.




By Davy Mooney August 12

Davy Mooney is a jazz guitarist based in Brooklyn and New Orleans.
His latest CD is "Perrier St," from Sunnyside Records. His debut novel
is "Hometown Heroes."




Eric Harland plays with Dave Holland Prism at the Newport Jazz Festival last week. (Michael Dwyer/AP)

___________________________________________________________________________


When I was 16, I enthusiastically confessed to my guitar teacher that I wanted to become a professional jazz musician. After the lesson, he told my mother: “Don’t let him do it. He’ll be doomed to a life of frustration.”

I didn’t listen.

In the 20 years since that afternoon, I have definitely experienced that frustration. But it doesn’t define my life, and I hardly feel “doomed” to it. The jazz sub-culture is alive and, if not exactly well, as determined as ever to stay alive. We know that what we do is valid, even important, in the way that any art form is important. It is a creative act rather than a destructive one, and that makes it a valid human endeavor.

Yes, our work is underappreciated and poorly remunerated at times. That’s okay; we knew what we were getting into. Nobody lied to us about fame and fortune when we were young. We’re chasing a peak experience: When we improvise and everything comes together, when it falls perfectly into place, there’s nothing like it. It’s otherworldly. We’re happy to share this with you, but if you’re not interested, that’s okay too! We’ll keep playing.

And sometimes things turn out beautifully. As I finished a tour of Japan last week, I felt great. The gigs had been wonderful, the audiences enthusiastic, and everywhere I went in Japan — bars, shopping malls, coffee shops — I heard jazz. (Everywhere except Starbucks, anyway.)

_____________________________________________________________________

The scolds of the world mean well, and they are very sensible in their bitterness.
_____________________________________________________________________

So imagine my surprise (as I waited for boarding to begin at Narita airport) to find that The New Yorker, one of America’s most eminent cultural publications, had printed a clumsy satire of jazz. In it, a comedian pretending to be Sonny Rollins laments, “in his own words,” his choice to become a jazz musician. The piece was not funny; it was deeply negative, nihilistic even. It ended with “Sonny” declaring: “I hate music. I wasted my life.”

It’s not that jazz musicians lack a sense of humor. As you’d expect, we have a pitch-perfect gallows sensibility, honed over a century’s worth of badly paid gigs and lack of respect from the monoculture. Jazz musicians are the funniest people I know. But why was The New Yorker so hostile to the jazz community? It upset many of us.


Full Story

[bluenoter]

http://jazztimes.com/articles/136918-notes-from-the-backlash

Warning: May Cause Irritation

[Ron Thorne]

"And, despite what some have alleged, I’m dubious that I succeeded in having any impact on Sonny’s legacy, Google Search results be damned. This is Sonny Rollins, OK? As someone pointed out, he’s released 50-odd albums, written hundreds of songs and played on God knows how many session dates. He’s a tower. He’s the Colossus. And I don’t think my silly little jokes can touch that." - Django Gold

On this, I think we can agree.

[bluenoter]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/magazine/sax-and-sky.html