CROSSING OVER ?

There have been many quarrels over the possible mixing of genres between classical music and jazz. Even in its infancy, jazz was subjected to attempts at fusing the two musical continents into one "supermusic".
With the recent tour in Europe of Wynton Marsalis and The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and their release of All Rise, the jazz world was reminded of these ferocious debates. The encounter of Wynton with a classical orchestra and what was for a great part a classical score did not fail to bring about some concern among jazz lovers. Wynton is certainly not the only one or even the first to have put his hand to such attempts - Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson, Sidney Bechet or Duke Ellington are a few of his predecessors in the matter. But his approach is completely at odds with that of Keith Jarrett, Brad Mehldau, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor or even Maria Schneider and Donal Fox who were featured in our previous issue.
From the origin, classical music has excited the curiosity of jazz musicians - all the more so since many of them have been through a classical training to some extent. Classical culture has thus been a model to follow, at the same time as it was goading jazz musicians to create an alternative kind of music which was all the more necessary since it reflected a desire to assert the identity of their community in a segregated environment.
Classical music was a model because such artistic wealth could simply not be ignored (and the same proposition now holds true for jazz). That music directly influenced jazz but also original American music (Gerschwin, Porter, Berlin, Kern...), which jazz transformed into jazz tunes. Even jazz musicians who have never tried to mix both genres have constantly suffered the pervasive influence of classical European culture. Art Tatum, Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Coleman Hawkins, Erroll Garner, Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Phineas Newborn, Bill Evans, Charles MingusÉ all tend to show that the notion of a single-minded musician is irrelevant - and would probably imply a certain amount of deafness, which is certainly not the primary condition of a creative musician, or any musician at all. In Europe, Django Reinhardt and his musical heirs have always been attracted by the classical universe and what is often called the "French" school of jazz violin certainly borrows a lot from it.
Classical music was stimulating in that it suggested two important artistic dimensions: a demanding approach to music, which made jazz the accomplished art form it is today, and a concern for developing a universal message, which from the off was very consciously - though for different reasons - a part of jazz's outlook. Like classical musicians, the jazz people have addressed the whole world to assert their identity.
But jazz had to break the ice of centuries of musical domination to give voice to its own original content. In order to do that, jazz had to put aside what was a natural passion for the classical heritage and draw a different picture, bringing to the table an identity heavy with the weight of a particular history.
The classical tradition was not the only one on the line and it was vital for jazz to go beyond the various traditions that inspired it to create an original language and elaborate a new and lasting artistic synthesis. It also took a fresh country (the United States of America) and specific conditions (the creation of a brand new society). For every culture brings about its own language - and jazz itself does suggest an alternative view and potential model for society.
Like classical music, jazz was capable of developing a universal language as it created features, modalities and ways of transmission different from what there are in classical music today. After almost a century of masterpieces, why question the very identity of jazz? Yet, some people want to change it altogether.
Musicians do enrich themselves through the spontaneous cultural cross-pollination of discovery. But what good is there in obeying obligations, which on the surface might easily pass off as anti-conformist, but which come directly from political, institutional and commercial officials? The mixing of cultures is not a musical or cultural reality it is just a well-wishing dream that provokes a forced standardisation. Apart from this present trend, there had been numerous attempts at creating a super-music born out of merging different cultures - Andr&Mac218; Hodeir, Gil Evans, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, and even Miles Davis tried to build such musical Himalayas. Well, the thing is, mountains don't meet. There is some purity of intention in that approach but it is not as powerful as the potential uniformity and totalitarian drifts entailed by a vision where music, culture and art are conceived of in terms of progress; where the &Mac218;lite are in charge of forcing cultures to meet and merge. All these arguments are more in line with the political and commercial demands of standardisation than with the need of people to express themselves through a language that they control.
This pseudo-progressive and elitist conception also has local interests at the back of its mind and is the very source of the institutional ideology that is dominantly at work in France in spite of some shows of resistance. Unfortunately, it is not only a French speciality and this drift is present in other countries. Many musicians have entered jazz through a purely private
approach and they would do well to make their artistic potential match their cultural heritage. Which should not necessarily be the jazz culture if they have a different background; otherwise they are likely to perform any form of jazz - mainstream, bebop, free jazz, New Orleans - with the same half-hearted excellence. That necessary cultural consistency is the key to the depth and spontaneity that becomes a truly universal claim to an artistic expression.
With particular respect of cultural difference, Wynton Marsalis and Marcus Roberts carry on confronting, juxtaposing the classical and the jazz planets. And it is proving extremely fruitful - which does not mean that all musicians ought to address both dimensions. They have naturally developed that concern and it owes nothing to an artificial, transitory or even trendy position. They are simply the heirs of a propensity for New Orleans to naturally address the cultural diversity that is part of its historical roots, as Jelly Roll Morton already noticed a long time ago.
Either carried by urgency or by a deliberate approach, many musicians have tries to go back to the various sources that compose jazz - Charlie Parker and the blues, Dizzy Gillespie and Africa (via Cuba), John Coltrane or Albert Ayler and religious musicÉ have all tried to reach back to a basic element. The relation between Wynton Marsalis and classical music is only an expression of that quest for the roots that brings so much energy to jazz. As jazz lovers will acknowledge, it is certainly not by chance that it should come from a New Orleans musician.

.< Yves Sportis >

Translated and adapted by Jean Szlamowicz