Behearer talk:Community Portal

From Behearer

As a musician who graduated from New England Conservatory of Music with a Degree in jazz voice in 1972, I can honestly agree that there WAS in fact a lot of great jazz recorded in the '70s. About that I have no dispute.

However, when it came to signing NEW artists, that simply didn't happen for many years to come. I graduated with a group of excellent, excellent musicians who all were members of Jaki Byard's band and/or George Russell's bands. Some of us toured and/or recorded with these artists who were also on the NEC faculty. Some of us won National Endowment for the Arts Grants, which helped us to survive this situation.

However, not a single graduate in my class or in many that followed in the '70s was able to garner a record deal with a major label. Perhaps someone has information about Berklee grads from the '70s, but we all seemed to know one another and I can't remember a single player from that era that was able to be signed. Getting a "deal" in those days was the only way to "make it."

There were many great bands here in Boston that deserved greater recognition: Stanton Davis' Ghetto Mysticism, Stan Strickland's Sundance, Baird Hersey's Year of the Ear, the list goes on and on and there was a plethora of clubs where you could hear these great bands featuring recent grads from both NEC and Berklee, yet none of these groups ever made it to a national level, due to the lack of signings of new talent at the major labels.

The '80s were far more productive in signing NEW, young artists such as Branford, Wynton, Roy Hargrove and others. If anyone has any exceptions [and I'm sure there are one or two], I would like to know who they were.

I personally took the route of managing other artists and later working in the field of Publicity and Promotions for jazz and all kinds of music which has become an exciting and wonderful career placing me alongside the greatest players of the 20th century and more both in Boston and at Newport.

For more on the direction my career took, see my website: www.sueauclair.com

Sue Auclair

Why the perceived death of jazz in the 70s?

I'd like to post my thoughts regarding the 1970-1990 list of jazz albums and the question of why there's a perception that for jazz (and otherwise) the 70s were moribund. I think there was great jazz then, but there was a shift from the Innovators and their followers to a more individualized approach to jazz. The great innovators from the 1940s onward, who were not only innovators but leaders of movements, were Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman. Greats like Charles Mingus were not leaders of movements due in part to their individuality and eclectic sources. Mingus didn't even want his band members to sound like Bird ("If Bird Were a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats").

After the 60s, these innovators had left their mark, made their clarion call, and what was left to do? Obviously, a whole lot to do as the list shows, but not in terms of definable Movements. After Bird, Trane, and Ornette, players either followed their leads in whole or in part, but there were no groundbreaking discoveries in store for a while, and maybe not even to this day.

I see the 70s and beyond as times of brilliance in existing forms, so to speak. For example, the great Keith Jarrett was influenced by both Ornette and Bill Evans and others, but what he really did was make his individual statement. Discovering the self rather than leading or following a movement. If this is true, then the 70s wouldn't appear to be jagged mountains, but neither do their Appalachian curves represent despair or mediocrity.

Geoff Polk

The View from 1990

On my Talk page I've written out the highlights of the Village Voice Jazz Critics' Poll from August 1990, which covered jazz recordings made during the 80's. Sixteen years later I find almost nothing in it to quarrel with. I'm new to this wiki stuff so I don't know how to link to it directly, but I think you can click on my (pseudo)name below and then on "Discussion." I hope the community finds it interesting. --Webster Hodges 22:24, 13 December 2006 (EST)