Jazz and the Ambiguity of Influence, Part 2: Assimilation & Reconfiguration
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| Ralph Ellison |
This exploration of the ambiguity of influence in jazz was triggered by ideas I encountered in a collection of Ralph Ellison's essays on jazz, which also included a couple of really interesting interviews with the celebrated author of Invisible Man. As one of the most accomplished black American artists of the 20th century, one might think his thoughts on jazz and race would be more well known in our time, but, as I understand it, by the standards of today's "anti-racism" movement, he is heterodox, and heretical even, as he didn't see race in strictly antagonistic terms. (The person the "in crowd" does want to talk about is the Black Nationalist Amiri Baraka.) Ellison's counterpart in black jazz writing of the time was Albert Murray, and I believe that these two impacted Wynton Marsalis to a significant degree, as he was mentored by Stanley Crouch, who loved those men. Wynton has taken heat for his stridency around matters of tradition, but he surely knows his own mind and follows no fads. As for Crouch, I detect echoes of Ellison in his writing, in particular in how he treats the black originators of jazz as heroic figures who rose up and communicated the whole of human life -- its sorrow and joy and aspiration -- in the sound of their voices and horns.
So, here is the statement from Ellison that really caught my attention. During a discussion on jazz in the 20s and 30s, Ellison observed that the two giants of tenor saxophone during the 30s, Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins, each of whom is a stylistic innovator and originator in the music, were both big fans of, and were influenced by Frankie Trumbauer, who played C melody saxophone in a small group with the famed trumpeter Bix Beiderbeck (much admired by Louis Armstrong), together forming the front line of the most popular and important white jazz combo of the late 20s. They were joined in the group by Eddie Lang, who also was formidable -- indeed whenever I listen to their recordings, my ears perk up when Lang takes a solo; his playing was angular and soulful. But back to Trumbauer: he has monster technique and he played elliptical and asymmetrical lines that do indeed to these ears reveal vivid resonance in Young's style, especially.
And why shouldn't this be so? Why are we so attached to the narrative that in music influence only goes one way, with white people only learning from or being influenced by black people and never vice versa? To me this suggests that black humans and white humans are somehow different in nature when it comes to interacting with environmental stimuli. Now, there certainly are individuals of all races and religions and endeavors who are impervious to taking in new information and learning from it. These are called dogmatists and blockheads. However, when it comes to jazz, the assimilation and reconfiguration and extension of influences is the whole point. Once when asked to describe the essential nature of jazz, the master drummer Elvin Jones, most famously a member of Coltrane's classic 60s quartet, and himself a black man, said that it's jazz's capacity to include and transform every conceivable musical influence in the world and emerge with a thing of beauty and power that best defines it. To me, that take was definitive. So where some sound the alarm about appropriation, I celebrate what is known as the cosmopolitan ideal of interacting creatively with differences.
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