Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 15:30:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: ENGROSEN-AT-ACS.EKU.EDU
Subject: Re: Collaborative music


Fred:

Your interest in sticking to more "esoteric" music implies that jazz 
(which should be designated Afro-American Classical Music because while 
most esoteric American musicologists look to Europe, Europeans look to 
jazz, recognizing its grounding in a particular (and extremely rich) 
marginal culture) is somehow less difficult, less complex, less 
interesting, less *important* than the white bread sterile 
experimentalism fostered at conservatories.  Smacks of ignorance rooted 
in racism to me--Now I know you don't mean it, but geeze, think of what 
your readership might be.  Don't you think that you insult a segment of 
your potential subscribers by saying, in effect, that European, 
classically based improvised music is somehow smarter than that produced 
by jazz musicians?  On what basis might you possibly argue that, aside 
from your own prejudice?  

Not to include jazz is ethnocentric; to recognize jazz as Afro_American 
is simply to pay respect to the culture that produced it, much like the 
long valorization of German composers in a tradition that is itself 
rich--but no more so than the jazz produced this century.  It might 
behoove you to remember that the German tradition was founded on the 
backs of two of the greatest improvisors the organ and pianoforte ever 
produced, JS Bach and Ludwig Beethoven.

mer  

     ------------------