Working Title

It is Region 0 (aka All Region). You should be fine ordering from anywhere.

Thanks for your input, Daniel.

Ken Vandermark’s comment:

“I feel that creativity is not a pastime, working to be an artist is a job of sorts, and Daniel has given people a glimpse of what it means to take on that responsibility.”

This is a fascinating point of view, without one speck of Romanticism. Many professional musicians, painters, writers, dancers, film makers of my friendship or acquaintance approach their creative lives with much this same attitude now. It seems such a departure from the whole “tortured artist” thing that seemed to infuse the 19th and 20th centuries. I wonder what others think?

PB

I guess I’m asking something related to your comment, Centrifuge. Is “workmanlike” a compliment? I can feel the flames from some quarters already, but I mean it as a legitimate question. Where’s the fire, where’s the beef, where’s that old lovin’ feelin’? I don’t show up to work when I do a gig, I show up to a happening, an event, a ritual, an experience of some special significance. On the other hand, I don’t make a living playing, either.

pb

The photograph at the top of the post is fantastic. I fell into it for about ten minutes….A master piece in its own right.

Hard to say, Anthony; perhaps folks expected one thing (romantic) and got another (real). Having seen it, though, I can say that if you are at all sympathetic to the general aesthetic on display here, and the specific thoughts and views re the musician’s life as described above, then I think you will find a lot to like.

I’ve just been watching some clips from this documentary on youtube: Vandermark is clearly a deep thinker about the structure and sound of the music. Perhaps it’s the almost rigid, more overtly composed sections and grooves that put some free jazz fans off: I can see how that would happen. There are occasions in some of his performances where I wish he would just go a bit further out, rather than, for example, playing over a walking bass and honking repeated patterns all the time. That said, there are also moments of great beauty in his music, and I suppose there is a certain zeitgeist quality, as he suggests in one of the youtube clips.

In response to peter breslin’s comment:

“This is a fascinating point of view, without one speck of Romanticism… It seems such a departure from the whole ?tortured artist? thing that seemed to infuse the 19th and 20th centuries.”

I think Peter is right. The old Romance Era attitude toward music is diminishing in predominance. I don’t think the artist, and especially not the musician, chooses to toil in torturous solitude anymore or holds that method as being superior to others. This has happened for a few different reasons, but I will only expound upon the one that is the most obvious: business.

The way musicians support themselves (ie the music business) has changed drastically since the turn of the century. With the decay of the old business model (ie label support), musicians can no longer rely on a benefactor to subsidize their tortured artistic ups and downs. In the past, a musician’s ultimate dream was to be “discovered” by label A&R who would take care of the “business” side of the “music business” , allowing them to do nothing but flog the golden goose until it popped out a hit. This is of course happened less frequently in the jazz world, and even less so in the out-music world. (Although let it be remembered that “The Shape of Jazz to Come” was released on Atlantic). The end of the “musical benefactor” has forced musicians to fend for themselves, often performing the duties that in the past would have been the job of a manager or label.
This new relationship to the business side of the “music business” has made many musicians re-imagine their music’s place in their lives and in the world at large. Music is perhaps seen more clearly by the musician as not only a transcendent expression of the soul, but as a commodity to be bought and sold.