Re: Re: Re: Re: Cage's prejudices

Right, but I'm pretty sure it contains a fairly clear critique of Cage
(whether explicit or not). I'll read it again.

Rob

On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Herb Levy <[email protected]> wrote:

> Lewis' article (available online: http://jazzstudiesonline.org/?q=node/427)
> isn't directly about Cage's dislike for jazz. It's primarily about
> influences from improvised music practice in the 1950s and '60s on the
> practice of indeterminate & open form musics.
>
> --- On *Mon, 6/20/11, Ian Pace <[email protected]>* wrote:
>
>
> From: Ian Pace <[email protected]>
> Subject: [silence] Re: Re: Cage's prejudices
> To: "Rob Haskins" <[email protected]>, [email protected]
>
> Cc: [email protected]
> Date: Monday, June 20, 2011, 6:10 PM
>
>
>  I’d be quite interested to know how anyone feels about how Cage’s
> (sort-of) defence of Mozart fits into this picture as well – haven’t got my
> texts to hand at the moment, but I remember at least one occasion on which
> he made a case for Mozart as against Beethoven, mostly on account of the *Musikalisches
> Würfelspiel* but also concerning wider aspects of Mozart’s approach.
>
> When writing my own piece critiquing Cage’s anarchism around 5 years ago I
> put together some material (not all used) on his relationship to various key
> anarchist thinkers, which I’ll dig out and have a look at. I recall that
> whilst he cites Mikhail Bakunin and Emma Goldman in the context of the
> mesostic *Anarchy* and in the preference to that work, nonetheless he
> doesn’t appear to have engaged with either figure in any serious depth
> (unlike his relationship with Thoreau), and Goldman’s actions in terms of
> inciting unemployed workers or distributing birth control literature would
> be pretty hard to reconcile with Cage’s rather blanket disdain for serious
> political activism. The term ‘anarchism’ is often used rather loosely in the
> context of discussing Cage’s work, whereas I do believe he, at least some of
> the time, was quite serious about situating himself within one particular
> strand (not, to my mind, one of the more progressive varieties) of a
> theorised political tradition.
>
> Should Cage’s dislike for jazz be treated separately from his wider dislike
> of improvisation (of any type)? I haven’t yet read Lewis’s article (but
> thanks for the pointer) – does he bring a racial dimension to the argument,
> and is this justified?
>
> best,
> Ian Pace
>
>  *From:* Rob Haskins <http://mc/[email protected]>
> *Sent:* Sunday, June 19, 2011 10:57 PM
> *To:* [email protected] <http://mc/[email protected]>
> *Cc:* [email protected]<http://mc/[email protected]>
> *Subject:* [silence] Re: Cage's prejudices
>
> The arguments in the Defense of Satie are less arguments against Beethoven
> so much as they are Cage's own carving out a place for himself by appealing
> to other composer-forbears whose approach was more amenable to his own. (And
> not a little of the anti-Beethoven posturing had to do with the
> circumstances surrounding its presentation at Black Mountain, then dominated
> by lots of people with pro-German musical sentiments including Albers and
> Erwin Bodky.)
>
> My general feeling is that Satie's harmony is interesting and often plays
> at least a quasi structural role in his music (albeit that structure is much
> different from Beethoven's). Likewise, I'm not sure that Cage's description
> of Webern is very satisfying other than as a(n admittedly interesting)
> report of a surface impression.
>
> Cage's dislike of jazz is very well known and, in its way, about as off the
> mark as Adorno's view is. A good starting point for a nuanced critique would
> be George Lewis's article,  “Improvised Music After 1950: Afrological and
> Eurological Perspectives.” *Black Music Research Journal* 16 (1996):
> 91–122.
>
>  All best,
>  Rob
> On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 4:20 PM, <[email protected]<http://mc/[email protected]>
> > wrote:
>
> Cage often spoke of his lack of likes and dislikes when given the chance,
> but as we all know there certainly existed a gulf between his point of view
> and things such as jazz musics and Beethoven. I'd like to hear any of the
> Silence members' takes on these musical stances. For instance, he'd speak of
> jazz musicians as disparate members of a panel concurrently discussing
> topics oblivious to what each other might be saying, or referred to it as a
> political noise, and he held Beethoven and Beethoven's music with equal
> criticism. I've never read his Defense of Satie, but could any of you that
> have read the essay outline any of the more convincing points Cage made
> that stood pejoratively against Beethoven's music and positively for Satie's
> (other than Satie's music superficially organized with time unit as opposed
> to Beethoven's frequency)? And how do Cage enthusiasts interpret his views
> on jazz music?
>
>
>
>
> --
> Rob Haskins, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor and
>      Coordinator, Graduate Studies
> Department of Music, College of Liberal Arts
> University of New Hampshire
> M-105, Paul Creative Arts Center
> 30 Academic Way
> Durham, NH 03824
> 603-862-3987 (office)
> 603-862-3155 (fax)
> <http://unh.edu/music/>
> <http://robhaskins.net>
> <http://musicandmiscellaneous.blogspot.com/>
>
>


-- 
Rob Haskins, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and
     Coordinator, Graduate Studies
Department of Music, College of Liberal Arts
University of New Hampshire
M-105, Paul Creative Arts Center
30 Academic Way
Durham, NH 03824
603-862-3987 (office)
603-862-3155 (fax)
<http://unh.edu/music/>
<http://robhaskins.net>
<http://musicandmiscellaneous.blogspot.com/>