Russell Malone mocking avant-garde performance

**joe2758** · 09-04-2015, 09:12 AM

Russell Malone posted a couple interesting videos on his facebook. The first was of an avant-garde performance along with "I know some critics, and a few charlatan musicians who will try very hard to find some value in this. But no matter how hard one may try, you cannot polish a turd." A couple days later he posted a video of, what certainly appears to be, himself outright mocking the previous video: "New avant-garde composer Colon Bowel performing the first of three movements. This one took place after lunch at In-N-Out Burger." Here's a link to his Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/russell.malone.121?fref=ts

I'm curious what you all think. I think there's people on here who would simply think it's funny and true, and others who find it pretty distasteful and unnerving.

My take: Mr. Malone has worked extremely hard mastering the art of playing soaring music within strict confines, and I would imagine that he feels that certain avant-garde performers who throw out the window the entire craft side of this art form, in a way, make a mockery of the work he put in mastering that craft.

At the same time, I have to say I do find his last video distasteful. This is his personal FB page, and he has the right to post anything he wants; absolutely. However, he is a public figure with thousands of fans around the world following, and has chosen to make his FB page open to the public. Not that what anyone thinks ultimately matters, he obviously doesn't care, and I think that's great. I think what prompted me to write this post is that I'm simply disappointed that someone I look up to as an artist behaving so disrespectfully. I'm not butt-hurt, outraged, or anything else like that.

Russell Malone's opinion aside, what is your opinion of avant-garde music? Are they just art wanna-bes who are trying to take a short-cut to earning some sort of artistic prestige without mastering a craft? Are critics and musicians who look for meaning in it necessarily charlatans?

This could be an interesting discussion as long as it remains respectful.

**ecj** · 09-04-2015, 09:23 AM

I'm with Russell on this one. I think a lot of avant garde art is total BS, and masks itself with sophisticated explanations to disguise the complete lack of quality or craft.

I feel like there's too much "idea-based" art these days and not enough practicing. It's like as long as you have a clever explanation for what you're doing you're good, but if you're just really fucking good and work hard no one cares.

**vinnyv1k** · 09-04-2015, 09:50 AM

A perfect example of avant garde is Yoko Ono. +1 for RM.

**MarkRhodes** · 09-04-2015, 09:59 AM

Originally Posted by ecj

I feel like there's too much "idea-based" art these days and not enough practicing. It's like as long as you have a clever explanation for what you're doing you're good, but if you're just really fucking good and work hard no one cares.

This made me think of the book by Tom Wolfe, "The Painted Word", in which he criticizes much modern art for focusing on the "idea" behind a work of art rather than the craft of making a work of art....

http://www.amazon.com/Painted-Word-T...C+painted+word

**joe2758** · 09-04-2015, 10:48 AM

I'm going to open myself up here for a minute.

I was severely depressed for much of high school; clinically depressed. My mind was heavy and confused. During my lowest points I could not find music angry, sad, or confused enough to relate to how I was feeling. Trust me, I looked hard. I finally found a singer called Jandek, surely avant-garde by anyone's standards. His lyrics are often confused ramblings with hints of form sang in whispers, screams, cries, and everything in between. His guitar playing is sporadic, random, eerie, trance-like...and everything in between. He was not a technically skilled musician. Most listeners might feel shock, repulsion, fear, confusion etc when hearing him; but to me it was comfortable in my worst of times. The only thing that made sense was confusion.

I think the main criticism of this type of art, and it is my own criticism as well, is that the artist often seems to be seeking recognition and prestige without putting in the hours on the craft. In the case of Jandek, and this is why I bring him up as an example, is he released his music completely anonymously (70 albums since 1978). He did no live performance until 2004. I think he's done like 1 interview (and received 100's of requests I'm sure). My point is he seems to me to be a legit artist making art for art's sake without an ulterior motive

**robertm2000** · 09-04-2015, 11:31 AM

Jandek, huh? I had a brief interest in him in 2000 or so. His "story," what there was of it, and his anonymity piqued my interest. I was into what I called "ruleless" art, and Jandek seemed very much in that camp. I listened to some of his works, but the seemingly untuned guitar was impossible to get past, because I learned tonal music in college. I gave up on Jandek when I heard the lyrics to a song from his first record that started,

"I got a vision, a teenage daughter
Who's growing up naked in the afternoon."

I've decided that "ruleless" art is just not to my taste. Some avant-garde guitarists like Mary Halvorsen and Marc Ribot produce some interesting music, but they have as strict sets of rules as any tonal player ever had. As the posters above have noted, time spent laboring over art works produces results worth perceiving.

**joe2758** · 09-04-2015, 11:36 AM

I think I agree with you on Mark Ribot, but I would have maybe phrased it "he understands the rules that he's breaking"

**KirkP** · 09-04-2015, 11:42 AM

Avant-garde means new, experimental, unfamiliar. There is good and bad. The example RM posted is very bad, but I don't understand why he chose to pillory and mock it in a public forum instead of just ignoring it. It seems unprofessional. I love RM's playing though.

**robertm2000** · 09-04-2015, 12:05 PM

Originally Posted by joe2758

I think I agree with you on Mark Ribot, but I would have maybe phrased it "he understands the rules that he's breaking"

Exactly! "You have to know the rules so you can know how to break them!"

Side glance/observation:

Russell Malone knows the rules too, and DOESN'T break them!

**dingusmingus** · 09-04-2015, 12:43 PM

Because I love Russel Malone's playing so much, I followed him for a while on facebook. I don't any longer. Though I think no less of him as an artist, I found some of his musings rubbed me the wrong way.

**fumblefingers** · 09-04-2015, 01:03 PM

i'm not on facebook so can't see any of this, but would say that avant-garde music/art can be good or bad like anything else. most of it is not very appealing to me.

i do love some jazz outside playing within an inside solo however. very effective way to add interest and shake things up.

parting shot: you know you are witnessing the pinnacle of modern music when you see it played.....

at the In-N-Out Burger.

**feral guitar** · 09-04-2015, 01:17 PM

i'll never understand why some people, who choose to make their life about music (they obviously love it), also choose to spend energy being 'against' other styles of music.
live and let live, there is room for everyone - as evidenced by the fact that we all all different and already interacting just fine for the most part

**fep** · 09-04-2015, 01:39 PM

For me I like to see/hear some traditional credibility and refined craft before someone goes avant-garde. That way I feel they are in control of what they are doing and it's not just a bunch of BS.

Like these Picasso paintings...

Russell Malone mocking avant-garde performance-picassos-mother-jpg

Russell Malone mocking avant-garde performance-picassos-mother-jpg

Russell Malone mocking avant-garde performance-pablo-picasso-painting-020-jpg

**robertoart** · 09-04-2015, 01:47 PM

Well I have read Malone saying that he wanted to record some guitar stuff with Blood Ulmer, so he must have some regard for extended traditions. Although Ulmer himself came from an organ/guitar or 'Bluesier' side of Jazz. And Malone probably respects that because it's within the territory of the African American mode of the music, and Malone is very big on that. I would be too if I was an African American guitar player.

**Bill C** · 09-04-2015, 01:49 PM

Stravinsky's Rite of Spring is clearly one of the most important musical works of the 20th century. Yet when first performed there was apparently a riot in the theatre ...

**Irez87** · 09-04-2015, 01:58 PM

I think Malone is a great player with a little bit of an ego problem (that's okay, no one is perfect, and he sounds awesome).

Barry Harris comes to mind, but in a different vein. He doesn't have the same ego (he made the band play happy birthday 4 times during the last workshop. Then he made a 90 year old woman who helped him start the workshop speak a lyric (she could hardly talk). We played softly behind her and I almost cried the moment was so powerful...

ANYWAY,

, Barry Harris has a lot to share and I love his ideas and concepts. HOWEVER, he is very narrow minded. He hates Miles Davis' music and I still consider Miles to be my favorite musician, PERIOD. But, that's fine. You pick and choose what works and leave the rest. Music is too big (bigger than we can conceive, IMO) to hold grudges.

**Irez87** · 09-04-2015, 02:01 PM

AND... we have to remember, as many have noted, that the "avant-garde" in the circles of the humanities and the arts helped push us forward in their respective realms. From literature, to art, to music. If it keeps us FROM uncovering more secrets of that vast musical universe, than I think THAT is dangerous to the art form

**Irez87** · 09-04-2015, 02:01 PM

But, I can't say that I enjoy or understand all of it. Maybe I will, maybe I won't, but I'm happy it exists for the sake of the journey.

**Irez87** · 09-04-2015, 02:07 PM

I kinda feel the same way about Pat Metheny and ... gasp ... Kenny G (no, not Garrett). C'mon, stop moaning and groaning and just exist and play music. I heard that Kenny could play bop as well. Do I like his stuff, heck no. But I'm not going to act like a child and berate another musician when the arts as a whole are constantly in danger. Don't believe me, look at how they were treated by the Department of Education. So many excellent musicians left teaching because their programs were cut. As long as we're playing music with PASSION and LISTENING to each other, then all is fair in love and bloop bop

**MarkRhodes** · 09-04-2015, 02:45 PM

For those who take the other point of view, this short video ("why is modern art so bad?") might prove worth watching.

**joe2758** · 09-04-2015, 03:13 PM

I agree with the guy speaking in the video that Mark posted. I'm just trying to say, like in my post about Jandek, don't throw the baby out with the bath water; some of this stuff means something to people regardless of how it's framed. I could see how someone might be inspired by that guy's art apron without it being framed as art at all. I say let your opinion be known by your checkbook, as the guy in the video said. Not bashing what you don't like as rudely as possible.

dortmundjazzguitar · 09-04-2015, 04:53 PM

Originally Posted by MarkRhodes

For those who take the other point of view, this short video ("why is modern art so bad?") might prove worth watching.

sounds like a bloody taliban to me. the prager "university", huh?

**NSJ** · 09-04-2015, 06:02 PM

Martin Taylor did a "cover" of Russell Malone's piece today on his FB page.

Also some strong words by Mingus in 1973

Charles Mingus_AN OPEN LETTER TO THE AVANT-GARDE

"said: "Duke, why don't you, me and Dizzy and Clark Terry and Thad Jones get together and make an avant-garde record?"

Duke's reply was very quick. He said: "Why should we go back that far? Let's not take music back that far, Mingus. Why not just make a modern record?"

And this to me appeared to be very funny, because he was saying just what I was thinking -- which I didn't have enough nerve to say. To hear musicians on the bandstand say: "Well they're playing in the avant-garde because they do anything they want to do" -- and most of the ones who do play avant-garde can't play a straight melody and solo on it with the approximate changes, with any approximate changes.

**mr. beaumont** · 09-04-2015, 06:30 PM

As an Art teacher, i always tell my students that when you're creating conceptual art, the art itself needs to be interesting enough that folks want to bother to stick around and find out the concept.

The music Malone is making fun of is unpleasant. But i do find it interesting enough that i wouldn't mind knowing the concept. At least then i could decide whether or not it was successful at conveying it.

As it is, taken out of context, it's not something i would enjoy hearing again.

Malone presented the concept of his rebuttal piece. It was juvenile and spiteful, and i lost a bit of respect for him because of it.

**NSJ** · 09-04-2015, 06:44 PM

I've seen plenty of avant-garde musicians play very well. Many of them can play straightahead if they wanted to. Often, the "concept" is fundamentally the same, even if the form and content may be different. When it is successful, the concept involves musicians who really know how to listen to each other and have a genuine and engaging dialogue, even if the The musical outcome appears to be, at first glance, more dissociative and possibly even chaotic. . Those qualities certainly are not gimmicks, even if there appears to be a lot of gimmickry in a lot of this sort of thing.

Really looking forward to hearing Muhal Richard Abrams big band play on Sunday At Jazz Fest. The collaborators, for Roscoe Mitchell to Henry Threadgil, are about the furthest one can find from being frauds. When it's good, it's really good.