I recently posted a link to a young German guitarist and commented that I found his audio clips “intriguing.” A reader has written to ask:<\/p>\n
What does that mean, please? What is intriguing about them? Is that a positive or negative stance?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It’s not only a valid question, but one that I myself would be likely to ask. In fact, back in July I took Don Heckman to task for the same ambiguity. Here’s an excerpt (you can read the whole thing here<\/strong><\/a>):<\/p>\n
He describes Lesa Terry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s solos as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153briskly swinging, jazz-driven\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and mentions Cheryl Keyes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153inventive flute soloing and dark-toned vocal,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but does that mean they were good? Lori Andrews \u00e2\u20ac\u0153demonstrated a remarkable capacity to produce blues-bent improvised lines,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but to what end? Phyllis Battle may have been ebullient, but was she in good voice?\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
My reader’s question deserves an answer. It’s true that if I had loved it, if I thought it was the greatest music I had ever heard, I would have said so, probably with exclamatiuon marks. I might even have gushed as I have done on rare occassion, such as a review I wrote of Lynne Arriale Trio: Live at The Montreux Jazz Festival<\/a><\/strong><\/em> for Jazz Improv a few years back. You can read the whole review<\/a><\/strong> if you’d like, but here’s a taste of me gushing:<\/p>\n
The bossa-tinged ballad \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Estate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has all of the complexity and delicacy of a spider web. From the beginning to the end of this nine-minute track, goose bumps ripple through my soul and I am caught in this perfectly formed, beautiful trap. After Ms Arriale proves once again that a beautiful melody can stand alone, she adds layers while twisting and turning the lines as if reflected through a prism. The beautiful melodic bass solo is laden with pregnant notes and again, as is true throughout, Davis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s percussive contributions are so tasteful and delicate at times that I feel I must call your attention to the lyricism in his playing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Conversely, I don’t like to write bad reviews, so if I had thought the music was really awful I would not have even mentioned it, let alone posted a link to the musician’s web site. <\/p>\n
Now you’re still wondering what I thought, and the truth is that I was intrigued because I wasn’t really sure what I thought. The clips are short and without context, but snippets of what I heard were atmospheric, aural paintings evoking a mood. That’s good, and if I were to hear a whole piece, to hear the shape in it’s entirety and take the journey from beginning to end, I might have a clearer opinion…pro or con. But in all likelihood, this is music I would not have “reviewed” because I don’t have a feel for it. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, but it may be beyond my comfort zone.<\/p>\n
My personal tastes are not very adventurous — I like to be able to identify the melody and follow the harmonic changes. Rhythmically, I like to be able to feel “one” and when I get lost, finding it again makes me smile. That’s the joy of listening to a master improviser like Sonny Rollins (or my dad, for that matter) — they take you on trips and if you get lost, they’ll eventually bring you back home. Perhaps my ears are not big enough to adequately follow this young man’s music; I can’t follow Ornette Coleman, either. No, I’m not equating the two, just trying to say that I don’t believe it fair to pass judgement on things I don’t yet understand. But bottom line: to me, intriguing is a good thing. If you arouse my interest and capture my attention, you’ve accomplished something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I recently posted a link to a young German guitarist and commented that I found his audio clips “intriguing.” A reader has written to ask: What does that mean, please? What is intriguing about them? Is that a positive or negative stance? It’s not only a valid question, but one that I myself would be … Continue reading “I’ve Got Mail: A Valid Question”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ive-got-mail"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}