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 <> wrote:
From: Ian Pace <>
Subject: [silence] Re: Re: Cage's prejudices
To: "Rob Haskins" <>,
Cc:
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
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2011 10:57 PM
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, <> 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/>
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