5.12.05
«A certain wag I know recently quipped that Barry Altschul should change his name to “Very Old-School”. I was unsure what he was getting at, since “old school” is the literal translation of the drummer’s German surname. As it happens, my friend was not even aware of that ironic factoid. His gist was simply that jazz and free drumming had evolved so much since Altschul first recorded with Anthony Braxton that the avant-jazzer’s style had actually become old-hat in the twenty-first century. He might have had a point; visionaries like Joey Baron, Jay Rosen, Hamid Drake, Tom Bruno, and Susie Ibarra have stretched the role of rhythm in the jazz ensemble in all directions. But in the “big picture,” Altschul’s approach remains just as valid as the ubiquitous high-hat rhythm pioneered by Jo Jones with Count Basie in the 1930s or Art Blakey’s titanic press rolls. While “jazz” remains increasingly undefinable as the music absorbs more cultural influences, it stays close to its New Orleans roots with equal determination. Still in all, it is jazz’s evolutionary characteristic that keeps it perennially popular, to one degree or another, with younger generations. If jazz were still as rudimentary as how Jelly Roll Morton or even Charlie Parker played it, it would be little more than a wistful museum piece entering its second century».
– Todd S. Jenkins – Free Jazz and Free Improvisation - An Encyclopedia Volume I: A-L. Greenwood Press, London
posted by eduardo chagas
@ 5.12.05 – Todd S. Jenkins – Free Jazz and Free Improvisation - An Encyclopedia Volume I: A-L. Greenwood Press, London
