ESSAYS

This section includes essays on various jazz subjects, written by a number of writers. Contributions are welcome. Writers interested in contributing are welcome to contact the editor by filling out the form in the CONTACT tab. Photographs to illustrate those essays are welcome. Readers can click on the INDEX button for a list of articles in this folder.

POLITICS AND JAZZ

by Ian Muldoon

January 29, 2021

Jazz has always been political. Its beginnings arose from an oppressed people whose creative urges were rooted in protest songs about poverty, hope, loss, and a yearning for freedom. The nature of jazz was a threat to “correct” music, to Western musical traditions, musical standards, established musical genres and musical education. Its practitioners in the beginning were of a perceived lowly people - it was street music, music of gin mills, brothels, and slaves, music that was (so to speak) apart from the popular, especially middle-class lives and their entertainment, and was "beneath the underdog” in the phrase of Charles Mingus (the title of his autobiography). Jazz was, and perhaps remains to some, an affront to the musical “establishment”. My first encounters with it were unencumbered by any preconceived notions of what was “good” music and what was “bad”. It seemed as vital and enchanting as nature itself. But I was confused by the attitude by many to those who created this music…

JAZZ IS SOMETHING ELSE

by Ian Muldoon

February 14, 2021

Some have definite ideas of what “jazz” is. It must swing. Or it must have collective polyphony. Or a distinctive melody. In this regard Sonny Rollins manages to express what most music (jazz) lovers understand but are perhaps unable to articulate. Yet Sonny leaves unsaid at least one other element of the music: jazz is the great enabler for music appreciation generally, whatever its provenance. By that I mean it may be Fats Waller and his organ playing that leads one to Dietrich Buxtehode; it was definitely Fred Katz playing cello with Chico Hamilton that introduced me to the wonderful sound of that instrument and later on to Bach’s cello suites; Dizzy Gillespie aroused interest in Latin American music; and John Coltrane an interest in Indian music…

NOSTALGIA, THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK, AND THE PIANO TRIO

by Ian Muldoon

February 15, 2021

Nostalgia is real and I’m a believer though not for such State-sponsored memories as the British Empire or the exceptionalism of the USA which has been propagated especially since WWII. My nostalgia is for the joy of first encounters, whether it’s the first time I held hands with 12-year-old Helen Nicetits; or ate my first mango in the Embassy cinema Manly, watching The Thing From Another World (1952) directed by Christian Nyby; or heard Bubber Miley on East St Louis Toodle-Oo (Ellington/Miley). Typically, old people or even older people, will go on about the “old days” beginning with “I remember.” Often such memories will be associated with money and how cheap real estate was back in the day, how many chops you could buy for a shilling, or how far you could travel on a bus for a penny. Mercer Ellington wrote a song Things Ain’t What They Used To Be…