I really like this album and was delighted to hear from Nils that there are hours worth of recordings from these collaborations that are not on the album. I hope one day, they see release. I'd be up for a box set of more of this.
I would tend to disagree with your assertion that it's the end of the line for jazz history.
I think all music is evolutionary and we will continue to hear groundbreaking new formations of "jazz" collaboration going forward. We have to keep an open mind and not get too caught up in genre.
I think there are still, of course, outstanding artists today who are highly original and continue to make exceptionally creative albums. I certainly believe in individual creativity. When I speak about the "end of jazz history," however, I am referring primarily to the end of major stylistic revolutions—the kind we witnessed throughout roughly the first fifty or sixty years of jazz history. Swing, bebop, modal jazz, free jazz, fusion... every few years, it seemed, the music underwent profound transformations.
After that came developments such as ambient jazz, smooth jazz, electro-jazz, and so on. But in the 21st century, what we have realistically seen are reinterpretations and recombinations of the stylistic vocabulary that had already been established. Creative? Absolutely. But I don't think we've witnessed anything genuinely radical or fundamentally innovative in stylistic terms. That doesn't mean there aren't remarkable individual musicians who continue to navigate these traditions and draw the very best from them.
You're right about the lack of innovation, maybe it is the end of an era.
I'll let you know when and if I come across something fresh. I always hold out hope for a revolution of some sort, otherwise, the repetition, even at a higher quality, will begin to become rather stale.
I really like this album and was delighted to hear from Nils that there are hours worth of recordings from these collaborations that are not on the album. I hope one day, they see release. I'd be up for a box set of more of this.
Great article and a great listen.
I would tend to disagree with your assertion that it's the end of the line for jazz history.
I think all music is evolutionary and we will continue to hear groundbreaking new formations of "jazz" collaboration going forward. We have to keep an open mind and not get too caught up in genre.
I think there are still, of course, outstanding artists today who are highly original and continue to make exceptionally creative albums. I certainly believe in individual creativity. When I speak about the "end of jazz history," however, I am referring primarily to the end of major stylistic revolutions—the kind we witnessed throughout roughly the first fifty or sixty years of jazz history. Swing, bebop, modal jazz, free jazz, fusion... every few years, it seemed, the music underwent profound transformations.
After that came developments such as ambient jazz, smooth jazz, electro-jazz, and so on. But in the 21st century, what we have realistically seen are reinterpretations and recombinations of the stylistic vocabulary that had already been established. Creative? Absolutely. But I don't think we've witnessed anything genuinely radical or fundamentally innovative in stylistic terms. That doesn't mean there aren't remarkable individual musicians who continue to navigate these traditions and draw the very best from them.
You're right about the lack of innovation, maybe it is the end of an era.
I'll let you know when and if I come across something fresh. I always hold out hope for a revolution of some sort, otherwise, the repetition, even at a higher quality, will begin to become rather stale.