Oscar Peterson has died. There will be numerous obituaries in the coming days, lauding a “jazz giant,” “one of the greatest jazz pianists of the 20th Century,” or even “the best damn jazz pianist in the whole world,” and while all these tributes will be well-placed, they don’t sum up the loss I’m feeling tonight.

For me, Oscar Peterson is (not was - his recordings live on) the jazz piano. I don’t know for certain what the first jazz record I ever heard was, but if I was pressed to guess, it would have been Oscar, heavily favored, with the Modern Jazz Quartet or a Stan Kenton as distant, dark horse alternatives.

Though I’ve grown to love jazz and jazz piano beyond Oscar, for me he’s the touchstone, the Ark of the Covenant, something that I can always count on, the tower at the center of my ever-widening circular exploration of some of the greatest music ever recorded. No slight is intended to Art Tatum, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, Mary Lou Williams, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck, George Shearing, Bud Powell, or Horace Silver, but the small world that is my outlook on jazz will always be framed by Oscar and his piano. In particular, Oscar’s album Night Train spoke to my soul in some fundamental way at a crucial point in my musical development, and if it wasn’t for him, I might never have begun my love affair with the greatest musical form of the modern age.

I also owe my love of jazz to my step-dad, who, though he banned rock and roll from the house, was more than willing to share with me his knowledge of jazz, both as a brass instrumentalist and a life-long concert-goer. Kevin’s enthusiasm for Oscar’s work sparked my own interest well over a decade ago. Our relationship had always been a little strained, a little uncomfortable when I was a kid, and Oscar’s music was the first bridge between us. Nights spent in the living room listening to Oscar really brought Kevin and I closer, something I’ll always be thankful for.

Kevin’s seen Oscar a few times in his life, probably at least once in each decade of the Seventies, Eighties, and Oscar’s post-stroke Nineties revival. I have never seen Oscar live, nor will I ever have the opportunity now.

No matter how long I live, this will be one of my greatest regrets.

Farewell, Oscar. You helped me build two relationships I’ll have for the rest of my life, and so your contribution to my family is never forgotten, I’ll try to build these same relationships with my children.

In my previous post I mentioned that I had picked up John F. Szwed’s Jazz 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Jazz. After a weekend of light reading I’ve already come upon several interesting topics of conversation, one of which kept my mind in a state of slow percolation all Sunday.

In Chapter 10, Szwed begins a discussion of jazz styles - not a series of definitions and explainations of names like boogie-woogie, third stream, and fusion - but of the actual thought process in assigning periods (or “schools”) to jazz, a music that doesn’t delineate into clear-cut movements as easily as other classified arts, such as painting or classical music.

The following is a page and a half excerpt from Szwed’s text:

The matter of jazz styles urgently needs rethinking. Composer/saxophonist Anthony Braxton has suggested that the changes that occur in jazz (though he includes all music in this conception, and perhaps all art, culture, and technology) can be seen in terms of what he calls restructuralists, stylists, and traditionalists. Restructuralists are musicians who change music to the extent that the structural properties of the music change — change to the point that they may literally threaten the musical and even the social order. Stylists, on the other hand, take the music created by restructuralists and recode it and redner it publicly acceptable. They are the technocrats of the music, Braxton says, and confirm the existing reality. If Charlie Parker was a restructuralist, Phil Woods is a stylist; ditto the relationship between John Coltrane and Charles Lloyd. (Critic Martin Williams once dryly remarked that Charles Lloyd’s effort was one of making Coltrane safe for democracy.) Traditionalists are those who live in complete awareness of what came before and reproduce the past by adjusting it for contemporary reality. Using Braxton’s ideas, we can look at the music conventionally grouped under the heading of bebop and see it as being a restructuralist music in the 1940s and early 1950s, a stylistic in the music in the later 1950s, and a traditionalist form ever since.

One can quibble about who fits under what heading, but an analysis like Braxton’s would complicate the way we think about styles and offer some correction to the oversimplification of jazz history. It is also interesting to follow his conclusion that all three of these tendencies should be present in a healthy musical culture. Restructuralism gives music a sense of development and direction, but if there were no other forces at work, it would produce novelty rather than culture, one change following another forever. Stylists alone would put an end to forward motion in music by slowing ending innovation (this is the tendency in music most favored by nightclubs, schools, and public institutions). Traditionalism, if carried to its logical conclusion, would stop change altogether and expend its efforts attempting to adapt another era to our own under a nostalgic rejection of the current cultural situation (Such a condition now exists in opera where the “classics” have closed out all but the occasional new work.)

What impressed me most about that passage is how easily I could apply it to classical music, and to what degree it remained a valid argument.

For example, as Amadeus stressed, at the time of composition, Mozart’s music was incredibly avant garde, both in the way he created the sound and many of the forms or subjects he set it to. Obviously Amadeus takes creative liberties with some of the Mozart story, but one of the things it captures particularly well through Salieri’s narrative is the freshness and restructuralist nature of Mozart’s compositions.

Other major restructuralists in classical music spring ready to mind quite easily - Stravinsky, Wagner, Beethoven - but less clear is where the stylists and traditionalists fit in. Because so little of the classical repertoire is focused on the legitimately new anymore (the crisis of classical music being similar to the crisis in opera, though for somewhat different reasons), it would appear the traditionalists have taken over, putting the entire artistic form at risk. This is not to be construed as a “classical music is dead, or dying” statement, but I do think that Braxton does raise some legitimate debate about the forces at work in art.

How does this strike the classical musicians in the audience?

My friend Rob and I recently had a couple discussions which touched on a subject I find a trifle fascinating. The second of our two chats brushed the subject of poseur-ism, and how each of us is more or less a sham artist at one time or another in at least one area of enthusiasm.

I myself am probably truly qualified to discuss only three or four subjects with any sort of weight to my opinion beyond that of the average individual: life in the Marines (specifically life in an artillery unit), cooking (although I’m less qualified than I was four years ago), and baseball players/statistics from the time period during which I collected baseball cards (roughly the mid-Eighties to the mid-Nineties) are the areas that jump immediately to mind. The other areas of my more extreme enthusiasm, literature, music, Westerns and film noir, and American art, are all shot-through at various points where my rube-ish lack of depth is painfully (to me, anyway) obvious. The Internet has aided somewhat in patching these areas with intellectual Bondo, but like poorly applied Bondo on a dented fender, my counterfeit savvy is conspicuous to anyone with the ability to see beneath the shiny lacquer that covers it up.

The first of the two discussions with Rob that I mentioned centered around jazz, specifically the roles of the individual musicians in a group, with us breaking down the traditional jazz quartet (pianist, bassist, drummer, and another instrument, be it vibes or sax or trumpet, or anything else) and combing over the various roles each individual plays in the ensemble.

I approached the conversation as a classical musician, for that is where the overwhelming majority of my musical training is derived. About thirteen years as a violinist and five as a violist built the window frame from which I survey the musical landscape. As a musician who has played a considerable amount of jazz (or, if that’s too much of a claim for Rob’s taste, a considerable amount more jazz than I have), Rob had an apodeictic advantage over in the conversation, and he quickly straightened me out in some areas where my approach to the capacity of the different components in the group was completely off-base.

In a correspondent issue, I’m amused at the areas where my intellectual snobbery gets the best of me, and the topics that I’m willing to exclude from that particularly sketchy aspect of my personality. I won’t get bent out of shape when someone prefers reading Dan Brown or Chuck Palahnuik over Thomas Hardy or William Gibson, even though I think they’re wasting their time, simply because I know I can’t expect every reader out there to enjoy the somber style of Hardy or the au courant prophetical-ness of Gibson. Often times I’m simply pleased to see someone read, even if they are filling their head with garbage.

Music is a different beast, however. I get righteously indignant if I hear someone listening to, say, Justin Timberlake at the expense of someone more deserving (say, Queens of the Stone Age). Because music is such a basic cultural component, I can be quite contemptuous of those I see as musical Philistines, willing to devote time and money to music that, were it beef, would be of the quality reserved for kibble and prison chow. Maybe I’m missing my true calling (is “musical abattoir” a legitimate job?), but I can’t help how I feel.

Still, my position is a bit disingenuous. One one hand, I pretend to highly developed sensibilities and look down my nose at those who dare trifle with less worthy forms of music. On the other hand, I have a minuscule amount of actual working knowledge when it comes to jazz. I know quite a few performers and possess a decent musical ear, which helps me fake my way along in most conversations, but I’m still that poseur who pretends to have it together.

Well, I’ve grown tired of the masquerade with jazz. When I was out Christmas shopping earlier this week, I picked up Jazz 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Jazz. If I’m going to claim this as my music, I should damn well know what I’m talking about, which means knowing how to get from the Original Dixie Land Jazz Band to Chet Baker without fumbling around and checking Wikipedia and All Music Guide.

Shoot, I didn’t even know Walt Dickerson existed until just a few weeks ago, and vibes are practically my favorite instrument to listen to, jazz wise. Until I found Walt, the only vibraphonist I knew of was Milt Jackson.

Then again, who needs to listen to vibraphonists other than Milt Jackson?

Just kidding. Even my hypocrisy knows boundaries.

Johnny Cash, my all-time favorite recording artist, died the day I turned 21.

I woke up early to read the news before heading to class (I was in training school at this point).  I was stationed out in the middle of the Mojave Desert at the time, and Stan the Mad Russian, who was my roommate, and I kept up with the doings of the world via an Earthlink connection.  I logged on and brought up the morning news, only to read a headline I wasn’t ready to see.

At age 71, The Man in Black had passed on.  Respiratory failure, brought on by diabetes-related complications, had silenced the most iconic of American voices.

Choked up, I called my dad, the man who had introduced me to Johnny Cash as a kid.  We talked about his death, his music, and the emptiness that must have plagued him following the passing of his wife June in the spring.  Saddened as we were, we didn’t mention the big event in our own lives 21 years earlier, and soon I hung up the phone, got dressed, and went to class.

It’s been an empty three years in American music since Johnny Cash left us.  The American V album has compensated a bit, but it’s impossible to fill the void left when that voice, bigger than the sky over Montana, deeper than Lake Superior, and more American than Mt. Rushmore, left when it was silenced early that morning.

I’ll fly a starship across the Universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I’ll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I’ll be back again, and again and again and again and again

- Johnny Cash’s verse of “Highwayman” by The Highwaymen

I’ve been having a tremendous struggle with writer’s block of late, a struggle brought on by suddenly truncated deadlines for a number of projects I’ve been working on.  Due to “operational requirements” I will be going out to the field for twenty-eight days between now and the first of October.

This has created a major problem; my application to school for the Spring Semester is due on the first of October, and I’m effectively losing an entire month of time that I had counted on to refine my application.  I was informed of this decision last week during a meeting, told by my bosses that I couldn’t possibly be spared for the duration of those exercises.  I have a personal statement to write, letters of recommendation to collect, and transcripts to track down.  I can feel the weight of each second as it ticks by, tiny rocks rolling down a chute into an enormous basket strapped to my back, the basket growing heavier with every snick of a tumbling stone.

The knowledge of this extremely important impending deadline wouldn’t normally phase me, but in addition to getting my application together I have a bi-weekly column to write, along with my obligations here.  I’m not allowing myself to slack off on Carriage Return because I’m planning to mention it in my application, but at the same time, I worry that if I allow myself to become too dissipated the quality of my writing (here, or elsewhere) will suffer.

It is at times such as this when I turn to music to keep me afloat.

I generally listen to lighter fare on a daily basis, but any time I need food for my brain to jumpstart the creative process, I ransack my classical collection for all it’s worth.  I’ve noticed that I turn to particular composers, even particular pieces, for inspiration during different situations.

Most frustrating for me at the moment is the deadline for my column on Friday.  Though I’ve been thinking about it for quite some time, it stubbornly refuses to be written.  I’ve tried getting angry about it, I’ve tried distracting myself while writing it, I’ve even tried forcing myself into a sort of one-sided competition over it, all to no avail.

Earlier this evening, I stepped away from my laptop, knowing that I was digging myself an ever deeper hole with every minute I lingered in front of it, practically bashing my forehead into the keyboard in the hope that something worthwhile might come of it.  The column refused to flow from brain to fingers.  I went out to the car, called Jo, and talked to her until it was time for her to go to sleep.  I sat about twenty minutes longer, staring at the headliner and trying to clear my mind, before getting up wearily and walking back inside.

Sitting back down in front of the computer, I slipped on my headphones for maximum isolation purposes, and dialed up Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 in C minor.  It was time to attack things head-on, and if I couldn’t get my column out, I was at least going to put together an update for the website.  Maybe getting something down, no matter what the topic, would help crack the dam that was retaining my power of expression.

Generally Brahms doesn’t stoke any fires of determination inside me.  I prefer to relax when I listen to most of his works, but the First Symphony, particularly the first movement, gave me a kick in the creative pants like nothing short of Beethoven’s most intense and swaggering later work.  After sitting for two or three minutes and letting the music wash over me, I was able to start stringing together a few thoughts.  Thoughts became words, words started to organize themselves into sentences, and soon I was off.  I wasn’t exactly sure where I was going yet, but I was on my way nonetheless.

Classical music has always been closely related to my ability to express myself and understand or come to terms with my emotions.  From my earliest childhood days I can remember feeling soothed by certain works, pieces of music I would rapidly develop an affinity for - Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5, Pablo de Sarasate’s Ziegeunerweisen, the “Lacrimosa” of Mozart’s Requiem.

As I grew older and my musical horizons broadened, I added composers to my list of influential favorites, mostly Romantics or early Moderns like Chopin, Mahler, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, and Puccini.  I don’t care for any other Baroque composers, but I’m drawn to the order and precision of Bach.  If I’m feeling upset or worried I loop one of my two recordings of Glenn Gould playing the “Goldberg” Variations until I can manage to get myself under control.  When I’m angry I listen to Shostakovich, and if I’m feeling lonely it’s Chopin or a Beethoven piano sonata that I’ll cue up.

Of course, the music alone isn’t always enough to cure what ails me.  There are days when I can (and have) listened to Gould for two hours straight without feeling any better.  Listening to Brahms hasn’t helped me at all with my column that remains due, and I doubt that putting on some Shostakovich will shake me up enough to get it done tonight.  There are limitations to every treatment, and sometimes the only thing to solve a problem is to wait it out.

I’m starting to get that impression with my case of writer’s block.  I can sit here all night and stare at the keys, willing the thoughts sitting in my head to translate themselves into material I can use.  The end result will be even less productive than I have managed to be already - I’ll be tired, in a foul mood, and on my way to work without having anything to show for staying up all night.  I could take another break and go to sleep, get up in the morning refreshed, go for a run, and then try to get something written down in fits and starts while I’m at work, but that doesn’t seem any more appealing to me than pulling an unproductive all-nighter.

Either way, I’m extremely likely to be frustrated come morning.  I’ll sit down in my office and listen to Yehudi Menuhin’s incredible recording of Hungarian Dance No. 5, and I’ll scratch my head, shake out my fingers, and look at the blinking cursor on the screen.  After a few moments of waiting, I’ll open Firefox and check to make sure everything looks good on this site and quickly weed out the spam comments that have been creeping back of late (I thought I’d gotten rid of them, but they seem to have latched on again).

I’ll check this post to make sure it looks good on the wider resolution setup at work.  Hopefully I’ll laugh.

I’ve just written an entire post about not being able to write.  If that doesn’t do enough for you in the irony department, I don’t think I can help you.  I certainly can’t help myself tonight, and neither can Brahms.