That Chuck Nessa interview has stayed with me and this morning, by pure coincidence, my wife pressed a copy of Wassily Kandinsky's On the Spiritual in Art into my hand. (We went to an exhibition of some of his work on Thursday.) The very first words of his introduction were these. (Our copy is in the original German so this is my translation.)
"Every work of art is a child of its time.
"Thus every cultural period creates its own art, which can never be repeated. The effort to revive the artistic principles of the past , can at best result in works of art that are like stillborn children. (...) Such an imitation resembles imitations by monkeys. The outward motions of a monkey are completely identical to those of humans. The monkey sits and holds a book in front of his face, turns the pages, makes a thoughtful face. But the inner sense of these motions is absolutely absent."
So, decades like the fifties and sixties represented explosions of feeling (indeed, that was the story of much art in the first half of the twentieth century) and would perhaps indicate a greater ability to feel, a greater acceptance of human feeling in general. The slow decline of originality, in jazz and other art forms, that started accellerating in the eighties would reflect the death of feeling, or a numbing of the ability to feel. This certainly feels (!) true to me as the gap between rich and poor has grown so dramatically since then. And with it a focus on mere survival by many to the detriment of a rich, creative inner life. Thank God for creative artists of all kinds who continue the quest for all the rest of us.
That interview with Chuck Nessa was fascinating and shows that it' true that as much as things change they remain the same. My favorite quote: "All the technology is willing to fill the void." Then as now. But with what?
I appreciate all those records you chose, all or most the same I discovered over the decades. I see you wrote for Coda around when I did, through the '80s at least. Good eye, good ear, and I like your attention to all the discoveries on listening, along the way!
That Chuck Nessa interview has stayed with me and this morning, by pure coincidence, my wife pressed a copy of Wassily Kandinsky's On the Spiritual in Art into my hand. (We went to an exhibition of some of his work on Thursday.) The very first words of his introduction were these. (Our copy is in the original German so this is my translation.)
"Every work of art is a child of its time.
"Thus every cultural period creates its own art, which can never be repeated. The effort to revive the artistic principles of the past , can at best result in works of art that are like stillborn children. (...) Such an imitation resembles imitations by monkeys. The outward motions of a monkey are completely identical to those of humans. The monkey sits and holds a book in front of his face, turns the pages, makes a thoughtful face. But the inner sense of these motions is absolutely absent."
So, decades like the fifties and sixties represented explosions of feeling (indeed, that was the story of much art in the first half of the twentieth century) and would perhaps indicate a greater ability to feel, a greater acceptance of human feeling in general. The slow decline of originality, in jazz and other art forms, that started accellerating in the eighties would reflect the death of feeling, or a numbing of the ability to feel. This certainly feels (!) true to me as the gap between rich and poor has grown so dramatically since then. And with it a focus on mere survival by many to the detriment of a rich, creative inner life. Thank God for creative artists of all kinds who continue the quest for all the rest of us.
That interview with Chuck Nessa was fascinating and shows that it' true that as much as things change they remain the same. My favorite quote: "All the technology is willing to fill the void." Then as now. But with what?
Thanks, Pierre, & Thanks, Mike,
I appreciate all those records you chose, all or most the same I discovered over the decades. I see you wrote for Coda around when I did, through the '80s at least. Good eye, good ear, and I like your attention to all the discoveries on listening, along the way!