A quote from WP

In the spirit of letting the musicians speak for themselves, here's a relevant quote from William Parker [via Aum Fidelity], interviewed by Pete Gershon of Signal to Noise:

PG:What's your view of the health of the new music scene?

WP: Well, I was just talking to some people yesterday about how, as you leave New York and you're listening to our jazz station, WKCR, and you start to lose it about half-way down the New Jersey Turnpike. Then you might pick up some jazz on the Temple station but you lose that too as you travel south past Philadelphia, and then you don't hear any more jazz. You don't hear any more of the records that you're on. Except for pockets here and there, you know, someone will have a little Sunday night show, or something on after midnight, or certain die-hards who love the music and will put it up on the internet. Except for these pockets, you're not getting very much publicity. If you divide the amount of publicity into the number of people in the US, you see that you're really getting the short end of the stick. You can't win a Grammy, because they won't even consider an album that's sold fewer than 5000 copies. You can't even get nominated. I mean imagine what it would do if there was a Grammy for avant-garde jazz. Once a year, an artist like that could go on TV and play for millions of people!

I think we have to realize we can only go so far. Once you realize you have the need to play this music, it's not about how far you can go, it's not about who's listening, ok? It's about the fact that your position in the universe is such that, if you DON'T play, something will go off its axis. Something will go off. Look at the guys who are 25, and up-and-coming, at places like the Knitting Factory. And then look at all the guys who are 65, still playing at the Knitting Factory. Guys like Cecil Taylor, Henry Threadgill. When Cecil was in his 20's, he played in little places on Bleecker Street. Now, he plays at the Knitting Factory. Where have you gone? Where has the music gone? Basically,what I'm saying is, the jazz elevator can't go too far up. And in a sense, it takes away the frustration about not making it. Because you ARE making it, just as far as it can be made with this music. No, the real frustration comes from the fact that this music's not even in the textbooks. It's not taught in the schools. It's not acknowledged. I would say there are people out there waiting to play this music, who don't even know it exists. They have no idea you can approach a drum set in a different way, that you can play a saxophone in a different way, that you don't just have to play a 12-bar solo. You look at jazz books, and they tell you, "to play a good jazz solo, don't be too emotional. Don't repeat yourself. Don't play a particular kind of note. Don't play too many choruses." If vou followed their rules, you wouldn't have any Charlie Parker, have any John Coltrane. You wouldn't have any jazz.

There is a conservatism that's flooding the country, but there are pockets — like what's going on in Amherst. Michael Ehlers doesn't have fifty thousand dollars, so he's just doing a one-day festival with 4 or 5 groups. But those 4 or 5 groups will shake the universe on that particular day! And I am sure that if those groups didn't play on that day, the world would be worse off for it. And that's how we have to look at it — that everything you do is the most important thing you could do in life, whether it's playing for one person or ten thousand. Or even if you're just walking down the street, and a little kid says "Hey! What's that on your back?' If I say, It's a bass," and stop and spend fifteen minutes talking to the kid about music, at that time, its as if it's the most important thing I could possibly do. Life is short, and we cant expect too much except to try and get close to whatever is beautiful about life. It's not about making money, nobody even expects that anymore! It didn't work!

Just the idea that the layman has about the music is wrong. There's nothing "out" about this music. If you analyze it, you find that it has rhythm, harmony, melody. It has extended techniques. It's influenced by music from all over the world, you know? The cell of sound is smaller. The rhythm isn't constant, it's more like the idea of a pulse, where you take a longer rhythm and break it up, varying smaller and longer cells. Sometimes you're playing a chant that builds to a fever pitch. You deal with dances, the feeling of the blues. But it's not about playing anything you want to play. It's not even about wanting to play! It's about having to do it, and training yourself how to go along with sound and a flow of ideas.