Listening

I've been doing a lot of listening lately, having rediscovered my voracious appetite for jazz and exploring the internal logics, stylistic markings, and musical personalities the rich history and tradition of American music supplies.

I'm consistently amazed when I follow the trajectory of an individual musician's career, how a unique musical voice can be identified in its nascent state and retain its character through stylistic evolution. Even geniuses who sometimes appear to arrive fully formed undergo subtle changes and refinements over the course of years and decades. For some musicians, these changes take the form of refinements, the shedding of excess, perhaps the exuberance of youth whittled down to its essence; for others it seems more akin to climbing a mountain, or stewing a pot of gumbo that somehow never ends up overcooked.

There's so much to explore that I get overwhelmed trying to process the various branches and historical trajectories while also keeping apace of what's going on now. I think my wallet feels the same way.

I approach it as a very serious endeavor that also brings me great joy. I try not to get too obsessive but it rarely wanes for long. I have always felt that music was important in a way that is difficult to explain in the same way that other generally accepted matters of importance are.

Needful things.

Recent listening has centered around the late, great, brilliant Max Roach in all his settings as a leader and sideman,and  the development and brilliance of both Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman. I'm hoping to develop the latter exercise into a meaningful piece of writing at some point.

I've also been playing a lot and doing a bit of recording. It's interesting that listening to jazz doesn't necessarily lead me to creating jazz. I do a lot of improvising but music doesn't tend to come out as stylistically resembling jazz.
In addition, I'm currently reading a very interesting book entitled Jazz Consciousness: Music, Race, and Humanity by the musician and scholar Paul Austerlitz. Mr. Austerlitz is an alumni of Bennington College, where he had the pleasure of studying with both Bill Dixon and Milford Graves, devoting an entire chapter to the latter musician. Interestingly, it's not a chapter about Graves per se, as much as it's a chapter by Graves; Austerlitz prefaces Mr. Graves' writings with the following qualification:

"Rather than writing a chapter about Graves, I opted to present Graves's openions in his own prose voice: he has his own vocabulary that is supremely suited to conveying his ideas. Moreover, my own academic stance requires a detachedness that does not do justice to Graves's thinking."

I found this to be a fascinating way to introduce the chapter which I had assumed would be about Milford Graves rather than by Milford Graves. It was actually one of the primary reasons I had purchased the book, knowing that there was a whole chapter devoted to Milford Graves, a sorely under-documented figure in my opinion.

When I found that there was a whole chapter by Milford Graves, I was ecstatic. I love primary sources, and hearing it straight from Milford Graves' mouth was an exciting premise, even if it was a bit daunting as well. The other recent prose of Milford Graves' that I had read was in John Zorn's Arcana II volume that was recently released. That was a rather dense chapter about his medico-musical theories.

Mr. Graves makes an interesting distinction at one point, stratifying musical practices into three ways of approaching music. To paraphrase, he says that the first mode is to play for the "regular people," and play music that will touch them. The second way is to play for other musicians, what he calls "the in-group, the clique." The third way he mentions is when musicians cultivate themselves, by playing for their own furthering as well as for a "higher force." At this point, Graves says, "Once you have this, you can go into a state where you do not operate according to earthly laws any more. Then you can really stretch out" (p 172).

I'm not quite sure which earthly laws he's referring to, but it's an interesting point. I've done some writing on the general subject previously, improvising musicians' spiritual beliefs and how they may or may not interface with their musical beliefs. One issue I've always grappled with is transcendence, and why this plane of musical experience is often posited as transcendent and above rather than an expanding of the immanent human experience.

Until next time...

I've always been fascinated by contrast. Issues of juxtaposition, proportion, and contour . Opacity. How things have meaning not only because of what they are, but also because of what they are not, and what they are surrounded by. This goes for phenomena in the visual, aural, and tactile realms. Mind objects as well.

Dark/light, heavy/light.

Cold/hot, wet/dry.

Don't get me started on sacred/profane. You can have your deities and eat them too.

They don't all have to be binaries and dualisms. It might seem like doing and not-doing are opposites, but really there is not-doing and then there's every other shade of action. Not-doing is just a point of reference.

What happens when you don't-do deliberately? Is it then absorbed into the realm of doing?

Deliberate stillness.

Apart from any implications or meanings, I just like the phrase.

It's a quality that I try to cultivate as a listener of music. Otherwise I create mental friction with the music that detracts from my ability to receive without distraction. I can't eliminate mental bias, but I can reduce. I'm still not sure if that's desirable though.

These thoughts gestated during a prolonged morning of sitting and just listening to a new record player I recently acquired. I rediscovered all these great vinyls in my collection that had been sitting dormant after my old record player broke. Errol Garner! Lester Bowie! Bessie Smith! Elvis Costello! Arthur Blythe! I traversed untold worlds and spacious galaxies from the comfort of my chair, which I carefully positioned to maximize my experience of the stereo image.

There was such a strong impulse to do, even as I listened. Read the paper, pay the bills, you name it. Instead, I sat, absorbed, and was absorbed.

Welcome to Part Four of an ongoing series of posts on the topic of listening. You can find past posts on the subject here:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

In the last installment in this series I talked about the ways we could understand acts of listening and improvisation as two parts of a co-creative or mutually causative process. Specifically, I wrote about the ways we could analyze this phenomenon in the light of general systems theory. In this post, I'd like to tie the same angle into the Buddhist concept of pattica samuppada or pratitya samutpada. Pattica samuppada is a Pali phrase, and is equivalent to pratitya samutpada in Sanskrit, roughly translated as mutually arising or co-arising phenomena. This concept offers an understanding that is remarkably similar to the mutually causative relationship expressed in general systems theory, and I believe it can act as a paradigm for approaching the act of intuitive improvisation.

The concept, or doctrine depending on whom you ask, of pattica samuppada is a central aspect of understanding the Buddhist worldview. In this doctrine, the Buddha “…presented causality not as a function of power inherent in an agent, but as a function of relationship – of the interaction of multiple factors where cause and effect cannot be categorically isolated or traced unidirectionally” (Macy, 19).

In other words, “…no effect arises without cause, yet no effect is predetermined, for its causes are multiple and mutually arising. Hence there can be novelty as well as order” (Ibid). Novelty as well as order....hmmmmmm. That sounds like an excellent way to describe the practice of improvised music, which is structured by the improvisers but continually creates novel output based upon the changing of the music.

In this sense we can view improvisational music as a teleological entity that exhibits design and purpose in its intuitive unfolding. “Paticca samuppada is not a theory to which one assents, so much as a truth one is invited to experience” (Ibid).

In the study of a system such as improvisation, especially as performed in a group context, linear causation is inadequate for understanding what is going on.   Pattica samuppada at least offers us a conceptual tool for understanding the phenomenology of the improvisational unit. Pattica samuppada is “…the pattern of change itself.  As such, it represents a dual assertion – of change and order, or order within change.  In the linear view of causality, order requires permanence, a static basis impermeable to change.  But here order and impermanence go hand in hand” (Ibid, 35). 

In jazz improvisation, musicians give order to music, going in and out of pre-composed sections, and spontaneously creating compositions in the midst of improvisation, and the audience mentally constructs order as part of listening and understanding what is going on in the music.   “To understand this we must consider everything, not as statically existing, but as 'happening' or 'event'” (Ibid, 52). 

The event of music only occurs at the time it is played; a recording is one level removed in the direction of static-ness, and the written element is yet another level away from the experience itself as it must be interpreted to enter the sonic realm.

Listening as a co-creative process can be visualized and understood as a nested series of listenings at which the musician who is participating in the physical aspect of the music is at the center.  The musicians’ playing can be seen as the stone hitting the water and their listening as the first ripple, and the audience aspect represents the next ripple in the expanding circles that dissipate into stillness in the same way sound merges into silence.  This image works as well in visualizing the approach of musicians to understand their place in the ensemble, as individual voices with autonomy as well as musical repercussions.  Indeed, improvisational music “…insists on both freedom for its individual voices and the reality of their interdependence…all players are simultaneously independent and connected, free and responsible, expressing their self awareness and their relationship to the ensemble/family/community” (Lock, 144).

At any given time, musicians hone in on their musical voice in a way that goes inside to focus on their own musical process without regard for external factors, or they might hear themselves in a completely detached manner as a member of the group or ensemble sound.  In between these two extremes of listening focus are infinite shades of gray that fill out the spectrum of listening position.

Note: when the musical ensemble is discussed, I believe it must refer to any and all sonic surroundings.  A solo artist interacts with the ensemble of silence in a concert hall, a street musician interacts with the ensemble of traffic noise, and a musician in a quartet must interact with the other musicians in a way that hears their own voice as a part of their ensemble.

In a group setting such as this, the individual voice is a changing entity that is sometimes receptive and detached, and at other times active and propelling.  Just as it is said that you can’t bathe in the same river twice as the water is constantly moving, in the realm of improvisation you can’t bathe in the same song twice – although certain properties remain the same, the current always flows with a different energy and subtly different interactions.

Facility of improvisation for musicians, combined with their physical-technical capacity, is largely the result of their ability to adapt, "...not just to things as they are, but as they are coming to be" (Ibid, 85).  While pre-composed music that strictly follows a written score has the range of music already defined and the amount of musical change predetermined, in improvised or spontaneously composed music change is the heart of the musical experience.

Pre-composed music finds value in structuring the musical experience and fine tuning the parameters in order to produce a specific result in the combination, while in improvised music value "...is not found apart from change or in the attempt to avoid change or in the positing of some permanent realm aloof from change. It is found rather in the way one incorporates and learns from change, "riding" it the way a surfer rides the wave" (Ibid, 86).

This might be the last installment in the series for a while. At least I don't have a plan for the next part, as I did for the first four parts which were already mapped out in some previous writing I had done on the subject. I hope you've found them interesting, and I will write more on the subject if and when inspiration strikes.

Comments, rebuttals and disagreements encouraged.

Lock, Graham. Forces in Motion. New York: Da Capo Press, 1988.

Macy, Joanna. Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems. Albany : State University of New York Press, c1991.

This is part three in an ongoing series on the topic of listening. Part One and Part Two are also available for your perusal.

In this installment in the series I'd like to not only talk about listening, but also listening as part and parcel of the act of improvisation, and indeed place the emphasis on the latter half of the equation. I'm going to discuss the acts of listening and improvisation as two parts of a co-creative or mutually causative process. These co-creative processes are the result of numerable complex interactions on the aural processing and active music making levels.  In this post I'm going to focus on General Systems Theory as a conceptual framework, and then in Part Four I am going to tie this into the Buddhist concept of pattica sammupada.

Due to the nature of these interactions, a linear approach to understanding them is lacking, and a more dynamic understanding is offered by the study of General Systems Theory. These concepts will offer us the conceptual and analytical tools necessary to frame the discussion in a meaningful manner.

General systems theory states that a system is less a thing than a pattern, “a dynamic flow of interactions…that maintains and organizes itself by exchanging matter, energy, and information with its environment. These flow through the system and are transformed by it” (Macy, 69, 73).

Applying these ideas to improvising musicians is particularly interesting, as musicians are not only passive parts of a system that are being transformed through its processes, but they are also active participants in that system. At times they are passive and at times they are very active in its processes; that is to say, not only do they ride the wave, but they also participate in the creation of the wave they are riding. The ways in which musicians step in and out of these roles in the context of the group determines the way the system functions, and the totality of their actions results in the music made.

The concept of the feedback mechanism in general systems theory is very helpful in examining the improvising musician and ensemble. There are two types of feedback mechanisms, positive and negative.

Negative feedbacks reduce deviation in the system, while positive feedbacks increase deviation, as well as reinforcing and amplifying existing deviations (Ibid, 73). In other words, "...the effects of any action are fed back into the organism, and by virtue of this feedback systems are indeterminative" (Ibid, 54).

Positive feedbacks in a musical context can be understood as playing by a musician that can be described as deviant or disharmonious in terms of the course of the music being made, causing the rest of the musical organism to react to those deviations.

Negative feedbacks can be understood as music making that follows the trajectory of the existing music being made and encouraging it along the same course.  So at any given moment in the improvisatory context, musicians can act as negative or positive feedbacks in the group system of improvisation, either reducing or increasing deviation to the existing systematic sound. If a musician took the role of a positive feedback in the ensemble, it would imply a more active role in shaping the course of the music, while negative feedbacks would imply a more passive, receptive mode of music making.

You might also be able to posit that in a positive versus a negative feedback role, various types of listening are occurring. In order to embody the concept of the negative feedback, the focus of the individual's listening might very well be on the other members of the ensemble. In a positive feedback role the musician might be focusing more on their own voice within the ensemble. Both of these examples are oversimplifications of course, but you can see how the location of listening can really alter the way musicians act and interact in the ensemble.

Through explaining these various modes of interaction, a depiction emerges of the improvising ensemble: if causality is mutual, the ensemble is not the musician and the group which we conventionally posit, so much as a series of events, occurrences of playing and creating.  Joanna Macy, author of Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems, notes:  "It has been likened, by both systems thinkers and early Buddhists, to a stream and to a flame, constantly flowing and undergoing transformation" (161). More on that later.

The structuring medium of the music, if there is an existing composition from which the music is being made, can be understood as an agreed upon territory to survey, or a starting point where the musicians begin their explorations. That the musical experience of the musicians and the audience relates to the entire piece of music both past and present rather than just the current notes being played can be explained through systems theory and feedbacks: "By virtue of feedback, past experience is accumulated, transformed, and internalized in the system's mental constructs and neural nets. Its structure at any given moment expresses its history" (Ibid, 168). In other words, the musicians' and audience’s cumulative musical experiences, both within the course of a song and their entire life determines and influences their present experience of the music being created.

And of course, no system is closed. All of these "systems" interact in the context of the larger system of life.

Another useful concept from the realm of systems theory in understanding the system of a group of improvising musicians is that of holons. A holon is "…an integral whole and a part within the larger whole. As open systems interact, be they atom or organism, they form larger self sustaining patterns, which in turn relate to build yet more inclusive and more varied forms. Each level is irreducible, and each whole is a holon – comprising subsystems, is itself a subsystem in a larger system, each level revealing greater diversity and improbability" (Ibid, 85). This can be visualized as a nested series of systems, or a nested series of listenings.

This can also be described as a “Self-organizing system” or SOS, which is “...a general term that describes a diverse range of systems that exhibit both complex and adaptive dynamics...They are most often comprised of numerous individual agents that are autonomous but also exhibit a high degree of interconnectivity” (Borgo, 126).

This nonlinear and adaptive aspect is central to the improvisational unit’s ability to change and evolve over time: “Due to their nonlinear dynamics, SOS’ are able to adapt to new stimuli and to internal changes...only nonlinear systems can evolve (in a biological sense) over time” (Ibid).

Okay, that's all I have the stamina for right now.

So this all begs the question: who cares?

I think this is always an important question to ask when getting mired in theory and concepts to discuss an act or phenomenon that exists just fine on its own without these frameworks.

In writing about these subjects, my primary goal is to help create a means of understanding the act of listening and improvisation in the hopes of both elevating their status as an act and an art. The secondary goal is to put down in writing the ideas that otherwise exist only in my head, where they can't be shared with others.

Take away what you find useful and leave the rest behind; thanks for reading.

Borgo, David. Sync or Swarm: Improvising Music in a Complex Age. New York: Continuum International, 2005.

Macy, Joanna. Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems. Albany : State University of New York Press, c1991.

Continuing the series that I started with part one on listening, I'd like to continue the discussion. Today I'd like to discuss Samā, which is the Sufi practice of reverent listening to music and poetry. While the focus is on a practice that is undeniably religious, for the purposes of this discussion it will be stripped of any dogmatic imperatives and framework to better understand the ways in which Sufis believe Samā brings them closer to the divine. Feel free to replace divine with whatever word you describe for the state of ecstatic, emotional, or meditative listening that you  may have experienced in the past. I note with interest that the Pulse composers have chosen to call their recent project Sihr Halal, a concept that interfaces with Samā.

Samā is the Sufi practice of listening or auditioning music, and offers a paradigmatic example of a spiritual practice that engages music.  While there exists a great diversity of religious practices amongst people who define themselves as Sufi, reverence for music as a religious means is a consistent defining feature. 

Among Sufis, music is considered a “…spiritual staple, not merely a permissible (halal) but a required religious practice (wajib)” (Lewisohn, 2).  Samā literally translates as “…audition, [and] connotes in the Sufi tradition of hearing with the “ear of the heart,” an attitude of reverently listening to music and/or the singing of mystical poetry with the intent of increasing awareness and understanding of the divine object described; it is a type of meditation focusing on musical melody, by use of instruments, mystical songs, or combining both” (Lewisohn, 4). 

By the “ear of the heart,” it is meant that the Sufi practitioner of Samā believes they access a state of musical awareness that they believe utilizes God as a proxy, so that they do not hear with their own ears but the ears of God.  Samā is “…a musical experience whose aesthetic depth leads to metaphysical penetration; the notes reflect, indeed, become, the divine harmony” (Ibid, 15).  Samā may also be used to refer to the dance that sometimes accompanies the music (Shiloah, 143), which parallels the South Asian, Indian understanding that dance is part and parcel of music, the physical expression of sound.

For Sufis, gnosis, or religious knowledge and wisdom gained through direct experience of the divine, is the defining characteristic of their religious life and understanding.  As a result, no wholesale injunctions against musical practice will be found in their religious framework because music is seen as a key path to the direct experience of God.  For the Sufis, “...what is most essential…cannot be learned, but can only be reached by immediate experience and ecstasy and inward transformation” (quoted in Qureshi, 223).  This is not a faith based initiative, so to speak: you are invited to experience it first hand.

One important aspect is the primacy the practice of Samā places upon the experience and spiritual state of the listener.  In fact, the extent of the listeners’ Samā is based upon their own spiritual depth and ability to be receptive to the music being played and poetry being recited.  “The Samā concept is focused on the listener – in accord with its literal meaning (‘listening’ or ‘auditioning’) – and on his spiritual capacity for receiving what he hears, including all the implications of an ecstatic response” (Qureshi, 223-24).  It is dependent upon what Suhrawardi terms the “spiritual attunedness of the soul” (quoted in Lewisohn, 8).

In the practice of Samā, music is used primarily in conjunction with poetry, and the element of the mystical poetry is a key to understanding Samā.  “It is the music that turns Sufi poetry into Samā, and therefore the relationship between music and poetry constitutes a crucial element in defining what Samā is” (Qureshi, 221).  In many ways, the use of music is viewed as permissible only because it is used as a means to transmit the message of mystical poetry to the listener, as “…music is explicitly credited with spiritual power solely as an adjunct to poetry” (Ibid, 224).  This also attests to the power of the music, since, as Leonard Lewisohn poetically explains:

“…music alone is capable of bridging the gap between the literal and anagogic levels of meaning…Music constitutes the poem’s emotional body of water: the poem-fish is born and swims in the ocean of Samā – for without music, the vertical dimension of Samā, the poem expires on the dry land of literal and horizontal meanings” (Lewishon, 15).

The listener is supposed to focus on the spirit of the poetry being recited, and not on the strictly denotative meaning of the words.  This is because the truth lies not in the words but behind the words, “…in mystical deliberation over the hidden mysteries [concealed] within the highly refined poetry which are sung by the cantor” (quoted in Lewisohn, 15).  Mahmud Shabistari expounds upon the mystery of Samā in his book Garden of Mystery (Gulshan-i rāz) (quoted in Lewisohn, 16):

For all those familiar with mystical states of consciousness and adept in spiritual perfections, the Samā of the soul and spirit does not consist merely of the sounds and words heard from a musician. No, behind every strain and melody, adepts apprehend a fresh mystery and mystical state. But such mysterious virgins do not expose themselves to every stranger; they never unveil their faces except to the most elect of confidants. No, not everyone who busies himself in Samā, claps his hands in passion or whirls in dance is necessarily an initiate in tune with its mysteries.

As the above passage indicates, Sufis believe the experience of ecstasy and the depths of Samā are not open to everyone, and certain conditions must be observed in order for it to be sanctioned by the Sufis as a legitimate practice of Samā.  For example, Sufis believe it is impossible to gain the benefits of Samā “…without also observing its proper spiritual conditions incumbent upon both performer and listener” (Lewisohn, 7). 

One of the most widely agreed upon and serious of the rules of conduct for the ceremony of Samā is that “…silence and stillness must reign throughout Samā notwithstanding the participant becoming affected by ecstasy and rapture” (Ibid., 8).  It is necessary to practice Samā “…without shattering the inward silence, self-control and contemplative sobriety of the Sufi” (Ibid).  The Muslim scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, who did some of the most extensive writing on Samā, wrote: “In this fashion, the flames of divine yearning within him will be rekindled every moment and freshly renewed so that God’s grace – the bounty of this world, will bless all of his days, such that in Samā he will be able to control his movements, except when he is unable to keep his peace – like a person who must sneeze, not matter how much he wishes not to” (quoted in Lewisohn, 8).

There are three defining elements of conducting proper Samā that have been identified by Sufis. The first is that it must occur at the right time, which is not time in the temporal sense but rather the time of the heart, the preparedness of the spirit to be receptive to the benefits of Samā. “The proper time [for Samā] is when their [the Sufis] hearts enjoy purity so that they desire to concentrate on their aspiration in seeking their Beloved’s goodwill” (quoted in Lewisohn, 8). In other words, “…time’s metaphysical arrow, one could say, must strike the Sufi’s heart before it hits the body” (Ibid). This is how preparedness for Samā is explained in the positive sense, and in the negative sense, there is an injunction against participating in Samā “…during any times when one’s heart is engaged [with worldly concerns], nor when it is time for ritual prayer (namāz) nor when eating or when one is distracted” (Ibid). 

The second parameter for practicing correct Samā is to practice in the right place.  Right place is defined as: “zawiyās, khānaqāhs, and mosques, which are preferred over other spots, since the mosque was founded for sake of the bodily devotion and the heart created for the sake of divine gnosis and the theophany therein” (quoted in Lewison, 9).  Reading this reminded me of quotes by musicians such as Sonny Rollins who find themselves “…not wanting to play your horn in a night club where they are souping and drinking” (Medioni).  Although there are the ideal physical spaces for conducting Samā, once again there is a metaphysical element to this parameter, as “…the “place” of the concert is also paradoxically a “no-place”, a u-topos, a “heart-land”, rather than any specific bodily locus.  A “place” is sacred by virtue of the heart’s presence there rather than the heart’s presence physically contingent upon the geographical locus of the body” (Ibid).

The third parameter for practicing Samā is right company, which can be seen as a parallel to the Buddhist concept of the Sangha, the idea of a spiritual community as essential to the furthering of the individual. In the case of the Sufis, Right company also connotes a sense of worthiness, and since Samā “…is an esoteric activity demanding a refined degree of understanding on the listener’s part, it is usually considered a ceremony proper “for members only”, and from which the uninitiated are to be excluded” (Ibid, 10). 

First and foremost, we must understand that Samā is an art of awakening, just as meditation on the koan mu is a practice of awakening for Zen Buddhists.  The difference is the means, since for the Sufi the experience of Samadhi comes in the midst of musical meditation rather than sitting meditation.  Samā is used to provoke “…various types of ineffable visionary experiences, which ‘are the summation of what is sought by the lovers of God Almighty and the ultimate fruit of all pious works’” (Ibid, 17).  It is meant to induce a hal, or a “…sudden mind bending glimpse of hidden things” (Khan, P., 55). Samā is an art of self-realization, since when proper Samā is practiced, the mystic “encounters in himself states which he had not encountered before he listened to the music” (Ibid).

 “The cause of those states appearing in the heart through the Samā is a divine mystery (sirr Allah) found within the harmonious relationship of measured tones [of music] to the [human] spirits and in the spirits becoming overcome by these melodies and stirred by them…But the knowledge of the cause as to why spirits are affected through sounds is one of the mystical subtleties of the sciences of visionary experience” (quoted in Lewisohn, 17).

The discussion of Samā is useful in understanding an existing framework for the act of listening deeply. I hope any of the religious imagery and language didn't scare anyone away, as I am aware that many people tend to have allergic reactions to dogma.  

In the next installment of the series on listening, I am going to explore one way we can examine the act of improvisation, a view in which the listening and creation of music are not two separate entities but parts of a whole that is co-creative.

Avery, Kenneth S. A Psychology of Early Sufi sama’: Listening and Altered States. New York, NY : RoutledgeCurzon. 2004.

Khan, Hazrat Inayat. The Mysticism of Sound and Music. Boston : Shambhala, 1996.

Khan, Pir Zia Inayat. Parabola: The Search For Meaning. Spring 2005.

Lewisohn, Leonard. “The Sacred Music of Islam: Sama’ in the Persian Sufi Tradition". British Journal of Ethnomusicology, Vol. 6 (1997), 1-33.

Medioni, Franck. Sonny Rollins and David S. Ware: Sonny Meets David. All About Jazz, online magazine. Available at http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article_print.php?id=19423

Sarasvati, Swami Pratyagatmananda. Japasutram: The Science of Creative Sound. Madras: Ganesh & Co, 1971.

Shiloah, Amnon. “Music and Religion in Islam”. Acta Musicologica, Vol. 69, Fasc. 2 (Jul.-Dec., 1997), 143-155.

When I drive to work, which is only a few times a month when I have an event I have to go straight to after hours, I oftentimes take the opportunity to listen to the radio and peruse the offerings that the public have to select from. Sometime in the last year I started a game with myself where I could only scan past two songs before I had to listen to one entire song, so that I would be forced to listen to whole songs and try and figure out what makes them tick. The restriction makes it so that I only skip the really bad stuff (I always make sure I have a skip left when I get around to 95.5, the smooth jazz station), and part of the exercise is for me to try and find the good in any given song. I'll admit that it's sometimes difficult, but there's oftentimes a great bass line or a cool keyboard hook that I can hone in on and dig. I'm also really into examining the production techniques and values that are prevalent in today's music. I caught a stone cold breakdown in the middle of some hokey disco tune this morning that made it all worthwhile.

Listening is a funny thing. There is a wide spectrum in what people conventionally refer to as listening.  Most people understand that there is a difference between hearing and listening; hearing implies basic acknowledgment of auditory input, while listening connotes an active processing of the information encoded in that auditory signal. That there are degrees of listening is plainly obvious to anyone who has been ignored while speaking, or to any person who has tried to deeply listen to music or to another human being with a receptivity and stillness of mind that allows a deeper listening to occur. The degree of listening is more involved with the state of the mind of the listener than with the physical mechanisms of the ears, and one’s own disposition and mental framework determines the depth and extent to which one listens.  Listening intently is largely a matter of where attention is placed, and how well the individual is able to maintain that attention in a focused manner, allowing them to receive without distraction or mental interruption.

In our society, I think listening to music is most often passive, and when it's active it's usually in the context of dancing. The idea of background music is pervasive, whether it's while we're doing the dishes, driving, or any other number of activities. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but there's a whole different realm of listening that occurs when it's the primary activity. The way you read a book, or even watch a movie that has an engrossing plot and you're forced to process possibilities and emotions.

One of the only musics that seems to have the luxury of active listeners most of time is European classical music. It's an art music, you go to a big theater to hear it, and you sit, and you listen. Sometimes I wonder if jazz is going through some kind of awkward adolescence, moving from a popular music to an art music, and what that transition really means for the artists and the audience is something I'm still considering.

Tarthang Tulku is a rinpoche in the Tibetan Nyingma school of Vajrayana Buddhism. As a teacher in the Western Hemisphere, he has developed a system of understanding the world around us in a series he wrote called “Time, Space and Knowledge,” the first book of which bears the same name. Tulku espouses a phenomenology and cosmology that understands conventional time as being qualitatively different from what he terms Great Time. The clumsiness of this verbal expression appears to create a dichotomy that places Great Time as superior and separate. However, according to Tulku conventional time is included in Great Time, and indeed is a necessary doorway to this experientially different state. Great Time and Space are expansive and accommodating in nature, and it is out of this great expanse that we and all other phenomena are constantly arising. Amongst his various visualization and meditational practices, there are several exercises he espouses that utilize listening. One such exercise's introductory instructions are as follows:

Sit quietly and attend to the presence of sounds. You can use speech, music, or any sounds that happen to appear. Do not get trapped in the labels and significations that sounds bear, but concentrate on the quality of the sounds themselves. This amounts to learning to see more deeply into all communicated presences, rather than being stopped by their surface partitioning (Tulku, 187).

I like that a lot. Cultivating a non-discriminatory reaction to sonic phenomena to better understand and appreciate their qualities as sounds.  The process of labeling and identifying is a reactionary mechanism of the mind that has a limiting result, and this is an attempt to open it up a bit.

There's so much to explore in the world of sound, or as William Parker calls it the Tone World. In his discussions of the phenomena in space, Tulku writes: “What we perceive as solid or opaque ‘things’, produced by a given ‘setting’, define by contrast what we perceive as the ‘space’ of that level” (Tulku, 4).  Similarly, there is an attribute of sound that can be described as sonic opacity, the quality of a sound as being separate from silence.  If we can position sound and silence as two halves of a whole, then that whole can be approached as music, and one way of viewing music is that it is based upon the practices of manipulating sound and silence.  The way sound merges into silence reveals a spectrum of sonic phenomena that includes many gradations, and it is only our perception of silence as the absence of sound that creates the experience of sonic solidity or opacity. Indeed, silence can be understood as the medium in which sound exists, an ever present canvas that at times can be accentuated or eliminated based upon the choices of the musicians.  Silence is an active accommodating medium in which sound and music can be expressed.

It is also important to note that silence is merely the “...absence of audible sound-rhythm” (Smith, 1973), a boundary that is defined by our senses.  Therefore, there is no such thing as absolute silence, only our perception of the lack of sound.  The conventionally accepted dichotomy between silence and sound can be seen as an expression of a “higher order unity” (Tulku, 9), which is music.  Silence and sound phenomena exist in our perception, and the expression of their unity is the making of music that is the manipulation of these two elements.  The higher order unity in music is a microcosmic expression of unity that exists as well on a macrocosmic level, and as such can be interpreted in the realm of spiritual understanding if that is the goal of the musician or listener. It was the basis of the exploration of ancient rshis or seers in the Vedic tradition, the idea that the very large could be approached by understanding the very small - the rta, or cosmic order.

There are some fascinating paradigms for understanding the act of listening and improvisational music making available to us in the realms of general systems theory and the Buddhist concept of pattica sammupada or mutually arising phenomena. I'm going to adapt some writing I've done on the subject to better suit the blog format. More on that later....

Smith, Ismael Wadada Leo. “notes (8 pieces ) | source | a new | world | music: creative music”. Self published, 1973.

Tulku, Tarthang. Time Space and Knowledge: A New Vision of Reality. Emeryville: Dharma Publishing, 1977.

I recently finished reading Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus' Banker to the Poor, an inspiring account of the invention and spread of the practice of micro lending. Micro lending is the practice of lending small amounts of money to people with no physical or monetary collateral, and relying upon human decency and the creation of social networks of lenders as the collateral, a revolutionary idea to say the least. His program has been incredibly successful in his native Bangladesh and has spread elsewhere, and he has generously offered his model up to anyone else who would like to start a micro lending organization. Their focus is on the poorest of the poor, and they have made incredible strides for those people through his program.

In the book he calls for socially conscious business enterprises to become more common practice in the private sector, essentially bypassing the normative bureaucratic routes that funding goes through. For profit businesses using their profit to do positive things socially. It's something that I and many people I know would love to see, and invest in, and if Yunus' outlook comes across as romantic sometimes, it's rooted in his own experiences that have created a very practical methodology for alleviating poverty.

Inspirational to say the least.

I found a couple hidden articles on the OkkaDisk site, hidden only in that there doesn't appear to be any linking to them off their main site. One is an article by Kevin Whitehead called "Why many records are very bad—and a few are good" and another by Stu Vandermark (Ken's brother?) called "Recording Jazz: A Questionable Practice? (or, A Call for Re-examination)."  They're both interesting in their own right and I don't want to go into a detailed analysis of either of them, but I thought they were relevant as part of a larger discussion about recording jazz. The Whitehead article is interesting in light of the recent Behearer discussion, since he mentions the "overlooked" artists of the 70s and 80s, while also discussing major labels' role in the situation.

Stu Vandermark questions the practice of recording entirely, not discarding it, but coming to the central point that:

"Buying records is like bringing home a copy of the exhibit book from a showing of works by visual artists. It is nice to have photos of the works to help jog fine memories, but the book is not a substitute for the exhibit. Analogously jazz is more like the work of certain types of “tactile” artists, such as painter Vincent van Gogh and sculptor David Smith. Those artists have produced works in which it is impossible to perceive and measure the shift between the total, larger impact and the three-dimensional vitality of the detail. In such cases the artifacts — photos on the one hand and sound recordings on the other — fall far short of the jolting reality."

Whether or not that's true is debatable. I don't think many people would argue with the notion that jazz is best experienced live, but there are some recordings that seem to transcend the limitations of the medium and allow for a transcendent listening experience. I also value the fact that I can listen to a recording in the comfort of my own home in an idealized listening environment without the clanking of beer bottles or the coughes wheezes and whispers of an audience.

Following this tangent and making a leap to a related discussion about recording, I wanted to comment on the sentence that Mwanji highlighted in the William Parker quote I posted recently. To paraphrase, Parker says that he believes jazz recordings should be done more akin to the process of rock recordings, where bands go into the studio for extended periods of time rather than the one or two day allotments given to many jazz recordings.

What it really made me think about and wonder is if jazz has moved towards having more home based recording environments, as many rock musicians and producers have, and if it hasn't, why is that the case? Recording technology keeps getting cheaper, so why is the studio even in the equation? I wonder if it has something to do with the technical difficulties of recording jazz. I would assume, based on my own rudimentary knowledge of microphones and recording technology, that making a good jazz recording requires a higher level of mastery than the average home recordist possesses. Nevertheless, I think it makes sense for jazz artists to look beyond the traditional studio environment as a means of making records if there is really value in being able to spend more time recording.

Just a thought.

Currently listening to Sticks and Stones - Shed Grace, featuring Matana Roberts, Josh Abrams and Chad Taylor. I love their dynamics and interplay, and this is my second favorite setting for Chad Taylor, second only to his work with Cooper-Moore in Tryptich Myth, especially the second release on Aum Fidelity. Matana sounds great on this recording and Josh Abrams is a highly underrated bassist in the creative music scene, perhaps because of his genre mobility that sees him collaborating with everyone from Prefuse 73 to Town and Country.

For your viewing pleasure, a Max Roach Quartet video featuring Odean Pope Billy Harper (thx Jason), Cecil Bridgewater, and Reggie Workman:

Apologies for the lack of activity around here lately. I've been quite busy with a number of projects, musical and scholarly, and there's been such great posts and reading amongst other blogs recently that I've been left with little left to say and plenty left to read. Throw in a little bout with some seasonal allergies and Soundslope's been left by the wayside.

Along with some fantastic reading, I've been taking the time to really listen to some music, as a primary active pursuit of sitting, absorbing, and reflecting. Most people understand that there is a difference between hearing and listening; hearing implies basic acknowledgment of auditory input, while listening connotes an active processing of the information encoded in that auditory signal. That there are degrees of listening is plainly obvious to anyone who has been ignored while speaking, or to any person who has tried to deeply listen to music or to another human being with a receptivity and stillness of mind that allows deep listening to occur. Thus, the degree of listening is more involved with the state of the mind of the listener than with the physical mechanisms of the ears, and one’s own disposition and mental framework determines the depth and extent to which one listens.  Listening intently is largely a matter of where attention is placed, and how well the individual is able to maintain that attention in a focused manner, allowing them to receive without distraction or mental interruption. In that spirit I've been trying to deepen my own listening practices, with improvised music as my source of study and inspiration.

I received a recording of the Art Ensemble of Chicago live in 1977in Germany with Fred Anderson sitting in. It's rare to hear Fred Anderson playing any music other than his own - his tone and style is so singular, and he really embodies the AACM ethos of playing original music. So its fun to hear Fred sit in with the venerable AEOC, his tone instantly identifiable amongst Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman's formidable contributions.

The only other recording I have of Fred playing someone else's music is a trio recording of him with Charlie Haden and Hamid Drake. I'm one of only two people who have the recording, as the person who gave it to me has the original tapes and isn't spreading it in hopes of it eventually finding its way to an official release. In any case, with Charlie's presence, Fred actually plays some Ornette tunes, which is really a treat, since Ornette and Ed Blackwell had such an influence on both Fred and Hamid Drake's playing.

Fred's such an interesting player amongst the so-called "avant-garde" because he doesn't do any overblowing or extended technique on his horn. He seems to draw from an endless well of musical ideas and flow, with the rhythmic element really playing a huge role in his approach and his sound. He has such a strong, powerful tone on his tenor, and I've read in an interview that he credits it to the fact that he used to practice outside in the park a lot, so he got used to projecting. It's even more amazing when you realize that Fred plays all hunched over - it's amazing that his diaphragm can still produce such a huge sound.

The AEOC show is a typical tour-de-force of musical exploration. Moye's drumming never fails to amaze me, and listening to the recording makes me wish Lester Bowie had collaborated with Fred Anderson in a more developed capacity during his all too brief life.

Other new listening has included a Charles Brackeen Quartet Silkheart recording from 1987 called Worshippers Come Nigh, featuring Mr. Brackeen on tenor, Olu Dara, on cornet, Fred Hopkins on bass, Andrew Cyrille on drums and percussion, and Dennis Gonzalez on "pao de chuva" on one track. It's already up on Behearer so I'll be adding some commentary there once I dig in a little bit further. Seeing this recording also makes me want to pick up this Dennis Gonzalez record.

I've also been delving back into the work of the overlooked Japanese-american pianist Glenn Horiuchi. My friend Tatsu Aoki first hipped me to Horiuchi and I've been hooked ever since. Horiuchi had an all too brief career, dying of cancer in 2000 at the age of 45. He was a good friend of Wadada Leo Smith's, who has a tribute page up for him. His playing incorporates so much and there's a lot to absorb listening to him.

In the housekeeping department, I'd like to welcome Harris Eisenstadt's Tie A Bow Not A Knot to the blogroll - he's in west Africa with Willow Williamson on a Meet the Composer Global Connections grant, and has some fantastic stories, and video footage about his travels there. Also recently added is the blog of trombonist Jeff Albert, a musician with Chicago ties who I haven't had the pleasure of checking out yet but will be sure to do in the future.