Salieri, anyone?
Have you ever heard of Tom McKinley? He is a pianist/composer in Boston who used to teach at the New England Conservatory. When I was a freshman there, he and I would play duo in private lessons. I also played in his ensembles and he eventually played gigs with me, Miroslav Vitous and other luminaries. He was the first pianist I had ever played with who had the McCoy and Chick language down – tremendously exciting and opened entire new worlds of harmony to me. One day, about 2 months in, even though I was so in awe and shy around him, I finally mustered up the courage to ask him what had been in my thoughts since I had first heard him.
“I don’t get it, Tom.”
“Don’t get what, Michael?”
“How can you play so amazingly and you’re not famous?” I thought he would wet himself. He howled delightedly, coughed up the 4th Lucky Kool menthol of the morning, spilled some more coffee on his tie and regained his composure.
“You are still under the impression, Michael, that somehow fame and talent are connected. Let me tell you, in every major city and even some minor ones, there are truly great players you will never have heard of, and there are people on the cover of Downbeat who have no business being there!” In my experience, those were some of the truest words ever spoken.
Let me throw some more names out at you. How about Dave Creamer? Maybe John Stowell? Andre Bush? I’m thinking of Bob Meyer, now…Paul Nagel? Jamie Fox? These are all world-class musicians living in various degrees of semi-obscurity in various towns. I won’t, but I could easily name 100 or so musicians I know of who are better, more creative players than many of the usual suspects we read about in Jazz Times, Downbeat, NY Times, etc…I have also seen the reverse. I have seen a number of players leave here for fame and fortune in NYC and some were truly deserving of the fame and acclaim they received. Others, quite frankly, weren’t even close to being the best, most creative folks in the Bay Area, let alone NYC but, through persistence and promotion, have become darlings in the tiny little subset we lovingly call modern jazz. (No, I will not name names – no Elia Kazan here…but I am sure everyone has their own list.)
It brings me to this morning’s musing…Salieri, anyone? If you recall, Salieri was the acclaimed court composer who, in Peter Schaeffer’s brilliant imagining, recognizes the overwhelming spark of divine creation in Mozart and feels deeply threatened that the young pup will take his sinecure. The older Salieri befriends Mozart and proceeds to frighten and poison the genius to death, even as he takes down the feverishly directed score for Mozart’s the requiem.
A wonderful movie and who’d a thunk that Tom Hulce would do such a stellar job as Wolfgang. At any rate, it was lovely fiction, but I started thinking about real life Salieris and wondering if they really exist. Not the part about undeserved acclaim, but the part about the undeserving one recognizing that the unrecognized genius is more deserving.
My experience has been that, the better the musician, as a general rule, the more generous they are in giving it up to a fellow talented one, regardless of whether or not the fellow talent is acclaimed in the jazz press. Conversely, many of those in the mediocre middle make no distinction between, say, a Pete Christlieb (a fine bopping craftsman) and a Wayne Shorter (a true and innovative artist) other than to say "Christlieb made the changes better and played more in tune." "Hello trees, meet forest," I reply. This is not a hard and fast rule, but I have seen again and again that many musicians tend to view someone’s artistry through the lens of their limitations. I have heard bopping alto players completely clueless on a Jarrett or Shorter tune, and utterly unaware that their worked out bop licks missed the point of the piece they were playing.
I have also experienced the contrary, where some friends of mine who are really good players have practically prostrated themselves before other friends of mine who are really good and FAMOUS players, ala the “I’m not worthy” shtick. I’ve even seen some friends of mine change their tune about me when they find out someone they revere thinks highly of me, even though nothing about my playing has changed. In aesthetics they call this institutionalism – using some “authority” to validate one’s view. Downbeat gave it 5 stars, it must be good. MOMA is hanging it on the 5th floor, must be good. Alternately, I am quite convinced that if Trane came back from the dead and was playing a dinner jazz gig for those clueless yuppies at one of the trendy San Francisco restaurants where the music is window-dressing, the only reaction would be the manager telling him to keep the volume down.
(Semi-tangential aside: In the everything goes full circle department, I see the jazz listening progression this way: Fans, mainly non-players or played a little in high school and college – tend to be the most open, and respond viscerally to the spirit being communicated. Little to no knowledge of the grammar of the music, so really responding intuitively, or maybe “I can play an E A and B chord, gee, that’s purty hard to do on guitar.” Next are the jazz authority fans, bookers, agents, critics,collectors – again usually not musicians of any particular strength, but the music speaks deeply to them and they tend to impose sociological and/or ideological matrices more. Prone to sweeping judgments on the value of this or that artist. Often have larger record collections and better stereos than do musicians. Usually the ones who make the actual decisions on what the rest of us get to hear, which is often a shame. Next are the serious jazz students, hanging on every note, trying to steal what they can from the players they are hearing. Listening for licks and lines they can work out, hoping for a connection maybe, or a lesson. Next come the journeyman jazz players, the craftsmen, the ones who have worked out a compendium of licks, bags, etc…the kind who lift Trane’s solo on pursuance from a Love Supreme, break it down into licks and work them out in all 12 keys so as to be able to play “out” on modal tunes. These folks tend to be the ones who will critique the pitch of the Ellington band or look for triad pairs on a Herbie Hancock solo. After that come the artist/craftsmen. They have absorbed all of the important historical influences, always understanding that craft and creativity are concurrent and complementary. Whether or not they have an original voice, they can hear and appreciate someone who does. Lastly, are the master creative musicians, the Liebmans, Dejohnettes, Shorters, Towners, etc…they are supremely secure in their own voices, questing and questioning, in the moment musicians, and truly humble. They actually have the most in common with…drum-roll, please…the fans. The masters have come full circle and are in a space where they respond viscerally and intuitively to the spirit being communicated.)
So how do we get to Salieri? I got there following a very interesting conversation I had with my wife, Carla. The premise in Salieri’s case is that he knows that Mozart is a greater, less-recognized talent than him. My question was, is that real? We all can think in our mind of player X, widely hailed and feted (fetid?), gushed about by Giddins and Ratliff et al, who can’t hold a creative candle to player Y, toiling in relative obscurity. I think of my current favorite player Y, John Stowell, and at least 4-5 player Xs who don’t compare but receive more acclaim, better gigs, etc. Please understand, John is doing well, and among those who know his playing, he is universally admired, respected, even revered. Still, he would be the first to admit that he is not the household word that this, that or the other player X is. Here’s the key query:
Do the player Xs recognize this, or have they created various constructs wherein they can explain away the discrepancy between acclaim and talent? In other words, do we have a number of Salieris in the jazz world (not that they are trying to poison their Mozarts), who understand the common disconnect between talent and acclaim, even in the jazz world? I have not really witnessed this much. But then again, I can’t get inside someone’s head to know what they are really thinking. The closest I ever got to hearing someone admit this was getting a cab ride to Carnegie Hall with a composer who had become newly famous, getting commissions from a number of prominent national orchestras and so on. He had worked so hard to achieve this fame, and after years of head being banged against the mysterious glass ceiling, the trap door had opened and he had risen up. “Michael”, he said, “it is just so weird. All these years I was under-recognized and all of a sudden I am over-recognized. I don’t know how to deal with it.”
I am in a pretty unusual situation with regard to the jazz world and fame, because so many of my friends and playing compatriots have gone on to become stars in its firmament. From Wayne Krantz to James Genus to Rachel Z to Drew Gress to Bruce Barth to Dave Kikoski to Mark Feldman to Dave Douglas and so on and so on, I have witnessed these talented friends have copious ink spilled on them. Everyone had a different path, but here is the commonality. Just like my composer friend, my friends were terrific players before and after they were recognized, and they would all be the first to tell you that there were literally dozens of equally gifted peers we all played with whom your basic jazz fan has never heard of. I am grateful that New York gave me that gift of perspective, because it gives me a wide-angle view that I think some of my Bay Area musical friends, infected with institutional awe and not having worked up close with their icons, don’t have. They remain invested in a meritocracy which is a fairy tale.
Now that I think about it, I do believe that most of the great players, the ones who can really play, have no trouble admitting someone else’s strengths as a player, regardless of that player’s prominence. It seems to be the ones who have moved ahead through connections, promotion, etc…rather than appreciable talent, who have trouble giving it up. So that leads me back to my initial question: Do these latter-day Salieri’s, as they look in the mirror before going to sleep at night, recognize all the under-recognized Mozarts in their midst? Or is Sammy Glick a better description? How do they sleep at night? (Pace Lennon).
It is odd to think it, because we all cherish the mythology, but jazz is not a meritocracy. There is so much that the casual fan does not see that goes into who gets booked where and why, so much in the way of networking, schmoozing, promotion, social skills, demographics, even low level payola, in our jazz world nowadays. It is a happy accident when someone of true gifts becomes prominent. There is not any necessary connection. So keep your eyes and especially ears open, cause you never know if, while the current Salieri does a week at the Vanguard, the current Mozart is playing for 7 people in a dive around the corner – Salieri’s not likely to tell you!
PS –on a semi-related aside, I am going to see Chris Potter at Yoshi’s tonight or tomorrow. I am disappointed that Wayne Krantz didn’t make the tour with him, since he was always fun to hear and play with, but am still very much looking forward to this one.
I have only met Chris casually when Dave Douglas introduced us at the Yoshi’s bar a while back, so can’t say I know him at all - just his playing. I hear a lot of Sonny in his sound and swing, plus some Brecker, utterly prodigious chops and a very interesting rhythmic sophistication that is his own. I am especially impressed by his comfort level with (it seems) just about any metric configuration. He, along with Mark Turner, has also sent hundreds of budding sax stars scrambling to become more fluent in the altissimo register. He and Mark are the most influential sax players of the under-40 generation. Chris is an example of one of those wonderful bits of serendipity where someone truly talented and deserving is getting his just reward. In a world dominated by W and G, Trump and Idol, Chris’s well-deserved success is really nice to see.
“I don’t get it, Tom.”
“Don’t get what, Michael?”
“How can you play so amazingly and you’re not famous?” I thought he would wet himself. He howled delightedly, coughed up the 4th Lucky Kool menthol of the morning, spilled some more coffee on his tie and regained his composure.
“You are still under the impression, Michael, that somehow fame and talent are connected. Let me tell you, in every major city and even some minor ones, there are truly great players you will never have heard of, and there are people on the cover of Downbeat who have no business being there!” In my experience, those were some of the truest words ever spoken.
Let me throw some more names out at you. How about Dave Creamer? Maybe John Stowell? Andre Bush? I’m thinking of Bob Meyer, now…Paul Nagel? Jamie Fox? These are all world-class musicians living in various degrees of semi-obscurity in various towns. I won’t, but I could easily name 100 or so musicians I know of who are better, more creative players than many of the usual suspects we read about in Jazz Times, Downbeat, NY Times, etc…I have also seen the reverse. I have seen a number of players leave here for fame and fortune in NYC and some were truly deserving of the fame and acclaim they received. Others, quite frankly, weren’t even close to being the best, most creative folks in the Bay Area, let alone NYC but, through persistence and promotion, have become darlings in the tiny little subset we lovingly call modern jazz. (No, I will not name names – no Elia Kazan here…but I am sure everyone has their own list.)
It brings me to this morning’s musing…Salieri, anyone? If you recall, Salieri was the acclaimed court composer who, in Peter Schaeffer’s brilliant imagining, recognizes the overwhelming spark of divine creation in Mozart and feels deeply threatened that the young pup will take his sinecure. The older Salieri befriends Mozart and proceeds to frighten and poison the genius to death, even as he takes down the feverishly directed score for Mozart’s the requiem.
A wonderful movie and who’d a thunk that Tom Hulce would do such a stellar job as Wolfgang. At any rate, it was lovely fiction, but I started thinking about real life Salieris and wondering if they really exist. Not the part about undeserved acclaim, but the part about the undeserving one recognizing that the unrecognized genius is more deserving.
My experience has been that, the better the musician, as a general rule, the more generous they are in giving it up to a fellow talented one, regardless of whether or not the fellow talent is acclaimed in the jazz press. Conversely, many of those in the mediocre middle make no distinction between, say, a Pete Christlieb (a fine bopping craftsman) and a Wayne Shorter (a true and innovative artist) other than to say "Christlieb made the changes better and played more in tune." "Hello trees, meet forest," I reply. This is not a hard and fast rule, but I have seen again and again that many musicians tend to view someone’s artistry through the lens of their limitations. I have heard bopping alto players completely clueless on a Jarrett or Shorter tune, and utterly unaware that their worked out bop licks missed the point of the piece they were playing.
I have also experienced the contrary, where some friends of mine who are really good players have practically prostrated themselves before other friends of mine who are really good and FAMOUS players, ala the “I’m not worthy” shtick. I’ve even seen some friends of mine change their tune about me when they find out someone they revere thinks highly of me, even though nothing about my playing has changed. In aesthetics they call this institutionalism – using some “authority” to validate one’s view. Downbeat gave it 5 stars, it must be good. MOMA is hanging it on the 5th floor, must be good. Alternately, I am quite convinced that if Trane came back from the dead and was playing a dinner jazz gig for those clueless yuppies at one of the trendy San Francisco restaurants where the music is window-dressing, the only reaction would be the manager telling him to keep the volume down.
(Semi-tangential aside: In the everything goes full circle department, I see the jazz listening progression this way: Fans, mainly non-players or played a little in high school and college – tend to be the most open, and respond viscerally to the spirit being communicated. Little to no knowledge of the grammar of the music, so really responding intuitively, or maybe “I can play an E A and B chord, gee, that’s purty hard to do on guitar.” Next are the jazz authority fans, bookers, agents, critics,collectors – again usually not musicians of any particular strength, but the music speaks deeply to them and they tend to impose sociological and/or ideological matrices more. Prone to sweeping judgments on the value of this or that artist. Often have larger record collections and better stereos than do musicians. Usually the ones who make the actual decisions on what the rest of us get to hear, which is often a shame. Next are the serious jazz students, hanging on every note, trying to steal what they can from the players they are hearing. Listening for licks and lines they can work out, hoping for a connection maybe, or a lesson. Next come the journeyman jazz players, the craftsmen, the ones who have worked out a compendium of licks, bags, etc…the kind who lift Trane’s solo on pursuance from a Love Supreme, break it down into licks and work them out in all 12 keys so as to be able to play “out” on modal tunes. These folks tend to be the ones who will critique the pitch of the Ellington band or look for triad pairs on a Herbie Hancock solo. After that come the artist/craftsmen. They have absorbed all of the important historical influences, always understanding that craft and creativity are concurrent and complementary. Whether or not they have an original voice, they can hear and appreciate someone who does. Lastly, are the master creative musicians, the Liebmans, Dejohnettes, Shorters, Towners, etc…they are supremely secure in their own voices, questing and questioning, in the moment musicians, and truly humble. They actually have the most in common with…drum-roll, please…the fans. The masters have come full circle and are in a space where they respond viscerally and intuitively to the spirit being communicated.)
So how do we get to Salieri? I got there following a very interesting conversation I had with my wife, Carla. The premise in Salieri’s case is that he knows that Mozart is a greater, less-recognized talent than him. My question was, is that real? We all can think in our mind of player X, widely hailed and feted (fetid?), gushed about by Giddins and Ratliff et al, who can’t hold a creative candle to player Y, toiling in relative obscurity. I think of my current favorite player Y, John Stowell, and at least 4-5 player Xs who don’t compare but receive more acclaim, better gigs, etc. Please understand, John is doing well, and among those who know his playing, he is universally admired, respected, even revered. Still, he would be the first to admit that he is not the household word that this, that or the other player X is. Here’s the key query:
Do the player Xs recognize this, or have they created various constructs wherein they can explain away the discrepancy between acclaim and talent? In other words, do we have a number of Salieris in the jazz world (not that they are trying to poison their Mozarts), who understand the common disconnect between talent and acclaim, even in the jazz world? I have not really witnessed this much. But then again, I can’t get inside someone’s head to know what they are really thinking. The closest I ever got to hearing someone admit this was getting a cab ride to Carnegie Hall with a composer who had become newly famous, getting commissions from a number of prominent national orchestras and so on. He had worked so hard to achieve this fame, and after years of head being banged against the mysterious glass ceiling, the trap door had opened and he had risen up. “Michael”, he said, “it is just so weird. All these years I was under-recognized and all of a sudden I am over-recognized. I don’t know how to deal with it.”
I am in a pretty unusual situation with regard to the jazz world and fame, because so many of my friends and playing compatriots have gone on to become stars in its firmament. From Wayne Krantz to James Genus to Rachel Z to Drew Gress to Bruce Barth to Dave Kikoski to Mark Feldman to Dave Douglas and so on and so on, I have witnessed these talented friends have copious ink spilled on them. Everyone had a different path, but here is the commonality. Just like my composer friend, my friends were terrific players before and after they were recognized, and they would all be the first to tell you that there were literally dozens of equally gifted peers we all played with whom your basic jazz fan has never heard of. I am grateful that New York gave me that gift of perspective, because it gives me a wide-angle view that I think some of my Bay Area musical friends, infected with institutional awe and not having worked up close with their icons, don’t have. They remain invested in a meritocracy which is a fairy tale.
Now that I think about it, I do believe that most of the great players, the ones who can really play, have no trouble admitting someone else’s strengths as a player, regardless of that player’s prominence. It seems to be the ones who have moved ahead through connections, promotion, etc…rather than appreciable talent, who have trouble giving it up. So that leads me back to my initial question: Do these latter-day Salieri’s, as they look in the mirror before going to sleep at night, recognize all the under-recognized Mozarts in their midst? Or is Sammy Glick a better description? How do they sleep at night? (Pace Lennon).
It is odd to think it, because we all cherish the mythology, but jazz is not a meritocracy. There is so much that the casual fan does not see that goes into who gets booked where and why, so much in the way of networking, schmoozing, promotion, social skills, demographics, even low level payola, in our jazz world nowadays. It is a happy accident when someone of true gifts becomes prominent. There is not any necessary connection. So keep your eyes and especially ears open, cause you never know if, while the current Salieri does a week at the Vanguard, the current Mozart is playing for 7 people in a dive around the corner – Salieri’s not likely to tell you!
PS –on a semi-related aside, I am going to see Chris Potter at Yoshi’s tonight or tomorrow. I am disappointed that Wayne Krantz didn’t make the tour with him, since he was always fun to hear and play with, but am still very much looking forward to this one.
I have only met Chris casually when Dave Douglas introduced us at the Yoshi’s bar a while back, so can’t say I know him at all - just his playing. I hear a lot of Sonny in his sound and swing, plus some Brecker, utterly prodigious chops and a very interesting rhythmic sophistication that is his own. I am especially impressed by his comfort level with (it seems) just about any metric configuration. He, along with Mark Turner, has also sent hundreds of budding sax stars scrambling to become more fluent in the altissimo register. He and Mark are the most influential sax players of the under-40 generation. Chris is an example of one of those wonderful bits of serendipity where someone truly talented and deserving is getting his just reward. In a world dominated by W and G, Trump and Idol, Chris’s well-deserved success is really nice to see.
posted by Michael Zilber at 12:05 PM
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