[lbo-talk] Rhythm, dance, and music

[Carrol Cox]

I don't know a damn thing about music; in fact I always thought I was tone
deaf until I married my first wife -- who really was tone deaf. So I know
what I like but have no reasons for what I like. I like old jazz; I like
some folk music; I like Vivaldi, Handel, and Mozart. Beethoven bores me. I
like Blues music but have never listened to much of it. And so forth.

But I don't like any reduction of any thing, music, literature, etc. to some
essence. 

And I also suspect that the 19th-c invention of that oddity "the work of
art" is   corrupting this conversation at some point.

Neither Shakespeare nor Dowland, Milton nor Rubens, Pope nor Handel knew
that they were producing "works of art." And John Adams said reading Cicero
improved his circulation, opened his pores, something like that. In other
words as late as John Adams "Literature" didn't exist. It's a historical
category. And so is "Music" as discussed in this thread. It's hopeless to
find the essence of Vivaldi, Cash, Louis & Ella, etc. 

And talking about what is "great" and what is not is also silly. Northrop
Frye wiped out that silliness about 60 years ago.

Carrol

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of Mark Bennett
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 9:27 PM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Rhythm, dance, and music

Actually, Duke settled this argument years ago, didn't he?  "It don't mean a
thing if ain't got that swing."  I mean, he ought to have known.

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 6:38 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


>
> On Mar 30, 2011, at 9:27 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
>
> > Just for the record, I never said that music lost its vitality when you
> could no longer dance to it. What I said was that jazz did. Nor did I say
> that vitality is the main or only virtue of jazz
> >
> > It seems to me that rhythm is the trace of the social in music and that
> once it's gone, music is no longer about something that everybody can join
> in and do. It has lost its vernacular if you will. This is not to say that
> the select few cannot enjoy the rarefied pleasures of non-rhythmic music;
> it's just to say that they are few and select.
>
> Well there's rock n roll, hip hop, electronica, etc.
>
> Doug
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