As another effort in the migration of flubdubbery from elsewhere here to WIESTWORLD, here is an article that I wrote a while back for the website Medium. Enjoy!
As I find myself this morning enjoying a lovely breakfast with my wonderful wife Deborah, it occurs to me that everybody ignores Bill Evans. Wait, what? How can that be? All jazz musicians on the planet — of course — have a different opinion. Indeed, we all say “everybody DIGS Bill Evans (just like the album of the same name.) What’s not to dig? Bill’s playing is genius cascading clouds of perfectly voiced pastel textures that swing in the most happily infectious manner. It’s trio performances of precious originals and intellectually clever arrangements of standards (one needs to look no further than Together Again with Tony Bennett) Who could ask for anything more?
However, at a beautiful Inn upon the gorgeous peninsula above Traverse City, Michigan (U.S.) my wife and I were presented with some truly heinous Sirius Satellite schlock as background music for our communal breakfast gathering. My wife Deborah is a “civilian” (what jazz musicians term anyone outside of the arts) but she has a keener and more savvy sense of quality in music than many musicians that I know (yeah…she’s perfect😍) so we both noticed this 21st Century Muzak that was attempting to pass for “jazz” being spewed forth on artfully hidden ubiquitous speakers.
“Wow! said the snobby jazz musician-composer (me) “I’m not sure I can eat breakfast with this…whatever it is…playing in the background.”
“Ooh, yeah…that IS crap! Added The Scholar of Hip who is my wife.
I will now try to describe exactly what we were hearing as our organic free trade Colombian coffee was being poured. Where to begin? Well, at first blush it seemed to be some kind of university student piano trio who was given an assignment where they were asked to not use many 8th notes, and to stay away from piano voicings in fourths or any chord realizations using half steps. The mantra seemed to be: strive for diatonic vanilla-ism…don’t work up a sweat, and whatever you do: DON’T SWING!
This leads to the obvious question: who comes up with this stuff? And the even deeper query: WHY? I can only imagine the Muzak planning committee meeting:
“Ok, Sky-lär. What’s on the agenda this morning?”
“Derrik, it’s that Sirius Muzak recording session.”
“Oh, right. Where are we at with this Sky-lär?”
“Well Derrik, we have that piano trio from Jack Stink’s House of Pork.”
“Oh right! Those guys that do karaoke back up on “Guess That Garbage” night.
“Right!”
“Bro! That’s where I hooked up with Brinda!” Added Chunnel as he almost spilled his Yerba Mate.
“Ok, let’s all just chill,” said Derrik with a good-natured eye-twinkle, “What parameters have we set for this recording?”
“It’s the new rules sent down by corporate.”
“Please remind me.”
“Ok, I have a copy here.”
As the zero-body-fat gathering of tight-suited 30-year-old men who were all topped off by man-buns and lip-rings while sporting full-growth COVID beards leaned forward in anticipation, Sky-lär read the corporate memo:
Simulate “Jazz” without actually being “Jazz”
Use 5% 8th notes, 80% quarter notes, and 15% diatonic random whole notes.
Drums using soft brushes with randomly placed cross stick hits (add 300% reverb and delay) as much as possible.
All piano chords and comping must be voiced in thirds with no half step dissonances.
Suggest a simple melody, but don’t use intervals beyond a whole step.
Bass plays whole notes only.
Use tonic notes whenever possible (it is always possible)
98% vanilla-tonic notes, 2% safe blues moments.
Keep EVERYTHING under 30DB.
Upon completing his reading, Sky-lär was rewarded with a full-throated snapping of fingers from the entire committee.
— — — — -
That’s as close as I can get to what Deborah and I were hearing. Besides of course the extemporaneous academic qualification of “Dayum.”
Our gracious Inn host (an obvious civilian, as were the other residents of the Inn who joined us for breakfast) at that point said: “I’ll be bringing out the food in a moment.” Then for some inexplicable-yet incredibly fortuitous reason added: “You can change the music anytime by asking Alexa.”
“What-WHAT?” Said I with my own happy eye-twinkle. “I’m gonna ask Alexa for some Bill Evans,” I announced in a conspiratorial tone to Deborah. “Yay! Everybody digs Bill Evans,” added the Love of My Life. “Dig,” said I.
After I successfully got Miss Alexa to spin “Everybody Digs” the room suddenly transformed into The Village Vanguard, the food tasted better, everyone seemed brilliant and my heart soared like a hawk. And…the civilians didn’t even notice.
“Hello…what’s this?” I pondered.
After “Everybody Digs Bill Evans” I asked Alexa for some Vince Guaraldi. Had we stayed longer, Oscar Peterson would have joined this delightful playlist. However…none of the civilians even noticed!😳 …fascinating…
Deborah and I discussed this strange phenomena and I then came up with an idea:
If the general public can’t tell the difference between heinous soul-crushing Muzak CRAP and virtuoso level soul-enriching music, why not just play the latter in all public spaces? In my opinion, the world would be a better place and ALL junior angels would get their wings. So…why not?
Is it a lack of education in the arts where those who are not properly equipped are now in positions of corporate power and just don’t know any better? Or…is it something more sinister?
Forget all the deep state Qanon reptilian aliens theories folks…the answer to getting onto the clear path to Utopia is defeating the evil corporate Muzak overlords and letting everybody once again dig Bill Evans.
You dig?🙏❤️
I totally agree that a lack of adequate arts education affects the ability to recognize good music (Jazz, or any genre) vs. awful music. That unfortunate lack is caused by school administrators who never received any education in the arts, and they think arts courses are "activities" rather than the study of legitimate disciplines, no matter the art form. [She calmly puts her soapbox away] You struck a nerve here!
When I was still working my very stressful corporate job, I always listened to Bill Evans on my commute home to help me de-stress.