The most articulate statement on this issue I
read in an interview with Courtney Pine. In discussing the
jazz-dance-fusion experimentations of the 70's, he describes it as a
musical theme still left undeveloped. There is more to be done there,
and the growing popularity of acid-jazz attests to this fact. Artistic
tastes can be so faddish today, as they've always been, and we're always
hungry for something new. Whatever's old's 'been done before.' So let's
throw off the past, forget the music which is forgettable. Let's kill
off our ancestors so that it will seem we really are an original
generation.
Acid-jazz, in not hiding its musical influences, pays much respect to the
good grooves of Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind, & Fire, Groove Holmes, Curtis
Mayfield, etc. I love truly new and innovative music, music which
surprises me--but this love of the new doesn't have to be to the
exclusion of the groundbreakers, who themselves in pulling much from
traditional blues, didn't break that much ground in the end. Originality
shouldn't be the primary evaluation tool in looking at music since all
music plays off of other music and so really isn't "original."
Jamiroquai plays Stevie well, Groove Collective jams through seventies'
latin-funk-jazz, UFO takes the best of Burt Bacharach (sp?) throws in
some Isaac Hayes and Lost Poets for good measure, and then travels to Rio
to piece it all together. Thank goodness musicians ruthlessly
borrow/steal/collaborate, or else this mailing list wouldn't even be
around, nor would the music we all obviously enjoy.
--jay ivan.