change your reality

Gladiators of Music

I recently went to the grand opening of Yoshi’s in San Francisco to see Roy Haynes playing with Ravi Coltrane, Gary Burton, Nicholas Payton, Kenny Garrett, John Patitucci & David Kikoski. It didn’t take long to notice they were exceptionally skilled musicians. But after the initial bedazzlement, the lack of any emotional investment in the display of their virtuosity became deafening. I started to exchange notes with the friend who was accompanying me, to see whether I was alone in sensing this. He had similar thoughts. He reminded me of the difference between art and entertainment, and it was then that I realized I was tired of being entertained. I wanted to feel.

I am not saying the particular artists mentioned above are incapable of expressing emotion in their music. I’m sure they are. But that day, they didn’t. You see the kind of musical performance I am looking for is not something that can be reproduced like a commercial product. Because it requires certain psychological presuppositions that cannot simply be summoned by will. In Kierkegaard’s Diapsalmata we read:

What is a poet? An unhappy man who conceals profound anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so fashioned that when sighs and groans pass over them they sound like beautiful music. His fate resembles that of the unhappy men who were slowly roasted by a gentle fire in the tyrant Phalaris’ bull—their shrieks could not reach his ear to terrify him, to him they sounded like sweet music. And people flock about the poet and say to him: do sing again; Which means, would that new sufferings tormented your soul, and: would that your lips stayed fashioned as before, for your cries would only terrify us, but your music is delightful.

It is not possible to reproduce anguish in one’s heart a couple of minutes before every performance. It does not surprise me when I see the second or third album, of a band who had a successful first album, be a complete disappointment, exactly because the conditions (both material & psychological) under which they created the first have subsequently changed exactly because of that original success.

The gap between entertainment and art is that between the display of skill and the expression of emotion. A skilled performance without any emotional expression resembles art as much as an unskilled expression of emotion does – not much. A machine playing with technical perfection a musical piece on a piano is not artistic nor is a crying child an artist.

Yesterday I witnessed once more, gladiators of music, and yet people clapped unfailingly despite the butchering of art. I was wondering what would it take to witness art? Perhaps eavesdrop on a lover singing to his beloved a song he written for her?

The minutes passed at Yoshi’s and yet I was still thinking of the subtle difference between entertainment and art. What were these people moving arms and legs on wood and string, inhaling and exhaling their breaths in brass doing?
Then I remembered the Greeks. When Pheidippides ran his marathon, he did it to inform the Athenian populace that their army had won the Persians at Marathon. He ran to deliver a message of victory and freedom. And legend has it that he died on the spot after delivering the news. What message do modern marathon runners deliver? Perhaps the same message that musical entertainers do…none. Would they die for it? Hardly; even if they did people wouldn’t find the sacrifice admirable because of the absence of the message. We might admire marathon runners for their stamina and disciplined training, but they do not carry a message, except perhaps from their sponsors…and it just seems to me that in order for the gladiators of music to be doing something other than just entertaining us they would require a noble message [1], expressed either through the lyrics, or if there are none, through the music by delicate interpretation.

Perhaps two examples might illustrate what it means to make the leap from entertainment to art. The first demonstrates how a song, even though not written by the performer, can be sung from the heart. “I Want You”, was written by Elvis Costello, but here it’s sung by Fiona Apple (with Costello on the guitar). Notice her expression at 6:53-6:58…

The second is “Ne Me Quitte Pas” written and sung by Jacques Brel. The emotional expression is undeniable.

(for an English translation go here and scroll down to find the translation by “Aurore”. Despite what she says, I like her translation)

Now, that is art.

———————–
Notes:

[1] Which explains why certain rap songs, even though their beat and words might be well crafted, do not feel like art because their lyrics express nothing more than petty vanities.