Posted by No it wasn't, again. on February 01, 2001 at 11:28:23:
In Reply to: Re: Re: 'Twas a good night on "Jazz" posted by Anthony on February 01, 2001 at 11:06:20:
In terms of your definition of the task and description of its difficulty, I couldn't agree with you more. The problem was the NEEDLESS trash talking of GREAT American musicians like Cecil Taylor -- the poor man was ruthlessly blindsided by attacks, including the previously unquoted Gene Lees, who was surely left out of earlier episodes because of his racist views. And the man was given no opportunity to defend himself. Cecil is a true genius, and now most of the viewers of that show, who didn't previously know about jazz, will dismiss him as an enemy of culture. Same thing happened to Miles after the second Quintet. And while tuba players are one thing, Gil Evans and Henry Threadgill are giants on the level of Armstrong and Ellington, no joke!! Like I said before, I expected short shrift. But it is irresponsible to unilaterally dictate a false impression of what someone's music is about, as happened most clearly in the cases of Taylor and Davis, to a great extent in late Coltrane, and implicitly in the dismissal of some of America's greatest musical voices.