The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture (Portable Stanford Book Series)

The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Cultureby Ted GioiaAuthor Ted Gioia has an uncanny ability to strip away the superficial and deconstruct the essence of jazz as an art form and show it's symbiotic relationship to American culture. The life and art of Louis Armstrong is a classic example of that; Armstrong was born on the fourth of July and raised under the most wretched existential conditions: fatherless, his mother had a relationships with six " step fathers", hand me down clothes; a world where he had constant contact with prostitutes, hustlers and con-men. Yet his genius overcame his decadent adolescence (his early life reminds me of Richard Pryor's youth). What really shocked me was the impact that Edison's phonograph had in changing society's perception of Armstrong's music and musicians. In 1924, the same year Louis Armstrong made his debut, American radio heard its first singing commercial. Armstrong's talent as an innovative trumpeter was diminished by his minstrel-like- wide eyed rendition of "Hello Dolly." It tarnished his image as a virtuoso musician with his rhythmic vocabulary, his phrasing across bar lines. His genius planted the seed for later evolutions in jazz music. My favorite by "Satchmo" is "What a wonderful world" recorded by Armstrong in 1967.The French critic Hugue Panassie wrote," In what way would the music of savages be inferior to that of civilized man?" He viewed Armstrong as a ' noble savage' with " finesse, spontaneity and intuition as a non-Western man's innocence and purity. He was viewed in the same context as primitive sculpture which appeared in Paris around 1909. Jazz and primitive art were seen as allies: emotive, devoid of intellect. Yet improvisation , not restricted to jazz, is essential to basketball. Very few works of music--perhaps a Bach fugue or concerto---offers a melody line as complex as a bebop solo by Charlie "Bird" Parker.What was astonishing to me about author Gioia's book is that the greatest influence on twentieth-century art? Was not Joyce? Eliot? Or Picasso's 'Guernica'? The single greatest influence was a non- artist by the name of Thomas Alva Edison. The influence of this autodidactic genius inventor from Milan, Ohio shows the symbiotic relationship between the improvisational genius of an Armstrong and the pervasive impact of the phonograph on black music. Without Edison's retooling the technology of the phonograph would ragtime, the blues and jazz exist? Or American folk music?Prior to Edison's phonograph the only way of preserving musical ideas was through notation. But with his invention improvised music evolved and flourished. But it wasn't till 1899 that Edison's talking machine recorder was marketed. Before his invention black music was relegated to minstrel shows. Mamie Smith's recording of "Crazy Blues" on August 10,1920 was a pivotal and historic event. From the mid-1920s onward a variety of black musical styles arrived on the scene. The phonograph enable all musicians to study each other despite distance. Without the recording industry jazz and American music would not had developed at all. Without Edison's invention of the motion-picture-camera which paved the way for television---there would not had been a Civil Rights Movement.By the time Thomas Edison died in 1931, jazz had swept the nation. Edison didn't realize the power he unleashed in the world. Without him cinema and jazz would not and been born in the twentieth century. The best jazz musicians of later generations are all indebted to Edison's inventions: Coleman Hawkins ,Lester Young, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Stan Getz and Bill Evans. Ted Gioia's brilliant book takes you on a tour of "The Imperfect Art" and shows us the symbiotic relationship between technology and the arts. He proves that our perception of jazz is less a matter of our interest in the perfection of the music but its expressiveness of the musician. Jazz is a temporal art form. It cannot be grasped like watching Jackson Pollock creating a abstract expressionist painting ex nihilo on canvas. It cannot be grasped entirely in an instant as in the visual arts. It has more kinship with quantum mysticism than cinema, dance and the plastic arts.The parallels with the way jazz musicians improvise and quantum entanglement which is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated, interact or share proximity in ways such that the quantum state of particle (jazzmen) cannot be described independently of the others (jazz trio) even when the particles (sound waves) are separated by distance. In other words like Edison's phonograph had a influence on twentieth century arts. I believe there is a secret link between jazz and physics. Both Coltrane and Einstein saw music and physics as intuitive, improvisatory pursuits. Since I can't prove the link I feel more comfortable with saying "quantum mysticism" which is a set of metaphysical beliefs and associated practices that seek to relate, consciousness, intelligence, music spirituality or mystical world views to the ideas of quantum mechanics.I think Ted Gioia's "The Imperfect Art" written in 1988 has pass the test of time and a must read for jazz aficionados.FinisReading ProgressOctober 27, 2019 – page 11169.38%November 16, 2019 – page 13081.25%November 25, 2019 – Started Reading

Well argued and a joy to read. The book is basically an apology for the existence of improvised music and jazz in particular. The author assumes that improvised music is musically inferior to composed music but that if the listener takes into account the greater difficulty and excitement of improvising then it can be fully appreciated. Apparently he is blissfully unaware that many people find many improvised jazz performances as musically pleasing as composed music without taking into account the difficulty/risk element. He also ignores the fact that composed music is really (mentally) improvised music pieced together and refined - a fact he never even mentions let alone discusses. But for all its wrong-headedness it's extremely well written - he has a great raconteurish way with an argument and I couldn't put the book down.

I first read 'The Imperfect Art' nearly 20 years ago, and if the book didn't change my life, it certainly changed my thinking about a bunch of stuff - like what it means to be creative, and what it means - as a listener - to go along for the ride.The book is about jazz and how it 'works,' but that's just Gioia's jumping off point.It is every bit as rigorous in its reasoning as formal, academic works - but it's also highly readable, a gift of deep thinking couched in every day language.Ted Gioia went on to write several other fine books about jazz and related musics, but this one - his first - is my favorite. It's an essay you can return to time and again and get something new out of it. I look forward to reading it for the rest of my life.