Pulitzer prizers and improvisers

Steve Smith has a post up linking to some critical discussion of Ornette's Pulitzer by Terry Teachout and Frank J. Oteri. I must admit that my knee-jerk reaction was to believe that they were barking up the wrong tree, criticizing a worthy recipient of the Pulitzer and wider recognition even if it wreaked of making up for lost time and atoning for past oversight.

However, there are some good points made by all, which should be taken into consideration.

First and foremost, I agree with the notion that perhaps the Pulitzer should have created another prize to accommodate jazz rather than expanding the rules for the existing prize. Apparently someone agrees with me:

"Yehudi Wyner, the classical composer and Pulitzer laureate who chaired this year's jury, acknowledged this fact by recommending to the Pulitzer Board that separate prizes be given to classical and nonclassical music, which strikes me as a realistic response to an otherwise insoluble problem." (Teachout)

I don't think jazz should be judged on classical music's terms, because there is so much more going on in jazz apart from composition and the manipulation of sounds in a pre-composed sense. There are musical personalities apart from the composer and conductor at play that require different skill sets than the accuracy and technical demands of classical music. There are improvisers, people who have a skill relating to assessing and reacting to the music being made in the moment, and attempts to understand that on classical music's terms will inevitably fail. A quote from Travis A. Jackson's forthcoming book on the New York jazz scene echo my own thoughts on the matter:

“…meticulous transcriptions and analyses of jazz, focused on the “immanent recurring properties” (Nattiez 1990:10-1) of “music itself”…have made jazz scholarship seem a replication of score-based analysis and sketch studies. In such research, sometimes implicitly oriented toward the elevation of the music, jazz appears as an imperfect version of classical music rather than as the vital examinable in its own right” (Jackson, 2).

Vital examinable in its own right...yes, most certainly. However, asking the Pulitzer people to create a jazz prize would require them to be knowledgeable of these issues already, which apparently is not the case.

I do not agree with Terry Teachout's assertion here however:

"Needless to say, the fact that classical music was shut out of this year's Pulitzers has not gone unnoticed. Nor should it. The Pulitzer Prize for music, after all, is the only award for musical composition that receives any kind of mass-media attention in this country. Because it is reported in most American newspapers, it gives a boost to the careers of the classical composers who receive it, most of whom labor in semiobscurity. On the other hand, it will make no difference to Mr. Coleman, who long ago wrote himself into the history of American music and needs no prize to retrospectively certify his importance."

I know Mr. Teachout is far from ignorant when it comes to the issues surrounding jazz, so it surprises me that he really believes this will make "no difference" to Mr. Coleman. It reminds me of the recent Ben Ratliff article that claimed the avant-garde didn't need Lincoln Center. While I understand that many classical composers are indeed languishing in "semi-obscurity," the larger genre of classical music is still far more visible, better funded, and in the public consciousness than jazz. Even amongst the dead giants, people are more likely to know Mozart and Beehtoven than Davis and Coltrane. Only those of us who exist within the insular world of jazz understand Ornette Coleman's important contributions to American music, and making more people aware of this fact can only be a good thing in my eyes.

I guess my own perspective on the situation is that I've never been a stickler when it comes to rules. I don't mind the occasional bending, and to be honest the music Pulitzer was meaningless to me until Ornette received this year's prize. What good does it do to give an award to a musician or composer if the public cannot readily or easily hear their work since it does not exist on recording? Very little in the way of furthering the audience for the music, be it classical or jazz. As one of the comments on Frank Oteri's blog noted, after Ornette won, you could go to iTunes and immediately buy and hear the winning piece of music.

Welcome to the 21st century, we're glad you could make it.

Jackson, Travis A. Blowin’ the Blues Away: Performance and Meaning on the New York Jazz Scene. California, Forthcoming.