Re: [Harp-L] Re: Looking for new ideas

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There's nothing primitive about blues.  Whether we're talking about rural styles or urban blues, we're talking about highly evolved music.  There's nothing arbitrary or missing in Charlie Patton or Robert Johnson, and the roles and vocabulary of the instruments in a Chicago blues band are very thoroughly conceived and executed.  

The title of this thread is "looking for new ideas," and for blues-based players the issue isn't whether the music is primitive or not.  It's whether the players are willing to make room for new ideas, or whether the music is basically going to go into the same bin as J.S. Bach's stuff--highly evolved museum pieces, where the audience knows the moves inside out and expects to hear performances that are entirely consistent with previous history.

Sooner or later audiences move away from the stuff that isn't changing.  A core audience remains.  But lack of change in any style sooner or later spells diminishing audience interest, because they've literally heard it all before.  That's what's been happening in classical music for at least 40 years now, and there's nothing primitive about that stuff.

Thanks, Richard Hutner

author, "Jazz Harp"
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