I won't waste time trying to be funny about John Coltrane, because Philip Larkin has already done it, lavishing all his comic invention on the task of conveying his authentic rage. (For those who have never read Larkin's All What Jazz, incidentally, the references to Coltrane are the ideal way in to the burning center of Larkin's critical vision.) There is nothing to be gained by trying to evoke the full, face-freezing, gut-churning hideosity of all the things Coltrane does that Webster doesn't. But there might be some value in pointing out what Coltrane doesn't do that Webster does. Coltrane's instrument is likewise a tenor sax, but there the resemblance ends. In fact, it is only recognizable as a tenor because it can't be a bass or a soprano: It has a tenor's range but nothing of the voice that Hawkins discovered for it and Webster focused and deepened. There is not a phrase that asks to be remembered except as a lesion to the inner ear, and the only purpose of the repetitions is to prove that what might have been charitably dismissed as an accident was actually meant. Shapelessness and incoherence are treated as ideals. Above all, and beyond all, there is no end to it. There is no reason except imminent death for the cacophonous parade to stop. The impressiveness of the feat depends entirely on the air it conveys that the perpetrator has devoted his life to making this discovery: Supreme mastery of technique has led him to this charmless demonstration of what he can do that nobody else can. The likelihood that nobody else would want to is not considered.
From 'Duke Ellington: The Supremacy of Swing' in Slate. Other chapters from Cultural Amnesia on Slate here.
More invective coming up shortly. It's the season for it, apparently.
Disclaimer: The thing about invective is one doesn't need to agree with it to be entertained by it.
4 comments:
such sacrilege!
but more than that, i feel sorry for this poor person for so completely missing out on appreciating one of the greatest achievements of the last century.
TR: Isn't it? :D
Part two coming up.
What was it Donne said?
" If rival fools tax thee to have loved a man
So foul, and coarse, as oh, I may seem then,
This shall say what I was: and thou shalt say,
Do his hurts reach me? doth my worth decay?
Or do they reach his judging mind, that he
Should now love less, what he did love to see?
That which in him was fair and delicate,
Was but the milk, which in love's childish state
Did nurse it: who now is grown strong enough
To feed on that, which to disused tastes seems tough."
Falstaff: Yes. CJ quotes Miles Davis as saying, about critics, "If I don't like what they say, I hop into my Ferrari and drive away." or words to that effect. Too lazy to hunt for and post link.
I think the difference between just an airing of prejudice and good invective is the awareness in oneself of a very clearly defined aesthetic; anything that does not accomodate itself within that framework is liable to be attacked. This does not make the work less worthy; it merely lays out for the reader a road map of where the writer's coming from.
And that pretty much takes care of what I wanted to say about invective in general so no Mieville coming up.
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