On Lineage

We are touched by those who share their wisdom with us. As artists, we are an amalgamation of our teachers. Even though we may not be completely aware of this influence and how much it effects our creative process, it is undeniably there. Of course, sometimes the influence is negative and our creative reaction is to strive to be nothing like that teacher, but this is also influence.

I am writing this the day after the passing of one of my most influential teachers, Joe Maneri, a great creative spirit who taught at New England Conservatory. Joe was a free spirit, a kind and gentle soul who was very giving with his wisdom. I am also writing this because I have had three influential teachers pass recently, all of whom had incredible impact on my artistic life and whose teaching and concepts I have tried to pass onto my students. The other two were composer George Russell and composer/saxophonist Jimmy Giuffre.

Recently, I have been thinking a great deal about artistic lineage. I feel blessed to have been the recipient of great knowledge from those who were considered to be the masters of their field. The older I get, the more important this sense of lineage is to me. The older I get, the more concern I have for following generations that they are not only unaware of the lineage that they are a part of, but also that they have lost any sense of their place in the evolution of their art form. Most disturbingly, I find that many of the younger generations have no idea of history and have no idea who any of these people were.

Unfortunately, it shows.

I worked with Joe on both the performance and composition of microtones. Microtones for Joe meant dividing the 12-note octave into 72 notes. Suddenly, when you’re dealing with 6 notes to the ½ step, your sense of intervallic relationships becomes far more heightened. Being a color player (from the Joe Allard concept of wind playing–another tradition that has lost it’s adherents in the last generation–which is why this matters so much in my playing), the extensive work I did with microtones opened up so many new dimensions of my playing that I am still exploring it and finding new ways of applying it to what I do.

But Joe wasn’t just an innovator; he also came from a tradition.

Joe, along with others of his generation who taught at New England Conservatory, came from, either directly or indirectly, Arnold Schoenberg’s inner circles. Regardless of whether they were in the jazz or classical realm, the common denominator was Schoenberg, who taught in Boston and NYC after moving to the US. Love him or hate him, a contemporary composer can not deny Schoenberg’s influence, and I embraced his concepts because they were being presented by his disciples, who referred to him as “The Master”. None of us are dodecaphonists anymore–in 2009 one shouldn’t be–but the techniques that developed through Schoenberg, Berg, and most especially Webern are used constantly, even though the sonic outcome today is much different. They have evolved–I use them in my own way for my own music–but they are there.

I remember when my theory teacher, who was a composer–they were all composers then, real composers, not theorists–reprimanded me for daring to add a major seventh interval to the final chord of a choral I had written. “You are a disgrace to this class, music, and everything that The Master had ever stood for” bellowed from my teacher…I learned and eventually, I understood.

My theory classes were taught by these composers. They used Schoenberg’s Theory of Harmony text, which is a wonderful book. They taught theory not by analysis, but by having us, all of us, write music using what we learned in class. Teaching the structure of music by actually doing it, not through the dry, chord by chord analysis and speculative methods of current pedagogical music theory which amount to little more than mental masturbation. Unfortunately, the current methods are now standard, theory has taken the place of craft, and the passing of knowledge is dying quickly in our universities and conservatories.

“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” Elvis Costello.

What I find equally disturbing is how little both classical and jazz performers understand the lineage in which they come from. I will mention Jimmy Giuffre, for example, and most young saxophonists will look at me with blank stares. I would then explain that Giuffre was the spear-head of the jazz avant-garde in the 50s and 60s; their answer: “That stuff has no effect on me, it’s dead, so why should I care?”. Worse are classical players who have no idea of their own teachers pedigree…no idea that their flute teacher comes from a tradition that goes back to mid-19th century France and that’s why he teaches them a specific playing style and interpretation. They don’t know, they don’t care…they only care about the grade and finding the easiest way out.

Most disturbing are the composers; those that create music. There seems to be this new idea that traditional training is no longer pertinent; they supposedly don’t need it. “Who cares about Monteverdi or Palestrina? They are long dead and won’t get me a job writing music for video games”. I know so many young composers–and for the record, the younger generation of teachers–who know so little of the tradition that they are supposedly continuing that it is laughable. Major composers whose works should be at the tips of their tongues are disregarded. They see people achieve fame outside of traditional modes of education and believe that they don’t need to learn anything other than how to land a job.

I am writing this because I have great concern about my art. I see what has been lost and am saddened greatly by the knowledge that no longer passes from teacher to student. This isn’t about conservatism or stagnation; for an art form to evolve, the sacred knowledge must be passed from the teacher, then the student fashions it in a way to reflect modern society. The process then continues. You must learn how to write by studying Monteverdi and Bach and Mozart, just as you must learn to play by studying (and understanding!) Heifitz and Gould and Bird. But it’s up to you now to evolve and continue the lineage; never looking backwards, but always moving forwards.

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