Chamber Music America announced its latest rollout of commissions today: a dozen separate grants, awarded under the aegis of its New Jazz Works: Commissioning and Ensemble Development program. Among the recipients are John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet, a quartet led by Rudresh Mahanthappa (pictured above), and Mario Pavone’s Double Tenor band. (For a full list, scroll to the bottom of this post.)
Commissions like these have become a fundamental part of the jazz economy. And, I’d add, now a significant factor in jazz’s creative life. Last year I confessed some guarded ambivalence about this fact in a related Gig column, musing about the specific qualities of these “new jazz works” that tend to look good in grant-proposal form.
I know, I know: Gift horse, mouth. It seems churlish, maybe even foolish, to question any institutionalized program that sees fit to distribute funding in the name of creative music.
Looking over the list of past recipients, I can’t help but notice many who later made excellent related albums. Consider Chasing Paint (Arabesque), by soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom; Swimming (OmniTone), by French hornist Tom Varner; Tragicomic (Sunnyside), by pianist Vijay Iyer; Ivey-Divey (Blue Note), by clarinetist Don Byron; and Codebook (Pi), by Mahanthappa. Or Steve Lehman’s Travail, Transformation, and Flow (Pi), one of this year’s best so far.
That’s just a small handful, and it doesn’t even begin to account for the many commissions -- from Chamber Music America and other organizations, including venues -- that only led to concert and festival performances. I’ve seen quite a few of these, including some that felt overwrought or overthought. Whether that was a consequence of the commission is, of course, impossible to know.
I would be curious to know how musicians feel about the state of commissions. Does the current system create more or less freedom(s), more or less pressure(s)? And I’d love to hear what other listeners think. Sound off in the comments below. Before you do, I humbly submit that JT column again (in case you skipped it the first time). And here’s a list of this year’s recipients (from a CMA press release):
Grantees and their Projects
Rez Abbasi Group (New York, NY) In Motherland, Abassi will draw from indigenous Pakistani music and his experiences as a Pakistani-American to create a work for his quartet—guitar, piano, bass, and drum set—and a guest vocalist.
Amir ElSaffar and Two Rivers (Yonkers, NY) ElSaffar’s piece for sextet will integrate a harmonic language based on the intervals of the Maqam, a system of melodic modes used in traditional Arabic music; alternative tunings; a melodic and rhythmic template, and improvisation. The piece will feature voice, trumpet, alto saxophone, santour, oud, buzuq, violin, bass, dumbek, frame drum, and drum set.
John Escreet Project (New York, NY) Escreet explores his interest in the relation between speech and music with a new work that looks into the compositional possibilities of multiple, simultaneous speech tracks. His ensemble includes alto saxophone, trumpet, electronics, piano, bass, and drum set.
Ellery Eskelin and Different But the Same (New York, NY) Eskelelin plans a work in which the instrumentalists will improvise as composers, rather than simply playing solos in a pre-composed piece. Instrumentation includes tenor saxophones, bass, and drum set.
Joel Harrison Group (Brooklyn, NY) Harrison draws from the formal concepts of Charles Ives, John Adams, Oliver Messiaen, György Ligeti, and Aarvo Pärt to construct densely textured suite for alto saxophone, violin, cello, guitar, bass, hajini, dejmbe, frame drum, and drum set.
John Hollenbeck and The Claudia Quintet (New York, NY) Suite Lorraine—based loosely on structures, melodies, and harmonies of select jazz standards—will feature polyrhythms, sonic “tapestries,” and rhythmic counterpoint. The piece will be scored for clarinet, tenor saxophone, accordion, vibraphone, bass, piano, percussion, and drum set.
Jason Kao Hwang and Edge (Jersey City, NJ) Jason Kao Hwang will sequence written notation and improvisations, creating “a musical landscape through which each instrument, as a character, will journey.” Instrumentation: cornet/flugelhorn, trombone, tuba, violin/viola, erhu, pipa, bass, and drum set.
Rudresh Mahanthappa Quartet (Brooklyn, NY) Gamak is planned as a multi-movement work for alto saxophone, guitar, bass, and drum set. Mahanthappa will explore melodic ornamentation, alternative tunings, and rhythm beat cycles derived from Indian, African, and Indonesian music in a jazz context.
Ole Mathisen and F.F.E.A.R. (New York, NY) Mathisen conceives Mirage as a multi-movement work built on unusual meter, tempo, and micro-tonal relationships. As the title suggests, the piece is meant to project the illusion that the quartet (saxophones, clarinet, trombone, bass, and drum set) is part of a much larger group of instruments.
Josh Moshier and Moshier/Lebrun Collective (Evanston, IL) For a work inspired by Studs Terkel’s memoir Touch and Go, the composer will utilize both sequenced song and through-composition in five self-contained songs. The work will be scored for tenor saxophone, piano, guitar, bass, and drum set.
Mario Pavone and Orange Double Tenor Ensemble (Prospect, CT) In anticipation of his 70th birthday, Pavone will compose a polyrhythmic work for sextet that alternates composed sections with structured and open improvised sections. The five-part suite will feature tenor and soprano saxophones, trumpet, piano, bass, and drum set.
Adam Rudolph's Moving Pictures (Maplewood, NJ) Yeyi: A Wordless Psalm of Protypical Vibrations is envisioned as a 12-part suite for six multi-instrumental improvisers. The work will investigate rhythm themes, thematic melodies based on intervallic materials and develop Rudolph’s “Cyclic Verticalism” and prototypical signal rhythm patterns. Instrumentation includes winds (B-flat and bass clarinet, soprano saxophone, bansuri, hichiriki, shakuhachi, bass, C and alto flute, cornet, flugelhorn, and kuduhorn), strings (guitars, oud, banjo, dotar, and sintir), and percussion (djembe, dumbek, tarija, cajon, bata, conga, thumb piano, bender, qarqaba, gongs, slit drum, marimbula, udu drum, caxixi, achimevu, and drum set).
Coming from Europe I always find it intriguing at the soul-searching that goes on the US jazz community whenever the music is given any grant aid. In this case the money is for commissioning of compositions and as far as I can make out is one of the few areas where jazz musicians CAN actually apply for some money to help them out in the brutal economic scene that surrounds the playing of jazz in America. Coming from a country where you can apply for grants not only for composition, but for touring, recording, performing, buying expensive instruments and even the development of an idea, it seems strange that there’s any questioning of something as small as the awards available to jazz composers from Chamber Music America. As an expression of percentage of population America probably gives less money to the arts than anywhere else in the western world. And I know many European jazz musicians are baffled at America’s lack of support for jazz in particular – America’s great gift to the musical arts. So when some small support does come it seems doubly strange to question it – these guys can use all the help they can get in trying to make a living playing creative music!
In Ireland – where I come from – we are a late convert to support for jazz and I’ve lived through both the eras when there was nothing available, and now when much more is possible in the way of support. Believe me, funding has made a HUGE difference to the amount and quality of work that has been done – since grant support arrived the scene here is unrecognisable in both the amount of musicians it can support and the level of playing and writing that goes on.
Having said that, your questioning of whether grant support is biased in favour of certain types of projects is very prescient. There’s no doubt that grant bodies, like all groups of people, have prejudices and things they like more than others. And often the committees that decide the grants will be made up of people from more than one musical genre, and sometimes from more than one art form. I have sat on these committees from time to time, and I have been the recipient of grants as well, so I’ve seen it from both sides. There is always going to be certain buzz words and phrases that these funding bodies like, and the smart applicant will be aware of them and apply accordingly. Here there was a real vogue for ‘cross-disciplinary’ projects at one point, and another for anything that included ‘world music’ mixed with jazz, causing one disgruntled bebop pianist to remark to me ‘I’ll never get a grant – I don’t have an Abyssinian dance troupe in my band....” So unless you know how to play the grant game you can be left out, and there are people – known here as ‘grant monsters’ - who are just brilliant at writing grant applications and seem to have an endless supply of money for their projects. Which can seem unfair to the others, but there’s nothing stopping anyone from figuring it out for themselves.
Your question as to whether mainstream musicians would ever get a look-in under this system is a good one – the answer is probably no – which is a shame. But on the other hand the good done by the availability of this money far outweighs the slight bias which may occur from time to time – and after all, bias occurs in all handing out of money. And though there may be some tweaking of projects to suit the adjudicating panel, in general the panels try to be fair in my experience, and the music produced is of a high standard since only high level practitioners will get as far as the shortlist.
There’s so little money given to the guys in the US – please let them take it without too much questioning– it’s one of the few breaks they get!
Ronan
PS I didn’t write this response just because that’s me lurking behind Rudresh in the picture you chose for the article!
Posted by: Ronan Guilfoyle | 07/24/2009 at 04:52 AM
Bravo, Ronan. I was hoping to hear from someone with your perspective, and I appreciate your puzzlement about the "soul-searching" inherent in this line of inquiry. Resources for jazz in the States are meager indeed, and my intention certainly isn't simply to throw a wrench in the machinery. (Really, it isn't.)
The idea of "grant monsters" does trouble me, though. Not because those musicians aren't deserving of support, but because of the precedent established by their success. There is, as you noted, a particular set of qualities being rewarded here. Without inside knowledge, I can't say whether that's more a function of the evaluation process or the applicant pool. Are more straight-ahead musicians less inclined to apply, given what they see as an institutional bias? That would indicate a self-perpetuating problem. (Anybody out there able to shed more light on this?)
Having seen pianist Marcus Roberts this week, I can report that he's due to release an album called "From Rags to Rhythm" in the fall -- and that he received a CMA grant for an identically titled work in the program's inaugural year. Among the other "mainstream" (quote-unquote) jazz musicians to have received composer commissions from CMA are pianists Ben Waltzer and Michael Weiss, and saxophonists Jimmy Greene and Don Braden. But I think anyone would recognize that the program responds most favorably to cultural hybridism and experimental protocols.
And because the organization is upfront about its dedication to Chamber Music (however loosely defined), there should be no surprise about its predilection for "sonic tapestries," and "multi-movement works," and "densely textured suites." (I'm borrowing those terms from this year's recipient blurbs, above.) The Sonny Rollins of The Freedom Suite and East Broadway Run Down would pass muster by these criteria -- but probably not the Sonny Rollins of the last 40 years. (Well, maybe Global Warming would have made the cut. And no, I'm not saying that Sonny needs the help.)
There is absolutely a need to nurture long-form composition for small-to-midsize jazz ensembles. I just hope that the promise of these grants isn't what motivates that work, especially among musicians who are on the earlier side of the career spectrum.
On a related note: after publishing this post, I stumbled across a similar rumination on Peter Hum's blog. The issue arose there because of public skepticism about Canadian gov't jazz subsidies. Wouldn't it be a kick to have the need for that debate in the U.S.?
Posted by: Nate Chinen | 07/24/2009 at 10:16 AM
Yes Nate - those are all points well made. In a similar vein Coltrane probably would have met the criteria for ‘Love Supreme’ but not for ‘Crescent’ and definitely not for ‘Chasin’ the Trane’! In a way the problem with this kind of selection of more overtly elaborate compositions is one that is partially caused by the model of the funding body – one that is based on funding classical music. They are rewarding composition rather than improvisation, and funding of improvisation per se is a nettle that has yet to be grasped by most funding bodies – even in such bastions of arts funding as France or Germany.
Usually (and this is the case in Ireland too) the jazz musician is competing for the same funding with classical musicians and therefore the model they have to present to the funders has to be one which they (the funding bodies) can recognise. Hence the presentation of ‘suites’, ‘multi-movements’, and ‘sonic tapestries’ which we see in most applications for this kind of funding. The idea of funding someone who will play a short form composition and then blow for chorus after chorus is not one that will be taken seriously by these kinds of bodies – they just don’t understand it, and usually they accord it lower status (for whatever reason) than that of composition. So in order to get the money, you have to play the game. In art music, classical music is still the power base, with literally hundreds of years of patronage behind it, and the jazz musicians have to know the classical rules in order to get some of the spoils.
Which may seem depressing from a jazz musician’s point of view, but it’s still a hell of a lot better than it was. It’s not that long ago since classical funding bodies wouldn’t look at jazz of any stripe as being worthy of funding, and the fact that jazz has now moved into the sights of the funding bodies is in itself a major step and a victory of sorts.
As to your worry about the precedent set by the ‘grant monsters’ success and the rewarding of certain qualities, which may be extra-musical, to the detriment of people who may play equally well but are possibly less organised in applying for such grants – well it IS a pity when a great player who doesn’t know how to play the game loses out. But on the other hand it’s always been thus – there have always been guys who could hustle gigs and schmooze A&R men, and be in the right place in the right time and really use whatever economic system was in play to their best advantage. And there have always been others who couldn’t. The winners and losers may be greater or lesser players than each other – that varied from person to person – but the ability to play the system has always been unevenly distributed. I think we like to believe that jazz is a meritocracy (and to an encouragingly large extent it is), but I believe it’s only a very very few (A Rollins, a Parker, a Miles etc.) who are so brilliant that they would have made it whether they knew how to play the game or not – the rest have to figure the economic/political landscape out, as well as play as best they can. It shouldn’t have to be that way, but it is. The current scene with the funding bodies in place of the agents/clubowners etc. is the same as it’s always been in terms of the demands it makes on the musicians to take care of business business as well as musical business.
All the best
Ronan
Posted by: Ronan Guilfoyle | 07/24/2009 at 11:47 AM
Good stuff, Ronan -- thanks again. It is worth remembering that the hustle has always been with us, in one form or another. And I agree with all of your thoughts about how things are largely "better" than they have been. Your observations about the classically derived power structure are also worth considering, clearly.
(Btw, I feel compelled to note: I wasn't baiting you with that photo!)
Posted by: Nate Chinen | 07/24/2009 at 12:33 PM
Gentlemen, Thank you both for a very interesting discussion.
Nate wrote, "There is absolutely a need to nurture long-form composition for small-to-midsize jazz ensembles. I just hope that the promise of these grants isn't what motivates that work, especially among musicians who are on the earlier side of the career spectrum."
Nate, I'm trying to grasp what you mean by this statement, which I take to be the crux of your concerns.
Nearly every prominent composer in the history of classical music had patrons (as did plenty of less prominent ones). Now we're talking about a miniscule amount of patronage for American jazz. There are so few grants of this nature in the U.S. that Ronan's mention of "funding bodies" in the plural feels like an exaggeration. CMA's two programs - New Works and the French-American initiative - are the only jazz-specific ones out there to my knowledge, and they have been the source of controversy among CMA constituents, who skew heavily towards classical performers and their patrons.
(All other nationwide programs that commission new jazz works - e.g. NEA, American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, Guggenheim - have "classical/new music" and "jazz" composers competing for the same funding. Classical people have their own additional resources, institutions, and infrastructure that we don't have.)
Like Ronan, I have been both a recipient and a panelist for various grants. I received some key project support and awards early in my career. In most cases I sought these things because I had no choice - there were no other means of support for the work I wanted to do.
Back to Nate's concern: regardless of what "motivates" a funded work, once it gets past the (very, very brief) period of grant support, you want to get it out in the real world. Maybe it becomes an album, or you take it on the road, or both; as you note, that process is the true test for the music. But it's hard enough to bring new music into existence in the first place. At least this program gives some music a fighting chance to be born, whatever its chance of survival. Maybe it's best to think of it as in-vitro fertilization.
If you're wondering whether it is possible to "pimp the system" and frontload your application with the right ingredients to get one of these grants, consider this: In all panels I've been on (I've never been on CMA's), it was the music that drove the decisions, much more than the prose. But in the current climate, the number of qualified and needy applicants keeps increasing. Panelists listen to hundreds of excerpts from the ever-expanding pool of applicants. So a demo recording has to "dazzle" the panelists in a very short span of time - often literally 30-90 seconds in the first round, a flat-out travesty.
Under these extreme constraints, the process rewards fully formed, extroverted music that instantly announces itself. What attributes are going to stand out? Blasts of intricate orchestration, unique or unfamiliar textures and timbres, and tight grooves -- all of which, I daresay, appear in abundance in this year's crop (most of whom are my colleagues and close friends, and I do not mean any critique by this).
There are many other questions we could and should ask about this grant - seriously, no African Americans this year? no women? two non-New Yorkers? - but questioning artists' motivation in entering this process seems a little backward. Perhaps a cynical composer could stuff his or her music with winning attributes in some formulaic way, but cynical composers are probably in the wrong business. More to the point, if anything we should question the specifics of the process, not the artists who benefit from it.
But to me the problem is much larger: there are so few opportunities of this kind, and so little patronage in the jazz world in general, that every struggling American jazz artist with any aspirations at all must apply for this one grant. If people want a more representative landscape, in which funded projects look more like a cross-section of who's making music today, then we simply need a lot more funding options for jazz, from a diversity of sources, public and private, with a diversity of criteria and priorities.
Or we could just let the market decide - but I'm pretty sure it already has!
Best wishes,
Vijay
Posted by: Vijay Iyer | 07/24/2009 at 03:20 PM
There are many other questions we could and should ask about this grant - seriously, no African Americans this year? no women? two non-New Yorkers? - but questioning artists' motivation in entering this process seems a little backward.
Thanks for bringing this up, Vijay, and thank you for adding so much to the conversation. It wasn't at all my aim to question the motivation of musicians who participate in the grant-application process -- but I understand how my words could have cast that impression. I hope anyone reading this far will take me at my word.
Part of what motivates this inquiry is a set of questions about cause and effect: is the music, in some way, responding to the (excuse my pun) stimulus of this process? Possibly maybe, as your insight about the need for quick-impact dazzlement seems to suggest. That may or may not be cause for apprehension, but I feel like it's worth considering in any case. (And this should go without saying, but I have no axe to grind with this year's worthy recipients -- or, for that matter, with "blasts of intricate orchestration, unique or unfamiliar textures and timbres, and tight grooves." Quite the contrary.)
On reflection, I'm realizing that my question, vague and unresolvable as it is, forces an aesthetic framework on what's really a practical issue. We're talking in shadowy terms about the shape of jazz, but we're talking in painfully clear terms about funding, livelihoods, support that artists desperately need.
On that note, I should point out here (as I did in my JT column but not in this post) that CMA has a Residency Partnership Program, which involves an ensemble setting up shop somewhere for a few days or more. There is no compositional requirement here, as there is for the New Works grant. Peruse the list of recipients and you'll see a handful of jazz ensembles alongside chamber groups. I don't know whether the ratio would be changed by a groundswell of applicants, but it's worth a shot. The website has guidelines and an application posted, for anyone who's interested.
But back to the original premise. I am extremely happy to have heard from two jazz musicians with experience in this area. This is the discussion I was hoping to have. And just so that there's no misunderstanding, I'll reiterate that: a) I believe CMA and the few other bodies out there are performing a vital service to jazz and jazz musicians; and b) We need more along these lines. Much more.
Posted by: Nate Chinen | 07/24/2009 at 04:16 PM
Without wishing to hog this discussion with a deluge of responses, could I add just a few more brief points?
Vijay is quite right to question the format of these grants rather than the idea of a grant in itself. Jazz is still largely a square peg in a round hole as far as funding structures go. The models of these awards are still largely based on classical criteria and the jazz applicant has to be aware of the rules of the game before entering. That there should be a) more awards available to jazz musicians, and b) awards that are more tailored to the needs and traditions of improvising musicians is to my mind very clear
As to the grants driving the music, while there may be some tweaking going on from time to time, I don’t think it’s possible to undergo the kind of work, research, study and practice necessary to produce complex composition just for the sake of a grant of few thousand dollars that may be available to you once every three years. I wrote on my blog recently (writing on an unrelated topic) that I believe there’s never been more interest in the possibilities of composition in improvised music than there is currently. The fact that there are so many people in a position to meet the composition criteria of these grants is more a reflection of current trends in contemporary jazz rather than any cynical grant-grab by the musicians.
And finally, grant aiding is I believe a good thing for creative music. In my own situation, I received the equivalent of $800 in 1986 to attend the Banff Jazz Workshop where I studied with (among others) Dave Holland, Steve Coleman, Kenny Wheeler, John Abercrombie, Dave Liebman, Richie Beirach Julian Priester, George Lewis and Muhal Richard Abrams, and found myself in a student body that included such people as Andy Laster, Simon Nabatov, Brad Shepik and Owen Howard. That $800 grant literally changed my life.
Posted by: Ronan Guilfoyle | 07/25/2009 at 04:23 AM
Vijay mentions something, not just an idea but an actual thing, that hints at something that is problematic about the grant process; the need for a demo that dazzles in a compressed period of time. Anecdotally, my experience in getting recordings that feature music that has had grant support - off the top of my memory that's recent releases from Dave Douglas, Don Byron, Jason Moran - I find myself checking the booklet to which are the cuts that actually have to do with the grant, since musically they don't stand out from the rest. They don't have to, and the music is plenty fine, but a commissioning grant is an opportunity to do something different, to stretch and explore. The aesthetic implication from CMA is that they are offering grants for jazz musicians to produce 'chamber music' in a jazz idiom, and by that I mean melding ideas of form and structure to the jazz idiom.
Now, jazz is already chamber size, both in terms of instrumentation and venues, its repertoire, so to speak, is chamber music. Looking at the list of grantees, and thinking about the music I’ve heard that has received grants, I see there is a lot of fruitful work being done, but it also seems like it’s either following already fairly well-trod paths or else expanding the idiom by exceedingly slight degrees. There is the use of instruments not usually found in jazz, the setting of text into song, the production of ‘suites’ and ‘cycles;’ it seems to me like the production of contemporary jazz as usual. I want to be clear about where my thoughts are going – these are good musicians who make good, enjoyable music, and the grants are going to produce a lot of good music. Also, musicians should be rewarded/paid. But I would like to see CMA be more ambitious and adventurous in its grants, hell, I’d like to see grants in general be more ambitious and adventurous. There is a pernicious and perhaps inevitable quality of grants which is that they seem to be rewarding composers/musicians for previous work rather than primarily supporting a particular new idea. What Vijay shares about the pressures of being on a committee is a pretty powerful exploration of why that happens, and also indicates that there is a lack of time/thought-space to open up the horizons of the grants.
What would happen to an application that had a demo that required extended listening in order to discern the quality and goals of the idea? I can think of a few areas of experimentation where jazz and the chamber music tradition could inform each other; explorations of timbre and tonality which start off where Giacinto Scelsi left off; exploration of notated and improvised structures along the path that Lutoslawki laid out; development of a sophisticated and thorough gestural language for conducted improvisation. I list these three specifically because they are areas which are natural to jazz yet where classical music has advanced far ahead; Scelsi’s work is based in improvisation, is performed by formidable non-jazz improvisers, and develops a harmonic richness that exceeds jazz through the most fundamental means; Lutoslawksi created large scale structures that fit together traditional ideas of form and aleatoric sections with greater balance and effect than I know of in jazz; and there are systems of conducting improvisation in classical music (I learned one of them from Meyer Kupferman), that allow for greater experimentation, surprise, structural complexity and command than what Butch Morris has pioneered in jazz. As in interested critic/composer/musician, this is exciting and unexplored territory, and I would like to see grants support musicians in heading out into these regions. I’m sure there are musicians who would like to, and they are probably submitting materials, but perhaps the granting process just can’t support it, in which case the problem would lie with the institution. I do conceded and accept that institutions by their very nature are conservative and incremental, and again they support lots of good music, which is more than worthwhile. But we can still wish.
Posted by: George Grella | 07/25/2009 at 12:18 PM
Nate, I share the initial concern that you expressed in your original post about the aesthetic constraints put on the music by the reliance on *this type* of grant funding -- specifically from Chamber Music America, a classical music organization.
As most of the comments have suggested, jazz is NOT classical music; as far as I'm concerned, the more that jazz is treated like classical music on the macro/funding level, the closer it is to becoming irrelevant.
That is not to say, however, that a grant/patronage model couldn't work in the jazz community. It's just that the aesthetics and expectations set up by the grant-giving body shouldn't operate using the same assumptions with which they judge classical grant proposals. This is obviously not happening now; Mr. Iyer's point that no women nor African-Americans received grants this year is one consequence of that.
Furthermore, funding structures should exist in such a way that jazz moves away from the "winner-take-all economy" that many (Ian David Moss at Createquity comes to mind) have suggested poses a problem for the continued development of the music. $800 to send Ronan to Banff is much better spent than $80000 to set up an elaborate two-week residency for some other name jazz musicians.
Posted by: Alex W. Rodriguez | 07/25/2009 at 12:31 PM
Nate maybe another intriguing question is what about those musicians that didn't get the grants? are they still going to do their proposed projects without funding? are they and their projects now considered unworthy because they weren't funded? how does not winning affect future opportunities? As Alex states, the whole system of grant/award/critical winners and losers in this process, seems to pose (already is?) problems with the development of music.
Posted by: Numinous | 07/25/2009 at 07:30 PM
Hello all—well, this is a very interesting discussion—thank you Nate for starting it up. Having used some of this grant money (CMA, FAJE, Monk Competition) for several recent projects, and also being someone who plays in “straight-ahead” as well as more “experimental” settings, I feel the need to chime in on a few issues. In the JT article, Nate writes that “concept-driven work is fast becoming the norm.” I think that this point could use a little bit of discussion. I think it is definitely true that the concepts behind music-making have become more visible or articulated, perhaps because many artists nowadays feel that in an increasingly competitive and crowded scene, it helps to have an easily identifiable perspective, or “handle” to present to the audience. With the proliferation of grant-based works, this effect is magnified because there is a requirement on the part of the artist to do this type of verbal self-analysis just to get in the door. And with the desire of venues, publicists, and booking agents to describe your approach concisely in the age of social networking (what do you sound like, in 140 characters or less!), this effect may be magnified further.
But haven’t these concepts always been there? Since the beginning of music-making, the musicians have sat around and talked about where they are coming from, what they want to do, and how they might do it. The importance of discussing concepts for Monk, Dizzy, Miles Davis, and endless others is well-known. Some musicians are interested in articulating the concepts, some aren’t (Coltrane was famously reticent). So I guess that I am expressing my ambivalence about the term “concept-driven,” because I’m not sure what it means. It seems to me that a concept is an idea, a formation in the mind about what you want to do, and if that is true, then pretty much all music is concept-driven. I think that in the quote above, Nate is getting at the notion of a work where the concept is primary, and the music is secondary, or perhaps where the concept overshadows the actual music. Personally, I don’t see how it would be possible to disentangle the elements of concept and its related music, but I certainly do agree that the concept can get in the way and ruin the music if that’s all that people are focused on.
I think that musicians are in a really tough position with this. Consider that you would like to make a new project, you want to get some money for it, and you need to describe it to a potential investor/benefactor. So you describe your “concept,” and from that point on, this blurb is the handle that everyone grabs onto, magnifies, and exaggerates for the remainder of the life of the project. But of course the concept is not the point, and getting the music out from under the weight of this perceived formality (the suite, the multi-disciplinary work, etc) can be difficult once it is set in motion. I think this is because it easier for most people to read than to listen. I discussed this same thing in a recent interview (“The Jazz Session, #66”), when asked about the conceptual basis of some music on a recent project, basically saying, I don’t go to the museum to read the catalogue or the little cards on the wall, I go there to deal with images, and people listening to and creating music are dealing with sound. Of course, if they are curious they can check out the score or something and satisfy that part of the brain. But the sound is the main thing, and my true belief is that the listener shouldn’t have to have any age, cultural background, education, or inside knowledge about the concept of the music to experience it as sound and vibration. If the performer puts the proper intent behind it and knows their instrument well, the sound communicates its own information.
Now, this being said, I certainly don’t want to minimize the importance of institutions that provide grants, commissions, and fellowships to musicians. There are two things which can really help bring a project from the “hey we should get together” phase to completion, which are budget and deadline. The question is, of course, how to know when the project is complete. And this leads to one issue that I haven’t seen a lot of discussion on, which is the difference between funding improvisational and non-improvisational works. Classical composers have survived for years (centuries!) on commissions and benefactors. So what’s the big deal about extending this model to “Jazz” composition? Well, we are talking about improvisational music, and the funding that is out there is for new Compositions, not new Improvisations (these happen all the time!). Most musicians in the field of improvised music will tell you that the process of composing and improvising are inextricably linked (similar to “concept” and “sound” above), or possibly interchangeable. So, even though a piece may be written in the form of a fixed score and presented as such, improvisation is still at the heart of the matter, so the piece will (in most cases) never fit into the model of the traditional classical commission, as it will vary widely in performance and is entirely dependent upon the musicians who are executing and interpreting the written material. Maybe it is possible to make the case that, with commissions as a dominant force in the creation of new projects, an over-emphasis on fixed (“through-composed”) material is hurting the improvisational tradition. Personally, I somewhat agree with this take, except that I don’t think that it is the fault of the people giving grants, but rather the musicians themselves who may sacrifice time working on improvisation in order to try to develop compositional tools on par with modern “classical” composers. I believe that a balance between these two is extremely hard to achieve, so I mean no insult to any musicians out there, and I am speaking mainly about myself.
And what are we to do about the issues of diversity in these grant award results? With something like a competitive grant, you are talking about a self-selected applicant pool, so it is impossible to know the origin of the problem. To me, the projects this year look pretty diverse, even if the grantees don’t, when certain filters are applied (race, geography). Although admittedly, those are important filters (dealing with an African-American art form, you might expect some representation), but this gets into the much larger can of worms about the current state and definition of so-called “Jazz.”
In any case, the questions posed by Nate were:
Does the current system create more or less freedom(s), more or less pressure(s)?
Personally, I have to say that the grants I have been given so far have allowed me to pursue projects that I would have never been able to do otherwise. Also I know that these organizations are filled with people who get genuine pleasure in their roles as facilitators of creativity. Perhaps the musical results can err on the side of overwrought and overthought, but this is a risk that you take when you have the freedom to get out of a lot of pent-up information. The pressure to describe yourself and the concepts that guide you is not for everybody, to be sure, and this is necessary in order to participate in the bureaucratic process of grant-writing. And it certainly may be true that this process may favor those musicians who tend to intellectualize, and deter those who feel that they don’t have a “concept.” I’ve certainly talked with plenty of “straight-ahead” players who wouldn’t apply for a grant because they felt that they would need some kind of hook or strange element in order to be considered, but I that this is self-selection at work, as it is clear that many so-called “experimental” musicians can end up being much less “free” in the conceptual cages that they have built than other musicians playing from the heart in a more conventional style (who is more free, after all, than Louis Armstrong?). The bottom line is, humans need to make music, and they will find a way to do it one way or another. I think it is wonderful that there are people willing to help give birth to creative projects, and I think as far as grants go, the more the merrier. As musicians, we are all working together to make the music go forward, and we need all the help we can get. Many thanks to you all for this thought-provoking dialogue.
Miles Okazaki
Posted by: Miles Okazaki | 07/26/2009 at 01:04 AM
I like the idea that George gives about more time being allotted for listening to grant submissions. While certainly a logistics nightmare to organize, this can help those musicians whose work needs sustained exposure and repeated listening to fully illuminate their ideas.
I also wonder about the lack of African-American and women in the grantees this year. I'm not sure if it says something larger about the music some African-Americans and women are making (not 'grant-ready' enough)? does that reflect the preferences and/or lack of diversity of the grant panel? or is it, as Miles states, just who applied and this is possibly just a one-year anomaly? I think the true reasons are probably more subtle and less defined that it might appear.
Posted by: Numinous | 07/26/2009 at 08:13 AM
Miles, I'm interested in some of the things you discuss, especially as they are seen from inside the granting community - anyone can offer that perspective? Vijay?
One question is how important a 'concept' is in a grant application, and by that I mean more the 'high-concept,' Hollywood-style pitch. As for-argument's-sake examples, one concept is composing directed jazz improvisation within a notated framework for a non-jazz string quartet, another is writing a suite of tunes for an instrumentation based on Balkan brass bands, utilizing time-signatures and harmonies common in that music. How are things like this viewed from inside the granting community, as opposed to "I'm a jazz musician and I lead a working group and I want a commission to support me in my continued work." Because isn't that what goes on in the end? But do musicians need to clothe their desire for support in a conceptual package?
Another thing Miles gets at that I have serious issues with is this idea that since these are grants, everyone has to think in terms of composition. There's a bit of a game going on here, and it has to do with concepts and titles. Jazz is jazz and classical is classical, they are great, they meet at interesting points, they inform each other in interesting ways, but they are not and never will be the same thing. Their aesthetic criteria are different, so why the emphasis on vaguely classical ideas of structure and composition? If I had drafts of 8 pieces for a jazz ensemble and asked for funding for them, and if I said the same 8 would be a "suite," which is more likely to get a grant? Of course, calling something a suite, or an opera, or a song-cycle doesn't make it so.
That's why the three examples I thought of are meaningful to me. The "Ebony Concerto" and "City of Glass" are 50 or so years old. Where else can classical inform jazz, and vice-versa? I don't think it does jazz any good to try and develop form and structure like classical, it usually just makes the music self-consciously stiff and weak. But there are experimental areas that classical has suggested that jazz is the perfect idiom to further. Is that an effective 'concept' package inside the granting community? I hope I don't seem cynical about this, because I'm not, there's a question of effectively gaming the system when one approaches any institution, and that is a means to achieve a worthwhile goal. Any ideas?
Posted by: George Grella | 07/26/2009 at 08:57 AM
Many thanks to everyone for their insightful comments.
Following this discussion I can't help but think that there may be an even larger point lurking at the crux of the issues raised by Nate's original post--specifically that of jazz's relationship to massive infrastructure and financial resource more generally.
Part of what's so amazing about jazz is that it can produce such incredibly rich and meaningful music with virtually zero infrastructure. But in many ways, that aspect of the music has actually been used as a tool, over the past 100 years or so, to limit and restrict the possibilities of the medium/milieu and to define it; often in unnatural ways.
Taking even a cursory glance at the history of this music, there seems to be an abundance of evidence in support of Miles Okazaki's suggestion that jazz has always been highly conceptual, whether or not it was consistently articulated as such. And perhaps even more to the point, the very core of the most conservatively sanctioned canon of this music is full of examples of performer/composers who have taken great pains to expand the nature of the arts-based infrastructures made available to them; usually with very limited success.
There is the example of Scott Joplin's inability to have his operatic works performed at a high level during his lifetime. Charlie Parker's articulation of his desire to compose music for larger/orchestral forces and Edgar Varese's refusal to accept Parker as one of his composition students. Jackie McLean's discussion in the documentary "Jackie McLean On Mars" of his decision and the decision made by many of his peers (Max Roach, Yusef Lateef, Horace Tapscott, etc.) to move into academia, based, in part, on a desire to "perpetuate some concepts from another vantage point than just always on the bandstand." Or Anthony Braxton's remark regarding the re-release of his Composition 82 for 4 Orchestras: "Can you imagine anyone now giving a Black composer the money to perform and record a piece for 4 orchestras? Or one orchestra for that matter? 40 musicians?"
I realize that these comments bring up a collection of issues that may seem peripheral to the core of this very valuable and useful thread. But, for me, they point to jazz's very rich and lengthy history of (attempted) engagement with massive arts-based infrastructure -- in most cases involving the music's most seminal practitioners.
Posted by: Steve Lehman | 07/26/2009 at 11:15 AM
Like Ronan and Vijay, I've been on both sides of this equation. In fact, I was on the very first CMA Jazz grant panel in 2000. I share some of the concerns expressed, however I think Ronan and Vijay made spot-on observations so I won't belabor those points. But George asked how these things go on the inside and I thought it important to point out that the panels for this grant in particular are made up of musicians who are active on the scene. People you have heard of.
In 2000 I was on a diverse panel (gender/race) made up of five musicians from across the spectrum in terms of musical style. The submissions were divided equally among us. We each listened completely to our portion of the submissions before the first meeting and then came together to present what we had to the full panel for listening and discussion. We listened "blind", not knowing who we were listening to.
The musical portion of the submission got the heaviest consideration by far. The text of the proposal was considered afterwards. So while "grant-speak" is an issue, it didn't carry as much weight as you might think. And the members of the panel reacted to all of these issues in many of the same ways that is being discussed here.
One other thing to remember is that the panel is different every year. So the outcome of this process has much to do with who applies and who's on a particular panel in any given year. I do suspect that there are musicians who assume that they won't be chosen and do not apply. In fact, I know that's the case. Personally, I applied for the grant almost every year since 2000 and was ready to throw in the towel a number of times. But I decided that I had no justification for complaining about it if I didn't apply. This year I managed to hit.
One thing I should point out. The grant guidelines (which can be downloaded from the CMA site) make it clear that this is a composition grant. Further, it says that "The work must be of substantial length, comprise multiple sections or movements, and feature improvisation." While that may seem to rule out certain approaches it does afford the opportunity for a musician to devote some real time and energy into a work that might otherwise prove difficult to see through to the end.
Interestingly, the issue came up on the panel I was on as to whether a fully improvised piece of music would be eligible. We were told that we could in fact consider fully improvised works. Ironically, one of the other panelists stated their feeling that it didn't seem right to give all that money to someone to just come in and improvise the whole thing. But again, the panel changes each year.
So I guess I'm writing this not so much as a defense of the process (which I, like everyone else, have certain opinions on and reservations about) but to point out that the issues were less structural than might be guessed. It boiled down much more to what was hashed out among a particular panel, much as is being done here, and who again, are musicians that we all know.
And to address Nate's general claim (as I understand it), I don't think this affects the scene at large as much as you may feel it does. It's just one grant. And while any approach is likely to have serious shortcomings in terms of solving some of the practical problems (such as dealing with the length of a musical submission) the greater problems as I see it lie more in the "big-picture" areas of that support which is lacking in the scene at large as opposed to the little support we do have.
However, I do agree with Alex about the "winner take all" approach. We see it in jazz polls as well (which to me serve no real purpose even though I feel obliged to use them in my own press kits). I'd like to see much more attention paid to the general scene. For example, I think some sort of venue support should be looked into more deeply. The places we play in Europe are all funded. And if it wasn't for Europe we'd be totally screwed.
Given that, I'm a recipient of the CMA grant this year and given the current economic conditions I'm very happy to receive the support. So in practical terms, I'd simply encourage more musicians to apply, especially those who might think that this grant doesn't work for them. I think that would have the most pronounced effect on the outcome.
Thanks
EE
Posted by: Ellery Eskelin | 07/26/2009 at 01:23 PM
Dear all, It's wonderful to see so many brilliant artists chiming in. I'm glad especially to read Ellery's comments from both sides of the CMA grant. And it is important to stress again what a small amount of impact this grant has in the scheme of things.
I should also add a few things to what I said earlier:
1) When I described the pressures of being on a panel, I was not referring to the CMA panel (as I said, I've never been on that panel) but grant panels in general, and particularly in recent years. And I was saying so chiefly to indicate a condition of being in the arts in America today: there's just too little funding to go around and the system is glutted with worthy applicants.
So, it is also partly the responsibility of panelists to be conscious of the process and the situation. Once when I was on a panel, I chose to intervene a few times to force a closer listen to several artists that had gotten short shrift the first time around. And two of those artists were then voted for funding.
2) A list of past CMA recipients, pretty diverse if you ask me:
http://bit.ly/oXl4Y
Ellery pointed out that the panelists change every year, and with them the panel's priorities shift. Not only that, CMA's grant guidelines themselves have altered slightly each year. It's important to see this grant as a continual work in progress, generally grappling with the same questions internally as we might be asking from the outside. We should get CMA honcho Margaret Lioi in on this discussion.
To the discouraged, don't sweat the language or structure of the grant. A "collection" of pieces is as good as a "suite" - it seemed to work that way for Duke Ellington. Just know that you just have to keep applying to these things, year after year, if you want results. In my own experience I've gotten some grants, including one from CMA, but I've gotten a FAR greater number of rejections, including a few from CMA. (I didn't apply this year, if that matters to anyone.)
3) Some philanthropy does exist for American jazz and creative music, mainly at an institutional level. That's what makes the following presenters and venues possible:
Jazz at Lincoln Center, NYC
The Stone, NYC
Outpost Performance Space, Albuquerque, NM
Roulette, NYC
The Jazz Gallery, NYC
San Francisco Jazz Festival
Earshot Jazz, Seattle, WA
Chicago Jazz Festival
and so on. The festivals and some of the venues themselves commission bandleader-composers to present new works, and they also support local artists and do educational and community work.
4) A bit of back story: CMA's jazz initiative came about because Doris Duke was a jazz lover and set aside money in her will that funded the initiative's first few years. Now that's what I'm talking about. Surely there are celebs or billionaires in our era who would act similarly, and maybe wouldn't even wait until the afterlife to do so.
Best wishes,
Vijay
Posted by: Vijay Iyer | 07/26/2009 at 10:52 PM
(To clarify: the venues/presenters I listed above are largely supported by some form of patronage or philanthropy. I don't mean to imply the opposite, i.e. that they are themselves "patrons" - though some of those organizations do regrant funds for projects, as I mentioned.)
Posted by: Vijay Iyer | 07/26/2009 at 10:57 PM
Ellery, that's very interesting information to me, thanks. The language of the grant guidelines I find quite intriguing, on it's face it allows for a tremendous amount of creative lee-way.
What Steve wrote made me realize, specifically, an idea that I've had in my head for a long time that I haven't been able to articulate to myself. Jazz is perhaps the original DIY music of the 20th century, a music that pretty much starts out in one's life coming off of the primary technology of the era, recorded sound, and leaves the inspired young person with the thoughts of wow, WTF?!?! And then, how do I do that? And then, I do it by doing it. Absolutely there's the constant tension of trying to match resources and ambitions, but I think in the long run it's a good tension. One feeling I still always get, even after 30 years, is that sensation that comes about when I catch someone live, and realize, again, that the material I hear on recordings is just a fraction of what they command as musicians, and this is the way to find that out. It's always exciting and moving.
Posted by: George Grella | 07/26/2009 at 11:15 PM
As the first British jazz musician to receive a grant from the Arts Council of Great Britain and a few (almost too few to mention) since, I am glad that this thread is as lively as it is and there’s no argument with most of the points that have been raised.
But I think one has to be realistic about these grants – at least in the amounts that were and are given out by British organisations: they’re never enough. The composer has to subsidise the work in some way – often by accepting a per-day rate that would disgrace any other working man; the bandleader (usually the same person) has to work his socks off to get the musicians together and the gigs; and the musicians involved often have to rehearse for nothing, or very little, to make the gigs happen.
When you’re commissioned by European radio stations the situation is somewhat different of course – they pay well (as many American composers have been discovering over the years!), and the musicians are on salary - although their unionised rehearsal hours are often a shock to those of us used to the more laissez-fair approach of jazz musicians!
I was once introduced as someone who had – because of that first Arts Council grant – been living with the support of the Arts Council for most of my professional life. My riposte was that I had actually received more money from Radio Denmark in my career than I ever had in grants from my own country, and had often used Denmark’s money to subsidise my work in Britain.
Graham Collier
Posted by: Graham Collier | 07/27/2009 at 12:30 PM
This is a great discussion! I like all the points given, and have some thoughts of my own.
As a jazz musician in Richmond, VA, I have many conflicting thoughts on the grant process. I was pointed in the direction of the CMA by saxophonist Matana Roberts, and I will definitely be applying for one with my group "Glows in the Dark." I have a concept that I use to generate ideas for the band, and I've realized that it sounds good on paper, but I definitely came up with the concept before seeking funding for the idea. All the work I've done has been derived away from the mindset of seeking funding. Even with these concepts, when I'm writing music I won't let the concept keep good ideas out of the music just because they don't seem to fit. The CMA seems like a great opportunity to just get the music out there, in a time when the market has no place for jazz.
I think a key difference in the work of grant winners and the work of Coltrane, Davis, Monk and others is that the grant winners have music and need to get it out there, while the Coltrane's and Davis' had record label support in a market that allowed that opportunity. Now, many independent labels support you by "letting" you pay for them to release your album. The tables have turned because of the market change.
It's easy to get cynical with that massive shift, but anyone that has talked with these great labels (Clean Feed, Cuneiform, Songlines etc) knows that they have genuine interest and are doing the best they can.
I have many more thought, all of which are probably conflicting, but that will do for this comment!
Scott Burton
Posted by: Scott Burton | 07/27/2009 at 01:42 PM
Hello all,
If you'd like to listen to the conversation that Miles Okazaki refers to above, you can do so here:
http://thejazzsession.com/2009/07/13/the-jazz-session-66-miles-okazaki/
Thank you for this enlightening discussion.
All the best,
Jason Crane
Host/Producer
The Jazz Session
Posted by: Jason Crane | 07/28/2009 at 10:03 AM
The following comes from Sara Donnelly, the program officer for jazz at the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. She was unable to log in here for some reason, and I offered to post her remarks. - NC
I'm reading these posts with great interest, and was equally curious about Nate's referenced JT piece written a year ago. As noted in one post, you should converse with funders, if you don't have the whole history, process, data and desired outcomes for jazz granting programs. Annual reports and press releases don't count enough. Disclaimer: I'm the Program Officer for Jazz at Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation; we've just launched Doris Duke's next jazz initiative called Jazz.NEXT (clever, right?) I also used to manage NEA Jazz Fellowships back in the late 80's/early 90's when jazz individuals (and they didn't compete against other musical genre artists) could actually get direct non-matching support for performance, composition, study, demos, special projects, and, of course, the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship, which has only grown in significance. Nate, I know I've attempted to contact you a couple of times to discuss these dynamics, get you on a panel, hell, just introduce myself, and we've yet to connect. (That's okay, perhaps I used the wrong email.) The point is that funders rarely benefit from direct communication with a solid cross-section and representation of artists and/or critics/chroniclers to get solid insights feedback on arts policy, except for attempts during program creation and the panel process. If we're good at our jobs, we try to first, know who you are and get a hold of you, regularly, but it's not even close to possible given how poorly organized the infrastructure is, in general, and some lack of interest, i.e., with the exception of artists posting here, an artist is often more interested in a recording opportunity, festival or club date, securing press/publicity/distribution, cash, before thinking about a grant.
In fact, the bigger systemic problem is the vacuum in conversation and awareness between non-profit and commercial entities advocating for (or dare I say, profiting from) jazz. When I saw Nate's piece last year, I was thrilled that someone was actually bringing some visibility and discourse to these decisions in print media -- even though I found his position slightly limited (sorry).
Of course, the by-products of the digital explosion and the downward spiral of the recording and publication industries are beginning to tighten up the communication divide. Hence, we have great bloggers out there covering some of this content over the past year, and I get to chime in on this healthy conversation pretty easily.
Now that NPR has recently dedicated resources to a fresh jazz blog, the NEA continues to leverage or increase its jazz budget, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation funds CMA and Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, among others, and increases its commitment to jazz re-granting -- all in the midst of global economic nightmares -- I recommend looking at the bigger picture.
Think about how jazz is getting funded in relation to dance, folk/trad/world musics, theatre, chamber/contemporary, opera, literature,orchestras, and, even, the entire outpouring of visual, media, and museum arts, not to mention, arts education. Then, think about the delivery systems for grants: are they for individuals to perform, tour, record, eat and live, or organizations to present, commission, block-book, contextualize and educate, etc... I spend personal time advocating that jazz gets big and good pieces of pie, but, honestly, sometimes it's a major deal that jazz is IN the pie in the first place. Right now, really. Just ask a member of a contemporary dance company how he/she prospers up against some of the fees paid jazz artists, and don't even compare the tech riders. Look at the losses presenters take every time they present jazz, not because they don't have an audience, but because the expenses are too high to begin with.
Back on topic, writing grant applications is not easy. The guidelines are generally written in grantspeak and are easier for development staff, which I know every jazz artist has (right!) I always encourage applicants to communicate directly with the contact listed to get the clearest indicator of what could make an app successful. Ask any question. If it takes multiple emails, be a squeaky wheel. There are calls I still haven't returned from my most recent deadline that slipped between the silent cracks.
So...it's positive recovery news about Wein, JazzTimes, great blog content, perceived interaction, thoughtful artists like those that have posted or not. These artists are not in a club, but if there is a club, please make it a lot bigger and more diverse. That's on the incoming applicant pool. Also, not all funders have drunk the Koolaid trying to come up with juicy ad copy to describe grant projects. You know what didn't get talked about enough with these CMA posts? How high the quality is of this music, how interesting and provocative and non-stale it is. I say this purely based on the names of these artists, without reading about esoteric instrumentation or musical hybrids, etc... Think about all of the truly boring and not-the-highest-in-quality grants you read about. I personally feel that those qualities are not present in this CMA list.
Finally, I only have admiration for jazz artists and writers that take all of these issues on, especially when they're not getting paid. This is a great conversation. Thanks for it. When I have more info on how Jazz.NEXT rolls out, I'd like to get it to you and have another conversation.
Take a minute to look at the websites and guidelines for these programs. DDCF's page is pretty insightful regarding their full arts program policy and updates. CMA,
MAAF,APAP, not to mention the Jazz Journalists Association, also spend money convening jazz stakeholders (sick of that word, yet?) to support a jazz ecology, platform, community. Look for those opportunities to lend your thoughts.
Sara Donnelly
Posted by: Nate Chinen | 07/28/2009 at 06:18 PM
On the heels of Sara's comments, I wanted to add just a few notes from the perspective of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF), where I am the Program Director for the Arts.
DDCF is the funder of the CMA Programs for Jazz and the American partner in the FACE program others have mentioned.
We do our best to listen to input from musicians, panelists, journalists--anyone with a vested interest in jazz who can help us create a more responsive and appropriate support system for jazz.
I remember Nate's editorial in Jazz Times last year and took to heart his concern that the application emphasized notions of "concept" that might prove a barrier for some artists who think and create in different ways. It was Nate's comments that led us to change the application and to say this year "Describe the new work. Topics can include, but are not limited to structure, improvisational elements, extra-musical influences, concept, and themes"--an attempt to be more responsive and to create an application that would let a musician speak from the vantage points where she/he feels most comfortable.
At heart, the applications are designed to help a panel understand what do you (the artist) want to do? With whom do you want to do it? Why now--e.g. what will be the significance of this to your own larger body of work? (Will it give you a chance to play with new collaborators? Help you branch out into new terrain? Go deeper into terrain you're already exploring? etc.)
That said, the written application--at least in the CMA/DDCF composer program--comes into play as the final piece of deliberation. Panelists listen blind to two rounds of samples--one where their attention is primarily on the composition,one attuned to the skills of the ensemble (since the program supports composition for a specific ensemble). Based entirely on these blind listening rounds, a very short list is produced--which is when consideration of the written application materials come most strongly into play.
Other commentators here have rightly noted the annual turnover of panelists and the consequences that can have. To that I would only add that all panelists are jazz professionals (which can be obscured by the very name of Chamber Music America, leading many to perhaps assume that classical musicians judge their work--not the case at all!) and that dedication to diversity is a key value for us. We indeed insure the panels are diverse in every one of our grant programs, and the most recent round was adjudicated by a panel that was 40% African American and 80% people of color.
One last note: while the CMA Programs are our primary vehicles for serving the jazz field, we do serve jazz and musicians through other programs--the new Jazz/Next program Sara mentioned, and various national projects, including a project at LINC centered in health care for artists (including jazz artists) and a Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute program through the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University.
Jazz is one of three key disciplines at the Foundation (modern dance and theatre being the other two): we're dedicated to service to the jazz field now and for the future and welcome all input, responses, advice, and more anyone wants to send our way.
Posted by: Ben Cameron | 07/29/2009 at 10:33 AM
Hi All,
Since I did receive the CMA grant this year, after not getting it 3 other times, I would like to share.
I agree with most of what everyone is saying and this thread has covered a lot of ground. I would like to add that grants serve not only as a financial benefit but also as a way in which an artist can think outside of the box and nurture ideas that may be buried in their sub-conscious. Having had to explain my music and where I wanted it to go was a tiring and difficult process. It was like putting a mirror up and looking for cavities. Luckily it didn’t appear I had one but I speak to the process and how it helped me to clarify my own ideas. If it were not for the opportunity to receive this or any other grant, who knows if some of the great music we’ve heard would have come to fruition? I’m sure there is a universal creative force that’s within all, but without being motivated on different levels, it can easily stay dormant. We can remember how Bach, Mozart, Handel and many others wrote much of their music under time constraints that were based on financial incentives. Although I’m sure those giants would have gotten around it some how, our minds in today’s world work differently for obvious reasons. As far as writing music merely to receive a grant, that almost sounds like wanting to become a boxer to make a lot of money. Sure there is money at the top but if you’re heart is not into getting punched, then you’re in the wrong ring!
About the grant panels, one thing we can't expect from them (this year there were 161 applicants) is patience. It’s an unfortunate reality because the scope of a composition can easily be overlooked for glitter, as Vijay pointed to. Although glitter can come in many forms, glitter for glitter‘s sake is gratuitous and I hear a lot of that in music these days. Another undervalued or overlooked element in the listening process might be the "vibe" a composition is creating. It’s that unspoken feeling that great composers can tap in to regardless of style. A visceral feeling that is not easily accessible to a listener looking for harmony parts and busy melodies.
Overall, I would hope that every panelist would recognize the position they are in and stay conscious of the fact that whatever they are seeking, may be beyond the number of written notes and well beyond the written words.
Thanks for reading,
Rez Abbasi
Posted by: Rez Abbasi | 07/29/2009 at 10:41 AM
I had the good fortune in '88,'90 and '93 to receive NEA Jazz Performance grants. Those were very helpful to my development as a player. I used the grant money to work on three different projects that I probably never would have completed otherwise.
Now I have more good fortune in that I play bass in the WDR Big Band, Cologne. The band is supported by the government and the radio and TV tax that is collected from all individuals in the region. In a radio big band in Germany, as Graham Collier mentioned, "the musicians are on salary - although their unionized rehearsal hours are often a shock . . ." That being said, the technical and creative integrity is usually on a very high level.
So, I've been on the receiving end of a lot of subsidies for music.
A huge benefit of offering subsidies or grants to create new music is that the standards are raised for the art form in general — the musical, the conceptual, and the production standards. The music of the grant recipients is supported, but all other musicians benefit because of the new musical territory being explored.
Even when a musician does not receive a grant, I think that musician still benefits from the process of organizing a concept and applying for the grant. Whether we receive the grant is almost secondary — the seed and desire and focus that is generated by the act of committing to an idea is what can push the music forward. I would guess that for every recipient of a CMA grant, there are a dozen others who have their idea still burning in their head. They did not get the funding, and maybe they will not realize their idea on the grand scale that they might with the grant support, but I would guess that a lot of them follow through. This is one of the unseen benefits of subsidized creative music.
Posted by: John Goldsby | 07/29/2009 at 02:12 PM