“Those who had something to say thrived; those who didn't, noodled.”— Fred Kaplan writing in “Kind of Blue
Why the best-selling jazz album of all time is so great” for Slate, about the impact of Kind of Blue on later jazz playing.
This remark privileges presentation and communication over process and experience. It seems to me that this also means privileging a sort of lecture over a sort of dialog. By dialog I mean being invited to think along with a musician. But there’s some likelihood that I’m not taking Kaplan’s meaning of noodling. I’m thinking he means rambling.... which he links to New Age music, pejoratively.
Oh well. Maybe I’m just taking a cue from the title and its urgent attempt to tell us why the best-ever for all time is so great, which automatically makes me wary. I keep thinking about the title “Dead Lecturer.” (Googling that led me to a happy, interesting discovery from my old stomping grounds.)
