Rock 101 : The New Yorker
Rated • 1 review • music • newyorker.com
From the page:
"Duke Ellington once had to field a barrage of questions from an Icelandic music student who was determined to penetrate to the heart of the genius of jazz. At one point, Ellington was asked whether he ever felt an affinity for the music of Bach, and, before answering, he made a show of unwrapping a pork chop that he had stowed in his pocket. "Bach and myself," he said, taking a bite from the chop, "both write with individual performers in mind." Richard O. Boyer captured the moment in a Profile entitled "The Hot Bach," which appeared in this magazine in 1944. You can sense in that exquisitely timed pork-chop maneuver Ellington's bemused response to the European notions of genius that were constantly being foisted on him. He said on another occasion, "To attempt to elevate the status of the jazz musician by forcing the level of his best work into comparisons with classical music is to deny him his rightful share of originality." Jazz was a new language, and the critic would have to respond to it with a new poetry of praise." (...)
"Duke Ellington once had to field a barrage of questions from an Icelandic music student who was determined to penetrate to the heart of the genius of jazz. At one point, Ellington was asked whether he ever felt an affinity for the music of Bach, and, before answering, he made a show of unwrapping a pork chop that he had stowed in his pocket. "Bach and myself," he said, taking a bite from the chop, "both write with individual performers in mind." Richard O. Boyer captured the moment in a Profile entitled "The Hot Bach," which appeared in this magazine in 1944. You can sense in that exquisitely timed pork-chop maneuver Ellington's bemused response to the European notions of genius that were constantly being foisted on him. He said on another occasion, "To attempt to elevate the status of the jazz musician by forcing the level of his best work into comparisons with classical music is to deny him his rightful share of originality." Jazz was a new language, and the critic would have to respond to it with a new poetry of praise." (...)