Alexander, I will look for your piece in Paideuma though I haven't
subscribed for many years.

This is a very seductive topic for me and one that would certainly
command a book length study especially if some direct contact existed
between Pound and experimental jazz. I realize it ignores Pound's actual
associations and taste that is so well documented in his criticism.
Critics such as William Carlos Williams and Reed Whittemore insist that
Pound new next to nothing about music. So since my thesis has little to
do with music in this direct sense, it may be a contrivance but one
separate enough from Pound's musical predilections and criticisms to be
considered as regards his poetic composition in the Cantos. Structurally
the Four Seasons or Ballet Mechanique seem to have little to do with the
Cantos. Oddly, Coltrane's "Ascencion" or Cecil Taylor's "Second Act of
A" do.

It does seem that Adorno in his essay on Schoenberg and twelve tone
composition supports the kind of continuous aural surprise one achieves
with strict (or not so strict) serial composition, the ear being such a
poor chess player. Adorno, of course, rejected jazz on culture industry
grounds and this dimension was handled expertly by a member on the
Buffalo list, Herb(?), a couple of years ago.

But my main intitial thrust would focus on the difficulties Pound would
face compositionally by simply setting off on poem like the Cantos. The
sheer ambition of his approach and his capacities both creatively and
temperamentally seem to support the argument put forth that the Cantos
somehow "fail" compositionally. The too obvious voyage metaphor aside, I
agree with this but I see the failure in the light of other
compositional techniques such as experimental jazz and one could easily
and quite historically add abstract expressionism.

When Charlie Parker wrote "Cherokee was the bridge I crossed" he was
alluding to his taking of a standard tune and pitching it up a fifth(?).
This led the conservative (and white) player, Eddie Condon, to comment,
"I don't flat my fifths, I drink 'em." Anyone who has heard Bud Powell's
Blue Note(?) rendition of the sentimental tune "It Never Entered My
Mind" will understand another dimension of the artisitc progression of
bebop, eliding and reaccenting, silences and clusters, perfected,
utterly perfected later by Thelonius Monk.

I've always associated Parker's innovation with Schoenberg's. Both take
traditional musical structure and by changing the rules, in Parker's
case literally changing the changes, create extraordinary music. Webern,
Berg, Gillespie and Stitt ain't no slouches either. I addressed these
issues in a poem entitled "A House Party Startin'" after a tune and
dedicated to the too much ignored composer and pianist Herbie Nichols.

Pound and experimental collaborators went beyond (and in the case of the
musicians incorporated) the structural innovations of Schoenberg and
Parker into an area where the power of the composition requires a
constant reference to a set of thematic moorings that by no means remain
audible or visible in the process of composition. So much of these texts
follow one phrase upon another often building in no discernable
direction until the mind of the reader or the listener begins to accept
the efficacy of the creators work at face musical value and by sheer
perseverence believes he begins to discern patterns. But the music
always comes first. And Pound as the only poet mentioned above was the
great explorer for his idiom.

I will be gone for a week; away from all computers. Carlo
Parcelli             En Lin Wei wrote:
>
> I want to thank Carlo for his excellent and insightful post on Pound and
> Music.  I think the observations on jazz and Pound's "improvisational"
> technique were probably right on the mark, and they helped me to appreciate
> one part of his art which I had hitherto not thought very much about.
>
> Carlo wrote:
>
> <<
> I once proposed to a local radio station that they
> have a show that played 20th century classical composition and bop and
> experimental jazz. Art Pepper meets Elliot Carter. Why not? I was
> rebuffed. >>
>
> I was fortunate once to produce such a radio show, on a weekly basis at a
> College radio station.  I would often play Braxton and Schoenberg, Coltrane
> and Stockhausen, Miles Davis and John Cage, in succession.
>
> I know very little about the history and practice of jazz, actually; most of
> my interest in music is in "the classical tradition," from Monteverdi and
> Garibaldi to Shostakovich and Stravinsky.  But I do grasp enough of what
> Carlo is saying to see that it is very relevant to our understanding of
> Pound as an artist.
>
> I believe Pound said that poets who failed to take an interest in music
> could never succeed (at about the same time he met Antheil, Dolmetsch, and
> Olga Rudge in Paris).  Pound took a great interest in unearthing old Vivaldi
> scores when he first arrived in Rapallo.  Frankly I would like to see the
> connection between Pound and Music explored in more detail, as Carlo does in
> his recent post.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Wei
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
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