Reflections on Sun Ra
This is about race. It's not, really, but if that isn't a hard-hitting opening line I don't know what is. Before I get to the matter of interest to me, I must put the race factor into perspective. It's not so much race, but discrimination on the basis of race that is a problem, and one that calls for special scrutiny of its own. I hope it becomes apparent that it is not a factor in what follows.
Some white people (Caucasian, non-Hispanic) are discomfited by perceived misunderstandings about their intended meaning when expressing opinions concerning “discrimination” in matters of taste. What they mean is discretion, or discernment, in matters of taste—not racial discrimination—a blatantly unfair (and different) matter altogether.
Racial discrimination is not discretion. It is prejudice. How, then, are we to consider the creativity of a black artist—a jazz musician in this instance—without either making race central to the argument, or omitting it altogether? I say it can be done.
Taste means giving new experiences a try, not excluding them for arbitrary reasons. To refuse to see a new movie because the reviews are negative is a sorry excuse for not thinking for one's self. It comes down to rhetoric—bad rhetoric, let it be said. You could call that discrimination. If it is not specifically racial discrimination, then at least prejudice in the broad sense.
To speak of discriminating taste is to imply there are other, presumably more important, considerations than taste. To admit to preferences in culture comes too close to racial preferences for comfort, for some. I like to call it inclusivity (antonym of exclusivity) in matters of taste. It sounds better, and, when you think about it, is hard to fault in theory. There is no “bad” taste, only different tastes.
Taste is, for me, a matter of hygiene. Strange notion? More strange, however, than taste in the matter of hygiene is hygiene in the matter of art. I admit I have strange tastes. My theory of a hygienics of aesthetics formed in my mind when I was forced by circumstances to take a (temporary) job at a commercial car wash. It was either that or, failing to make rent, take-up residence in the street.
I always make the best of circumstances and, under those, I noticed a certain pattern of customer types. After vacuuming the interiors of so many customers' cars I thought I knew more about the owners than I desired to know. Nonetheless, a pattern emerged, and I have a great deal of respect for patterns. A pattern is an interlocking concatenation of details that completes a picture. An image is a composite built-up from diverse details.
As may be imagined, this discovery was to a certain degree disgusting, one involving constant exposure to the normally well-concealed undersides of everyday things, to the literal rust and corruption beneath the buffed shiny exterior. Negative taste in vivo is a hierarchy, a scale of good, better, and best, both in terms of what is acceptable, and of what is attainable. Negative taste is significant for what it lacks. It's what I mean by bad taste.
Above all, there was one particular customer—one particular customer's car, that is—that I awarded 1st prize for worst of show. The car was a black, four-door, 1960s-era Lincoln Continental, a model designed for the presidential-class market. Its final owner was an African-American. It was a faded legacy of former luxury, still impressive, a timeless status symbol. It now served for what is popularly denoted the “family taxi,” although its style more resembled that of a pimp mobile.
Children were not present, however, their existence was attested by the entertainingly creative treatment of the car's back seat upholstery. All-in-all, it was a good family car in my estimation, except for the kids having made the back seat a pigpen, excuse me, a play pen. It wasn't exactly dirty. It was, surprisingly, dazzling in the minute granularity of its ground-in particulate matter and jetsam, most of it metallic-ally sparkling, like the morning-after litter of a jubilant New Year's Eve celebration.
This sprinkle of shiny confetti against the original black decorative scheme of the vehicle's interior had a hypnotic visual effect. It was a “trip,” in vernacular terms, a car for tripping. It would have served Ed Ruscha well as one of his installations, displayed in an art gallery as-is, without further elaboration or editorial. It was, for me, an intimate glimpse of the private inner life of an African-American family.
Much is made by realists of the “seamy side” of life, testament of which presupposes an actual dive into the lower depths of society—whether personally or by research—a side of town otherwise unknown to a person for whom such background is not innate. I gazed in uncomprehending disbelief, as if at a spectacle. Besides the practical matter of how to treat the mess, I had to admit I had never seen anything like it before.
I admitted I was at a loss what to do. The customer, in a gentle tone of voice, released me from further obligation. Over and above the novelistic aesthetic, it bespoke the relaxation of African-Americans in matters of cleanliness, of hygiene, giving the lie to my thesis, as to that which gives satisfaction when better is not within reach. "It's all good," in the vernacular.
Comparisons are intrinsically argumentative, however, for an instant, contrast relaxed hygiene with the behavioral syndrome of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) which is, to say, a mania for cleaning. It is a quality-of-life affliction, one which is, usually, neither diagnosed nor treated. Insofar as interlocking patterns are concerned, it established a context for understanding the music of Sun Ra (title of this blog) who was, preeminently, a maestro of the Dirty Jazz style.
I was once listening to the FM radio in the wee hours one night in New York. I believe it was WGBO in Newark. A certain number on the playlist struck me as uniquely different, as an extreme specimen of the jazz genre. It was what I can only describe as the dirtiest piece of music I had ever heard. The radio announcer announced it was (title forgotten), by Sun Ra, whom I had heard before. It was immediately obvious that what I had heard before by Sun Ra were musical pieces biased towards a listening audience more in keeping with my own (decidedly not African-American) musical standards.
The recording I heard that night was a serious jam session, of a piece with the rest of the program's format. I had heard before Sun Ra's chants. They reminded me of Beat poetry, which they arguably were, having been composed in the heyday of The Beat Poets. What I was at that moment listening to was a side of his playing I didn't know. It might be described as fashionably “dirty,” as in “Dirty Martini,” another acquired taste. For the benefit of prohibitionists, a Dirty Martini is made by a bartender who picks Pimento olives from the jar, and puts them into the drink with his bare, unwashed, fingers.
What makes the cocktail dirty is that the customer either does not take exception, or is so far gone down the road of alcoholism as not to care. A circle of Hobos around a fire burning in a barrel sharing a single bottle of booze is the perfect image—visually—of the “down-and-dirty” jazz jam session to which Sun Ra gravitated. Radio jazz programs are often titled “straight, no chaser,” alluding to the compulsive aspect of the musical aesthetic, the “Speak Easy,” basement nightclub environment.
100-proof gin is not my poison, but I am always impressed by the craving inveterate drinkers have—as do Jazz fans—for satisfaction of their craving. I feel like I could go on about the virtue of tolerance for the abysmal in human nature, whether by choice or circumstance (-but you get the idea). For me, elaboration of the genre becomes subject for art. I like definitions, however, beyond critical theory lies an appreciation for the lowest, empathy that suffuses my painting with feeling.
Sympathy is my poison. I like painting gritty paintings of depraved human nature. Not dirty in content, but dirty like dirty jazz, relaxed, down and dirty, like a jam session between players with respect for each other's unashamed, self-confident, artistic nature. Consider the drummer who plays with the steel brush, sweeping the drum skin with it, scratching-out rhythm to sizzling effect. It's what painting would sound like if painting was playing in the gravel.
One-of-a-kind works of art can be viewed at: https://www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/1840403