Is it all downhill from here?

[Guy Delphine]

Maybe it's because I've become more aware of my age recently, but I felt a tinge of envy for my younger self today. Besides being able to eat what he liked without worrying about any impact to his wardrobe, he also wrote some fine jazz tunes. I listened to them today, and had no idea how the hell I could play them, let alone come up with them.

Can anyone give me some role models for people whose music improved through their life, rather than peaking in their twenties or thirties? I can only think of Beethoven, and he went deaf, the deaf bastard.

I think you just need rebellion in your blood. Look at how crap culture is now, if all it amounts to is showing Friends repeats ad infinitum, then it's come to a sorry state. I'm trying to stage my own private Sex Pistols revolt in my bedroom, even if no-one is listening, it makes me feel good. Peace, yo.

 

[oggbashan]

Yeah! I'm looking foward to Cream reunion.

I was at their first appearance. The audience stood in the open air like statues. We knew we were at the start of something incredible that we would remember for a long long time. At the end of their session there was a hushed silence before we erupted into applause that went on and on...

Who cared about mud and rain?

Og

 

[Guest]

. . . I've grown up with writers and authors, and by and large they seem to be less inclined to write as they age.

It's because they are having too much sex. Or posting too much on erotic forums.


As for drummers, I've dated a couple. Energetic, wild, fun and delightfully goofy.


But I find a slower hand works better as I age.

 

[cantdog]

I'll be like 108

There may come a day when I'm inhabiting not so much a body as a husk. Most of this shit won't work any more. I will hear, or see, or perhaps be assisted in some way to perceive-- that part doesn't matter-- the doings of the humans around me.

Even now I feel this sometimes; I will hear of it and it will all seem so familiar, so typical. They bumble, they fail, they go haring off after shadows, hooting with comical assurance their errant nonsense. They do things and say things, they erect sandcastle belief systems, which if they live long enough they will blush for.

People. How fucked they are.

And I will love them with all the intensity a husk can muster, man. Doubtless, as the husk crumbles at last-- hell, even if this body be smashed to jelly on the turnpike tomorrow-- I will pass out of it loving. Loving in the one case the idiot with the cell phone in her ear who slays me, or in the other the trivial idiocies of the attendants at the Criminals' Hospice.

But until then, I plan to be engaged! While this stuff all works, I will operate it. Though I do so less energetically, yet I will do it. I'll go out and just dig the place. Make it better, whether the asses like that or not.

 

[cantdog]

So now quit for the luvva Mike bringing up all this mortality bullshit. That's enough for one year dammit. As you were.

 

[NoJo]

I was at their first appearance. The audience stood in the open air like statues. We knew we were at the start of something incredible that we would remember for a long long time. At the end of their session there was a hushed silence before we erupted into applause that went on and on...

Who cared about mud and rain?

Og

I missed them first time around, although I was a ten year old fan. The nearest I got to seeing them was when I saw Pete Brown, their lyricist, reading some of his stuff at a poetry club a few years ago.

Jack Bruce recently said on a TV program (about British Jazz) that he and Ginger Baker, both jazz musicians, wanted in on all the fame and money that the pop people had, so they approached Eric Clapton. "We formed a jazz trio, and Clapton was the Ornette Coleman, but we didn't tell him we were playing jazz. We had to tell him it was blues. <laughs>"

 

[yui]

Can anyone give me some role models for people whose music improved through their life, rather than peaking in their twenties or thirties? I can only think of Beethoven, and he went deaf, the deaf bastard.

Daihachi Oguchi? He developed the modern ensemble taiko based on jazz percussion rhythms and timing. Oguchi-sensei is 82 years old and to my knowledge is still performing.

Masanori Takahashi (Kitaro), too, maybe? Born 1953, won a couple of Grammy nominations and (I think) a Grammy Award in 2001.

 

[impressive]

And I will love them with all the intensity a husk can muster, man. Doubtless, as the husk crumbles at last-- hell, even if this body be smashed to jelly on the turnpike tomorrow-- I will pass out of it loving. Loving in the one case the idiot with the cell phone in her ear who slays me, or in the other the trivial idiocies of the attendants at the Criminals' Hospice.

But until then, I plan to be engaged! While this stuff all works, I will operate it. Though I do so less energetically, yet I will do it. I'll go out and just dig the place. Make it better, whether the asses like that or not.

We are kindred spirits.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Maybe it's because I've become more aware of my age recently, but I felt a tinge of envy for my younger self today. Besides being able to eat what he liked without worrying about any impact to his wardrobe, he also wrote some fine jazz tunes. I listened to them today, and had no idea how the hell I could play them, let alone come up with them.

Can anyone give me some role models for people whose music improved through their life, rather than peaking in their twenties or thirties? I can only think of Beethoven, and he went deaf, the deaf bastard.

BB King got better with age. Luther, Johnny Cash's guitarist too. IMHO Rush has gotten better with age, but I will admit Geddy no longer can hit the really insane high notes.

Louis Armstrong was another where his technical skill improving with age added a depth to his playing that was abscent in his earlier work.

 

[cantdog]

Daihachi Oguchi? He developed the modern ensemble taiko based on jazz percussion rhythms and timing. Oguchi-sensei is 82 years old and to my knowledge is still performing.

Masanori Takahashi (Kitaro), too, maybe? Born 1953, won a couple of Grammy nominations and (I think) a Grammy Award in 2001.

Kitaro, that's right. Awesome talent, exquisite now.

 

[NoJo]

BB King got better with age. Luther, Johnny Cash's guitarist too. IMHO Rush has gotten better with age, but I will admit Geddy no longer can hit the really insane high notes.

Louis Armstrong was another where his technical skill improving with age added a depth to his playing that was abscent in his earlier work.

Also he stopped rolling his eyes. That probably heped.

 

[NoJo]

Daihachi Oguchi? He developed the modern ensemble taiko based on jazz percussion rhythms and timing. Oguchi-sensei is 82 years old and to my knowledge is still performing.

Masanori Takahashi (Kitaro), too, maybe? Born 1953, won a couple of Grammy nominations and (I think) a Grammy Award in 2001.

<non_pc>
I don't know who those people are, but I'll try them next time I go to the restaurant, as long as they're not kinds of sea urchin.
</non_pc>

 

[lil_elvis]

At first I thought this was a skiing thread

Well, Elvis ... I, myself, am coming up on 40, and changing careers for example, at 37, 38, 39 etc., is NOT EASY, but can be done. Changing your life from not happy (no reflection on SJ or this thread, only my op) to wow?

It is called downhill, well, because it is harder to change things even if you want it, even if you feel young, if you look young when you have responsibility. OTHERS make it a downhill battle, when it does not have to be. My take.

Charley,

I wasn't being philosophical, just bitchin about arthritis and memory lapses.

 

[oggbashan]

Another musician who improved and developed with age was the guitarist Segovia.

Attending a live performance was awesome.

Og

 

[yui]

<non_pc>
I don't know who those people are, but I'll try them next time I go to the restaurant, as long as they're not kinds of sea urchin.
</non_pc>

Just make sure you get a side order of drumsticks with Daihachi Oguchi.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

You're not going to find many pop musicians who improved with age simply because pop is so terribly concerned with sex appeal and image. It seems like pop stars who last for more than a year now are rare. Rap stars make one album and disappear (or get shot). Britney Spears was passe at the age of 20 and Madonna's a fossil.

Jazz is similar, in that it runs on a kind of planned obsolescence. An artist's style is out of fashion before they have time to mature. For those of us who keep up with musicians who were good when we were young, a lot of them are still good now. John Lewis especially comes to mind, as does Monk, Mingus. I can understand people who liked cool Miles Davis better than the later Miles, but his later stuff was brilliant, like it or not.

Probably the best place to look is in clasical music, and here you find that most musicians improve with age because the music isn't subject to the vicissitudes of fashion. Someone mentioned Segovia. Add Casals. Yo yo Ma keeps on improving, as does Itzhak Pearlman. So it can be done.

 

[amicus]

Sub Joe Cantdog...could be a very interesting theme if widened to include 'Art' in general and the motivations thereof...

Had a long discussion the other day...about what 'art' really is...from the cave paintings in France 30,000years ago...to present day and why...

Penile performances notwisthstanding...youth and vitality and alienation, surely play a part in the performing arts...as sex rears its lovely head at every opportunity...and what is music, but audio sex...as with dance...as with...

I have always thought writing came in a poor second to the really emotional performing arts...but then...what do I know...

amicus...

 

[gauchecritic]

Sorry Joe...

but someone's got to tell you. You can't do what you did then. Neither can any of the musicians that anyone has mentioned. Their secret, like someone mentioned, is that they do it differently.

There are compensations however. You couldn't have written then what you can write now.

Speaking of drummers I was lucky enough to witness Buddy Rich and his band in the late 70s, he was approaching or just over 60 years old then.

He didn't sound at all like he did on his early recordings, he hardly moved his arms at all, he'd lost his pedal speed. I still heard the best 20 minute drum solo I've ever heard. He played a fucking tune, he never lost a beat, he didn't need to wave his arms, he hit every single piece of kit (more than a dozen I think) without losing a stroke. I don't think he could have played like that with Dorsey or Gillespie in the early years.

I've got to agree with your dismal first take Joe. The best creative thng that a genius will produce will be in his or her early twenties but they could never create at that age, what they will in later years.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

What about artists who don't break through until, say, their 40's?

Do we listen to them in their 50's and think how their best work is behind them?

Do we listent to stuff they did in their 20's and think how they hadn't found they style yet?

 

[shereads]

Also he stopped rolling his eyes. That probably heped.

<----------- Louis Armstrong

<------------- Ray Charles

 

[shereads]

What about artists who don't break through until, say, their 40's?

Do we listen to them in their 50's and think how their best work is behind them?

Do we listent to stuff they did in their 20's and think how they hadn't found they style yet?

We hold our breath when the Stones go on tour, and hope that if there are any cancellations they won't be blamed on rheumatism or varicose veins.

 

[shereads]

I've got to agree with your dismal first take Joe. The best creative thng that a genius will produce will be in his or her early twenties but they could never create at that age, what they will in later years.

With the exception of ballet, sports and the tuba section of marching bands, I can't see why genius shouldn't improve with age. Are you saying that inspiration fades, or that everyone peaks in their twenties?

Edited to add: Has there ever been a tuba genius? If there had been, would he have been overlooked? No one looks like a genius playing the tuba or the accordion. The same is true of sculpting with a chainsaw, or belching "Nessun Dorma."