Greg Osby: A Candid Conversation

Lloyd N. Peterson Jr.

Contributor since 2008

Lloyd Peterson is the author of the book "Music and the Creative Spirit"

Recent articles (35 total)

Published: January 27, 2010

Greg Osby - Copyright © Greg Osby GO: I'm a veteran of the institutionalized approach to jazz education from teaching at many well-known universities, and I have been at odds with their methodology in approaching music. I think it should be individualized based upon the aptitude and aspirations of each student, as opposed to this broad stroke and grand sweep of everybody given the same information and forced to adhere to the same list of requirements. There isn't any reason why someone in music school should be forced to study and be held responsible for anything not having to do with the jazz life. There should be more emphasis on business, self-promotion and the attainment of individualism that will make you stand out and make you more appealing to label executives; they throw away thousands of audition CDs daily that sound like they came out of a Xerox machine.

LP: There are now younger musicians that don't necessarily want to be tied to what jazz did in the past, though they have a tremendous respect for those that came before them. These musicians are trying to move in different directions while finding their own identity and voice.

GO: There is a danger of being dismissive of a precedent or the lineage of the music. Many people are reckless because they don't want to do the work, but in order to get away from something, you have to be aware of it. You have to know how it worked, how it was applied and what it derived from. You have to know the root source, otherwise it's escapism, and people are just trying to circumvent deep study. So there is a danger in that cavalier attitude of "wanting to do my own thing." That's why we have a great deal of people who are not really well versed in the history of this music. They play their own music and play it fairly well, but put them in another environment and they sink like a rock because they don't know anyone else's music and have given its due.

LP: Miles Davis was criticized for incorporating pop influences into his music, but jazz has always taken from pop influences. Is there anything different in what Miles was doing or what is being done today by a number of jazz musicians?

GO: Well, in the '30s, '40s and '50s, there was less divide between the genres because many jazz musicians during that period openly improvised within the confines of the forms of those popular tunes, which had a great deal of chord changes, bridges and development. As time progressed, especially in the 1960s when rock and roll came around, popular music was reduced to one or two chords with a lot of screaming, hollering and a lot of guitar. There was less of an environment for musicians to improvise with, and now with electronics, it's gotten worse! That has hurt the scene at large because a lot of people at one time were introduced to jazz through an instrumental version of a popular song they may have recognized. But you can't do that today. I cannot introduce the uninitiated to jazz by playing a pop tune of the day because the songs from Britney Spears and *NSYNC have only two repetitive chords, have no development without anything for me to play on. That's why jazz has been relegated as this bastard child within contemporary music. It doesn't contain any appealing elements that are recognizable to and by young people. So until popular music becomes interesting again, we can't play that music, and it's going to remain difficult to reel people in.

LP: Does hip-hop have elements from the foundation of jazz?

GO: At one time, but now it's become disposable and pretty much a waste of record deals, in my opinion, because most of these people are idiots. It's become a circus. In many instances, it's buffoonery at its finest with very little profundity being uttered. Hip-hop may have been different at one time, but there was a lot more creativity in the production and construction of the music. It was more or less a cut-and-paste music where they sampled little snippets of recordings that didn't resemble or have anything to do with each other. It was a collage of sound textures that created an environment and pallet for rappers who artfully and rhythmically created rhymes, short stories and poems. But once the sampling walls became more strident and artists went after these rappers for sampling their wares, there were exorbitant lawsuits. Now it's been reduced to two notes on a keyboard with children's nursery rhymes. It's not interesting anymore, and all they talk about is money, so it's really disposable.

LP: Can you talk about M-BASE and the basis for starting it?

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