In Search of My Inner, Aquatic Ape: Part I

I read science blogs in order to keep science relevant for my students and my students relevant for me. Recently, I came across a story about Elaine Morgan, an avuncular, self-trained evolutionary biologist, hitherto feminist. I think Ms. Morgan would appreciate being referred to as avuncular. If an uncle can be described as avuncular, then, by analogy, I will permit myself to describe an aunt as avauntular – a kindly sister of your mom or dad, who could always produce a hard candy for you out of thin air and would discreetly slip a crumpled two-dollar bill into your palm before parting with your company.

As best as I can tell (the crucial document I read was a Wikipedia page in Spanish), Max Westenhöfer was a German biologist who, in 1942, published a work entitled "Der Eigenweg des Menschen", which translates as the “The Road to Man”. Admittedly, there wasn’t much clear or rational thinking coming out of Germany in 1942, so perhaps it’s appropriate that something called the “Aquatic Ape Hypothesis” (AAH) originated in those times and places. At the time, the prevailing thinking surrounding the evolution of man involved some arboreal ape-like creature getting down from his or her perch in a tree for the first time: Man descends the tree and stands up - perhaps to pick up a piece of fermenting fruit and/or to fashion a tool and bludgeon his neighour – and then ascends treeward. Or maybe he lives in a cave? In either case, the only pre-1942 detail that is relevant to this yarn is this: Man’s abode was terrestrial. Westenhöfer’s great contribution to the murk of evolutionary biology was to posit that Man’s precursor got out of the tree and slipped into the water, losing his hair in the process. Or, Man never was in the tree in the first place: Man was aquatic. The idea had, mostly, collapsed under its foundation on bad logic, though it somehow gained traction in circles where it was not subject to scientific scrutiny. Let me affirm here that pseudo-science has bestowed no greater boon upon human thought than falsifiablilty as luxury, not necessity - some ideas are just so clever that they needn't suffer the indignities testing and wishing them true is sufficient justification for their propagation. Sometime between Democritus and Pasteur, science ceased being speculative art and evolved into the operative, intellectual pursuit of answers to answerable questions.

Script-writer Elaine Morgan latched onto the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, bringing it to some prominence, primarily because it questioned the primacy of males in the prevailing paleoanthropological view. Morgan championed the theory as an explanation for the outward dissimilarities between the Apes and Man. I think it’s fairly well known by now, the profound inner similarities between Man and the apes – humans and chimps 96% of their genetic code. It should be noted that the genetic code is massive: of the three billion pieces of genetic stuff in our bodies there are about forty million differences between when compared with chimps. There’s a heap of the devil in the detail of this tale, detail that needn’t be fleshed out to tell my story. Following my own analysis of the AAH, one question was left looming in the corner: if we are aquatic mammals, why are we such clumsy swimmers compared to whales, dolphins, seals and otters? To answer this for myself, I took some time to get in touch with my inner aquatic ape.

What is Jazz? (or How Do We Know We Know What We Know?)

The following is a letter I wrote to the host of a CBC radio program. I do this with increasing frequency, as age morphs me into Abraham Simpson. CBC radio makes me want to rant, and my thoughts about people's opinions (the public at large) got me thinking about why we rant. I think "Why We Rant" could be a good serialized blog topic. Apparently, I am a perfectionist, which is why I procrastinate. Truthfully, I'd rather stare down a deadline until the clock is just a tick from zero and then jujutsu the thing into submission. I think Douglas Adams had the best quote about procrastination, or more precisely, dropping the ball. In no way do I condone dropping the ball.

Here we go.

Hi _____:

Something is really bugging me about the show I’m listening to, for the second time. It’s your program about all the music that you don’t have time to put on your show and it’s being re-broadcast during the summer. You’re telling of the negotiation you had with ____ over a piece of “jazz” music (justification for these quotation marks follows). I believe you told ____ that you found this particular piece, a rendering of Summertime (or perhaps jazz in general) “difficult”. It’s the use of “jazz” as a modifier on your program that is troubling me and I’m going to explain why and, while in the process, hopefully clarify for you what should and shouldn’t, reasonably, be referred to as jazz.

I am Canadian and I am a musician. I had a successful career as a freelance musician in Edmonton, before leaving to pursue an international teaching career in high school chemistry. It’s not my intent to fill this space with my CV; I want you to understand that as a musician, a scholar and an educator, I’ve played, studied and taught jazz music and my thoughts are relevant to the discussion “what is and is not jazz?”

First and foremost, jazz is improvisational music. I assume you were sincere in your espoused ignorance of jazz: improvisation, as it relates to jazz, is the spontaneous composition of a melody over a pre-established sequence of chords. Improvisation does not include the playing of a pre-existing part, written or memorized. This ideal isn’t always strictly met, but it is, strictly, always the goal of jazz improvisation. The rendering of Summertime on your show had no improvisational element, at least as far as the saxophone was concerned. Often, we will describe a piece of music as “jazz” simply because a saxophone is present and playing over a harmonic progression we recognize from a Broadway show or a pop song.

Secondly, virtuosic skill is a prerequisite to jazz improvisation. To compose in real time, the very essence of jazz, requires that the performer not be limited by the technical demands of the instrument they are playing. Young jazz musicians spend their early careers (a Gladwellian 10,000+ hours) pushing back the threshold of their limitations as instrumentalists and spontaneous composers, thereby allowing the technical demands of the music to fall away and the music to emerge, unfettered and unique to that moment.

Virtuosity is an absolute necessity for a musician to execute a jazz performance, but not necessarily to interpret a piece of music. For example, compare Howlin’ Wolf to Oscar Peterson, one a master of interpretation and the other a master of execution, each clearly a genius, given the extent of their work. Howlin’ Wolf’s virtuosity manifests in his interpretation of a song, not in his technical execution, whereas the opposite can be said for Oscar Peterson (the subject of a Sunday Edition episode following Oscar Peterson’s passing). Specifically, the rendering of Summertime on your show was an interesting interpretation of an existing written melody, but it is my opinion that it falls short on execution. Listen to any current Mike Murley or Brad Turner CD as a benchmark for execution in jazz. Interpretation alone doth not jazz make.

I’m going to end my letter here: any further writing will become too analytical and too subjective. I know your mandate is not to play Howlin’ Wolf or Oscar Peterson, though perhaps to showcase those aspiring to those heights. The version of Summertime that you played does not meet the standards I outlined above, so it should not be classified as jazz. And once it’s no longer qualified as jazz, it cannot meet your burden of “jazz is difficult”. I think the performance has many of the hallmarks of Punk music. Maybe that is how it is better classified?

Finally, there are hundreds of bonafide jazz artists in Canada who have invested thousands of hours writing and performing their own music, relevant music, fully deserving of wider recognition on “________”: _______ and _______ are two that immediately come to mind, but there are many, many more. These two musicians are brilliant players and composers who, besides not having been enshrined in Wikipedia, don’t receive the national recognition of Mike Murley, Rich Underhill, Kevin Turcotte or Ingrid Jensen.

And then I signed off.

Two final words: Bach/improvisation. Bach was able to improvise over the liturgical music of the day because he had expert knowledge and virtuosic technique on the organ. Bach also wrote church music, over which he would improvise new melodies to create his fugues, a method analogous to the great jazz player/composers: Horace Silver and Hank Mobley are but two examples who don't get the acknowledgment they deserve. Were Bach’s fugal compositions jazz? No, and I think a little logic is necessary to illuminate why not: all jazz music is improvisatory, but not all improvisatory music is jazz.

Now you can abuse my opinion.

Thanks to Emilia for holding me accountable: this was the best I could do ... for now.

postscript: I have not read any Malcolm Gladwell; a colleague of mine relates his work to me over coffee. I don't read Dan Brown either. Malcolm Gladwell is a journalist, not a scientist, just as Dan Brown is a novelist, not a historian.

Happy Day

Hiller scrutinized the label, bristling with umlauts, graves and serifs, and failed, again, to discern their meaning. Each morning followed this same progression: Hiller would pour out the contents of the “Happy Day” box into a glass and linger over the incomprehensible labeling before crumpling up the container and throwing it onto the summit of recyclables that was mounting in the corner of the kitchen. Buttressed by the refrigerator on one side and a kitchen cabinet on the other, the burgeoning mass of land-fill-to-be was spilling out, onto the kitchen floor. As part of a winter doldrums, Seasonal-Affective-Disorder prevention promotion, the “Happy Day” boxes were festooned with rubberized labels that could be peeled away to reveal promised loot, mostly home-based audio-visual equipment, but sometimes deliverance from the enveloping grayness of exhaustion and dissipation of winter in Zombograd. Deflated and flattened, a home theatre system, a moped, an all-inclusive trip to Goa and a three week, intensive program of Zomborian lessons laid beneath the un-peeled labels, unclaimed and awaiting recycling. Hiller returned to his inescapable daily miasma.

Byzantium

An odd thing occurred to me while writing this entry, that four out of the five continents start with the letter A: Africa, the Americas, Antarctica and Australia. Some would argue that the Americas should be considered as two continents. Perhaps, Europe and Asia should also be considered one continent, Eurasia, but then Australia becomes so small by comparison that perhaps it should not be considered a continent at all. It's further of interest that Europe gets first billing in the Eurasian super-continental moniker, given that Europe is the size of the combined four western Canadian provinces. For interests of illuminating my story, I'll stick with my original classifications.

Last summer, I happened to be in Midland, Ontario, simultaneous with the unveiling of the new icon (see above), commissioned by the Archdiocese of Toronto for the Holy Year (2008) of the Apostle Paul. The Shrine of the Martyrs, where the icon was unveiled to the public for the first time (conveniently the same day I poked my prodigal nose through the apse) and commemorates the establishment of the Jesuit Mission in North America. You really ought to watch the joint Canadian/Australian production "Black Robe". I'm sure it's available at your local, urban, Canadian or Australian public library. Blessed are the librarians. After consulting with the presiding Jesuit, I snapped a few shots of Saul of Tarsus, a.k.a. Paul the Apostle. I'm pretty sure I was the first of the laity to snap the photo. I had been aware of icons prior to Midland, specifically the famed example in the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, perhaps the most famous rendering of Jesus from antiquity and I'd been interested in the Jesuits since a newly acquainted Evangelical priest shook my hand for the first time, handed me a book by a Jesuit liberation-theologian who worked with the homeless in Portland and proclaimed; "You really need to read this book". Jesus, what a long time ago. How did he know? So, quickly: the Jesuits are the scholars of God, meaning the God of the Catholic Church (not to be confused with a/the "catholic God" or "universal God". Yes, I meant to type a small "c"). I actually gave the vocation some serious thought for a few days, as recently as Jan. 2008, but given my anti-papist leanings (I'm a tacitly adherent and tortured Lutheran), I decided against it. Celibacy is over-rated.

On Wednesday, I'll be traveling to Istanbul with the Varsity Boys Basketball team (an artifact of American High School jingoism). It seemed like a pretense for heading east, almost into Asia. In fact, so I am told, you can take public transit from the European side of Istanbul, across the Bosporus, into the Asian side of Istanbul. I suppose bagging a continent should be a little more arduous, but I'll chalk Asia with this trip. Growing up in Vancouver, you get a pretty thorough exposure to Asian culture. In April, I'll be driving to Morocco, which will leave only the last two, and perhaps most challenging, of the A's: Australia and Antarctica. There are no international schools in Antarctica, but cruise ships do call there. I'm not sure I'll take any pictures when I'm viewing the Hagia Sophia, as so many exist already. I suspect the Hagia Sophia needs to be felt, in the sense that you need to be present to grasp its full magnitude. I think space can be of great importance and as significant as the icon of Jesus is to culture, an argument could be made for the building itself ranking of equal importance. I think these places need to be felt as much as seen. Never was this more evident to me than Boxing Day of 2007, when I sat, solitary, on top of Temple V at the Mayan ruin of Tikal. Tucan flew, mist was exhaled by the jungle into the morning sun. I was overcome by the need for everyone to sit, solitary, in the place that I found myself and feel life outside of time unfold.

I have to pack now, but I wanted to share one final thought. Find an image of the The Deësis mosaic of the Hagia Sophia on the internet; it's probably the most photographed image of The Christ, certainly within the Eastern Orthodox tradition. I'm not a photographer and, frankly, I think it profane for me to snap a shot of a 1500 years image of Jesus. I knew this opportunity was going to come up eventually and I've been thinking about what I can share of the experience with you and it's not a photo. I will simply be present in one of the architectural wonders of the world, one of the great religious icons of our Judeo-Christo-Islamo age and try to relate the feeling of being present to you.

While I'm away, go check this out:

http://www.blackvelvetjesus.blogspot.com/

I shall rise again

I will be back ... and soon.  I now have a new MacBook so I can work form home again, at last!  It has been almost two months without a computer.  The little G3 iBook that could, it would seem, can't.

Happy 2009 to everyone.  Please, let's all try to fly less, drive less and love strangers more in this year.

Ken