Amcult 208 1st Edition Lecture 13Outline of Last Lecture I. Bop JazzOutline of Current Lecture II. NonconformityIII. Redemption and America IV. Golden Age of Hip Part 2.Current LectureNonconformity: to be a non-conformist, you have to assume that there is a norm that you’re supposed to conform to…… and in the 1940s and 50s there were plentyAmerican life in the 40s was all about the “norm”, trying to find normalcy after the warLeland presumes that during the war years, and right after, the idea of nonconformity still had great links to the world of Emerson and Thoreau- Normal comes from a very relaxed attitude, cant force normalEmerson prescribed the idea that “creative individualism is needed to fight against the mediocrityof the masses”- Idea that to be great is to be misunderstoodThis is really what the bop musicians sought- Wanted jazz to be art not entertainment - They didn’t care whether club owners liked what they played- Did care whether people bought their records- Ridiculed other musicians who couldn’t play bopBut if you take this stance there’s a great price to pay: the relinquishing of privilegeThe word “bepop” came from jazz musician’s vocalizing or singing instrumental lines with nonsense syllables (scat singing)- Dizzy Gillespie was the first to actually use the term as part of the title of a tune he recorded in 1945- They said that they didn’t care what the public thoughto The public did not love the bop musicianso Bop music was not something you listened to at dinner, you had to go and sit These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.down and really listen to it. It was like listening to Bethoven.- The music wasn’t easy, the literature wasn’t easy, and they didn’t do anything about itRelinquishing as Reclamation- America loves the idea of redemption- 27 club: Kurt Cobain, Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin- An important American idea is the ability to redeem someone One of the most important ideas that we haven’t really touched upon is that this rejection of mainstream society, this relinquishing og its privileges, can also be seen as a reclamation of privilegeIn this way, nonconformity was seen as a survival response to the collective disenfranchisement that the group felt.-Exploit the outsider feeling and become a true outsiderBoth the image of the Beat poet and the Bop musician became stereotypes almost immediately-Stereotypes: an attempt to display control over a group, simplifying them, reducing them to something you can easily dismiss-By the mid-50s hip style, the bop goatee and beret, horn-rimmed glasses; the beat casual style, were being emulated by many wannabes… but there were important differences:Even though Miles Davis is given credit for inventing “cool jazz”, but many first group of cool musicians were white- This influx of white artists created the age old resentment and as Miles Davis saw it: “it wasthe same old story, black shit being ripped off all over again”Let’s take a look at the functions of hip and cool:- To Thoreau it was about dropping out of society- To Emerson it was about NOT being a success in the traditional sense- To Beat writers it was about telling the truth (however you define that)- To Bop musicians it was about being original, even if it didn’t sellThe Golden Age of Hip Part 2Kerouac was Charlie Parker: the alpha of the group, soloist, fuckup and ingrateGinsberg was Dizzy Gillespie: Both set styles that transcended their art and would be picked up by the masses as being indicative of what it was to be in their worldBurroughs as Monk: There’s the idea of the difference between “hip” and “hip trendiness” being differentiated by several things:- Speed and transience, ability to morpho Speed protects behavior or ideas from the public eyeo Keeps critics a step behindo Hip, in this sense, becomes not “correctness”The Reinvention of Now- What we’re talking about is a perpetual “living in the present”o One doesn’t live in the past, nor look forward to the future- Transcendentalist: finding grace in the imperfections of the past, paradox or paradoxeso Characteristic of hip: being comfortable with the paradox and ambiguity- Everyday is today and you can screw up and not beat yourself up about