John.

That is quite an unnecessarily combative way of putting it.

And not relevant to the debate.

Thanks Mort, I've already taken back that statement about 'broad acceptance' as I accept it was being to general.

We're talking about snobbery and I'm just talking about the example of where someone can't appreciate or understand some music and is dismissed or regarded as having 'a problem' with his brain; as I say it was a year or so ago and I think there was a thread here and a thread at R3MB, the latter was of course a bit more boisterous  

John W

Ok, I'll stop talking about musical snobs.

Thanks for the PMs folks 

One problem with the word 'snob' is that the accompanying term 'inverted snob' suggests that snobbery only operates in one direction.

Jazz snobs, anyone? 

(Present board members excepted, of course.)

Ted, I'm not sure what you mean by "political snobbery" but I'll try to answer. I think there's a difference between music which adds creatively to its tradition and music which is "parasitic" on its tradition, which uses familiar expressive vocabulary from the past seemingly to cover up a lack of authentic expressivity of its own. This issue is one which the composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann struggled with, in a quite audible way, in much of his work, dramatising it by embedding quotations from all over the "classical canon" (and jazz too) in his own music, which in some cases seems reduced to empty gestures or even submerged. Holloway, on the other hand, seems to me to be content with second-hand expressivity, not even perhaps seeing it for what it is, and for this reason I find his music impoverished. What I've heard of Goehr, on the other hand, I just find turgid and self-absorbed. Even so, I certainly wouldn't assert that these composers "shouldn't" write what they do, or that the BBC (whose priorities I can hardly claim to share!) "shouldn't" commission them. Diversity is more important than individual tastes.

As for politics, I suppose it's well enough known that Holloway is a person of conservative leanings while Goehr isn't. While one could detect traces of this conservatism in the way Holloway's music relates to its tradition, I don't think it's in principle possible to extrapolate a composer's politics from their music (or vice versa), and, even if it were, I don't see why that should be a cue for approval or disapproval. It might just be a reason, as for many people including myself in the case of Wagner, for one's relation to the music to be complex and even contradictory, and subject to constant reexamination - not that I'm saying that having this kind of relationship to Wagner "earns" one the "right" to appreciate his music. All this talk of "snobbery" reminds me of a passage in Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus, where the music teacher Wendell Kretzschmar (whose character is I believe loosely based on Theodor Adorno) claims that he is qualified to appreciate the light music of Johann Strauss on account of his deep understanding of the complex and profound music of Beethoven, and those who don't have the latter can't really appreciate the former. That's snobbery in both right-way-up and inverted versions at once!

I rember the term "rockist" from about 79/80 

-Ian Penman of the NME maybe? Not sure!

There were even badges made "Race against Rockism" not too serious though.

 I kind of sympathised though I have listened to quite a bit of rock in my time, it was the idea that album /guitar music is innately superior (because it displays individual instrumental skills? references more profound subjects in the lyrics? - BUT are these what popular music are for?)  that seemed to be around in the 70s that caused the reaction. There are many three chord rock boogies that go on for 30 minutes and lack any compensating subtleties, after all, and some "three minute pop" can be reasonably harmonically sophistcated ie. some Philly Soul that is otherwise easy on the ear.



 I'm not sure what a jazz snob is. It could be someone who only rates jazz, or someone who hates the ways it's "sold". I have some sympathy with the latter, but Jazz is a broad church that includes more popular musics, it's not the popluarity that offends, it's niche marketing that references social status. The really popular stuff like Kenny g isn't really jazz, but it's not threat to real jazz either, the middle brow "sophisticated"  post-jazz is more of a bone of contention, sold squarely at a urban professional audience rather than "the masses". There's also the whole Marsalis/Crouch "jazz canon" thing, it could have been a good if run parralell with new jazz but it's attracted the corporate dollar and scared a lot of arts community off of more innovative music. Too much idealogical baggage by far. There is some widening of the JALC remit into "free"  jazz musicians, but they were around 40 + years ago

 I think jazz should be a pyramid rather than rival mass and fine-art camps, there's only one winner there. It used to be that way, many modern jazzers played R&B and "functional" music alongside their academic studies and before the modern era many bands were art AND functional. If the corporate money is only going to one strand we are worse off than when a load of Jimmy Smith albums subsidised a Cecil Taylor. I like both.