[TPIN] Maynard and the creative process

[Joe Auty]

Hello,

I've been lurking here for a while now, but some of the old timers  
here probably remember me or know of me. I've spent some time over  
the last several years channeling my energies towards different areas  
of my life other than music performance, some of which have helped to  
offer me a new perspective with you like I'd to share...

The creative process is very interesting to me. I find it fascinating  
that no matter whether you are pursuing excellence in art, designing  
innovative new products at a place like Google or Apple, or solving  
some sort of engineering or mathematical problem in a creative way,  
there are many parallels.

I find it interesting how many of these don't often seem to be  
discussed in the realm of music making. I've always been one of those  
people with a lot of wild and creative energy, I've never really had  
to be told how to be creative, it came naturally to me. My real  
struggle was/is just in getting it out of me in a coherent way (esp.  
on an instrument with several physical demands). I suppose that the  
creative process isn't really discussed in jazz improvisation because  
most who are really good at improvising probably are like me - the  
creative process comes pretty intuitively and naturally. But what of  
the many musicians who do not feel confident in their own creativity,  
and are told over and over again by teachers to "play expressively",  
or "play with some feeling"? I don't envy the task of being a  
classical trumpet player and having to battle the idea of balancing  
creativity with technical virtuosity. How can somebody be *told* how  
to be creative? I've found that people outside of music tackle this  
problem in a different way, think of it and perceive it differently.  
I could elaborate on this and bore some with my writing, but I'm  
becoming a long-winded here, so I'll move on to the main event... =)

Maynard. The interesting thing about him to me is how you can learn a  
lot about the creative process by looking at his career. Maynard's  
career was all out in the open, I don't think there were very many  
long periods where he was out of the public eye and out of the ears  
of his critics in his 60 years of performing. For the purpose of  
complete sincerity, let's just tell it like it is: there were periods  
of his career that were abundant in creativity and great music  
making, and there were periods in his career that just.... well...  
sucked. That's cool though! All human beings have peaks and valleys  
in their pursuits, I don't think Maynard himself would have said that  
his Rocky II Disco years were are strong as some of his other years.  
This is all part of the process of being an artist though, so I do  
not intend for this to come across as harsh criticism...

I will no longer publicly criticize somebody's entire body of work as  
a sort of armchair critic, because in doing so many people tend to  
look like complete thoughtless jackasses, in my opinion. However, I  
don't think it's necessary to be overly politically correct by over- 
inflating a piece of work in an insincere way, which is why I'm  
generally not interested in participating in "worshipping" a musician  
like I've seen some musicians do - it just seems almost harmful to  
think of artists as Gods, they have their weaknesses just like  
anybody else.

My point is this: Maynard had many great years/nights/musical  
projects, and some bad ones. He really put himself out there though  
for the world to see. It is not easy to persevere through the rough  
times, and it is not easy to constantly find new ways to be creative,  
or to at least be interested in continuing to explore and find new  
sources of motivation and inspiration.

Maynard will probably never be addressed in the same sentence by jazz  
historians or fans as Miles, Louis Armstrong, Coltrane, Parker, etc.,  
but he focussed his career on a particular specialization, and  
obviously did it remarkably well. However, he didn't have to reinvent  
the music to find success in what he pursued. I feel that it is  
possible to have a valid and well-appreciated contribution without it  
being indisputably creative. In fact, I'd say the vast majority of  
just about any creative work is some sort of refinement or variation  
on something preceding it.

This isn't to say that I think that Maynard did not innovate at all.  
I actually think that recordings like Cheshire Cat Walk, Chala Nata,  
Got the Spirit (the recording with the vocalized perfect cadence at  
the end of the track) were very creative in a more impressionistic  
sort of way (the writing, and Maynard's playing on these recordings).  
Throughout a good part his career, he seemed content (like so many  
other jazz musicians) to kind of pull from the winning formula of  
traditional bebop playing (extremely high energy, in his case), but  
there were times like this where he went outside his comfortable  
bubble, and there were times where he both succeeded and failed in  
doing so.

In short, Maynard wasn't a God, he wasn't perfect, but he was the  
epitome of an artist in a constant state of search and exploration,  
having both hot and cold spells (like all artists do) in a very open  
and public way. I feel that we can all learn from looking at a life  
like this, even if his work doesn't really resonate with us.

This is coming from a former diehard fan that now no longer feels any  
urge to put on any of his records, but I think that's cool too.




-----------
Joe Auty
NetMusician: web publishing software for musicians
http://www.netmusician.org
joe at netmusician.org