The recent spate of band reunions has yielded reams of praise and censure. Everyone has their own opinion on how X band is picking up right where they left off after a 30-year break, or why band Y never should have reformed in the first place. The inescapable fact, though, is that the current rock scene is flooded with reprisal
So is the jazz world, of course, but that's nothing new. Everybody knows that in any major city around the world, you can go hear note-perfect re-creations of several bygone eras any night of the week. But take a look at the current New York scene and you'll find some compelling challenges to this backward-looking paradigm.
WKCR, a radio station based at Columbia University, has recently finished a marathon broadcast dedicated to the music of Sam Rivers, an 83-year-old luminary of the jazz avant-garde. It was a joy to tune in throughout the week to old favorites and rarities alike, but what made the endeavor truly special was last Friday's grand finale, a live performance by Rivers on the Columbia campus.
Since the week had been spent surveying the past, and since Rivers's bandmates were bassist Dave Holland and drummer Barry Altschul, two musicians he hadn't worked with for decades, one might have reasonably expected some sort of revue, maybe something along the lines of "Sam Rivers: This is your life!"
What Rivers & Co. delivered instead was something totally new: two hour-long sets of improvised music that traversed countless moods and textures. Sure there were patches where the trio alluded to its extensive collective history, but overall the concert was an affirmation of these three musicians as contemporary artists.
Likewise in a few weeks, the annual Vision Festival -- a series of concerts featuring an international assortment of avant-jazz torchbearers -- will honor Rivers's fellow octogenarian Bill Dixon with a Lifetime Achievement presentation. No doubt there will be a few standing ovations and photo ops, but more importantly Dixon and his orchestra are offering a world-premiere work.
Such freshness might be easier to achieve in jazz than in rock, since the former style puts the spotlight on creating in the moment. But the artists aren't the only ones with the power to combat oppressive nostalgia; the real crusaders are the audiences who come out to support the current activities of legends such as Rivers and Dixon, and institutions like WKCR and the Vision Festival, who celebrate artists not just as historical icons but as still-vital creative forces.
Think of it this way: Rivers, Holland and Altschul were received rapturously. But how would the crowd at Giants Stadium react if the reunited Police took the stage this August and played a set of all-new material?
Like everyone else, I've indulged in my fair share of nostalgia. I was as thrilled as anyone to be able to see Slint take the stage in March of '05, having never gotten the chance to hear them live during their initial lifespan; and I've stood front and center, screaming along to every word, at tons of other reunion shows, by everyone from the D.C. indie-rock quartet Hoover to the Florida death-metal band Morbid Angel.
But there was a whiff of ceremony, of predictability at those shows that even the furious energy of live performance couldn't dispel. We as audiences ought to do everything in our power to follow the example set by WKCR and the Vision Festival and encourage artists to explore their present selves. Dwelling on the past, even for one concert, can quickly turn our living kings into dried-out mummies.