Matt on Gordon's Village Vanguard
March 05, 2018, by Matt
I found this week’s reading, five chapters from Max Gordon’s Live at the Village Vanguard, to be very entertaining and illuminating. I must admit that I am not the biggest jazz fan and have never known much about its history; I was even surprised to learn that it remained popular throughout the 1950s, as I thought it was mostly a pre-war phenomenon. Obviously I was wrong, and I found Gordon’s account of the Village Vanguard to be compelling.
What I found to be so compelling about Gordon’s history of the Village Vanguard was the fact that it included personal narratives and intimate looks into the personas that drove not only the club, but New York’s entire jazz scene. Before reading these chapters, I honestly found jazz to be a little boring. I must admit that I am still not a huge fan of the music, but I appreciated reading about the players that made the jazz scene of Gordon’s day dramatic and unpredictable. I had never really considered that jazz musicians of the past were huge stars with big, bold personalities, and learning this through Gordon actually made me more interested in the genre.
I actually drew some comparisons between the characters discussed in these chapters and modern pop stars. Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis were both eccentric and, in my opinion, demanding and egotistical jazz stars who thought they were larger than life. I found Sonny Rollins to be a funny character. Based on Gordon’s description, Rollins was a peculiar but self-involved jazz superstar who could draw huge crowds. I found Gordon’s descriptions of Rollins to be interesting, particularly the story when Rollins left the show halfway through a set, as he seemed kind of like a modern-day diva or Hollywood popstar. I always figured that jazz was a tame genre with simple players, but I guess this was not the case. Rollins kind of reminded me of a modern-day Kanye or Mariah Carey, as he was regarded as a genius in his field, but also was unpredictable, unreliable, and seemed somewhat crazy.
Miles Davis seemed just as melodramatic and aggravating, but in a different way. I found it interesting that he was not self-involved in the fact that he was not a showy stage figure, but that he was extremely egotistical in how he regarded himself. He was obviously insecure in his celebrity status, as he took huge offense when he was told his was not on the same level as Frank Sinatra. When reading about these stars, the word “diva” kept popping into my head.
These chapters revealed to me that jazz, as a genre, was much more personality-driven than I had previously thought. I had always assumed that jazz was one of the purest musical forms, in the fact that its fans truly appreciated the music for what it was rather than who was playing it. Today, music is especially driven by personality and celebrity, and Gordon’s writing made me realize that maybe it’s always been this way. When Dannie wanted to take over Charlie Mingus’ band, Gordon was skeptical and wasn’t sure if he wanted them to play at the Village Vanguard. He said that he certainly wouldn’t pay them nearly as much, even though the music they would play would be the exact same, if not better, than when Charlie was alive. Gordon explained that fans didn’t come to just listen to the music, but to see Charlie’s personality on stage.
Although not nearly as bad, jazz in Gordon’s time was personality and celebrity-driven in the way that the Hollywood music industry is today. Jazz fans weren’t just interested in music, but also in image.