{"id":174,"date":"2021-03-30T18:46:07","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T18:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/?page_id=174"},"modified":"2022-01-27T15:39:54","modified_gmt":"2022-01-27T15:39:54","slug":"interlude-on-authenticity","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/interlude-on-authenticity\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERLUDE: On Authenticity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"764\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Contemporary-Previn-ad-1959-764x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-175\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Contemporary-Previn-ad-1959-764x1024.jpg 764w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Contemporary-Previn-ad-1959-224x300.jpg 224w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Contemporary-Previn-ad-1959-768x1030.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Contemporary-Previn-ad-1959.jpg 1139w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 764px) 85vw, 764px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By 1962, Previn, even as he&nbsp;was&nbsp;beginning his pursuit of a classical-music career, was,&nbsp;at least to the public,&nbsp;a major figure in jazz.&nbsp;There were plenty of external markers for this prominence, some more meaningful than others\u2014that Previn had won two Grammys in a row for his jazz performances (on his Harold Arlen solo and&nbsp;<em>West Side Story<\/em>&nbsp;albums), is, like all Grammys, vague data\u2014but my favorite might be the reviews of his 1961 Columbia Masterworks recording of music by Paul Hindemith, Samuel Barber, and Frank Martin. \u201cJazz man gone serious\u201d was William Flanagan\u2019s capsule review in&nbsp;<em>Hi-Fi\/Stereo&nbsp;<\/em>magazine, and Edward Tatnall Canby, in&nbsp;<em>Audio&nbsp;<\/em>magazine, thought that \u201cThe most striking thing about this somewhat erudite disc of modern piano music is that its performer, Andr\u00e9 Previn, is a jazzman\u201d.&nbsp;Jazz was a prominent dimension of Previn\u2019s celebrity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(In the wake of \u201cLike Young,\u201d Previn had even attained that traditional bounty of piano-stylist fame, a sheet music folio. The two volumes of<strong> <\/strong><em><strong>Play Like Andr\u00e9 Previn<\/strong><\/em> issued by Wise Publishing in 1960 and 1961 featured short, often technically-challenging Previn arrangements of standards and familiar Previn originals. Play like Andr\u00e9 Previn, huh?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video aligncenter contain-video\"><video height=\"720\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 840 \/ 720;\" width=\"840\" controls src=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Play-Like-Andre-Previn-Should-I.mov\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Like they say: close enough for jazz.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was the public, though.&nbsp;While Previn had started out garnering generally respectable reviews for his earlier efforts, the wheel began to turn around the time of the Previn-Vinnegar-Manne<em>&nbsp;My Fair Lady<\/em>&nbsp;album, and, before long, jazz critics&nbsp;were, by and large,&nbsp;belittling&nbsp;Previn, complaining that he was a facile technician with no real soul. Ralph J. Gleason admitted&nbsp;that Previn \u201chas technical equipment as a pianist that makes him the envy of all his contemporaries,\u201d&nbsp;but&nbsp;insisted that he \u201chas struggled with the aesthetic requirements of jazz playing for almost a decade.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote blockquotecustom is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>He has progressed from a mere imitator of Art Tatum without any of the solid jazz roots, to a very practiced exponent of the modern jazz idiom. It is all here; all, that is, except the total artistic commitment that marks the true jazz artist.&nbsp;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Nat Hentoff was&nbsp;skeptical&nbsp;about the&nbsp;<em>West Side Story<\/em>&nbsp;album. \u201cPrevin, a man of many skills, is not an original jazzman,\u201d Hentoff wrote. \u201cHis technique is first-rate but his ideas are eclectic and his beat is brittle.\u201d&nbsp;Henry A. Woodfin, Jr.\u2019s review of&nbsp;<em>King Size!&nbsp;<\/em>is worth quoting at length, as it&nbsp;rather neatly summarizes&nbsp;Previn\u2019s place in the contemporary critical pantheon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote blockquotecustom is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>The public success of&nbsp;<strong>ANDRE PREVIN<\/strong>&nbsp;is one of those phenomena which one is sometimes forced to acknowledge because of their persistence. From what little I have been able to glean of Previn&#8217;s musical scope as a jazzman, his imagination rarely rises above the commonplace\u2014or the genteelly vulgar. As a jazz pianist he lacks taste, feeling and ideas, but he makes up for it by copying the styles of Horace Silver and Red Garland rather freely. On&nbsp;<strong>\u201cKing Size\u201d<\/strong>&nbsp;(Contemporary M 3570) I was unable to find a track that might merit more than a horrified awe at what technical facility and lack of sensibility can do.&nbsp;<strong>\u201c<\/strong>Much Too Late<strong>\u201d<\/strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>\u201cLow and Inside\u201d<\/strong>&nbsp;are travesties on the blues, and they deserve disdain when one thinks of the essential nobility of the blues piano tradition. The other tracks are just as tinklingly banal. However, on nearly every number Red Mitchell shows what jazz is and how it should be played.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s all there: Previn\u2019s popularity&nbsp;is suspicious, his abilities are&nbsp;mere imitation,&nbsp;his relation to the blues is shallow and synthetic, his collaborators vastly outclassed him.&nbsp;(At least Woodfin backs me up re: Red Garland.)&nbsp;It\u2019s easy enough, in context, to be wary of these judgements\u2014Hentoff was lukewarm about&nbsp;<em>West Side Story<\/em>, he admitted, because he didn\u2019t think much of Bernstein\u2019s score, and Woodfin had&nbsp;thought&nbsp;that&nbsp;John Coltrane\u2019s solo on \u201cGiant Steps\u201d was marked by \u201crhythmic stiffness and melodic sameness.\u201d&nbsp;But the critical consensus that Previn was&nbsp;not a \u201cjazzman,\u201d not a \u201ctrue jazz artist\u201d\u2014that he was<em>&nbsp;inauthentic<\/em>\u2014only grew stronger once Previn started making piano-and-orchestra albums. Peter J. Welding, a&nbsp;<em>Hi-Fi\/Stereo Review&nbsp;<\/em>writer who would go on to be a&nbsp;<em>Downbeat<\/em>&nbsp;editor and a record producer specializing in blues,&nbsp;rolled his eyes at&nbsp;<em>Thinking of You:<\/em>&nbsp;Previn \u201cspins out his glib, mannered solos against a bank of petulant, whining strings, playing it safe all the way and never showing the faintest glimmer of originality.\u201d&nbsp;Welding managed to twice excoriate&nbsp;<em>The Previn Scene<\/em>&nbsp;(an MGM compilation album, heavy on Previn\u2019s collaborations with David Rose), writing in the August 1961 issue that \u201cPrevin&nbsp;plods along stolidly in his best simulacrum of Horace Silver or in his own floridly rhetorical manner,\u201d then&nbsp;somehow&nbsp;reviewing the album again in the September 1961 issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote blockquotecustom is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Previn&#8217;s pre-eminence as the foremost purveyor of schmaltzy pop-jazz is based on the fact that what he offers is a concoction that&#8217;s easy for the listener who is not a jazz fan to swallow\u2026. The music here fulfills these terms admirably, with Previn spinning out vapid insipidities against the lush, whimpering strings of the David Rose Orchestra.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Welding\u2019s animus was such that he even found space in a review of Ella Fitzgerald\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Get Happy!<\/em>&nbsp;to take a swipe at Previn, writing that Fitzgerald \u201ceven manages, for example, to infuse Andre Previn&#8217;s treacly&nbsp;<em>Like Young<\/em>&nbsp;with a semblance of life\u2014no mean feat, to be sure.\u201d&nbsp;(There are many pejorative words that a critic might plausibly apply to \u201cLike Young,\u201d but&nbsp;<em>treacly<\/em>&nbsp;is not, to my ear, one of them.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s a very good&nbsp;(and, in many ways, beneficial)&nbsp;reason for this sudden censure, and that\u2019s the professionalization of jazz criticism. What used to be the province of sincere but amateur enthusiasts&nbsp;had been taken over&nbsp;by&nbsp;full-time&nbsp;writers, many&nbsp;emulating the New Criticism in literary studies. The&nbsp;lantern in the church of this new jazz criticism was the 1958 founding, by Martin Williams and Nat Hentoff, of&nbsp;<em>The Jazz Review,<\/em>&nbsp;a decidedly serious, intellectual, in-depth magazine. In simple terms, the original goals of the New Criticism were twofold: to approach texts in and of themselves, without the distortion of the&nbsp;societal conditions&nbsp;that surrounded their creation, and to use that analysis to establish a canon against which any new work should be judged. Applied to jazz, the two aims were often in tension\u2014how could you establish a jazz canon, a catalog of what really&nbsp;<em>mattered<\/em>&nbsp;in jazz, without reference to where the music came from and who first made it? The first goal might have been benign toward someone like Previn; the second goal most definitely was not.&nbsp;Williams laid out his idea of the canon most explicitly in his 1970 book&nbsp;<em>The Jazz Tradition<\/em>, which established the lineage of an art form originated by black musicians in New Orleans, then spread via the Great Migration to Kansas City, Harlem, Chicago, and from there to the rest of the world\u2014King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton to Louis Armstrong to Duke Ellington to Charlie Parker. In the original edition, Previn received but a single mention,&nbsp;as a \u201cborderline jazzman\u201d&nbsp;who played&nbsp;a \u201cglib, virtuosic\u201d imitation of Horace Silver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s hard to tell what Previn made of all this.&nbsp;In his memoir, there are a few witty cracks of a&nbsp;kind to&nbsp;indicate that Previn regarded (or wanted the reader to think he regarded) critics as passing irritants and necessary evils.&nbsp;One might consider some recordings a sign that he took critical brickbats more personally:&nbsp;<em>King Size!<\/em>&nbsp;showing that Previn could work outside the Broadway-show album format,&nbsp;<em>Like Previn!<\/em>&nbsp;proof of his abilities as a jazz composer,&nbsp;<em>4 to Go!<\/em>&nbsp;a demonstration that, whatever the critics might say, the \u201creal\u201d jazz musicians with whom they kept comparing Previn were his peers.&nbsp;(Maybe all the insistent exclamation points&nbsp;were&nbsp;intentional.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s interesting to see this critical tack unfold against the one constant in Previn\u2019s image: his versatility.&nbsp;In 1962, Previn was one of<em>&nbsp;Life<\/em>&nbsp;magazine\u2019s \u201cRed-Hot Hundred,\u201d their pick of the leaders of the younger, \u201ctake-over generation\u201d in government, business, academia, and the arts. Alphabetical order put Previn in kindred company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"460\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-Life-Red-Hot-Hundred-9-14-62-1024x460.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-176\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-Life-Red-Hot-Hundred-9-14-62-1024x460.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-Life-Red-Hot-Hundred-9-14-62-300x135.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-Life-Red-Hot-Hundred-9-14-62-768x345.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-Life-Red-Hot-Hundred-9-14-62-1536x690.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-Life-Red-Hot-Hundred-9-14-62-1200x539.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-Life-Red-Hot-Hundred-9-14-62.jpg 1674w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>He excels at both jazz and the classics.&nbsp;<\/em>From the start, it was part of his brand. Even on Sinatra\u2019s radio show back in 1946, the host made sure to mention that Previn had just finished working on this movie or that at MGM. A 1951 re-release of <em>Previn at the Piano<\/em>, his first album for RCA Victor, added liner notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote blockquotecustom is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Every so often you will meet a person who claims to like all kinds of music; every once in a while a jazz musician will admit to some familiarity with the classics\u2014he may even have played them at one time. But rarely is there a musician who is at home with Chopin as he is with Ellington. Such a musician is Andr\u00e9 Previn.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>A short profile in the December 1958 issue of\u00a0<em>Playboy<\/em>\u00a0let Previn himself make the sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote blockquotecustom is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>If it weren\u2019t for the perennial bugaboo, Making a Living, Previn would probably\u00a0give up his film career and\u00a0concentrate solely on conducting and composing. Jazz or classical? \u201cBoth,\u201d he insists. \u201cOutside of technical and interpretive differences, there isn\u2019t much of a boundary between them. To me, there are only two kinds of music, good and bad. And there is so much bad music around these days, good music can use all the help it can get.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Even as the critical winds shifted, the frame remained.&nbsp;In February of 1961, Previn was a guest on Perry Como\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Kraft Music Hall.&nbsp;<\/em>As was customary, the host (after a few bars of \u201cLike Young,\u201d naturally) made much of Previn\u2019s multiple musical careers. And then Previn gave a demonstration, conducting a bit of his score to&nbsp;<em>Elmer Gantry<\/em>&nbsp;and some music from from&nbsp;<em>Gigi<\/em>, then playing&nbsp;a blistering (and a bit perilous)&nbsp;\u201cJust in Time\u201d with Mitchell and Capp, then shifting into piano-and-strings mode with an arrangement of \u201cBess, You Is My Woman Now\u201d that eventually included the Ray Charles Singers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Andr\u00e9 Previn Live 1961\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gFjvfW_c134?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>When, in his 1964 blindfold test,&nbsp;Wynton Kelly&nbsp;cited Previn as one of the pianists he\u2019d get up to go see, he applauded and defended Previn\u2019s range of talents: \u201cI can\u2019t imagine why people put him down\u2014someone who can get up there and conduct a symphony and then turn around and do something else, and do it well. Usually there\u2019s a weaker side to everyone. But whatever he does, he does well.\u201d By that time, though, what Kelly saw as a virtue had become a liability\u2014in part, because the status and image of jazz itself had changed. When Previn started out, there was, maybe, still a lingering sense that jazz was lightweight music, dance music, unlearned music. The liner notes for that&nbsp;<em>Previn at the Piano&nbsp;<\/em>re-release hint at it: you might not think jazz is serious, but this serious musician with serious credentials is playing it, so you should listen to it. By the 60s, jazz was a highbrow art form with a full intellectual and critical apparatus devoted to its history and social significance. In that light, why listen to a dilettante like Previn dip his toe in jazz when you could or should be listening to artists who had spent their whole lives pursuing jazz excellence?&nbsp;Previn had risen to a certain level of fame on his cosmopolitan strengths, only for much of the jazz intelligentsia to reject cosmopolitanism as an inauthentic quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To be sure, Previn always had his defenders\u2014Gene Lees, Leonard Feather. And Previn himself could be a tough critic.&nbsp;In&nbsp;1963,&nbsp;for another<em>&nbsp;Downbeat&nbsp;<\/em>blindfold test,&nbsp;Feather played a track that&nbsp;put Previn off completely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote blockquotecustom is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>I&#8217;ll tell you what, Leonard, from now on I&#8217;ll take any saxophone player&#8217;s word for it that he can play 6,000,000 notes per bar, have the fashionable unbearably ugly sound, play what they call superimposed changes, which in plain English means wrong, and make tracks that are never any shorter than 10 minutes\u2026. I can&#8217;t make head or tail of this. I think it&#8217;s annoying and horrible. No stars.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>This is what Previn couldn\u2019t stand:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"John Coltrane - Dahomey Dance\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CADclq82tlY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A half-century on, it\u2019s safe to say that denouncing John Coltrane is not the smoothest path to jazz credibility. Perhaps Previn was, at least in part, simply engaging in the spirit of the exercise\u2014some of those&nbsp;<em>Downbeat<\/em>&nbsp;blindfold tests could get bracingly snarky\u2014but he wasn\u2019t exaggerating much. At other times, Previn could be more conciliatory, but only a little more. In a 1963&nbsp;<em>Downbeat<\/em>&nbsp;interview, Previn acknowledged that Thelonious Monk was \u201ca&nbsp;<em>marvelous<\/em>&nbsp;composer,\u201d but that Monk\u2019s own unorthodox piano playing had been an obstacle to that appreciation: \u201cAs soon as somebody else plays [Monk\u2019s songs], I\u2019m crazy about them.\u201d In an earlier blindfold test, Previn had derided Ornette Coleman\u2019s innovations as \u201can unmitigated bore\u2026 turning your back on any tradition is anarchy.\u201d (Even decades later, Previn <a href=\"https:\/\/nmbx.newmusicusa.org\/andre-previn-how-lucky-i-am-now\/\">remained unconverted<\/a>: \u201cI personally don\u2019t understand what Ornette Coleman was all about.\u201d) Previn\u2019s conception of jazz, his ideal, combined a classical-like mastery of technique with a knowledge of and connection to the American popular song tradition. Charlie Parker, for all his modernism, played the correct changes; Coltrane, to Previn\u2019s ear, didn\u2019t. But Coltrane\u2019s approach was, by all evidence, where jazz was headed. And Previn didn\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One might think of Previn\u2019s resistance to the newer jazz, his devotion to an older harmonic practice, his continued reliance on his toolbox of riffs and licks, in light of Charles Rosen\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/monoskop.org\/log\/?p=11789\">analysis of Arnold Schoenberg<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote blockquotecustom is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Between Mozart and Schoenberg, what disappeared was the possibility of using large blocks of prefabricated material in music. The meaning of an element of form in Mozart was given essentially by the structure of each work, but the element was sometimes a large cadential formula lasting many measures. Scales and arpeggios were treated as units, as were a whole range of accompaniment figures. The common language in music was, in essence, the acceptance of such very large units at certain strategic points\u2026.<\/p><p>By the end of the nineteenth century, these blocks of prefabricated material were no longer acceptable\u2026. To employ these blocks of material resulted immediately in pastiche: giving them up, however, led to a kind of panic. It seemed as if music now had to be written note by note; only chains of chromatic or whole-tone scales were possible, and these only sparingly. The renunciation of the symmetrical use of blocks of elements in working out musical proportions placed the weight on the smallest units, single intervals, short motifs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The notion of Previn as a jazz Mozart among Schoenbergs (and their advocates) is not exactly right, but not exactly wrong, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But consider again the term that was often applied to Previn as a jazz musician:&nbsp;<em>dilettante<\/em>. In the modern sense of the word, it\u2019s an unfair assessment. Previn was too good and too accomplished to warrant the label. But in its old, original, literal sense, Previn absolutely was a dilettante, in everything he did. He&nbsp;<em>delighted<\/em>&nbsp;in music, in musical styles, in musical ideas, in particular songs and composers and performers and collaborators. (One could even extend the idea to explain his often-messy yet oddly-amicable marriage history; as Heather Sneddon, the fourth of Previn\u2019s five wives, put it: \u201cHe loves being in love.\u201d) If the type of jazz that garnered critical attention couldn\u2019t delight Previn, he would devote his energy to music that did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Previn gave up playing jazz in large part because he could. Had Previn been a jazz artist and a jazz artist only, maybe he would have felt compelled to come to terms with newer innovators, and, if not adopt or absorb their style, then dig deeper into his own to find a path forward. Maybe, like Ellington, he would have been driven to record with Coltrane or Mingus or Max Roach, enriching his own music by putting it in conversation with potent challengers. The comparison with Peterson is relevant\u2014Previn and Peterson were similar players, similarly devoted to a few select collaborators, the targets of similar criticisms, with similar criticisms of their own. (Previn thought Coltrane played the wrong changes; Peterson thought Bud Powell played too many wrong notes.) But Peterson encountered the new jazz in person. He jammed with Coltrane. He recorded with Freddie Hubbard. He played in duet with Herbie Hancock. To be sure, some of those meetings were more successful than others. But it\u2019s hard to imagine Previn doing the same thing. Previn didn\u2019t need jazz the way Peterson did. He had several other musical vocations that he could pursue, at an extraordinarily high level. So he left jazz behind, at least for a good long while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is another factor here, one that surfaces in a more antagonistic defense of Previn\u2019s jazz. \u201cJazz: The Happy Sound is Dying,\u201d by one Jean P. Le Blanc, was published in the April 1962 issue of&nbsp;<em>Esquire<\/em>. (The magazine strongly hinted that the name was a pseudonym; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/books\/edition\/John_Coltrane_and_the_Jazz_Revolution_of\/FzwYAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;bsq=lees%20leblanc\">according to Ralph Gleason<\/a>, the polemic was written by Gene Lees.) The article takes to task those critics promoting Coltrane, Coleman&nbsp;<em>et al.<\/em>, at the expense of the former mainstream\u2014which is to say, artists like Previn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote blockquotecustom is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Previn has all the wrong credentials. He is a European, white (the critics, though not anti-white, have a tendency to be suspicious of non-Negro performers), a former child prodigy, a best-selling record artist, a classical pianist who avoids mixing that part of his work with the rest, a jazz pianist who enjoys playing, a versatile writer who at nineteen was a composer-conductor in the despised Hollywood studios, a producer of popular (ugh!) songs, one of which won an Academy Award nomination, and winner of two Oscars for the movie scores of&nbsp;<em>Gigi<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Porgy and Bess<\/em>. He might have lived down two or three such handicaps, but the&nbsp;<em>tout ensemble<\/em>&nbsp;makes him the&nbsp;<em>persona<\/em>&nbsp;least likely to be&nbsp;<em>grata&nbsp;<\/em>in all of jazz critical history.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Previn would \u201cprevail,\u201d the author argued, \u201csimply because talent is a form of truth.\u201d One can imagine Previn both agreeing with the musical point and being acutely embarrassed at the way the point was being made. The article\u2019s use of a racial prism, in particular, might have made made Previn cringe. Previn habitually played on and organized integrated recording sessions and concerts when that was not yet a given. His jazz idols were mostly black, and his judgements were always expressed as opinions of purely musical merit, regardless of race. In his 1963&nbsp;<em>Downbeat&nbsp;<\/em>interview, Previn made the eyebrow-raising (and, in all kinds of ways, incorrect) assertion that \u201cif there\u2019s going to be a new direction in jazz, it\u2019s going to have to come, I think, from the more intelligent quarter rather than the primitive quarter,\u201d but, setting aside the extremely questionable terminology, his examples indicate that, in Previn\u2019s mind, neither quarter was the exclusive province of either white or black musicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But color-blindness is its own form of blindness. To put it another way: Previn certainly did not stop playing in a trio with Leroy Vinnegar because Vinnegar was black, but one wonders how much Previn understood how Vinnegar might have felt in a group where only the white members got leader status, or how much Previn was cognizant of the way his own status and identity might have been a barrier to that understanding. And to say that Previn left jazz because he could is not just a statement about his skill, and his confidence, and his work ethic. Doors swung open for Previn that remained closed to his black colleagues. Even in the easy-listening realm, Previn had his picture on the cover of his albums; Luther Henderson didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the rest of the decade, Previn would&nbsp;drastically scale back his jazz activities,&nbsp;subsuming his jazz proclivities more and more into pop, then turning away from it almost completely. (But only almost.) Ironically,&nbsp;Previn\u2019s best jazz-related efforts over the next few years will be prompted by collaborations with musicians better&nbsp;known for their work in Previn\u2019s other spheres: film and classical music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/1961-62\/\">\u2190 <em>Previous: 1961-62<\/em><\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/1963-67\/\"><em>Next: 1963-67 <\/em>\u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By 1962, Previn, even as he&nbsp;was&nbsp;beginning his pursuit of a classical-music career, was,&nbsp;at least to the public,&nbsp;a major figure in jazz.&nbsp;There were plenty of external markers for this prominence, some more meaningful than others\u2014that Previn had won two Grammys in a row for his jazz performances (on his Harold Arlen solo and&nbsp;West Side Story&nbsp;albums), is, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/interlude-on-authenticity\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;INTERLUDE: On Authenticity&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-174","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":612,"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/174\/revisions\/612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}