Das muss man sich ja nun mal bildlich vorstellen: der junge Spund Robert Zimmerman (geb. 1941) im Aufbruch zu neuen Ufern trifft im Manhattan der frühen 60er Jahre eines Nachmittags Thelonius Monk (geb.1917).
“I’d listen to a lot of jazz and bebop records, too … I tried to discern melodies and structures. There were a lot of similarities between some kinds of jazz and folk music … “Ruby My Dear” by Monk was another one. “Monk played at the Blue Note on 3rd Street with John Ore on bass and the drummer Frankie Dunlop. Sometimes he’d be in there in the afternoon sitting at the piano all alone playing stuff that sounded like Ivory Joe Hunter – a big half-eaten sandwich left on the top of his piano. I dropped in there once in the afternoon, just to listen-told him that I played folk music up the street. “We all play folk music,” he said. Monk was in his own dynamic universe even when he dawdled around. Even then, he summoned magic shadows into being.” (Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Vol. One, p. 94-95)
“Has any of it inspired me as a songwriter? Yeah, “Ruby, My Dear” by Monk. That song set me off in some direction to do something along those lines. I remember listening to that over and over.” (Bob Dylan in an interview with Irish Times, June 16, 2020)
Mehr zum fortwährenden Prozess der Wechselwirkungen zwischen Folk Musik und Jazz in meinem Essay für den Digital Guide von Jazzfest Berlin 2022.
A Dynamic Process of Continual Interactions
Here’s my essay for the Digital Guide of Jazzfest Berlin 2022 “On traces, techniques and tensions in the encounter of jazz and folk”
„The term ‚folk music‘ awakens numerous associations, images and emotions that are both appreciative and less appreciative in nature. In any event, folk traditions that have been formed in regional and local cultures over long periods are the origin and basis of all forms of music, ranging from sacred to classical (from Bach to Bartók and Berio) and from jazz to pop and rock – whether they have been used consciously or their effects have been absorbed subconsciously. They can be recognised more or less directly or made recognisable with the help of studio technology. Even what we call jazz, while evolving into an urban music practice, has deep inherent links with various folk traditions.
Folkloric influences in music are not to be underestimated and keep on resurfacing in contemporary music. The absorption and adaptation of folk traditions take place in a dynamic process of continual interactions, transformations, transmutations and impulses in which the effects of both internal music and external musical forces are manifest. They operate within a vital force field filled with thefts, distortions, trickster-like resistance, identificatory anchor points, escapism and reassuring references.“
Weiter HIER
Dazu Kurz-Interviews/Statements:
Deborah Walker/Silvia Tarozi, Olga Koziel/Sebastien Belieh, Mat Maneri, Lucian Ban, Levon Eskenian, Alexander Hawkins, Kateryna Ziabliuk