TIme to ditch Lassus Trombone

[PhilTrombone]

From Doug Yeo:

https://thelasttrombone.com/2020/06/28/ ... -trombone/

[Burgerbob]

Interesting.

[mrdeacon]

Wow. I didn't know that.

On one hand... the piece is old enough that its original intention/meaning is almost completely gone from living memory. Does that mean the piece is now alright to perform? There are countless pieces of art, literature, film, and music that fall within this category. Still... Mr.Yeo makes a very cut and dry argument here that is hard to disagree with.

[Burgerbob]

Wow. I didn't know that.

On one hand... the piece is old enough that its original intention/meaning is almost completely gone from living memory. Does that mean the piece is now alright to perform?

IMO, it's already a pretty garbage novelty piece. Now we knows it's a racist, garbage novelty piece. Time to replace it.

[mrdeacon]

Wow. I didn't know that.

On one hand... the piece is old enough that its original intention/meaning is almost completely gone from living memory. Does that mean the piece is now alright to perform?

IMO, it's already a pretty garbage novelty piece. Now we knows it's a racist, garbage novelty piece. Time to replace it.

Totally agree! I won't complain if I never have to play it again. Still felt I needed to mention the point.

[Crazy4Tbone86]

Wow! I really wish I would have known this many years ago. I even performed a couple of those Fillmore pieces last summer. From this point forward, I will consider it my duty to advise against the performance of those pieces at every opportunity. Thanks to Doug Yeo for enlightening us (and PhilTrombone for the post).

[harrisonreed]

I'm not sure about the post script in that article. It's a very interesting article that changes the way I think about that set of pieces, which I already did not think were good pieces of music, but the post script ... at the very least I don't think it adds anything to the article.

[Bach5G]

Cherry Music will no longer carry it. GC will donate proceeds from selling it in the past to a anti-racism charity.

[brassmedic]

I used to play that as my "demo" piece for children's concerts. I was told about its history by a colleague last year, so I no longer use it. There is plenty of other music for us to play.

[BGuttman]

You have to interpret it in light of the period when it was written.

It was the era of Vaudeville. Not far removed from the Minstrel shows of the mid 19th Century.

The original subtitles are certainly not PC by today's standards. In fact, a lot of other music of the period doesn't qualify as PC either. Pryor had a solo called "Coon Band Revue" which has been renamed "In Darkest Africa" because the word Coon was used to refer to an African-American, and not the animal that loves to ramble in garbage cans. How many people know that Darktown refers to a Black ghetto?

Wagner was a notorious anti-Semite. Do we drop all his music as well?

These pieces were not like the Confederate War Memorial statues intended to honor traitors to the US in order to remind Blacks of "their place". They are an attempt to describe a humorous (and fictional) culture.

It's like the folks who want to pull down statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson because they owned slaves. We don't honor them for owning slaves (we accept it as an unfortunate part of their history). We honor them for their contributions to the creation of this nation. Why pull down the Emancipation Proclamation monument because the Slave is kneeling before Lincoln? Incidentally, that monument was paid for by African-Americans. Frederick Douglass spoke at the dedication.

We need to step back and see if something is really deserving of being changed before we go tilting at the windmill.

Incidentally, I feel that Lassus is one of the lesser of the Trombone Rags. It's just the most frequently played

[Burgerbob]

Bruce, go ahead and read the full article. I don't think there's any defending Fillmore or the piece.

[Bach5G]

“Wagner was a notorious anti-Semite. Do we drop all his music as well?“

Lassus Trombone isn’t Parsifal. No one will miss Fillmore’s music.

[mrdeacon]

I'll say that I appreciate the forums for being civil and in agreement about all of this. Some of the posts on facebook about this article are rough!

[BGuttman]

Bruce, go ahead and read the full article. I don't think there's any defending Fillmore or the piece.

This has come up time and again. Doug posted the same sentiments on The Trombone Forum. Sam Burtis has expressed the same feelings.

We have lots of second rate music out there. We play an awful lot of it during outdoor concert band performances. Fillmore's "Rags" are a way to feature the trombone section without making the audience have to endure a piece that bores them to tears. Personally I wouldn't miss "Instant Concert" if I never had to play it again, but audiences seem to like it.

There are a lot of things from before the "woke" generation that seem to insult Blacks. I know Rochester on the Jack Benny show is a stereotype. So are Amos 'n Andy. So are some of the "Blackie" scenes of Showboat. Read Huck Finn. We shouldn't ignore this heritage because someone claims to be an arbiter of taste. Instead we should explain the context and accept them for what they are. And then not be guilty of discrimination ourselves.

Or shall we go on a crusade and ban "Darktown Strutters' Ball" as well? After all, the title is just as offensive as the Fillmore Rags.

[Burgerbob]

I don't see a problem with not doing any of those things anymore.

And I don't think there should be an issue removing awful music that was written by a racist to be racist. Period.

[Bach5G]

“Or shall we go on a crusade and ban "Darktown Strutters' Ball" as well?”

Ok.

[BGuttman]

I don't see a problem with not doing any of those things anymore.

And I don't think there should be an issue removing awful music that was written by a racist to be racist. Period.

Fillmore also wrote "Americans We" and "Rolling Thunder". Do we stop playing them, too? How about all the stuff published as his pseudonyms like Harold Bennett? Al Hayes? Harry Hartley?

I agree that the subtitles of the Trombone Family Rags are pretty tough to take. So don't promulgate them. Fact remains, they are easy solos that can be played by any High Schooler (and even some Middle Schoolers). Just don't look at the subtitles. What's wrong with a piece called Sally Trombone? Hank Trombone? Parson Trombone?

Oh, and ask a Trad Jazz (Dixieland Jazz) band to drop Darktown Strutters' Ball. They won't. It's a classic tune.

[Burgerbob]

I don't see a problem with not doing any of those things anymore.

And I don't think there should be an issue removing awful music that was written by a racist to be racist. Period.

Fillmore also wrote "Americans We" and "Rolling Thunder". Do we stop playing them, too? How about all the stuff published as his pseudonyms like Harold Bennett? Al Hayes? Harry Hartley?

Sure. What's the big loss? We have plenty of marches, and many of them are even good.

In any case- this topic is about Lassus Trombone, not the "slippery slope" that leads to us not playing any music at all at community band concerts.

[paulyg]

Fillmore also wrote "Americans We" and "Rolling Thunder". Do we stop playing them, too? How about all the stuff published as his pseudonyms like Harold Bennett? Al Hayes? Harry Hartley?

As far as I can tell, the Doug's essay is focused on the "suite" of 14 pieces that are overtly racist, not on Fillmore's entire body of work.

I agree that the subtitles of the Trombone Family Rags are pretty tough to take. So don't promulgate them. Fact remains, they are easy solos that can be played by any High Schooler (and even some Middle Schoolers). Just don't look at the subtitles. What's wrong with a piece called Sally Trombone? Hank Trombone? Parson Trombone?

There are a gazillion easy solos out there. These particular ones are, as I've said elsewhere, artistically bereft. Have a similarly capable student take a shot at Still's "Romance," arranged by Doug Yeo.

Oh, and ask a Trad Jazz (Dixieland Jazz) band to drop Darktown Strutters' Ball. They won't. It's a classic tune.

OK... how would you feel listening to a piece with that title? In a certain context, that "trad jazz" band might be able to find a receptive audience. I think though, if you're talking nowadays about programming music that is accessible to a wider audience, that tune may require some explanation.

Right now, we're confronting the reality that past bad acts are getting in the way of music making, in that they're limiting our ability as performers to affect an audience in a positive way. When people speak of music "standing the test of time..." well... this is that test.

[SaigonSlide]

“Wagner was a notorious anti-Semite. Do we drop all his music as well?“

Lassus Trombone isn’t Parsifal. No one will miss Fillmore’s music.

So where do we draw that line? So a composer like Wagner is tolerated because his music was so historically important, but others we censor because they are/were not? If we know that 'X' artist was a racist, pedophile, murderer, etc., do we censor their ENTIRE body of work, or just pieces that explicitly mention racism?

And who makes these decisions?

I find it difficult to censure an artists work, even if it is revolting or disrespectful. It happened, and it happened in the context of history, good or bad. That doesn't make it ok, and by current standards, it is not acceptable. But, an artist's life needs to be separate from their art. I don't like the piece, and as mentioned, there are lots of other better pieces to play. I just won't play it. I think it's more of a general discussion point though.

[Burgerbob]

“Wagner was a notorious anti-Semite. Do we drop all his music as well?“

Lassus Trombone isn’t Parsifal. No one will miss Fillmore’s music.

So where do we draw that line? So a composer like Wagner is tolerated because his music was so historically important, but others we censor because they are/were not? If we know that 'X' artist was a racist, pedophile, murderer, etc., do we censor their ENTIRE body of work, or just pieces that explicitly mention racism?

And who makes these decisions?

I find it difficult to censure an artists work, even if it is revolting or disrespectful. It happened, and it happened in the context of history, good or bad. That doesn't make it ok, and by current standards, it is not acceptable. But, an artist's life needs to be separate from their art. I don't like the piece, and as mentioned, there are lots of other better pieces to play. I just won't play it. I think it's more of a general discussion point though.

Again- missing the point. The "artist with an iffy background" is not this case. This is a case of an artist with an iffy background, writing music that is racist in its own nature.

Wagner was an anti-semite, but his music was not inherently anti-semitic on purpose (unless someone has evidence to that point).

Again, this is not about the slippery slope! This is about Fillmore and his pieces.

[bigbandbone]

Burgerbob wrote "Again, this is not about the slippery slope! This is about Fillmore and his pieces."

In the short view you are correct. The editorial was about Filmore. But in the long view it's about the precedent that it sets throughout all of the arts.

[timothy42b]

Wow. I didn't know that.

On one hand... the piece is old enough that its original intention/meaning is almost completely gone from living memory. Does that mean the piece is now alright to perform?

IMO, it's already a pretty garbage novelty piece. Now we knows it's a racist, garbage novelty piece. Time to replace it.

And while I don't disagree completely, I ask: "replace it with what?"

"There are plenty of easy trombone features out there that the audience will like."

No, no there aren't. This stands alone. Insisting on "really good" music, when the audience really wants a listenable novelty piece, is part of why we don't have an audience. If you want to replace it, start writing.

This one doesn't get played because someone is inherently racist and making a statement. It gets played because most people don't know it has a racist background and makes a statement - a statement that very possibly nobody in an audience has ever deciphered.

I also find it a little uncomfortable that we make a distinction between good racist music that we should keep anyway, like maybe some of Wagner, and garbage racist music like the Fillmore Family that we should discard. It's like we're willing to be noble when it doesn't cost us anything. Maybe I'm overreacting on that point and I'm not trying to criticize anyone.

[ArbanRubank]

What are we to do with Frank Rosolino's brilliant solo? Delete it? For that matter, what are we to do with the entire track on The Trombones, Inc vinyl? Take a razor blade and scratch it out? What is correct and proper; not just knee-jerk here and now, but to stand the test of time.

[StevenC]

And while I don't disagree completely, I ask: "replace it with what?"

A suggestion Doug Yeo made right in the article is Slidus trombonus by Mayhew Lake.

[GabrielRice]

I see very good reasons to stop playing it. I have yet to see a good reason to keep playing it.

"But what about Wagner?"

There are very good reasons to question our value of Wagner, to talk openly about his personal beliefs and the ideology that his operas come from and support. And then there are very good reasons to keep his music along with those conversations: the operas are truly revolutionary and the music is sublime.

None of that is true of Fillmore. They're novelty pieces at best. Doug has suggested a period replacement, and we're perfectly capable of writing some new ones!

I've also seen Miles Davis come up. He was another complicated figure. Some say he was racist against whites. I would say there's no such thing as being racist against whites; some might say that's splitting linguistic hairs, but prejudice and racism are not the same thing. It's fair to say he was cruel to women, and that's unforgivable. But again, I say look at all that plainly and with clear eyes, and then continue to acknowledge and enjoy the revolutionary and sublime music he made.

Again, it's hard to argue that Fillmore is worth that consideration.

I'll give one more example: it's now very clear that Michael Jackson was a pedophile. That's a very difficult one for me personally for reasons I won't detail here. Was he an artist at the level of Wagner or Miles Davis? Maybe. Or maybe he was just an extremely talented performer with the tremendous backing of the big record company business - not to mention Quincy Jones. In any case, I'm trying to abstain from Michael Jackson for the time being. My choice, which doesn't have to be everybody else's.

[hyperbolica]

I have very much respect for Mr. Yeo. But, if you follow his reasoning, we would cancel our entire civilization because it came through the horrors of American slavery, treatment of American Indians, McCarthy, the atomic bomb, Nazi oppression, centuries of European Tyrants, all of the barbarity and slavery of the Roman empire, and countless other examples of abhorrent treatment of people by other people.

Is Fillmore great music? Is much current pop music great music? Fillmore wrote a lot of marches. He is at least a musical historical figure. He is flawed. Like everyone else you and I know. It is SO hypocritical to erase someone just because they had flaws. Because we all have flaws. Maybe not the same flaws. I did something wrong once. I'll bet you did too, regardless of who you are.

Tolstoy. Dostoevsky. Dickens. Mark Twain. Wagner, Strauss, Beethoven, Michelangelo, DaVinci, Picasso. We can't just erase stuff because it was somehow connected to a bad idea. Erasing the past will not help us move on. What if we threw away all of the music that came from the Catholic church? Bach? Mozart?

Lassus is in my quartet's book. It's one of a couple hundred. It doesn't get played much. It belongs to a style from that period. It's fun for people to hear. If you replace it with something inspired by it, what's the difference?

[timothy42b]

None of that is true of Fillmore. They're novelty pieces at best. Doug has suggested a period replacement, and we're perfectly capable of writing some new ones!

"Novelty at best" is kind of revealing, I think. Audiences love that stuff, and when written well amateurs can pull it off.

I'd never heard of Doug's suggestion, nor has anybody else. It's long vanished. I listened on youtube, and my assessment is there's a good reason it disappeared. It's neither listenable nor playable by most amateur groups. Hickey's doesn't even carry it, I see it on JW Pepper though.

Granted, the full ensemble wind band is largely a feature of the past, useful now as a pedagogical device and a social outlet for us amateurs. But programming novelty pieces is easy to sneer at, and writing them an audience will like turns out to be difficult. Apparently, impossible.

The Fillmore pieces are playable and the audiences enjoyed them. There are lots of novelty pieces for other instruments, even for typewriters, not much for trombone.

Germany has Bayrische Polka, and the UK has Trombone Frolic. I've played the latter; it's not too bad though the band struggled to do it at tempo. Bayrische demands a solo effort and I haven't played in a band that had it in the book. If you compare either of those two to Doug's selection you'll see slidus trombonus comes off about 10th best. I have to assume Doug knows the literature thoroughly and was able to come up with the best of what's out there, so that's kind of telling.

[GabrielRice]

Tim, I did add another clause to that sentence...

[BGuttman]

We have to look at some scale here. Fillmore wrote over 250 pieces and another 100 adaptations of classical orchestral works for concert band. There are 15 pieces in the "Trombone Family". Why dump him for these 15 pieces? Are we sure he was a racist from these 15 pieces? He had a career as a bandmaster for a circus, then a bandmaster, composer, and publisher in Florida. In three biographies on line I have yet to see a reference to prejudice or racism. One day I'll find a copy of "Hallelujah Trombone" (a reference to "Shoutin' Liza") to see if there is something there.

We need to look at these things in the context of their time. Amos 'n Andy was a stereotype of American Blacks that was about as racist as the Fillmore Trombone rags. I cringe listening to some of the stuff, but sometimes it is quite funny.

Do we stop playing Arthur Pryor solos because he wrote one solo called "Coon Band Revue"?

I certainly support your right not to play Lassus Trombone. I usually tell people about the rather uncomfortable subtitles as being a part of the tenor of the time in which it was written. Again, I usually try to play one of the other family; generally one with a less obscene subtitle.

[GabrielRice]

Who is suggesting dumping everything Fillmore wrote?

[GabrielRice]

I find the "where will it stop" line of argument to be a tiresome distraction. Does it matter? Every decision doesn't have to become some sort of monumental precedent that decides every other issue even remotely similar.

The Trombone Family pieces are offensively racist in conception, then and now, and there's no good reason to keep playing them. We can decide to keep playing Fillmore's non-racist pieces and not be hypocrites. Wagner can be a completely separate discussion.

The slope isn't even remotely slippery.

[timothy42b]

Tim, I did add another clause to that sentence...

Somebody is capable of writing some new novelty features, sure. Not me though.

I wish Leroy Anderson had done so. He wrote a huge number of popular pieces that come pretty close to the novelty genre, are wonderfully listenable, are playable at various skill levels, and would not be called high art.

But there currently are not any decent replacements for that kind of trombone feature. And we've had this conversation before, and while I'm sure Gabe wouldn't be one there are plenty of people too elitist to play something popular or perform a gliss in public. Some of that attitude usually comes out. Who needs a glissy trombone feature when we can play an excerpt from Mahler?

[JulesShinkle]

I have very much respect for Mr. Yeo. But, if you follow his reasoning, we would cancel our entire civilization because it came through the horrors of American slavery, treatment of American Indians, McCarthy, the atomic bomb, Nazi oppression, centuries of European Tyrants, all of the barbarity and slavery of the Roman empire, and countless other examples of abhorrent treatment of people by other people.

Tolstoy. Dostoevsky. Dickens. Mark Twain. Wagner, Strauss, Beethoven, Michelangelo, DaVinci, Picasso. We can't just erase stuff because it was somehow connected to a bad idea. Erasing the past will not help us move on. What if we threw away all of the music that came from the Catholic church? Bach? Mozart?

I get that you intended this to be an ad absurdum argument...but it's ironic that you're short of almost getting it. God forbid we reflect on how white supremacy throughout history has shaped our current lives. It is important, actually, that we acknowledge these things and many others. We *should* harshly scrutinize why we allow some things to remain.

It seems that you equate "canceling" with "erasing", and that if we stop playing Lassus Trombone that good art will be caught up in the Great Cancelation. You make some false equivalencies to what Yeo is advocating for and what you fear will happen. Yeo's line of reasoning is that we shouldn't perpetuate racist art. The difference between Fillmore's pieces in question and...Beethoven(?) is that minstrelsy is and was racist! It wasn't "okay" then (as Yeo points out) and it isn't okay now. Nobody has to do much deep digging to know that Lassus Trombone is "connected to a bad idea". What's being held on trial here is unquestionably racist music. Music that perpetuated white supremacy!

The question of whether we should play Wagner, or the rest of Fillmore's works, is more interesting. I think the fact that Wagner has recieved a pass represents a larger theme within Western art music that we are very quick to forgive horrible characters, as long as they're white men. That being said, it doesn't answer the question of if they should be forgiven. I think no, the men shouldn't be. They shouldn't be idolized as heroes within our sacred canon. The art, however, may still be forgiven. I love Wagner's music and I have a academic interest in his aesthetic philosophy. It's hard to make an argument that he can be separated from his art because he purposely entwined the two. He very purposely crafted his liberettos to represent his beliefs on love, death... the exaltation of Christian Germans...and so forth. As far as antisemitism goes, there's some who argue that Die Meistersinger contains a blatant antisemitic characature.

I'm not here to encourage an erasure of all things problematic. But I do think being anti-racist includes, at a minimum, having discussions about why we uphold certain traditions and people. It's okay for some art to not be acceptable. We're not going to suffer much by scrutinizing and letting some things go. Or, at least, not suffer nearly as much as was the history of white supremacy has inflicted upon POC.

[PhilTrombone]

I find the comparisons with Wagner (and Miles Davis) inapt.

If Wagner had written a silly feature with an anti-semitic title, I doubt we would be playing it today.

I have read Dizzy Gillespie's autobiography, and he also voiced anti-caucasian sentiments. Neither he nor Miles wrote any music with that sentiment imbedded in it (at least I cannot think of any). On top of that, they both had a lifetime of experience of their times to back up how they felt.

Most people make a distinction between the human and his compositions, which justifies playing Wagner (and others) in spite of their politics. The same rationale can be used here, albeit in reverse.

I think some folks here have not completely read Doug's post. He is only talking about the Trombone Family, not the rest of Fillmore's works. The rest of Fillmore's works have no bigotry, AFAIK. Rolling Thunder, Circus Bee, etc.

btw, All the trombone family full titles are insulting, even Sally Trombone. See below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fillmore#Music

It's up to individuals to decide what to do. I won't play this any more, and there are plenty of alternatives for filling a program.

[Bach5G]

It’s likely impossible to come up with a grand unifying theory that will establish a bright line rule between acceptable and unacceptable. Let’s assume Hitler, instead of a painter, was a undistinguished composer. Would anyone have difficulty saying we wouldn’t play his music?

And maybe that line will vary from person to person.

And on the other hand, maybe Santayana would advise keeping it around to remind people of the not-so-distant past.

The Trombone Family vs Huck Finn?

[hyperbolica]

If you can apply the thinking to racism, you can apply it to any other type of sin against humanity, like sexism, pedophilia, religious extremism, any -ism, or any ideological difference like x, y or z.

Instead of going through this purge of ideas and art and objects and culture, why don't we just learn bi-directional tolerance. This is the essence of civilization, after all. Everyone thinks everyone else is wrong, but we coexist. So who is right? The group who is most sanctimonious or the most outraged, the most violent? Aren't we solving problems with a lot more problems? The alternative to tolerance is some sort of purge war, which is what we have now. And it's as wrong as anything it is protesting.

No, we just have to learn to live with people we don't like. Which includes people we think are wrong, which includes everyone. That is the only solution that really has any chance of working. Pulling down culture can only result in civil war, because you're always going to be fighting someone. Learn tolerance. That means the racist and the antiracist. It means everybody.

[GabrielRice]

hyperbolica, I'm not sure I follow you, put I'm pretty sure I disagree strongly. We most certainly do NOT need to tolerate abhorrent, racist viewpoints or the people that espouse them.

[timothy42b]

If Wagner had written a silly feature with an anti-semitic title, I doubt we would be playing it today.

But dig one level past. Wagner was deeply and passionately anti-Semitic. He wrote lots of music. Does it make sense to differentiate between his different pieces? Contrast that to someone who was not, but wrote one piece with an unacceptable title.

In the latter case it seems quite reasonable to erase one piece and leave the rest. But in the former, it seems to me we're insisting we can be righteous but only if it doesn't hurt.

In Fillmore's case, I don't know how racist he really was. Certainly he published 14 pieces with blatantly racist subtitles, and 350 or so without, according to Bruce. Apparently Mr. Yeo feels it is sufficient to drop those 14 and not the rest, which implies Mr. Yeo didn't consider him overtly racist in general. .

There is nothing detectably racist in the notes themselves. If we removed the ad copy (most of the sheet music I've played from had already had that done) then only historians know, right?

I'm not sure there is any ultimate right answer. I do think it's worth discussing and thinking about.

Up to this point our approach seems to be to reject individual pieces of music regardless of the intent or character of the composer. And we're quicker to reject music that we don't want to play anyway. (In favor of stuff that our audiences don't want to hear, in many cases.)

Personally I find "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" offensive.

[hyperbolica]

hyperbolica, I'm not sure I follow you, put I'm pretty sure I disagree strongly. We most certainly do NOT need to tolerate abhorrent, racist viewpoints or the people that espouse them.

Ok, so you're not going to tolerate people who are wrong. What are you going to do? Jail them for "thinking racist" or shout them down for playing Fillmore? Burn their shops? Destroy their history? Kill them? What are the limits of your intolerance? You've heard of the Taliban? Do you recognize these ideas: Diversity, Tolerance, Coexist? These were left-of-center ideas that have been conveniently forgotten.

Do you remember the mistake this country made called McCarthyism? It was exactly where you are headed, on the other side of the spectrum. Try to learn from that. It was well meaning people who got too zealous and strayed into darkness. Thought police stuff. Right where you're headed, in case you're having trouble seeing it.

Having a country with a lot of different people (and points of view) is not easy.

[sungfw]

Again- missing the point. The "artist with an iffy background" is not this case. This is a case of an artist with an iffy background, writing music that is racist in its own nature.

Wagner was an anti-semite, but his music was not inherently anti-semitic on purpose (unless someone has evidence to that point).

Marc A. Weiner, Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. xii + 439 pp.

Review

[timothy42b]

Marc A. Weiner, Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. xii + 439 pp.

Review

Thanks. That was new to me, and very interesting.

[paulyg]

Tolstoy. Dostoevsky. Dickens. Mark Twain. Wagner, Strauss, Beethoven, Michelangelo, DaVinci, Picasso. We can't just erase stuff because it was somehow connected to a bad idea. Erasing the past will not help us move on. What if we threw away all of the music that came from the Catholic church? Bach? Mozart?

Wow, you're really greasing the slope here. Also, if you're going to weigh in, you might want to crack a book at some point- Bach was VERY MUCH a Lutheran, not Catholic.

In addition, mentioning Henry Fillmore in the same breath as any of those great artists is ludicrous. The artistic output of the people you mentioned here is worth studying, and therefore the context of the art and the artists is also worth studying. Fillmore simply wasn't good enough, and Lassus Trombone simply isn't good enough, to justify contextualization beyond Doug's blog post- I'd consider that the last word on this piece.

[ArbanRubank]

Tolstoy. Dostoevsky. Dickens. Mark Twain. Wagner, Strauss, Beethoven, Michelangelo, DaVinci, Picasso. We can't just erase stuff because it was somehow connected to a bad idea. Erasing the past will not help us move on. What if we threw away all of the music that came from the Catholic church? Bach? Mozart?

Wow, you're really greasing the slope here. Also, if you're going to weigh in, you might want to crack a book at some point- Bach was VERY MUCH a Lutheran, not Catholic.

In addition, mentioning Henry Fillmore in the same breath as any of those great artists is ludicrous. The artistic output of the people you mentioned here is worth studying, and therefore the context of the art and the artists is also worth studying. Fillmore simply wasn't good enough, and Lassus Trombone simply isn't good enough, to justify contextualization beyond Doug's blog post- I'd consider that the last word on this piece.

This isn't good enough?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra-NfLmQWtc

[paulyg]

Wow, you're really greasing the slope here. Also, if you're going to weigh in, you might want to crack a book at some point- Bach was VERY MUCH a Lutheran, not Catholic.

In addition, mentioning Henry Fillmore in the same breath as any of those great artists is ludicrous. The artistic output of the people you mentioned here is worth studying, and therefore the context of the art and the artists is also worth studying. Fillmore simply wasn't good enough, and Lassus Trombone simply isn't good enough, to justify contextualization beyond Doug's blog post- I'd consider that the last word on this piece.

This isn't good enough?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra-NfLmQWtc

Nobody's talking about erasing past recordings of this piece. This is about continued performances. But to your point, yes, I'd say that future arrangers should find a different tune/pig to put lipstick on.

[ArbanRubank]

This isn't good enough?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra-NfLmQWtc

Nobody's talking about erasing past recordings of this piece. This is about continued performances. But to your point, yes, I'd say that future arrangers should find a different tune/pig to put lipstick on.

Agreed, but not because "it's not good enough". That is the wrong reason to trash future performances of it or I would insist that there be no future performances of many works that others think are splendid. The right reason to never perform it again would be it represents that which is now considered to be highly offensive. OK, so perhaps "it's not good enough" is just semantics...

[paulyg]

Nobody's talking about erasing past recordings of this piece. This is about continued performances. But to your point, yes, I'd say that future arrangers should find a different tune/pig to put lipstick on.

Agreed, but not because "it's not good enough". That is the wrong reason to trash future performances of it or I would insist that there be no future performances of many works that others think are splendid. The right reason to never perform it again would be it represents that which is now considered to be highly offensive. OK, so perhaps "it's not good enough" is just semantics...

You've somehow missed my point. Art forces people to think- about the work itself, about the artist, about the context in history- because it's great. When we give a performance, we should force people to think about where that greatness came from. Great art speaks for itself. At this point, there is a lot of great music out there, even some genius music. Understanding that flawed individuals can produce great art forces us to confront the fact that all of us are, indeed, flawed at some level. Perfection is not attainable.

Lassus trombone does not fall into that class of art. It's narrow, and devoid of merit. What little introspection it can afford anybody has been addressed in Doug Yeo's article. It's worn-out as art. It did not endure the test of time. Continued performances of this thing contribute nothing. They don't enrich the audience or performer, and at this point, with the real history of the piece becoming common knowledge, they do explicit harm. "Not good enough" is not semantics, it's at the core of this whole issue.

[timothy42b]

I've changed my mind several times since we started discussing this on the trombone-l list serv before some of you were born, and I reserve the right to do so again.

I made a comment earlier about how it's easy to give up something we don't care much about, and feel righteous about it. I think that needs to be expanded a bit.

As humans we should all oppose injustice, racism, bigotry. As trombonists it's natural to focus on a piece of music, but.....

As trombonists we may feel we're more important than we are. In the grand scheme of things this is a niche piece played by trombonists in a dying tradition listened to by nobody. It's inconsequential, and nobody but us cares.

If we really feel the need to stand for justice, shouldn't it be on something that has an impact? Shouldn't it be for an effort that actually requires something of us beyond giving up a piece of music most of us don't like all that much anyway? I don't know if rejecting this piece is the right thing to do, but it sure is the easy thing to do.


***********************

It's a road map piece. Wind band pieces were once like that - you had to actually pay attention to 1st ending, 2cnd ending, folge strain, DS, CODA, etc. In the past 20 years I have yet to play this thing all the way through on a reading with any band before about half the band was lost and quit. That's a tradition we should retain.

[ArbanRubank]

Agreed, but not because "it's not good enough". That is the wrong reason to trash future performances of it or I would insist that there be no future performances of many works that others think are splendid. The right reason to never perform it again would be it represents that which is now considered to be highly offensive. OK, so perhaps "it's not good enough" is just semantics...

You've somehow missed my point. Art forces people to think- about the work itself, about the artist, about the context in history- because it's great. When we give a performance, we should force people to think about where that greatness came from. Great art speaks for itself. At this point, there is a lot of great music out there, even some genius music. Understanding that flawed individuals can produce great art forces us to confront the fact that all of us are, indeed, flawed at some level. Perfection is not attainable.

Lassus trombone does not fall into that class of art. It's narrow, and devoid of merit. What little introspection it can afford anybody has been addressed in Doug Yeo's article. It's worn-out as art. It did not endure the test of time. Continued performances of this thing contribute nothing. They don't enrich the audience or performer, and at this point, with the real history of the piece becoming common knowledge, they do explicit harm. "Not good enough" is not semantics, it's at the core of this whole issue.

Thanks. I understand the point you are making and I believe it is very sound. I just want to know who gets to draw where the line is on artistic merit. You? Me? Doug Yeo? Voc Populi? When you state that something hasn't stood the test of time, well - time hasn't stopped yet. Or has it? We always think that what we think, say and do now is way cooler than what we used to think, say or do in years past. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. As far as racist stuff is concerned, we are on the right track, but I don' think we are anywhere close to where we should be yet. So in a few years, where-ever we will be will be way cooler than where we are now. Which is why we really need to try to get it right - right now.

I have recently heard some very old and archaic ballads aka corny played in a new context and was surprised at how vital they still can be - if they would just get dusted off and played fresh. Wasn't the rendition I pointed to a rather fresh take - in the 60's - on that tired old rag? Could it ever be again? Should it ever be again? Probably not if it represents something vile. But that it is not good enough as a piece of art is very, very subjective, IMO.

So, I actually do agree with you wholeheartedly. I just don't know where that line of "class of art" exists. And honestly, the more I think about it, the more I'm confusing myself. So for now, OK, let us arbitrarily say that it is not good enough. But I also hope it - and others like it - don't get wiped out of existence; it should be preserved somewhere for future minds to ponder. After all, future minds will be way cooler than us.

[paulyg]

If we really feel the need to stand for justice, shouldn't it be on something that has an impact? Shouldn't it be for an effort that actually requires something of us beyond giving up a piece of music most of us don't like all that much anyway? I don't know if rejecting this piece is the right thing to do, but it sure is the easy thing to do.

So that's your problem with this, it's too easy? For something this inconsequential, there sure seems to be a lot of resistance to revising our approach to this music here and in some other groups.