CDOTD 02/15/2025

 Bob Graettinger: City of Glass (Capitol Jazz)

Purchased new, probably at Borders

What constitutes "outsider" music? Outsider Art is a sort of established descriptor or category, with at least one museum devoted to the subject (The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, which I can't recommend highly enough). Even then, the topic doesn't cover one single type of artist, whether it's driven primitives (Howard Finster, Adolf Wölfli, Judith Scott) or obsessives with highly developed technical skills (Joe Coleman, Alex Grey).

So too in Chusid's book, there are those who are primitive musicians with a complete lack of irony (The Shaggs, Wesley Willis) as well as schooled musicians with a particular obsession or drive (Harry Partch). It's through his book that I learned about Robert Graettinger, in the latter category.

Chusid describes him thusly: "He was convinced he could outwit the grim reaper with a steady diet of scrambled eggs, milk, and vitamins. He was an impotent alcoholic in a shabby wardrobe with concave cheekbones and a bad complexion." He died at 33 from lung cancer, due to no doubt heavy smoking and a terrible lifestyle.

I'm probably misquoting Gilda Radner as Rosanne Rosannadanna when she'd say, "You sound like a real catch!"

But I'm not here to comment on someone's appearance or lifestyle. This CD is a collection of Graettinger's music performed by the Stan Kenton Orchestra. Stan was an interesting figure himself, trying to navigate the popular big band world while at the same time attempting to create a more colorful and "serious" ensemble. It's no doubt that his interest in this so-called seriousness is why Graettinger had a job with Kenton.

This very principle of elevating jazz music to classical standards as a concert music has a history nearly as long as the music itself, and it's a tricky subject. Where does the music belong, why isn't jazz a high enough art form in and of itself? Paul Whiteman (heh heh, white man) commissioned Rhapsody in Blue; Debussy and Stravinsky wrote works inspired by early jazz; Ellington composed extended jazz concert works. At the same time, jazz improvisation is a sophisticated language in and of itself, without the need to be in some way elevated. And at the same time, there is room in the world for jazz or jazz-inspired works for the concert stage and not just the clubs.

Then there's the Third Stream movement, a term created by Gunther Schuller in 1957 to represent a kind of classical/jazz fusion or half-way point between the two. Graettinger's music was Third Stream before there was such a thing, predating Schuller's term by as much as a decade. Like Schuller's interests, Graettinger was more about drawing on modern techniques than trying to make the jazz orchestra sound like a 19th century Romantic orchestra. 

An immediate reaction to the works on this CD: there's very little improvisation. Most works are tightly composed or arranged. The ensembles are often augmented changed from standard big band instrumentation, including strings and several prominent French horn lines. (I think Kenton often used horns.) The music largely sits somewhere in an area of vaguely/ambiguously tonal to blatantly atonal. I'm thinking of the quote from I think it was Schoenberg, "the emancipation of dissonance" because it definitely applies to Graettinger's music. The second cut on the disc, an arrangement of "Everything Happens to Me" begins with an atonal-sounding introduction before breaking into the song proper with vocals with traditional harmonies. By contrast, the opening composition, "Thermopylae", has blasts of a cluster voicing over an ostinato, suggesting some anchoring to tonality (if somewhat ambiguous). It's funny that the piece was released on 78 as the B side of "The Peanut Vendor", one of Kenton's more popular singles. I wonder what people thought when they turned over the record?

There are a few of what I might call programmatic titles for his pieces, "Incident in jazz", "City of Glass" (four movements), "Modern Opus". But most titles are most minimal: "A Horn", "A Cello", "A Trumpet", "An Orchestra", "A Thought", "Some Saxophones". That suggests to me an intention of removing any non-musical associations from the music. To me it recalls Morton Feldman, who both created some great descriptive titles ("Triadic Memories") but also had many "still life" titles ("Piano Violin Viola Cello"). 

Dying as he did at age 33, once again I must ask, what might have Graettinger accomplished had he lived a long, full life? I can picture an academic post, a lecturer, maybe having written a book or two on composition and theory. I can picture him in discussions and debates with other "serious" composers. I'm certain he'd be better known and respected. What a shame, but at least there's this document.