Marijuana and Music — Part 2
A presentation to Società Italiana per lo Studio degli Stati di Coscienza, Perinaldo 2002
NOTE: part 1 has been updated with videos and additional photos
Twentieth-Century Music
The history of music in the 20th Century is, in one sense, a history of a bifurcation of music into two distinct ways of music-making. The long tradition of Western music has emphasized the importance of music composition and the notation and publication of such compositions as opposed to the subsequent performance of these written compositions. The role of the composer and the performer are distinctly separate, and it is the composer, especially for orchestral works, who is considered to have done the lion’s share of creating. The performer may “interpret” a written work of music with modest changes to tempo, dynamics, phrasing and general feeling, but any excess is considered bad form. All this of course has its parallel in language in the writing and reading of books. In our collective modern view, the greatest things that have been said are those written in stone, or at least in great books, and extemporaneous speech, as moving as it may be, is again more often like entertainment than philosophy. When a piece of music has been composed, and when a linguistic expression has been written down in an important place, we seem automatically to attach more significance to it.
In the early decades of the 20th century however, the diverse influences in America, particularly of African origin, led to a form of music in which the performer himself took over the role of the composer to a significant extent, and jazz music became a form in which improvisation became a central aspect of the music. Although improvisation understood in its strict sense is “neither unique nor essential to jazz” (Harrison 1980), the shift of emphasis from the written composition to the performance of a piece as the principal creative act reveals that improvisation may in a larger sense consist of an ongoing evolution of a piece of music. Although a given performance of a jazz piece may not differ significantly from its previous performance — and thus the solo improvisations therein being practically repeated note for note — the performance does however differ drastically from another musician’s or jazz band’s rendering of the same tune. Thus each musician or group performs an improvisatory act over time with a given piece so that a standard such as Body and Soul performed by Ben Webster is an entirely different creative act than the same tune performed by Art Pepper, and the performances express correspondingly different emotional and intellectual Gestalts. By contrast, two different performances of a Beethoven symphony are likely to represent and evoke very similar artistic and creative perceptions.
I won’t play for you von Karajan’s 5th Beethoven Symphony versus Toscanini’s 1945 “Victory in Europe” rendition, and perhaps those really are two versions of the work that, for the seasoned Beethoven fan, are quite radically different. For the casual listener, however, even those diametrically opposed interpretations would be hard to tell apart. But have a listen to these two versions of a jazz favourite, Poinciana. Here is the first, a reasonably standard interpretation by vibraphonist Gary Burton.
Now compare that with a version by French jazz pianist Martial Solal, performed at the 1963 Newport Jazz Festival. Note that Mr Solal not only improvises with the tune, but the chord structure of the piece has been, one might say, radically enriched with new harmonic shadings.
The improvised jazz solo is the central aspect of a piece, and expresses something new, if not every time, than at least for a given musician or group playing a given piece. Jazz improvisation, whether realized in a solo or in an evolved way of playing a piece as a whole, expresses something relevant to the current emotional and intellectual state of the musician-as-composer, and his interaction with his audience. The tune or piece improvised upon becomes a mere vehicle for the artist and its performance resembles the musical equivalent of an ancient linguistic form, story-telling, in which a performer takes an eternal theme and embellishes it for the present moment, for the benefit of his listeners, to make the universal history and mythology of the tribe manifest in the present, and informative of current interests and concerns.
Was this 20th Century musical development merely a throwback to primitive forms by uneducated and underprivileged musicians who rejected Western traditions in music? Hardly. The great jazz musicians routinely know much about the traditions and technical structure of composed music to an extent that classical musicians envy. Jazz musicians who teach, such as Wynton Marsalis, insist that their students be fluent in traditional music of all kinds, from Bach to Bartok, and that without such grounding their music will necessarily be deficient and trivial. And the technical virtuosity of many jazz musicians often surpasses all normal requirements of the Western tradition. Here is what Charles Mingus has to say on the matter:
“There are many other instruments besides the trumpet which jazz musicians have made do the impossible. And they can play, for hours on end, technical, involved, difficult, educated lines that have melodic sense. They are all virtuosi. The same goes for string bass. The same goes for saxophone, although it is not used much in symphony. But anything Milhaud has done in classical music, McPherson and Bird, alone, do with ease as well as human warmth and beauty. Tommy Dorsey, for example, raised the range of the trombone two octaves. Britt Woodman raised it three. And take Jimmy Knepper. One of his solos was taken off a record of mine and written out for classical trombone in my ballet. The trombone player could barely play it. He said it was one of the most technical exercises he had ever attempted to play! And he was just playing the notes—not the embellishments or the sound that Jimmy was getting.” (Mingus 1972)
Jazz and Reefer
From the 1920s to the 1940s, the very period in which improvisation in jazz was becoming the central creative aspect of the music, jazz musicians almost universally enjoyed marijuana, and we have many personal attestations and historical documents to prove the case. One particularly rollicking book about the epoch, and the wild times and great music that resulted, is Mezz Mezzrow’s Really the Blues, and Mezz was himself not only a great jazzman, but famous for the excellent quality marijuana he seemed always to have a large supply of! (Mezzrow & Wolfe 1946)
A reading of personal reflections about the use of marijuana by jazzmen of the time indicates that the herb was often used as a stimulus to creativity, at least for practice sessions, many such as Louis Armstrong praising its effects highly. The widespread use of marijuana by jazz musicians of the time is even revealed by the campaign of Harry Anslinger and his Bureau of Narcotics to demonize marijuana.
At one point he issued a directive to all his field agents, as related in the following story from a speech by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School:
“After national marijuana prohibition was passed, Commissioner Anslinger found out, or got reports, that certain people were violating the national marijuana prohibition and using marijuana and, unfortunately for them, they fell into an identifiable occupational group. Who were flouting the marijuana prohibition? Jazz musicians. And so, in 1947, Commissioner Anslinger sent out a letter, I quote it verbatim, ‘Dear Agent So-and-so, Please prepare all cases in your jurisdiction involving musicians in violation of the marijuana laws. We will have a great national round-up arrest of all such persons on a single day. I will let you know what day.’ [From The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States by Charles Whitebread. A Speech to the California Judges Association 1995 annual conference].
Is it possible to attribute some causative connection between the cognitive effects of marijuana we are now becoming scientifically aware of and the development of creative jazz forms of the 1930s and 1940s? To return to my previous question, if high on marijuana does a performing musician “lose track” of the composition he is playing much as one might lose track of the thread of a conversation? Did cannabis consciousness thus play a role in bringing improvisation to the fore?
In fact, experienced marijuana users who are well aware of the “short-term memory effect” become quite adept at counteracting it. In all probability extensive practice with marijuana consciousness allows the user to not only counteract such effects but use them in positive ways. A temporary and momentary “forgetting” of the limiting structures of either an ongoing conversation, or of a musical piece, when such an effect has been practiced with, might well be just the right influence to bring improvisation and creativity to the fore, both in music and conversation or writing.
As an evolutionary legacy, short-term memory evolved to be too predominant, monopolizing attention for the purposes of risk-avoidance. And in our practical-minded civilization the process is further exaggerated. Short-term memory as we train it to function in our society is too rigid, too concerned with practicality, it keeps the conscious mind on the straight and narrow, playing the tune as it was written and avoiding experimentation. For the novice cannabis user, accustomed to functioning according to the norms of society, de-synchronization from short-term memory leaves him in unfamiliar and perhaps confusing territory. However, when as Henri Michaux recommends, we practice with marijuana consciousness, forgetting can become an element and stimulus of creativity: forgetting preconceptions, as in Zen, abandoning and transcending the self in the creative moment. Normal short-term memory is then seen as a distraction, an actual impediment to creativity.
Short-term memory suspension for an artist in our time is an almost required feature of the creative frame of mind. We might surmise that artists and musicians develop their own particular methods to achieve independence from the normal states that are bound to short-term memory and thus to preconception and prejudice. That the rest of us who are not naturally so gifted have at our disposal a simple and relatively harmless agent in marijuana for promoting the creative frame of mind is quite miraculous!
Vive le Jazz!
To return to how marijuana consciousness might have influenced 20th century music, it is my view that the cumulative and long term practiced use of marijuana by virtuosi jazz musicians was a certain and positive factor in the evolution of the music.
Now my experience with music indicates that it would of course be silly to say that jazz musicians of the period were literally forgetting what tune they were playing, and through such constant forgetfulness arose a great musical innovation! But as with the practiced user of marijuana who learns to counteract the short-term memory effect and use it to advantage, I would more realistically propose that a similar thing was happening collectively and incrementally within the fairly small community of jazz musicians of the time, a community more like a family than a world-wide diversity of people and schools as it has become today. The jazz community of the time constantly practiced together, brain-stormed together, performed together, and smoked marijuana together. As a cumulative effect, it is my contention that the practiced use of marijuana provides a cognitive training that assists and accentuates the improvisational, creative frame of mind much as other kinds of study or training shape abilities and perfect talents. It is not that marijuana consciousness itself “produces” ideas that are creative, or that valuable ideas come during the experience or because of it, but that cumulatively, over time, the kind of perception and thinking initiated by marijuana leads one to be generally more open to alternative and perhaps adventurous ways of seeing things which enrich normal consciousness. Normal consciousness, as we will all admit, is limited in often involuntary, invisible ways by our times, customs, prejudices, by the necessary ignorances we must cultivate to cope with modern life. Marijuana very probably contributed to, or was used as a tool to facilitate the jazz revolution in music, and might be similarly used to facilitate important advances in any other area of human interest where creativity and adventurous thinking are important. The understanding of human consciousness and the nature of altered states of consciousness comes immediately to mind.
And as for literally forgetting what piece one is playing, biographies of great musicians often tell of experiences when they were required to bluff it through with some extemporaneous inventions. The great French jazz pianist Martial Solal tells of such a concert he gave in his youth, it was to qualify for an important prize and at the climax of the classical piece he was playing his mind went blank, but his forced improvisation was so good that the judges didn’t even detect his bluff! It was at that point, he says, that he decided that jazz rather than classical music was to be his future.
So perhaps jazz musicians literally did often encounter some short-term memory effects, and had often to “bluff” it. With virtuoso musicians, such bluffing is unlikely to fall into something less than proficiency, and from what experienced users of marijuana all say, the “bluffing” seems to result in an unprecedented creativity: In a sort of Zen way, what comes out of the virtuoso when he abandons his calculated intentions and practiced routines is not nonsense but often his finest creation! If a mere plant can assist the forgetfulness which is the germ of spontaneous creativity, many of the greatest minds of our time surely ARE missing the beat by rejecting not only its use but by assisting to prevent others from doing so. They thus prove once again that even genius is capable of the narrowness thought characteristic of the uneducated.
References
Bloomquist, Edward R. 1971. Marijuana The Second Trip, revised edition. Beverly Hills, California: Glencoe Press, p369.
Goode, Erich. 1970. The Marijuana Smokers, New York: Basic Books, p. 74.
Grinspoon Lester and Bakalar, James B. 1993. Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, pp. 171-172.
Harrison, Max. 1980. In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Stanley Sadie, ed., London: MacMillan Publishers, Vol. 9, p. 561.
Luria, Aleksandr Romanovich. 1980. Higher Cortical Functions in Man, Second Edition, New York: Consultants Bureau, originally published in Russian by Moscow University Press, p 378.
Mezzrow, Milton “Mezz” and Wolfe, Bernard. 1946. Really the Blues, New York: Random House.
Michaux, Henri. 1961. Light Through Darkness, New York: The Orion Press, 1993, p. 63, translated from the French by Haakon Chevalier from the original, Connaissance par les gouffres.
Mingus, Charles. 1972. Let My Children Hear Music, Columbia KC 31039 LP record, from the liner notes.
Ott, Jonathan. 1997. Pharmacophilia or The Natural Paradises, Kennewick, Washington: Natural Products Co.
Popper, Karl R. and Eccles, John C. 1983. The Self and its Brain, London and New York: Routledge, 1983 edition of original 1977 edition published by Springer-Verlag, pp. 336-338.
Tart, Charles T. 1971. On Being Stoned: A Psychological Study of Marijuana Intoxication, Palo Alto, California: Science and Behavior Books, p. 74.
Wasson, R. Gordon, Albert Hofmann and Carl A.P. Ruck. 1978. The Road to Eleusis, New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Zimmer, Lynn and Morgan, John P. 1997. Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts, New York and San Francisco: The Lindesmith Center, chapter 9.
although, old age would be the most creative if short term memory loss was the prime ingredient. Maybe the combination will be the secret sauce for old hippies.