Pynchon & rap

[jbor]

>> 
>> "I would imagine that the free form jazz of McClintic Sphere (and those
>> actual artists upon whom the character is based: Coleman, Monk, Parker &c)
>> is also very much a precursor of contemporary rap music."
>> 
> How so?  Rap , with its sampled or synthetically created musical settings,
> does not appear to call upon the sort of virtuoso musical performance
> technique that forms the heart of jazz.

There are many different types of jazz (just as there are many different
types of rap music). McClintic's free form style of jazz described by
Pynchon in _V._ -- "no piano: it was bass, drums, McClintic and a boy he had
found in the Ozarks", and "a knife fight or tug of war: the sound was
consonant but as if cross-purposes were in the air" (pp. 59-6) -- is
resonant with much contemporary rap music. The improvisational aspect of the
rapper's vocal (whether rehearsed or not), bouncing off the rhythms and
choruses, compares to McClintic's horn solos as described in the novel.

snip
 
>> "Otto pointed to the
>> section in _M&D_ which seems to speak to various contemporary musical
>> styles, "South Philadelphia Ballad-singers" amongst those. (pp. 261-265)
>> That's surely a direct reference to modern rap music, isn't it?"
> 
> If Pynchon doesn't explicitly mention modern rap music, it's difficult to
> see how it might be called a "direct reference" -- of course there's no end
> to the number of new signifiers that a reader might create based on
> Pynchon's actual text, perhaps that's what's meant here.

No, that's not "what's meant here" at all. The discussion about a
"Revolution" in music in _M&D_ which Otto noted isn't simply a discussion
about musical fads in the eighteenth century: it refers directly to
contemporary music as well. Much in _M&D_ has a contemporary spin to it: I'm
surprised that that aspect of the novel wasn't picked up during the MDMD (or
perhaps it was, but is being discounted here for the sake of the polemic).
It's actually quite significant. Certainly it will be something to be alert
to in the MDDM.

The discussion between the cousins, uncles, Aunt Euphy and the Rev. reminds
me of the ongoing argument between Saure and Gustav over the relative merits
of Beethoven's and Rossini's music in _GR_ (439-441, 621-622). Pynchon, or
his narrative agency, doesn't take a side in either case but, on the
strength of the way the characterisations are modulated throughout the novel
I'd say his sympathies are again with Ethelmer, Brae and Euphrenia, rather
than the uncles.

snip

> Pynchon has written, rather derisively it seems to me, of rock and roll acts
> in the 60s (The Paranoids in COL49) and the 80s (Billy Barf and the
> Vomitones in Vineland); comparing the ways he writes about them with the
> ways he writes about Sphere's music might be an interesting exercise.  At
> the same time, Pynchon has written lyrics for songs in a broad spectrum of
> musical styles and periods, and elsewhere seems to demonstrate a real
> fondness for folk and rock and roll music.

I'm not sure how derisive those depictions really are. Certainly, Pynchon
writes lyrics for the Paranoids' songs too, and for much else beyond plain
old retro 60s stuff, and it's often hard to tell whether the lyrics he
includes are a tribute or a send-up of the particular musical style he
pastiches, so the final opinion about Pynchon's taste in music doesn't hold
much water at all.

best