Be, and then Do
4 A’s worth sharing this week: Christopher Azzara on learning music through creativity, Spotify’s algorithmic bias, we’re about to morn the lose of another NYC jazz club, new music, and more…
Here are four things (A’s) we thought were worth sharing this week:
A1. Putting creativity at the center of teaching and learning music. Friend of Foray, Christopher Azzara, on improvisation and creativity in a brand new interview on our YouTube channel. Dr. Azzara is “an innovator in the art of music teaching and learning,” and a professor at the Eastman School of Music.
The idea of really embodying comprehending music through creativity and by expressing creativity, and by paying attention and being in the moment: Improvisers are in the moment and they do what they’re doing from that place of “being.” If we can pay attention and get inspired by that relationship of “be” and then “do” (having that creative element)—even if we’re playing a piece that’s already been written—it would be contextualized by our awareness of that creativity.
Check out the full interview here: Christopher Azzara Interview | Improvisation and Creativity in Music.
A2. Spotify’s algorithmic bias. In a recent video, the Wall Street Journal took an inside look at how Spotify uses machine learning technology to customize aspects of the user’s experience, and the inherent danger that this technology could “reinforce existing biases.”
It starts with a process called “collaborative filtering,” where the algorithm looks at patterns in user playlist data and tries to group similar songs together. This creates a huge map of songs, clustered together based on how people are listening to them. But this filtering on its own draws some funky connections—for instance, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and Bing Crosby’s recording of “Silent Night” would be mapped closely together based on user playlist data, even though the musical content and vibe of the songs are pretty different. To try to solve for this issue, Spotify adds another level of analysis, “content-based filtering,” an algorithm that collects meta-data (e.g. release date, record label, etc.), executes a raw audio analysis (rating songs according to a staggering list of parameters, like danceability, mode, loudness, etc.), and even compiles a cultural analysis of the lyrical content.
Pretty heady stuff.
The inherent problem, of course, is that these algorithms are created by humans, and humans have biases. “This could mean that a particular catalog of music has more male artists than female artists. One of the dangers of machine learning is that as listeners start to engage with that catalog, those biases begin to be magnified and create what’s called a feedback loop.” Spotify says that its research teams “evaluate and mitigate against potential algorithmic inequities and harms,” but concerns regarding the immense power of these programs remain, including criticisms that the algorithm is not optimized for new artists, due to a lack of past user data—what is known as the “cold start problem.” Spotify uses human editors to try to solve this issue, but, again, we’re back to human bias and the many built-in issues of the old gatekeeping model of music discovery (that streaming was supposed to solve, by the way).
…And if you thought that was a lot, right on cue, Spotify has announced that it’s making a big bet on generative AI. Meet your own personal AI DJ. Yay!
A3. Cafe Bohemia closes… again. This jazz club situated in the heart of the West Village first opened its doors in 1955 and served as a home-base for artists such as Miles Davis, Kenny Dorham, Art Blakey, and many more. Unfortunately, the original Cafe Bohemia closed its doors in 1960. During that time it served as a home for various restaurants and since 1990, it is the Barrow Street Ale House. After nearly 60 years, the jazz club was relaunched in 2019 in the basement of the Ale House. Since then, it has been a home-base for artists such as Dayna Stephens, Jeff “Tain” Watts, and young talents such as Emmanuel Michael and JK Kim. Now, Cafe Bohemia announced that it will be closing its doors on May 27th. This has been a trend for jazz clubs in Manhattan and Brooklyn—what is the future for newish jazz clubs?
A4. New music this week: from Madison McFerrin, daughter of Bobby and sister to Taylor, released her highly anticipated debut album, I Hope You Can Forgive Me, this past week. The album represents an evolution in her career as she finds ways to improvise and self-produce in the midst of an ever changing global pandemic landscape (Apple Music / Spotify). The Jonas Brothers released The Album—according to The Independent “at no point does The Album push for edge or originality. But you’d have to be the barbecue grinch to deny its lovingly crafted, feel-good vibes. Pure, safe sonic ketchup” (Apple Music / Spotify). Ed Sheeran released his song “Life Goes On” featuring Luke Combs (Apple Music / Spotify). They performed it live at the ACM awards as a surprise duet.
And a huge shoutout to friends of Foray, John Ross McEwen, who released his highly-anticipated new album, Sinking Towards the Shore (Apple Music / Spotify) today, and Emma Hedrick, who released a beautiful new video for her song, “In the Garden” (YouTube) this week.
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We think you’re super,
Charlie & Amy + Alexandria
Extra credit: keep practicing.
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