Nov 5, 2024 1:00 AM
In Memoriam: Quincy Jones, 1933-2024
Quincy Delight Jones Jr., musician, bandleader, composer and producer, died in his home in Bel Air, California, on…
“We as humans are adapting to machinery and technology that we created,” says Prieto, adding that the results are mixed, at best.
(Photo: Osmani Tellez)Back in the prehistoric era of music, before the internet and digital age, roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1970s, music genres had a distinct regional flavor, often tied to specific recording studios. Think of the swampy southern rock of Muscle Shoals or the laid-back Laurel Canyon sound of Shangri-La, Westlake Sound City and Henson Recording Studios — and, of course, the legendary Motown of Detroit. These regional styles were shaped by the unique talents and creativity of countless inventive composers and equally skilled studio musicians. To a lesser extent, this same trend was reflected in the West Coast versus East Coast styles of jazz, then hip-hop.
Growing up as a drummer in the southern states during the 1970s and tuning into AM pop radio, it was a cinch to spot the guitar work of Duane Allman, or the drumming of Bernard Purdie or Steve Gadd. Their unique styles were so distinctive and powerful that they stood out in any mix, no matter who was singing lead. Unfortunately, those days of instantly recognizable musicians in popular music seem to be a thing of the past.
On his latest album, 3 Sides Of The Coin (Dafnison), drummer, composer and Frost School of Music professor Dafnis Prieto grapples with the pressures of being a jazz musician amid corporate radio algorithms and shrinking attention spans, a phenomenon exacerbated by the rapid evolution and pervasive influence of artificial intelligence. Three compositions from Prieto’s new album, “Humanoid,” “Funky Humanoid” and “Alba,” demonstrate the influence of AI and its potentially disastrous outcomes for musicians.
“I hate to be judgmental because I try to respect people’s enthusiasm about what they think music is,” Prieto explained. “But people now can use a sampler to assemble samples and beats, and they call themselves musicians. They’re very successful, more than the ones that originally created that content. So it’s very confusing and just leads to regulations in the creative realm, especially for those that are doing it honestly. There are always people that are dishonest, but when regulations come down, they come down for everyone.”
Like writer Martin Amis warned about the impersonality of mass media, the Grammy-winning, MacArthur Fellowship-awarded Prieto foresees a looming battle for music content creators, wondering if AI tools, for example, could easily replace his image even in his iconic drum solos online.
“This is what’s going to happen because there won’t be any identification of who’s who, right?” Prieto asks. “The only reason we have a Charlie Parker is because there is one Charlie Parker. If we have a thousand, it wouldn’t be a Charlie Parker. I’m not against the enthusiasm of dealing and creating with it, but the manipulation of content is just massive. They’ve started creating regulations, but the elephant is already in the room.”
While 3 Sides Of The Coin addresses subjects as varied as the people and culture of his native Cuba (“Caprichos Cubanos”), the duality of interwoven themes and perception (“Two Sides Of The Coin”), the artistry of Charlie Parker (“The Happiest Boy In Town”) and his Cuban childhood (“Conga Ingenua”), in his truly inimitable fashion, Prieto’s AI-alerting compositions remain arresting.
Joined by his Sí o Sí Quartet of Peter Apfelbaum on woodwinds, Martin Bejerano on piano and Ricky Rodríguez on electric bass, Prieto performs his odd-metered, odd-grouping, often metrically modulating compositions rife with native rhythms that are equally festive and bold.
Though he loves Bach, Brahms, Debussy, Stravinsky, Ravel and Bartók, there’s no denying the indigenous fire in the pulse of Prieto’s music. The clanging electric bass and funky drums of “Humanoid” recall a glitch treatise in metric exhilaration; “Funky Humanoid” buffets 4/4 commentary with angular accents, cyclical melodies and pointed improvisation; “Alba” relates the story of a genetically modified green rabbit. These songs could form a soundtrack to a collective loss of human control, and its consequences.
“Alba was a genetically modified ‘glowing’ rabbit created as an artistic work by contemporary artist Eduardo Kac, produced in collaboration with French geneticist Louis-Marie Houdebine,” according to an online encyclopedia.
“Alba cost millions of dollars to create,” Prieto noted. “They injected Alba’s cells into the embryo of the rabbit’s mom. Then Alba came out green and glowed in the dark. Then Alba died. On one side (referring to the coin analogy) I feel curiosity. It’s fascinating but very uncomfortable that this could happen, yet it’s also kind of tricky, misleading and cruel. I wanted a beautiful melody, but a weird one. So in a way, the song is peaceful, with some alterations, which is what happened with Alba.”
While younger musicians often chase the ephemeral rewards of social media, Prieto, like a literary scholar delving into a forgotten text, immerses himself in the works of musical giants like Bartók, even visiting his home/museum in Budapest.
“You see the piano that he wrote on, and even a leftover cigarette,” Prieto recalled. “You see the megaphone that he used to listen to music and, his scores, clothing, all these things in his house. When I looked at his piano, I felt this spiritual cocoon, the physical place where he lived and worked. It’s a reminder of how much creation is tied to who you are with your own sense of imagination. And that feeling of being in a place where I didn’t feel any stress. It’s an intimate place.”
The album’s title, 3 Sides Of The Coin, draws from Prieto’s study of psychology.
“It’s about seeing that extra side, the different points of view of one thing,” Prieto explains. “People have a tendency to say, ‘OK, this is good or this is bad.’ So it’s very bilateral in a way. Often times people are good and bad at the same time.”
This brings our conversation back to AI: where it’s heading, who’s running it and the end result.
“We as humans are adapting to machinery and technology that we created,” Prieto says. “There are more restrictions and much more manipulation by technology. We have become a slave of our own doing.”
After teaching at NYU for 10 years, Prieto arrived at the Frost School of Music in 2015, calling it home ever since. He instructs a wide variety of students in different disciplines, and while he feels there are many great young players at Frost, his concern for these young musicians’ future is palpable.
“I’m just realistic,”he says. “I’m seeing the reality in front of me and experiencing it. Often when online, I feel like I have only two choices, the choices that they give to me, not the choices that I want. This kind of manipulation happens in politics, it happens in every industry, including the music industry. You see kids who become superstars after appearing on a TV show. You wonder, where did this person come from and who did they play with? You remember that phrase that people used to say, ‘Paying your dues?’ That doesn’t exist anymore.
“The consequences of being honest are very high,” Prieto adds. “Society is polluted with so many images, you don’t know what’s real. It’s the same with fake news; things have lost so much credibility. The more honest you are, the higher the price you pay for the consequences.” DB
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