Post #199530 by Digitiki on Tue, Nov 22, 2005 11:12 AM

Being a musician for many many years, all of this reminds of the debate in the jazz community back in the 80's and 90's between so called "jazz purists" and then widely popular "pop jazz" as I call it. The debate rages on against hard core jazz players and jazz lovers that preach what jazz is with a fervor that would make Torquemada bow out - the belief that jazz is what it was (i.e. Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, swing feel, no electronics). Those people would shreik against ANY new direction that jazz or pop or the conversion of the two was taking. The irony was that jazz, by its very nature is interpretive, evolutionary and imporvisational.

I am also reminded of a thread some time ago about the popularity of tiki. As with any subject there are different sides and variations on viewpoints. There were people who lamented the the fact the tiki was becoming popular - of all things.

It seems, from being on TC for some time now and reading the Book of Tiki and all, that TIKI is actually 2 different things- the classical/historical and the pop-culture/improvisational. It should definately be pointed out that the Polynesian pop tiki styles that many have come to see as the embodyment of Tiki style were once improvisations on a theme as well. I see TIKI as I do everything else in our lives like visual art, music, food, architecture and even language - it is alive and constanctly changing like jazz. There will always be those that want to keep a firm hold on where we've come from and that is just fine. There will also be those who wish not to look back and venture forward and that is fine too. There will always be those that fall somewhere between the two extremes and that is just fine. Like jazz and language, Tiki will continue to evolve so long as it is alive. And I'd rather have it alive and evolving rather than relegated to a closed chapter in history.