As Tony Tommasini reports in the Times today, the Pulitzer Prize has changed the definition of its prize for music, opening the category to jazz, film scores, and music theater. Submission of a score will be "strongly urged" but no longer required. This is apparently a response to John Adams' fierce critique of the prize last year, in which he complained that maverick composers like Harry Partch, John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Steve Reich, not to mention all the royals of jazz, had never won. Around the same time, Gary Giddins wrote a Voice piece on the Pulitzer perplex, listing some of the living greats who deserve the honor: Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Bob Dylan, B.B. King, Abbey Lincoln, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Chuck Berry, Pete Seeger, James Brown....
The Pulitzer board doesn't seem prepared to go quite that far. They're drawing the line in a different place, but they're still drawing the line, between "our" music and "theirs." Kyle Gann has already pointed out some conceptual cracks in the new definition. If you're going to start handing the prize to a Generally Important Person in Music, you'd better be sure that the prize is open to absolutely everyone, or you'll still hear accusations of elitism. Otherwise, there is much to be said for sticking with the old definition ("for distinguished musical composition of significant dimension by an American"). I recently read an essay by John Halle, a composer at Yale, warning that the art of writing and reading musical notation is fast losing its cultural value. He argues convincingly that the Pulitzer should remain a bulwark for American composers — not because they are a superior species, but because they are in dire need of broader cultural recognition and economic support. In other words, they could use the cash. Of course, a lot of people in jazz could use the cash, too. [Addendum: John Halle writes to add that the question of money is less important to him than the celebration of what's different and unique about the art. "Truth in advertising is the best policy," he says. "Which means that 'vive la différence' should be our motto." The challenge is doing this without falling into the old attitudes of classical supremacy, which, in the name of maintaining the music's cultural value, have gone a long way toward destroying it.]
It's the same old art-pop muddle, but composers might be able to make the most of it. If the Pulitzer's non-classical choices are smart and passionate, they will attract new attention to the prize, which will give a boost to the notating underground. I assume this is the intention, in which case I wonder: Why not give two prizes, one for composition and one for not? The Polar Prize in Sweden could be the model. This year's winners: György Ligeti and B.B. King. A stroke of genius to put them together. Let them jam, in people's minds.
