As much as I love, get obsessed and philosophise about music, I get equally irritated by the trappings and trash associated with the industry. Especially the categorisation of music: the mania to put all genres and types of music in their respective boxes — for ease of consumption, marketing and profit-projection. And for ease of shelving no doubt. File under AOR, MOR, EMO or other youth-oriented rock. World, folk, roots, rock, acoustic, country, minimal, metal. And all those weird rages for cross-genre taxonomies: alt-country, math metal, jah swing. The Wikipedia has an hilariously exhaustive list of musical styles [note 1]. The end result of which is the realisation there's probably as many categories as performers of music, further multiplied to the n^th power by genre crossovers and combinations. Which can then be further graded and analysed according to career phases, solo directions, collaborations. Which underlines the superfluousness of the whole enterprise, the nastily shallow criticism in it. And which is a pale whiff of the nobler truth underlying it all: that there are no musics plural but only the true expression of Music singular. Hang your criticism.

A related branch of this silliness is the habit of choosing music for mood. Or what I like to call the Soundtrack Theory of Life, where every moment and experience has its appropriate musical backdrop, just like the calculated soundtracks of commercials with their pushing of emotional buttons. This band is great for driving (or just better in cars), this album for shagging, and this recently-deceased soul-disco singer for conceiving babies. This band for romantic dinners, these ones for breakups female and breakups male. This one for drinking beer, that one for Wild Turkey and all those for getting stoned (with a copious footnote on reggae). This mix for getting ready, that one for partying, these ones for coming down. Here's a pick-me-up and listen to this for chilling. That one for hangovers or those for aerobics, that band for bedwetters. This one's also great for driving but with the windows down real low. Again — the net result, before I really start to labour the point — is it's all meaningless —as fickle and arbitrary as our moods, changing as fast as you can thumb through an iPod. But again, great for the industry eggs and their monetised categories.

Which is not to say that music should be listened to totally arbitrarily, on permanent random and as jaggedly inappropriate as possible. Free jazz at funerals and heavy metal at bookclubs. I mean that an art which can reach intensities of passion and expression shouldn't be leveled to an act of consumption, spatchcocked to some sullen teenager's mood or mental soundtrack. It's not just about doing justice to a musician's art by affording complete listening attention, or by staying true to the spirit and context of that music's creative intent — it's about that underlying continuity, that thread of magic uniting all music, that we have to keep a hold on as participating listeners. It's what links heart to humanity, the communication of feeling and soul to all. Such an idea of music is the natural enemy of categorisation and it's cheapened by mood-listening (which in itself is not such a bad thing). That soulful underlying thread will always be at the heart of music.

Having said that, I'm going to shoot all this lofty guff down by talking about the category of Late Night Music. It's a special space for music because it's the only (or ideal) time-related genre — there's no mid-morning, pre-brunch category of music [note 2], no 7:45 in the pm sing-along — although there is a Thursday Afternoon music. Late Night is a peculiarly subjective timeslot, a frame of mind that reflects the close of day, the quietened surroundings and potential for long dark nights of the soul.

Late Night calls for a music of solitude and reflection and low sporadic conversation — the kind where secrets and intrigues are hatched and revealed. It's private communion and mellow mental downshifting; it's a gentler and soulful time without all the harried attention that daylight demands. It begins mellow and peaks with a state of communion, with hearts talking and listening across the musical spaces. It's music for when the city sleeps and the sleepless burn their private oil. It's anywhere from ten in the pm to around four in the morning.

It's also a time better suited to listening to improvised music, and jazz ­— the late night music ne plus ultra.

Now, everyone has their favourite bit of Late Night music, and this isn't going to be a prescriptive list of must-listens or essential jazz cuts. Late Night is really a bit of a private affair, a subjective mindset. But I am going to do something different in the annals of music categorisation and collation, and that is to provide a program based on rough time-slots for the Late Night listening experience. Late Night is no generic genre but a different climate and timezone of music altogether, and either side of the midnight hour call for a different approach and tack. So let's go by the clock.

10 pm

To my mind, there's no better way to kick off a late evening's festivities than with the mellow rolling rock of the Grateful Dead. The Live in Europe 72 disc is the best representation of their early 70s swing and groove in action. There's innate musical interplay and amazing chops, pure Americana rock and a wonderfully dynamic group mind — all with an improvisational edge that pips them ahead of other 70s AOR stylists like The Band. There's songs about gambling, trains, sharing the women and wine, all sung with group harmonies and poetic ambivalence. There's such a coherent vibe to the music, such a distinctly American tenor to proceedings (open roads, mobility, community) in addition to the intimate sparkle of Garcia's voice — that there's only one conclusion: This is Good Shit. A good event, a good jam, a great slice of musical life from the golden age of the early 70s.

We used to play for silver, now we play for life.

And musically, instrumentally, historically, the Dead are an important chapter in what can be done with a band, its vision and choices. Just to hear that shared sensibility… of all the players there for the band and the band mind growing into something larger and more precious than the individuals combined (hence their sense of community) — that this directly affects the sound — that is something important for modern bands to hear and aspire to. Jerry's lead locks in with Bob Weir's rhythm guitar, underpinned by the stealth melodicism of Phil Lesh on bass. Bill Kreutzman's spacious swing and Keith Godchaux's startling precise piano accompaniment — and everyone playing almost continually in complimentary grooves — and this band could easily knock off a six hour set — it's all such an uncanny gestalt. Such an easy rolling rumble that never tires, and varies itself in manifold ways the next night. That makes them worth following around everywhere, inspiring weird devotion in fans collecting taped gigs, searching for that magic buzz across the nights.

At this stage the Dead were into folksy songs and vocals. If you want to dilate night time even further and sample the dark silver backing of the Dead mirror, then download a bevy of classic Dark Star performances from '68 to '74 at archive.org and contemplate the intransigent nightfall of diamonds. Which is Dead code for bending time and space in a far-out manner.

11 pm

Eleven o'clock is the jazz turnpike; the multiple avenues and tributaries of true jazz await. Let your heart dictate direction — go bold and rounded with Dexter, ruminative and accessible with Miles, exploratory with conscious-traveler Sun Ra, the intense dervish swirl of Coltrane or trapdoor wizardry of Monk, or tune in the milder stars of sidemen like Mobley, Blakey, Adderley, Mulligan and Baker in any guise.

To my naturally biased ear, it seems everything in the development of jazz lead to the great 50s period. Eleven pm is the hour for any 50s-era jazz in my book. It was a unique bubble in time of course, floated by the twin-horned engine of Bird and Dizz, by a sound and scene and an amazing concord of talent. The 50s aesthetic is the template by which we measure jazz today — the cerebral focus on solos and virtuosity, the smoothed-out swing and of course the suits and deadly serious musicianship. Everything that happened after is part of the future fallout and breakdown of jazz: free jazz, fusion etc.

But, the stars of that period are so intense you could navigate by any of them to reach a deep appreciation of the art.

Let's keep the 'up' mood with Dexter Gordon. First I'd like to digress about horn players. There's a truism told by musos that any one instrument sounds completely different in another muso's hands. I always thought this obvious with guitars, where attack and physical style drive the sound. But with saxophones, even with the same brand and model (as well as the reed factor, whose importance I had previously underestimated) — there are still astounding differences in sound between players. Unlike trumpet embouchure, the individuating elements of timbre and total sound are more restrained on the sax, or so you'd think. But you can immediately differentiate Dexter from Coltrane, or even Coltrane from John Gilmore on the tenor. I mean this beyond chops and playing styles — the same note on the same sax will sound completely different depending on who's blowing it.

This is because the great jazz players are great personalities of sound. All those years spent woodshedding and marking time in lesser bands is in aid of developing the individual sound (although it could be argued that some rare geniuses arrive fully formed — they are few indeed). Now, Dexter arrived in the Bop era of the 50s — think chops and speed and urgent agility — but his sound and note structure are supremely mindful, deliberate and solid. Almost slow-brewed. His notes are full like vessels to the brim, full of dark depths. The whole note matters to Dexter, because every note matters. In the flurries of Bop this may seem at odds with pyrotechnic speed and virtuosity. Even in his fast runs, Dexter is the master of every note he creates— he never sounds rushed at a clip. Every note is Dexter.

This has to be why his bold and supremely confident nature carries so clearly into his sound and phrasing — his attention to the whole note. The proof of which is in his slow playing: Dexter's best solos are low and slow, and there's few other players that mine the lower depths of the tenor as richly. Even fewer have the same generous precision with the execution and length of a note [note 3]. It's a sense of informed sustain and seriously advanced poetic punctuation. His every comma, his every caesura matters. If he trims, bends or slurs a note, it's for a reason. Along with his timing and pace, the rhythm and stretch of his notes become deeply, personally expressive. Almost all his slower blues pieces are singular studies in note length — for any musician. Singers could learn mountains from this man; and he must be intimidating as hell for developing saxophonists.

It goes beyond attention to detail, beyond being the purest of jazz players — it's right in with the mysteries of personality and expressed identity. And humour. Dexter never blew a run of clichés, but loved musical quips and references. He's the most optimistic sounding, buoyantly positive and solid tenorman from the era.

What I love on albums like Go! is  the sheer subjective dominance of his sound, without unbalancing or listing the band. It's a classic incarnation of strong but dynamic Bop band leadership. And though this album could be filed under Hard Bop, it has neither the cold exhibitionism nor abstracted swing of some labelmates. His phrasing is effortlessly upbeat and the way he sets up and pitches those great  sustained notes is full of torque and vim. His control of variation is total — he knows which notes to scatter staccato, which to round off with buttery vibrato and which notes to blow long for the band to vibe on. 'Phrasing' doesn't do justice to the sheer poetic command of his meter; and ‘leadership' doesn't equate with the reactive interplay of his style. It's uncanny.

The night never sounded so optimistically long as when Dexter blows low and slow.

Page two...

NOTES

1.    I was inspired by a discussion to find out exactly how many genres, sub-genres and lesser orders of Metal music there actually are. Now, I'm no musical taxonomist, and I've left out a lot of cross-genre classifications, but this basic starter-list is totally out of control:

Heavy Metal, Black Metal, Death Metal, Thrash Metal, Progressive Metal, Viking Metal, Speed Metal, Power Metal, Hair Metal, Glam Metal, Nu Metal, Doom Metal, Electronic Metal, Folk Metal, Gothic Metal, Traditional Metal, Orchestral/Symphonic Metal, War Metal, Electro Metal, Industrial Metal, Death 'n Roll, Dark Metal, Ethno Metal, Grindcore, Horror Metal, Mathmetal, Ambient Metal, Atmospheric Metal, Chaoscore, Cyber Metal, Dramatic Metal, Epic Metal, Experimental Metal, Fun Metal, Groove Metal, Indie Metal, Medieval Metal, Pop Metal, Skaldic Metal, Sludge Metal, Stoner Metal, US-Metal, Wave Metal and Western Metal... just for starters.

Are these guys serious?

2.    Bear in mind my arbitrary haste: Indian classical music, for instance, is closely aligned with the times of day. There are morning and evening ragas, appropriate and incorrect times to play them etc. But at least they don't get finicky about musical categories.

3.    To strike an aside: I keep coming back to the force of long notes — because in a small way the control over timing and sustain seems to imply control over cap T Time. And especially in Late Night music, where the sense of time dilates — this effect has become the signature of genuine and moving musical art to me.