Several times during my undergraduate years I had experienced something you might call “the true thought is the afterthought”: I would write a paper, turn it in, and only then would I come to understand what I’d been writing about, what I’d been seeking. So it is with my current piece at 3 Quarks Daily: Jacob Collier, a 21st Century Mozart? – https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2020/12/jacob-collier-a-21st-century-mozart.html.
After giving the piece its provocative title I said nothing about that title until the very end, where I did say something, but not much, certainly not as much as I’d had in mind when planning the piece. But even what I’d planned would have missed the point, which is a subtle one.
Why even suggest such a comparison – Jacob Collier and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – when I know, and stated, that it’s pointless on the face of it? I was certainly playing to a widespread mentality that likes to rank and order things, all kinds of things, certainly including artistic accomplishment, as a way of measuring excellence. In Collier’s case we do not and cannot know – which I more or less said in the article.
What I did not say is why, nonetheless, I felt more or less compelled to offer the comparison in the first place. Mozart, more than any other classical composer, has become, rightly or wrongly, a figure for prodigiousness. That is what Collier may well be, seems to be, about. What seems so remarkable about Collier is the combination of musical sophistication and skill with (relative) accessibility and popularity. As one musician – I forget who – remarked in a video, musicians with the kind of intricate sophistication Collier exhibits do not get nominated for Album of the Year, as Collier just has. How’d that happen?
This comparison should not be understood as a device of logic and reason. It functions as a device of metaphor and indirection.
When I think of the Collier phenomenon, if you will, the music, but also its reception, the variety of musicians who think well of him, I conclude that I have no way of judging him. I’ve not seen anything quite like this phenomenon and so, in consequence, offer up this absurd history-breaking comparison about which I cannot be serious: Mozart | Collier.
I suppose the comparison could as easily have been with Beethoven or Bach or, for that matter, Armstrong, Ellington or perhaps the Beatles. Why not? Except that those names are not so thoroughly absorbed into figurative usage as “Mozart.” Someone of one of the video’s I watched suggested that Collier is a generational musician. Perhaps that is it. Which to say, that is the scope of the question. It will be awhile a verdict becomes apparent.
* * * * *
Let us return to earth and listen to the arrangement which earned Collier the 2020 Grammy for an instrumental or a cappella arrangement, Moon River:
The music is almost static for the first minute and twenty seconds. Tones come and go as faces appear and vanish in the video. What a strange almost meditative way to open an arrangement.
Collier had asked well a hundred fifty-one people to make short videos of themselves singing “moon.” He then collaged those “moons” into the opening minute and twenty-seconds. Here’s a list of them:
Suzie Collier, Sophie Collier, Ella Collier, Ben Bloomberg, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, Eric Whitacre, Hans Zimmer, Steve Vai, Ty Dolla $ign, Chris Martin, Charlie Puth, Lianne La Havas, Tori Kelly, David Crosby, Chris Thile, Daniel Caesar, Kimbra, Laura Mvula, MARO, Cory Henry, dodie, Becca Stevens, Jack Conte, Nataly Dawn, Oumou Sangare, Jules Buckley, Jamie Cullum, Tank, Beardyman, Genevieve Artadi, Sam Wilkes, Greg Phillinganes, Michael League, Hamid El Kasri, Avery Wilson, Jojo, Jonah Nilsson, Tom Misch, Darwin Deez, June Lee, Kathryn Tickell, Merrill Garbus, Nikki Yanofsky, Sam Amidon, Alvin Chea, Claude McKnight, Mark Kibble, Khristian Dentley, David Thomas, Joel Kibble, Andrea Haines, El Cockerham, Blake Morgan, Barney Smith, Chris Wardle, Jonathan Pacey, Rob Clark, Sam Dressel, Barak Schmool, Pedro Martins, Jake Sherman, Jonathan Dove, Brian Mayton, Fred Harris, Nicola Hadley, Steve Mulligan, Clyde Lawrence, Gracie Lawrence, Sumner Becker, Jordan Cohen, Thomas Gould, Gareth Lockrane, Gwilym Simcock, Jason Rebello, James Maddren, Nick Smart, Pete Churchill, Tom Cawley, Umar Hossain, Mischa Stevens, Jose Ortega, Claudio Somigli, Alessandro Melchior, Christian Euman, Rob Mullarkey, Adam Fell, Michael LaTorre, Michael Peha, James Wright, Noah Simon, Matthew Celia, Rocky Borders, Josh Helfferich, Robert Watts, Ewa Zbyszynska, Arend Liefkes, Jasper van Rosmalen, Murk Jiskoot, Ruben Margarita, Aleigha Durand, Allayna O'Quinn, André Smith, Asya Bookal, Briana Marshall, Catherina Lagredelle, Celine Sylvester, Chad Lupoe, Chesroleeysia B, Cleavon Davis, Cole Henry, Danielle Cornwall, Haley Flemons, Holland Sampson, Jason Max Ferdinand, Jourdan Bardo, JP Scavella, Kashaé Whyte, Keviez Wilson, Kobe Brown, Kristin Hall, Leonard Brown, Lincoln Liburd, Louis Cleare, Maia Foster, Malik George, Malik McHayle, Marissa Wright, Matthew Cordner, Mykel Inez, Naomi Parchment, Natrickie Louissaint, Patricia Williams, Roddley Point-du-Jour, Samella Carryl, Terell Francis-Clarke, Zaren Bennett, Leo Janssen
The first three on the list are his mother and two sisters, respectively. Beyond that it’s a miscellaneous collection of people Collier knows. Some are well known musicians. I recognize a few names and they span an interesting range of musical kinds. The range is no doubt larger than I know. Many of the people are just people Collier knows, just friends. The list itself makes few distinctions.
Here’s a video where Collier explains how he constructed the video. He devotes the first 12 minutes to that opening collage.
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