Is there anybody around we could truly call a musical genius?

Was Jankowski really a genius? Because just about every album of his I've seen says so.

 

jonathan richman
jackson browne
BARRY WHITE big kudos
KC
Blowfly
robert johnson
johnny ray
bing
satchmo
PROFESSOR LONGHAIR big kudos

 

Music has different genres so it's a strange approach to qualify composers as "musical geniuses" over the important figures from other genres. It would (arguably) be just as difficult for Beethoven to create "Kind of Blue" as it would be for Miles Davis to create the 9th Symphony. Both men were geniuses of their respective genres and they shaped music to come.

In the pop and rock (and jazz) arena, Brian Eno describes something called "scenious", a silly term used to drive the point home that in the modern era of music, any given masterpiece is rarely the work of an individual, rather a collaboration of brilliant minds and talents. In this regard, it's the bands (Beatles, Zeppelin, etc) that are the musical geniuses, and they stand up just fine next to the brilliant composers like Mozart and Beethoven, regardless of whether their intent was to change the course of music history. Even Bowie (and Eno, and a slew of jazz greats) can be considered as "bands" since so much of their output was aided by collaboration.

As far as other "individual" geniuses go, it would be hard not to qualify Bob Dylan as a folk genius. I would also think that Prince and Stevie Wonder deserve the label. Maybe even George Clinton.

 

I would guess that the people who "willfully" excluded them don't consider them geniuses. If two geniuses were born in Liverpool within 2 years of each other, you might be more generous with the term than I would be.

None of my personal favorite living artists ranks as a "genius" in my book -- Stevie Wonder is probably the closest among the living. (I might include Hendrix and Coltrane among my deceased favorites.)

 

Yes, and people are posting artists that they believe fit this criteria.

 

And following that criteria, I think that Van Dyke Parks, Zappa, Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan and Don Van Vliet fit the bill.

 

Johan Sebastian Bach - The father of western music. The master of counterpoint, his music still sounds fresh.
Igor Stravinsky - see Rite of Spring, Petrushka, Firebird
Miles Davis - Spearheaded multiple jazz idioms. I also loved the way he used space in his solos, showing that what you don't play is often as important as what you do play.
Brian Eno - Instrumental in the creation of ambient music. Also produced some of the greatest albums in the history of recorded music.
Jimi Hendrix - Major innovator on the electric guitar. Composed some brilliant music too.
John Fahey - His "American Primitive" solo guitar style brilliantly blended elements of Delta blues, Appalachian folk & classical elements into a sound all its own.
Sly Stone - Blended pop with R&B and wrote some timeless songs, also helped created funk along the way.
Jimmy Page - The king of the riff, the master of 'light and shade'. He also excelled in the studio creating rich tapestries of sound. His brilliance as a composer particularly shines through on "Kashmir" and "The Rain Song".
Jason Falkner - In addition to his solo albums and side projects, his musical vision is imprinted on the albums he's produced for others like Anne Soldaat and Brendan Benson.
Jeff Beck - Genius as a soloist rather than a composer. Cases in point - his solos on "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat", "Cause We Ended as Lovers" and "Blue Wind".
Danny Gatton -Another genius soloist. He's one the few guitarists that could genuinely improvise at blinding speeds rather than regurgitate scales and licks. He assimilated the major American musical styles - Jazz, Country, Blues, Rock'n'Roll/Rockabilly - better then anyone else I've heard.
David Bowie - The Miles Davis of pop and rock in the 70s when he continuously innovated in his quest to create fresh sounds.
Lee Perry - along with King Tubby, he created dub. He was also the producer of some of the best music coming out of Jamaica in the 70s.
Lennon & McCartney taken together as a unit, with an assist from George Martin,. I refer everyone to the recent article in The Atlantic detailing the dynamics of their creative partnership. http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/06/the-power-of-two/372289/

 

duke ellington
t rex
sly stone
merle haggard
johnny cash
cannonball and david axelrod
son house
howlin wolf
solomon burke
bobby fuller and buddy holly
all geniuses

 

Genius is a subjective category so it is no use arguing about someone's choices. It would be helpful if people would state their criteria for inclusion because then we could at least see whether the choices fit and what others would fit too.

For myself genius means an individual, not a duo or group and someone who displays consistent creativity and originality combined with technical craft over a period of years, preferably for a major portion of their life. I think it has got to be something compositional and not simply technical excellence. I also think genius is Not an either/or construct in that we can have lesser (minor) geniuses and greater (Major) geniuses. Actually I like a number of the mentions here for recent musical geniuses such as Hendrix or Miles Davis or Monk. I don't think anyone in pop music or jazz has yet risen to the level of "Major" genius but that's just me.

 

all the usual suspects have been mentioned - this is all very subjective and depends on where you want to set the bar...............i personally would not list many of these artists as "geniuses" - i put the bar high for that word and do consider some of the early classical composers geniuses such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven etc. i can't put Zappa, Lennon, and others up there.......great songwriters and musicians that they are. Hendrix, Monk, others may approach it. .............. criteria would help........

 

Too difficult to call for me, but that doesn't stop me from adding a couple of names to the mix:

Eric Dolphy
Roland Kirk

 

Atlantic Records clearly felt Ray Charles deserved the title

 

Kanye

 

Nicely put. I couldn't agree more with this statement. "Pushing the envelope" to coin a phrase.

 

Lots of yucks itt.

But seriously, folks, genius is as genius does. While many artists create some works of genius (Brian Wilson, Dylan, L/M, some jazz artists, etc.) it takes a whole body of genius (Beethoven, Mozart for instance) to qualify as a genius. Seriously, has anyone created something so earth-shattering and different from all that came before as Beethoven did in 1826 with The Grosse Fuge - a century before his time (as were all of his late quartets). Now, that is a genius.

 

How about the Venal Old Goat himself, Robert Fripp? He has persistently reinvented Crimson over the years, his own music, Frippertronics and Soundscapes, are marvels of invention, emotion, and skill, and his additions to other people's music (Bowie for example) lift that music to higher levels than they would have been without him. Not to mention the invention of New Standard Tuning and a whole new discipline for playing guitar.

 

That's a good point. I consider Leos Janacek's two string quartets to be stunningly original music. Works of genius by someone who isn't otherwise a genius (based on what I've heard of his other pieces).

 

A lot of names have been thrown around so far. If this keeps up we're going to have trouble finding anyone who *isn't* a genius. Barry White?!

 

Charles Ives caught on to one of the things that Beethoven does in the Grosse Fuge to powerful effect. There's bits of the fugue that are not "reconciled" harmonically, rather they are allowed to express dissonance in full cry. There's a moment of this in the "Eroica", where there's a bitonal clash. But you won't hear this level or kind of dissonance again until Charles Ives and the Second Viennese School. A lot of Beethoven's "Late Period" finales have this mode of polyphonic writing, almost "punk" in its harshness of expression.

 

It would appear that in a thread where no consensus could ever be reached that one would have to break this down into categories or genres and slip their respective "geniuses" into little boxes.

 

So true. Also, Bartok created a set of stunning quartets -- very dissonant and yet so beautiful.

 

I would think that anyone that is/was considered a "musical genius" should have an understanding of the most deeper-than-deep rules of music theory and be able to apply them. So by my definition, self-taught musicians that can't even read sheet music would not apply. They might be great musicians and I might love their output but I wouldn't consider them geniuses.

 

I was at a couple of concerts in local Cathedrals last week with Arvo Part in attendance
He is the most recorded living composer and a genius in my book
But so is George Martin...
And Hildegard

 

And Kenny Clarke, and Bud Powell, and Monk...

 

Why do you think he was a 'bit of an idiot'?