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Hardbopjazz

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From Sonny Rollins as told through Benny Green ‘s Facebook page  


benny Green
6 hrs.
"If you are worrying about 'Gee, am I going to make a living playing Jazz?' and 'Wow, how am I going to make it?', then Jazz is not for you, just listen to it. You have to be careful if you're thinking, 'Well gee, am I gonna make enough money to feed my family or to have a nice car and live in a nice house?'
- Music doesn't respect that.
Music is someplace else, and if you love Music and you feel that you have the talent, then you've got to go there - never mind all this other stuff. If not, then don't do it for
a profession, do it when you get home from work, maybe." - Sonny Rollins
If you feel so passionate about music that certain recordings speak to you so deeply that you feel an uncontainable sense that this is what you're meant to do, then please seek out those living and accessible individuals who represent the sounds and feelings that
speak to you. If you're sincere, there are people who've been given music by their elders and who understand that no one owns it, and that it's to be passed along to those rare and brave individuals with the heart to treat a
spiritual gift with honor and humility. There are infinite ways to create, amidst many
descriptive or confining worldly genre terminologies. Some of my revered musical heroes detest the word "Jazz" for wholly valid reasons, while some of them call
their music just that. Not unlike the reality that some beautiful people are carnivores, some are vegetarian, and some exercise the
freedom of choice to change-up - not all good people think, speak, dress or eat exactly the same, but they're nevertheless good people who live on their own authentic terms and who answer to their own heartfelt
principles and values. When I simply listen and feel, I know what I love, and no one needs to be corrected by anyone else about what they love, because what a person loves is central to and inextricable from who they are.
 

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Monk:

Thelonious Monk’s 25 Tips for Musicians (1960)

 

Just because you’re not a drummer, doesn’t mean that you don’t have to keep time.

Pat your foot and sing the melody in your head when you play.

Stop playing all that bullshit, those weird notes, play the melody!

Make the drummer sound good.

Discrimination is important.

You’ve got to dig it to dig it, you dig?

All reet!

Always know

It must be always night, otherwise they wouldn’t need the lights.

Let’s lift the band stand!!

I want to avoid the hecklers.

Don’t play the piano part, I am playing that. Don’t listen to me, I am supposed to be accompanying you!

The inside of the tune (the bridge) is the part that makes the outside sound good.

Don’t play everything (or everytime); let some things go by. Some music just imagined.

What you don’t play can be more important than what you do play.

A note can be small as a pin or as big as the world, it depends on your imagination.

Stay in shape! Sometimes a musician waits for a gig & when it comes, he’s out of shape & can’t make it.

When you are swinging, swing some more!

(What should we wear tonight?) Sharp as possible!

Always leave them wanting more.

Don’t sound anybody for a gig, just be on the scene.

Those pieces were written so as to have something to play & to get cats interested enough to come to rehearsal!

You’ve got it! If you don’t want to play, tell a joke or dance, but in any case, you got it! (to a drummer who didn’t want to solo).

Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along & do it. A genius is the one most like himself.

They tried to get me to hate white people, but someone would always come along & spoil it.

monkgigtips4.jpg

Edited by jk666
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On 26.2.2022 at 10:42 PM, Hardbopjazz said:

From Sonny Rollins as told through Benny Green ‘s Facebook page  


benny Green
6 hrs.
"If you are worrying about 'Gee, am I going to make a living playing Jazz?' and 'Wow, how am I going to make it?', then Jazz is not for you, just listen to it. You have to be careful if you're thinking, 'Well gee, am I gonna make enough money to feed my family or to have a nice car and live in a nice house?'
- Music doesn't respect that.
Music is someplace else, and if you love Music and you feel that you have the talent, then you've got to go there - never mind all this other stuff. If not, then don't do it for
a profession, do it when you get home from work, maybe." - Sonny Rollins
If you feel so passionate about music that certain recordings speak to you so deeply that you feel an uncontainable sense that this is what you're meant to do, then please seek out those living and accessible individuals who represent the sounds and feelings that
speak to you. If you're sincere, there are people who've been given music by their elders and who understand that no one owns it, and that it's to be passed along to those rare and brave individuals with the heart to treat a
spiritual gift with honor and humility. There are infinite ways to create, amidst many
descriptive or confining worldly genre terminologies. Some of my revered musical heroes detest the word "Jazz" for wholly valid reasons, while some of them call
their music just that. Not unlike the reality that some beautiful people are carnivores, some are vegetarian, and some exercise the
freedom of choice to change-up - not all good people think, speak, dress or eat exactly the same, but they're nevertheless good people who live on their own authentic terms and who answer to their own heartfelt
principles and values. When I simply listen and feel, I know what I love, and no one needs to be corrected by anyone else about what they love, because what a person loves is central to and inextricable from who they are.
 

Very well told. 

That´s the reason why I knew from the very start that I would never try to make a living out of it. 

Even as a teenager, getting some acknowledge from professional musicians and people from the audience, I never considered to take the risk to live in poverty or having to be supported or being forced to play stuff that I don´t dig . 
Even then I saw that for example when I´ll have a wife I couldn´t imagine to ask her to help me out or telling her that we can´t take a cab because it´s to expensive or I can´t take her out or she can´t buy clothes and styling stuff, because I can´t afford it. And not to know how I pay my rent for the next month and all that......
You must be born for this, like a kind of Francisc de Asissi , not considering the materialistic aspects of live or, to have health ensurance and all that.....

I did it as a second little  income for some time, but when I was 30 I thought what I´m doin carryin all the stuff, the tubs, the bassfiddle the aplifiers , the keyboard on stage and after gig back into the car, drivin in the small hours, eating some terrible bean or gulaș soup in gas stations, carryin the stuff back into the rehearsal room and have few hours to sleep to get ready for the day job.....

I let that all behind me for 20 years until the old guys said they want me back for two-four gigs the year, until the clubs closed due to pandemia....

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