[Dan Gould]

Teasing the Korean, on Aug 9 2009, 04:32 PM, said:

It is interesting that most of the people who have made a name for themselves in jazz over the last several decades did not go through these jazz programs. There must be exceptions but I don't know of them. Feel free to correct me on this.

I believe it was at William Patterson College that Eric Alexander first encountered Norman Simmons. Marcus Roberts came out of the Florida State music program, also spent time at another school in North Florida whose name escapes me at the moment.

[Larry Kart]

mjzee, on Aug 9 2009, 04:28 PM, said:

One facet of the solution must be alcohol.... Alcohol helps.

And drugs, sex, and fried chicken. :)

[Larry Kart]

Also (with apologies to Chuck), Duct tape, WD-40 and a hammer.

[rockefeller center]

Larry Kart, on Aug 10 2009, 12:02 AM, said:

Also (with apologies to Chuck), Duct tape, WD-40 and a hammer.

Good morning! http://www.organissi...p...st&p=942341

[Larry Kart]

rockefeller center, on Aug 9 2009, 05:08 PM, said:

Larry Kart, on Aug 10 2009, 12:02 AM, said:

Also (with apologies to Chuck), Duct tape, WD-40 and a hammer.

Good morning! http://www.organissi...p...st&p=942341

The golden oldies always bear repeating.

[Ed Swinnich]

I was in Paris in 2006 and looking for a place to hear some jazz. I picked a place called Le Caveau de la Huchette (or something similar) out of a tourist guide. I got to the place and saw that a sax/piano/bass/drum quartet was playing. The jazz club was in the basement and is one of the coolest places I've ever been to for jazz. There were tables on the sides of the room, a huge center area that was surrounded by benches and some more tables and off to the back in what was probably some old wine cellar were more tables. My then girlfriend and I picked a table in the back area, ordered some biere and wondered what the heck was up with the big area with no tables. I surmised that it was an area for people to stand. Seemed like a waste given that not all of the tables were filled.

When the band started playing I quickly found out. Dancing. I was dumfounded. I have to say I felt stupid for not thinking of dancing, but I have to say that was the furthest thing from my mind. I had never seen dancing at a jazz club. There were dozens of people dancing. And the band was totally grooving. They were very good as well. They played hard bop standards and swung like crazy. I couldn't tell who was enjoying it more - the band or the audience. While I didn't dance, I have to say I had a very memorable night. Lots of fun.

Which brings me to another point - which echoes some already made. I really dislike the concert hall presentation of jazz. Way too sterile, formal, controlled. Back in the day (late 80s early 90s), there was a club in Buffalo called the Blue Note. It was an old club, no frills, small, tons of atmosphere. Organ combos were the mainstay, but some very good guitar and sax led groups played there as well. Jazz was palyed Wed through Sunday nights. The place was usually packed, the audience lively and responsive and the bands interactive. Man, I wish there was a place around here like that today. These days in Buffalo, some of the only national acts that appear here perform in the auditorium of our local Art Museum. The sterilization and classicalization of jazz has in many ways left me cold and turned me off.

I like the comments of mjzee above - jazz is being appreciated to death.

This post has been edited by Ed Swinnich: 09 August 2009 - 05:34 PM

[Rooster_Ties]

>> LONG Digg thread<< linking to the same article as post #1 in this thread.

Haven't had the chance to read it yet myself (the original article, nor the long Digg thread), but since Digg is such a general audience (not just music people, and certainly not just JAZZ people), it could be interesting to see what people are saying there. (Or, it could well be total nonsense -- like I said, I haven't yet read it myself.)

[Shawn]

I prefer Black & White movies to color....but that's never going to come back into fashion as the "norm". So I enjoy what I can from the golden age and the rest of the time I do with what's available.

[Jim Alfredson]

papsrus, on Aug 9 2009, 03:54 PM, said:

I bet (young) people party and at Reptet gigs.

We had the people dancing at the Old Town Jazz Festival on Friday. :)

[Chuck Nessa]

Not my problem.

[GA Russell]

I don't think adults today are as interested in music as they used to be.

[AllenLowe]

I hate dancing audiences, but that's just me. I always find the dancers annoying and self conscious.

Of course, these days I hate everyone, so I may not be the most reliable witness.

On the other hand, here I am chomping at the bit to get a real band together for the first time in 10 years, I'm actually practicing and composing, and here comes Terry Teachout to let the air out of my balloons.

And though those numbers may be off, I think his basic point is sound - to a point - because I do think it's time to take the music in newer new directions - but you know what? The biggest obstacle to this, in my experience, is not audiences, but musicians, who waste their time on crappy gigs and real book jam sessions and never see more than about 2 days ahead. The audiences are as bored as the musicians look.

This is all just one angry and tired man's opinion. But the questions persist:

why can't singer's sing in tune?

why do horn players have trouble playing in the key of E?

why do piano players get upset when I call rhythm changes in Ab?

answer those questions and you will restore jazz as a viable art form.

This post has been edited by AllenLowe: 09 August 2009 - 06:26 PM

[AllenLowe]

oh and by the way - I find this sinking state of jazz hilarious because, according to the official arts world propaganda (and Ken Burns), Wynton and Lincoln Center brought it back after its near-death experience. Somebody must have accidentally kicked the plug outta the wall-

This post has been edited by AllenLowe: 09 August 2009 - 06:29 PM

[Teasing the Korean]

Dan Gould, on Aug 9 2009, 05:40 PM, said:

Marcus Roberts came out of the Florida State music program, also spent time at another school in North Florida whose name escapes me at the moment.

Marcus Roberts went through the "classical" program at Tallahassee. When I was at UM, which was a "jazz" school, I remember telling fellow students that there was a blind guy at Tallahassee who will knock your socks off. They all rolled their eyes, and said, "If he were a REAL jazz musician, he'd be at UM." I guess he got the last laugh.

[Larry Kart]

Everyone is accepting the statistics in that NEA study:


http://www.jazz.com/...e-jazz-audience

as sound when IMO they are extremely dubious. In particular, I find it very hard to believe that 17.5% of adults 18-24 attended a jazz event in 1982 (this being the base-line figure that the study gives us). Do you know how many Americans were in that age group in Nov. 1982? No less than 29,917,000:

http://www.census.go...916/p25-916.pdf

So that means that some 5,235,475 people in that 18-24 age group (17.5% of 29,917,000) attended a jazz event in 1982? (Remember, that's only 18-24 year olds, which means that 5,235,475 people would have to be a good deal less than the total jazz audience in 1982-- and also that's people who went to actual "events," not people who just bought records or only listened to jazz on the radio). Well, no matter loosely one defines jazz, I think that's an absurdly large figure, especially when you recall what 1982 was like on the jazz scene. And if that base-line figure is absurd, why trust the other figures? Remember, we're talking about trends that are not merely anecdotal but supposedly have a rock-ribbed statistical basis.

BTW, while I'm at it, a digression: As you can see, there's only one category in the NEA study where median age and attendance shows almost no drop off from 1982 to 2002 -- art museums. OK, let's accept that as fact for the moment. Why would that be so? What are the art museums doing right that everyone else is doing plumb wrong? Are art museums, for instance, doing OK because they're reaching out to young audiences in hipper, more attractive, or energtic and effective ways than everyone else is? Well, I'm sure they're trying, we've all seen evidence of that, but enough to account for that supposed big difference? Nonsense. It's that the loose-limbed forms of entertainment/amusement/enlightenment that art museums offer to young couples is ... well, art museums are relatively cheap casual-date places with pleasant trimmings and full of stuff you can talk about if care to. You can do things if you're in charge of a museum that will drive people away, like filling the galleries with hot-steaming offal and charging $100 to get in, but otherwise you're going to be OK; a good museum is like an indoor park, and what's good about it in 1982 isn't going to be, or need to be, that much different in 2002, 'cause Renoir and Rembrandt and Velazquez and Vermeer tend not to go out of style. No great lessons there, and in particular no endorsement of the need to engage in great gobs of "outreach" to youth or whomever as a form of solution/salvation.

[JSngry]

a friend of Larry Kart who once was a very good amatuer drummer, on Aug 9 2009, 12:29 PM, said:

nobody's dancing to anything but rock 'n roll

If I called bullshit on JackChick25/Carole, then I must equally call it here.

No energy for detail right now, but let me ask you this - why would anybody take the word of a "jazz musician" as to what people are or aren't dancing to? That's kinda like asking a vegan who's making the best steaks in town.

This post has been edited by JSngry: 09 August 2009 - 08:00 PM

[Larry Kart]

JSngry, on Aug 9 2009, 07:58 PM, said:

a friend of Larry Kart who once was a very good amatuer drummer, on Aug 9 2009, 12:29 PM, said:

nobody's dancing to anything but rock 'n roll

If I called bullshit on JackChick25/Carole, then I must equally call it here.

No energy for detail right now, but let me ask you this - why would anybody take the word of a "jazz musician" as to what people are or aren't dancing to? That's kinda like asking a vegan who's making the best steaks in town.

Point taken. But I still agree with my friend that whoever is or is not dancing to what music these days, that "certainly
isn't the fault of jazz" -- if only because, as I think Jim would agree, it isn't in the power of "jazz" these days to remedy that "fault" in any significant manner.

[JSngry]

http://www.dustygroove.com/images/products/c/cotgro_mark_fromjazzf_101b.jpg

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=o05EKVVIynw

http://www.organissi...showtopic=52397

[GA Russell]

Rooster_Ties, on Aug 9 2009, 06:45 PM, said:

>> LONG Digg thread<< linking to the same article as post #1 in this thread.

Thanks for that link, Rooster!

[Larry Kart]

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/public/style_images/master/snapback.png' alt='View Post' />JSngry, on Aug 9 2009, 08:16 PM, said:

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=o05EKVVIynw

http://www.organissi...showtopic=52397

Looks and sounds like a heck of a lot of fun, and maybe a good deal more than that, but it happened over there and not here for what reasons do you think? That is, is it a function of their virtues and circumstances, or of our scenes' failure to be in a certain way? And is it over there a response to recorded music that already exists, or is it interacting with music that is being made by musicians over there right now?

[JSngry]

I can hear some serious jazz playing being done in this context: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=ewTlnfEhEEU

Now, let's hear all the "reasons" why it couldn't/shouldn't/won't happen (and I'm sure there will be many), and then ask again if jazz can be saved.

[Larry Kart]

JSngry, on Aug 9 2009, 08:55 PM, said:

I can hear some serious jazz playing being done in this context: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=ewTlnfEhEEU

Now, let's hear all the "reasons" why it couldn't/shouldn't/won't happen (and I'm sure there will be many), and then ask again if jazz can be saved.

Just asking for information -- no "reason" to get testy about it. And, please, I'm not one of those professional "jazz savers" that rightly get your back up.

[Joe G]

About 20-30 people danced to our stuff (which included some straight-up traditional organ jazz) for about two hours in a light rain last Friday. :party:

[Big Wheel]

JSngry, on Aug 9 2009, 06:55 PM, said:

I can hear some serious jazz playing being done in this context: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=ewTlnfEhEEU

Now, let's hear all the "reasons" why it couldn't/shouldn't/won't happen (and I'm sure there will be many), and then ask again if jazz can be saved.

The drum beat on that actually sounds almost the same as Paul Wertico's drumming on the title track to Metheny's We Live Here. Maybe not identical, but the similarities are close enough to make me wonder if they sampled it.

[JSngry]

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/public/style_images/master/snapback.png' alt='View Post' />Larry Kart, on Aug 9 2009, 08:28 PM, said:

JSngry, on Aug 9 2009, 08:16 PM, said:

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=o05EKVVIynw

http://www.organissi...showtopic=52397

Looks and sounds like a heck of a lot of fun, and maybe a good deal more than that, but it happened over there and not here for what reasons do you think?

American jazz musicians, for the most part, so not want to be danced to. They think it demonstrates a superficial "understanding" of their music. They want people to sit still, shut up, and listen. Like a direct reflexive connection isn't enough, you gotta stun them into a Pavlovian submission of sit, applaud wildly after each solo, SHOW YOUR APPRECIATION, and all that bullshit. I mean, yeah, ok, sometimes that is what is called for, but then again, most motherfuckers don't have enough to say to make that thing valid for more than a tune or two, never mind a whole night. But oops, sorry, I forgot, they don't need to - they're Artists, and theya re making Art.

Yeah, whatever.

That is, is it a function of their virtues and circumstances, or of our scenes' failure to be in a certain way?

Personally, I think that the acceptance of "jazz" as "art" in America came after most of the real artists were gone. So now it's like, "Hey, we finally got art, now we gotta have artists. What we gonna do now?" So now we got role players, not artists, playing for an audience (such as it is) that wants to be role-played to. Having never visited the UK, I don't know what their scene is, but hell, it sounds like there's an ongoing community that looks at "art" as a way of living everyday life, not as a collection of "objects" to "admire". If true, I can only say, "Right =On".


And is it over there a response to recorded music that already exists, or is it interacting with music that is being made by musicians over there right now?

Both, is my understanding. But the music made by the living musicians may as likely be of the "Acid Jazz" variety as of the "Hard Bop" kind. And to that, all I can say is, "so what?"

And truthfully, "America" is no longer the point, not when the reality of now is increasingly global, not regional, both musically and technologically. That's just the way it's going, and militancy to the contrary runs the risk of ending up sounding like Joe The Jazz Plumber, somebody who feels that they've been villainously deprived of a Golden Age when in fact all they are is just too damn blind and/or lazy to try to make one of their own in the here and now out of the her and know.

Hey, check out 4Hero w/Ursula Rucker (from 11 years ago!): http://www.youtube.c...feature=related Ain't nobody worried 'bout no "art" or "tradition" or tired shit like that, just people making serious music that takes a lot from the past, but uses it instead of uses it.

If I got a cjhoice between, say, Phil Woods (A GRAND Representative of the GREAT American Art Form Called Jazz) or Ursula Drucker and/or 4 Hero, and thank god i do, then i think i know where i'm going.

Sorry, Phil.

[marcello]

There is a lot of great, exciting and forward looking music being produced (and heard) all over the world.
It's just not played or performed in the major concert halls or politically correct clubs. Those venues have to try to make money first, if they can.

I'm not saying it's right or that they should be doing more nurturing of different and new talent, or even if it's the smart money move, that's just the way it is.

[JSngry]

Larry Kart, on Aug 9 2009, 09:04 PM, said:

JSngry, on Aug 9 2009, 08:55 PM, said:

I can hear some serious jazz playing being done in this context: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=ewTlnfEhEEU

Now, let's hear all the "reasons" why it couldn't/shouldn't/won't happen (and I'm sure there will be many), and then ask again if jazz can be saved.

Just asking for information -- no "reason" to get testy about it. And, please, I'm not one of those professional "jazz savers" that rightly get your back up.

Yo man, I'm so not "testy" about this! I cashed my reality check long enough ago to know that it's gonna be what it's gonna be, nothing more. Been thinking about changing my name from Sangrey to Sanguine, in fact. :g :g

fwiw/the fact that this "testy" post came after a post of yours, and in the middle of a dialogue between us should not be construed as a comment to/at you or your post(s). Maybe I've gotten enough of a Digital Mentality now that I post a "general" comment in the middle of a series of "specific" ones and not even notice it, much like how at work now I can email, IM, and interact w/task-specific software all at once (it did take some readjustment time, though, like...years...). Anyway, that's the deal, really. sorry if i failed to properly "directionalize".

[JSngry]

marcello, on Aug 9 2009, 09:51 PM, said:

There is a lot of great, exciting and forward looking music being produced (and heard) all over the world.

Indeed there is, and a lot of it is "jazz-influenced" to one degree or another, enough so that it really makes more sense (to me anyway) for it to be taken more seriously as an influence for "new jazz" than does a way of life-music that not only barely exists any more, but was made by people who younger musicians can only know as one degree or another as "legends", which is a step or five away from turning into "myths".

And - the existence of this music in small, but global, pockets means that traditional "performance" is not a viable career-sustaining possibility. But just documenting/disseminating/existing thru recordings is not enough either. I'm sure that a way out of this quandary will someday be found, the spirit is too strong for it not too (but is the ego supple enough, that's the big question)...say what you will (or won't) about the results of Belden's Miles From India project, but the guy had some player playing in real time in different locations. This type thing is still in its infancy, and yeah, it sure is "different", but...it's there to be dealt with, and it can surely provide an end to The Isolation Blues, at least in its own way.

[Jim Alfredson]

Joe G, on Aug 9 2009, 10:09 PM, said:

About 20-30 people danced to our stuff (which included some straight-up traditional organ jazz) for about two hours in a light rain last Friday. :party:

And every time we play someone comes up to me and says something along the lines of, "I don't like jazz, but I like your music!"

[marcello]

By "way of life music", do you mean music that is part of the social structure of a neighborhood where people live, work and play? Like the old African American neighborhoods?

If so, I guess that you can say that non-existent. Gone the way of the corner grocer.