David Ayers

I'm guessing your favorite song is One Note Samba. It is isn't it? It's full of clever variations - so yes...

I am saying that classical music has a legitimacy problem and so does jazz. Jazz has adopted a classical strategy which helps keep it in place ('it' - though as I keep saying I regard 'jazz' as a set of contrasting if related practices). What will the outcome of that strategy be? Don't know, but all eyes on 'classical' music because their moves are the ones jazz now imitates. And as for jazz being boring - a lot of it is. It just is. Next time you find yourself bored by music, hold that thought. Don't get me wrong - I think a lot of music is boring, not just jazz. But jazz is somewhat staid. Really new things are fun. Did you get to Hockney?

I see. Academic stuff. Angels dancing on heads of pins. These are just realities. You may be satisfed to be a consumer or what you call a 'listener', but really you are just the last link in a long chain, and others must think hard and work hard to make their music legitimate, recognizable, viable and successful. That's very true of classical and jazz - ironic maybe that such intent and planful work by so many has as its only aim the satisfaction of the passive consumer. People study - a lot - and plan - a lot - to make any of these things happen. When you buy a download of classical or jazz you contact all of the types of body and types of work I named, and others. These are complicated collective processes, and they serve you well. You see musical training as just 'academic'? Or the conservation of the recorded legacy as just 'angels dancing on the heads of pins'? Anti-intellectualism pursued even beyond the boundaries of its own unreason.

Not sure what you mean. Where jazz stands in the pecking order when the grants get handed out (or, perhaps, its order of priority in placement in the BBC (or other) schedule)? Modality - jazz schools, jazz institutes, extensive formalised training, classicization of repertoire, notion of being generally 'improving', recreative music more past than living, academic documentation, recorded legacy, access to funding mechanisms, and calling itself classical (since maybe Mingus, maybe before). As for 'handouts' - how English you are in your way of seeing the world!

I'm not sure why you assume your own reaction to jazz is something universally felt. This board would suggest otherwise. Outside the world of the academic and professional critic I don't think listeners are all that bothered. They just want music they can enjoy, be absorbed and excited by. Holds true of 'classical' too. I didn't say my reaction was universal, but equally one's own reactions are not unique and may help to understand the reactions of others. I like to try to understand why most people aren't interested in this music - which requires skilled musicians but struggles to locate itself between pure music and entertainment music. As far as the comparison with the institutions of classical music goes, I am not referring at all to the reactions of listeners, but to the institutional position which jazz has come to occupy - this is an administrative question on a fairly large scale.

Agreed Pete... Neither the sick patient nor the sacred art form model is going to attract anyone new to the music. The first is too negative and might even convince some who have a passing interest in the music to not bother if they are actually paying attention. The other just scares some people off and I get more of the inevitable "I want to like Jazz but I guess I need to know about it first" when I tell a person I meet that I'm a jazz musician. Then I have to go into the whole well the music should just appeal to you on a basic level like any music and then the beauty is if you want more detail and understanding of the music that's there for you to but it's just music like any other you can pat your feet, shake your ass and sing along with the melody shtick. The piece I referred to above, the part I did keep was about how I was getting tired of the sick patient part and all the pieces about how jazz is dead or dying or why Americans can't comprehend it or it needs to be simpler etc etc. It's overkill and if people are paying attention even a little oppressive perhaps. I went on to say that I travel the world playing this music and I go a lot of places where things are done right, creative programmers, festivals, club owners who run a nice shop etc etc and these places thrive so if things are done right, the audience is there. Maybe we should focus on that and how to do that in more places and then maybe we can get somewhere. When I play with The Cookers, it is usually for an older audience and they couldn't care less about most of this. They just want to hear some good music (with ties to the stuff that first got them interested in this music apparently) in a nice surrounding and buy a CD and go home......I love them all...... Jazz has been mainly a lifestyle music - like most musics I suppose - but practitioners have to be a whole lot more into it than anyone else (um, like, say, golf). I have come to disagree with the idea that it is a music that requires a sophisticated listener - yes, it is basically (in its 'modern jazz' form) an expository music, but so much so in fact that lots of the records become quickly boring, they are so easy to take in, the tunes get boring *really* quickly, too few of the solos actaully catch fire, etc. So the question of venue is important, as you say, but also therefore of demographic, and then a question of what music. If you don't want to play to elderly toe-tappers, don't. Miles knew if you want to retain audience you have to change idiom, and he also saw ways to make that artistically engaging for himself. Jazz - if it wasn't good enough for Miles, why should it be good enough for anyone else? To my mind there is not 'the music'. Musicans have to train a lot and are invested in method - audiences can move on quickly. It's not 'education' though, I agree with you, and the more 'jazz fans' push it the more dire and uncompelling it seems (most discussion of jazz persuades me that I am not interested in it any more). Can it stay on, as a classical music? That's the model now - hm.

Let's face it, either way, it is still kind of surprising that anyone is keeping these marginal artefacts in circulation. The idea that there is still any mileage in putting a physical CD of John Wright in such a dinosaur institution as a record store! I say 'still' - it has never been done - it was never worth it even in the heyday of CD! The fact that I can still stumble into my local HMV (mainly now a DVD store, but still has jazz and classical music sections) and pick up some Philly Jo or Bob Enevoldsen... I dunno, that's quite a thing, even if the whole exercise is basically nostalgic (and aimed at what UK marketers call '£50 man' - the working man of a certain age who stumbles into town on a Saturday with a few spare quid to squander...).

I don't object to releasing a needle drop in this situation. I do object to paying for it, however. So, I'll bide my time and wait for someone to steal from the thief. Or even better, find somebody who's got the album, do your own needle drop, and then upload it for all your friends to share. That's the brotherly thing to do! That's right. Before stealing someone's work, be sure that some European (or other as-yet untrampled foreigner) has made legal use of it in her/his country first. Otherwise - well, otherwise it just wouldn't seem right, would it?

Jazz albums that people actually played? Those really were the days...

If you have heard Gayle, and have maybe bought a CD or two, do you need any more? I struggle with the idea that a CD is a 'work' (expressed earlier in this thread) in cases where the basic practices change little over time. So is there anything new here or is this just the most recent for those who may have the bug to hear a bit more?

I resemble that remark! It's only music, after all. Almost as if people have got lives to lead.

One area where their commitment and competence are not in question.

RIP

As no-shows go, that one is tragic. Did you get your money back?

Well, it's an idea, but I prefer silence when away from home! No tax deduction in UK sadly - charitable giving is not encouraged.

They certainly do and that might be a way to go.

Turns out CFM magazine was not *allowed* to develop much of an online presence, and the staff believe this contributed to their downfall.

Thanks guys. I am undecided but I might post a list here, if not at Hoffmann.

Got stacks of them.

The Classic FM magazine is owned by Haymarket who also own Gramophone, with the former taking a slightly more populist tack. CFM subscribers are being moved over to Gramophone. Gramophone itself keeps rising in price. They have tried to refresh the review format with occasional longer reviews or with two reviewers comparing notes, but this hasn't really altered a palpable sense of deadness over the whole magazine. A recent feature on "new music" discussed Birtwistle (late 70s), Adams (mid-60s)and Whitacre (early 40s - ahh!!!!!). Those guys soldier on but the reviewers are a dull lot and in truth they aren't much needed - if you want to know what a work sounds like you can just stream it or sample it, so the short review functions as very little more than a blurb. http://www.rhinegold.co.uk/magazines/classical_music/news/classical_music_news_story.asp?id=1276

Positively Confucian.

I'm assuming it was too obvious to post this one. But I did it anyway.

Grr. Thought I didn't care about the 'hard copy' any more.

That was pretty much my reaction too. I read this thread and went over to Spotify. Couldn't believe the album I was hearing was the one everyone here was talking about!

Do you mean the coin (aka "Loonie") or the worth-more-than-the-US-currency itself? I liked the Canadian dollar better when it cost 62 cents. Then I went to Montreal 2-3 times a year. Thank you for visiting. The 62-cent CDN dollar kept me out of New York, though. (Maybe you should be thankful for that! ) I thought the whole currency might go - it is so *expensive* these days...