Jazz at The White House

[kanker.]

Gah, I never liked it. Most jazzers I know have no tolerance for it, either.

 

 

That's how you do jazz right.

You don't have to like it, but it's jazz every bit as much as Tommy Dorsey is...

[davyyd]

If you are worried that today's kids are not interested in Jazz, I highly recommend you try to attend the Lionel Hampton International Jazz festival here in Moscow, Idaho.

 

I know it's a small town no where near any Jazz mecca's, but every year we get great talent (John Clayton, our director, seems to know a few people in the biz ) and thousands of kids from grade school through college playing, competing, attending the clinics, and listening to the concerts.

 

They may be in the minority compared to kids with Kaoss pads and Microkorgs (I wouldn't know either way), but the festival will show you that they are out there and very interested (not to mention talented - it's a humbling week for me).

 

My apologies if this post has gone too far off topic.

[Joe Muscara]

Wynton posted this on FB. I thought it appropriate both to the topic and where it has gone regarding jazz.

 

I had the good fortune to work with the middle school band at a Kindergarten through 12th grade school on the lower east side of Manhattan imaginatively named "New Explorations into Science, Technology and Math".

 

I love hearing young kids play. They struggle with such sincerity and exude pure joy when things go well. Thirty years of teaching jazz and we always work on the same issues: play in balance, listen to the best of the style of music you're playing, listen and respond with empathy, understand the function of your part and feel the lift of the swing rhythm.

The kids were very responsive and played with a lot of feeling. When some of the lower brass section didn't now their notes (though looking very cute huffing and puffing on too big trombones and baritone horns), we discussed individual practice of difficult passages.

 

We talked about your responsibility to the group and the need for personal integrity. Then we went into what integrity means. We talked about playing all wild, loud and intelligently (especially on drums) and highlighted the difference between creating excitement with fun, flamboyant noise and communicating ideas. We concluded by talking about the need to sing your own song when soloing.

I always encourage kids to improvise and find something deeply important and personal to play.

 

Oh, they were playing "Killer Joe", a great song to improvise on due to the fundamental simplicity of the harmony. I think I'm gonna compile a list of songs conducive to beginning jazz improvisers. I love going to schools. Its really like recreation for me but much more meaningful.

 

Teachers at the school thank me but it's so much fun I should be thanking them. In the early 80's we used to call schools to give workshops and now all these years later it still gives me goose bumps...watching those kids expressing themselves with instruments at 3:15 in the afternoon.

 

Wynton

[davyyd]

Know what's funny? I recently saw a show on Hulu called Before the Music Died (I think it was about radio primarily, but delved into music and youth). Branford was interviewed and if I recall correctly he had a very different opinion of child musicians than his brother apparently does. Basically he said kids these days are full of sh*t, and they are only interested in hearing how good they already are! Maybe he was grouchy that day

 

EDIT

 

I found a clip:

[video:youtube]

[zephonic]

Haha, I love Branford. He's on point as always, and you've got to appreciate his bluntness. Tell'em Steeplone!

[kanker.]

Haha, I love Branford. He's on point as always, and you've got to appreciate his bluntness. Tell'em Steeplone!

Yep, he nailed it

[MonksDream]

@meccajay

 

Just saying jazz isn't dead. And I share your lament of the disinterest in it these days. It's hard to believe jazz music was "popular music" before the term became synonymous with the Top 40.

That's because jazz used to be no more sophisticated harmonically than a lot of pop music. Once the harmony got deeper, average folks were lost. People don't want to hear that shit. who can blame them - takes too much thought to get past Britney, Whitney, or Glenn Miller

 

I don't think it's about the harmonic complexity. For starters, beginning in the late teens and early twenties and up until the early '60s jazz was pop music. It's not like there was a separation. That came later. So the statement that "jazz was no more sophisticated harmonically than a lot of pop music" is a self-referential comparison.

 

Second, tunes like "Skylark", "Lush Life", "One For the Road", and "Star Dust" were extremely popular tunes in their day and I wouldn't call any of them them harmonically unsophisticated, and people definitely wanted to "hear that shit"!

 

The magic of Tin Pan Alley and Broadway, and for that matter Bach and Beethoven, was that professional songwriters crafted tunes that were meant to be easy to follow melodically regardless of the complexity of the underlying harmony. For different reasons members of both the jazz and classical camps chose to abandon that as a goal, and their listenership has been dropping ever since. Those that keep that as a goal seem to be able to keep listeners' attention, for example Steely Dan, Tom Waits, Stevie Wonder, David Foster, EWF, Quincy Jones, Queen, etc., none of whom shied/shy from harmonic complexity.

 

I think that jazz's drop in popularity is the result of a successful deliberate attempt to alienate the un-hip.

[kanker.]

I should have said modern pop music. You look at RnB ballads, and there's a lot of harmonic sophistication there too, but not harmonic complexity. Bitonals and massive use of upper structures aren't a part of those songs in the same way they aren't used in modern pop or in classic pre-60's popular jazz. The further jazz got from traditional pop music changes and harmonic structures, the smaller the audience became.

[MonksDream]

@kanker - well put and point taken!

[Strategery]

Let's start over and try this out...just to see if it gets the same reaction.

 

It's nice to have a First Lady and a President with country music on their iPods instead of jazz.

 

Hmmmmm...no stealth meaning in there....really?

 

Randy

[Dave Ferris]

Regarding Branford's short astute observation--the key sentence was his last. Students aren't willing to do the work to get them to the next level.

 

That is it in a nutshell. Too many distractions, too much information, internet forums, gear forums, the latest computer/iphone whatever time sucking device that really has no bearing on the bottom line. How do you play or sing?

 

I've seen it first hand for the last 25 years being associated with Musician's Institute and now LA Music Academy.

 

 

[Edgar Summers]

Jazz+, please confine your political BS posts to the Harmony Central DU forum.

 

Please be advised that discussion of politics and religion is not acceptable on this forum.

 

Anyone starting a thread or making a post in an existing thread that leads to either of these subjects will most likely have their posting privileges suspended for 30 days on first offense and will be subject to longer leaves of absence on subsequent offenses.

 

It seems like we could all appreciate an elevation in musical tastes coming from the White House no matter who's in there.

[Dave Ferris]

Wynton posted this on FB. I thought it appropriate both to the topic and where it has gone regarding jazz.

 

I had the good fortune to work with the middle school band at a Kindergarten through 12th grade school on the lower east side of Manhattan imaginatively named "New Explorations into Science, Technology and Math".

 

I love hearing young kids play. They struggle with such sincerity and exude pure joy when things go well. Thirty years of teaching jazz and we always work on the same issues: play in balance, listen to the best of the style of music you're playing, listen and respond with empathy, understand the function of your part and feel the lift of the swing rhythm.

The kids were very responsive and played with a lot of feeling. When some of the lower brass section didn't now their notes (though looking very cute huffing and puffing on too big trombones and baritone horns), we discussed individual practice of difficult passages.

 

We talked about your responsibility to the group and the need for personal integrity. Then we went into what integrity means. We talked about playing all wild, loud and intelligently (especially on drums) and highlighted the difference between creating excitement with fun, flamboyant noise and communicating ideas. We concluded by talking about the need to sing your own song when soloing.

I always encourage kids to improvise and find something deeply important and personal to play.

 

Oh, they were playing "Killer Joe", a great song to improvise on due to the fundamental simplicity of the harmony. I think I'm gonna compile a list of songs conducive to beginning jazz improvisers. I love going to schools. Its really like recreation for me but much more meaningful.

 

Teachers at the school thank me but it's so much fun I should be thanking them. In the early 80's we used to call schools to give workshops and now all these years later it still gives me goose bumps...watching those kids expressing themselves with instruments at 3:15 in the afternoon.

 

Wynton

 

A lot of Wynton's popularity has been due in part to his ability to penetrate middle America. He sees himself has the "Ambassador" for jazz just like Pops or Dizzy were.

 

I have nothing against promoting jazz in anyway or fashion. Wynton figured out a long time ago his role or direction.

 

[SK]

RE: "jazz is dead" - The creative cutting edge of jazz has always been lost on the public.

 

There was public (even musician) resistance when Charlie Parker first surfaced with bop, when Bill Evans first played with his trio at the Village Vanguard, when Ornette arrived on the scene, etc.

 

Jazz popularity with the masses was about the mood or feel of the music, or its danceablilty... not the deeper artistic qualities. Only listeners and players who studied the music assimilated the language on a deeper level... although I think the public's musical IQ was slightly raised by osmosis from listening to more harmonically advanced arrangements, like Sinatra recordings, etc.

 

During his electric period in the 70's, Miles said "jazz is dead". To me, that just meant the public's interest in jazz 'feel'/grooves was being lost to basic, more danceable rhythmic styles in rock. I never took it to mean that musical creativity was dead, or that concepts or schools of jazz evolution had been wiped out. It was Miles' way of cueing musicians to find their own way.

 

Also, it was just as much about the direction of music that music executives wanted it to go, since the economy of music had been changed by the success of the Beatles, etc. Creative jazz hadn't died, but new popular music was just replacing the old.

 

So forget everything I just said, but that's why I only think of my playing as just music improvisation and not jazz in a traditional sense. I can play 'jazz', but much of that is the popular cultural voice of the past, academicized in schools.

 

But there are timeless qualities in any music style; jazz, country, or anything else. Timeless music just doesn't 'die'.

[Dana.]

If you don't think jazz is dead, you should come to one of my gigs

 

Keep us posted on your next gig in NYC and I will!

[Dana.]

Yes and I apologize if I came off to emphatically. Obviously we both love Jazz. To rethink, and reword it. I should have said...

 

No apology necessary. I knew what you were getting at.

[ProfD]

SK, very well put.

 

In these discussions, level of talent and interest have to be considered too.

 

Not every muscian has the ability and/or desire to play complex music.

 

Same goes for the listeners. Not all of them want to 'think' about what they hear.

 

Jazz, like every other genre of music, changes with the times on that account.

[Dana.]

SK, very well put.

 

+100

[SK]

Thanks D, and D-Bon.

Not every muscian has the ability and/or desire to play complex music.

 

Same goes for the listeners. Not all of them want to 'think' about what they hear.

That's true and hits on a good point. Being afraid of having to 'think' about music to enjoy it is a frequent misconception made by listeners underexposed to so-called 'serious' music.

 

Since music is just a language of expression, it's like any language. Sure, the more the vocabulary, the more you can express and understand. Also the more effective the words, less words are needed (which I'm having a problem with here, apparently. )

 

But when we listen to someone talk, we're just taking in information. You don't get sidetracked or overwhelmed analyzing it and think "wow, what a wonderful sentence structure that was."

[kanker.]

Too many distractions

Distractions like Happy Birthday Dave?

[Joe Muscara]

promoting

Let's promote your birthday Dave. Have a great one!

[SMcD]

Gah, I never liked it. Most jazzers I know have no tolerance for it, either.

 

 

That's how you do jazz right.

You don't have to like it, but it's jazz every bit as much as Tommy Dorsey is...

 

Fair enough. Smooth jazz has its place in the world