If we're not going to call it Jazz.......

[vintagevibe]

alcohol, put the Tequilla down. You're not making sense.

[alcohol]

Henry, I'm the one who said jazz is exhausted. I turn on the local college radio stations in Boston and listen for a little while and I don't hear anything but the same old recylced shit, so I change the station or pop in a CD of some 'classic' jazz album, 'classical' music from before the 12 tone debacle, or pop music, rock, rap and hiphop. You're the one that claims the music is still vital. You give me three examples of vital [i]contemporary[/i] jazz and you'll be doing me a favor and relieving me of my misconceptions. And I'll be grateful.

[henryrobinett]

You might get tired of the form but the form is not yet tired. From a distance (not Bette Midler) everything can look and sound the same, old worn and tired. To me so much rock/pop sounds [i]exactly[/i] the same. Talk about tired. Listening on college radio is not necessarily the whole story for understanding where jazz is today any more than listening to a Clearsound station is for knowing where rock is. It takes understanding and a comittment. It never ceases to amaze me how many young, great young musicians continue to come up the ranks where there is no feasible outlet for them. They are spending their life learning this music, loving this music, knowing that it has [i]NOTHING[/i] to do with money. One of the more exciting new artists I know is Dave Douglas. Trumpet player and composer out of NY. Great records. Then there is Gonzalo Rubalcaba spinning phenomenal passion and cuban rhythms (as well as unbelieveble chops) from the piano and his cuban rhythm section. There is the great French-Vietnamese guitarist Ngyen Le. What a writer. Check out his "Tales From Vietnam" CD. Chris Potter is a great fresh voice on Tenor. Let's not forget Joe Lovano. John Zorn, Steve Coleman. Cyrus Chestnut, Brad Meldau. Michael Brecker fer chris sakes!! Maria Schneider and Vince Mendoza are great big band/orchestral writers doing great things right now. Pat Metheny can't be ignored. He has a huge body of work, much of it "serious" and much an extension the "big band" lexicon. He and Keith Jarrett, until recent years, have also aded to the body of Ornette Colemans work. My god all of us are still minging the resources left by John Coltrane. One doesn't say Beethoven is [i]tired[/i]. He's [i]STILL HERE[/i]. Duke Ellington is still here. Charles Mingus is still here as is Charlie Parker and their music is still vital and viable to young musicians coming up. They are still being transcribed and studied to figured out what and how, much like Bach and Mozart. So because these giants are no longer with us doesn't mean the music is dead. Their contributions still push. Many great musicians are still here but have moved on, yet much of their great work from the past still pushes and inspires. Chick Corea's "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs" is still in the pantheon of great piano trio works. His group Circle is still a leading exponent of free piano playing and group improvisation. Also check him out on some of the Miles Davis "Lost Quintet" CD like Festival at Juan Pins" Keith Jarrett solo concerts were greatly innovative in that he upped the ante for defingin what improvisation really means. All of his solo piano concerts were spontaneous, stream of consciousness events. No music whatsoever was prepared. Metric Modulation is one of the great musical innovations in jazz of OUR age. You can hear this on Wyntons CD like "Standard Time" or any number of Steve Coleman CDs. Quarter notes shift to many other possibilities like a 8th note quintuplet to a quarter note triplet. But Mingus was doing similar stuff in the 50s, just not the same. This music is alive and still growing. Because you can't see it or hear it is no excuse for calling it dead. I've run out of time.

[BP3]

Add to Henry's list - Joshua Redman Trilok Gurtu Kenny Drew Jr. Jack DeJohnette David Sanchez Kenny Garrett

[Poelo]

Kemp wrote: I would submit that you are wrong about the lack of musical mentors in New Orleans culture. There is a long history of it, and it continues today. ------------------------------------- I never said the opposite. I don't know where you got this from. Please read me as I'm trying to explain what I said for the last time. Of course there are mentors everywhere. Your bus-driver in the tiny village south of Burma can be a great mentor. In fact he could be a genius too. But what I was trying to say was that, and I don't know if you're going to understand this but, the tradition since the beginning you learned from someone by playing with him. It could/can be an elder or a friend. Miles played with Parker and then took off. Coltrane played with Miles and then took off. There's so many examples like this trough the history of this music. Yes, there is a lot to learn from older musicians, but you , in this tradition, also need to learn from the people who are stretching the music right know. That's how the greats(all the generations before Whynton's)were schooled, trained and developed. If I can't explain these facts to you, and they're facts not my opinions, maybe someone else here can. Henry? /Poelo

[RM]

I stayed out of this for a few days hoping there would be some congruence... Fang, Pooh Bear, Hen're it's been great...but the irony is apparant, some here prefer that race be the pace, not the balm of the song... Bottom line, the word formerly known as Jazz, has varient meanings, so far as back when as the 1700's... The elements of influence, were copped as always, from one era and culture to the next... The idioms solidified, became sub culture then mainstream, evolved and are so today... I stomach not too much more of the Polenta's bias...it' curdles too easily.. I'll stay away some more... Bye Bye yourself..

[Franknputer]

Poelo - your position is still based on the supposed fact that no one who is mentoring in New Orleans is stretching the bounds of the music. How would you know this?

[Poelo]

Well Kemp, it could be someone nobody is aware of, of course. But from what we know, "the stretch" was almost always made in NY. Ellis, by the way, was never a stretching musician. You can't deny, Kemp, that from what we know, NY was where people came to stretch. Don't you agree? /Poelo

[freddynl]

Phoneticly outspoken the word (djazz)in Morocco means Chicken. That's +2000 years old :D

[Franknputer]

Well Poelo - I can't say that I would agree. I do agree that there has been a lot of stretching going on it NY, but they don't have the monopoly. And we're the better for it, really. :)

[alcohol]

[quote]Originally posted by henryrobinett: [b] Keith Jarrett solo concerts were greatly innovative in that he upped the ante for defingin what improvisation really means. All of his solo piano concerts were spontaneous, stream of consciousness events. No music whatsoever was prepared.[/b] yeah! I pulled my old vinyl copy of Facing You. Fantastic, amazing how idiosyncratic his spontaneous improvisiations are! [b] Metric Modulation is one of the great musical innovations in jazz of OUR age. You can hear this on Wyntons CD like "Standard Time" or any number of Steve Coleman CDs. Quarter notes shift to many other possibilities like a 8th note quintuplet to a quarter note triplet. But Mingus was doing similar stuff in the 50s, just not the same. [/b] Right, I dusted off my copy of Standard Time too, just wonderful stuff. [b]This music is alive and still growing. Because you can't see it or hear it is no excuse for calling it dead. I've run out of time.[/b][/quote]You're right Henry, I've got my shortcomings. I think I'll go take off some more McCoy solos.