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Old 01-12-2020, 10:46 AM
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Eric Skye
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Obviously for some people it’s just not gonna be their thing aesthetically. There’s certainly styles of music like that for me, pop/country comes to mind, gangsta rap.. But I would say, like the rock bin at a record store, (remember those?) It’s a pretty big tent, with many different eras and sub-categories.. So if there’s a little crack in the wall and you still want to explore, there is a lot to check out. For example if much for jazz being blues-based rubs you the wrong way, definitely look at all the amazing jazz coming out of Europe these days. Anything on the ECM label is a little universe onto itself… But I digress.

The other thing I’ll say about jazz -and the sort of applies to classical music too- is in a lot of ways it’s more of a verb than a noun. It’s really about the longer thread, the journey. Beethoven’s Fifth is a good example; if you think of that simple little main theme at the beginning, and stick with the melodic thread all the way to the end, through every little possible variation on that theme, every twist and turn, only to come out the other end with that simple theme again. Now again that’s a long journey, and more and more people aren’t willing stick with that these days, but that’s what it’s all about. You have to follow themes and parts over minutes, not seconds like in most rock or pop. Again, it’s a verb.

Now sometimes things are disjointed, and have a cut and paste quality to them, going from one random "hot lick" to another just trying to "make the changes..." I hate that too, and unfortunately there's a lot of it -prolly no shortage of examples of me going there sometimes too But in my opinion jazz was somewhat ruined by jazz musicians themselves making this the main thing. It seems to be a style where a lot of opinionated, competitive, nerdy musicians have decided to keep upping the ante on chops and complexity, sometimes for ego reasons, and less about the journey through a melodic and rhythmic variation. But there’s a lot of great stuff out there.

It’s a cliché choice, but maybe grab some headphones, lay down with eyes closed, and listen to Miles Davis‘s solo on So What, or anything on that Kind Of Blue Album. And remember when listening it’s not necessarily about the totality of overall aesthetic of the moment, but rather pick a thread and follow it intensely over time -just stick with it no matter what. It can honestly be like a mediation practice, in that every time your mind wanders -and it will everytime- you have to catch it and remind yourself to come back back to, say, the trumpet. It’s like when reading a book and suddenly realizing you weren’t paying attention to the last few sentences and you need to rewind a bit to fully understand where you are now.. And the great thing about many great jazz recordings is you can play the whole track again and focus on another instrument and it becomes like a Gus Van Zant film, where you see appreciate the same story being told from several perspectives. But some effort is required, and you might be rewarded. Or not, and that’s okay too.
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Last edited by min7b5; 01-12-2020 at 02:19 PM.
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