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Post by bassman on Feb 6, 2016 10:04:15 GMT
Do I feel like I 'get' jazz? What jazz? King Oliver? Cecil Taylor? Wynton Marsalis? The Globe Unity Orchestra? Well basically I feel like I do. Sounds rather pompous - but I think if you love (certain kinds of) jazz you're sure to develop some kind of understanding of the music. And if you play (some kind of) jazz and your playing is recognized by certain audiences then you can't be all wrong.
Years ago, I would have said: "It's easy! Just watch if someone claps on the one and three - then you can be jolly sure that he DIDN'T get it!" Then one day I stumbled across an interview with a famous Blue Note musician whose name for the life of me I can't remember, and he said that Alfred Lion did exactly this, and they used to giggle about it behind his back ... so what?
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arick
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Post by arick on Sept 8, 2016 2:30:31 GMT
I want to say I "get" jazz. In certain instances I know I do, but my scope of "getting" it isn't eness. I attended an all white, rural, middle America high school with K-12 in the same old school house with a graduating class of 28 students and 100% graduation rate. I bought the Essential Miles Davis 2 CD set my junior year and fell in love with most of it. On multiple occasions I would fake sick and stay home and play it over and over, usually on rainy days. I got it and it was marvelous. But even then, there were tracks I didn't "get". I later put it together that, it being a compilation/retrospective, that there was a point when the music changed and I couldn't. Even today, 15 years later, this is where I'm at. I've tried on many occasions; early on I bought Bitches Brew, On the Corner, Jack Johnson, Water Babies, Live Evil, Big Fun, etc and it never clicked with me like Kind of Blue, Round Midnight and Birth of the Cool, etc. I quickly fell in love with Charlie Parker, but the same situation played out similarly when I branched out to the full catalogs of Blue Note, Prestige, and the many others. There's a point when I don't get it like I do with bop and cool jazz. My LP collection quickly tails off shortly after 1960, with a few exceptions of course, but the trail dies well before anything resembling free jazz and acid jazz comes about. Even many classic RVG records mark the end for me, Dolphy's Out to Lunch and Grant Green's Green Street, revered classics, get little play by me and I often have to force myself to pay attention by side B. I generally buy anything after 1960/61 reluctantly and with caution. I just don't "get" it many times. I wish I did.
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shaft
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Post by shaft on Sept 8, 2016 8:52:17 GMT
Yeah I "get Jazz" - at least most of it ;-)
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Post by alunsevern on Sept 8, 2016 17:46:02 GMT
Arick, If you do want to get to grips with a wider range of jazz -- and do please ignore this if you don't -- then in addition to listening I also find reading about jazz helps, and the book I have turned to for years now is the Penguin Guide to Jazz by Richard COok and Brian Morton. COok sadly died a few years back which I think makes the eighth or perhaps ninth edition of this text the last there will be. Morton has sAid he will not attempt updates on his own.
At around 1600 pages the Penguin Guide isn't just an invaluable resource about individual recordings, although it of course that. It contains some of the finest, most intelligent, most acute and most literate writing about jazz to be found anywhere. I don't take Cook and Morton's judgements as gospel but they perhaps more than anyone else have helped me understand jazz, understand what I'm hearing, and why some jazz grips me, some takes significant effort, and some simply doesn't interest me.
Over recent years, headphones on, Cook and Morton to hand, I have extended my listening to include far more contemporary, avant garde and free jazz, and it has given me great pleasure to do so.
While the golden age of jazz may well be over, it may still nonetheless be argued that now is a golden age for exploring jazz. we have so much at our fingertips. Explore And enjoy.
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Post by Rich on Sept 9, 2016 13:18:36 GMT
I too learned a lot from the Penguin Guide. Now that I'm more experienced with jazz I don't need to reference it that much but it's there if I need it!
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Post by alunsevern on Sept 11, 2016 9:04:57 GMT
Rich, I still read Cook and Morton from necessity, but also -- and sometimes for hours -- for pleasure. They have been two of the greatest and most under-rated writers on jazz for decades.
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arick
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Post by arick on Sept 13, 2016 1:02:24 GMT
In high school I bought the current "Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD". It's still useful even though I rarely buy Jazz CDs. It's has to be used and something I don't have on vinyl or can't reasonable expect to afford on vinyl anytime soon. It would be nice to have a nice hardback guide to Jazz on Vinyl, but I guess that's where LJC comes in handy.
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