Re: [Harp-L] re: jazz on a diatonic

["Planet Harmonica" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<< My post referenced a 
previous post in which Rainbow Jimmy used the Butterfield recording as 
an example of jazz played convincingly on a standard diatonic harmonica. >>

That's actually what I have an issue with (the comment, not RJ or FJM ;)

Work Song as played by Butterfield (or the Ford Blues Band cover of the cover) is not jazz. Jazz, like blues, has its own vocabulary, and this tune may have originated in a jazz repertoire, but it could be plaid in dozens of way that don't make it jazz. When Sinatra does my way it's jazz (if only just), when Nina Hagen or the Sex Pistols do my way, it's not jazz (despite being hugely enjoyable). 

Jazz has its own vocabulary, just as blues does. I find it interesting that many people in the harmonica world are quick to point that "this" or "that" isn't blues but that suddenly it's not so pertinent to accept that stuff isn't jazz. There's no particular glory in belonging to any musical style, last I heard. Butterfield's stuff may have had some jazz influences (and I'd venture to suggest that this happened post East-West) but that doesn't make it jazz...

And for the record, I sort of do understand what makes Butterfield interesting. But on the whole, his stuff doesn't appeal to me much. But then neither does Sonny Terry, and I'm not saying he was a bad player just coz' I don't like him...

Ben