[Harp-L] Re: feasible goals



Smokey-Joe said:
"*** That's what I said. The bar has gone up so that phenominal is now the norm and THAT's what's now expected ALL THE TIME. Look at Bee- Bop, Re-Bop, and Hard-Bop. Gillespie, Parker, and Davis killed jazz the same way. When EVERY trumpet or sax player could do what they did, jazz fell by the way side. Things change. I played instruments. I saw it happen. Hell, I was THERE."


Actually, I would vehemently disagree that Jazz is dead in any way. I would say that pure technical prowess in Jazz (as in "classical") is now the expected norm rather than something exceptional, but that in no way has killed the music. Indeed, in these as in pop (the subject of discussion) the overall effect has become of much greater import than the individual effort. Which perhaps explains the surge in popularity of big bands, both traditional and non-traditional. What changed Jazz was that as popular music moved away from the big- band song format, Jazz moved away from it as well, but in a different direction. So pop became aligned with rock (for a while) and Jazz became an art-music. This is natural, and in some ways you can see the same thing happen in the Blues during the 1960s (as black pop moved away from the traditional structures and towards funk) and perhaps in rock today, as hip-hop dominates (with country on the other side) and rock moves towards garage and smaller, more stylized forms. Tango did a similar transformation from popular music to art- music about the same time as Jazz, interestingly.

But, Jazz is most certainly not dead. I've said it before, if you haven't checked out the sheer number of new releases in DownBeat lately, do--it shows anything but a dead culture.

"It would be nice if you could make it to a fest sometime. I would absolutely LOVE to hear you play as you seem to have this whole thing figured out. I would imagine that your renditions of these diverse directions of musics would be surprising."

I used to go to both SPAH and Buckeye every year. My job pretty much precludes me going most of the time. In any event, I am a much better writer than musician. Indeed, my main strength was always composition, not performance. However, I have very little "figured out", just a strong training in deconstructive criticism.




()() JR "Bulldogge" Ross () () & Snuffy, too:) `----'







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