Jazz for aficionados

@audio-b-dog 

Is this your first time visiting this thread?

If so, your willingness to pass judgement seems a bit hasty,. 

Perhaps I misunderstand your poem, but are you suggesting Jazz is, by definition, all church on the one hand and alleyway funk on the other?  Do you believe Parker, Coltrane, Davis, Shorter, etc. were adverse to leveraging their intellects?  

stuartk, good question about intellect versus funk, or what I call raw emotion. What the poem is saying is that music doesn’t come from the intellect, it comes from the streets, and I include the feminine because it is often excluded from discussion of the arts. 

I am not a music scholar, but I know that many classical composers find their themes in folk music. Bartok is probably one of the most well-known for this since he studied Hungarian folk music. But I have also heard that Haydn used folk music for themes. Folk music, in my mind, comes from the streets.

I like your choice of jazz musicians, Parker, Coltrane, Davis, Shorter. All of these men include a strong emotional content in their music. A lot of jazz I hear tends more toward the intellect and I like it less. Strong emotion coralled into artistic form is what I like in all the arts. De Kooning, for example, in painting.

I apologize for my judgment. I was trying to shake things up a bit. But I judge the world--yes, the entire world--for their exclusion of the feminine, especially in the arts. I have been researching and writing a novel about the suppression of the feminine, especially in religion, so I see pretty much everything through that lens.

But in regards to music, I’m not just talking the talk. I play more female jazz musicians than male. Although, right now I am listening to Charles Lloyd’s Forest Flower. Keith Jarrett has some great passages on there, and he is a male jazz musician I listen to a lot.

Back to the feminine for a bit. It is my belief that women were our first artists. I think that they were the early cave painters who created those beautifully drawn animals. I have a lot to say about that, but I’ll stop here.

I would ask that you try Tania Maria, especially "Brazil With My Soul." I think you will immediately be struck with a feminine strength that is not found in other jazz you might have heard. You must remember that she is playing the piano. She was classically trained in Paris.On my stereo those songs fill the room and wash over me. One thing I heard that might apply is that men show their swagger by the way they move their shoulders when they walk. Women show their swagger by the way they move their hips.

@audio-b-dog 

FYI,  also write poetry.

I’ve also played guitar (not Jazz) for many decades. As you know, in art we have inspiration/intuition and craft/application of techniques and concepts. The point I was trying to make is that there are no dumb Jazz musicians. For even the most naturally gifted, Jazz requires a sophisticated understanding of harmony and its application in improvising. This isn’t typically handed down by the muse.  

While emotion is number one for me in enjoying music and as an artistic man, I identify with and value the inner feminine more than men of other persuasions, I think it’s important to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Mental discipline and the ability to analyze and conceptualize have an important place in all the arts.  

Of course, Jazz covers a very wide range. Some styles/genres are more complex than others and needless to say, individuals vary according to their natural expressive inclinations and natural talents. Some incline towards cool "intellectual" abstraction while others are more earthy, emotional and blues-based. And these factors are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I was speaking of Jazz players who have the ability to cover a wide stylistic spectrum, including the most harmonically sophisticated scenarios. 

Perhaps @frogman will join in and provide an inside-out perspective. 

stuartk, very well said! I do understand how difficult all jazz is and the degree of study and musicality that is involved. And I am really glad that you mentioned the inner feminine. As a writer, it something I have to struggle to find within myself. I think like a male, but I am learning. 

In regards to appreciating the degree of musical sophistication and intellectual understanding of music that is required by jazz musicians, I am in awe of all jazz musicians I hear, especially live. I began listening to jazz is the 60s, and at some point, perhaps in the 90s, I felt I wasn't hearing anything really new, except in Brazillian jazz. And maybe that wasn't so much new as new to my ear.

Many years ago i went to hear Wynton Masalis live. Obviously the man is a great musician. Any musician who is adept at both classical and jazz has my respect. I found his music, however, not exciting. He played what I will call older jazz. I like Brad Meldhau and have seen him live a few times. Clearly he is a great musician, and I appreciate that, but I am not excited by it anymore. Whereas when I put on Tania Maria or Flora Purim, I am literally up dancing at my old age.

I went to hear Melissa Aldana live and she excited me because I found her voice to be new and unique. Although, like most young saxaphonists, she was influenced by Coltrane, her notes wavered softly in a way I'd never heard before. In a way, I felt like the first time I heard Stan Getz (backing up Astrid Gilberto on the Johnny Carson show.) What's this! My young mind asked of my young body. I'd never heard anything like that before. Bossa Nova. Wow! At that time (I was probably 15) I listened to Wagner in classical music. 

I have a lot of jazz records I haven't listened to in many, many years, and I am beginning to pull them out again to see what I missed the first time I listened. And I am reeducating my ear to jazz classics. I have also been streaming some female sax players like Anat Cohen. I may be old, but I want to listen to new things, especially jazz.

Back to my poem. Yes, it does take a lot of work to become a jazz musician. I don't think it is work, though, for those who were born with a passion for music. I like to say I get lost when I am writing, and I love being lost creatively. All of these musicians, whether I think they are exciting or not, are excited by music. And that is what I mean at the end of my poem by "garce lands anyplace/ like snowflakes/ promiscuously kissing faces. I think of how so many of these jazz musicians were born into poverty, yet they were kissed by the muse who does seem to be promiscuous. I think that's partly what the movie Amadaeus was about. 

So, stuartk, I think you and I are on the same page, except you can play guitar and I was a failure at playing guitar. I love music, but cannot make it. I was not promiscuously kissed, at least not by the muse of music. 

Thank you for not abandoning me. I know I can be a pain sometimes.