BBC Music Jazz (until Sunday)

Its on the Naim App  -- Internet Radio - New Stations - BBC-- but at the moment its broadcasting Radio 1 output apparently until 14.00.

Sadly, Radio Three is also infected with the Jazz bug currently.

Jazz is essentially a spontaneous creation of several player who know each other’s musical styles well, having a jam on some known theme.

If something goes a bit wrong - or should I say a bit unexpected - then never mind, because it is a sort of creative ... in performance.

In the world that I trained in - of classical music [playing the bass] - of course you do not stop because you have gone wrong, but that is not actually creative as such, but merely survival. If the conductor has not noticed and the audience is happy we used to call it [among the players, who always knew], “Good enough for Jazz ..."

Music is about composition of memorable and repeatable performances that shake the soul. Not repeatable in minuscule details of rhythmic nuances or the same for dynamic or tempo shifts, but recognisable  - at least the same music on a different day. 

When you go wrong you know that you are in a certain key, playing a certain time signature, and you search very hard for the music you should be playing while you vamp. A good vamp will pass un-notoced, but a bad one will prevent you getting any more bookings as a player.

I find the calculated lack of discipline in Jazz entirely against what I understand is real music, ...

ATB from George

I saw a quote once refering to jazz as musical masturbation - which seems at odds to me as I can't imagine anyone enjoying jazz

LOL .. There is such a thing as jazz Standards 

Sadly, Radio Three is also infected with the Jazz bug currently.

Jazz is essentially a spontaneous creation of several player who know each other’s musical styles well, having a jam on some known theme.

And more often than not these vamp sessions base themselves on these jazz standards.

ATB from George

You sir don't espouse in the wearing of corduroy elbow patches ?

Cord? Certainly not, Sir!

ATB from George

Great initiative by the BBC as it coincides with the London Jazz Festival.

JS Bach and Mozart may even have tuned in, if they were alive today, as both were noted for being gifted improvisers. Sadly, improvisation seems to be a lost, and even it seems a despised, art as far as current "classical" musicians are concerned.

Dave

Herbie Hancock tells us how Miles Davis made a wrong chord he played during Mike's solo miraculously *right* during the live gig. ( from 2:00 min. in )

I found it fascinating and it is a part of creative process. 

Not all the jazz musicians lacking in discipline. Good ones often are extremely disciplined.

I dunno if you are ever into straight up classic jazz ( the ones from 40s- 60s ) I hear some similarity sometimes to classical tunes actually in terms of timing and coherence. Beethoven's late sonata I hear some jazzy riffs there. 

I think that if Beethoven was alive today, he'd probably get kick out of jazz. After all he was the king of improvisation.

Anyways, this is the tune Hancock mentions: Davis' So What' from his 'Kind of Blue'.

Jazz, as classical music, isn't for everyone. I know a few friends just *hate* jazz just as much as I can't convince most of my friends to go to a classical concert with me.  But I found some tunes extremely moving and beautiful.

 I remember the impact this album had on me when I heard it for the first time. From the Side A track one all the way to the last tune.

Interesting indeed.

I've over 60 readings of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.1 and I found it odd that only a  handful of pianists playing their own cadenza.

And there speaks a man who has clearly never listened to Dizzy Gillespie or John Coltrane

You're missing out on a world(that has now sadly gone) of musical giants with unbelievable creative powers.  

In my humble opinion

Kuma I believe it's entirely down to the teaching methods; in the UK piano teaching is generally focused on the "grade system" of progressive exams in theory, practice and performance of three set pieces per exam.

I've played brass since I was a kid, ultimately playing semi-pro in small jazz and rock groups.  I learned piano with my kids. My teacher had studied to degree level - when I played the simplest improvisation on one of our pieces she was overwhelmed - she had no concept of how to put together a simple improvisation based on a chord progression.  i think this is fairly common.

Joking aside George, have you ever listened to any of Duke Ellington's large band works?  Some rate Ellington as one of the leading American composers of the 20th century.

But that doesn't mean they're played with the same arrangements every performance.

Dear Bluedog,

I am quite experienced of the Jazz legends such as the Duke and Miles Davis and others. 

I tried very hard to get my head round this music in the period fifteen to to ten years ago. Borrowing recordings, and listening to Jazz music programmes on Radio Three and reading round the subject as well.

I could find nothing in it that brought great pleasure for me, and I knew then and know it now, that there is a huge amount of music by Haydn and Bach that I am not acquainted with, but not one piece of music by either of these masters has failed to bring challenge, involvement and ultimately enjoyment.

Why would I bother with music that brings less challenge and enjoyment, however legendary the composers and performers are in received wisdom? 

I think it is great that we are all somewhere on a huge spectrum of musical tastes, or else it would be a dull sort of world. I do not say that Jazz is poor music, but rather that it does not stir me. 

Best wishes from George

PS: Just listening to some Jaz on Radio Three now though! I find it most enjoyable on first listening! 

 Horowitz claimed he never played the same tune the same way twice. 

"When I sit down at the keyboard I never know how I will play something. I play the way I feel at that moment." – Vladimir Horowitz

And that's same with Miles or any number of jazz musicians.

Here are the series of *painting* he created. These can't be repeated exactly the same twice.

Now who's to say that's not valid just because it can't be repeated twice exactly the same?

When I was studying Japanese calligraphy and brush painting, it is very much controlled by an author's technical excellence yet every strokes is different every time due to how a creator feels as well as his/her persona. ( very much like Horowitz said )

For instance, here's a typical bamboo drawing. ( used as a typical beginner's exercise much like Hanon or Burgmüller for a piano lesson ).  A student is taught how to draw this in the right order and strength of brush strokes etc.. and you practice many many times the same way till you get a hang of it. But each painting will be different slightly. Well, jazz is very much like this. It's strictly a controlled freedom.

I am struggling with some of 20th century modern classical work, too but I would never put them down, tho. 

My friend who walked out in the middle of the concert on Messiaen Turangalila was absolutely livid declaring that's not *music*. He should have said it's not a music that he enjoys. 

It is very much music and it is art. ( altho, the ultimate critics for art is time )But it is not a kind of music I reach for repeatedly in spite the composer claims it's a love song. :/

BD,

What is the teaching method that unlock a child's creative mind?

I was taught in Suzuki method but absolutely no good when it comes to improvisation. I am like your piano teacher. I freeze and don't know what to do!

I think it's a gift. It's a talent you are born with. The card is dealt from the day one.

Even took a jazz piano lesson in a later date but so deperssing hearing jazz giants like Evans so abandoned it all together.

Listening to them is far stress free than playing. ( altho, Waltz for Debbie is enjoyable much like Satie to play even tho my playing is terrible. )

Reply:

While it is certainly true that a proportion of gifted artists can produce something interesting and possibly great in a very short period this is far from normal in music.

For example Bach would take several days to compose a thirty or forty minute Cantata, and Beethoven took months or even years in composing his symphonies.

As Tchaikovsky noted. Composing music is one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent perspiration. Only Mozart among the great classical composers seems to have been able to compose as fast as his pen could run.

Picasso could produce things very fast apparently! Here is a wonderful story about a meeting in London between Klemperer and Picasso. Picasso was to make the scenery for a production [by Klemperer] of Beethoven Fidelio in the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. 

Picasso noted that he always hoped to work on such a project with Klemperer, to which Klemperer replied that he always had hoped to work with Kokoschka  on such a project. Picasso did not make the sets and the meeting was no longer than this exchange.

ATB from George

It's a cliche that many people on internet forums find it challenging to make a statement based entirely on their personal taste without phrasing it as if it were an objective fact. It seems that it even happens occasionally in the erudite and cultured environment of the naim forum. 

On a lighter note, I'm listening to the BBC Music Jazz programmes live on the kitchen DAB and managing to catch up with some of the other great stuff I've missed online. God bless, preserve and strengthen the BBC; IMO, of course. 

Mark

George,

Normal is a setting on a washing machine.

Normal was not the setting for JS Bach, and yet he was as a human more than fairly normal. Positively average with an average set of faults on the human level. Intolerance of the average slackness of his peers. Intolerant of the simplistic view of much of his audience ... 

As a composer he has no equal, but his industry and humidity in the face of music meant he never became a proud man stuck in his ways.

A model in fact for the modern creative artists! Not yet equalled ...

ATB from George

well,

So was Beethoven! 

None equals his output in spite his physical handicap. 

The world has not produced a deaf jazz composer just yet.

The UK grade teaching approach focuses on learning  theory and technique and applying these  to set pieces.  The method would need to be opened up a little to include practical demonstrations of how melodies relate to their underlying chord structure and modulation, and how variations in the melody (ie. improvisations) can be based on this moving chord structure.  Masters like Gillespie and Coltrane take it to a sublime level, using substitute chords etc., but in its simplest form it is not terribly difficult to learn and apply; it just needs to be incorporated in to the teaching as a "creative" component of the syllabus.  Like many forms of art - the basics are not necessarily intuitive; satisfying results can be achieved by many with a little effort; truly great results will always be achieved by those with that "something extra" in the way of creativity.

Perhaps I was lucky enough to have had a piano teacher who emphasized the theory side (chord inversions, naming schemes, etc.) as well as the technical aspects of performance - I cannot imagine having had to play note-for-note my entire musical life without the ability to save face when an event went south. (Of course, she was also an accomplished organist, so perhaps she knew where I was headed....)