Jazz for aficionados

Frogman, it was definitely jazz you posted, but it fits your and Wynton Marsalis's definition of jazz.


I recall maybe 30 years ago, before Wynton made his first LP as an independent musician, and he had been a sideman with Blakey; it was suggested that he might be the new worlds best trumpet player. He was so good that few people objected, I agreed that he was certainly a candidate.

When his first LP came out, I couldn't wait to get to the record store, lucky I didn't get a speeding ticket.

Back home I nervously put the record on with anticipation of some of the best jazz I had ever heard. (not quite) After all, this is his first LP, I thought; the next one is going to be better.

(this is not a personal comment about Mr. Marsalis, this is about jazz and his concept of jazz)


Next thing I know, he's the major spokesperson for jazz, (who made this johnny come lately the major spokesperson for jazz?) The same people who makes all our decisions, the major media.

All of a sudden he's telling us what is and what is not jazz, and it's carrying major weight. Every "made man"; card carrying, bona fide established jazz musician objected to this, but the media said "you're just jealous" so that band played on until even the jazz radio stations heeded his words, and all I began to hear on the radio was "Stereotypical" jazz.

Frogman, the fact that I consider many of your selections "Stereotypical" isn't exactly news. I've been listening to jazz seriously since 56. Your selections would have sounded boss to me back in those days; the riffs were new, but now I have heard some of those same riffs too many times, I want something new.

From my point of view, it seems that you and Wynton don't think it's jazz unless it has some of those same old riffs.

According to you and Wynton, "Kokoroko" might not be playing jazz, but according to "Wickipedia" it's jazz/ Afrobeat. Personally, I don't care you if you call it "hamburger hash", I want a second helping.
 

Rok, without a doubt you certainly let your jazz speak for you that time; "Blue Trane" is the best cut ever.

I'm convinced that our sense of aesthetics in music is dependent to a degree on who our ancestors were 200 years ago maybe, and for many of us that's unknown, but known or unknown, you still have those genes.


When I was child, my parents took me to the museum; I looked at a painting and asked them when did we go there. It was a painting of a castle on a lake in Switzerland.

They looked at me strangely and explained we had never been there. The more I looked at this painting, the more I was certain that I had been there. The older I got, the more that memory faded, but I still felt that I had been someplace that looked identical to that painting.

I'm saying that you are born with memories of places that you have never been before. If that's so, it also means that you are also born with your ancestors sense of aesthetics in music. Of course there are also a multitude of sociological factors that determine our taste in music.

The bottom line is that it is foolish for one man to argue with another man in regard to his sense of aesthetics in music.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/1273e7a304d12108bc0b04a777d28af2/tumblr_mydt5iPFJj1r7r8e0o1_400.jpg

Illinois Jacquet, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Brown with friends, Bop City nightclub in New York, 1947


https://youtu.be/XWj_a4NGS_I
Paris Blues Call and Responce with Louis Armstrong, Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier

If that’s so, it also means that you are also born with your ancestors sense of aesthetics in music.

Primitive thinking. Think of all the musical greats whose off spring can’t play a lick. DNA transmits potential, and that potential is not the same as the parent’s. May be greater or much less.

Cheers