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Is improvisational jazz to impressionism art as smooth jazz is to realism art?

So, I’ll acknowledge up front, I’m an engineer. Civilian and Warfighter lives can be in the balance depending on whether our company products perform as required or not. As a result, I try very hard to drive the entropic world we live in towards black and white as much as possible. I need to put order to chaos. When i look at art, impressionistic art requires a lot of mental work to make sense of. I just don't see it or get it, appreciate it or like it. I also find, as hard as i may try to enjoy improvisational jazz, that i don't get it, appreciate it, or like it. Instead, I love Realism art and instrumental smooth jazz!!
Reading from Audiogon forum pages for a couple of years now, i feel like i should feel inferior because 1. I don’t appreciate the free flow of expression that is improvisational jazz and 2. I love that there is a tune and thread in smooth jazz. I love the guitar artistry of Chuck Loeb, Chris Standring, and Acoustic Alchemy; the trumpet expressions of Rick Braun, Cindy Bradley, and Chris Botti; and the bass works of Brian Bromberg. 
I’m curious if there are many others out there that equate order (or lack there-of) in their music tastes to that of their taste in the visual arts?
Also, are there many other music lovers who would rather enjoy a good smooth jazz listening session than improvisational jazz?  If so, who do you listen to?
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edcyn
1,876 posts
 
Gimme Mahler! Gimme the Ramones! Gimme Coltrane! Gimme Rodgers & Hammerstein! Gimme the Archies!  Gimme Hildegarde von Bingen! Gimme Penderecki! Gimme Sinatra!
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,788 posts
 
Sitting next to each other on a shelf are my ABBA, AC/DC, Roy Acuff, Arthur Alexander, Mose Allison, Al Anderson, and Alpha band (T Bone Burnett, David Mansfield, and Stephen Soles) LP's. 
middlemass
917 posts
 
    "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." William Casey, CIA Director 1981-1987"

"We are there."

Yup.


nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,833 posts
 
As a professional musician, these posts make me want to kill myself.
Best response by a country mile.

If the OP had left out his first three sentences, this could have been a discussion on what styles of jazz one likes and the occasional references to art.

Those first three sentences show more than a passing affinity to an authoritarian mindset as it meets a few criteria to be one. Normally, one would reference civilian and military needs and not "warfighter" as it’s not a recognized occupation but a romanticized notion one would take to embellish. That, or one is conflating soldiers with mercenaries, blurring obvious distinctions.

I would never begin a thread with such loaded implications, but then, that’s me. I only bring this up due to the silly comments on some forms of art being equated with politics that some posters like to vilify.

All the best,
Nonoise


stuartk
2,766 posts
 
@facten:

We seem to not be communicating very well-- I apologize for whatever responsibility I bear for this.

As it happens, I'm very familiar with John McLaughlin-- I've been listening to him since 1972. 

However, I have never heard anything by him that resembles Smooth Jazz in any way or anything midway between Smooth Jazz and Fusion. 

In fact, I was hoping you would provide the titles of some of his records that would provide examples of such playing. I hope I have made things clearer!  
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