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Father Time
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3/22/2016 2:22:41 PM
on jazz
I was listening to a jazz version of an old folk song I really love this morning. They took a sad song and turned it into a totally happy song, it kind of offended me to be honest. The musicianship was very good, but don't make a sad song happy, that's just wrong. Though you can take a sad song and make it better, that's ok.
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Noah Spaceship
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3/22/2016 5:21:26 PM
I hear you. I listen to a lot of jazz on the radio and it seems there are different schools of jazz players and composers. I have always held disdain for the really polished covers of songs that do what you described. It is wrong and they should be ashamed, and those heartless, soulless jazz players that treat music like math and a fitness program make my skin crawl. Thank god for the soulful introverts who play recklessly and dangerously in smoke filled halls to small crowds for peanuts because it is their calling. There is nothing better than deep dark jazz numbers that make you ache an yearn.
I also think they (we) should give that upbeat shit jazz a new genre name and banish them from the genre.
AHO!
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Larree
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3/22/2016 5:46:52 PM
I love jazz. Listen to it all the time. The hardcore stuff. The masters. The swing bands and the 50's and 60's stuff. And a lot of 70's stuff is still very good to me. Jazz is the best music to me.
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Stoneman
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3/22/2016 6:06:00 PM
I'm a Beebop era man myself. I think Jazz is such a free form style that trying to contain it is impossible. Jazz musicians usually don't give a f**k about what people think. They just do it their own way and if you like it, cool. If you don't like it, that's cool to. My first major organized band was a jazz band. I got promoted from the marching band in my religion (I was a Buddhist then) and I played second Sax. Great experience but I hated it because I never got to play the melody. I only played 2nd's 3rd's and 5th's. Boring as hell but I learned a lot about music. They kicked me out when they discovered that I didn't know how to read music. I had never had a music lesson. I just taught myself how to play anything I was told to play. Then one day the band leader asked me to play a part on the charts and I had to confess that I couldn't read that shit. Well, after 2 years in the band and they had never asked me if I could read music. The band leader always hummed what and how he wanted me to play stuff and I was very good at playing anything I heard. I didn't learn how to read music until the early 80's. A church lady (I was a Christian by then) taught me. I love Dizzy, Bird, and Miles. My other favorites were Jimmy Smith, Stanley Turrentine and Cannonball Adderly.
I think that alternate interpretations of songs can be cool or not so cool. Turning a sad song into a happy song is a quandary. I am reminded of the death marches (funerals) in New Orleans where they start out with that slow sad lumbering sound on the way to the grave. Then, they finish with a rousing Dixieland style of upbeat jazz. What amazes me is that the mourners go from being sad and sullen to happily dancing and partying in the streets. I find that very fascinating!
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Noah Spaceship
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3/22/2016 7:04:08 PM
Bebop is great!
I guess we all have our thing that taps into the nostalgia. For me it was living in Chicago for a while and being exposed to the club scene and those musicians.
One night stands out to me the most when after hearing a set of ripping blues jazz by a rag tag trio, I talked to the guys and discovered they had never met before that night and the club had hired them off the cuff at the last minute.
My mind was blown.
It was then I realized I had a long road to hoe to even hold a candle compared to those dudes who were my age.
But that is what they did. They lived and breathed the lifestyle. They had to be the hardest working musicians I ever met, and the city was full of them.
For me there is nothing better than the smell of coffee, stale beer, cigarette smoke and smooth jazz. It fills my soul and makes life better.
I love and miss those days.
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Larree
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3/22/2016 7:39:28 PM
Right on, man. Love that story about your first jazz band. :D
Dude, if you love Jimmy Smith you might love this album. One of my favorite albums of his.
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Stoneman
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3/22/2016 10:29:43 PM
Oh yes, I know it well! My favorite of his was an album called "The Sermon". Man I use to play that over and over. Wes was an outstanding guitar player. I also liked Kenny Burrell. Dude must have played on almost every Blue Note Record made. Thanks for posting this. Had me a nice Vape, kicked back and went zoom! Haha. That's Jazz man......
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