Jazz for aficionados

The OP is well known for his empathy for foreign-born noise makers.

Cheers

Learsfool, Acman3 and the OP all out of hibernation on one day.   Must be Global warming.

Cheers

OP's Post:

Thanks for clearing that up. :)  I suggest we forget the 'reality' stuff, and stick with 'opinion'.   I think that would be more appropriate for our discussions.

Cheers

****Learsfool, Acman3 and the OP all out of hibernation on one day. Must be Global warming.****

That's actually very funny; as long as we can keep finding humor in all this, I think we'll be alright.

****I suggest we forget the 'reality' stuff, and stick with 'opinion'. I think that would be more appropriate for our discussions.****

Not possible; certainly not all of the time.  Allow me to explain why:

This business of subjective vs objective keeps coming up and continues to be misunderstood and misused.  Misused, because it is used as a fallback position when there is disagreement that is backed up by a provable reality.   To use O-10's example:

One can have the opinion that Lee Morgan was the world's greatest trumpet player.  Someone else can disagree, but there is no way that person could disagree that he was great.  Why?  Because the key point in this argument is always missed: that when judging the relative merit of art one needs to use both objective AND subjective criteria.  I may not agree that Morgan was the greatest because I may prefer the style of some other trumpet player or feel that someone else is a better technician, but if one has a fairly complete understanding of what it takes to do what Morgan did with a trumpet, both technically and stylistically, there is no way to dispute his greatness.  Put a different way:

Listener A can post a clip of a jazz trio and proclaim it great.  Listener B disagrees because he can point to provable and demonstrable problems with the playing such as out of tune playing, bad rhythm and amateurish improvisation.  This is not simply opinion, these (especially the first two) are demonstrable via the use of recognized standards within the art world.  Out of tune is out of tune, if someone is playing with bad rhythm, simply because any given listener doesn't have the capabillity to discern it or does not understand those standards does not make it less of a reality.  Still, lets really stretch and be very "politically correct" (aargh) and not judge any listener's discernment or lack thereof:  If listener B can discern these problems, describes the problems and deems them "deal breakers" for him, this is not simply opinion.  So, fine, anyone can choose to keep someone else's disagreement in the realm of opinion, but why isn't the dissenting voice entitled to consider it fact? 

The biggest shame in this endless debate is that what gets missed is the idea that there is always much to learn and more and more layers to understand; no matter what level of understanding anyone already has. 

****You are confusing recently recorded with Modern. No one is saying every single note, or tune is boring, just the weight of the material.****

i dont think so.  As you have pointed out, words matter.  Your comment was "Modern jazz is boring".  Why, then, not say: "some (or most) modern jazz is boring".  There is that absolutism mucking up the works again.

****I have no problem with Zappa or his music. The Arts should be a safe haven for eccentrics, weirdos, and all such marchers to a different tune. I just don't understand why they call it Jazz.****

****BTW, how would you classify Mingus' 'hog calling blues'. My all time favorite. ****

Agree with the first commnet.  I will tell you that I have heard/read Zappa reffered to as a rock musician far more than as a jazz musician, so who is it that calls it jazz?

Mingus:  I would call it great music.  I don't much care to classify it.  What does that prove really, if one thinks about it? I think all this goes back to what is really important and what I tried explain in my previous post: it's really knowing how to identify really good music making that matters most.  We all tend to have favorite styles and genres.  Time and time again I have seen music posted on this thread that fits into a poster's favorite style and it seems that simply by that virtue alone that posted music gets automatically bumped up to "good" in that poster's mind when it is simply mediocre or worse.  It really is true:  "there are only two kinds of music, good and bad".