Jazz for aficionados

The Article:

I should have stopped reading after this silly paragraph.

*****To be able to enjoy instrumental music, you must be able to appreciate abstract art, and that requires a certain amount of effort. Just mindlessly drinking wine, for instance, would not make you a wine connoisseur. Mindlessly looking at colors (which we all do every day) would not make you a color expert either. Great art demands much more from the audience than the popular art does.******

One of the things that makes Great Art, GREAT, is the fact, that a large percentage of humanity, considers it great. Great Art is accessible Art. Art is never great, just because, the artist thinks it should be. And a few 'elites' from NYC does not do the trick either. No one has to 'push' or make arguments in favor of the art of the Masters. It speaks for itself.

A person should not have to 'figure out' what the artist is saying or protraying. There are a few exceptions, the one that comes to mind, is Picasso's masterpiece, "Guernica". It's a horrible looking painting, because it represents something horrible. A person without the historical knowledge, might not 'get it'.

The Japanese stuff was silly. None of his 'facts' are supported by academic research. And they do not withstand logical scrutiny.

The Frogman's post was excellent, but this article did not demand or deserve the time and effort of such a detailed rebuke.

Cheers

My book tells me, if I have understood it correctly, that all western music has a common orgin.

Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Mingus, Ellington, Monk, Elvis, The Beatles, Little Richard etc... all water from the same well??

Cheers

Freedom!!!! This is abstract art.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtHmqbnuZQs

Hello everyone - thanks for the reactions to that article. I think Orpheus took most of it in the same way I did. For me, the author's main point actually isn't really about jazz per se, but the fact that Americans don't get instrumental music in general, as opposed to other cultures.

I pretty much agree with Frogman's comments as well - I definitely cringed at the Coltrane/Kenny G comparison as well. I also think that Wynton quote is dead on, and also in a way related to the lack of understanding of instrumental music in our culture. I also like and agree with what Frogman says about how popular music changes with the culture, etc. Jazz has certainly survived that.

Orpheus, Frogman is definitely correct about jazz studies being alive and well in schools, and also that there are more jazz clubs around in major cities than ever, all over the country. Recording sales are not the only, nor even the main way to judge whether an art form is alive or not.

Rok, some of your comments are very puzzling to me. Music without words IS abstract art, period; even if there is a "program" or "story" involved, it too can only be abstract. So yes, appreciating abstract art is absolutely necessary for understanding any type of music without words. Such music does indeed demand much more of the listener, even if the listener may not be meeting the demand.

As for your book, yes, all Western music does have a common origin, in the sense that it uses the same language. It isn't just a cliche to say that music is a universal language. This goes back to the discussion of "modes" that Frogman gave. The vast majority of Western music is directly based on just two of those modes, the ones we now call the major scale and the minor scale (Ionian and Aeolian, the Greeks called them, respectively). For many forms of popular music, relentlessly and monotonously so.

Frogman, my previous post was in regard to vocal VS none vocal, and the quality of jazz in the 50's and 60's, as opposed to now; nothing about who is, or is not studying jazz. Nor do I pine for that sound by current musicians; that would be imitation, and not original; which is something I detest.

I'm sure there are vibrant jazz scenes in other parts of the world, because my purchases of "current" jazz are from: Korea, Poland, and India; while my latest purchases of jazz from here consist of the 50's and 60's jazz.

This is one time I definitely agree with Rok.

Enjoy the music.