Rok, thanks for your impressions of those young players. I don't know what you listened to by Ted Nash, but I would give him another listen; he really is a great player. I must say that I don't know what the hell the comment that "he talks too much" ("he's fat"?) has to do with wether the guy can play or not? Try this (and you can ignore the visual "accompaniment" by the Youtube poster):
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E-njySw6I_UI just had a thought that relates to the "abstract" question (I will give Learsfool the first shot at that one) and visuals when listening to music. As nice as videos of live performances are, I think we have had ample proof of the problem with what we SEE during a performance coloring our reaction to the music. I think it is fair to say that the quality of the music should be judged on its own and not be influenced by wether a performer does too many facial contortions, "dresses like a buffoon", or "talks too much".
Anyway, the business of "popularity" is getting a little tiresome and the main point is being missed. Facts:
-Artists don't go into the arts for the money or popularity.
-That jazz is less popular now than it once was does not mean that there is no quality jazz now; or, even, less jazz now. I hope my recent links have demonstrated this amply.
****Name me one artist that is considered great, but not popular with his audience, intended or otherwise.****
That is a very strange and illogical question. If an artist has an audience, is he not, by definition, popular? Nonetheless, a couple of thoughts:
Why then, did so many greats (Dexter Gordon) have to move to Europe?: because his audience was shrinking; iow, jazz was becoming less popular in the USA. Did that make him less of a player? And, btw, most of these guys didn't move to Europe for the applause, they moved there to make a living because there simply wasn't enough work here.
Food for thought:
****In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That’s a little bit too much.****. - Miles
The reason that I feel so strongly about the subject of "popularity", particularly as concerns the young crop of players, is that I know a lot of those guys and I know how they struggle to make ends meet while maintaining an incredible sense of dedication to their music with interest in popularity being so far behind their interest in honing their craft and making great art that it is impossible to describe. In spite of a much smaller audience base compared to the past when jazz was the popular music, jazz continues to thrive and move forward. Let's remember that jazz artists themselves were often reluctant to call the music "jazz" because they felt the name was too limiting. That Miles seems to be defending Dixieland in that quote is not the point of his comment, but that limiting ourselves to a narrow view of what jazz is is stupid.
Re triads:
Don't have any more time now, but I will quickly point out that a triad is simply a chord comprised of two thirds stacked on top of each other. Four kinds of triads: major, minor, diminished and augmented. There is much more to it, and while I think you are a great candidate for and would strongly encourage you to buy yourself a keyboard (electronic if you don't want the expense and hassle of a real piano/you would not believe what can be bought for around $250) as a learning tool, for now, a printout of a keyboard off the internet would make things much much easier to understand if you want to go further.
Cheers
