Jazz for aficionados

I don't know what jazz is, but I know it when I hear it, I also know you can not learn it in anybody's school; not even the best in the country.

My kind of jazz began with "Be Bop"; that's what "Bird," Dizz, Monk and a few other musicians worked on before Miles; he came to New York looking for Bird.

It's a funny thing, but none of them liked to call their music "Be Bop", but they had to call it something, why not "Be Bop". Although that's what made them famous, when they played music from the heart, meaning music that emanated from deep down in the soul, it
didn't even sound like "Be Bop". That's the music we call "Jazz", we had to call it something.

I also know they wanted a type of music that couldn't be stolen; music from the inner depths of the soul couldn't be stolen. I might call it "Geist" music, because a guy named Hegel spent his entire life trying to explain the soul in print, but he never succeeded.

Since he couldn't do it in a lifetime, I certainly can't explain it in a post; but I believe I understand it as well as Hegel. I'm sure he understood it too, but just couldn't put it in writing. That's what the jazz men were after; something that couldn't be put in writing, and patented. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams; that's what this thread is about, and that's why we keep hoping and praying that some new musicians will come along and give us what they gave us, but it ain't happening; so I say, until that time;


Enjoy the music.

The Straw Man: ooops errrrr, I mean  The Frogman:

***** "Tommy Flanagan, elegant jazz pianist, is dead at 71"*****

I'm sure they were speaking of the person, not his music.  After all, it was an Obit,
he was dead, not his music.

Of course you know this.

Cheers

These are some super hip dudes; "The Jazztet" featuring Art Farmer and Benny Golson

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u23Etcb-L9M&list=PLafagIBDy-VK16r59rYQmmTdBJAZAJH8f&index=1


The epitome of Cool;


              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt3B1g3jkhE&list=PLafagIBDy-VK16r59rYQmmTdBJAZAJH8f&index=2

Ok, Rok, if you insist:

From the obit:

**** Tommy Flanagan, a jazz pianist who with a classic trio set a high standard for elegance in mainstream postwar jazz, ****

Obit, The Guardian:

**** Inventive and elegant jazz pianist as fluent as the stars he accompanied ****

From Wiki:

**** After leaving Fitzgerald again, Flanagan attracted praise for the elegance of his playing ****

Jazzhouse.org:

**** Tommy Flanagan was as lucid, refined and swinging a pianist as any in the history of jazz and emerged as one of the most elegant and fully rounded interpreters in jazz . ****

Concord Music Group:

**** and, perhaps above all, an impeccable, imperturbable, and unerringly elegant sense of ...****

Let me know if you need more.

Elegant:   Of a high grade or quality.  
Merriam-Webster


Given that definition, every Jazz player of any reputation at all, could be considered 'elegant'.   In Flanagan's case, They probably meant he played in an unobtrusive manner.   Didn't disrupt their conversations, as they sipped their cocktails

As Fats Waller said, "They like Jazz, but in small doses".   He was speaking of the good folks of the NYC 'elites'.   You be one???

Let me know if you need me to 'explain' anything else for you.

Cheers