Jazz for aficionados

Hi O-10 - my point is that all professional musicians must have a variety of equipment to listen to music on quite early in life (while students). A healthy percentage will have at least good mid-fi equipment, figuring since they have to have something, might as well get something at least decent. I had most of the mid-fi system I mentioned before I graduated college (and how I wish I had bought many more records back then, sigh). Again, this percentage would be quite a bit higher than in any other profession (quite often, the main concern of music students from my generation and earlier and long after, when choosing a living space, was where were the speakers going to go - some settled for bookshelves, or just used headphones, but a great many of us had to have floorstanders). And later on, another healthy percentage of those musicians who can afford it will also go on to purchase high end equipment, at a higher rate than non-musicians. A musician's priorities in choosing what equipment they use are often quite different from most "audiophiles," but a large number of them, no matter what kind of music they play, love to have great sounding systems to listen to when they are not working. There is a perception here on this board in particular that musicians do not care about or understand high end audio - not only is this simply not true, it really doesn't make much sense when you think about it. Why this untruth is so widespread here despite being contradicted by every actual musician on this board is a continuing mystery to me, and a fascinating one. I have several different theories, but this is not the place for them. You asked what I was talking about - I have answered. Now let's get back to the jazz. As I said, this is the best thread on any audio forum on the web - I have learned a great deal and been exposed to many players I had not heard before. You are to be commended for starting it, sir!

Learsfool, I'm listening to "The Film Music of Bronislaw Kaper", played by the composer, in celebration of what I learned from you.

Two of my favorite tunes by him are; "Invitation" and "Green Dolphin Street". While Miles with Bill Evans is my favorite version of "On Green Dolphin Street", there are so many versions of "Invitation" I like, that I would prefer you choose your favorite version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nic4lb02ANw

Enjoy the music.

****Why this untruth is so widespread here despite being contradicted by every actual musician on this board is a continuing mystery to me, and a fascinating one. ****

A couple of related untruths are the idea that musicians (any genre) don't listen to recorded music and that most audiophiles don't really care about music; nothing could be further from the truth. Musicians listen to a lot of recorded music; and, while some audiophiles (equipment geeks) are, in fact, clueless about music, most that I have known are music lovers.

One of the reasons that these ideas get promulgated is, ironically, the emotional power of the very music they love which sometimes keeps many avid listeners from being able to see the middle ground (the gray) of so many of these issues. It can cause a tendency to want things to be entirely one way or the other; to make things the "best" or the "worst"; to become very polarized and overreact when a criticism is expressed by someone about a particular favorite recording. The KOB/SE debate was a perfect example of this. Two of the acknowledged greatest jazz recordings; yet, so much arguing about which was "better" when the dissenting voice (me) made it very clear from the start that both were great, but only in one or two specific areas was one considered somewhat better than the other while never declaring one as superior overall. Unfortunately, when hearing one listener say that X drummer sounds a little sloppy compared to Y drummer, instead of listening to the two examples and trying to hear what is being said, the focus becomes: "oh, he thinks X drummer is no good" and the fact that there are musically important stylistic differences between the two is missed.

The strong emotional response that music can have in a listener causes a tendency to "see" artists as dealing only with the emotional realm and to resist the idea that essential elements for artists to be able to reach that emotional realm and express their artistic vision are things that listeners sometimes perceive as very mundane and unemotional: study, practice or listening to recordings; things that can be misconstrued as not being in keeping with the mistaken idea that creativity is only the result of the calling of the artist's "muse". Most listeners would be amazed and their heads would spin at how much "technical" speak goes on in musicians' conversations (yes, even jazz musicians), wether it be about equipment, practice techniques, recordings that they are studying and analyzing, as well as musical issues at a level of subtlety that may seem incomprehensible. Music lovers tend to want their favorite artists to be "above the fray" of the mundane; truth is, they are people too.

WEll said Frogman, when all is said and done, the only way you can make somebody "big" is to make yourself small.
As Mozart said, the music comes from God, I just write it dowm .