Re: Defending Jazz From George Foreman's Fighting Words
I saw a great video yesterday from the TED talks by Benjamin Zander. His talk is on Classical music, but his points drove home for me when thinking of the way people view jazz music, and the way jazz musicians portray themselves. Mr. Zander states that the real reason people aren’t getting classical music is not because they are tone deaf (he says no one is tone deaf, I agree), and it is not because they “just don’t get it.” People aren’t getting it because the musicians aren’t really giving it to them. He says that somewhere along the line they saw a very uninspired performance, or simply heard their child’s orchestra up until he/she quit playing in the 8th grade, and decided that classical music simply isn’t for them.
I personally believe that jazz music, especially some of the more modern electronic and rock infused jazz, is just as accessible to the non jazz listen/player as any other style of music.
I tend to think of my brother, who never really had any interest in playing music or listening to classical/jazz. After being in school for a few years, I brought him and my father to the Jazz Showcase in Chicago to see Benny Golson and Curtis Fuller and they walked out totally stunned. After just one show, these never-listened-to-jazz-before guys understood that the band was playing a melody, and then they were improvising. They were able to sense emotion in the playing, and they could hear a story. It helps too that Benny loves to tell stories about growing up with Coltrane. They went to ONE inspired show and it made believers of them. Their issue was that they spent (my brother at least) their entire lives hearing me practice the trumpet, and never really hearing the music the way is should be heard.
After the show at the Showcase we went to a jam session at Andy’s Jazz Club where I sat in for most of the night. Afterward, my brother looked at me in a daze and said “Man, I had no idea jazz was this much fun. I had no I idea that you were good!” Their perception of what jazz is was based on my playing along with Aebersold CDs in high school.
So I guess my point is the same as Mr. Zander’s in that I believe jazz is for everyone. The misguided views of the people at Fox News stretch far beyond their taste in music. I just hope people still try and hear the music for themselves. As for our good buddy George Foreman, well, what can I say? I certainly wouldn’t want to get punched in the face by that guy, so I’ll just leave it at that.
here is the link for the TED talk I mentioned above: http://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html
Here is the link for the original blog post on which this was written: http://bit.ly/2yG6Sz
Unfortunately, playing with some of the best small group musicians in this area can be a cause for some trouble when you are looking to put together some rehearsals. Getting guys to agree to play in the band in the first place, actually wasn’t all that difficult. It seems there aren’t a ton of trumpeters in the Cities doing what I’m doing. Few enough for Zacc to say “yeah man, I love playing with trumpet players, and don’t get to very often.” I guess the fates were really on my side for putting this band together. I was able to get the final instrumentation of guys together for one rehearsal before the gig. We hit each tune for maybe 10 minutes, some for less, and then moved on for the sake of getting everyone out of there in a couple of hours. Needless to say, there’s a reason why they call these guys “pros” because the really killed it.