how old are we

[Bobby Timmons]

Being smart is extremely frustrating, it only gets worse as I age and everyone else gets even dumber.

I'm 39. Beginning middle age. Starting to deal with aging and going downhill looks wise. But body works fine and I'm starting to get a handle on life which is good. There are 3 +/- 20 girlie supervisors at my job who I have to tell what to do when I'm a regular employee lol. I have to remind myself to not be presumptuous with them. One of them said about me, 'he's like a little puppy dog, you can't control him.'

[AllanAllen]

Maybe the current generation is on a similar demographic wave. It seems that many of my Gen Z students are into playing music.

Only time will eventually tell us.

My boys like to play around with the keyboard and bang on the drums. I think music will be fine. The hardest thing for me is to try not to ruin it for them with all the structure I thrive on.

[Mick-7]

I'll just say that I'm old enough and fortunate (due to my age) to have met many of the jazz greats: Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Howard Roberts, and Pat Martino, and attended concerts by others. But the down side of the aforementioned is that I wasn't musically advanced enough at the time to really absorb and apply what they shared with me.

[joe2758]

I'll just say that I'm old enough and fortunate (due to my age) to have met many of the jazz greats: Joe Pass, Barney Kessell, Howards Roberts, and Pat Martino, and attended concerts by others.

talk about flintstones

[Mick-7]

talk about flintstones

Not exactly, I was 20-something y/o when I met them in the mid-70's, but I do recall Joe Pass and Herb Ellis playing the Flintstones tune in concert - very fast.

[Bobby Timmons]

My boys like to play around with the keyboard and bang on the drums. I think music will be fine. The hardest thing for me is to try not to ruin it for them with all the structure I thrive on.

Tell em to get a job. :P

[Gitfiddler]

Not exactly, I was 20-something y/o when I met them in the mid-70's, but I do recall Joe Pass and Herb Ellis playing the Flintstones tune in concert - very fast.

Speaking of 'The Flintstones'...
Here's Henry Johnson and Wolf Marshall killing it!

[jim777]

63 next month, time has gone by soo quickly it's difficult to believe!

[Gilpy]

Well, I still feel pretty good and am healthy. But somehow I got old.
I’ve been playing guitar for 56 years, getting paid to do it for 53. Hope to keep doing it!

[sgosnell]

I'm not quite there yet, but I'm bearing down on 80 at the speed of life. My mind says I'm still young, my body disagrees.

[deacon Mark]

I am 63 and yes Tim, I thought it would take longer to get here and now we are here. That said I played the guitar more the past 3 years and improved my playing more than any other time since I started playing at 12 years old. My chops and ability to play tunes far exceeds the younger years even when I was teaching 40 students a week and practicing and playing out some.

Age has taught me a good lesson about playing and getting better. It is all about learning and playing tunes over and over. Memorize them and keep playing through the changes. Stop at any point and know the chord you are playing out of. While scales, arps, and reading are all important it boils down to tunes. In this sense I think with age I might be wiser. I go less for show and speed and trying to prove I can play decent. I am surprised the highest age number of forum is 70 and over. Woe.

[bediles]

In my 30s. The days of practicing 8h + a day are behind me with life and family commitments.

[nyc chaz]

I am 63 and yes Tim, I thought it would take longer to get here and now we are here. That said I played the guitar more the past 3 years and improved my playing more than any other time since I started playing at 12 years old. My chops and ability to play tunes far exceeds the younger years even when I was teaching 40 students a week and practicing and playing out some.

Age has taught me a good lesson about playing and getting better. It is all about learning and playing tunes over and over. Memorize them and keep playing through the changes. Stop at any point and know the chord you are playing out of. While scales, arps, and reading are all important it boils down to tunes. In this sense I think with age I might be wiser. I go less for show and speed and trying to prove I can play decent. I am surprised the highest age number of forum is 70 and over. Woe.

If you have ever watched the Joe Pass Musician Institute video,he is walking out to his car and the students are following him and his advice to them is"guys.play some tunes".Best advice ever given for guitar playing in a concise few words.The majority age on this forum poll kind of says to me that traditional jazz guitar will mostly be gone in twenty to thirty years unfortunately.

[pamosmusic]

The majority age on this forum poll kind of says to me that traditional jazz guitar will mostly be gone in twenty to thirty years unfortunately.

No offense but old people aren’t the only ones who like Wes Montgomery.

[Stringswinger]

No offense but old people aren’t the only ones who like Wes Montgomery.

Quite correct. I recently sold a Henriksen Blu 6 to a 26 year old guitarist who came over with a vintage Gibson ES-125 and it was clear as soon as I heard him that he was a Wes fan. We played a few tunes together and by the time he left, I felt assured that future generations will still be enjoying traditional jazz guitar. The guitarist is a member of this forum, but he is here infrequently. Interestingly, it turned out that about 20 years ago, the guitar player's dad, a bluegrass mandolin player, had been on a few trad jazz gigs that I was a sideman on. His dad who is in his late 50's now, is less of a jazz fanatic than he is. The majority of my boomer friends who I grew up with are not jazz fans. Age is not, IMO, an indicator of what kind of music one might like.

I would posit that the reason most of us on this forum are old is that we are either retired, or we go out less and therefore we have more time on our hands to be on an online music forum.

[Stringswinger]

If you have ever watched the Joe Pass Musician Institute video,he is walking out to his car and the students are following him and his advice to them is"guys.play some tunes".Best advice ever given for guitar playing in a concise few words.The majority age on this forum poll kind of says to me that traditional jazz guitar will mostly be gone in twenty to thirty years unfortunately.

Joe's actual advice in that video IIRC (which I concur with) is "Learn tunes. Chicks dig guys who know tunes"

[nyc chaz]

Joe's actual advice in that video IIRC (which I concur with) is "Learn tunes. Chicks dig guys who know tunes"

I stand corrected counselor,i throw myself on the mercy of the court.As far as young guys liking Wes,i live in NYC and most young guys have zero idea who he was.The majority of young guys i come across are mostly lnterested in making beats and using computers to make music.You mention Miles or Ella and they have no idea who you are talking about.If they do know who they are,they are only interested in using samples of their recordings in their music,not woodshedding on an instrument for hours.Most young guys today do not have the attention span to want to listen to a long jam.It's the reason they love tiktoc.There's always going to be people who dig jazz but lets face it only about one percent of digital downloads today are of jazz and that's mostly by people of an an older demographic.

[pamosmusic]

I stand corrected counselor,i throw myself on the mercy of the court.As far as young guys liking Wes,i live in NYC and most young guys have zero idea who he was.The majority of young guys i come across are mostly lnterested in making beats and using computers to make music.You mention Miles or Ella and they have no idea who you are talking about.If they do know who they are,they are only interested in using samples of their recordings in their music,not woodshedding on an instrument for hours.Most young guys today do not have the attention span to want to listen to a long jam.It's the reason they love tiktoc.There's always going to be people who dig jazz but lets face it only about one percent of digital downloads today are of jazz and that's mostly by people of an an older demographic.

What?

I might recommend you go hang out at a jazz club?

I lived and played there for a decade and the jazz clubs skew young. Go to Smalls and tell me what the median age is in the crowd at 1:00am. The stereotypical Jazz fan in New York is some 25 yo Bushwick kid in a thrift store sweater and nerdy glasses who listens to Bud Powell on vinyl.

I ran the door at a bigger spot for a few years and that was an older demographic, but probably because it cost $40 to get in.

Sure, jazz is some tiny percentage of streams or whatever, but that’s hardly because of younger people. Can’t say I’d believe you if you told me it was much bigger with, say, fifty year olds.

also as a teacher I can tell you that lack of interest in the woodshed is equal opportunity

[Skip Ellis]

I chose '80' - I'll be there next June. Don't particularly feel it though - got a few Agent Orange problems (diabetes, heart) but it hasn't got me too bad yet. Worst of my problems are PTSD related but none of it has affected my ability to play - I still want to but not much of any place to do it.

[Stringswinger]

Jazz has not been popular music since the 1940's. That is a long time ago. When I got turned on to jazz in the 1970's, there were not many members of my generation into it. That hasn't changed with the generations that have come along since, and probably never will.

If I was a young person needing to make a living, playing jazz would not be my preferred way to do it. A dental hygienist makes a way better living. In fact almost everybody, including fast food workers do as well.

[Stringswinger]

I chose '80' - I'll be there next June. Don't particularly feel it though - got a few Agent Orange problems (diabetes, heart) but it hasn't got me too bad yet. Worst of my problems are PTSD related but none of it has affected my ability to play - I still want to but not much of any place to do it.

Thank you for your service.

[pauln]

It's said, wisdom comes with age.
But sometimes age comes alone.

[Bobby Timmons]

^ Yeah best to keep busy. It's humbling getting old. Better have something to show for it.

[nyc chaz]

What?

I might recommend you go hang out at a jazz club?

I lived and played there for a decade and the jazz clubs skew young. Go to Smalls and tell me what the median age is in the crowd at 1:00am. The stereotypical Jazz fan in New York is some 25 yo Bushwick kid in a thrift store sweater and nerdy glasses who listens to Bud Powell on vinyl.

I ran the door at a bigger spot for a few years and that was an older demographic, but probably because it cost $40 to get in.

Sure, jazz is some tiny percentage of streams or whatever, but that’s hardly because of younger people. Can’t say I’d believe you if you told me it was much bigger with, say, fifty year olds.

also as a teacher I can tell you that lack of interest in the woodshed is equal opportunity

I said the vast majority not that no young people are interested in jazz.I went to my alma mater last year and they were onstage rehearsing for a concert and the instruments were therebo,lute and recorders.Am i to conclude that renaissance music is making a comeback?There are always going to be musicians playing older forms of music,just not in any significant quantity.

[pamosmusic]

I said the vast majority not that no young people are interested in jazz.I went to my alma mater last year and they were onstage rehearsing for a concert and the instruments were therebo,lute and recorders.Am i to conclude that renaissance music is making a comeback?There are always going to be musicians playing older forms of music,just not in any significant quantity.

I didn’t say jazz was making a comeback. But you are implying that jazz is markedly less popular with young people and that’s just not true.

Most sixty years olds don’t play instruments seriously. Jazz is not terribly popular among sixty year olds. You’d have to be ninety years old to be born in a time when jazz had much popular appeal at all. You’d have to be eighty to have any memory of Kind of Blue or Time Out which weren’t massive pop hits but were probably the last Jazz albums to have widespread cultural impact.

Point being every generation has lamented the fact that the younger generations are letting the culture die and that it’ll be gone in a matter of years if nothing is done. They’re always wrong. It’s old man yells at clouds stuff.

I transcribe a ton and practice several hours a day. 99.9% of 60-70 year olds don’t do that. Am I to conclude that my generation is saving it from those before who let the music die?

That would be a smidge self important, no?