What does the audience pay attention to when you play a jazz solo?

[kris]

Old pop styles are now jazz

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Spectacular 'jazz'.

[ewall]

Wow. I must be getting too old. This does nothing for me. I couldn't get beyond 30 sec. Whatever.

[kris]

Wow. I must be getting too old. This does nothing for me. I couldn't get beyond 30 sec. Whatever.

I don't listen to that kind of stuff.
I have thousands of real jazz performances, whether on records or video.

[Mick-7]

All jazz tunes were pop songs once.

But I guess not pop-rock...?:-)

They forgot to tell Joe Pass.

Oh, they did tell him and unfortunately he listened.....

[kris]

Oh, they did tell him and unfortunately he listened.....

Jazz and Commerce is a good title for a new thread.

[garybaldy]

Oh, they did tell him and unfortunately he listened.....

That was my point!

[kris]

[Mick-7]

I liked George Benson's version of this tune.....

[Skip Ellis]

I think, unless you are a die hard jazz fanatic, you go to a performance to hear songs you know, not hear someone play 10 choruses of "Georgia" (or whatever) that doesn't sound anything like the song you started with. A performance has to have something that an audience member can hum or whistle on the way home. I think jazz is a cerebral, selfish, ego stroking activity on the part of a lot of jazz players who don't care whether anyone listens to them or not as long as they can play whatever challenge they've set for themselves whether it be improv or reharmonization or whatever. Personally, I like Wes' commercial stuff (California Dreamin') and Mancini's Peter Gunn much more than I can sit through anything by Bill Frisell, Pat Martino, Joe Pass, or Jim Hall - and, yes, I know they're great players but, where's the melody? It's buried amongst all the 'noodling' as someone said. I've got all of Joe's albums and really tried to appreciate his music, but, to me, he just played too much. I listen to guys like Hirofumi Asaba and Jun Satsuma on thumb drives in my car along with the Peter Gunn stuff because it's 'attractive music' to my ear and they're playing melodies. I know this is not a popular opinion on a jazz forum but looking at it from the perspective of being a 'non jazzer' and outsider I guess, this is the way I see it. I'm on this forum because I like guitar music without a bunch of distortion and weird effects and this seemed to be safe haven. I've played for money for 56 years, everything from country to standards to banjo in a strolling Dixieland band, to surf, to bass in a lounge act, to playing Ventures tunes in a Hong Kong bar, to 30 years of theater pit orchestra and also managed to be a fairly successful pedal steel guitar player for 50 of those years working with several HOF acts. I've always thought that I was supposed to play music for my audience because they were the ones paying me. Instead, it seems like the audience is not important anymore as long as the players get their satisfaction. I'm sure my opinion is a bit skewed because I have never been anywhere where there was even the faintest jazz scene. As always, YMMV....

[DawgBone]

I think, unless you are a die hard jazz fanatic, you go to a performance to hear songs you know, not hear someone play 10 choruses of "Georgia" (or whatever) that doesn't sound anything like the song you started with. A performance has to have something that an audience member can hum or whistle on the way home. I think jazz is a cerebral, selfish, ego stroking activity on the part of a lot of jazz players who don't care whether anyone listens to them or not as long as they can play whatever challenge they've set for themselves whether it be improv or reharmonization or whatever. Personally, I like Wes' commercial stuff (California Dreamin') and Mancini's Peter Gunn much more than I can sit through anything by Bill Frisell, Pat Martino, Joe Pass, or Jim Hall - and, yes, I know they're great players but, where's the melody? It's buried amongst all the 'noodling' as someone said. I've got all of Joe's albums and really tried to appreciate his music, but, to me, he just played too much. I listen to guys like Hirofumi Asaba and Jun Satsuma on thumb drives in my car along with the Peter Gunn stuff because it's 'attractive music' to my ear and they're playing melodies. I know this is not a popular opinion on a jazz forum but looking at it from the perspective of being a 'non jazzer' and outsider I guess, this is the way I see it. I'm on this forum because I like guitar music without a bunch of distortion and weird effects and this seemed to be safe haven. I've played for money for 56 years, everything from country to standards to banjo in a strolling Dixieland band, to surf, to bass in a lounge act, to playing Ventures tunes in a Hong Kong bar, to 30 years of theater pit orchestra and also managed to be a fairly successful pedal steel guitar player for 50 of those years working with several HOF acts. I've always thought that I was supposed to play music for my audience because they were the ones paying me. Instead, it seems like the audience is not important anymore as long as the players get their satisfaction. I'm sure my opinion is a bit skewed because I have never been anywhere where there was even the faintest jazz scene. As always, YMMV....

It's a two way street. Cater to audience requests and you will become a bro-country/modern rock jukebox all night and when you say no more, or run out of songs, you'll be hated more than if you had just refused to do it up front. On the flip side are guys like you describe, just looking to self gratify with the blowing of notes without any regard for the audience.

I try to take a middle road and choose classic but somewhat forgotten blues standards aside my own original material. There will be no thrill is gone, stormy monday, or mustang sally. I guess in that way I'm selfish but I always try to deliver what I do play in an entertaining way.....my set list still needs refinement but between rehearsing and recording new material plus gigs it's extremely hard to arrange a rehearsal and just focus on experimenting with new cover material and I'm not really willing to try it unrehearsed at gigs because it will lack polish, and is cheating the audience.

IMO the best soloists take you in-flight with what they are doing and anyone who takes flight enough has crashed and burned many times. It's a part of the gig so even your heroes sound like shit sometimes, even if only they are the ones who might recognize it when it happens.

[Lionelsax]

I know how jazz musicians listen to jazz, but what about other people...?

Give the other people a phone or a camera in order to film, and then watch what they filmed. You thought you would see yourself soloing, not at all.
You thought you would listen to a song, not at all.

[kris]

Give the other people a phone or a camera in order to film, and then watch what they filmed. You thought you would see yourself soloing, not at all.
You thought you would listen to a song, not at all.

A sad reality.

[RLetson]

This isn't about jazz audiences, but I think it applies to playing out in general.

The guy who introduced me to playing in public (30 years ago now) was a veteran bar-band musician, and in that role he recognized what his audiences responded to and made a point of delivering it. So he arranged standard rock repertory in ways that preserved hooks and structures and finishes, even if his band lineup differed from those on the recorded versions. That was the job. His gift was the ability to adapt, say, a Billy Joel tune for a rock trio and have it work. (It helped that he was a first-rate guitar and bass player and could manage a drumkit as well.)

On non-college-bar gigs (which I played with him for nearly 20 years), he opened up his repertory to appeal to audiences who didn't want to just drink and dance and court, and the result was a really enjoyable mix of jazz, folk, novelty songs, and prog-rock (Pink Floyd, Nine Inch Nails), ingeniously adapted for whatever resources were available (usually two guitars, bass, vocals, and sometimes a really flexible trumpeter). Those audiences really dug the eclecticism--and it didn't hurt that the woman playing bass was a terrific and expressive singer. So any set might include "Feelin' Groovy," "King of the Road," "All Blues" (with or without a trumpet), "Fast Car," and "Wish You Were Here." And while he had composed all kinds of music for himself, he never played it on gigs. Instead, he made a wide range of familiar music sound new to his audiences.

So. I think audiences will pay attention to what is presented to them with wit, confidence, and competence. I think Dan enjoyed all the music he made, and that somehow got across to the audiences--though he also understood what his audiences expected or would make sense of.