A jazz artist or a jazz musician?

[kris]

Answer: ‘Cover’ bands. If you play in a band whose job is to perform the music of one (or many) original band(s), and you do that by doing what’s on the record, you’re not doing art. You’re being a craftsperson.

Understand that this is not a value judgment. Craftspeople are often at least as talented as artists, sometimes can be considered more so. And an artist might be an artist, yet make their living in the world being a craftsperson. It’s simply about awareness of the role you’re doing in a given moment.

Is there an art to being a brilliant craftsperson? One could say there’s an art to doing anything well.

Going thru some of the other responses… Charlie Parker! Most of his great tunes were merely improvisations over existing changes - which he remembered and transcribed and/or recorded. Anthropology was just him blowing over Rhythm changes, you know? But yeah, he was an artist.

+1
Best
Kris

[itsmyname]

my butcher is an artist cause he is mastering butchery for real and I can say the same things of every musicians in this thread cause....they play and sound so good.

Every musician, every time she/he is using her/his voice or/and instrument, play and sound good, it's art !

art needs artist, simple but I can be wrong.

[Tom Karol]

A jazz artist owns a beret ...

A beret! That's what I've been missing!

[RLetson]

Cover bands and tribute bands are not quite equivalent categories. But maybe that's a music-biz niggle. (One of my musical mentors was a long-time bar-band player, providing covers and adaptations, and there was plenty of artistry in his craftsmanship.)

How, though, do we categorize authentic-instrument/practices ensembles? Is the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century just a Mozart tribute band? For that matter, is any big-city symphony just doing Beethoven and Mahler covers?

Historical-replication/recovery efforts exist in the jazz world as well--I have vivid memories of the Wolverines Classic Jazz Orchestra and Big Band units from the late 1970s. Were they merely craftsmen?

The elevation of innovation in the arts is understandable, but it's not everything, and certainly not a defining characteristic. Don't get me started on what over-enthusiasm for The New can do to a Shakespeare production. . . .

[mr. beaumont]

I'm a jazz craftsman.