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Originally Posted by ChazFromCali
What happened at Minton's was as much a response to changing tastes as it was an attempt to make jazz an art form. The combos could survive in a wasteland of dead dance bands. Four or five musicians could make a living playing together in night clubs and steakhouses. Their audience was older and smarter but smaller.
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11-11-2022 01:20 AM
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Originally Posted by Litterick
Why isn't underwater hockey more popular? My god, we don't know what we're missing!
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Originally Posted by Litterick
It was never easy, even in the 30's, but as time went by (40's, 50's, 60's) keeping a big band together on the road and working was a major feat as well.
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Originally Posted by ChazFromCali
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Originally Posted by henryrobinett
Musicians who play jazz and give concerts know it perfectly well.
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I am actually grateful of the fact that jazz isn't popular. It acts as a barometer and human intelligence filter.
In the same way so few people play serious chess these days or read Shakespeare.
I do not know a single young person that can draw, or paint, or make barely anything beautiful with their hands and certainly not play an instrument.
I have yet to come across a woman that can even cook properly.
All these activities require thought. People are losing their ability to think.
Anything that becomes too popular and develops mass appeal also soon gets destroyed.
You just need to look on YouTube and see the some of the world's most talented and greatest jazz musicians videos only have a few hundred views in the last 10 years.
But a girl wiggling her bum while singing the most mind numbing trash you ever heard can get 500 million views in a week.
The world gets more and more dumb everyday.
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Originally Posted by Maxxx
***** You are hereby awarded Marinero's JGF Quote of the Day!***** And, I'd like to add one thing else: One of the greatest destroyers of human creativity for the Common Man is the cell phone, television, and the internet. It took him out of his garage, away from his fishing boat, kids' baseball games, ignoring books, quality music, hobbies . . . for flashy videos, and mindless low-brow entertainment while isolating him from the wonderful visceral world that surrounded him daily that he traded for a couch in front of a TV or a chair at his desk or in his car staring at a screen when he is driving. It has taken Man from being a Participator in Life to a Watcher of Life. And, this is truly sad since the internet IS a double-edged sword since it does provide one of the greatest venues for free information, ever, in the History of Man . . . however, it is the vanity of Tick Tok, Facebook, Twitter, and millions of mind-numbing videos by "influencers" that have taken Man down this mind-rotting road. And, it is quantifiable in our case of music with the lack of opportunities for serious musicians to perform their music for fair monetary compensation. Stop anyone on the street and ask them what is the last book they read or music they played for enjoyment . . . the proof is in the pudding.
Marinero
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Originally Posted by Marinero
You are 1000% correct.. and although I use computers a lot, (network engineer/IT Specialist) I have not had a television or radio in my home for over maybe 27 years. They make one stupid.
My internet use is highly selective and very specific.
When I'm not at home reading voraciously, tending my bonsai plants, keeping fit, painting, drawing or diddling with the guitar for up 8 hours at a time and creating stuff in Logic Pro, and helping raise my two little lovely goddaughters I'm out on my big fat adventure motorbike, living in a tiny tent surviving on my wits in nature.
So far to date I have ridden that thing alone a quarter of a million miles over 41 different countries. Including across the entire Sahara Desert.. twice.
As regards the ever increasingly dumb masses I have sadly had to disengage from them completely and simply live as though they don't exist. That works for me pretty well as I am pretty self-contained and self-entertaining.
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Originally Posted by Maxxx
JGF=Jazz Guitar Forum. And, when you say "As regards the ever increasingly dumb masses I have sadly had to disengage from them completely and simply live as though they don't exist. . . " it is easier said than done unless you're a complete loner. However, I, also, have that experience when I'm sailing offshore with only the wind, waves, and my sailboat dancing to the polyphonic rhythm of the waves. It is the only thing besides literature and music that makes me feel so alive.
Marinero
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Played with my jazz groove quartet last night and talked to a very young couple in the audience (20 y.o. perhaps?). It was their second date and they happily paid $10 to enter the venue to see a band they’d never heard of. They loved us very much and asked me what type of music we played (we did some Ronny Jordan tunes, Lou Donaldson, Grant Green and our own groovy stuff) so I explained them it’s jazz on the groovy side of the spectrum. They were surprised and told me they never listen to jazz because it’s that ‘nervous busy music they don’t understand’. They were very impressed by what we did, though, and liked it a lot. So I explained jazz is so much broader than just fast bebop or experimental free jazz. Hope I made a couple of new jazz fans….!
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Originally Posted by Marinero
I used to have my own jazz quartet for a good few years playing out every single night... but currently I can quite happily sit at home and play/study guitar for 12 hours straight for months and months on end. Am I alone? Yes. Am I lonely? Never.
My first big ride was 58,000 miles again in my tent across 29 different countries one after another. I was riding for 18 months by myself. Was alone? Yes. Was I lonely? Never.
Actually that's not quite accurate. Only when riding through large densely populated capitals did I suddenly feel desperately lonely, disconnected and isolated. But that feeling quickly dissipated as soon as I got back out into the country, hills, mountains, forrests, jungle or deserts.
When you travel across land so much and move through so many places and so many people while crossing entire countries through literally hundreds of cities and thousands of towns
and villages you start to discover that the human template begins to repeat itself. You come across veritable clones and personality types/behaviours of people you have met before albeit
with a few minor variations.
Do that for a few decades and I suspect you too may lose that glee and shine for meeting yet more of the same. Particularly as society is on an increasingly downward moral trajectory and accelerating.
A few of these countries I have ridden across up to 8 times, like France. In doing that you get to see the changes objectively in the moods, attitudes and behaviours of that society over extended years.
What I have seen is not good. Like Siddhartha I no longer want any of it.
There is far more to life than mere humans and the unseen world is far greater than the seen world.
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"Like Siddhartha I no longer want any of it." Maxxx
Hi, M,
Yes.
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Jazz isn't popular because music theory doesn't interest most people (regardless of IQ), and because making music that sounds good to average people doesn't interest most jazz musicians. There's nothing wrong with that either way.
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I had a thought on this-
NOBODY likes jazz enough to leave their house to see it live.
EVERYBODY likes jazz if they are already out of the house and stumble upon a live jazz performance.
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^ Exactly lol. It's good music. When it's cookin, laypeople always take notice.
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There's a lot of jazz being played and listened to.
But, I think it would be more popular if it wasn't so doggone difficult to play really well.
I think that jazz which is played at a high level and which isn't intellectually inaccessible (discuss) is well liked.
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Originally Posted by strumcat
Last edited by Jimmy Smith; 12-08-2022 at 05:09 AM.
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Anyway, if you're bored with jazz...
Unusual Music Genres You Need to Hear Now - Score Short Reads - Highonscore | The Score Magazine
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The head-head-solos-head format of the straight-ahead standard is not very welcoming to strangers. It is unlike the song forms most of us know, and there is no singing. There is a lot of head, and solos – which can be bewildering and boring to listeners who do not understand what the soloists are doing (or what instruments they are playing) And when they are done, it is time for more head.
True followers of the cult of straight-ahead will tell us (often) that the standards are the best songs ever written and deserve to be played again and again, but for most listeners they are just old and in the way. Younger players seem more interested in original compositions. One day, something new might attract the attention of a wider audience as the Köln Concert did in 1975. Anything can happen.
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The end of this pretty much sums it up.
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[QUOTE]The head-head-solos-head format of the straight-ahead standard is not very welcoming to strangers. It is unlike the song forms most of us know, and there is no singing. There is a lot of head, and solos – which can be bewildering and boring to listeners who do not understand what the soloists are doing (or what instruments they are playing) And when they are done, it is time for more head.
[/QUOTE]
"Time for more head?" Are we talking about jazz or...?
True followers of the cult of straight-ahead will tell us (often) that the standards are the best songs ever written and deserve to be played again and again, but for most listeners they are just old and in the way. Younger players seem more interested in original compositions. One day, something new might attract the attention of a wider audience as the Köln Concert did in 1975. Anything can happen.
The reason it's not popular is that jazz has gotten boring and predictable. Bill Frisell, Julian Lage, Jonathan Kreisberg, the Bad Plus and others have found new ground to till and have the relative popularity to show for it. This for me disproves the "the world is going to hell in a handbasket" thinking.
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Originally Posted by Cunamara
I don't think it's predictable.
There are popular versions, some emulate them (that's predictable), others play their own version.
I might be wrong but every time I play a standard I know (or believe I know), it is not really the same.
It's been more noticeable since I play again with other people.
There is always an audience, not necessary the one who spills beer everywhere and say : "I love music, yeah come on, The House Of The Rising Sun, Don't You Know Pump It Up, you're trumpet looks like a pipe, play Pink Panther, I also play the guitar... Play a blues, that doesn't sound like a guitar, play Highway To Hell, you need a singer, I'm the one. Oh you play shit... Can you play No Woman No Cry, With Or Without You, Let It Be ? What's happening ? You make them sound the same ?!! That's shit !"
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I make my pupils sing Autumn Leaves (French and English versions), What A Wonderful World, Summertime, The Days Of Wine And Roses. You know what ? They like !
They sometimes see my stupid videos and they enjoy them.
They ask what it's about, I say it's something that works as McDonald's "Come as you are !" except the cook is yourself.
They like the concept.
From Bar Chords to Bebop
Today, 02:33 PM in Improvisation