Non Jazz musicians cannot appreciate how difficult Jazz imrov can be...

[Jonah]

Jazz guitar is the hardest thing I've ever tried to do. I've been at it for 56 years and I'm still learning about how difficult it is to do really well. I am confident that I can still hear something new and not realize how difficult it was for the player to accomplish.

well of course I appreciate things that are difficult ...

but mostly I believe that artistic appriciation is based on different criteria.

The original idea is strange to me: they do not appriciate difficulty.
I agree that jazz audience often do not really appriciate the performance just because they do not follow it... but it is not abou difficulty.

it is not the acrobats in the circus (where it is appropriate really) to appreciate difficulty.

I talked to young jazz guitarsit (already a teacher) - quite accomplished and I mentioned Bernstein and he said: Oh he plays really difficult things... it was so strange to me: Peter is a master and ginuine musician... he has his own touch and even I dare say - own language... but it is not really difficult what he plays.
On the contrary it is quite easy...
What Frisell and Sco do is also not diffuclt...

[Jonah]

I wonder how many of the audience at the Half Note in this 1964 TV programme were listening to Lennie Tristano and his combo. Did they appreciate the difficulty and novelty of the music? They seem to be enjoying themselves, at least.

Same thing happens on classical recitals... people have a year ticket for concerts, visit Philarmonic Hallsa, discuss speed and expressions of faces and gestures but then you put on music and they can't distinguish Mozart from Haydn (or even Schubert!) without seeing the name on CD

[ragman1]

Well this isn't the case with most of my friends who are amateur musicians like myself but don't play jazz (well expect for the few 'easy' tunes (e.g. no key changes) I have shown them over the years).

They clearly appreciate my knowledge of so called jazz chords, as well as key changes. As long as I "accept" (for lack of a better term), that they don't wish to go in a jazz direction we can make some nice music together playing blues and rock.

Understood, of course, but anyone who plays rock and blues, etc, can look at a jazz guitarist zooming about playing stuff they can't understand and be totally mystified, if not awestruck.

But the implication of the thread is that they should feel sorry for the poor jazz soloist struggling manfully with this impossibly complex music and needs their sympathy. They just don't realise how damn hard it is!

But, as I said, why should they?

There's an emotional implication in the title. If I was a blues/rock player, and I had a friend who played very complex jazz stuff, and I said 'Hey, man, I really appreciate how hard this is for you' I'd expect them to look at me and say 'What are you talking about? Sure it's hard but I love this stuff! It's my choice! You're giving me sympathy???'.

See what I'm saying? And if the jazz player did expect his rock friends to bolster him up and encourage him because his road was so hard, I'd say that was all wrong.

Mind you, I'd agree completely with this from the OP. Probably very true.

I can't think of another art form that is more under appreciated than Jazz improvisation

[Paulie2]

LOL. Go on. A sticky wicket, all gone pear-shaped, has it? Irrelevant and, to paraphrase one of Miles’ most famous tunes “So What”.

Quoting, quite frankly, Mr. Shankly: “Get stuck in, lads!” I mean, I have no idea if he ever said that, but I suspect that is the classic line from many a Half-time team talk in the Changing Room.

*pats self on back for throwing some British expressions nobody around these parts has ever heard of in their lives*

I literally have no idea what this post means

[christianm77]

Pop listeners have no idea how involved and complex pop production is.

Film goers have no idea how difficult acting, direction, cinematography and special effects are.

And so on.

[ragman1]

I literally have no idea what this post means

He's thrown a lot of Brit expressions in together. He means nobody in other places (like the US) has ever heard them in their lives. Hardly surprising :-)

A sticky wicket means an awkward situation. Comes from cricket. 'The world's on a sticky wicket with this virus at the moment'. It's quite old-fashioned, though.

Something that's gone pear-shaped means it's all gone wrong. Don't know why they use pears but I think it might be an RAF thing where you're supposed to loop the loop in a neat circle. If you get it wrong it starts to look like a pear. I think.

'Get stuck in' just means 'Get down to it/work hard' About any task really.

That should do it

[christianm77]

He’s having a giraffe m8

[Jonah]

Pop listeners have no idea how involved and complex pop production is.

Film goers have no idea how difficult acting, direction, cinematography and special effects are.

And so on.

Otherwise watching a comedy they would not laugh but would be sitting in the movie theater quite and with respect and sympathizing hard toil of movie makers.

'What a great comedy!' they would say 'so much difficult work to be appreciated here!'

[princeplanet]

Otherwise watching a comedy they would not laugh but would be sitting in the movie theater quite and with respect and sympathizing hard toil of movie makers.

'What a great comedy!' they would say 'so much difficult work to be appreciated here!'

Nah, most people know that a lot goes on "behind the scenes" with these things these days. I don't think many know how many hours of specific practice goes into learning Jazz improv at the elite level. No offence to the members here, but I think that many of us probably don't even know, and we'd be expected to have a better idea...

Until it gets surveyed, then we'll never know, but if you chose 10 highly skilled disciplines, with elite Jazz musician among them, and people ranked them in order of difficulty and / or required time to acquire the related skill set, I'll wager that not many would put Jazz musician on top.

Brain surgeon? Rocket Scientist? Championship Chess player? Olympic Gymnast? Most people would have an idea of the degree of difficulty and might guess that something like 6 years of hard, uninterrupted study can get you near the top (provided you are already "gifted"). Do you think you could improvise as well as Wes, GB, Joe Pass etc after just 6 years? Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Michael Brecker, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarret ?? ... Maybe they only needed that much time, but how rare is that? One in a million? One in a Billion? ...

[Jonah]

Nah, most people know that a lot goes on "behind the scenes" with these things these days. I don't think many know how many hours of specific practice goes into learning Jazz improv at the elite level. No offence to the members here, but I think that many of us probably don't even know, and we'd be expected to have a better idea...

Until it gets surveyed, then we'll never know, but if you chose 10 highly skilled disciplines, with elite Jazz musician among them, and people ranked them in order of difficulty and / or required time to acquire the related skill set, I'll wager that not many would put Jazz musician on top.

Brain surgeon? Rocket Scientist? Championship Chess player? Olympic Gymnast? Most people would have an idea of the degree of difficulty and might guess that something like 6 years of hard, uninterrupted study can get you near the top (provided you are already "gifted"). Do you think you could improvise as well as Wes, GB, Joe Pass etc after just 6 years? Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Michael Brecker, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarret ?? ... Maybe they only needed that much time, but how rare is that? One in a million? One in a Billion? ...

You see I do not like the idea that something like Art is difficult... as a musician I would not like to be in a conmpany of Rocket Scientist, Olympic Gymnast and Chess Champion...
And I do not like when people stress how difficult playing jazz is... the question 'Do you think you could improvise as well as Wes, GB, Joe Pass etc after just 6 years? Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Michael Brecker, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarret ?? ' make no sense to me.. .and to them too I believe... on simple reason: truely playing like one of them is not achivable in any quantity of years (unless you put a task to mimick everything they do - then it is probably possible -- but it will some kind of 'imitator degree'
(imitating is part of learning - but it is not what it seems to be here)...

I also do not like measuring in specif quantity of years for learning anything...

It is all just irrelevant to me...

Once I was reading John Ruskin and he had a beautiful conception '7 light of architecture'. If I expand it to art there was one liked called Virtue (he was Victorian Christian moralist of course)...
He said that one of the important stipulations for expressing Virtue for Art is expressing aethetically the work that was put into it...

That means that if it was difficult to make (not to learn or study but to make) it should be a part of its aesthetic impact (plot, expression, idea)...
I do not remember the examples but some Michelagngelo's statues can be good example of it... in jazz some Coltrane works really have this quality.

All the rest is irrelevant to me...

it should not worry our minds..

[Litterick]

As Robert Browning has Andrea del Sarto say,

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-grey,

Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!


I am not sure he is right. Maybe some jazzmen were prodigies who did not need to try hard. How would we know otherwise?

[christianm77]

Nah, most people know that a lot goes on "behind the scenes" with these things these days. I don't think many know how many hours of specific practice goes into learning Jazz improv at the elite level. No offence to the members here, but I think that many of us probably don't even know, and we'd be expected to have a better idea....

I lack sufficient inside knowledge of other areas of the arts to comment on their relative difficulty.

TBH people pour the same number of hours into anything, so I suspect it's broadly equivalent. You know all those writers who do 9-5 every day?

Beware of Dunning-Kruger when looking at areas outside of one's own expertise....

[princeplanet]

.. yeah, I try t be aware of DK as often as I can remind myself. I still say elite level Jazz improv must surely be one of the hardest arts to master, and among the most poorly rewarded.

In saying that, I certainly don't want sympathy from others! However, I do have sympathy for others who do it very well, and seem to be unappreciated for it, whether they want my sympathy or not.

It just is what it is...

[Jonah]

Last night I watched Frisell's online gig from home for Blue Note (it was way better setup than it was for that Festival at the biginning of lockdown) --- really he does not look for any reward and I can't imagine he would ever say something about hard work he did or does to abieve that)))


The reward thing is a different stuff - I have a friend who is in my opinion greates living composer and being modest person he still know the artistic value of what he is doing... but the acknowledgement is so small
I feel like with years he is just getting tired in social sense.. getting to 50 he begins to feel he wants a reward finally... but again there's nothing about hard work...

[christianm77]

I know a FIDE master and the way he talks about chess has a lot in common with jazz. Learning a big repertoire of openings etc, studying the masters and so on.

[princeplanet]

...

There are no chess players going around saying stupid stuff like, I've invested 8 hours daily for 20 years into this, so now I demand to be paid for my art. Chess players are not constantly insisting on being admired on their ability to perform art (vague term). It's 100% in the moment. Did you beat the competition and land the prize or not. If someone else grabs the prize instead of you then you need to perform better next time.
...

Yes, there are parallels, training, chops, memory, strategy, spontaneous reaction, preparedness for curve balls, and, perhaps, even some improvisation!

But I'm talking about one's talents going unrecognised through non awareness on the part of the casual observer. In chess, the non expert spectator has a clue about how good a chess master is because:

A / He/she probably has played the game and understands it to a degree, and

B / There is usually a winner! This tells the spectator that the winner is good at chess. If the winner always wins, then the spectator knows and appreciates that this chess master is "great".

In other words, like many disciplines (including sports and even some arts), it is Quantifiable. Fine Jazz improv, to the casual listener, is not.

Mind you, if you took your EDM loving girl friend to a Jazz show to see a multi award winning Jazz artist, explaining how this Jazz artists has won every every Downbeat poll for Jazz vibraphone for the last 20 years straight, they would probably accept that that artist's skill has at least been quantified by others, and will probably be psychologically influenced by this information. It may make them pay more attention, or it may even prepare themselves to actually want to enjoy what they are listening to.

Sure, a bit of that goes on in Jazz, but nowhere near the extent of many other endeavours. It's like how everyone likes to go on about how great an actor Robert de Niro is, but probably only because of how many times it's mentioned in the media. Or Brando. Yet John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier are probably far superior actors not acknowledged as much by the general public. Imagine how they must have felt to see ham actors like John Wayne or Red Buttons making Oscar acceptance speeches! Probably choked on their own vomit!
(without showing, natch, no doubt because their acting was good enough to pull off pretending to be humble ) ...

[jameslovestal]

Speaking of Sir Laurence Olivier and his opinion of an actor:

"Actor Laurence Olivier once called Rooney "the greatest actor of them all". ... "Rooney is not just an actor of genius, but an artist able to maintain a stylized commentary on the demon impulse of the small, belligerent man:".

As for Wayne; He clearly had a bigger-then-life screen persona, but related to music; when he soloed he often used the same licks, over and over again.

[Jonah]

DeNiro is really one of the best dramatic actors. Sometimes I think he - hisself - just does not exist

[princeplanet]

...Sir John Gielgud or Sir Laurence Olivier (the Sir in front of both names really underlines how underappreciated they where)...

Indeed, knighted by the peerage, certainly not by the peasants , hehe ...

[princeplanet]

Speaking of Sir Laurence Olivier and his opinion of an actor:

"Actor Laurence Olivier once called Rooney "the greatest actor of them all". ... "Rooney is not just an actor of genius, but an artist able to maintain a stylized commentary on the demon impulse of the small, belligerent man:".

....

Haha, a backhanded compliment?

[princeplanet]

DeNiro is really one of the best dramatic actors. Sometimes I think he - hisself - just does not exist

... another backhanded compliment? ...

[pauln]

I'm old enough to remember Gielgud and Olivier at the height of their careers tho .. appreciated only by their peers is maybe overdoing it


Claiming that the peasants don't determine who gets knighthoods within the arts is also wrong. If you're not loved by the people you don't get it. .. or are you claiming that Sir Richard Starkey was an extraordinary skilled musician?

Non Beatles musicians cannot appreciate how difficult Beatles drumming can be...

[Jonah]

... another backhanded compliment? ...

Sorry... I do not get it. I am very straightforward.

There are stars that can act like Clooney, Pitt, Redford etc. but they are still stars... they follow their public image and cant get rid of it, even when Clooney or Pitt takes a comic part, he still somehow keeps very positive image. But they are good anyway.


There are lots of great dramatic actors - if we speak about America or UK here: for example Hoffnan, Hopkins, Nickolson, sometimes Pacino (but often he like himself too much, does not he? I cant blame him, all the actors flirt with the audience), DiCaprio and others.


I saw fantastic actors of Russian school... I won't go into that because it will hardly tell anything to anyone here.


DeNiro is very special. He seems to be not the actor but the impersonification of dramatic acting.
His mimicks and expressions are always the same but the personality is different.
It is even scary he is just a different person.
Yes there are some cliche gangster parts of his but even there where he seems to repeat the 'licks' it is different personality, people in real life may have the same social behaviour but they are still different.
With DeNiro it is like like another character comes from the very essence.
Even in Meet The Parents... he wa3s the only actor who did not comic but acted as a character, if you watch carefully you will see that his character is the only really living one, his motivations and all.. it us interesting complex person and it is not DeNuro, sometimes if you forget the context it looks like drama because if that
I read a lot about his crazy and a bit straightforward techniques but I do not care it is his kitchen.

DeNiro himself is very reserved and does not seem to have any particular interests, even when he speaks about acting, he speaks without traditional actor's pathos. He does not seem to like it or not. It seems like he does not exist and needs to be someone else all the time.
But he would never admit it as it is too ambitious. He is very practical.

[Litterick]

Neither Gielgud or Olivier could have carried a blockbuster western.

How could you know that? Look at the range of parts in which they excelled. And yes, they were the most popular actors of their day. Their knighthoods did not come from the peerage, but from the state.

[jameslovestal]

Haha, a backhanded compliment?

I highly doubt Olivier was dishing Rooney. Most actors working in Hollywood were jealous of him, based on his wives.

E.g. Ava Gardner (her first marriage at 21), Bette Jane Baker - Miss Alabama, Martha Vickers (actress that played Carmen in The Big Sleep), Elaine Devry (another beauty). In these 4 were fro 1942 - 1952.

He had 4 more wives and they were all good, if not, great looking.

Ok, Olivier was married to the very beautiful Vivien Leigh (Scarlet in Gone with the Wind), but she had mental health issues and wasn't much of a joy to be around after the 1951.

Here is Martha Vickers (my favorite, with Ava a close second).