Jazz for aficionados

First, @O-10 - I agree with you on Lee Morgan. One of my very favorite jazz trumpet players. Such a shame that he died so young.

Ok, @Rok - you still seem to have a fundamental misconception about how musicians work, despite our best efforts. There are many things incorrect about your post. Let's start with the classical side. There is indeed a "selection process" to get an orchestra job. The audition process is very grueling indeed, and that is a subject for an entirely different post, really, but to grossly abbreviate: in these auditions, we are indeed playing all by ourselves, with no one accompanying us, unless there is some playing with the section in the final round of auditions. We are all playing the same excerpts from the orchestral repertoire. Everyone is playing the same thing, and behind a screen, so it is anonymous.

Here is where your misunderstanding comes in. Despite the fact that we are all playing the same thing, no two of us will sound the same. No two people will play each excerpt exactly the same way - there will be individual interpretations, and every musician's sound will be different. There will be a wide range of skill level, unless it is an audition for the very top orchestras (top fifteen or twenty). In such a top level audition, everyone there is absolutely capable playing the job. The committee listening to the auditions are trying to pick the person that they will be most comfortable playing with, quite probably for the rest of their careers, which could be decades. A very important decision, indeed. Yes, everyone there must be able to "read the music and play the notes." That is just the bare beginning - you have to be a WHOLE lot better than that if you ever expect to get even the worst of orchestra jobs. This is not like some sort of reading test, or driving test! Your whole musical soul is bared in these auditions, and we are judged as players far more critically than a jazz musician is.

The same is true of our performance on the job, once we are lucky enough to win one. Learning the part before the first rehearsal is a must, yes! Again, that is just the bare beginning. And even this bare beginning often involves hours and hours of practicing weeks ahead of time before those rehearsals start, because that's how difficult the music is. It's not like everything we play we can play perfectly after we have done it once. A very great deal of the repertoire must be practiced very hard every single time - like an actor doing a role such as Hamlet. It isn't any easier the next time. And we have to maintain this extremely high technical standard - batting .300 may be great for baseball, but it doesn't cut it in any kind of music, especially not classical.

Every single time you play a piece, it is different, even if it is the exact same musicians and the exact same conductor, in the exact same three or four concerts that weekend. Though the conductor shapes the overall conception of the music, there is a tremendous amount of leeway for the individual musicians in the orchestra, especially when they have a solo, or the section has a unison solo passage. And I am not just speaking of concerto performances, I am speaking of any performance of any symphony in the rep. It is a myth that the conductor is controlling everything that happens, or that the musicians are playing everything exactly the same way every night. This would be incredibly boring, if true. We must connect with our audiences every bit as much as a jazz combo must connect with theirs, and in our case, the audience has many more expectations, both because many of them know the pieces very well themselves, and also the technical perfection expected is much higher. Recordings have made the standard even higher yet, really to an almost absurd level nowadays. There is so much more pressure on a classical musician in performance, precisely because the audience is usually at least somewhat, and often extremely familiar with the music being performed.

Now for the jazz side. You seem to think that a jazz combo is making up every single thing they are doing every single night, and that they do this magically with no training. Both these things are simply not true. Jazz musicians study their instruments and learn how to improvise in school, working just as hard with private teachers as classical musicians do. In jazz studies, there is less emphasis on sheer technique, however, as the emphasis is more on learning to improvise. But they take the same music theory courses, both written and aural, that we do. They take the same music history classes we do. They practice just as much as we do. They also practice the standards - just the same way we classical musicians do. In fact, they must do much more memorization than we do!

Which leads me to the other point about playing jazz. These musicians do know the tunes they are playing ahead of time, almost always. Very rarely is an entire set made up on the spot, and even then there is much talking about it ahead of time, and a little rehearsal first - Miles Davis KOB comes to mind. But the vast majority of jazz gigs consist of tunes that the musicians know and have played many, many times. There are huge volumes of what are called Fake Books, that have all of the standard tunes, the standard forms that are used in them, and the standard chord changes in those forms. This is what I meant when I said the jazz musician must have a tremendous amount of music memorized. Almost never is any of that ever made up on the spot, including the main tune in the song. What is being improvised is the solos based on that main tune, and the rhythm section will improvise variations on the basic rhythms of the tune. Jazz is much more highly (even rigidly) structured than you seem to think it is - this is exactly why people who have never played together before can get together in a small combo and make it work - they have memorized a common blueprint, similar to the scores we classical musicians are playing from. And these blueprints are known and studied by all jazz musicians. They are necessarily much more simple than the scores we are playing, because there has to be the freedom for improvising. This is why the technical demands are nowhere near as high as in classical. Often, especially if there is an unfamiliar musician in the group, there will be a Fake Book handy for quick consultation, to make sure everyone is on the same page (literally!). If you have ever seen a musician in a combo consult a piece of paper or a book, that's what they are doing.

When you hear an album of newly written jazz, the players were not making everything up on the spot in the recording sessions. The blueprints were worked out ahead of time, and yes, rehearsed! Even if a small combo really is trying to make something up on the spot, there is still a hurried discussion of a basic chordal and rhythmic framework before they start playing. Otherwise it simply wouldn't work. I am not trying to diminish the creativity of the best jazz artists, but you need to understand that everything they are doing is indeed done within a very strict framework, which they do not deviate from in the moment, unless they are playing with a very familiar group which could handle a sudden deviation because of that familiarity - and there will always be some sort of verbal or visual communication of the deviation. They would not do this is there was a new guy that night.

Ok, I think I have rambled enough, and I am sure Frogman will want to expand, if he has not had a heart attack from your post after reading it.... :)

By the way, it should be said here of all threads - RIP Clark Terry.

Joe Alessi is a damn good player, period. In fact, I believe him to be the very best trombone player in the world - at least I can't think of another who is quite his equal. Met him when he came to do a master class at my undergrad school. One of the better brass master classes I have ever seen. It's actually funny that you bring him up, as his number one mantra was " try to play every note, even the first one of the day, with your very best tone."

Hello all - I have been away from this board for several days, and may be for several more. I have read the conversation going on between O-10 and Frogman with great fascination. O-10, your latest statement, "Frogman, our problem in regard to the way we perceive "jazz" is becoming clear; to me, composition is every thing, to you it's how well the musician blows his horn."; is incorrect. In fact, it is quite backwards - it is Frogman who is talking much more about what you are calling "composition," in other words, the music itself. You have been referring throughout to your subjective reality of your emotional response to the music. What Frogman's objective reality is about is the actual music itself - how it is put together, and how it works - much, much more than simply how the musicians are playing their instruments, though this is indeed one aspect of it.

The problem here, as someone else besides Frogman has alluded to (sorry don't remember who off the top of my head to give proper credit) is that unfortunately, you do not have some of the fundamental knowledge of music that is required to get into some of the deeper discussions that could be had about it. There are things about this objective reality that simply cannot be understood without this knowledge (this is why some of the things Frogman says seem subjective to you, when in fact they are not). This is precisely why I have urged you, O-10, in particular to educate yourself some more about the music you love so much - until you do, discussion is much more limited than it could be. It would open up whole new worlds of understanding and appreciation of everything that you already love about your music. Unfortunately, apparently not only do you not believe this, but even further, you seem to believe acquiring more knowledge to be totally incompatible with gaining more love; and this is by miles the single most frustrating thing for us musicians when we are trying to help you deepen your understanding, and therefore your love of music.

I'm a very mediocre writer compared to Frogman, but I hope the point comes across. I may be away from this board for a while again, but this is always the very first thread I check (in fact, pretty much the only one I check on this site anymore). It has been great, and I am sure will continue to be so.

Frpgman has made some more excellent posts - I would add only one thing in response to O-10's latest post about subjectivity and his example of 30 different people seeing 30 different things when looking at the same object. No one is denying this. However, what I said and what Frogman has been saying is also true - each of these 30 people will have different levels of knowledge about the said object, and can impart this knowledge to others, who then will have a much better frame of reference to look at the object more objectively and less subjectively, when they take a second look, and a third, and a fourth, etc. This will always be true, even if they have looked at the object 500 times. Especially if we are talking about a great work of art. You can always learn more about the object looked at, and therefore appreciate and love the it more. I truly do not understand why anyone would not want to do this about something they love as much as you love jazz. The only thing you have to fear is fear itself....

O-10 (and Rok) - I have been away from this board for some time again, and have returned this morning to read what has passed here the last couple of weeks with great sadness. I feel that I must respond to some of the comments made here. I pick three examples:

"not only has Frogman been misinterpreting every thing I say, but he's been rewriting my posts, and coming up with something completely different from what I said originally."

"I consider Frogman a highly educated and intelligent person, who has made great contributions to this thread; however, quite recently I seem to be speaking French and he only understands English, or vice versa."

""I consider this ignorance BLISS", and I hope this closes that door permanently".

With all due respect, O-10 - you are the one who not only does not, but willfully refuses to understand. This is not a case of you speaking one language and Frogman speaking another. It is a case of he speaks the language (of music), and you do not. No one is re-writing your posts - your ignorance is proudly proclaimed, and there for all to see who do indeed speak the language of music.

You will no doubt respond by saying that this is your thread, which it is. But you must understand that no one with any knowledge of the language of music whatsoever is going to listen to you seriously anymore, now that it has been established that you are unwilling to learn. You truly do not know the depth of your own ignorance, even while proclaiming and glorying in it.

Some of you also clearly do not understand the tragedy that this is for us professional musicians, to see someone that clearly thinks they love music so much, yet is also so willfully blind and ignorant about it. You clearly have no idea how disrespectful this is, and I do not mean to us musicians, but to the music itself. Many would go so far to say that you do not really love music at all, let alone as much as you think you do - how could you if you have so little respect and understanding for the very basics of it. They might say that while may you take great pleasure in it, you not only do not, but cannot love it.

It is of course your choice to stay on your island of ignorant bliss if you wish, but wonder no longer why no one with any true love and understanding of music will listen to you any longer, when you are unwilling to listen to such a great teacher as Frogman or even attempt to really understand anything about what you are trying to speak of. At least Rok, as infuriating as he can be, has made some effort at understanding and real dialogue. I have seen no real effort on your part, and will reluctantly and very sadly bow out of this thread as well. Reading these last exchanges unfortunately reminded me of what Rex Stout's great detective Nero Wolfe once said - "you can't put sense into a fool's brain - I've tried."

Rok - your question about Beethoven's last piano sonata and jazz. Frogman I would say is basically correct in his response. Clearly, Beethoven had no thought whatsoever of "jazz" in his mind when writing the sonata. But many decades later, young student piano players learning and studying his music took certain aspects of it, and translated them into the jazz idiom. It is quite absurd to say that one can only truly understand a genre if it is invented in one's own country. These things are never so black and white. As Frogman insists, European music had much more influence overall on "jazz" than African drums did. Rhythm is only one aspect, though sometimes the most important one. After all, music is the creating of sound within time. There are no borders to it. It is a universal language, one that anyone can learn and understand, if they have the love for it, and give it the time and respect it deserves.

I have enjoyed this thread, and repeat Frogman's commendations to O-10 for starting it. Most of the best posts ever made in these forums are on it. I have learned a great deal, and have been exposed to some wonderful music that I was not familiar with before. And despite my frustrations expressed above, I honestly do wish O-10 and Rok and everyone else here well.

Hi guys - I am still lurking here, and feel compelled to agree 100% with Rok's last post. This is a major reason why so many professional musicians do not have much respect for audiophiles - most of them, in my experience, don't actually care about the music at all, they just think they do because they have purchased expensive gear. They really care about what they think is accurate sound reproduction. The irony here for me and many other musicians is that many of their expensive systems don't actually sound anything like live, acoustically produced music in a good space, which is supposedly (and should be!) the standard. I am glad that there are some on this forum who do care about music - this thread is definitely the best one on this board, despite some major disagreements that have happened.

There are many more discussions about music on the vinyl asylum, though most of it is about classical rather than jazz. There is a forum on there specifically for music, which is very active, and does discuss jazz quite a bit. I would suggest that those of you follow this thread and who care about music sign up over there as well. I think you will enjoy the discussions over there, especially if you love classical, too.

Hi guys - saw this article this morning and thought you would be interested:

http://billplakemusic.org/2011/08/03/the-beginning-jazz-improvisers-biggest-mistake/

Hi Orpheus - yes, I have seen that film, it's a good one, and of course a great soundtrack. I think we perhaps may have discussed it on this thread a long time ago??

Has this thread died? It recently disappeared from my list, and I had some trouble finding it. I am surprised that O-10 and Rok have not kept it going!

Anyway, I was just going to share with you guys who don't believe that a great many classical musicians are audiophiles that there was recently published a funny list of 10 Highly Annoying Things That Only Classical Musicians Do (don't have the link, sorry!), and number 6 on the list was that they are constantly talking about and criticizing their hi-fi systems. The commentary said that they should get over themselves and listen to an iPod like everyone else.

Hi Orpheus - I will second Frogman and say that your friend MUST have put in very serious hours. Also, the process of jazz musicians who haven't played together before but who sound like they have is not so mystifying as it may seem. Each jazz standard is usually performed in the same few keys, and with the same basic chord changes. What the discussions were about that were unintelligible to you were making sure everyone knew the tunes, what keys they were going to be played in, and anything that might not be standard, such as a different chord change than normal, for instance. Jazz musicians have what they call a "Fake Book" that has standard keys and chord changes for literally hundreds of standard tunes. They will often review such a book before a gig, especially when they are new to the group they will be performing with. Frogman will definitely have much more knowledge of that sort of thing than I, so please chime in on this if you wish. As an orchestral French horn player, the only jazz I have ever played is in a big band, where the parts were of course written out, or on a pops show where again, the orchestra parts are written out.

Been very busy lately, but wanted to chime in on the trumpet talk, being a horn player. I concur with everything Frogman says about the mariachi style, and I grew up hearing a ton of it. Interestingly, they also often use a tuba in the bass, with the same "punchy" style of articulation, as Frogman put it. Kind of hilarious, really, but fun.

I also get very tired of folks who try to claim Wynton is somehow "not musical." These type of comments are almost never backed up with a genuine argument, and smack of anti-intellectualism to me. A very similar victim of this in the classical world is the great pianist Alfred Brendel. I strongly object to the attitude that someone who is very smart and educated and a great teacher can't possibly have any soul as well. His education didn't get him to where he is at the top of the jazz world, though of course his intelligence helped greatly - it was his playing and yes, his soul. One simply couldn't develop the incredible musical versatility he possesses without soul.

For some disclosure - I have met and spent some time with him, actually outside of the music world, interestingly enough - I never got to play with or for him, though we talked music. It was a long time ago now, and he probably wouldn't remember me, but I spent enough time with him then to realize that he is a very passionate, soulful individual. And a heck of a basketball player, at least at that time, which was slightly more than twenty years ago now.

Frogman makes some very good points on Wynton and others. I would like to elaborate on one thing he said, about inconsistency, which I believe was in reference to Wynton in his post, but could be in reference to anyone, really, when we are talking about live performance. I am also aware, Frogman, that what I am about to say is not really the same point you were making, but more about inconsistency in general. None of us professional musicians are perfect in live performance. One thing that the recording age has done is to elevate the standards that people judge a live performance by, which is why many musicians were violently opposed to recordings when they first started, both in the jazz and classical worlds.

Recordings really can be "perfect" now - with the digital editing technology that exists now, it really is not exaggeration to say that recordings are really almost completely false now, often not resembling the actual playing done whatsoever. I have participated in opera recording sessions where all of the takes sounded like dogcrap. Every single one. Yet somehow, the engineer/editor put together a "recording" that sounds basically perfect. This is how it is done now, and the unfortunate thing about this is that it has raised unrealistic expectations for a live performance from people who don't know much about it, which is most people, including most audiophiles. This is one reason why so many audiophiles say they would rather sit at home and listen to their systems instead of going out to hear live music making. This is a very, very sad thing, IMO.

So I would say about many of these artists that we are discussing here - if you have only heard their recordings, you have not REALLY heard them. If we are talking about a living, presently working artist, you really need to hear them live to truly get a sense of what they can really do. And I want to make it clear that I am not just putting a negative spin on this - you will hear nuances in their live performances that the recordings just do not pick up, and you will slowly gain a greater appreciation for what it is they are actually doing, in the moment, making their music - the sort of things that have been under discussion in this thread, which I agree has been one of the best ever on this site. Yeah, you'll hear some flaws that are not on your recordings - but you will also hear (and feel) some magic that your recordings can never ever pick up, and which you are missing if you do not hear them live.

Orpheus10 wrote: "No amount of practice, school or many other musical attributes will enable a musician to mesmerize a crowd of people with his improvisational skills on his chosen instrument night after night. "Only" jazz musicians can do this, and not all of them; it's a gift that's reserved for those who are recognized as being at the very highest pinnacle of musicianship."

There are a couple of things not true about this. Leaving aside the statement that only jazz musicians could do this, which is frankly insulting to a great many professional musicians, and not deserving even of the mention I give it here, I want to reply to the first part of the statement. No amount of talent, no gift, no matter how great, will be of any use whatsoever if the musician does not work VERY hard, all through his whole schooling and subsequent career, to develop these natural abilities. Period. Yes, there are geniuses, in all fields of music. But every single one of them has worked, and continues to work extremely hard to continue to develop and maintain the craft you are speaking of. The ones you mention who mesmerize audiences night after night are these individuals. For every one of them, I guarantee you there were many others equally gifted, who did not have the work ethic, or the discipline, or the drive to make it. I have known many incredible players and musicians in my life of whom this was the case, and I am sure Frogman does too. I know, Orpheus, that you think you are complimenting these artists by talking of their gifts, but many of them would consider it insulting that you are belittling their very hard work, because THAT is the reason they are at the very highest pinnacle of musicianship, without which their natural gifts would avail them nothing.

Orpheus, you bring up a great topic for discussion. Unfortunately, I may be away from this board for several days - about to have one of the busiest weeks of my entire season. Also, you have now touched on Frogman's area of professional expertise, so I will leave this particular field to him.

I will, however, comment that many of the very finest players in the world right now are the ones you hear in the movies. The top studio players in LA are a very small group - only a pool of about 300 musicians total record most the movies you see nowadays. As Jim Thatcher, the top studio horn player told me once - "I go to work every day having no idea what will be on my stand - I just know that I will never see it again." These fantastic musicians literally spend their time almost totally sight-reading. They are very good at it, and have to be, otherwise they are wasting very valuable studio time. They are also the highest paid orchestral musicians in the world, the best of them making a MUCH higher amount per year than the very finest principals of the world's finest orchestras. Thatcher has had many famous horn solos in the movies written expressly for him by people like John Williams. One he is particularly fond of is a solo in the movie Always. Very long and lyrical, and also extremely high in register, making it infinitely more difficult. He once told me - "That's MY solo, and no one else will ever play it." A very different world/life from the average orchestral musician, that's for sure.

Hi guys - thanks for the comments. I did not get a chance to listen to that set today after all, too busy. So I probably won't get to it until Saturday now. A friend of mine told me that he was also a good singer, and is indeed a legend on the trombone. I am really looking forward to it.

Rok, LOL - one of your comments reminded me of Peter Schickele, a musical comedian who created the famous character of PDQ Bach. He used to say "Truth is truth. You can't have opinions about truth."

O-10, about your comment "I don't approach jazz from a historical or rational context, I approach it the same way I approach "all" music; from a purely emotional context, either I like it or I don't." If you do like it, doesn't that make you curious about it's larger context? In a great many cases, in fact, you will miss key things about a specific tune if you don't know it's history - musicians very often reference each other in the jazz world. That's so not grammatically correct, but I hope the point is clear. Dang it, ya'll just ain't got no proper grammar learnin'......

But seriously, the point here is that there is so much more to music than just the emotional context. That is only the starting point, the surface, if you will. Uncovering some of the other layers would undoubtedly bring you much more appreciation and therefore listening enjoyment. Usually I say this in reference to harmony/theory or ear training, but it is equally true of history, and the history part is much easier for the musical layman to grasp. I would strongly encourage you to read up on your favorite musicians/jazz styles/periods.

Interesting conversation going on since I have looked in - I want to highlight some things that Frogman has said, starting with he is absolutely correct to say that one's reaction to music is subjective. There are many things about music that are not subjective. An analogy might be to food - many people love to eat things that aren't actually very good, and defend it by saying that taste is subjective.

This has to do also with this comment of Frogman's: "THAT, my friend, is why it's not possible to "know too much"; and why knowing a little is a dangerous thing. It's fine to always fall back on the comfort of "subjectivity", but in the broad scheme there is, in fact, a nut-and -bolts way judging any music's merit."

And also this: "Ignorance may be bliss, but it certainly does not lead to insight. Additionally, there is no glory in ignorance and knowledge does not in any way detract from the emotional appreciation of the music. That is a mistake that those content to remain "ignorant" of the nuts and bolts routinely make; that ignoring the facts somehow leads to a better emotional connection with the music. It is precisely the opposite; it leads to a better appreciation. The irony here is that the players that we are talking about, themselves, were/are so steeped in the nuts and bolts of the music and discussions about what made a particular player great or not, that it makes any of our "discussions" seem sophomoric. Listeners tend to over-romanticize the process of music making (including jazz) as a spiritual "calling of the muse". Only after a very deep understanding of the nuts and bolts can a creative artist find his voice; wether the nuts and bolts was learned in a music school or the jam session. Why should it be any different for the listener?"

Rok stated a little later that " I should know that improvisation is taking place, without having to be an expert on nuts and bolts."

While this statement is actually true, nevertheless the fact that you were not able to tell quite frankly says more about your listening ability/general musical knowledge than it does about the performer and/or writer of what you are listening to. A very small amount of work would quickly remedy this, you just have to put in the effort, and if you do, the rewards in understanding and appreciation of the music you love are far greater than the small effort required. I'm not saying you need a theory degree or anything, you just need to learn to listen a little more attentively than you think you are (talking about how to do this will have to wait). Please do not take this personally, it is not at all meant that way - it's late and I am tired, and I tend to come off with a different tone than I intend, and I apologize for that.

Hi Rok - none of your questions have easy, short answers. I won't attempt to address them all in one response. I think tonight I will concentrate on the last three. #5 is the only easy answer. No one owns orchestras. Like pretty much all arts organizations, all symphonies are non-profits. They have to raise the entire budget all over again every single season. Ticket sales only account for a very small percentage of an orchestra's needed income - usually only about 25% at the very most, often quite a bit under that.

OK, numbers 4 and 6 are directly related, as the main difference between the top tier orchestras and those under them is pay scale. They have the largest budgets, and can pay the most, so they attract the best players when there are openings. They are so called "destination" orchestras - jobs you don't leave once you get one, unless you move to another one of them, which does sometimes happen. As I mentioned before, all of the top tier orchestras have 52 week seasons, which is another difference. Not all of the orchestras in my second tier I listed in that previous orchestras have 52 week seasons anymore. Some of them have been cut back in recent years, sometimes justifiably, sometimes not. That's a whole separate issue I won't go into here.

In all of the major orchestras (and most of the small ones, too), there are collective bargaining agreements, so no two orchestras will pay exactly the same or have exactly the same working conditions. There is always a base salary that most of the rank and file musicians (such as myself) make. Some orchestras also have a modest seniority pay system as well, but most of the people in any given orchestra are making the same pay. The titled people will make overscale, almost always based on a percentage above the base salary, though principals can often negotiate more. The concertmaster traditionally has a separate contract that is quite a bit higher than even the other principals. The music director (conductor), however, is not part of the CBA - they are always considered part of management, and their contracts have nothing to do with the musicians'. They also get paid far more.

In the very biggest orchestras, like the traditional big five you mentioned, for instance, the base salary right now is in the very low six figures - not a whole lot over 100,000 a year. In the second tier orchestras I mentioned, the base salary might be about half of that. In some of the smaller (not full time) orchestras, say those that may play about six or eight concert sets in a year and are composed of free-lance musicians, the total pay might be just a few thousand dollars for the season. Musicians in these type of orchestras are considered "independent contractors" and have no benefits. They are paid "per service," one service being one rehearsal, or one concert. There are also some orchestras that have a full-time, salaried core of players, that are augmented at times by part-time, "per service" free-lancers. Different groups are structured differently, depending largely on budget size. So there are lots of different levels.

I will address your other questions later, hopefully at least one of them tomorrow.

Hi Frogman - agree with you that Marsalis is more "derivative," though that is perhaps a little harsh. However, I would also say that he is one of the greatest jazz trumpeters ever. I guess this is what I meant by the Richard Strauss analogy. He ended up very conservative musically, but should this detract from his sheer ability as a composer? Should he be considered "lesser" because of this? I would say no. Same with Marsalis, for me. Just because he hasn't pushed the boundaries as much as some does not detract from his sheer ability and music making and personality and heart.

Right there with you on Stravinsky. He is in my personal top five, right along with Mozart. I had forgotten about that comment of Rok's, LOL! Stravinsky was the Picasso of music, for sure - meaning he was a musical chameleon, could do anything in any style with ridiculous ease. Those two were very close friends as well.

By the way Rok, I'm really not picking on you - I have been rightfully accused of the same sort of "attitude" on subjects I didn't know much about, so I kinda regret the attitude comment, but also kinda don't, as I see that which I complained about in myself as well. Attitude is not really the right word here anyway, I suppose, but I'm too tired to come up with a better right now. Peace.

Interesting and good comments from everyone - this is definitely the best thread this site has ever had.

Acman - you mention Bowie's humor, which is undeniable, and speak of him quoting the tradition, as well as playing outside of it. I guess what I am saying is that I do not hear him as ACTUALLY being outside of it at all, based on what I have heard here - he is merely using humor to pretend to be outside, which to me makes him very hypocritical if he is criticizing folks like Wynton. But this isn't about Wynton.

Frogman, again I agree with almost all of your post, especially the statement that rhythmic feeling is fundamental to all music. I agree this is unarguable. I also agree that Bowie does have this great sense of it, as do the other trumpeters discussed in your post.

I also agree that Bowie is humorous, unpredictable, and theatrical, based on the clips here. Here is where I disagree: for me, this humor and theatricality is as far as he goes. He is a performer putting on an act, much like many pop artists do - his playing/music making ON ITS OWN would not be enough to make it in his case, despite his good timing. I would disagree that he is actually furthering the art of jazz music, hence my earlier comment that he is hypocritical to criticize others for not being so. He may tell a good story, but so do many others. It is fun and entertaining on the surface, but for me it remains surface (and by the way, I would NOT argue that music must be serious to have substance, this is not what I mean at all). And I still fail to see how any of these clips show he is "outside the tradition". A great many other jazz musicians used humor, including Armstrong and Wynton (though in his case almost always without the irreverence). I don't think there is anything particularly novel in what he is doing in these clips, unless I am missing something. I think this is a case of style masquerading as substance.

Hey Rok! Maybe you'll even get around to my suggestion - Aaron Copland's "What to Listen For in Music." :) Glad you are branching out!

Hello everyone - thanks for the reactions to that article. I think Orpheus took most of it in the same way I did. For me, the author's main point actually isn't really about jazz per se, but the fact that Americans don't get instrumental music in general, as opposed to other cultures.

I pretty much agree with Frogman's comments as well - I definitely cringed at the Coltrane/Kenny G comparison as well. I also think that Wynton quote is dead on, and also in a way related to the lack of understanding of instrumental music in our culture. I also like and agree with what Frogman says about how popular music changes with the culture, etc. Jazz has certainly survived that.

Orpheus, Frogman is definitely correct about jazz studies being alive and well in schools, and also that there are more jazz clubs around in major cities than ever, all over the country. Recording sales are not the only, nor even the main way to judge whether an art form is alive or not.

Rok, some of your comments are very puzzling to me. Music without words IS abstract art, period; even if there is a "program" or "story" involved, it too can only be abstract. So yes, appreciating abstract art is absolutely necessary for understanding any type of music without words. Such music does indeed demand much more of the listener, even if the listener may not be meeting the demand.

As for your book, yes, all Western music does have a common origin, in the sense that it uses the same language. It isn't just a cliche to say that music is a universal language. This goes back to the discussion of "modes" that Frogman gave. The vast majority of Western music is directly based on just two of those modes, the ones we now call the major scale and the minor scale (Ionian and Aeolian, the Greeks called them, respectively). For many forms of popular music, relentlessly and monotonously so.

Acman, that CS Lewis quote is fantastic! Do you happen to know where that is from exactly?

Rok, Frogman as usual answered your questions very well. The only thing I would add about differences between different orchestras is that obviously budget size/season length comes into it, which of course has a tremendous effect on the quality of musician that would audition when there are openings. The Berlin Philharmonic and the Austin Symphony are in no way comparable in this sense, they are very different animals indeed. The Berlin Philharmonic is a very well paying full time job (and in this case by full time I mean a 52 week orchestra). The Austin Symphony is a part time orchestra - many of the players in it are the professors at UT Austin and their students. I would have to look up how many weeks the season is, but I doubt they play more than 8 or 10 concert sets in a season - what we call a "gig" orchestra. Perhaps they are one step up from that, but no one is making their living solely as a member of the Austin Symphony. They would be supplementing it with another job. This type of orchestra does not attract anywhere near the best musicians, in fact there wouldn't be very many people show up from outside the central Texas area for one of their auditions - it simply doesn't pay enough for anyone to justify moving to Austin to be in it. Central Texas, by the way, does not even have much of a free-lance classical music scene - this is the main reason why the Austin Symphony relies so much on the University of Texas.

Rok, I have read through this whole last week's posts on this thread and I still have no idea a) just exactly what you think you mean by "nuts and bolts" and b) why you apparently set no value on it. Frogman made a valiant attempt to explain, and I'm not sure I can add to his.

The thing that puzzles me the most is when you say you don't buy it that artists have great appreciation for others in their field who do things very differently from them. Frankly, your position and arguments make no sense. Why wouldn't Renee Fleming appreciate Ella Fitzgerald? Why wouldn't Wynton appreciate Miles? Why wouldn't Picasso appreciate Matisse? Why wouldn't Shakespeare appreciate Joyce? Or the other way around in any of these examples?? Great artists will always respect the craft of others (is this term more acceptable to you?), even if they dislike what is being created with that craft. You can substitute the violin examples earlier instead, but as a brass player it is more natural for me to bring up the trumpet ones - absolutely no one, even the people who hate him, would ever say that Wynton could not play, or disrespect his craft. He has this in spades, more than any other jazz trumpeter ever, and all the others greatly appreciate it, even if they don't care for the music he makes with it. Everyone who is any good at all has worked very hard at their craft, and appreciates others who have done the same. Same thing in the world of athletics. When two of the best are battling it out, whether it be individual or team sports, the opponents have to have the utmost respect for each other's game, even if they are very different styles, and they don't like each other's style, or don't like them personally, or whatever.

Hello gentlemen - I like very much indeed the direction this thread has been going lately, despite my lack of contributions for a while now. I fully intend to go back over all these links and listen to all these clips when I get a chance. Just about all of them lately are things I am not very familiar with, and I am eager to hear and learn about about them.

Frogman's latest post has some VERY important points, which have been big themes of mine on these forums. Most important is his: "That one can't detect something does not mean that it isn't there; simply that one cannot detect (hear) it....yet." The key word here is YET. Rok and O-10, you both love music so much, and love listening to it. It would be a very simple thing for you both to listen more ACTIVELY, as opposed to passively. These things really aren't that difficult to learn to hear - you just have to put in the effort to train yourself to do so. Doing so will increase your enjoyment of whatever you are listening to a thousand fold. You will begin hearing things you never heard before even in your very favorite music that you have heard a thousand times. You will hear connections between your favorite tunes/albums/artists/genres that you haven't heard before. You will understand the improvised musical "conversations" going on between these great jazz musicians so much more, and the delight you have in listening to them will increase beyond what you can currently imagine. This, to me, is the essence of jazz - these types of dialogues that are completely improvised on the spot, but yet are solidly based on these basic building blocks. All these great musicians know and understand them (as well as their histories and inter-relationships), and use them, much like a writer uses language. The more you speak this language yourself, the more subtleties you will hear in what they are saying that you never even realized existed before.

Hi O-10 - my point is that all professional musicians must have a variety of equipment to listen to music on quite early in life (while students). A healthy percentage will have at least good mid-fi equipment, figuring since they have to have something, might as well get something at least decent. I had most of the mid-fi system I mentioned before I graduated college (and how I wish I had bought many more records back then, sigh). Again, this percentage would be quite a bit higher than in any other profession (quite often, the main concern of music students from my generation and earlier and long after, when choosing a living space, was where were the speakers going to go - some settled for bookshelves, or just used headphones, but a great many of us had to have floorstanders). And later on, another healthy percentage of those musicians who can afford it will also go on to purchase high end equipment, at a higher rate than non-musicians. A musician's priorities in choosing what equipment they use are often quite different from most "audiophiles," but a large number of them, no matter what kind of music they play, love to have great sounding systems to listen to when they are not working. There is a perception here on this board in particular that musicians do not care about or understand high end audio - not only is this simply not true, it really doesn't make much sense when you think about it. Why this untruth is so widespread here despite being contradicted by every actual musician on this board is a continuing mystery to me, and a fascinating one. I have several different theories, but this is not the place for them. You asked what I was talking about - I have answered. Now let's get back to the jazz. As I said, this is the best thread on any audio forum on the web - I have learned a great deal and been exposed to many players I had not heard before. You are to be commended for starting it, sir!

Hi Schubert - we do mostly agree. Yes, Mozart and Schubert wrote a few compositions in a very short amount of time. This has much to do with the fact that every musician back then had and used much more improvisational skills than most of us do today, with the exception of some jazz musicians and baroque/classical keyboard players. However, I can assure you that neither Mozart or Schubert wrote an entire symphony "in his head" and then wrote it down afterwards. A theme, yes, a short lieder, yes, a simple dance movement for piano such as a minuet, yes, a large multi-movement composition, no. In other words, anything they wrote out that quickly was essentially an improvisation. There are some excellent books out there that speak of Mozart's and Schubert's compositional processes. Both men would work incredibly long hours, with very detrimental effects on their health (that part of the movie Amadeus is very accurate). They were two of the hardest working composers in history, especially when their too too brief lifespans are considered, as Frogman mentioned. I have said in these forums before that I consider the death of Mozart to be the most tragic early death in the history of all the arts, not just music.

You mentioned Bruckner, also a favorite of mine. He was very famous for his improvisations at the organ, none of which he wrote down afterwards, unfortunately for posterity. According to many contemporary accounts, some of them were better than the solo organ works that he did write down. The same goes for J. S. Bach, though of course in his case, everything he wrote down was pretty much a masterwork. Bruckner took much more time to develop as a composer than the others you mentioned. What he became a master of was the extension of long forms, which of course could not be improvised, hence the longer developmental period in his case. He was another workaholic, like pretty much all truly great artists.

Hi Rok - I'll address the cuts thing first. In reading what you quoted, it is obvious that in the Rabin recording, the cuts are NOT from the soloist, but from the conductor - the passages in question are in the orchestral tuttis, when the soloist isn't even playing. The writer does not know why these cuts were made, and clearly hasn't done any homework in trying to find out - you can take what he said about "no rhyme or reason" with a grain of salt. They may not be particularly good cuts, but obviously they at least work, or they wouldn't/couldn't be made. If they were made specifically for the recording project in question, it almost certainly had to do with the timings of the LP side. That would be my best guess as to why the cuts were made, something this writer obviously didn't even think of (perhaps he is reviewing a remastered recording on CD).

Quite a few people would also argue that one doesn't necessarily need to hear every note Paganini wrote, since he wasn't the greatest composer, but that would be a whole different debate.....clearly every note of the solo part is heard on that recording in question, in any case.

And yes, cuts are made all of the time, especially in operas and ballets, for all of the reasons I listed in my previous post and more. Opera and ballet composers in general expected their works to be cut or rearranged to suit the performers/directors. The idea of the score being sacrosanct did not even exist until the middle of the 19th century at the earliest. In the world of the symphony, really the first composer to make tons of markings in the parts was Mahler, and he was certainly the first to expect that they would all be followed very literally. In the 18th century and earlier, a very great deal was left up to the performer. To give an example from my own instrument - there are absolutely no articulation markings in the solo part of any of the Mozart horn concerti - the performer articulated the part as he saw fit, and any articulations in modern editions of them are editor's markings, not Mozart's. The performer was expected to be consistent in what they were doing, but that sort of thing was generally left up to them. Remember, in that era, the composer was pretty much always a performer writing for themselves, anyway. This is just one of many examples. There are also many other types of musical decisions that are left to the performer, for instance whether or not to repeat certain sections of music in certain musical forms, and there are raging debates on this issue among musicians to this day. That's probably a clumsy sentence, but it is a little complicated to explain. I hope this answers your question, though I realize it probably brings up several others....

Hello again Rok - yes, the principals of each section in the orchestra are the section leaders. They have the final say on how the section blends together, how it balances, how it articulates together, and the overall sound of the section, sometimes dictating what types of equipment will be used (some horn sections or trumpet sections or trombone sections will all play the exact same make and model of instrument). The rest of the section also always tunes to the principal as well. As a section horn player myself, my principal is my most immediate "boss," though this term is only used in jest. It is my job as a section player to follow the principal's lead. String principals do have more work to do - they have to do all of the bowing markings, making sure that everyone is bowing everything the same way. The concertmaster always does this first, then passes the bowings along to the other string principals, who make sure they work for them (meaning say the principal cellist might slightly change something because it doesn't work as well on cello as it does on violin, etc.), and then the librarians put them into all the other string players parts. The section leaders will sometimes make part assignments as well - for instance, say every piece on a particular concert only requires two horns, but there are say four players in the section - usually this program would be split among all four players, two of them playing some of them, two others the rest of them, and the principal would decide who played what, usually subject to music director approval, though most of them wouldn't mess around with it too much. Hope this gives you some idea....

Hi Rok - the bowing question is very simple. I'm sure you have noticed that each section of the string family is always moving their bows together, in the same way. It is the markings that tell them what to do when that we call "the bowings." There is a symbol for a downbow, and a symbol for an upbow, and some other very standard markings for different types of bowstrokes. Sometimes the composers will call for a passage to be bowed a certain way. Basically, a downbow is stronger, meaning it has more weight than an upbow. Bowings are chosen for both musical and technical reasons, and often much time in rehearsal is spent in discussing possible changes of them, while us wind players twiddle our thumbs.... :) Seriously, a conductor will often request a change in the bowings for some musical reason, or if he/she is not that familiar with bowings (in other words, they didn't/don't play a string instrument), they will ask the concertmaster if a change would help create the effect they want in a certain passage, etc.

It is the job of the concertmaster to do the bowings for any piece the orchestra is going to play, and as I said before, these are then passed on to the other string principals, who may make minor changes for their own sections. The librarians then are the ones who actually mark the bowings in all the other string player's parts. All of this is done far in advance of the first rehearsal of the program, so the music is ready for the players personal use in preparing for the program. Each orchestra's CBA will mandate how far in advance the music has to be ready and available - in most it is two or three weeks ahead of time. String parts take much longer to prepare than wind parts, precisely because of the bowings.

@Schubert and Mapman -I agree with Schubert that Glenn Gould just doesn't do it for me, at all. I frankly don't really get why so many people think he is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Certainly Bach would roll over in his grave....

@Frogman - thanks for the compliments, and your posts are certainly even better.

@O-10 - sometimes your posts are much more saddening to me than Rok's are. I really am saddened that you seem to think that these things you describe are beyond your understanding. They are not! In fact, it really wouldn't take much effort on your part! I really don't understand why someone who clearly loves music as much as you do won't make the effort, which would bring you levels of enjoyment far beyond even what you have now.

One specific comment you made truly baffles me: "I no more listen for tone and timbre, than I listen for copper or silver wire". Leaving the wire part of it aside, this truly is like someone in an art gallery saying that they don't pay any attention to color or texture. Tone or timbre (these are pretty much the same thing, by the way) are where the heart of our playing is - our personal tone is the most direct expression of our soul. That is our voice. And whenever you are listening to a great singer, yes you are indeed very much listening to their tone! Think of the other instruments the same way, especially the wind instruments, which are actually quite similar, being produced with our breath.

I'll probably piss off some audiophiles here with this last comment, but I cannot resist also adding that if you don't pay any attention to tone/timbre - how the hell do you judge your audio system? For any musician, this is THE most important aspect of it - how close the system comes to resolving those sounds we work so hard to create. After all, fundamentally, music is the creation of sound in time.

Uh, wow!  There have been some very bizarre posts here today, to say the least.  Frogman has done a pretty good job rebutting Rok's oddball post of his five points - one out of five ain't bad, as he said.  Numbers 1 and 2 are both completely ridiculous.  

However, even more disconcerting was to read what O-10 suddenly posted,  saying "A top "jazz musician" is someone classical musicians like Learsfool don't believe exist."  WTF??!!  What on earth are  you referring to??  Certainly nothing I have ever said, on this board or elsewhere!!  I am not at all sure I know what your point is, but the main point to be made about what I think you are saying  about making music is that what you are saying is true of ALL musicians - no matter what genre or style they play.  (That's a horrible sentence, but no time to edit, I'm off to play a show)  And no one I know of has ever said it wasn't.  So I honestly don't understand what you are even talking about, O-10, and I am beginning to share in Frogman's despair about ever being understood here......please explain?  

Hi O-10 - I must say, that is a very interesting definition of jazz, and I would like to hear what the Frogman thinks of it.  

The definition of music is a very basic and good one, too.  I am constantly telling my private horn students that music is the creation of sound in time - the time aspect being as important as the sound aspect, as it is the time (meter and rhythm) that gives the sound a framework, and makes it make sense to the listener.   

This leads to another point that I think has to do with the subject of your post I was objecting to (and by the way, have you explained what point you were trying to make?  If so, I haven't seen it, though I am not 100% certain I am seeing everything in this new forum format):  

When we are discussing heart, or feeling, in music making - it is very important to remember that although this is obviously an essential, it is not the sole essential thing.  One can have all the heart and soul in the world; however, if one cannot express it, because of whatever deficiencies of technique, or an inability to play in time, or an inability to create the right sound, or play in the appropriate style, to name some examples, then one will not really be a good musician.   It is quite possible to have a huge heart and soul, yet not have any real MUSICAL feeling.  All of us musicians have had students like this, and they are sometimes the most frustrating ones, as they have the passion, but not the ability.  One must be able to create good sounds, in time - these qualities are just as important as the heart and soul in the making of music.   That's where the technique, etc. comes in.  

Of course, the reverse example is also true.  Someone can have incredible technique, and fantastic time, but not be a very expressive player.  There are many professional musicians fitting that description, unfortunately, but there are a great many more students who never do win an orchestral audition or regularly get hired to play in jazz clubs, and they have no idea why, because they know they can play their instrument really well.  In fact, this is perhaps more true today than it has been in the past, since the technical standards for every instrument have now risen so high, especially in classical world, but also in the jazz world as well.  The kids coming out of school today have so much more technique than even 25 years ago - but it has come at the expense of other important aspects of music making in general, like learning to phrase really well, to name one aspect important to all genres.  

OK, I'll shut up for now.  

Hi O-10.  Well, I am sorry that I took a jest so seriously, then, though I confess I still am not sure what you were referring to.  To answer your question on pit musicians being unbelievable:  really the only thing very different about some of them is that some of them, usually woodwind players, are performing on three or even more instruments. These players are called doublers, and they often specialize in that - they are just about all well-trained musicians who often play in free-lance orchestras on the side on whichever is their main instrument.  Frogman can speak to that even better than I, as he has actually done some of that.  Usually brass players don't tend to do that, though sometimes you might see a guy in a small jazz band playing on both trumpet and trombone.  
Otherwise, assuming you are speaking of Broadway show type pit musicians (technically opera and ballet orchestra members are also pit musicians - I have performed all of the above myself many times), this is actually almost the complete opposite of what a jazz musician's performance is.  The Broadway shows are very well rehearsed, and then played EXACTLY the same way night after night after night after night after night, etc., never changing - every solo is played exactly the same way every night, or complaints are made about it!!  The musicians have absolutely zero flexibility on interpretation.  Phantom is going to sound like Phantom every damn time, just like Budweiser tastes like Budweiser every damn time.  This is the main reason it sounds so polished.  I, for one, could never handle doing that night in and night out.  When I was free-lancing in the Bay area, I was one of the first call subs for Phantom, and the most I ever did at any one stretch was two weeks straight one time.  I almost went crazy.  Now I have also done opera tours that lasted for six to eight weeks, six shows a week, but luckily for me both times it was a Mozart opera that one could never get tired of, and they were double and triple cast, so there was some variety and flexibility in the performances.   In a Broadway production, the subs have to come in and play everything exactly the same way as the regulars do.  Often you are required to come sit in the pit for a couple of shows to observe before you actually get to sub just for this reason.  
I confess that I am not sure why you are blown away that something written out could sound improvised, though - that is not a hard thing to achieve at all.  Just about any symphonic pops show is full of many such examples - I have played such written out horn solos myself before in performance.  And usually when a symphony does a big band show or something similar, a lead trumpet player is brought in to do the solos, and the rest of us take our stylistic cues from him.  All professional musicians have very good ears for these kinds of things and will pick up on how to play in the right style almost immediately.  This is not to say that they will suddenly sound like the Ellington or Basie bands, of course, but you get the point.  
Also you must remember that anything being improvised on the spot in a jazz club cannot be TOO complicated, otherwise it almost certainly wouldn't work, unless it was perhaps done by a group that was used to playing together all the time, and knew each other's musical tendencies very very well.  And of course, as we have talked about before on this thread, the players all know the tune and the chord changes, so the melodic improvisation is taking place inside a very structured framework that all of the members of the group understand.  And even if they don't know the tune at all, if they have what they call a "fake book" that includes it, they can use it and get through the tune.  

Hi Schubert - as Frogman said, the progress the Asian countries in general have made with Western music is very impressive over the past few decades - it is not specific to Korea in particular (though my Korean sister-in-law would say they are the best, LOL!).  I think the same sort of discipline/work ethic that happens in their schools academically happens in their music teaching now.  

Another thing that their governments often do, especially in China and Hong Kong, is send students over here to study, paying for everything, with the understanding that the student is to return to that country and share the knowledge gained.  When I was in grad school in San Francisco at the Conservatory, there were many such students there, from all the Far East countries - many pianists, quite a few string players, and a trombone player.  All are now back in their home countries teaching others what they learned here, and sending students over here to do what they did.  

Hello again, O-10.  Now to explain more about the doublers.  Let's take the first four woodwind books in your Phantom list.  

Woodwind 1 is Flute and Piccolo.  Yes, this is technically two instruments, so it is a double.  However, all piccolo players started on and still play the flute.  There is no such thing as someone who only plays the piccolo.  That said, a great many flute players want no part of learning the piccolo.  In a big symphony orchestra, the third flute player usually is officially the piccolo player (or the second player, in a smaller orchestra).  

Same thing with Woodwind 3, Oboe and English Horn.  Again, the English Horn is always played by an oboist, there is no such thing as someone who only plays English horn, they all started on and still play oboe.  Again, in a big symphony, the third oboist would officially be the English Horn player.  

Woodwind 4 is technically 3 instruments, so a triple.  Again, though, they are all clarinets, and there is no such thing as someone who only plays the smaller E-flat, or the larger bass.  They all started on and still play the regular B-flat (and A) clarinets.  However, in a big symphony orchestra, usually the second clarinet player plays the E-flat, and the third clarinet player plays the bass.  So this triple is a little more unusual than the first two.  There aren't too many clarinetists that would play all three really well, speaking of the top level, anyway.

Woodwind 2, flute and clarinet, is what I would call a true "woodwind doubler", two totally different instruments.  This is the only one of the five that is a book that only a true "woodwind doubler" specialist could play.  

And speaking of the Frogman, I'm sure he has done doubling work before, being extremely proficient on both clarinet and sax.  No sax in Phantom, though.  I think he would corroborate the above.  A flute player who plays piccolo well can get more gig opportunities.  Same with an oboist who plays English horn well, and a clarinet player who decides to learn the E-flat or bass clarinets well.  Someone who is a principal player in a large orchestra, however, may never play those other instruments, and may never have, except out of curiosity in a practice room.  

And Frogman, if you see anything to correct or hopefully clarify in either of my posts today, by all means chime in!  

Hi O-10:  here is your question:  "If this music was written out, do you think the classical musicians could play it, and make the music sound as though it wasn't faked?"  

I must admit to being a little puzzled here, especially by the second half of the question.  If they are playing it, then it is not faked, so I really don't understand what you are asking there.  The answer to the first part of the question is of course they would have the ability to play it!  Again, I am puzzled as to why you think they might not??  

What they would not have the ability to do is to improvise those notes on the spot like those musicians are doing.  There is nothing that is played in that clip that would be beyond their technical ability by a long shot.  They would of course  not sound exactly the same as the musicians in the clip, but I don't think that is what you meant.  They certainly wouldn't have the same "feel" as these musicians do, who play in that style all the time.   They could imitate the style pretty well with practice, but you would be still be able to tell the difference.  Sort of like you can almost always tell the difference between a native speaker of a language and one who has learned a lot about it but doesn't speak it very much.  I think and hope this answers your question?? If not, please continue!  

As far as the complexity of that music, it isn't very complex at all.  Perhaps the speed and number of the notes is giving you the illusion that it is, but it is actually just a simple duet - in fact, the two soloists are almost never playing together.  The beat is pretty simple and steady, as is the bass line and harmony.   This is a big part of the reason the soloists can do what they are doing  -  the piece is a showcase for their technical and improvisatory talents.  The rest of it is a very simple framework that they can play around in.   

Just because someone is playing very fast does not necessarily mean it is particularly difficult, by the way.  Let me use Kenny G as an example of this - most of the crap he plays is just noodling around on very simple patterns, very fast, and he is miked so much that he doesn't actually have to expend much physical effort.   

Last time I was at a jazz club?  Last night, to hear a close friend and his group.  

       

No problem, Orpheus.  As both the Frogman and I have said before, it is often difficult for musicians to discuss these types of things with non-musicians and be understood.   I wish I could write as clearly as Frogman does about them; he is definitely better at describing things to non-musicians than I am.  

The bottom line is that some of these things that you find so mysterious aren't really, for someone who knows how it works.  Once again, this is the main reason I encourage all music lovers like yourself to give music some serious study.  So many of these types of things would become much more clear to you, and would greatly  enhance your enjoyment of whatever you are listening to.  

Just finally caught up on reading the last week and a half of this thread.  Wow.  Most of what I would add has already been said by Frogman, Schubert, and Alexatpos.   

To Rok - the differences here are NOT "irreconcilable."  The reason you think they are is that you are stubbornly resistant to educating yourself more on the subject.  I think it is very important to reiterate that NO ONE is criticizing your listening choices, or saying you are wrong about what you like listening to.  What is objected to is when you attempt to argue about something you clearly have no idea about as if you did, and your refusal to improve your state of ignorance, which is a real shame in someone who loves it like you clearly do.  It is simply not possible to argue effectively about something that you do not really know about, and this is painfully obvious to everyone who does know about the subject in question.   Everyone who has educated themselves more about music is telling you that their enjoyment of listening has been increased.  Not one single person has said that they regret learning more, or that it did not increase their enjoyment.   Don't you think, then, that there might be something to it?  Frogman has pointed out that all of your heroes, Wynton, etc., most certainly agree that the visceral experience is only a part of the whole.  So why are you so resistant to the idea?  

O-10, I really don't see anything negative in my comments, other than the fact that they are responding to the negativity from Rok and yourself.  I certainly did not intend for them to be negative - I was merely trying to say what frogman was saying in his excellent post shortly afterwards.  We are merely trying to help you understand more about the art form you love, and to understand why some of the arguments presented here make no real sense, because of this fundamental lack of knowledge.  He also makes a great point that we cannot let certain outright untruths stand, if this thread is to be taken at all seriously.  A very important point - anyone who knows about music can have a conversation with anyone else who does. If your jazz friends did not have conversations about music with you, that says much more about you than them. I have learned a great deal from this thread, personally, and am very happy that you started it.   I am truly sorry if you see me as nothing but a negative influence, and will withdraw if you are serious about it.  
If indeed this is to be my last post on this thread, I will add two more general comments.  You seem to have this bizarre idea that the worlds of classical and jazz do not and cannot mix.  Nothing could be further from the truth.   One of my good friends in my orchestra is a bass player, who also happens to be nationally known and respected as one of the best jazz bassists.  Frogman himself is another example - what is unique about he and my friend is the extremely high professional level they have attained in both genres - not that they play both genres. Many, many musicians play both genres.  
One last thing - your comment that you either have "it", or you don't.  While this is basically true, there are a great many people out there who had "it", but did not put in the work and study they needed to, and fell by the wayside.  Merely having "it" is not anywhere near enough.  Miles put in some serious study, and some serious work, all of his life, both before and after he was in school - as does any musician of any kind who is any damn good at all.   Do you have to go to school?  No - but you do have to put in the work and the study.  

I would like to add one thing about musicians and money - the vast majority of musicians do not make very much at all from album sales.  Only the very top artists who sell millions of albums make good money from sales - the record labels kept just about all of those profits.  This is also true of the studio musicians in Hollywood - there are only about 300 or so musicians total in LA who make a lot of money from royalties from films they played on.  And for orchestral musicians, while we often get small payments from making a recording, this is insignificant compared to our regular income.  Some of the top soloists will make some nice royalties, but even for them, the majority of their income is from the actual live performances.   

So many of those jazz musicians O-10 is asking about would indeed have made more money touring and performing than they did from recordings, again only excepting the very top names.  

There are actually many battles going on right now for musicians to get paid fairly in this digital day and age.  I would encourage everyone on this board who loves music and musicians to write their congressman in support of the Fair Play Fair Pay Act.  I'm bad at providing links, but this can be googled for those curious, which I hope would be all of you, or I can speak more about it in another post if people want. 

Hi O-10 - I am pretty sure I have read a transcript of that discussion before, but when I get a chance (I see the whole thing is an hour long) I will definitely check that out - thanks for posting it!  

Hi Acman, just saw  your post.  It really should be no surprise to anyone that Jaap is going to New York (there are many New York critics with short memories acting surprised/disappointed).  They wanted him very badly eight or ten years ago, when Dallas beat them to his signature, and they were very upset about it.  Now they are finally getting the guy they wanted back then.  He is a great musician and a great fundraiser - as Frogman said, it should be a good marriage, at least for a little while.  

Hi all - just caught up on the last few days of this thread.  O-10, I would like  to attempt to help explain one thing you are puzzled by -  yes, one MUST practice improvising.   As Frogman said, all of these great improvisers practice all the time.  One must practice developing one's musical ideas so that they are coherent and understandable for the listener.  You can't just go up there and play whatever the hell you want, as you seem to think - that is NOT what any of them are doing.  They still have to fit in with everything else going on - the harmony, the rhythm, etc.  Think about this - if one did not have to practice improvisation, then any classical musician or rock musician or folk musician or whatever kind of musician could improvise just as well as any jazz musician could.   The reason the jazz musician is so much better at improvisation is because he has practiced it, very very hard for a very long period of time.  Classical musicians in fact used to do this, especially in the Classical era - performers would improvise during their concertos all the time, in a section called the cadenza.  Nowadays, just about everyone memorizes a cadenza and plays the same one all the time, though there are a few who do still improvise one on the spot.  One example that I have worked with a couple of times is the famous current pianist, Stephen Hough.  He always improvises his cadenzas on the spot, and when he did a children's concert with us one time, he asked the kids for melodies that they wanted worked into the cadenza, and then obliged them.  In doing this, he is going through the exact same mental processes as a jazz musician improvising is.  The only difference is the idiom, not the process.  

Hi O-10:  what is "wack," to use your phrase, is this comment of yours:  "The only thing you can practice is a written piece of music, or you can practice familiarity with your musical instrument."  This is so wrong I am not even sure where to start - it shows your almost total lack of knowledge of what you are trying to speak of.  

Your next sentences:  "This is what it is about; to have a musical idea in your head, and to make your instrument audibly produce that sound exactly as you hear it in your head. That means your brain extends through your hands into the musical instrument and the precise sound you want to hear comes out. The more I talk about this the clearer it becomes. Simply because others don't believe what I'm saying, only means they can't do it."  

Honestly, O-10, any good student musician, and certainly all professionals, can do what you are talking about here, no matter what type of music they play.  Your last sentence above is truly absurd for this reason.    

Frogman is bothered by your arrogance.  That is not what bothers me - what bothers me is your anti-intellectualism.  Your "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."  You clearly love music very much, and you have two professionals trying to explain to you things about it that you clearly have no idea about, and you just don't care.  That's very depressing to me.  Now you will probably want me to go away from your thread again.  

Hi O-10 and Rok - in the sentences I quoted, it seemed obvious that O-10 was speaking of sound, not thoughts.  Any good musician can re-create the sound that is in his/her head.  We all do it all the time, with every note that we play, whether it is written down or not (and by the way, all musicians play many, many notes every day that are not written down, as part of their daily practice routines - making up their own variations of technical exercises is just one example).  This is a separate thing from whatever music/notes they are actually playing, though the two are of course directly related.  So it seems that I misunderstood you somewhat.  I am not familiar with the quotes you are speaking of from these musicians - I will say that your interpretation of them I suspect is incorrect, as it doesn't make much sense the way you state it.  On many levels, of course everyone can translate their thoughts to the instrument, otherwise they wouldn't be able to play it.   What I think they may mean, based on what little you have said about it, is that they have more musical thoughts in their head in the moment than they can translate directly to the solo they are playing in that moment.  That would make sense, if that is what they mean (which, by the way, is yet another way of saying they need more practice with improvisation).   Another thing that they may mean, again without knowing the context, is that one simply cannot play two different things at once, and that they wish they could.  Many jazz players try to solve that problem nowadays by experimenting with loops, so they can overlay all of their ideas about a particular tune at once.  The drawback is that this takes time, and can sound very repetitive to the audience.  One of my best friends, an incredible bass player, has made some really cool experiments in performance with loops.   Notice - he is experimenting - practicing!!   Is either or both of these thoughts more along the lines of what you meant?  

Wow.  First, to Newbee - I'm sure that you probably perceive me as being more condescending than Frogman, and I would totally understand that.  His justification that we are teachers by nature and therefore cannot stand by in the face of misinformation could not be better stated.  

O-10 - first, I agree with you 100% that Clark Terry's Color Changes is a really great album.  Julius Watkins was an amazing guy.  Not your typical horn sound, but he could play.  There are a couple of albums he made as a leader, believe it or not, but unfortunately they are very hard to find on LP because they happen to be Blue Notes, so the Japanese collectors go nuts and drive the prices up to outrageous amounts.  The group is called the Julius Watkins Sextet on those albums, I'm sorry I don't remember the titles.  Too tired to type more about Julius Watkins at the moment, but if you like, I have MUCH more to say about him - very interesting life he led.  I also have a discography of his somewhere, so I could look up those album titles on it, now that I think about it.  One of the most hilarious albums he made, by the way, is called French Horns For My Lady - if you ever see that in a record store, buy it (Philips label)!  More about that another time, if wanted, too.  

OK, there was one comment that I cannot let pass.  "Since he was performing three nights a week, there was absolutely no need for some kind of ritualistic practicing."  No, no, no, no, no.  This is dead wrong.  As Frogman and I have both explained, one MUST maintain one's chops to keep one's playing level to a certain standard.  So if your friend was not practicing that summer, that doesn't mean he couldn't play/perform - but it does mean that he was nowhere near his top playing level.  There is absolutely no way on earth he could have been, simply because the muscles must be kept in top shape.  Just like an athlete's, believe it or not, except we use much weaker muscle groups that have to last for much longer careers - you have to put in your daily routine, we call it, though it is not necessarily ritualistic, most of us vary it quite a bit.  There are definitely about 20 minutes worth of "warm-up" type exercises that I do in exactly the same way every day, but beyond that there would be another 20 minutes worth of exercises that would be varied depending on what type of playing I am doing at work, or have coming  up in the near future, or even distant future sometimes.  And if we don't practice, that is the same thing as an athlete not working out - they get out of shape VERY quickly, and so do we.  Again, I am not saying this means you can't play  (though for a professional brass player, you would never take an entire summer off, it would take a too long to get back to where you were - the most I have ever taken is one month off, and it took about three weeks after that to get back to top shape) - you are nowhere near your top level.  You have mentioned that your friend was very close to the end of a long life and career, too, which means that his playing was almost certainly  not at his peak anyway.  Just like with the athletes, this is one very unfortunate thing about being a musician - your mind and your musicianship are more highly developed than ever, but you can't do some of the stuff you used to do anymore.  I am just young enough to not quite be at that point in my career yet, but I am fast nearing it.  I'm at least several years behind Frogman in age, possibly even a decade.  I hope to have another twenty years in me, though it may end up being more like fifteen - as a brass player in particular, you never know for sure.....

OK, I found that discography of Julius Watkins, for those interested. The Blue Note recordings I mentioned are simply titled The Julius Watkins Sextet, Vols. 1 and 2.  Other albums he was the leader on:

French Horns For My Lady/Philips
The Jazz Modes/Atlantic
The Most Happy Fella/Atlantic
Four French Horns Plus Rhythm/Elektra
Mood in Scarlet/Dawn
Smart Jazz for the Smart Set/Seeco

There are couple of others that he is the leader on that appear to be compilations.  

As far as the answers to your questions -  you both know very well that both Frogman and I have multiple times on this thread over the years offered very good suggestions about where and how to learn more about music.  Anyone can easily go back through the thread and find them.  You will also notice that each time, we were vilified for it, by the both of you.  O-10 in particular seems very proud of his ignorance, and is even more adamant than Rok about his refusal to learn any more.  I remember once, in a fit of despondency, I even posted that this suggested that he didn't really love music nearly as much as he thought he did, though I did retract that later.  You both know all of this, yet you post those silly questions anyway - we know you are not really serious about it.  I won't post any more appeals on this thread for you to educate yourselves, but I will correct gross errors, such as the comment O-10 made that if someone is performing three times a week, he doesn't need to practice.  I had a good long laugh over that one.  If I didn't laugh, I would have to cry over the serious lack of knowledge you have for what you love so much, and the misperceptions and misunderstandings this causes, that could be so easily fixed if you just made a little effort.  

Meanwhile, I would be happy to talk about jazz, and learn about more great albums that I have never heard - I would love to relate much more about Julius Watkins, for instance, or other horn players in the jazz world, if anyone is really curious to know.  If not, you can search for those albums I listed in my previous post if you want to hear him as a leader, though they are very hard to find - I have only heard about half of them ever, myself.   I have really enjoyed this thread, and I keep coming back to it despite the silliness.  

Hi Rok - actually, the horn is quite a bit more "nimble" than the trombone.  The trombone's slide makes it awkward to play things that are very fast, for instance.  The horn has the advantage of the valves, like the trumpet.  Even the tuba is technically more "nimble" than the trombone, again because of the valves.  However, you are correct when you say that the basic tone of the trombone is more suited to  jazz in general than the horn is.  And in many jazz styles,  the slide is an advantage.  Although technically the tenor trombone's range is almost the same as the horn's, in actual practice the horn usually covers quite a bit larger range, and on a smaller mouthpiece, too.  This is the reason the horn is considered the most difficult of the brass instruments, and one of the most difficult overall - we have to cover the largest range on the smallest mouthpiece, which means we are using less surface area, and therefore taxing the muscles of the embouchure more.  

Getting back to the horn in jazz, you normally see it in big bands, not as a solo instrument.  I have occasionally performed with a big band, though mostly that was when I was still a student.  There are often big band shows on our pops series, though, I would say at least a couple a season - in fact we have one coming up in a couple of weeks that is mostly the music of Louis Armstrong, I think.  I have only given the music a glance so far, as we have a much harder (and brutal on the face) symphonic program to get through this coming week first.  Though that Louis Armstrong show looks like it may be pretty brutal, too.  

Anyway, there have been a few famous jazz hornists over the years, and there are actually quite a few active right now, maybe more than there have ever been.