Jazz for aficionados

This distinction between the soul expression and the virtuosity potential  are very important...

Billie Holiday as Chet Baker playings and singing has soul way more than virtuosity...

Some had the two... Armstrong and Marian Anderson are natural self made virtuoso but way more master of our souls...

Yes, the distinction between soul and virtuosity. On the Jazz series, they talk about Billie Holiday's lack of a strong voice. Her range spanned just a little more than one octave, where other singers might span three octaves and have a more "pure" sounding voice. Holiday's had deep soul. 

I have heard that also discussed with classical musicians. Horowitz was much loved by classical music lovers, but he was not supposed to have had the strongest technical abilities. 

I heard Itzak Perlman interviewed and he said that the most difficult students to teach are those with the strongest technical ability. It is hard to teach them the emotional aspect of music.

@mahgister 

I think in all the arts, it's a question of having something to say and choosing an art in which to say it. Again, in the Jazz Series, musicians talk about other musicians telling a story with their music. I think in an art like poetry it is most difficult to say something because words get in the way. How does one get past words by using words?

Back to music and jazz. There are very talented musicians who really don't have much to say, or at least have less to say than the very deep musicians. One might pick up an instrument at a very young age and find that she has great ability, but later, when she has mastered the instrument, she really doesn't have much to say. Whereas Billy Holiday or Chet Baker or Coltrane (who had mastered his instrument) have much they want to say about being human. 

We must remember that music is a very old human art. It most probably began with the beginning of humanity. I think some arts explicate, but music congregates. People love to be together "getting" the music as if they are one. It's a tremendously joyous thing to be among people who like yourself can understand this most abstract of art forms. I cannot imagine being human without there being music.

@mahgister , @audio-b-dog 

Interesting and important topic! 

Question for both of you: is soulfulness the sole measure of "something worthwhile to say" as opposed to cold displays of technique? 

Can there also be music that, for example, is not overtly emotional but delights the mind/ear?  Could this still be described as "saying something about being human"? 

@audio-b-dog 

Seems to me, the fact that poetry utilizes musical elements is what allows it to rise above mere words. 

@mahgister , @audio-b-dog 

Interesting and important topic! 

Question for both of you: is soulfulness the sole measure of "something worthwhile to say" as opposed to cold displays of technique? 

Can there also be music that, for example, is not overtly emotional but delights the mind/ear?  Could this still be described as "saying something about being human"? 

For sure you are right, we can experience musical meaning  through our own soul in contact with vibrating sound sources or instrument  which are not mean to convey first pure soul  emotion but instead to modify the world and Nature itself : gong, gamelan,Moog synthetiser,  African drums or throat singing or harmonic chanting etc...Or any instrument  also played just for fun... Anyway it will provoke a reaction in our soul...

But the way some "vibrating sound source"  be it a singer body or a violin for example inform us about the soul state of the player or singer  may touch us way deeper than some other more easy to enjoy musical sound (music for escalator)...

In the two cases of these vibrating sound source, the timbre of the instrument vibrating or the timbre of the singing voice will touch us...

But in one case we are more informed by our own soul state through our evaluation/perception of one vibrating sound source( escalator music favorise a soul state proper to elicit purchase in the consumers).

In the other case (Billie Holiday or Marian Anderson or Bill Evans) we are also  informed by the soul state of the player here or of the singer and not just informed about the timbre state of an instrument (virtuoso)..

Seems to me, the fact that poetry utilizes musical elements is what allows it to rise above mere words. 

You are right again...

Language lives in multidimensional time scales... (micro-seconds/ years/centuries).

A "word" life extent reveal an inside life (phonems motivated  meaningful sounds) the poetic/mimetic dimension and at the higher more conscious scale the syntactical/logical dimension an external life where the meaning evolution  is easier to trace (in an etymological dictionary).

At the origin of mankind there is not music on one side and speech on the other side, but one body set of gestures at two scale, the members dance and the throat response which are a direct answer to nature speaking  musical gesture. Music is not art at origin but a social survival tool in direct dialogue with Nature. 

Before any artist was born, the shaman and magician created sound to affect Nature voice and soul ...

Even today great artist has not forgot that...