Jazz for aficionados

None of this past tense stuff. He lives on. They all do. They always will.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY4YB_6P4qk

He knew the roots of the music.

Cheers

O-10:

Jazz from the 1950's?? Can you think of a better place to start than 'The 100 Best Jazz Tunes of the 1950's.?

Kenny Dorham -- AFRODISIA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7myLXPUBB_w

CuBop?

Cheers

O-10:

*****Bobby Timmons was probably the least appreciated and most under rated musician in all of jazz.*****

He seems to have been one of those guys that are brilliant wrtiters / composers, but their work becomes well know through the performances of other people. Sort of like Willie Dixon in Blues.

I always thought 'dat there', was an Oscar Brown Jr composition. And I assumed 'Dis here' was by Cannonball..

Btw, I don't have anything by Timmons as leader. In Nica's book, he said he wanted money and a nice house. With these three compositions, alone, he should have obtained both. I hope he did.

Give me recommendations for Timmons on CD. A few days ago I received your recommendation of Roland Kirk, "The Return of the 5000 lb Man". Love it.

Cheers

Rok, it's time to get back on the tracks in pursuit of "our jazz"; this is between 1950 and 1970. While "Nica" didn't write or talk much, she left us a book of photographs; that's our reference book. She absorbed jazz cerebrally, that's the only way it can be understood. Nica was sometime referred to as "The high priestess of jazz", that works for me.

I'm going to begin in the middle with someone who was never given the credit or money due, "Bobby Timmons". He was born in Philadelphia the son of a minister in 1935. From an early age he studied music with his uncle. He first played at his grandfathers church. After he graduated from high school, he was awarded a scholarship at the Philadelphia Music Academy.

Timmons moved to New York in 1954. He made his recording debut with Kenny Dorham in 1956. He became best known as a member of Blakey's Jazz Messengers. He was recruited by Benny Golson, who said he could play "be bop, funky, and a lot of other styles".

His compositions connected with urbanites instantly; "Moanin", "Dis Here" and "Dat Dere" were on the jukeboxes in all major cities, they even did a line dance called "The Madison" to some of Bobby's tunes. Although his music was put to words, it needed no words, the music spoke for itself to the urban poor.

Bobby Timmons was probably the least appreciated and most under rated musician in all of jazz. Unfortunately he died at 38 from cirrhosis. While I can't do anything about his rating, I intend to appreciate him more by adding undiscovered gems to my collection.

Enjoy the music.

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."

Schubert:

*****Rok, all joking aside , you need some form of mental/emotional health care****

I get that a lot here on "Audiogon". In fact, your post is almost word for word, the first Post directed my way by our OP. Before he ever started this thread.

The fact is, I am not crazy, I just speak the truth and Audiophiles think I'm crazy. Sort of like people's reaction to being in a clean air enviroment, it smells funny.

I did have an frontal lobotomy in an attempt to be able to hear wire, and cable lifters, but it didn't work.

I do appreciate your concern.

Cheers

Rok, all joking aside , you need some form of mental/emotional health care.

****THAT was an intelligent and helpful response.*****

Thanks

****Actually, principal trombonist Joe Alessi is a damn good jazz player. ******

I think that's what I just said.

Cheers

THAT was an intelligent and helpful response. Actually, principal trombonist Joe Alessi is a damn good jazz player.

Horace Silver, as always, is great, but, to really hear "Cape Verdean Blues", you gotta hear the New York Philharmonic Principals Jazz Ensemble play it. Man, those Principals can swing their asses off. No Farting or nothing.

Cheers

Ya' gotta have the ear, man

Hey Jazz pe0ple. would I be wrong in thinking Horace Silver ensemble was one of the "tightest" groups in jazz ?
I just listening to "Cape Verdean Blues, and they damn sure played together according to my amateur ear.
What J.J. couldn't do on the "bone just don't need to be done .

Learsfool, Harold Land has one of the most beautiful tones of any sax man; check him out on "A Lazy Afternoon"

I use the word "timbre" when fine tuning the tone. For example; the three way custom speakers of mine utilize a "Heil AMT tweeter", and I had a problem with timbre between the tweeter and Vifa midrange. This lasted for years, until I hit upon Jantzen polypropylene caps.

I use fine stranded copper wire for the Pioneer woofer, copper & silver, midrange, and heavy on the silver for the tweeter. No longer do I spend time thinking about minutiae, just music; although there is the possibility it's in the back of mind, but not in front where it can interfere with the enjoyment of music.

Since we are both audiophiles, I enjoy all your comments; while I don't consciously think of music in the terms you describe, some where in the back of my mind, maybe I do.

Enjoy the music.

@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.

I like to listen then read up on what I heard to try to understand it better. Squeeze pad controller for squeezebox is great for that. You can bring up a tab with links to multiple key Internet music information sources like Wikipedia and all music for artist track title and album. It adds to the experience. Sometimes knowing more about what is playing before hand helps to enjoy more but not required to like something or not when I hear it. Usually I like first then learn. Or dislike and same. It helps to know more about something you dislike. You might like it better next time.

Newbee, sorry. That darn spellchecker again.

Newbie, thanks.

****Now, WE MIGHT THINK, that playing a violin is difficult, but it's not that difficult to the principal players.****

Aargh! Oh well, I tried. What can one say?


BTW, I never said, implied, nor think that you or anyone else is a "mindless moron". However, a few more posts like your last one and I may change my mind.

Cheers.

Tough audience! 👻

Frankly, to perhaps expound a bit on what Frogman says, I do not believe anyone who says he loves something ,or somebody, and does not want to learn everything he can about
it or them.
Be entertained or having a need met by something or somebody is not loving it or them.

"Now WE MIGHT THINK.....". IMHO "WE" is most probably constituted of no more than Rok2id and his shadow.

Frogman and Learsfool, FWIW I have found your posts, wherein you have tried to inform Rok2id, quite interesting and informative. It's nice to see intelligent and considered posts from folks active in music as well as audio. Stick around. :-)

Frogman, "pointless" was a bad choice of words; however, since I have no intention of becoming a classical musician, jazz musician, or any other kind of musician, this in depth discussion eludes me, plus we're never going to reach a "consensus"; maybe that was what I was thinking. While it's always good to learn new stuff, nothing has been altered by this cornucopia of musical wisdom. I no more listen for tone and timbre, than I listen for copper or silver wire, nothing matters but the subjective feeling I get when listening to good music on a boss rig.

"Pannonica" is one of my favorite tunes, and I have numerous versions, all of which I like, but whatever is special about me and "Pannonica" eludes me at the moment.

Right now I'm listening to Harold Land, on "A Lazy Afternoon"; it's real laid back, like a lazy afternoon. The music is composed of mostly standards, and Harold communicates the essence of each one of them.

Every time somebody big came to town, all of the local musicians were on the set, and I was always seated at a table with one of them. In addition to what everyone came to hear, star performers always liked to try out new stuff, and the musicians always went wild, while I was sitting there thinking, "that's a little rough around the edges". Evidently my facial expression conveyed this to the musicians, because they always explained this "new stuff" to me, and I would think, "He needs to take that back to the wood shed, it's rough around the edges". I seem to hear differently from most musicians, and I see that hasn't changed. I never hear music in the way you and Leersfool describe it, with me it's all subjective.

Well, what's next, moving along in this enlightening conversation mode.

Enjoy the music.

The Good Lord is strictly into BeBop. When he comes, The Miles Davis Quintet will announce him.

There is an interesting (imho) movie about the dynamics of relations betweeen members of classical string quartet, called 'A late quartet' with Cristopher Walken, P.Seymour Hoffman and others. I guees it can explain a lot about a complex way that some classical piece is 'played'.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1226240/

http://youtu.be/NX66lRnNmqs

I would also like that some of you take a look at this two next clips, and make a comment. You might be surprised, and maybe some of yours perspective about classical music might change.

http://youtu.be/P7msSOzj0VA

http://youtu.be/BKezUd_xw20

http://www.salut-salon.com/home/

O-10, will answer to your question and more, as soon as this 'debate' finish

Rok, if Jesus came back tomorrow with all manner of never heard or dreamt of signs, miracles and wonders and an Angelic Choir of fifty million announcing him, you'd ask to see his birth certificate.

To The Oracles:

The gurus need to get it out of their heads that "some folks" think Jazz musicians don't need to know the fundamentals of music, or don't have to practice, or that folks think knowing the technical side, (Lord, I almost said the dreaded Nuts and Bolts)of music takes away from the emotion of it all. As if "some people" are just mindless morons that operate on pure emotion. "Some people"didn't just fall off the turnip truck yesterday. All these assumptions(strawmen) you throw out are just plain wrong. Trust me, we get it.

All that the gurus said is true. I don't dispute any of it. I just think that what a Coltrane or Monk had to do when playing in a Jazz club, was / is harder than what the principal player in a Symphony Orchestra has to do.

Now, WE MIGHT THINK, that playing a violin is difficult, but it's not that difficult to the principal players. WE MIGHT THINK playing what Coltrane played was difficult, and IT WAS, for Coltrane. That's the difference.

It's not easy to play what's in your head. Much easier to play what's on paper. WE are speaking of top notch players, where being able to play the horn is a given

Don't believe me, read Nica's book.

O-10: Any exchange of information is worthwhile.

Cheers

Yes thanks Schubert.

Not sure why that posted twice. Agon glitch. I suppose.

Btw did you ever get to try the ohms in your setup? They would seem a reasonable option to try. I saw a pair of used micro washes here the other day for 900 a pair. Lots of competition at that price point. Prices have gone up a it I the last year or so.

Well, I think it's unfortunate that you consider it pointless. If by pointless you mean that there is not going to be concensus, then you are probably correct. However, I am not debating; I, (and Learsfool) am trying offer a musician's perspective, and one that we know to be the truth. So, I would hope that, given the fact that we are talking about music, there is some value for some in, at least, learning a little bit about that perspective. Perhaps that is of no value to some.

****There isn't much in regard to music that's not "subjective";****

I am glad to see that there has been a bit of "softening" of your stance. It used to be that you used to say that music was purely subjective, or that there was nothing that was subjective; that there is no right or wrong. That is simply not true. Even in jazz, where there is much more latitude allowed for expression and individuality there is often a right and wrong:

- a wrong note in a solo is still a wrong note. How does one know it is a wrong note as opposed to the players choice? The more one understands the rudiments the more it becomes obvious.

- out of tune is wrong. How does one know it is as opposed to a players choice of "color"? Listen to the piano behind the player; it doesn't lie.

- the tenor and trumpet not being together when the "head" is wrong.

I could go on and there is just as long a list (probably longer) for classical.

IMO, knowledge is always a good thing. I believe that some listeners have a predisposition to feel that knowledge will detract from the emotional experience. I suppose we then get into the issue of personality types, but that concern clearly does not apply to all. And none of this impacts on an individual's preferences.

I still want to know about Pannonica :-)

I already answered you Map.

Schubert given your affinity for and knowledge of Bach I'm interested to know your opinion of glen Gould as a Bach interpreter?

Typo alert:

****both methodically and sophisticated**** should be:

melodically and harmonically.

Hate this spellchecker.

Jazz has been called "America's Classical Music". Well, there you have it; as far as the fundamentals of music making go, there are far more similarities than differences. THAT is why I have been beating the drum about learning some fundamentals and building blocks of music. Still, there are obviously important differences.

Learsfool does a great job in his last post. A couple of further comments about his excellent points in response to Rok:

First of all, the idea that classical musicians play the same thing over and over again is nonsense. Yes, orchestras sometimes play the "warhorses" over and over again, but they also play a lot of new works; not to mention that there is a HUGE amount of lesser known (and unknown) works by the great composers that is programmed on a regular basis. Just last night I was part of a remarkable performance of a remarkable opera "Mona Lisa" (about the subject of the painting), composed in 1913 by Max Von Schilling. A beautiful work easily on a par with some of Richard Strauss' operas that received 1200 (!) performances during the years before WW1 and, incredibly, simply disappeared from the consciousness of the music world until last night's conductor found and purchased ($2 !) a score in a bookstore in Vienna. There are countless works that have met that fate.

Rok, you like the blues; or as the SNL character used to say: "You lika de blues". I lika de blues. Most of the jazz tunes that you post are based on the twelve bar blues form. To expound of Learsfool's excellent comments:

For the improviser, the "meat" of a jazz tune is not "the tune" (the melody), it is it's harmonic underpinnings; the chord progression. That is what the jazz player uses as his template (great term by Learsfool) for his improvisations, with, of course, references to the melody. The melody is often relatively simple, although there are tunes that are far more sophisticated both methodically and sophisticated. I would wager that close to half (or more) of all the tunes that you have posted use the same template of the twelve bar blues or some slight variation of that. Another common and standard chord progression is "Indiana changes" the harmonic underpinning of the tune "Back Home In Indiana" and "stolen" and used for many tunes, from Bird's "Donna Lee" to "The Flinstones" Theme. Have you any idea how many times the jazz player plays "the same " tune over and over again? They all had their "signature" tunes and their "set list". The point is, that miraculous as what a top improviser does is, it is not quite as mysterious and miraculous, as far as the challenges posed the player, compared to what a classical musician does when interpreting a classical work at the level heard in a top orchestra. There is a reason that jazz players almost always go and take lessons from top classical players when they want to learn to be better instrumentalists. There is no point in trying to make one discipline out to be "better" or "harder" than another; it's simply not the case. THEY ARE EACH HARDER IN DIFFERENT WAYS. The jazz player's challenge is in the spontaneous creation of music to fit a pre-established or familiar template. Analogy using your preferred twelve bar blues:

Imagine twelve people in a room standing in a circle. The catch is that each of them speak a different language (different chord change). Now, the challenge is to run around that circle a few times while making up a story about what O-10 would REALLY like to do to Pannonica, and every time you go past one of those people you have to switch to that person's language in a way that the story ends up being coherent and makes sense. There is a lot of latitude because if your voice cracks or you burp, or you sound out of breath while you speak, the message still gets across. Some of those people speak the same language which makes it a little easier; but hopefully you get the point. I think everyone would agree that it's a daunting task. The often mentioned and great Lee Morgan missed a note here and there, cracked a note here and there, and while playing with that amazing swagger of his was not perfectly in tune all the time.

The classical player from a top ensemble cannot falter, burp, fart, sound out of breath, or let his voice crack while he, instead of having to make up a great story about O-10, has to read the text of a familiar novel. He has to read it with absolutely perfect diction, rhythm, intelligibility and in the case of a solo artist, solo line in an orchestra, or section soli make it SOUND (and this is a point that is often missed) with the musical personality of the individual soloist or section leader within the confines of what the particular piece demands. The orchestral player who lets tiny little imperfections creep into his solo (or ensemble) lines with the frequency that even great jazz players do would not have his job for very long. Again, this is not because they are "better" musicians than jazz player's; it's that the demands are different.

Fess up, O-10 :-)

Has anyone considered how pointless this debate is? To begin with we all hear differently. If you go back to that analogy I made about the radio stations, we can only receive the music our minds are tuned to receive, at the time it's tuned to receive it. I can't hear classical music very well, the tuner in my mind is slightly off frequency.

There isn't much in regard to music that's not "subjective"; consequently there is no "objective" right or wrong. Has anyone heard of the "Tower of Babel"; that's what this debate has gotten to.

Enjoy the music.

On the Christmas at Carnegie Hall concert DVD, I asked about the guy sitting the orchestra with headphones and no instrument. No one seemed to know his function. There is a guy just like that in the Proms piece. He also has a small camera. That's where we get the head on shots of the conductor.

So now we all know.

Cheers

After listening to this again, the entire thing seems out of tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNqJ8mED1VE&list=RD664QhBOhBgc

Cheers

Learsfool, as a Shakespeare buff(I assume) I wish you could have heard what I would call a "double suite "arranged by Vansca and played tonight by the Minnesota of Sibelius's "The Tempest" . Prospero lines were read
by the Guthrie Theatre Director in perfect Oxbridge with Heather Johnson singing the Ariel lines. Absolutely magnificent !

Well he was a highly talented musician that some call eccentric, others creative and some a nut job.
His sheer technical ability makes him astonishing to listen to even if you don't care for the end product.
In no way am I qualified to make any intelligent commentary
on Gould .
But to say what I think, which is ONLY what I think, I don't like that he skips all repeats, plays in a staccato manner with heavy accents no one else makes etc, its like he is trying to make an musical x-ray of Bach before he starts to operate.
I had his famous Goldberg Variation/s recordings I gave them away so I guess I did not care for them.To me he's a non-starter compared to the great Bach keyboardists like Hewitt, Tureck, Schiff and Perahia.
But it well may be I just lack the acumen and background to recognize the genius of Gold.

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.... :)

Schubert given your affinity for and knowledge of Bach I'm interested to know your opinion of glen Gould as a Bach interpreter?

The Santana I remember.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDLLXUaqZxg

I am reluctant to post this, cause I sure don't wanna put the OP into Cardiac Arrest!

Cheers

Some sort of selection process ??
A classical player who wishes to be a soloist or a player in a top orchestra, goes through a "selection process" that lasts for years and years under pressure that causes many fine players to whither under.

It's like you got into med school, completed it and your internship, and then had to compete with a dozen other docs
in a hour oral exam where that decided which ONE of you
gets to practice medicine.

Not being contrary just for the sake of it. I will try one more time.

We are talking about Professional players in both genres. Players at the top of their game. I will assume that the Classical players went thru some sort of selection process, that determined that the player was good enough to play in a top tier orchestra.

When they prepare for a performance of, say LvB's 5th, all the players have seen the score before, and have played the music before, at every stage of their career. The conductor does not have to teach or show the players how to play the music.

He will go thru the music and point out the points in the score where he wants certain things. This is his interpretation. The players then make notes on the score. He Assumes they can read the music and play it.

All they have to do is play whats on the paper, taking in consideration the conductor's wishes.

If they can't do that, they are not going to part of an orchestra in the first place.

So, they have been playing forever, he has had teachers at every step of his development, they have been playing the same music (the standard repertoire) that's been around for hundreds of years, the conductors guides them as what he wants in certain passages, and there are over 99 other people playing with him/her. Those 100+ players make wonderful music.

The Jazz Player? I am speaking of small group, not big band.
His entire career and his degree of success depends solely on how the public, the audience, sees and hears him. He must connect. No conductor to guide him or suggest how to play certain passages. No 100+ players to shield him. Can't make it playing just 'standards'. When he solos, he is out there alone. Does not receive a salary, no union, no public financial support, He creates the music as he plays it. He does not create, he does not eat.

Those two to Five players, small group, make music that is downright amazing given the number of players involved. Amazing!! My latest CD is proof of that. Kenny Barron and Dave Holland. Just Two players, making magic.

And if all that weren't enough, the genre is under attack by media and critic backed noise makers.

In my universe, that makes the Jazz players better. It is truly, a survival of fittest situation.

Cheers

BTW, both gurus said that the horn players in the French group (water/fireworks thingy) at The BBC Proms, were out of tune!! Huh??? How can that be?

I have read several reviews where the Berliners and Karajan were accused of being out of tune!! WTF!!!

Maybe these folks are not as "Highly Proficient" and "Masters of their instruments" as one might think.

I soldier on, because I know I am being tested.

Cheers

I read it Rok, whoever this Pimentel dude is he should be nominated for the fool of the year award , give Rush L. some competition.

Things are getting more complicated by the minute. I recently bought a CD, "Kalenia" by Oran Etkin, he's a new musician whose music falls under the classification of jazz. I like this CD, but some may not consider it to be jazz, including Wynton Marsalis.

I do not like current music that definitely fits the description of jazz. That's because it's too stereotypical and sounds counterfeit, like a rip off of old music. Since I'm not sure of what I'm debating, I'm going to temporarily recluse myself from this debate.

In the meantime I'll submit music I like; "Barboletta" by Santana. He goes under the "Rock" genre, but I don't like rock. "Has anyone seen Alice"? The last time I saw her she was chasing that White Rabbit down a hole. This is one of those days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIs4BppmMOs&list=PLniulnHY2D_ucgAooXFkfWDdEnWK9UEot

Enjoy the music.

Rok, you have dug your heels in as you often do and are not hearing the message. That's fine. For anyone else who cares about the truth : No, jazz musicians are not "better". BTW, I read nothing in Pimentel's article that contradicts anything I said.

**** All the so-called highly proficient player has to do, is play what's on the paper. ****

This is so simplistic that it borders on the embarrassing; you really should aim for something higher than that.

Cheers.

Rod Stewart: My favorite Rocker. I posted some of his stuff a while back. Very unique voice. Songs made sense to me. Knew how to dress.

Cheers

Frogman, I must admit, that never practicing on the first post was misleading.

Enjoy the music.

This person says it better than I could.

http://bretpimentel.com/classical-musicians-and-jazz-music/

The Jazz players are better. In Classical music, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven have already done the hard part. All the so-called highly proficient player has to do, is play what's on the paper.

And they practice all their lives to play a well established and limited number of tunes, and their playing time on each tune can vary very greatly. I don't see a problem.

Exhibit A:
"Art Pepper Meets The Rhythm Section" They played together and met each I think, for the first time as the tapes was rolling. Amazing!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHuzH2FL1ww

The People Rest.

Cheers

Schubert, BTW, I just answered the question, in no way would I consider my self your "learned better". More just another shmo whose heard a few things over the years and with an opinion.