4 ms·

Yes, that's the inherent tension within jazz. It's pure freedom, but it's also inseparable from its history, the people who play it today, and even the audience

Yes, that's the inherent tension within jazz. It's pure freedom, but it's also inseparable from its history, the people who play it today, and even the audience. Disclosure: I'm a performing jazz bassist. I'm at a level where I can collaborate with bands, but am not good enough to blaze my own path, except to the extent of having a playing style of my own. The canon of tunes, and the "standard arrangement" are both a blessing and a curse, and are hardly worshipped. Those things make it easy to assemble a band and perform with no preparation, but get boring after a while. At least one of my bands plays virtually none of that stuff. Another plays complex written arrangements. A third is mostly old tin pan alley material, but raucous and fun for the audience. It's all jazz. I've noticed that audiences respond quite well to the variety, including my long solos.

galaxyLogic 4y ago
> audiences respond quite well to the variety, Variety is the fulcrum of all music. And there can be no variety without repetition. Then the variety itself must vary. You're proceeding on the knife's edge, on the other side too much repetition on the other too little. And the proportion of those must vary over time. https://youtu.be/XwIehM-x6kA https://youtu.be/XwIehM-x6kA :-)
jefurii 4y ago
The standard arrangement -- it enables you to put together a group of players who've never worked together to play tunes nobody has even heard before, but then it just sounds like every other jazz band. I'd love to hear your various groups, and am always up for a long bass solo -- I switched from trumpet to bass in college. I don't know if it's possible but it'd be awesome to mix up all of those styles into a single performance!
- analog31 4y ago
  Indeed, and just for the non-musicians here, I'll document what the "standard arrangement" is: Melody Solo 1 Solo 2 Bass solo Drum solo or "trading fours" Melody Ending Moreover, this arrangement lends itself to playing from a "lead sheet" which is just melody plus chord symbols, and players bring "fake books" full of thousands of lead sheets, making it unnecessary for anybody to actually learn tunes. There are some good things about it, for instance, a beginner can function well enough in a band to play low profile gigs, and gain experience. I certainly owe my present skill level to getting that start, along with playing in the high school jazz band. Unfortunately, within any given locale, the actual list of tunes that gets played can be quite small, leading to the same tunes getting played over and over again, ad nauseam. It takes some effort, and I think, respect for the audience, to break out of this local minimum, for instance writing more interesting arrangements, rehearsing the band, or just agreeing to explore a wider variety of tunes. Personally, I decided to ditch the fake books, a couple decades ago, and made the effort to either learn the repertoire, or get good at figuring things out by ear. Unfortunately my various groups are completely un-recorded. </rant>

galaxyLogic 4y ago

> audiences respond quite well to the variety, Variety is the fulcrum of all music. And there can be no variety without repetition. Then the variety itself must vary. You're proceeding on the knife's edge, on the other side too much repetition on the other too little. And the proportion of those must vary over time. https://youtu.be/XwIehM-x6kA https://youtu.be/XwIehM-x6kA :-)

jefurii 4y ago

The standard arrangement -- it enables you to put together a group of players who've never worked together to play tunes nobody has even heard before, but then it just sounds like every other jazz band. I'd love to hear your various groups, and am always up for a long bass solo -- I switched from trumpet to bass in college. I don't know if it's possible but it'd be awesome to mix up all of those styles into a single performance!

analog31 4y ago
Indeed, and just for the non-musicians here, I'll document what the "standard arrangement" is: Melody Solo 1 Solo 2 Bass solo Drum solo or "trading fours" Melody Ending Moreover, this arrangement lends itself to playing from a "lead sheet" which is just melody plus chord symbols, and players bring "fake books" full of thousands of lead sheets, making it unnecessary for anybody to actually learn tunes. There are some good things about it, for instance, a beginner can function well enough in a band to play low profile gigs, and gain experience. I certainly owe my present skill level to getting that start, along with playing in the high school jazz band. Unfortunately, within any given locale, the actual list of tunes that gets played can be quite small, leading to the same tunes getting played over and over again, ad nauseam. It takes some effort, and I think, respect for the audience, to break out of this local minimum, for instance writing more interesting arrangements, rehearsing the band, or just agreeing to explore a wider variety of tunes. Personally, I decided to ditch the fake books, a couple decades ago, and made the effort to either learn the repertoire, or get good at figuring things out by ear. Unfortunately my various groups are completely un-recorded. </rant>