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Value of Jazz in the 21st Century


peteb
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[quote name='Paul Cooke' post='482668' date='May 8 2009, 07:37 AM']I like Asparagus... unfortunately it makes my urine smell weird afterwards...[/quote]
Bizarre OT factoid here: although pretty much everyone produces "asparagus wee" after eating asparagus, only about 22% of the population have the ability to smell it (it's genetic).

So chances are that someone who says, "My urine doesn't smell weird after I eat asparagus," is merely incapable of detecting the stench of their own micturitions; said stench will instead be affecting 22% of the people in the toilet with them at the time!

Edited by BottomEndian
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[quote name='BassMunkee' post='482677' date='May 8 2009, 08:05 AM']It's not so much the smell, it's the taste that puts me off...[/quote]

Go on, someone tell us what percentage of the population can taste the difference in their urine after eating asparagus.

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[quote name='spinynorman' post='483110' date='May 8 2009, 04:58 PM']Go on, someone tell us what percentage of the population can taste the difference in their urine after eating asparagus.[/quote]
Well, 90% of taste famously depends on your sense of smell. So presumably pretty much everyone who can smell the difference can taste the difference in their "special lager". Any volunteers? :)

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[quote name='spinynorman' post='482233' date='May 7 2009, 06:04 PM']The rise and fall of jazz in three paragraphs.

Before 1900 you had two streams of music in the west, the formal classical tradition, funded by the Church and blokes in wigs with country estates, and popular/folk music fueled by beer. Both relied heavily on melody, rather than rhythm, and co-existed quite happily for centuries, because everyone knew their place. If you wanted to dance with a duke's daughter you went for a waltz in a big house, and if you wanted to dance with a milk maid, you went to the local inn for a knees up.

Then comes the 20th C and WWI, Americans are everywhere and the popular/folk music gets all mixed up with some African influences with hot rhythms. So all the milkmaids rush off to buy jazz records and learn to dance the jitterbug. Trouble is, the dukes' daughters think Americans are cool and don't see why they should miss out, so they start jitterbugging too. Now no one knows where they are. Worse, the classical composers try to absorb jazz into their compositions, but still nobody wants to dance to it, so they think, why should we bother writing tunes? This creates the conditions for Schoenberg and all the dismal honking and squeaking that followed.

Now, here's the real problem. Because "serious" classical music has gone all avant garde, a few jazz musicians think they will be taken more seriously if they start honking and squeaking too. So they invent bebop and realise that, with saxophones, which the classical guys turned their noses up at, they can honk and squeak better than anyone. Soon there's wopbop, aloobop and heaven knows what other kinds of bop, and the milkmaids, who all now work in factories, are crying "We can't dance to this." And as they look up through tear-streaked eyes and smudged mascara, there stands Elvis.[/quote]
Post of the century so far! Brilliant and spot on!

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Re. the elitist charges – some of the jazz supporters here do tend to be rather elitist but in real life most of the jazz musicians that I’ve met are anything but and seem to appreciate all types of music and playing on its own terms……

Edited by peteb
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[quote name='7string' post='481390' date='May 6 2009, 08:43 PM']I've always found jazz to be a little out of reach. Not from the point of view of understanding it, but from the point of view of wanting to listen to it.

I've listened to many kinds of music, but find jazz a bit 'vanilla' and not the proper vanilla either, the really bland stuff. As in the quote of take by the OP, jazz isn't fun nowadays it's serious. It seems to be in the realm of an enlightened elite instead of embracing a wider audience.

[b]This is just my opinion.[/b][/quote]

Have to agree with that 100% It seems to me (apart from classical music) that "jazz" is the only music that people try to analyse and that in it'self tends to distance people, like it's some sort of secret that's only available to a selected few.

I think jazz will always be there, even if there's only 6 people listening to it eventually, it's still relevent and will always be responsible for giving roots to other genres of music. If it's good and accessible, then it's just good music to the listener.

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While I apprciate some of you out there find jazz hard to get into or still find it inaccessible because it's generally percieved as being about 'clever' harmony and fast noodly soloing - as someone who writes about the UK jazz scene for a living - and I do so with the sole wish of sharing the music with any one who is interested and not excluding anyone just because they aren't a musician themselves. Well I'm pleased to report there are loads of fantastic new bands - yes not combos or pick up trios/quartets etc - that play very catchy melodic music, full of great grooves and hooks and shed loads of energy - all you have to do is seek this stuff out. It's not boring or self indulgent - IMO - and mixes a whole load of other types of music with improvisation - this is the one major factor that makes jazz 'jazz'.

Anyway I highly recommend you all listen to the following:

EST (esbjorn svensson trio)
[url="http://www.myspace.com/esbjornsvenssontrio"]http://www.myspace.com/esbjornsvenssontrio[/url]

Neil Cowley Trio
[url="http://www.myspace.com/neilcowleytrio"]http://www.myspace.com/neilcowleytrio[/url]

TrioVD
[url="http://www.myspace.com/triovd"]http://www.myspace.com/triovd[/url]

Minghe Morte
[url="http://www.myspace.com/minghemorte"]http://www.myspace.com/minghemorte[/url]

Led Bib
[url="http://www.myspace.com/ledbib"]http://www.myspace.com/ledbib[/url]

Troyka
[url="http://www.myspace.com/troykaband"]http://www.myspace.com/troykaband[/url]

Outhouse
[url="http://www.myspace.com/outhouseloop"]http://www.myspace.com/outhouseloop[/url]

The Mighty Jeddo
[url="http://www.myspace.com/themightyjeddo"]http://www.myspace.com/themightyjeddo[/url]

The South Trio
[url="http://www.myspace.com/thesouthtrio"]http://www.myspace.com/thesouthtrio[/url]

Zed-U
[url="http://www.myspace.com/zumusik"]http://www.myspace.com/zumusik[/url]

Acoustic Ladyland
[url="http://www.myspace.com/acousticladylandmusic"]http://www.myspace.com/acousticladylandmusic[/url]

The Final Terror
[url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/introducing/artists/finalterror/"]http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/introducing/artists/finalterror/[/url]

Polar Bear
[url="http://www.myspace.com/sebastianrochford"]http://www.myspace.com/sebastianrochford[/url]

Fraud
[url="http://www.myspace.com/fraudsound"]http://www.myspace.com/fraudsound[/url]

Portico Quartet
[url="http://www.myspace.com/porticoquartet"]http://www.myspace.com/porticoquartet[/url]

Manu Delago
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17ojj7tgrqw"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17ojj7tgrqw[/url]

Ben Allison and man Sized Safe
[url="http://www.benallison.com/"]http://www.benallison.com/[/url]

Kurt Rosenwinkel
[url="http://www.myspace.com/rosenwinkel"]http://www.myspace.com/rosenwinkel[/url]


Hope you like some of it...!

Cheers

Mike

PS for me jazz is a gateway to a whole universe of musical posibilities beyond simpler forms of music - BUT - it's not the be all end all, it's just another form of music - and as such should be viewed as one piece in the gigantic puzzle that is music as a whole. Forget what you read in the media, use your ears and make up your own mind - but jazz is a tiny word for so many variations in style it'd be silly to dismiss its place in music today as so much of it is amazing - some of it's crap naturally - its possibilities are endless.

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[quote name='peteb' post='484252' date='May 10 2009, 12:13 PM']Re. the elitist charges – some of the jazz supporters here do tend to be rather elitist but in real life most of the jazz musicians that I’ve met are anything but and seem to appreciate all types of music and playing on its own terms……[/quote]

+1

Also, I've found that IME, it tends to be the lesser able and certainly narrower minded jazz players that hold the elitist attitude the most - I think having a good all round appreciation of a wide range of music shows in someone's playing.

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Jazz is the deeply misunderstood child of music. It throws it's toys out of the pram, answers you back but like all good children, returns to you, when as an adult, you fully understand them. There is the paradox.
Jazz is in everything, music, art, film, words, day to day conversations, random thoughts......

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