Sax on the Web Forum banner

As a jazz fan, do you ever feel alone?

40K views 193 replies 123 participants last post by  smartin009 
#1 ·
Today one of my bosses was getting ready to leave early for the day. Some of us at work were standing around talking as she was getting ready to leave, and we asked her, "where are you going?" She said she was leaving early cause she had a long drive ahead of her to Kansas City (we're in Denver).

On the way out she said half jokingly "anybody have any suggestions for good music to listen to for a road trip to Kansas City?" I quickly replied, "if you're goin to Kansas City, you gotta listen to Charlie Parker."

Needless to say I got a bunch of blank stares from everyone in the room. You could hear crickets chirping in the aukward silence while everybody waited for a punch line to my retarded suggestion. It was another moment that happens from time to time where you feel a little lonely as a jazz fan.

Anyway, I'm not tyring to start a profound discussion. Just wanted to vent to some folks who would understand.....
 
#52 ·
Well, at my school we had an assembly for Black History Month. During the whole thing I was waiting for at least a small comment on Jazz...nope...nothing happened. They really seemed to have their priorities mixed up. It was rather enraging, especially since they had no problem telling Jamie Foxx's life story, but nothing about the role he was playing! (I guess they were trying to tell us that he was a more important Black performer than Ray was...:evil:) They could talk about Oprah for hours, but no mention of Jazz or any other music form except for hip hop. What a world we live in...
 
#53 ·
About the only things "worse" than jazz with the kids at my school (outside of my friends) are ska and indie.

well. indie is starting to pick up nowadays, but I can still go up to people and be all blahblahblah Flaming Lips blahblahblah Pavement blahblahblah Silver Jews blahblahblah and nobody will know who i'm talking about.

but yeah, toss a horn into it and its no-man's land. Outside of the music majors that is. Doesn't matter if I play Coltrane, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Cannonball, or even Kenny G (not that I have it), I can guarantee only one non-music major person in my 1500 person dorm would know.

I'm not going to say their music is horrible (although most of it is), but kids of my generation aren't really brought up to appreciate music. Most of my friends view it as background noise to whatever they're doing. So who cares about the noodling in Giant Steps? As long as its not dissonant sounds, they're fine with it. Infuriating, but you can't really force people to listen to music. I hate to say it, but sometimes I enjoy it a little too, when I want to disengage and not have to actively listen to whatever i'm playing (which is a lot of the time).

i'm not even goign to go near ska.
 
#54 ·
My prediction for the young peoples generation in about 60 years. We're all sitting at nursing home and thru the speakers they have some rap going where the line "get crunk" continues to be repeated while Lil' John screams YEAH, OHKAY, and WHAT while all the really old people attempt to bump, grind, and freak.
 
#55 ·
During extensively long road trips when passengers are falling asleep, I enjoy listening to John Coltrane's Meditations CD.

I'm not sure exactly what it is, but the majority of people who listen to it in my car can't quite seem to get into the passing mode of waiting for the music to express itself.

As soon as it starts playing, they immediately want it turned off.

I am a very big pink floyd fan, and during my wilder party stage, I regularly spent a good 7 or 8 hours on cloud 9 while watching Wizard of Oz w/ Dark Side of the Moon synchronized into the background of it. I've noticed the identical types who are unwilling to listen to Meditations are the same that have no patience for Dark Side of the Rainbow.
 
#56 ·
stanstantrombonerman said:
About the only things "worse" than jazz with the kids at my school (outside of my friends) are ska and indie.
The Indie and Ska music scene is extremely popular among Latinos and Chicanos, still.

My band is Cumbias oriented on the ska scene, and we have had amazing success at finding gigs and audiences that like us.

What area do you live in ?
 
#58 ·
amoram said:
Ok, I'm only 16 years old. All my friends listen to hiphop, techno or metal. Yeah i feel lonely sometimes. None of them came to one of my concerts. I can never talk about music with them. I learned to live with that.
Techno... well Electronica isn't that bad. It just has a diffrent way to listen to it, same with hip-hop. Metal... well thats just like the free jazz movement. It's just noise:D
Electronica is all about hearing live at a club or someplace and dancing to it and becoming one with the music as the DJ spins and scratches and etc.
Hip-hop is a bunch of different things. The good kind is poetry over Breakbeats.

The reason most people don't like jazz is because they have to think when they listen instead of just having it be background noise or whatever. I admit that when I'm driving I dont really listen to jazz or classical that often because I pay too much attention to what's being played instead of driving.
 
#59 ·
Ya know, nnf06, its the exact same reason why I listen to experimental jazz, like my Meditations CD WHILE driving.

The chaos of the freeway system in the Los Angeles Metro just seems to tie in extremely well with so many of the tracks, and gives it its own sort of ambience.
 
#60 ·
amoram said:
Ok, I'm only 16 years old. All my friends listen to hiphop, techno or metal. Yeah i feel lonely sometimes. None of them came to one of my concerts. I can never talk about music with them. I learned to live with that.
Nice then that there is something called "sax on the web" to discuss jazz and saxes and stuff with decent folks :D

greetzz
 
#61 ·
wolfmaiden said:
At school, even my teachers think I'm a jazz/band geek. My psych teacher told me I was "Socially Retarded" when the class was talking about what concerts they wanted to see and I said if I could go back in time and hear Gerry Mulligan live. (of course then I had to explain who he was.) Well, there was that time I accidentally wore my neckstrap to class...

That reminds me of a funny incident last year......I'd just got back from a jazz workshop, and had popped into the local Safeway to pick up some essentials, and forgot I was wearing my sax harness (full harness.....bari player....).....
the girl at the checkout looked at it....looked at me (strangely) and said...."what IS that???"......(and being in a kind of silly mood - after playing jazz all day!!).....I replied...."oh my God!!....the baby!!!....it must have dropped off!!!....."... got a LOT of weird looks for that!!!
Sick eh!!!
God I love Jim Carey type of humour.

Aside - I used to play bari, and purchased a harness to ease my neck, but wow, I could not figure that thing out.
 
#62 ·
TetsuoK said:
God I love Jim Carey type of humour.

Aside - I used to play bari, and purchased a harness to ease my neck, but wow, I could not figure that thing out.
I have one of those in a drawer that I'll probably never wear because it was beyond my mechanical ability to nuke it out. That was a $24.95 eBay lesson I won't soon forget.
 
#64 ·
Here's something of a reverse trend:

I've been taking trips to Vietnam lately and I've noticed a marked growth in interest in jazz.

Where lobby musicians in Saigon once played easy listening pop, now more and more are mixing in jazz pieces. Pop singers try to put jazz style into their songs. Some got it, some didn't, but all tried. Within the last 3 or 4 years a couple of jazz joints popped up in the capital Hanoi, one right in Old Town next to the dingy hotel I was staying in.

Here in the USA, I think people are just not knowledgeable about jazz and jazz musicians, but I do believe jazz permeates our culture so much everybody is affected. Lots of popular movies have jazz music as background and people like it. They just don't know that it's jazz....

Anyway, if you think being a jazz fan is lonely, try classical!
 
#65 ·
I'm curious of what everyone's opinion of what jazz is.

I don't consider John Coltrane's Meditations, or Miles Davis' Bitch's brew much of traditional jazz. I view it as more of an experimental, multi faceted experience.

There's a band called Debonaires out here in SoCal that was influenced by the real old school skatalite ska scene, and has revived its interest quite a bit.

( http://www.myspace.com/thedebonaires )

If you listen to their song, you can hear the rocksteady and ska rythms, but their instrumentation, balance, and horn line is just total big-band influenced, that it REALLY makes up some seirous jazz.

For some more recent Jazz though, I really love listening to Harry COnnick's Red Light, Blue Light album.

I often find myself compromising the way I speak, because I know SO many people in my business network who when I start talking about how my band plays "Cumbias" they'll lump it all into their idea of Nortena, or Ranchera music, even though aside fromt he fact it could be classified as Nortena, its not even close to Ranchera.

My coworker, heard me say that our bassist has a side mariachi band, and now he thinks that MY band is a mariachi band, which is pretty ridiculous, because we dont' even have a fuelo or a guitarron.

I don't even consider Frank Morgan's "You Must Believe in Spring" as jazz.. It is so emotionally charged into a slow rythm, that it reminds me of blues more than anything.

But when it comes to the first song that made me really start listening to that beat.. that rythm .. that something of improvization ... it had to have been "Duke's Place."

How them saxes do their tricks.
 
#69 ·
My Band director talked about this once... he likened it to the CSO and other orchestras trying to play 20th century pieces and programming ONLY 20th century pieces even though people want to hear Beethoven's 5th... Our jazz concert are always a pretty big hit with any and all who show up (even if its forced :p) and i think its because we mix a lot of our music as opposed to only play swing or only playing bop... My girlfriend "doesnt get coltrane" but i play glenn miller and she just loves it...
 
#71 ·
Maybe it's Cleveland...

This has been an interesting thread to follow. I've had 54 years to sort out my friends, but most of them are jazz fans. When I wanted to get a few people to go hear Ernie Krivda's Fat Tuesday Band on Fat Tuesday, nearly a dozen people came out and several others would have been there if not for prior engagements. If you only have one friend who likes jazz, then you need to make more friends and a love of good music is a place to start. One of my best friends, godfather to one of my sons, I met when he heard me playing Coltrane's Sunship in my dorm room at college.
 
#72 ·
It depends. If you mean having a long meaningful discussion about jazz with your friends, well I have my band, who I rarely see outside of jams since they are in a different college. People all over my college say stuff like, "Oh my God! You play the sax? That's soo cool and I love Jazz!" But then they say that they don't listen. A few people have become interested in jazz, and have picked up a few CDs and are listening though, but not to the extent that you could crack a jazz joke and get away with it though.
 
#73 ·
sweetsax said:
Today one of my bosses was getting ready to leave early for the day. Some of us at work were standing around talking as she was getting ready to leave, and we asked her, "where are you going?" She said she was leaving early cause she had a long drive ahead of her to Kansas City (we're in Denver).

On the way out she said half jokingly "anybody have any suggestions for good music to listen to for a road trip to Kansas City?" I quickly replied, "if you're goin to Kansas City, you gotta listen to Charlie Parker."

Needless to say I got a bunch of blank stares from everyone in the room. You could hear crickets chirping in the aukward silence while everybody waited for a punch line to my retarded suggestion. It was another moment that happens from time to time where you feel a little lonely as a jazz fan.

Anyway, I'm not tyring to start a profound discussion. Just wanted to vent to some folks who would understand.....
Now imagine us classical players... "Hey why don't you listen to the Ibert!"
 
#75 · (Edited)
Stand outside and solo at a lake or public place, and you will awaken emotions in people that they've never felt before. You will spark curiousity into the hearts of young people who have been spoon fed the watered down, hateful, commercialized, and repetitive music that descended from R&B itself. People will listen to what comes out of your horn if you can speak; they will hear you message, because the language of jazz is universal.

Blues and the blues scale will always remind of us of a love lost or how miserable the world was. A solo over the diminished scale will make people wonder about the future, imagine, or feel mesmorised by it's dissonate yet melodic sound. A II-V-I solo will bring them to a low and then raise them back up again, giving hope. If you mix these elements together, you can do bring out all of these feelings at once; if you are a true master of all of jazz's tools, and you will see that you are not alone...for people will approach you in joy, sadness, happiness, curiousity, or in deep thought.

The youth in our country are being spoon feed. What they see on TV is what they want; since jazz is not on TV, they won't buy it's records or learn the names of it's many, many great artists. They will ignore it's tradiiton. Alot of art has escaped the public eye. If you are one of those rare people that embraces many forms of art - not based on what you see on TV - consider yourself more enlightened than the average. Really, just by taking up an art form like the saxophone and jazz we have distinguished ourselves from the people seeking fame and other superficial things that make up the american dream.

If you play the sax and have a passion for jazz you do it because you love it. You have no illusions of becoming rich or famous... You have true character. You are an artist like the penniless painters in france who once made the most wonderful paintings without ever hardly getting paid.

Unlike superficial things such as money, fame, and popularity which come and go, no one can ever take away something as deeply rooted as music and an understanding and respect for the legacy of jazz.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top