(cough) Chuck Mangione? (cough) 
Sorry, I couldn’t resist chucking that in…
All kidding aside, I hear you - the songs are rarely what sells a jazz act, whereas they’re key for other acts. ‘The Pickup Combo Who First Got Together Twenty Minutes Ago’ is going to have a harder go of it with the audience than ‘Top 20 Rock Cover Band’, even if both of them are at the same very high level of musicianship.
Bugger - I have to go pick up my son, who has bonked his head on the ice…
Whoa - hope he’s okay! I say that as a low-lander; you seem to be processing the news like a snow-ready Canadian.
**poet **- welcome to the discussion. Can you name the quartet your family member plays in or where he/she gigs? Should I be looking for a gig at Iridium or the Vanguard or something? No worries if you don’t like sharing stuff like that on a public message board…
Quick update while he hits the can -
He ran to get back in line at school, slipped and hit the back of his head. Then, about an hour later, he asked for the trash can in case he threw up. Cue the phone call to Daddy.
We’re now at home, working on our glow-in-the-dark model of the Hunchback of Notre Dame while listening to Pink Floyd… I will keep an eye for any change in behaviour, but considering he was throwing snowballs at the dog and jumping around on the way home, I’m treating it as a pleasant opportunity for some father/son time rather than .
And in apology for hijacking the thread, I’ll make him listen to some Eric Dolphy and tell you how he liked it.
I would qualify that: the songs are rarely what sells an instrumental jazz act. With vocal jazz, IMO/IME a good part of the act’s appeal lies in the ability to provide “oh, I love this song!” audience reaction moments. No one is going to book me – or stay for the second set – if all I sing are lesser-known songs like “I’ll Never Stop Loving You” or “Sing, My Heart,” no matter how well I do them.
All of that said, I know that the only times this thread has been about vocal jazz were when I brought it up. But I still felt the need to say something.
(And I’m glad your boy seems to be ok!)
What a dad. Wanna adopt a 54-year-old?
Ah, Out to Lunch was my breakfast music this morning.
DSOTM…Brain Damage surely?
Let me flip this issue on its head a bit and say that as far as I’m concerned, Jazz started hating people first. It began as exuberant, exciting music that had a broad appeal and helped sell a lot of whiskey. Yes, it elicited a lot of Well-I-Never’s and shattered a lot of monocles of cartoonishly square high-brows back in the day. Eventually, the high culture had to confess that this wasn’t just some vulgarian fad. This was an elevation of the musical arts. But some time around the fifties, Jazz not only became accepted by the high-brows, it was invaded and occupied by them. In the intervening decades, Jazz has been occupied in both building its island monastery behind a moat and whining about how come that bunch of ignorant assholes who suck keep not trying to get in.
To be fair, Jazz musicians found the opportunity and had the desire to apply higher aesthetic ambitions to their work. I can appreciate that. But how do you do scramble over that wall without kicking the ladder away behind you? Maybe it’s possible, but we know well enough that Jazz didn’t manage to accomplish it. Jazz left behind the very popular audiences that made its ascent possible.
We’re not just talking about a matter of taste. The taste for Jazz became a complicated issue – not something new, but deeply complected with everything that came before it, all of which had to be understood before you could hope to “get” what was happening. The entry cost for taking an interest became steep – where the working man could once afford the gut-bucket swill they were expected to drink to get to hear The Hot Five, the same people could no longer afford the record collections needed to understand what was happening to Jazz, nor did they have the leisure time to devote to contemplating the ever-unfolding tapestry. Jazz was now the pastime of an increasingly-upper middle class.
Now, of course, the entire breadth and scope of Jazz is available for far less money than ever before. There has never been a better time to educate oneself about Jazz. But it turns out that at the same time, there has never been a better time to be into anything. Now you can find out more than was previously available about Blues, Polka, Sea-shanties, Hobo Train Songs and Murder Ballads. You can get lost in any of these genres, and frankly I’m not much motivated myself to refine my tastes in Jazz with the time I could spend just listening again to Una Mae Carlisle, Chris Connor, Timi Yuro.
Le Ministre - yeah, Dolphy probably isn’t the way to go ;), but really glad to hear that he seems okay and you are getting some cool time with him.
**Misnomer **- please keep bringing up vocal jazz! That’s a key point to this thread - there ARE different kinds of jazz that don’t fit the criteria/issues/complaints that get voiced. You’re right - If I go to a cabaret/lounge act and they pull out the Cole Porter songbook, I will be totally psyched to hear that singer’s cover of Let’s Do It or the Tale of the Oyster - just like I would be psyched to hear a good cover of Hendrix at a show where the guitarist has demonstrated he/she can pull it off…
Johnny Angel - excellent point about the accessibility of all genres, which has led to the diffusion of music as a mainstream artform - when everyone can access everything, where are the shared memories and cultural touchpoints? And yeah, jazz got complex and insular to the point where it had limited popular appeal…all true. But, per the OP, there is so much good stuff there that I hope discussions like this give potential listeners more openness to giving it a chance…
What Jazz needs is a Stephen Fry to elucidate the exciting craft and play of the art without giving in to the alienating snobbery and judgmentalism that usually arises.
Well, there are the Ken Burns’ Jazz and the Wynton Marsalis ‘Marsalis on Music’ series…
Just like with the Stephen Fry ‘The Ode Less Travelled’, they are quite conservative and do not treat material that the writers don’t care for.
Fair enough, but in the case of the Burns documentary, the joke going around at the time was an announcer talking about the exciting music Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and Charles Mingus were all doing in 1963, “but let’s focus on Louis Armstrong singing ‘Hello, Dolly’!”
I am a jazz fan and (amateur) jazz guitarist. My wife likes Kenny G. This week she reminded me that he had the top selling Christmas album since 1991. I reminded her that McDonald’s had the top selling hamburger.
Not a good move for marital harmony.
Wow, that would be tough. I must admit, I totally drive the music in the house. Does it get played in the house a lot? I am so sensitive to the ambient music anywhere; I can’t shut off music I don’t like. If a radio is playing in someone’s workspace close to where I can hear it, I have a very tough time.
I know I have asked you, this - please remind me what your main guitar is?
Tex Allen Quartet
I will keep an eye out.
Actually my wife usually has the TV on CNN and rarely plays music, except the local pop radio station in the shower. She likes ambient noise, I like ambience. She likes the most popular things because they’re popular, I like what I like because I like it. We are really opposite ends of the spectrum, deserves its own thread.
Hmmm. Well, right now my focus is jazz and I am playing a Hofner New President. I spent a few years in a blues band and my go-to guitar there was a MIM Tele 50’s re-ish. I also used my trusty 1973 ES-335-TDC. I have a PRS that I have played out with occassionally. Just two weeks ago I bought a Takamine classical/electric which I have played on two jazz gigs for bossas and softer stuff (guitar/flute/bass trio).
Yes, I remember the scoffers. Obviously, the Burns series was a Survey Course. But most of the scoffers preferred to express their scorn rather than actually impart some knowledge about their neglected heroes. We need more experts like WordMan!
I’m not an expert but have heard jazz-related music most of my life. Mom loved Glenn Miller–smooth & commercial, but definitely swing with jazz roots. Bob Wills had a Big Band in his heyday & his legacy survives in Texas. Lightnin’ Hopkins no longer used bands, the many times I saw him; but he drove Wrecks Bell, his sometimes bassman, nuts with his improvisation. Surely, blues & R&B share roots with jazz. And, of course, many of the folkies I knew back in the day absolutely worshiped Django Reinhardt & Stephan Grappelli. (Bluegrassers the Cypress Swamp Stompers played a corny fiddle intro that sounded like “Orange Blossom Special”–then segued into “Sweet Georgia Brown” as played in The Hot Club of France between the wars.)
Since I knew jazz was “good for me,” I’d visit La Bastille when I could afford it. Although I couldn’t “understand” Rahsaan Roland Kirk, this little hippie was truly amazed; I’m sure purists would sniff at Tito Puente, but he played La Bastille, too. Taking other opportunities around town, I saw The Art Ensemble of Chicago & Sun Ra & His Arkestra.
Good record collections are fine but music that might take several spins to absorb is easier understood live. (Not that I’ve avoided adding classic jazz platters to my collection.) Hey, there’s a jazz jam in my neighborhood every Tuesday…
Haha. Poor Kenny G. Treated like nuclear waste.
**CookingWithGas **- I remember that photo - or a photo of that room with different guitars in it - from a thread about folks’ gear!
That archtop Hofner (2nd from left, for those not conversant in guitar-speak) looks very cool. Would love to hear a review of it, or even hear it, over in the GOGT (Great Ongoing Guitar Thread). Did you ever read the thread I started on the Four Major Food Groups of Rock Guitar? In Post #27 I describe my relationship with jazz archtops :(
I wish I had the time to learn that language. As for the ES-335 and the Tele (3rd from left and left-most) - both look fun and cool.
**BBurke **- thanks for joining; all good. Grappelli and Django in the Hot Club band were beyond awesome. Here’s a link to a youtube clip- and notice the artwork interspersed with the other visuals…fits right into this thread.
**Nzinga **- :snerk: - you got a better idea? 
I am pretty sure I have shared this before, but here’s Pat Metheny’s (a guitar player whose music I don’t always like but whom I deeply respect and who’s credibility is unquestioned in jazz circles) take on Kenny G and here’s a text interviewwhere he goes into a LOT more detail - the hate radiates off the page.
I’m the same way. Hell for me is being somewhere with competing music, like at a bar where a live act has started but they haven’t shut off the jukebox yet. Or if different music is playing in two parts of a bar/club and I can hear them both. Or if I can hear the music from two workspaces close to mine. shudders It’s actually part of the reason why I stopped living in apartments and started renting townhouses 7 years ago.
(I don’t like to wear headphones at work, but I am the master of playing music just loud enough for me to hear but no one else. No, really. I have shared not just cubicle walls but offices with people who were skeptical until they saw/heard it for themselves. It actually resulted in some funny moments, when I would suddenly start dancing in my chair to music that no one else could hear. grin)
That was a terrific read. I don’t know which I enjoyed more… the vitriolic hate for Kenny or the absolute adoration for Armstrong that shone through.