[Dixielandjazz] Space as feeling in music

[Steve barbone]

Space is essential to feeling. Carried to an illogical conclusion, then:

Cage's musical composition, 4:33 (4 minutes and 33 seconds of total silence)
is the ultimate in musical feeling. :-) VBG

Or Monk's famous set in San Francisco in the 1960s where he sat down at the
piano with the trio and for the entire set, appeared to be playing piano,
but with enormous concentration kept his fingers from hitting the keys,
stopping them just prior to making a depression, hence no piano sound. He
then came over to the bar, perspiring profusely from all that effort, and
said: "Good set, huh?"

No doubt is was, in his mind, and in the listener's too, if one hears notes
in the space. (and why shouldn't we, the music is in our minds)

Point being, what ever the listener hears as soul and feeling is indeed soul
and feeling. Lots of notes, few notes with space, or just all space. It all
has a meaning depending upon who YOU are.

"Jazz is what you are." was Louis Armstrong's reply to "What is Jazz?" more
than 60 years ago. IMO, that is a great, unchanging truth.

What is important, IMO, is that the jazz musician develop a sound (voice)
that is unique. Basie did it with space, as did Monk. Coltrane did it with
lots of notes, as  did Goodman. Edmond Hall with tone. Pee Wee Russell with
growls squeaks and advanced harmonics. Differences of thoughts between men,
E.G. Hawkins and Young produced two very different tenor sounds. Etc., etc.,

But all of that music is great. It is our individual ears and minds that
either are, or are not, ready to acknowledge it as such. And that is our own
problem, not the artist's because he wasn't doing it specifically for each
one of us. Only for himself and those who think like him, and/or those who
are open to the challenge of learning to think like him.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone