[Dixielandjazz] When is it not jazz?

[Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis]

Actually Jazz existed before swing was invented so it doesn't have to swing 
to be jazz but some musicians use that term for "good jazz" as in "He 
Swings" meaning he plays well.

One of the difficult things to get across and also do for jazzers is play 
music without swinging it when required.  The further we get away from the 
Ragtime and early Dixie eras is it becomes more and more difficult to find 
musicians that can switch between the two.  We are so ingrained (and like) 
swing that we just do it.  A good example is the Star Spangled Banner. 
About the only people that play it correctly is military bands and symphony 
orchestras.  Everyone else swings it and worse.
Larry
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Cees van den Heuvel" <heu at bart.nl>
To: "Ken Gates" <kwg28 at sbcglobal.net>; "Dixieland Jazz" 
<dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2006 5:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] When is it not jazz?


> When it doesn'nt swing, there's no improvisation, there's
> no interactivity, there's no creation on the spot, it's no jazz. Beautiful
> sounds or even music, but no jazz.
>
> Recreations of written down jazz: no jazz, but sometimes
> beautiful music, but still no jazz.
>
> I.m.h.o,
>
> Cees van den Heuvel
> http://www.revivaljassband.nl
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Ken Gates" <kwg28 at sbcglobal.net>
> To: "Dixieland Jazz" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2006 10:54 PM
> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] When is it not jazz?
>
>
>> A friend lent me the Smithsonian collection of classic jazz.  Or at 
>> least,
>> one of it's forms.
>> Got up to side 11----The second track is 11 minutes of Cecil
>> Taylor---"Enter Evening".
>> Now--I'm not going to attempt to define jazz---but certainly it must be
>> the sound of musical
>> instruments (or voices) and rhythms---and important to many of us---that
>> do so
>> in a manner that "swings".
>>
>> Better and more knowledgable "ears" than mine can make sense of various
>> "modal" forms and
>> other "modern" constructs----and I have no problem understanding that
>> certainly those are
>> bonafide
>> forms of jazz.   But random sounds?  That is what it sounds like to my
>> "primitive" ears.
>> Maybe "abstract interpretations of sound" is a category---but "jazz"---I
>> don't get it.
>>
>> Ken Gates (still striving to climb the evolutionary ladder)
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
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