[Dixielandjazz] Jazz dying

Tue Sep 25 09:05:11 PDT 2007

The human being wants what it sees.  This is especially true of musical 
instruments.  Kids see only three instruments that is the guitar, keyboards 
and drums.  When you start a band class it's not unusual for half the group 
to want to play drums.

Couple that with the clicker age when everyone wants instant gratification 
and the fact that it takes years and years, if ever, to get to a point where 
you can sound halfway good on a wind instrument.  This isn't true of drums, 
Guitar or keyboards.  Instant sound.

If it weren't for aggressive school band programs there would be no wind 
players.  The trend is for schools to cut band programs which if successful 
will diminish the pool of wind players and the few drummers that can 
actually read music too.  But even so with literally millions of horn 
players graduating every year from U.S. High schools they are having almost 
no impact on popular music.  At least in the 50's every rock band had to 
have a Sax player.

There are a couple of other factors too.  Knowing tunes is becoming a dying 
art.  Many of us know literally thousands of tunes or at least hundreds 
anyway.  If we heard it we can generally play it and improvise on it.  That 
just isn't true today.  I know some very fine players who just don't know 
tunes or can play without the spots in front of them.  Improvisation today 
is more often than not playing some nonsensical licks to a chord progression 
and it helps if you can do it really fast.  Take away the spots and the 
written out progression and they are absolutely dead in the water.  The 
definition of improvisation has changed.

The final thing that is missing and that is the ability to arrange on the 
fly.  I pl;ay with a few guys that it sounds like we have been playing 
together all our lives and are reading arrangements.  Maybe I should get out 
more but I don't know a single musician under 50 that can do it.

When I started if you didn't know a bunch of tunes and didn't have some 
improv skills you just didn't work.  The last word is the key "work".  There 
simply isn't any for young wind players.  When I was in H.S. there were at 
least six of the kids in band who were pro musicians already.  The last 13 
years I taught at a Lutheran Prep school with two very large bands and a 
stage band.  In those bands there were some pretty good players over the 
years and as far as I know not a single one of them played gigs on anything.

The skill of standing up and playing tunes, doing some improv and making it 
sound like an arrangement seems to be a dying art form.  I think it's dying 
because it's a skill that you have to learn by doing and without work and a 
place to learn it will be gone in 25 years as we die off.
Larry
StL
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kent Murdick" <kmurdick at jaguar1.usouthal.edu>
To: "Larry Walton" <larrys.bands at charter.net>
Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 8:46 AM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Jazz dying

The post concerning electric guitars struck a chord (so to speak) with
me. If an alien came to earth and picked up an entertainment magazine,
he would be lead to believe that the only musical instrument played on
earth was the electric guitar. Where did all the other instruments go?

The whole electric guitar/rock scene is also very hard on the players.
They have to bring about $5,000+ worth of sound equipment to every small
bar gig and they have to make it work which it often doesn’t. This is a
hell of a burden. For many venues, electric instruments can never get
the right volume and these venues are lost for professional musicians.
BTW, there is one good jazz/rock crossover band in my town. The electric
guitarist (about 20 years old) can play anything on his fender. They've
got a female singer and they combine rock and OKOM in a very pleasing
way. Maybe there's hope.

_______________________________________________
To unsubscribe or change your e-mail preferences for the Dixieland Jazz 
Mailing list, or to find the online archives, please visit:

http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz

Dixielandjazz mailing list
Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com