[Dixielandjazz] smooth jazz discussion-- more from Howard Mandel

[Stephen G Barbone]

> Ken Dryden, jazz journalist of Chattanooga writes regarding  
> definition of
> Smooth jazz:  I prefer the term pseudo-jazz, due to its repetitious  
> nature and lack of compelling improvised solos.


Hmmm. How then would we define the "jazz" that John Coltrane played?  
He was the king of repetitious scalular runs and pedantic, rather than  
head improvised, soli. Yet Many us love what he did, including me.  
( Some would be definers would immediately seek to deny it with;  
"That's not Jazz'")

Some musicians, like Billy Taylor, minimize the importance of  
improvisation in jazz citing both Louis Armstrong and Art Tatum as  
musicians who played set soli. Yet they swung their asses off each  
time they repeated that same solo.

Methinks we need a new definition of "jazz". Remembering, perhaps, the  
wisdom of the late Kenny Davern who called attempts to define jazz,  
"mental masturbation".

IMO, one of the most cogent discussions of what jazz is, occurs in the  
Gene Lees biography of Oscar Peterson. If you have it, start reading  
at the bottom paragraph of page 241 and continue reading for the next  
few pages. Here is a partial quote to whet your appetite:

"This is a sort of aesthetic gerrymandering in which the frontier is  
enlarged or contracted by the whim of the definer, so that he may  
dismiss anything he does not like by saying, 'That's not jazz.' As a  
matter of fact, the word itself presents certain difficulties and has  
been deplored for its limitations by, among others, Duke Ellington,  
Miles Davis and Artie Shaw. In its essentials jazz is an idiomatic  
music, developed by black Americans with a strong rhythmic pulse that  
produces a characteristic swing that gives it a powerful and, at best,  
enthralling propulsion." . . . .

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband