[Dixielandjazz] Pessimism is justified....... oh no it's not!!!

[David M Richoux]

I agree with Judy - there are thousands of young music majors  
(instrumental and vocal) coming out of our colleges (US, UK, Japan,  
Oz, and Euroland & many other places) who can read and play with a lot  
of skills. There are thousands of community bands and orchestras, drum  
& bugle corps, street bands and even non-guitar driven rock bands.

However, improvising jazz on the chords of songs is not taught well  
enough, and there is too much dependance on written music. Getting  
this part of basic jazz chops to the "yout"  is the difficult job of  
the more experienced "senior" musicians.

Dave Richoux

On Jun 2, 2010, at 10:24 AM, Judy Eames wrote:

> Kent Murdick wrote:
>> . Because the music of the last 50 years has been played by people  
>> who are musically illiterate, everyone has forgotten how to read  
>> and they certainly can't solo over  the changes. That art is  
>> practically lost.
> Not so, in the UK at least..... there are a lot of younger players  
> (by which I mean in their 20s or 30s) playing various styles of jazz  
> who are music graduates.  They can dep with reading bands and can  
> certainly improvise. Some of them, for example Graham Hughes are  
> moving things in a slightly different direction but they're not  
> acid, straight ahead, bop ... whatever... Graham's band Brass  
> Volcanoes played one of the street sets at the recent Keswick  
> Festival and attracted a huge  crowd of all ages. He also plays  
> trombone in our Big Bear Stompers and can always find a really good  
> reading  dep(sub) from among his colleagues if he's not  
> available.... to give you an idea of his range, he is also a member  
> of  New Orleans drummer Barry Martin's "Young Bloods".who do a UK  
> tour each year.
>
> I haven't even started on the rest of Europe..... the Bohems from  
> Hungary, the Ophelia band from Norway and many more.
>
> Jude
>
> Definitely not a "chick" singer and I can read and sing most of the  
> notes in tune and in the right order :-)
>
> www.judyeames.co.uk