[Dixielandjazz] The problem with listeners (was Louis, Duke and BeBop)

[Phil Wilking]

Include me in that group.

I grew up in house filled with classical music, and I know that variations 
on a theme is a musical staple practiced by all the greats. HOWEVER, I do 
have some personal requirements if you want to hold my interest, and I think 
I am far from alone in this.

If you are going to spend 10 minutes or more playing variations on a theme, 
plainly state your theme first and then go into your variations. And do not 
wander so far from the theme that I can't hear the original in my head 
alongside your playing. And I mean hear the original without having to go 
through five or six steps of analysis for every note you play. Yes, a very 
short excursion into extended harmonies - one or two measures out of 32 or 
64- can be like pepper on  an omlette, but a little goes a very long way.

If you do consistently wander off into and stay in some strange world of 
obscure academic extended chords played in no recognizable rhythm, expect me 
and those like me - that is: those from whom you want money - to not pay to 
hear you in person and to not buy your recordings.

I regard that tuneless drek as the musical equivalent of a Eugene O'Neill 
play. The man was an excellent writer, but everything he wrote was what he 
should have spew'd out on a psychiatrist's couch about his terrible 
childhood. I don't pay to attend such, and I am not going to pay to be your 
psychoanalyst - YOU will pay ME (a lot), or I shall not participate.

Phil Wilking

Those who would exchange freedom for
security deserve neither freedom nor security.

----- Original Message ----- 

> You may be surprised to find that there are plenty of listeners out
> there who do have the ears, the training, the background, and the
> musical understanding to find comprehension and communication in the
> music.
>
> And yet they still get bored to tears when a jazz musician plays a solo
> that goes on ad nauseum and is neither innovative nor particularly
> musically pleasing.