[Dixielandjazz] Absolutes and Jazz

[Stephen G Barbone]

On Jan 14, 2011, at 5:58 PM, Marek Boym wrote:

>>> performance of a song is what places it in a jazz or not category.>>
>>>
>
>>
>> Well said/stirred Pat:
>>
>
>> IMO there are no absolutes. For example it is not ALWAYS the  
>> performance of
>> a song that places it in a jazz or not category. Proof of that? The  
>> jazz
>> tunes that have been written specifically as jazz. Songs that  
>> Thelonious
>> Monk wrote. Songs that Charlie Parker wrote etc., ad infinitum.  
>> They are
>> jazz no matter who plays them how.
>
> They are jazz no matter who plays them - but there are no absolutes?
> Does anybody but me detect a contradiction?  And they are not.  When
> played by a symphony orchestra, or taken up by popular singers, they
> become their style rather than jazz.
>>
>> Heck, I'm not even sure that Bourbon Street Parade written around  
>> 1944 does
>> not fit into the written specifically for jazz category.
>>

Of course you are right Marek, nothing is absolute, but then you are  
dealing in hypotheticals. If a symphony orchestra ever plays them, or  
a popular singer sings them (at the moment these songs have no words)  
we can realistically discuss the issue.

However, it would seem to me that if a symphony orchestra played the  
songs as written, they would be jazz in the eyes of the composer. I  
can't imagine Thelonious Monk's "Four in One" as anything but jazz if  
played as written, no matter who plays it.

Remember too, the rest of my post, which you don't show, discussed  
songs written and played by avant garde jazz musicians and bands which  
left no room for improvisation, but were called jazz by the composers/ 
players as well as the talking heads and the audiences. By taking one  
paragraph out of the context of the discussion in the full post, you  
distort the issue.

The parts you deleted are:

*** start
Kenny Davern often said "to try and define jazz is a masturbatory  
exercise". Jazz means different things to different people depending  
upon the filters of our minds.

IMO Jazz is musical freedom. (I think Armstrong may have said that  
half a century ago).

Other areas where absolutes go to die are exemplified by the jazz  
tunes written these days that have no room for improvisation. The  
scores, including solos, are completely written out and played as  
written. The composers and musicians call it jazz. They are performed  
in the hipper jazz environs of New York, New Orleans, Stockholm,  
Berlin, Rome and other cities throughout the world.

Not sure about London Pat, what say you? <grin>

Regarding Ellington, he often said much of what he wrote and played  
was not Jazz. By the late 1930s, he was calling it "Negro Music". So  
perhaps Humph should have cut those who agreed with Ellington a break?  
<grin>

***end

Since neither you nor I (nor most other people)  can agree on what  
jazz is, why would we want to engage in a masturbatory discussion of  
whether a tune played by a symphony orchestra or sung by a pop singer  
(or played by Duke Ellington) is jazz or not?

Cheers,
Steve Barbone