STOP THE VIOLINS!

Many have said this but I'm going to try and put my own little spin on it.

Jazz.

The shrill whine of a trumpet. Excited crowd's glasses clinking. The scrambling sticks of a drummer and the warmth of a straight no chaser on improvised tones.

The only way to experience jazz is live. For awhile, that was the only way to learn it.

Then came the "Real Books" where someone transcribed the standard Jazz tunes of the time into notes, meter, and letters and other stuff that makes up written music.

Though this did wonders for the High School band scene I'm not sure it has extended the genre in the same way it was originally conceived. Originally people sat in front of their phonorecordplayermcjiggerthingys and transcribed with their brain and instruments.

Hearing the progression and the tones in their native environment, the player had to understand the relationship of the notes to the meter and to each other. This forced the pedagogy to form an intimate knowing of their instrument and to become more sensitive to not just the pitch or placement of notes but the more ephemeral side of things like texture. This whole exercise came from the traditions set forth by the ragtime and blues guys who laid the foundations for Jass.

Of course, this is also a big part of any "folk" music. Fiddlers learn from fiddling and yodelers yodel (I don't know why I wrote that).

Though the publication of Jazz has led to greater accessability, it's foundation is found in something that can't be written down. In fact, writing down this next thing kind of makes it not that thing.

Improvisation.

Listen to this

now, listen to this

Different.

If you go to page 275 of the "Real" brand Jazzfake book you will find a transcription of "Night in Tunesia". Solidified and codified in the great annal of the written word. However, the staff and line on that page are guidelines. One may play it exactly as written or completely fuck the thing. The heart of it is in the improvisation. The personal changes that make it distinctly the artist's.

That is what makes Jazz so damn cool. Once you have the language down (notes and stuffs) and a small vocabulary of standards in your head, very little beats the thrill of hearing a particularly clever rendition of a familiar song. The only thing better is hearing a new song played particularly cleverlike.

Just like Homer though, a Jazz guy has his little mnemonic tricks. Scales, modes, learned progressions, licks all allow the player to get to that thing they want to play just that much more easily. Sometimes they lead to some really cool jams and sometimes you create something completly out, spontaneous.

There are exceptions but they are few.

Miles Davis played completely sponaneously and created some of the best straight Jazz albums in music history (Walkin, Workin, Relaxin, Cookin, and Steamin'). He rarely ever rehearsed instead opting to allow the process, the "orality" of the thing carry his groove.

Jazz is a dialogue. You just gotta learn the language.