Re: Learning Jazz

reed ( (no email) )
Tue, 20 May 1997 10:07:24 +0100

At 11:05 AM 5/20/97 -0500, you wrote:
>reed wrote:
>
>> In the days before jazz theory, people just learned to play the melodies
>> to tunes and then embellished them or did little things they could hear
>> by ear. Gradually over time they had more ideas that they were familiar
>> with and thus could play more notes and at faster tempos.
>>
>> Of course I'm sure many people developed their own "jazz theory" but the
>> final arbitrator was the ear.
>
<<snip>>
>Over the past several months I've been coming back to practicing over
>rhythm changes with Band-in-a-Box. You mentioned that players didn't
>change chord scales with every chord change. Maybe that wasn't done in
>the 30s, 40s, and 50s, but I believe some players do it now.
<<snip>>

Regarding playing in key large key centers (as opposed to a chord
at a time)....

Well Bill Evans did this until the 70's, Jim Hall is still doing this,
.... etc. It's not as if it's some really dated sound.

I think people don't do it alot nowadays because they can't . They
have learned jazz theory from books instead of doing their own
transcriptions and thinking it through for themselves.

People always want to play those "long horn lines" but don't know how.

People attempt to achieve chromaticism through reharmonization.

For me, and this is just my own personal view, I'm totally bored by
what I hear nowadays in jazz. In general it's chorus after chorus
of scales. It's also so intellectual I have trouble relating to it.
I don't hear any melodic ideas in the solos.

This is my opinion of why jazz is dying in the USA. It's just plain
boring and even jazz fans are tired of it.

In other coutries, the sounds are still newer to people so the "newness"
still works.

I rarely go to hear jazz but I'll tell you that if Bill Evans or Wes
Montgomery
came to town, I'd be there for every show.

reed

>

Reed Kotler
reed@justjazz.com
http://www.justjazz.com