Author: Matt74
Date: 2017-02-04 22:24
I actually kind of agree with you, even about the arrangement thing. I agree 100% about valuing Jazz as an art form, as well as the cultural climate.
Speaking strictly of myself, and no one else but myself, at one time I was downright puritannical about Jazz. I took it so seriously, and was so hard on myself that as result I quit playing. It was impossible for me to come up to my own expectations. As I see now, art would have been better served with a mediocre Matthew than a silent one! I wasn't bad, I just wasn't the luminous genius I expected. It's impossible to make up for all those years now that I play again.
The best compliment I ever got was after I quit. About a year or so after I left music school I went into a coffee shop that had opened up near my home. Some kids from the high school had a jazz combo going, and I spoke with one of them. I told them that I had done the same thing. He then recognized me from when we played at the middleschool while he was there. He was visibly excited, and told me that I was the reason he got into Jazz. He was totally sincere. These guys were just copying us (this was before the internet - and before "Jazz Education" became a big thing.). It was all the more striking because the same thing happened to me. My first musical inspiration was an 8th grade saxophonist, when I was in 7th grade. We became best friends in high school. The first "Jazz" I listened to was Linda Ronstadt and Nelson Riddle! Gasp! Not exactly 52nd street, but I got it figured out. You have to start somewhere.
Ok, so maybe Dixieland arrangements will lead to too many people wearing seersucker suits and straw hats and playing banjos. At least it's music, and it's not a guitar, and he's not playing "Stairway", or "Mopey Inde-Coffee-College", or "Haight Ashbury Rekindled". I guess I'm looking at the bigger picture. Even mediocre band music is band music. It might even be a good arrangement. The saxophone dudes might take up clarinet and do the real thing.
It reminds me of Pat Metheny flaming Kenny G. I never got that. As serious as I was about becoming the next Cannonball Adderly, I thought Kenny G was great. "Silouhette" was the first example of good saxophone playing I ever really listened to as a kid. He's a great R&B / Smooth Jazz player. If only I could play a melody like him. The name "Smooth Jazz" may be unfortunate, but Kenny G wasn't running around like some kind of hipster with a goatee channeling Roland Kirk. He made no claims. Pat Metheny is crazy talented, he's got nothing to worry about. He sells lots of records, and can play with anyone he wants. Kenny G is not a threat. Pat is a little too Rock n' Roll for me. Why can't he do his thing and let Kenny G do his?
I don't mind if you take it more seriously than I do. I just think that there is a broader challenge. Our contemporary culture is so poor musically. If 5 guys are in front of people playing horns at all it's a win, and if they want to play a dixieland arrangement I'm all for it. I've never had the opportunity to play New Orleans style.
- Matthew Simington
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The Clarinet BBoard
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