So, who here actually plays jazz, as opposed to those who either collect it
or study it as a pedagogical or performance practice  based area of study?
Who has gotten up in front of an audience multiple times to  perform, either
(preferably) in an ensemble setting or solo performance of this style of
music?
And for those folks, which genre or genres do you prefer to perform, and
why?

On 23/02/12 15:51, Nicole Massey wrote:

Me!  I play guitar.  I have a lot of jazz recordings but I don't
"collect" them, and I'm not in the least qualified to "study" jazz.

Having come from a blues/rock background I suppose I'd describe myself
as a fusion player, but I'm trying hard to learn to sound like Grant Green.

Why?  If I gotta tell you, you ain't never goin' to know!

--

Henry Law            Manchester, England

The main usenet group for jazz used to be rec.music.bluenote, and it was
populated by a lot of players.  In fact, a 2-CD set came out in the early
1990s called "Musenet" that was full of tracks recorded by posters on
that group.  As for me, "yes", and "hard bop" (quartet or quintet).

: So, who here actually plays jazz, as opposed to those who either collect it
: or study it as a pedagogical or performance practice  based area of study?
: Who has gotten up in front of an audience multiple times to  perform, either
: (preferably) in an ensemble setting or solo performance of this style of
: music?
: And for those folks, which genre or genres do you prefer to perform, and
: why?

On 2/23/12 10:51 AM, Nicole Massey wrote:

Check out the links in my signature.

--
Joey Goldstein
<http://www.joeygoldstein.com>
<http://homepage.mac.com/josephgoldstein/AudioClips/audio.htm>

If my guitar skills weren't mediocre at best I'd probably try to sound like
a cross between Freddie Green (for rhythm) and Charlie Christian. (For solo
and melody work)
news:o_qdnQFzKedkLdvSnZ2dnUVZ7o-dnZ2d@giganews.com...

Well, since this newsgroup has "makers" in its name, and ignoring typical
Usenet drift of focus, it would imply that  this was originally intended for
people who played it themselves, and not on a player of some sort. That is
what spawned the question.
news:4f46bb3d$0$11976$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...

On Feb 23, 7:51 am, "Nicole Massey" <ny...@gypsyheir.com> wrote:

Been doing it for many years(since the 70's for Jazz), generally it's
just Standards, or whatever tunes the leader might bring in. There
have been different types of material over the years though.

Bg

My interpretation of "rec.music.makers.jazz" is that it was intended for
discussions pertaining to jazz performers (their life & times,
accomplishments, past and current albums, trivia, etc).

I wouldn't have thought that the original motivation for the creation of
this group was as a forum for actual jazz musicians or artists.  What
exactly would such posts look like anyways?  Musical technique?  Some
new guitar or keyboard or synthesizer?

I think it's far more likely that the original intent of this group was
for jazz listeners / customers to discuss jazz musicians (ie -
"makers").

Why do you keep referring to musicians as "players" ?

The term "player" is for sports.  

I have a hard time believing that there were a lot of actual musicians
signed with Bluenote (the label) who also participated in usenet such
that they formed the group rec.music.bluenote and issued a title named
"musenet".

In any case, the newsgroup rec.music.bluenote still exists, and a quick
look indicates that it's primarily used by Ron Hearn <rwhe...@shaw.ca>
as an obituary column, and also to post a sort of daily list of jazz
artists born this day.

You started this by asking:

A strange question.  You should have asked "who here is a musician that
performs jazz?".  Because anyone with a turn table or CD player can
technically "play jazz".

I played trombone in my highschool's concert and jazz bands, and for a
couple of years I continued playing trombone in my university's football
marching band.

Uh, sort of, but not really.
Many musicians make a distinction between players and musicians. A guitar
player, for example, is someone who uses tab a lot (the notation system, not
the coca-cola product or a running tally of what they owe the establishment)
and relies heavily on power chords while a guitarist is someone who can
actually read music and knows that chords have color tones too.

The entire rec.music.makers structure was originally designed for those who
perform (colloquially known as "play") music and musical instruments. Some
of the group descriptions still reflect this. Other groups had their own
reason for being, most of which is far beyond anything I could comment on.
I would suspect that a newsgroup frequented by actual performers of the
music instead of enthusiasts of such who weren't directly involved in the
making of it would include things like comments on new releases with
interesting elements or standout performances, analysis of classic tunes,
discussions of recent articles in Jazz Is or Downbeat or The Journal of Jazz
Improvisation, concert reviews of artists of interest, theoretical
discussions about unusual chords and how to solo over the chord in motion to
other chords, discussions of recent dissertations, discussions about how the
academic community has completely given up on doing anything meaningful in
getting butts in seats and instead has fallen back on their old tactics of
overanalyzing long dead artists or established ethnic practices, and so on.
But all of that is rather moot at this point, as Usenet is, though not quite
dead, living alone with about 300 cats whilst watching old soap opera reruns
and dining on canned dog food.

In rec.music.makers.jazz Jazz Guy <J...@guy.com> wrote:
: My interpretation of "rec.music.makers.jazz" is that it was intended for
: discussions pertaining to jazz performers (their life & times,
: accomplishments, past and current albums, trivia, etc).

The substructure rec.music.makers.* was originally intended for
musicians to discuss things, such as techniques or issues related
to the business and practice of playing music.  Of course, this was
a long time ago and things change.  Remember that originally it was
considered wrong to do business on the web.  Obviously the internet
has changed a lot from its original intentions.

: Why do you keep referring to musicians as "players" ?

Lots of people do.  Haven't you ever heard the phrase "he's a great player"?

: I have a hard time believing that there were a lot of actual musicians
: signed with Bluenote (the label) who also participated in usenet such
: that they formed the group rec.music.bluenote and issued a title named
: "musenet".

The group and the project had nothing to do with the Bluenote label.
The rec.music.bluenote newsgroup was formed very early in usenet history,
before people started worrying about having a good taxonomy.  "Bluenote"
sounded more hip than "jazz".  After a while many people wished they
had named the group "rec.music.jazz".  But we were stuck with "bluenote".

Musenet was a project from the mid 80d to early 90s, before the web, when
the internet was still mainly used by universities and research institutions,
was a LOT smaller than it is now.  It was then a bit of a novelty to be
on the internet, and so the collective of players (ha!) who frequented the
groups were a much smaller and more closely knit group than they are today,
now that virtually every musician in the world is on the web.

Anyhow, the CDs weren't produced by Bluenote (the label), they were privately
produced by some of the people on the newsgroup.  I still have them sitting
on my shelf.  It was envisioned as a yearly project, an idea that quickly
became silly by 1994/1995 when the Mosaic browser appeared and the
world wide web exploded into existence.  The CDs weren't very good
anyways (there were some decent tracks), but it was a fun project
and a historical novelty.  Rec.music.bluenote wasn't the only
rec.music.* group that was involved in the project, there were also
rock, folk, and country tracks.

Here is some more history about the project:
http://nosuch.com/usenet/tapes/index.cgi?notes=yes

On 2012-02-23 15:51:06 +0000, Nicole Massey said:

I'm pretty new to jazz, so I haven't actually been on stage playing the stuff.
I do play - guitar and bass, and have been on stage in various rock bands.
I don't know if it's an age thing, but lately I have been listening
more to jazz…and not so much to rock/pop.
--
Steen

On 2012-02-23 22:18:37 +0000, sgor...@changethisparttohardbat.com said:

Makes me wonder what happened to to the jazz crowd on usenet - is there
a more suitable group than this one, or have people moved to a internet
forum elsewhere?
--
Steen

On 27/02/12 16:07, Steen wrote:

Lots of us like that, I think.  Where in the world are you?  Last guy I
knew of that name was in Denmark, in København (which is a great place
for jazz!).

--

Henry Law            Manchester, England

Almost right. I'm from Denmark, butI don't live in Copenhagen (but I was
born and raised there)
--
Steen via iPhone

I've been reading and posting to usenet since about 1988 (but not as
"jazz guy").

I can say that text-based forums are useful for a lot of things - but
the way I see it - not for music or discussions about music or
musicians.

Unless it's about stuff like "Artist or Band X has a new album" or "Is
having a concert at City Y" or "who wants to buy this album or those
tickets off me" or "anyone know where I can download or torrent this or
that?".

Otherwise, I think it's pointless to spend a lot of time typing words
about something subjective like music.  You either like it or you
don't.  

And when it comes to Jazz (at least the stuff I like - post-1975 mostly)
I really don't have a good handle on connecting artists names with their
music.  I think Jazz suffers a lot from that - more than other forms of
music like Pop, top-40, country, etc.  Could be a vocal vs instrumental
thing.

I couldn't name the people behind Spyro Gyra, Yellow Jackets,
Rippingtons, Acoustic Alchemy if my life depended on it.  Yet I've
bought most of their CD's.  But mention their first name and I'll tell
you what each of their last name is.  Sure I know a lot of their names,
but matching their names to their groups?  Sometimes I can.

And being able to tell you the name of any given song, or tell you which
album it came from?  Rarely can I do that - probably because I don't pay
attention.  The names don't really mean anything.

What sort of stuff are you hoping to read in a jazz forum?

Reading other people's "I like this guy but not that guy"?

"I have this album but not that one" ?

I don't know.  I don't see the point.

All I know is that jazz is dying.  Mostly because FM radio is dying.
Because all the really good FM jazz stations turned into Smoooooth Jazz
and then they died too.

And then all the labels think that the CD is going to make a comeback
even if all the brick-and-mortar music stores are closed.

Who's going to be the next Pat Metheny?  Or Rick Braun?

How will anyone know?

I think there's a more fundamental set of problems than the ones you
mentioned.

First there is the repeat of the mistake that the "classical" folks made.
When Schoenberg came on the scene and put forth his great idea of how to
further the already chromatic development music was making with Wagner,
Debussy, and others, he didn't bring the audience along with him -- instead
of the audience dictating the direction the composers did, and the audience
went away for the most part, turning it into a special interest instead of
popular music.
The same thing is happening today, starting with Ornette Coleman and
following through to folks like John Hollenbeck today. There's a segment of
the Jazz crowd who is trying to make the music more and more exotic, but
that's not what ordinary folks listen to. The music no longer connects with
their drives and interests.
The other problem is that Jazz is like the Grateful Dead in that the live
experience is very different from what you hear on packaged music, and the
industry has focused on selling product instead of getting butts in the
seats. I own a lot of Spyrogyra, for example, and I've seen them live, and
the two experiences don't compare at all. (My ex said after the concert, "I
forgot that they're a Jazz band, so this was going to be a Jazz concert,
with all that entails." That really drove the point home for me and got me
to thinking about this stuff.) No one is focusing on getting people out to
hear the music. The labels focus on packaged music, while the academics
spend their time analyzing what someone did in the past. That's not a
healthy model for growth.
The industry really missed a good chance about a decade ago. Nora Jones came
out and caught everyone's attention, and instead of using her as the fine
point of the wedge to  get people exposed to the music in live settings they
dropped the ball. If I were in their shoes I'd have her playing nothing but
big festivals with a bunch of other top live performers in tow and introduce
a whole new segment to the music. But the labels (found under idiot in the
dictionary) instead just tried to copy her as much as possible, which of
course flopped. And that's why she's the only one on a jazz label in the
upper eschelon of record sales.
Jazz has become like folk or the blues -- a few people listen to it, but
it's not a powerhouse. And it's had its chance with big stars and hit
scenes. (Herb Alpert was involved in two of them, and let's not forget Big
Bad Voodoo Daddy and their compatriots, for just three examples of this)
Radio play is indeed a problem, but it's a problem for everyone. The big
problem Smooth Jazz brings to the table is that it's used so often for
background music people start to think of Jazz as muzak.

news:ji5n99$b2v$1@news.albasani.net...

I did play in my younger days. I sill play a trumpet, but not in a group.

              Richard M. Watkin.  Widnes, England.

I don't see why not. On Facebook I just got together with the mastermind
behind Taylor's Universe via a jazz usergroup. I didn't know Taylor's
Universe before he posted a link to some serious progressive jazz I
liked the second I heard it.
http://soundcloud.com/udi-koomran/taylors-universe-firestone

Discussions about jazz, suggestions to discover new artists, links to
legal files on the internet (I know I'm one of very few - but I don't
really care much for Youtube, binary usenet groups or other copyright
violated downloads).

No idea, but I would rather look forward into new artists who push the
limit about what jazz really is. I don't think jazz is going to
disappear, it will change as all other music, and new artists will shine
--
Steen

In the old days when I got a new recording (LP) I probably played it
many times for at least a week or so, and often read the liner notes
and personnell info on the record jackets, and I'd play the whole
recording in a sitting or at least 1 side of it while reading these
liner notes and looking at pictures.

That doesn't happen on CD because there's only 1 side and it's like 70
minutes long, too much for 1 sitting. Also at my age I can't read the
liner information without a magifying glass, so I can't read it in one
hand while I listen and have a drink in the other??
Bg

: I couldn't name the people behind Spyro Gyra, Yellow Jackets,
: Rippingtons, Acoustic Alchemy if my life depended on it.

Whether or not these groups are really "jazz" is often debated.
For classic performances of groups led by Miles Davis, Art Blakey,
Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, etc., most fans would certainly be
able to tell you who is on them.  The difference is that a group
like Spyro Gyra is much more heavily arranged, so the individual
sounds/styles of the particular members isn't as easily identified.
But you can listen to a Miles recording and tell whether it's
Jimmy Cobb or Tony Williams on drums just by how it sounds, because
the players are much more heavily improvised... you don't need to
read the liner notes to be able to tell who is playing.

Well, let me just amend that by saying that I know that Russ Freeman
started the rippingtons and is still a member...

Not by me.  But I'm not much of a fan of pre-1975 jazz music.

Ok, so I scanned my hard drive for stuff by Miles Davis.  I have "Miles
Ahead (1957) and "The man with the horn (1981)".

I'm listening to the first track of Miles Ahead.  Big-band sound,
sort-of a broadway feel to it.  Lots of brass.  Not much of memorable
melody - nothing I could play over in my head.  Mostly improvisation.
Once it's over, I'd be hard pressed to imagine the song in my mind.  I'm
listening to the other tracks.  Sounds like slow ballroom dance music.
It's pleasant sounding, but it just doesn't capture my imagination or
interest for very long.

So now I'm listening to Man with the horn.  First track (Fat time).
Very different feel (as you might expect).  Pretty much a continuous
trumpet solo with edgey, nervous electric guitar in the background, a
marching drum beat.  I'm not a fan of this either, but it holds my
interest longer than the 1957 album.  I fast-forward through the second
track.

Now the third track (shout) I immediately recognize - I've played it
before.  It's something I can follow.  There is a recognizable melody.
It's a somewhat simple melody, it repeats alot, but it's catchy.  The
rest of the tracks on this album don't interest me very much.

I don't see it as a problem, or - I'm not looking for an explanation as
to why its not easy to identify artists in some cases and not others
(although what you say makes sense).

I don't listen to music by trying to identify the players.  If I have
enough experience listening to certain players such that I'm reasonably
sure I can hear them in some new material, well that's nice but it
doesn't mean I'm going to like the track because of it.

Something like that has no impact on how (or whether) I enjoy a given
track.

That's basically the issue.  The extent to which a given track contains
improvisation vs an arranged melody.

As someone who once did play in a competitive high-school jazz band,
there is nothing like the energy that comes from playing.  

But as a listener, I'm more critical of a piece or a performance that
gives something to the listener and is not all about the
self-gratification that comes from playing - and especially playing
improv or free-form solos.  That's why I don't like 80% of Chick Corea's
stuff, but a perfect example of a Corea track I really like is "No
Mystery".

If a piece wasn't structured enough with a recognizable melody that I
can re-play in my head hours or days after I've heard a track, then the
piece really gave me nothing, but I'm sure it was a thrill for the
artists performing it at the time.

So I'm listening now to some Spyro Gyra.  From Morning Dance (1979) the
track Heliopolis is something that's comparable to the brassy sound from
Miles Davis.  I'd like to hear an argument as to why it wouldn't be
classified as jazz.

Now I'm listening to Freefall from the album Breakout (1986).  I think
this is a great jazz track.  So is Doubletake or Whirlwind. (I must be a
sucker for the xylophone).

There are a few artists that are really good at improv and can create
really interesting and memorable solos.  Pat Metheny for one.  As I scan
through the music on my computer I'm listening now to Rainbow Shadows by
Nelson Rangell.  Very dynamic piece for a flute player.

I would suggest picking up Kind of Blue by Miles.

I don't consider Spyrogyra or the rippingtons to be non-jazz. Wynton might
feel that way, but I personally feel too much effort is put into dividing
people instead of looking for commonality.

Spyrogyra, especially in the early days, wasn't a very scripted band, and
I've seen them live, and it definitely comes off as a fusion jazz concert,
with solos and improvisation as one might expect from any artist.
And as for trying to deconstruct Heliopolis, I can't help you there. It's
good jazz funk to my ears in the vein of Chemeleon by Herbie Hancock off the
Headhunters album. (I did a tune for a solo and Ensemble contest back in
highschool that merged those two tunes with Cockatoo off the Catching the
Sun album, called Chemelecockeopolis, which I plan to reinvent as a piece
for five trombones and rhythm at some point)

: Not by me.  But I'm not much of a fan of pre-1975 jazz music.

Saying that one is a fan of jazz, but not much of a fan of pre-1975 jazz,
is a bit of an oxymoron.  Pre-1975 jazz includes the likes of John Coltrane,
Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Lester Young, Louis Armstrong, Art Tatum, etc.
Basically the canon of jazz.  I don't understand what it means to be a
jazz guy, but not a fan of pretty much the core of the music.

: Ok, so I scanned my hard drive for stuff by Miles Davis.  I have "Miles
: Ahead (1957) and "The man with the horn (1981)".

Your analysis of Miles Davis would be strengthened if it were based
on the kind of music that he is most remembered for and had the greatest
impact, such as found on "Kind of Blue" or "Seven Steps to Heaven".

Maybe not the First choice for jazz purists, but the Hancock album
Headhunters is my All time fave jazz album.
I don't need to say I'm not a jazz purist, do I?
As one of the few, I don't care much for Miles Davis - I guess that is what
people call Bebop!
--
Steen via iPad

news:1204898608352654160.873207isteen-gmail.com@news.eternal-september.org...

I wouldn't. I'd call Miles's work about six other things besides Be Bop.
Cool Jazz, then Modal, then Fusion, Jazz-Pop, and some I've missed. And I
generally love just about everything Miles did. There are a few select Jazz
artists like that -- Count Basie, Woody Herman, Spyrogyra, Chris Botti, just
to name a few of them. And of course I can't forget Astrud, Ella, and Urbie
Green either. (And yes, I know about Stan Getz's criticism of Astrud
Gilberto, how she lacked training and such -- I think that says a lot more
about Stan than her)