How come jazz music....
http://www.rcip.com/nerdgerl
as a musician, are you putting in that stuff!!!
*No Other* music has this effect. WHY?????
Ed H.
<http://www.rcip.com/nerdgerl> wrote in message
news:v5d6119...@corp.supernews.com...
processes.I don't mean that in a mean sense btw. Jazz is free flowing, kind
of like where you want your mind, while creating. Music and art creativity,
are a lot alike. You close your eyes and let your mind enjoy your
imagination....in what ever form of creativity it leads you to.
Geeze...that sounds like Betty Edwards <g>
Ed
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Carmine Rhedd
ed...@worldnet.att.net says...
>Geeze...that sounds like Betty Edwards <g>
>Ed
I was listening to "LIVE FROM THE LANDING"
recently, and they had a singer who sounds
just like Billy Holliday and she spent the
entire hour singing Billy's songs. I should
have written her name down.
In any event, I listen to an evening of jazz
every Saturday night on my local NPR station,
beginning with Marion McPartland's "PIANO JAZZ."
Good blues and jazz and what else does a
person need from life?
Ed H.
passed away a few years ago, from cancer, at a way too young age.
Ed
"Carmine Rhedd" <re...@noemailever.com> wrote in message
news:3e56...@news.zianet.com...
Carmine Rhedd
ed...@worldnet.att.net says...
>
>> I was listening to "LIVE FROM THE LANDING"
>> recently, and they had a singer who sounds
>> just like Billy Holliday and she spent the
>> entire hour singing Billy's songs. I should
>> have written her name down.
>Live from the Landing is by the late Eva Cassidy. A DC area singer who
>passed away a few years ago, from cancer, at a way too young age.
>Ed
We're talking about two different venues.
I was referring to the NPR radio program
I listen to every Sat evening that I'm home
that originates from the San Antonio, Texas
River Walk. The Landing is a stage on
the banks of the River Walk in downtown
San Antonio. The featured band is Bill Cullen's
and the program is mostly traditional jazz.
I've never heard any progressive jazz on the
program.
Marc Sabatella
I can't see what you see, obviously, but since you brought the subject
up, I can make a couple of observations about the relationship of jazz
to art.
Jazz is defined largely by improvisation. It is one of the most
fundamental elements of the genre. Now, visual artists often throw that
term about as well. But it seems that most of the time, they miss the
mark. In a way that I don't think most people fully appreciate,
virtually *all* visual art is improvised to more or less the same degree
as jazz is.
The only exceptions would be a direct copy of another painting or
paint-by-numbers. Of course, this comes of as condescending an perhaps
insulting, and isn't meant that way, but in a very real sense, playing
non-improvised music *is* a lot like paint-by-numbers. Someone else, by
means of dots and lines on a page, tells you exactly what notes to play
and when and for how long to play them. The difference between this and
paint-by-number - and the reason the comparison is not actually as
condescending as as it appears - is that the act of playing those dots
in a convincing manner on one's instrument is infinitely more difficult
than the act of putting a blob of paint mixture "17" in the little place
where it is called for. It would be more akin to paint-by-numbers with
a timer, such that if the painting calls for total of 146 brush
strokes, and we assume each stroke takes 4 seconds (including time to
load and clean the brush), then you'd have exactly 146x4 seconds to
complete the painting - and an audience would be watching. And, BTW,
your brush strokes would be expected to be more expressive in various
ways (edge handling, for instance) than what an amateur would
accomplish. It would actually be quite a feat, as is playing classical
music. But as creative endeavors, these are of a decidedly different
nature than creating a painting "from scratch", or playing jazz.
Now, jazz is not usually 100% improvised. There are usually written out
figures to be played at various points in the performance, and
structural guidelines as to how the improvisation will progress, such
that a performance of one composition, even though it may be largely
improvised, can be guaranteed to sound different from a performance of a
different composition. This is roughly similar to what happens with
representational art. There may be a lot of leeway in personal
interpretation, just as there is in the improvised component to jazz,
but a painting of a rushing waterfall in spring is likely to look
different than a painting of my grandmother, leeway or no leeway.
*Your* painting of the waterfall may look different than *mine*, just as
*your* performance of "All The Things You Are" may sound different than
mine. And, for that matter, two different paintings you do of the same
waterfall may differ, just as two different performances of "All The
Things You Are" by the same musician may differ. This is the element of
improvisation in both fields.
The analogy works pretty well on a lot of levels. Abstract art ends up
being roughly comparable to free improvisation, which is basically
improvisation *not* based on any sort of traditional pre-determined
structure, just as abstract art is art *not* based on representing any
particular real objects. And there end up being about the same type of
issues and controversy surrounding this in both fields, with advocates
of "realism" (or "mainstream jazz") accusing the avant-garde of lacking
the basic skills need to follow the structures, and the avant-garde
accusing the traditionalists of promoting craft at the expense of
creativty.
The level at which most commentators on improvisation in art seem to be
shooting for is actually pretty subtle in comparison, but once you
understand the big picture, can be worth examining further. For
instance, any given piece (or visual art of jazz) has balance of the
improvised and the planned, and one can decide how much improvisation
one wants, versus how much one wants planned ahead of time. One
musician may come up with an introduction for a piece and play it
virtually the same way every time, and relegate improvisation to a later
point in the performance. Another might choose to improvise a new
opening every time. In visual art, I'm not so sure we can use the
analogy quite so directly, as very little tends to be planned and
repeated in this same way (except, again, for copying and
paint-by-numbers), but similar types of issues come up with regards to,
for instance, finishing a piece. Leaving the painting up in your studio
for weeks, adding a couple more possibly "final" strokes every day, but
then finding something else to tweak the next, does not *feel* like
improvisation. As opposed to finishing a painting session and saying,
"like it or not, this painting is done". Similarly, color selection
(and this relates to one of my responses in the watercolor for beginners
thread) - spending a long time mixing exactly the right shade for a
little splotch does not feel like improvising in the same way that
quickly finding something close enough and then spending time making it
work throughout the painting does. In improvisation, I don't have a lot
of time to plan my next phrase - I have to play something. It might not
be what would be considered ideal had I time to sit and think about it,
but it's too late to worry about that now. I've played the phrase, now
I have to play other phrases that develop that idea.
For all this talk about improvisation, I've actually glossed over one
very important difference between art and music. In music, there are
usually two people involved in the act of creating music - the composer
who specifies what is to be played, and the performer who plays it.
Improvisation is what happens when the performer inserts more of his own
ideas (which, of course, the composer may well have specifically asked
him to do; I don't mean that the performer is going against the wishes
of the composer when he improvised). In art, we don't have that same
distinction between composer and performer - except, again, in the case
of copying a painting or paint by numbers.
Well, does any of this have anything whatsoever to do with your actual
question? I don't know. I can imagine ways in which it might relate.
The spontaneity of improvisation usually means a relatively large number
of ideas are coming into the music, as opposed to more composed music,
in which typically fewer ideas are developed more thoroughly. Perhaps
something about all those new ideas popping up in a jazz performance
triggers something for you visually as well. Or then, it could be
something completely unrelated to improvisation - there are other
elements of jazz, such as swing rhythm, syncopation, blues
melodic/harmonic language - that you could be responding to. But
improvisation is the one I've given the most thought to of art.
--------------
Marc Sabatella
ma...@outsideshore.com
Check out my visual art:
http://www.outsideshore.com/marc/art/
http://www.rcip.com/nerdgerl
*invade* my mind. It's like being "high" :-)
Ed H. <ed...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in article
<0Ay5a.45165$rq4.3...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>...
>
> <http://www.rcip.com/nerdgerl> wrote in message
> news:v5d6119...@corp.supernews.com...
> > Makes me "see" stuff (what I draw). Ok, not just that, but shapes too!
> What,
> > as a musician, are you putting in that stuff!!!
> >
> > *No Other* music has this effect. WHY?????
> >
> I'll bet it's because it's not getting in the way of your thought
> processes.I don't mean that in a mean sense btw. Jazz is free flowing, kind
> of like where you want your mind, while creating. Music and art creativity,
> are a lot alike. You close your eyes and let your mind enjoy your
> imagination....in what ever form of creativity it leads you to.
>
> Geeze...that sounds like Betty Edwards <g>
> Ed
>
>
http://www.rcip.com/nerdgerl
<UGs6a.2032$qh.8...@news.uswest.net>...
> > Makes me "see" stuff (what I draw). Ok, not just that, but shapes too!
> What,
> > as a musician, are you putting in that stuff!!!
> >
> > *No Other* music has this effect. WHY?????
>
> up, I can make a couple of observations about the relationship of jazz
> to art.
>
> Jazz is defined largely by improvisation. It is one of the most
> fundamental elements of the genre. Now, visual artists often throw that
> term about as well. But it seems that most of the time, they miss the
> mark. In a way that I don't think most people fully appreciate,
> virtually *all* visual art is improvised to more or less the same degree
> as jazz is.
>
> The only exceptions would be a direct copy of another painting or
> paint-by-numbers. Of course, this comes of as condescending an perhaps
> insulting, and isn't meant that way, but in a very real sense, playing
> non-improvised music *is* a lot like paint-by-numbers. Someone else, by
> means of dots and lines on a page, tells you exactly what notes to play
> and when and for how long to play them. The difference between this and
> paint-by-number - and the reason the comparison is not actually as
> condescending as as it appears - is that the act of playing those dots
(notes - I play violin :-)
Yes! Yes! There are chords and passages and rhythms, in jazz (only) that can
bring me to tears, take me into outer space, give me wings, put me in the
middle of the desert, allow me to fly ufo's, and see/do all kinds of crazy
stuff. It's almost like a DRUG!
Harmonic language eh? Hmm....
Thanks!
Neil Maxwell
<ma...@outsideshore.com> wrote:
>Jazz is defined largely by improvisation. It is one of the most
>fundamental elements of the genre. Now, visual artists often throw that
>term about as well. But it seems that most of the time, they miss the
>mark. In a way that I don't think most people fully appreciate,
>virtually *all* visual art is improvised to more or less the same degree
>as jazz is.
When I'm working on something, I just assume it will diverge from my
ideas and sketches. The act of putting a piece together stimulates
improvisation far more the brainstorming and prep that precedes it.
If a piece comes out exactly as I initially envisioned it, I'm
disappointed, and it means I've run dry. Doesn't happen too often,
though.
Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer