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Thread: How to become a famous jazz musician

  1. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    But how many years ago are you talking about. I'm talking about now. How many famous jazz musicians are there under the age of 30 right this minute?!
    Well, can we include folks who are just over 30?

    Trumpeter Christian Scott, 31
    Trumpetwr Ambrose Akinmusire, 32
    Keyboardist Tigran (Hamasyan), 27 (the latter two were given "by invitation" spots at this yewr's Momtreal Jazz Fest and they are not given to folks who are not well established and well known)
    Guitarist Julian Lage, 27

    These four come to mind without giving it much thought, so there are definitely more if I put my mind to it...will this satisfy you for the moment?

  2. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Facelift View Post
    Yep. It read very much like a "I don't get it, so I'm gonna bash it" sort of thing. The writer is probably a person who does have an interest in music of some sort/s; just not jazz, apparently.
    No, I suspect that he does have an interest in jazz, or he wouldn't bother with this nonsense. After all, if he had no interest, it wouldn't even occur to him to do something like this - why put down something you don't care about?. It's more, I would guess, that he's fairly narrow-minded and thinks he knows exactly what type of jazz and which artists are worthwhile. And, of course, what and which aren't.

    For example, his putdown of Steve Lehman. Has he even made an effort and listened to the guy? Or has he put an album on for thirty seconds, gone: "Can't tap my foot, can't hum the tune, it just sort of grows outward from silence rather than repeating, it's not blues, it's not bop, it's cool rather than wailing and exuberant - so it must be intellectualized crap," and then cranked out his pseudo-witty vituperation? Lehman's music may not be easy - his Mise en Abime reminds me of Dolphy's Out to Lunch with a larger band - but it's very musical. And that dissertation the writer slams, simply by quoting its obscure and wordy title, is much more readable than you'd think. It describes Lehman's interest in two very different musical movements - the American jazz tradition and European "spectral" composition - how he synthesizes the two to build his own music, and how he even found common ground in Ellington, Monk, and Coltrane and in the French "spectral" composers' interest in jazz.
    Last edited by Baribrotzer; 12-29-2014 at 07:25 AM.

  3. #28
    Mod or rocker? Mocker. Frumious B's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by trurl View Post
    Do they have sarcasm on the planets that some of you are from?
    There's no such word as "sarcasm" in progressive rock, Marigold.

  4. #29
    facetious maximus Yves's Avatar
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    There goes 5 minutes of my life I'll never get back.
    "Corn Flakes pissed in. You ranted. Mission accomplished. Thread closed."

    -Cozy 3:16-

  5. #30
    Member No Pride's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by trurl View Post
    Do they have sarcasm on the planets that some of you are from?
    Sarcasm is worthless unless there's some actual humor involved. And it helps to know something about the subject you're lampooning. There are microscopic traces of both in that article, but not enough to make it much more than a waste of time and space.

  6. #31
    Progga mogrooves's Avatar
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    Evidently, this guy is from the Terry Teachout-Gene Lees-Richard Sudhalter-Randall Sandke school of jazz criticism. "Sarcasm" is not their forté; but ressentiment is.
    Hell, they ain't even old-timey ! - Homer Stokes

  7. #32
    Norah Jones is kinda jazzy, and she was under thirty up until five years ago. (and rather famous at an early age)

  8. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    You have to be able to swing...
    Yeah, I always when I hear jazzholes say this.

    I think an accurate term for the author of this article is passive/agressive. A lame attempt at humor while attacking and insulting jazz musicians.

  9. #34
    Member Phlakaton's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    Dude, what rock have you been living under for the last 50 years?! The blue police call box is only one of the most significant items in pop culture (even if it took mainstream America 40 years to catch on).
    A nice rock. One that doesn't give a shit about tv shows - I'm assuming it was a Doctor Who thing - but wasn't totally sure.
    Last edited by Phlakaton; 12-29-2014 at 04:33 PM.

  10. #35
    Phil Collins ruined both jazz and sarcasm.

  11. #36
    Member Since: 3/27/2002 MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    Dude, what rock have you been living under for the last 50 years?! The blue police call box is only one of the most significant items in pop culture (even if it took mainstream America 40 years to catch on).
    In the episodes with Hartnell and Troughton (my favorites) the police box was grey
    Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?

  12. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by Baribrotzer View Post
    It describes Lehman's interest in two very different musical movements - the American jazz tradition and European "spectral" composition - how he synthesizes the two to build his own music, and how he even found common ground in Ellington, Monk, and Coltrane and in the French "spectral" composers' interest in jazz.
    I had to go look up "spectral music". Do you think there's some reason that the composers in that school are not household names? I understand that academic music needs to be listened to as if it's being studied, but the vast majority of the audience wants something that they have some frame of reference for. I'm firmly in the camp of those who think that certain music sounds pleasant to the ear in a natural way and it might be something that evolved that way. In some distant past, proto-humans had to be able to use their hearing to warn them of danger. A tweeting bird and a roar are vastly differing in pleasure to the ear. The former means safe, the latter, danger. It's entirely possible that humans are uncomfortable with harsh or dissonant sounds because it signals as a danger motif to their brains.

  13. #38
    Member proggy_jazzer's Avatar
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    Wow, what a stale, weak attempt. Here's an idea: substitute "Insufferable bitter failed college student musicians" for "Monsteritis" and...problem solved!
    http://www.simpsonsworld.com/video/320696387834
    David
    Happy with what I have to be happy with.

  14. #39
    facetious maximus Yves's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by profusion View Post
    Phil Collins ruined both jazz and sarcasm.

    Both of which The Beatles invented.
    "Corn Flakes pissed in. You ranted. Mission accomplished. Thread closed."

    -Cozy 3:16-

  15. #40
    Practice like your life depends on it and play as many jams and gigs as possible. Play the most famous jazz clubs. Fame is relative so I'm not sure I'd shoot for that.

  16. #41
    Progga mogrooves's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Leibowitz View Post
    Fame is relative so I'm not sure I'd shoot for that.
    +1. The music is its own reward.
    Hell, they ain't even old-timey ! - Homer Stokes

  17. #42
    Did anyone here see this (very American) movie on the subject ?


  18. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by Frumious B View Post
    There's no such word as "sarcasm" in progressive rock, Marigold.
    List of sarcastic prog songs:

    Yes, "Owner of a Lonely Heart"
    ELP, "The Only Way (Hymn)"

    Henry
    Where Are They Now? Yes news: http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/wh_now.htm
    Blogdegezou, the accompanying blog: http://bondegezou.blogspot.com/

  19. #44
    Yeah. Whiplash. One of my favorite movies this year. Intense. What did you think of it?

  20. #45

  21. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by Splicer View Post
    I had to go look up "spectral music". Do you think there's some reason that the composers in that school are not household names? I understand that academic music needs to be listened to as if it's being studied, but the vast majority of the audience wants something that they have some frame of reference for. I'm firmly in the camp of those who think that certain music sounds pleasant to the ear in a natural way and it might be something that evolved that way. In some distant past, proto-humans had to be able to use their hearing to warn them of danger. A tweeting bird and a roar are vastly differing in pleasure to the ear. The former means safe, the latter, danger. It's entirely possible that humans are uncomfortable with harsh or dissonant sounds because it signals as a danger motif to their brains.
    But have you heard Lehman? At least in my opinion, his Mise en Abime is quite listenable. While it's not full of hummable, foot-tap-able tunes, and far more resembles a sort of modernized cool jazz than hard bop, it's also far from chaotic or unrelievedly dissonant. The only things that really seem unusual or "spectral" about it are the occasional shimmering, gong-like sounds emerging from Lehman's laptop - and while they aren't a standard ingredient of jazz, they sound just fine in the context of his music and his band. And while he may derive his harmonic vocabulary from computer analysis of various musical and non-musical sounds, the results sound far more like extended jazz voicings, very much in the Mingus tradition, than difficult, rigorously intellectual deconstructions and resyntheses of sound. Indeed, one point of his paper is that Duke, Monk, and other jazz greats may have been able to analyse sounds into their constituent overtones by ear, without computers, and then could re-create approximations of them with acoustic instruments.
    Last edited by Baribrotzer; 12-31-2014 at 11:44 PM.

  22. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by Leibowitz View Post
    Yeah. Whiplash. One of my favorite movies this year. Intense. What did you think of it?
    Intense indeed, and even brutal, but (unlike, say, Black Swan) not entirely devoid of subtlety. Superb soundtrack, with that funky Don Ellis piece in 14/8.
    Last edited by unclemeat; 01-06-2015 at 05:26 PM.

  23. #48
    Quote Originally Posted by Splicer View Post
    I'm firmly in the camp of those who think that certain music sounds pleasant to the ear in a natural way
    Actually, that 'natural way' was a chief concern of the early spectralists (Grisey, Murail), but not in the 'Darwinian' sense you advocate.

  24. #49
    Recently Resurrected zombywoof's Avatar
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    Anyone who doesn't want to read this, I'll provide a summary ...

    "I don't get it, anyone who does is only pretending to in order to look cool."

  25. #50
    Progga mogrooves's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by zombywoof View Post
    Anyone who doesn't want to read this, I'll provide a summary ...

    "I don't get it, anyone who does is only pretending to in order to look cool."
    Perhaps, but I think it's been a long time since digging jazz was considered "cool."
    Hell, they ain't even old-timey ! - Homer Stokes

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