Here you will find much information about what I love to do more than anything else in the world; make music; especially Jazz but also "Legit" which is a term I use to mean what most people call "Classical". (The problem with the term "Classical" is that Classical is a very specific period of music. Think Mozart, early Beethoven, Hayden etc.. The term "Legit" to me includes everything from Gabrieli to Philip Glass; although I'm not a huge fan of Philip Glass (sorry Philip). Of course, that implies that Jazz is somehow illegitimate and I like kind-of like that too.

I think of Jazz as the music of the underground. The music is all there but sometimes it is intentionally obfuscated. It doesn't take a frontal approach. It kind-of comes in the back door.

It is highly structured and yet, within that structure a great deal of freedom is allowed. Even the freedom to improvise comes with limitations however. A seasoned listener of Jazz knows the language. When the language is a dialect that matches a known dialect, a tremendous amount of information is conveyed. Jazz allows for new dialects too. This is Jazz's double-edge-sword. We allow for a constant innovation and churning of what is the Jazz language. But even new dialects are unlikely to "catch-on" unless they also demonstrate an awareness of one or more known dialects.

I know some people who think that Jazz is just a mumbo-jumbo of random notes and sounds that have no meaning. this is what Jazz sounds like to people who simply don't know the language. It's OK for folks to not know the language. Jazz is not for them. My hope however, is that someday, everyone will understand that Jazz is not random bovine scatology. Jazz musicians are certainly not charlatans! Well.. most aren't. Anyone who has seen the movie called "The Gods must be Crazy" might recall the scene where an African bushman hears a white woman speak (English) for the first time. He observes:

"The funny thing about these gods was that they couldn't speak. They could only make chattering sounds like monkeys."

I like listening to those old songs from my childhood too. But not all day, every day. Classic rock to me is like the pizza I used to eat when I was a kid. It tastes sooooo good. The problem for some people is that they want to eat nothing but pizza every day. And frankly, some of that pizza doesn't have all natural ingredients. Pizza once in a while is great! Our bodies are _designed_ to eat pizza once in a while. Maybe 2 or 3 times a week. But pizza every day for lunch will make us fat. (Don't believe me? Look around!)

We have to vary our diet and we have to vary our music. I know a lot of folks who say they don't listen to "classical" music. Of course this is a load of bull. Anyone who has seen Star Wars has listened to "classical" music. then George Lucas made Star Wars and every sequel that came after, he used "classical" music because he knew he could make more money even _after_ paying the London Symphony Orchestra than he could with any other kind of music. I put to you this assertion: classical music forms the base upon which everything else (even Jazz) is built. John Coltrane would not have had the tertian harmony system to build his "Coltrane Changes" on without Gregorian chant which divided pitch into octaves, fifths and fourths. That had to happen before Mozart could build his symphonies and Clifford Brown could will the most exquisite improvised jazz to emanate from the bell of his trumpet. What was lacking in Western music was what African Americans brought to it. It's not that African Americans are better jazz musicians that European Americans. It's just that we already had the European influence on music. We needed a breath of fresh air that was provided by immigrants from the African continent.

Today, what we have in American music is simply stunning. There is no other way to describe a Freddie Hubbard trumpet solo. I for one prefer to listen to the music of those who think differently than I do. I'm always looking for diverse (but substantial) influences. I try to imagine my brain changing when I hear stunning music. I try to think of neural connections being made that would be impossible without the opportunity to learn a new dialect or language. I'm not a licensed medical professional but it seems to me that learning new music is a great way to keep the brain limber.

But there are some things I've come to believe Jazz isn't. Not to say that Jazz never dabbles in these areas but these things don't seem to me to be core to Jazz's identity.

• Power is not essential for Jazz. Jazz doesn't seem to require a deep throbbing Bass Drum to get its message across. What delicate accents are added to Jazz's higher-tuned Bass Drum are spontaneous rather than regular. Power doesn't seem to require extraordinarily loud volume levels in order to create excitement. When Jazz recordings are processed, the tracks don't have to be as "loud" as in certain other types of music.

  To me, this is an important fact. The message of Rock and Roll seems to be one of commandeering the sonic landscape. It's a hostile takeover of the venue using brute force if necessary. This kind of thinking is deeply entwined in post World War II thinking. Being American means being powerful; or at least it means projecting the image we have for ourselves as being powerful.

  Jazz understands that all things change. Ultimately, we Americans will one day reap the rewards of the seeds of force we are sowing now. Jazz understands that for each and every force, there is an opposing one. Jazz by contrast is about style and finesse.

• Jazz doesn't seem to require much in the way of stress. You don't have to scream jazz to say something meaningful. You can scream if you want but there's not much evidence to suggest that you will garner more fans. The preceding comments are not intended to belittle other music like Rock and Roll. I've tried to play Rock and Roll. There is a right way to do it and my experience is that most Jazz musicians don't know what the right way is.

• Jazz music generally requires a degree of technical facility. You pretty much have to be able to play your ax.
• Jazz music generally requires a deep understanding of music theory. Jazz even has a theory that is all its own. There are ways of making and analyzing music that are unique to Jazz.
• Jazz is personal. Like Rock and Roll, the very best recordings of Jazz are not performed in a large Concert Hall with has a theory that is all its own. There are ways of making and analyzing music that are unique to Jazz.
• Jazz seems to allow for moments of vulnerability. For example, it's not uncommon to hear dynamics in Jazz. (in this case, the word "dynamics" refers to a change in the overall loudness of the performance.)
• Jazz music seems to have some degree of ambiguity to it. Chords are constructed in such a way that they could mean any one of several things depending on their context. This is why some many chords in Jazz are built on 4ths and why many chords are spelled much the same and only the Bass notes clearly defines which chord we are talking about. Even bass lines are walking bass lines. this means that bass notes that are inharmonic with the chord itself are momentarily sounded.
• Jazz music is compressed. In my lifetime, mankind has invented the technology for transmitting highly compressed images over networks. Some networks are simple phone lines. To get images through the network quickly, it just makes sense to "compress" the image first. A great way to compress an image is to identify aspects of the image that repeat. If you can do that, you don't have to send the repeating part every time. You just have to tell the receiving computer "remember that bit of data I sent you a little while back? Ya? Well, I'm not going to send it to you again because it's too long and besides, you should already have it so please put that data again." So Jazz is like that. Rather than play stuff you already know, Jazz explores new melodies and new treatments of the music; variations if you will.
• Related to the topic of compression is the idea that Jazz musicians always strive to give you something original. I remember hearing about Glenn Fry of the Eagles telling Randy Meisner something like "You gotta sing Take it to the Limit. Some of these people have waited a lifetime to hear the Eagles do that song." The idea being that the audience wanted to hear the same exact song played in pretty much exactly the way it was recorded on the record only live. Jazz Musicians would never play anything exactly like they played it on the record. I for one, couldn't do it. Every improvised solo is different. Every time the Bass walks, he picks different notes. The pianist almost never plays the dominant sonority that is written. He will instead embelish with a #9, or a b5 or a 13 or a b9 or some combination of alterations to a straight 7 chord. Since you've already heard the record, why hear it yet again? Jazz musicians will improvise something new for you right there on-the-spot.
• Also related to the topic of compression is the fact that you can't listen to any 5 second chunk of Jazz and get much of anything from it. Because everything is "compressed", you have to know where you are in the "form" to understand what's going on. My ex-wife's Mother is a dear sweet woman who is highly intelligent and a superb learner of languages other than her native language; English. She has always be open with me about the fact that she doesn't enjoy listening to Jazz music. After talking with her a while, I realized that she wasn't able to keep track of where the music was in the "form". Improvised jazz typically plays the melody one time at the beginning of the tune. This is the statement of the form. Unlike other forms of music, the form (or chord progression) is assumed to be the same for each chorus and your brain has to know where you are in the form. If you only listen to a short 2 or 3 second cross section of the tune, you can't know where you are. The notes and chords will be different every time through the form but it is assumed that you know what chord went there originally. Unless you can do that, jazz is pretty well meaningless. It's no wonder so many people think Jazz is mindless mumbo-jumbo! it takes practice to learn to listen to Jazz and most people don't see any reason to take the time to practice listening to Jazz when they could just listen to something that makes it obvious where you are!
• Jazz is genuine. Improvising takes every bit of skill and intellect you have. The minute you master some lick or style, it's time to move on and try to grasp the next one. But this is good. When you improvise to the highst level that your abilities will allow, there is no way to censor the sound that comes out. What people hear is really how you feel at that very moment. As George Burns, Groucho Marx, Samuel Goldwyn are all credited with saying (and I'm paraphrasing here).

  "The most important thing is honesty. Once you can fake that, you've got it made."

  I'm kidding of course. But maybe they aren't? Dunno.. I've always wondered how the recipients of Academy Awards really feel about receiving their awards. I mean, they are getting an award for acting, right? If anyone could fake it, it would be them.
• Jazz is in some ways Pollyannaish; candid and sometimes unreasonably optimistic. The idea of playing anything other than the very best music and telling the most truthful story about how they really feel at that moment in time has never occurred to most Jazz musicians. Sure, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea (to a lesser degree) "sold out" but even their so-called sell-out music is still very highly complex and I for one believe that they really felt the way they were playing and so it falls within the broad category of Jazz.
• Jazz is Good music played by outstanding musicans. When arranged, it is arranged by the very best arrangers. The first time I tried to find Frank Sinatra records in the public library, I was actually surprised not to find them in the Jazz section. I had to go to the Pop music section. Somehow, Jazz seems to have absorbed the very best of what we used to call Pop music in our country. But I think that's because Pop music used to be made by the best musicians. I don't want to berate Pop music of today. But today's Pop music is made by the best engineers and not necessarily the best musicians. Michael Jackson's Thriller was an exception having been produced by the great Jazz musician, arranger and trumpeter Quincy Jones. I for one am flattered to be lumped into the broad category of works by Nelson Riddle, Billy May, Niel Hefti and the likes.