PAUL
VERNON CHESTER
Manouche Maestro
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Manouche Maestro |
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Jazz Appreciation Allow yourself to be seduced by the now ubiquitous Jazz - How does one get into Jazz - it appears to be quite impenetrable initially - too many notes, complex melodies that are heavily improvised within a wide spectrum of music formats from Traditional Jazz to Swing, to Be-Bop - to Fusion and Free Form Jazz. Devotees all insist their shade of the Jazz spectrum is 'where it is at' but if one simply listens you can enjoy the full rainbow of Jazz Colours. Even the musicians continually traverse the colour spectrum and defy their former purist fans. When Bruce Turner joined Humphrey Lyttleton's Band the fans held up signs saying - Go Home 'Dirty Bopper' because of his associations with Modern Music.
Jazz in its time and
many formats has been the popular music of the Day - The Roaring Twenties - the
Swing Era, Bebop and the Cool - Take Five by the Dave Brubeck/Paul Desmond
Quartet hit the charts displacing the 3 minute popular song with a very complex
5/4 time piece of jazz composition that was meant as a platform for a 'drum
solo' by Joe Morello. This gave rise to further tempo experiments on their
album Time Out. Jazz exposure on the media is shrinking but still sought after - as it gets marginalised to odd time slots at 4pm in the afternoon or 1am in the morning the general public fail to get enough exposure to it and educate their ears to art form of self expression. Compare that to the complex rhythm mix recordings and heavily overlaid Rap recordings that pound out at all hours from many commercial FM stations. Also Radio 3, and Classic FM is dedicated to another minority form of Classic Music to which all must aspire, it seems.
The Dorsey Brothers, Louis Prima, Louis Jordan, Earl Bostic, Duke Ellington, Phil Harris and Cab Calloway have all broken through into the popular cultures in their day but they were essentially guys who had perfected their 'Jazz Chops'. The truth is you are most certainly already listening to jazz without knowing it and you should pursue the sound you like and you will find that all those nostalgic tunes from the Great American Song Book were either written and or performed by established Jazz Musicians. Just allow yourself to follow the music it will lead you to higher levels of understanding and you may well be able to appreciate such highly complex musicians as Django Reinhardt, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, John Coltrane. Saxophone Colossus - Sonny Rollins wrote and performed the Musical Score for the first edition of the (Michael Caine) Film 'Alfie' and greatly enhanced the impact of this film on the wider filmgoers. The illiterate Django Reinhardt who was at the peak of his performance in the World War II years with Manouche Swing, was Europe's first Jazz performer to be recognised and admired by the then omnipotent Americans - we have surpassed that era with names like 'Toots' Thielemans, Victor Feldman, George Shearing, Jan Garberek and John McLaughlin. Jazz is an evolving form of musical expression and is now well over a hundred years old -developed during Django's 1st Centenary and like Django every new generation produces a superb performer who moves it further forward or down another avenue as a widely magnificent art genre that should form part of your musical experience in addition to Rock, Pops or Classical Music. So keep your 'Ears
Open' for the ever changing and subtle introducyion 'Sounds of Jazz' and get on
the Aural Path to Nirvana. All Jazz is based on the Blues, The (Bad)
Penny will eventually drop - it's like understanding a familiar language being
expressed with an as yet unfamiliar accent. - Jazzeddie |
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Jazz
can be approached through many avenues of music as Jazz Musicians are often
featured on the most popular of light music forms - even rock records.
Their talents for improvisation and expression are much admired and they are the
first call as 'session men'. Nelson Riddle the arranger used many
Jazzmen on the million seller 'Songs for Swingin Lovers' album to support Frank
Sinatra's vocals with delightful open statements from the likes of Harry
'Sweets' Edison on muted Trumpet and Buddy Collette on flute for these 'hooks'
and middle eight solos. The Pet Shop Boy's hired Miles Davis to embellish
one of their pop songs. The Beatles at Abbey Road called on many Jazzmen
like Ronnie Scott to flesh out their songs and add complex horn arrangements.
Jazz
Musicians are often unknown other than for their popular ballads - Louis
Armstrong, Billy Holiday, Lena Horne, Buddy Greco and Ella Fitzgerald.
Jamie Cullum as a youthful crooner honed his Jazz Chops on the chittlin' circuit
in the Home Counties and now champions the Best of Jazz (reviving Humph's old
Monday Evening slot) with a Radio 2 Jazz orientated programme. There was a
time when jazz lovers had to fine tune the medium wave for the Frankfurt based
American Forces Network and tolerate distorted Shortwave Radio to listen to the
Voice of America - Jazz Hour to hear their musical hero's being introduced by
Willis Conover the Presenter.
