tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5114353219480265259.post8933917553054723562..comments2024-01-07T14:25:51.724-08:00Comments on Sgt. Tanuki's Lonely Hearts Club Blog: Cal Tjader: Talkin' Verve (1996)Tanukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00010917992146986329noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5114353219480265259.post-47681382946604606442011-11-19T12:44:50.978-08:002011-11-19T12:44:50.978-08:00Much belated response to this but, yeah. Yeah. Y...Much belated response to this but, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So much here.<br /><br />Like, since I was raised - not just through reading criticism, but through being a marching/concert band kid in high school who played the wrong instrument (clarinet) and not well enough to get into the school jazz band - with the mystique of the jazz improviser, it blew my mind when I first learned that jazz musicians often memorize, plan out, or otherwise compose their soli. Like, that's not what Wynton tells Ken Burns. But it sure stands to reason. Like, playing the same tune night after night, how could you *not* find things you liked, that worked real well, that audiences responded to, and that you therefore wanted to repeat? Especially if you're going to set it down on vinyl in front of God and everybody.Tanukihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00010917992146986329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5114353219480265259.post-31723570853211817712011-10-02T19:46:08.891-07:002011-10-02T19:46:08.891-07:00"Basically he was doing stuff that hit what h..."Basically he was doing stuff that hit what he considered to be the sweet spot between jazz and pop. That is, music with the virtues of pop - accessibility, tunefulness, emotional directness - and the instrumental richness of jazz. ... I don't think the idea of a jazzy pop, or a pop-inflected jazz, is intrinsically a bad one. It certainly could never replace challenging, avant-garde jazz, but they could coexist."<br /><br />Interesting to read in the Wikipedia article that Taylor was apparently one of the driving forces behind the importation of Bossa Nova, which is another genre all mixed up with the pop/jazz nexus, and just as prone to... elevatorization, I guess. <br /><br />The problem with the idea of a jazzy pop or poppy jazz starts with definitions, I think. We know them when we hear them, but are there such things as minimal definitions? If we require "swing" for jazz then (a) we are just shifting the definitional thing up a level (e.g. does Monk "swing" in the same sense that Parker does?), and (b) we are excluding lots of music that gets called jazz but actually doesn't swing (Afro-Cuban, 3rd stream, etc.) Requiring improvisation sounds good, but then again lots of jazz soloists basically memorize their solos (only improvising around the edges), certain genres involved very little improvisation at all, and on the other hand some pop/rock guitarists improvise their own solos. Etc. etc.Matthttp://no-sword.jp/blog/noreply@blogger.com