Originally Posted by
David Lewis
You're right, but this is the problem: jazz has become so institutionalised that there is a 'right' way and a 'wrong' way. Yet, Jethro Burns, Jason Anick, Chris Biesterfieldt, Don Stiernberg, Dave Appollon, Mike Marshall, David Grisman, Sam Bush, can be just as innovative and exciting as Armstrong, Monk, Davis, Coleman, Parker, Gillespie. (Not always, of course, but there are moments) (and list in no order). Bela Fleck and Tony Trishka and Bill Evans on banjo...
I guess we work out - 1) Jazz is dead and is being curated. You can only play it on certain instruments, and each instrument must follow a certain format (though you can be creative within that format). This has happened with musch music. Write a sonata, and try and break the rules. Or write a sympony. Or even a musical.
or 2) Jazz to survive needs to remember that the great players innovated - they broke the rules and pushed the format further. They also caught an audience. Jazz currently holds something like 2% of the recording sales... maybe we need innovators - real ones, not just 'sounds like Miles, or Alan Holdsworth, or Parker'. Maybe it's waiting for its next innovator. Maybe that's the OP.
Learn the forms of jazz. Then break the rules. And don't listen to anyone who tells you 'you're doing it wrong'. The whole history of jazz is 'doing it wrong'. Armstrong's alleged criticism of bop as 'Chinese music', or Miles' disdain for the technique of bop. The traditionalists dislike of Metheny. Learn it on the mandolin, or learn it on the tin-whistle, or learn it on the bagpipes. (All of these instruments have great jazz players). Until we fail, we haven't succeeded.
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