People try to create a formula for everything so that there can be a clear way to distinguish the right way from the wrong. Art, unfortunately, has its issues with this concept as people try to formulate exactly how something should be. In the case of music, jazz seems to be one of the contenders for "best music out there."
Don\'t get me wrong, jazz requires an amazing talent to play — or, play well, anyway — so it\'s easy for many to assume the logic that: an amazing group of musicians, playing an amazingly difficult sheet of music, equals to an amazingly good show. Not quite.
Here\'s the issue I take with jazz, and I should add that I\'m currently in a jazz appreciation class so I\'ve been inundated with everything jazz lately, but my issue is that jazz lacks heart.
Throughout this jazz course I have heard some really good music by great artists that have a lot of heart as well as virtuosity, but then again, we\'re studying the innovators, originators and icons of the genre, so of course they\'re going to have the whole package. But I don\'t think it\'s unfair to assume that the same message would transfer to today\'s artists.
As the evolution of jazz goes, the best instrumentalists (notice I\'m reserving the word artists) play jazz because it allows them to show off their skills, which are often phenomenal, but where\'s the passion that makes music great? The story telling element of composed music? I could care less about watching people take turns playing solos for five minutes each.
Jazz music takes the idea that the perfect music could be quantified into one genre because of the skill it requires. But I don\'t feel that way. Music, I feel, is completely subjective, and therefore cannot be placed into classes or degrees of best music to worst music.
Furthermore, watching jazz bands — not all, of course — is like watching the cogs of a finely crafted machine, each with its incredibly intricate parts perfectly working in pristine order. The image fails in comparison to watching a leaf blow to and fro in the wind without a sense of direction or design, yet it is also a thing of wonder because even though it Lacks the complexity of the machine it still renders the mind silent as you watch the leaf\'s shifting and swerving flint pattern. Music doesn\'t have to be complicated to be amazing.
while at the festival I bumped into another student (Sonia) in my class that shared my thoughts.
She said that the music. Was "boring and uninspired," which I totally agree with.
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