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...and by the way...notice that country music fans make similar complaints...
"Thats not country"
"Thats just rock and roll..."
"kids these days...what are they listening to?..."
..and so on. Its been going on for decades and yet country is a long way from being dead.
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I think the general decline in interest in jazz, classical, and other (dare we say thinking people's?) music coincides with the subtraction of music education from public schools. Where else, except in rare instances of family or close friends, is a child likely to be exposed to a forward-looking, skilled musician who is willing to pass on his or her enthusiasm for instruments and genres not generally heard on the radio? Any kid these days can tell you where to get contraceptives, not so much about the 12 (jazz) chords and their inversions, or know what a downbeat is besides what you do to that kid in the class that nobody likes. What's left is children who, if they have any interest in playing music at all, want to learn pop songs or be a DJ. You can keep all that technical crap as far as they are concerned. Now, where's that Xbox controller?
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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I can echo Mac's sentiments......and also endorse Pat Marr's approach to Jazz.
I have composed some Ragtime & Traddie pieces, and I have played the Edinburgh International Jazz Fest for the last 11 years.
But Trad Jazz in Scotland, (although it packs them in for Jazz Fests).....is very scarce for the rest of the time.
Joe G.
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In my opinion, which I think mirror's bobcflatpicker's comments, is there is a point with any type of music where the cleverness of the music outruns the general public's ability to enjoy it and follow it. my wife used to describe this phenomenon as "the emperor's new music" (If you aren't familiar with the classic tale of the emperor's new clothes, you won't catch her meaning) another description might be "institutionalized crap" meaning something the elitists have blessed, and therefore anybody who doesn't like it must be neanderthal, so nobody will speak their true opinion. My summary is that if an artist's main goal is to be "different", then anything goes, and the public may not like it. But if the artist's goal is to rediscover beauty in a new way, it seems that everybody in every culture embraces beauty.
Last edited by Pat Marr; 05/21/13 09:17 AM.
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Think about it a minute.
Many jazz players like to improvise over "standards" - which are invariably copyrighed materials.
The Forum Rules get in the way of that, though.
And, while there are jazzers who write their own material, I think you will find far more who are not writers but prefer to improvise over the copyrighted songs already out there in the jazz world.
--Mac Bingo, that is my story and I am sticking to it. 
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[quote]My summary is that if an artist's main goal is to be "different", then anything goes, and the public may not like it. But if the artist's goal is to rediscover beauty in a new way, it seems that everybody in every culture embraces beauty. IMO....musically speaking it's all been played or done before by someone. As touched upon above it's up to us as writers/composers to create a song that is refreshing and performed/delivered in an appealing fashion regardless of the genre. That's the big challenge along with a convincing personal performance becomes key to it's appeal. That's my take on it. Carry on....
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I don't think it has all been played yet at all.
Part of the continuous process is that a music development must first be recognizable by the public, and that can take time.
For example, a lot of the changes and even chords that are common today were not in common use a few hundred years ago, sometimes for reasons of the technology, for example, the Just Intonation was not able to sound many of these chords properly such that they sound cacaphonous, that had to wait until the Tempered Scale came into use by the majority, in other cases, the human ear development as to what was acceptable just wasn't there, as in the case of the Tritone, which is hiding in every dominant 7th chord.
The Blues had to wait until the people could digest the Blues Chord. etc.
There is still a lot of music out there somewhere.
--Mac
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Jazz ...modern jazz composition...a lil jazz...a lil classic...add a lil scat...a lil Dixieland...
Which I was thoroughly "weened on" internationally known Chicago Institue of Design (a masters in nude drawing......
...while our swingin' Wells Street BEIDERBECK SWING BAND,
Dixieland "slammers'.... played Dixie Jazz...to jolt their artistic pursuits...
located above all these artists, performers, adonisis, venus0-tyo models..
... "the artistes and lovely models "doing wonderful things with their pastels, accrylli and clay....SCULTURING TO DIXIELAND STREET MUSIC! SO COOL FOR THE ASPIRING ARTISTS!...AND US BANDMEMBERS!
baby...just wet clay in their talented hands...and valves, reeds and wet strings in ours
Sun Rae or Ornette, Herbert Laws....GREAT STUFF FROM OUTSIDE!
OUR OWN MAT...with his oblique right turns, and definitely cool sounds....out of the box, perky trumpit-lipped flights of the space jazz..he's our only truly Professor of musical knowledge and the coolest multi-instrumentalist this side of Havana!!
Says GDaddy, and you can quote me from the Jazz Nut House...
Doooobe BlahDo-Dah
Do Dah Dway
Shoobie Doooobi Doooooo
Down on de Farn
Potato Solid!!!
...just wait till we make it upstairs with Matt, and all the rest of the BIAB talent from this sick, sick, earthgig!+
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I don't think it has all been played yet at all. I agree with Mac. Especially when you add in the fact that the skill level of the top musicians in any genre today is much greater than the people they emulated growing up. There’s still lots of new music to be played.
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Guess I kinda opened a can o' worms when I told the emperor he had no clothes (@Pat - that's how I've always thought of it, too...)
I have to say... I am enjoying it....
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Janice and I played in bluegrass bands for years. Over that time I saw many of my friends and favorite artists venture into jazz. Although jazz players might consider me a "non musician" as a bluegrass player, I like jazz. Two events turned me to my love of jazz.
1. Ken Burns history of Jazz.
2. Listening to Billie Holiday and Lester Young. I will NEVER grow tired of that no matter what genre I'm currently listening to the most. It is IMO the pinnacle of expression of the human voice and an instrument in the same tune.
Bebop, I have nothing against but once a song or an entire genre move beyond my ability to at least envision the chord structure I tend to check out. That's my problem.
Last edited by Janice & Bud; 05/21/13 12:58 PM.
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos
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Jazz is alive and well. Good Jazz clubs here in Atlanta, GA with some awesome performers. I've seen discussions about Blues being dead as well.... no freakin' way. I think, some genres and the way music is being produced within them may have changed, but the root is still there for either genre and appreciated by many, many people.
Just my penny of thoughts.
Cheers, Mike My Music * Asus ROG Strix G15CF 32 GB DDR4 4TB HDD + 1 TB SSD NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 8GB Win 11 AKAI EIE PRO Sound Interface. BIAB/RB 2024 UltraPak Build - Latest
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It is much a matter of taste, methinks, there are plenty of jazz performers and outfits that I love, there are also plenty that do not float my personal boat.
I just can't stand it when someone stereotypes and attempts to put all into one boat. A sure sign of something else going on that ain't nice.
--Mac
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Really? I must have missed the memo. That's exactly when I started playing it.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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One main reason if not the main reason for musical innovation is survival as in making enough money to live on.
At some point in the early 60's most of the jazz cats realized they could not make a good living recording yet another version of Stella or whatever. Plus after 10 years of doing those standards in studios and concerts they were simply burned out, bored, you name it with that stuff so they started branching out.
That's why Miles suddenly quit doing that stuff and turned to [*****] Brew and despite many pleadings from all quarters he refused to play another lick of his old standards. The majority of the record buying public didn't need more recordings of different versions of those tunes.
For me, I'm tired of that stuff too but I still play it from time to time. I'm much more into the modern post bop stuff by all the smooth jazz artists like David Benoit, Foreplay, Spyro Gyra, David Sanborn, etc. It's hard to realize that stuff is already old enough to be considered classic music now. Fourplay released their first album in 1991. It's now 2013, how many years is that again?
I've accumulated a whole collection of live jazz concerts from You Tube. They are mostly the big jazz festivals like Montreal, Playboy, Newport, the North Sea one etc. There's been very little straight ahead in any of those shows for the last 10-15 years.
And why is that? Just mho of course but I think the audience for that style has left the building and has retired.
The reason you don't hear too much modern jazz in clubs is it's pretty complex stuff, you can't have a bunch of good players show up for a gig with no rehearsal and read South American Sojourn by Spyro Gyra or Watersign by Jeff Lorber from a fake book like you can with tunes like My Funny Valentine or Footprints.
Moderators, the forum is censoring [*****] Brew? Really?
Bob
Last edited by jazzmammal; 05/21/13 03:23 PM.
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Bob, It kind of sounds like what you’re saying is that old jazzers wanted to write and perform music that was exclusionary! (Wow! I didn’t know “exclusionary” was an actual word!  ) In other words, “the only way you can play with me is to be able to pull this song off”. It wouldn’t have been phrased that way of course, but do you think that’s a factor?
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.
One of my prefessors explained it this way: "people want to hear a line."
...
Classical music did something similar in the 20th century. I think it was Schoenberg who made the shift permanent. The music lost its connection to its former audience in a similar way to what art had done. Since then various forms of popular music have arisen to fill people's need to hear a hummable melody.
Jazz has done the same thing. It might have been inevitable, considering the monumental level of technical expertise acheived by Bird and some of the other postwar innovators. They mastered all the traditional chops and then went far past them. Along the way they gave up their focus on catchy tunes by choice.
I understand these musicians need to look for new challenges in expressing themselves. Goodness knows they have earned the right to do so. Is that a problem? Not for me. It just gives me more choices and more ways to suit my listening mood.
This was the basic point I was trying to make - but I think Flatfoot perhaps made it more succinctly. -Scott
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I wouldn't call it exclusionary Bob, they just wanted to write good stuff, they were tired of the old formulaic chord changes and basic swing or latin rhythms. Take this for example: Catwalk by Don Grusin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD1OXTrw7TkI absolutely love this tune and I have charted it out but I doubt I'll ever perform it live because good luck getting the guys together to rehearse this. The basic soloing section is easy but the horn lines and that theme? Not so much. This is what I call good fusion music, sort of classical/jazz. I like that violin. I seriously doubt Grusin wrote that with the thought "Ha, try sitting in with this!" No, it's just good writing. The thing to remember is all these guys are well educated masters of the old standards even though they don't perform them often. I found a vid of Jeff Lorber in a jam session doing Giant Steps. He played the absolute crap out of it. It was obvious he had studied it in school and knew it inside and out. Bob
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“Catwalk” is a great tune. That’s the first time I’ve heard it. One thing that jumped out at me from the “get-go” was the theme of the song. Nothing seemed gratuitous on the part of the soloists. But it did appear to be far removed from a lot of the modern jazz I’ve heard over the years. There’s a melody, lyricism and a flow to it. But I definitely wouldn’t want to try to put together a band that could play it!
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac - Special Offers End at 11:59pm PDT on Friday, May 15th, 2026!
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Special Offers
Upgrade to Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac and save up to 50% on most upgrade packages during our special offer—available until May 15, 2026. Visit our Band-in-a-Box® packages page to explore all available upgrade options.
2026 Free Bonus PAK & 49-PAK Add-ons
Our Free Bonus PAK and 49-PAK are loaded with amazing add-ons! The Free Bonus PAK is included with most Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac packages, but you can unlock even more—including 20 unreleased RealTracks—by upgrading to the 2026 49-PAK for just $49.
Holiday Weekend Hours
As we hop into the Easter weekend, here are our holiday hours:
April 3 (Good Friday): 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM PDT
April 4 (Saturday): Closed
April 5 (Easter Sunday): Closed
April 6 (Easter Monday): Open regular hours
Wishing you an egg-cellent weekend!
— Team PG
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