Metal show and Dolphy

      So recently I've been listening to a lot of great jazz stuff. Mostly Eric Dolphy. Although last night I was at a metal concert. But my friend graciously dropped me off home around the third set because it wasn't my thing. For one thing, the music wasn't very good. I would go so far as to say the 2nd band sucked. I'm a much better guitar player than they were and their guitar tones were just terrible. Just a low end mucky mess of noise that hurts your ears. Honestly, I can't believe that there were so many people listening to such garbage music. There was probably around like 30-40 people in there. Not a lot in general but a lot for a local show on a Thursday night.
      But the 1st band was actually really good. The band was metal-core music but the guitarists were a bit more progressive than your stereotypical core kids. These guys were all kids, maybe a few years younger than me so they have a while to go to become better musicians. Right now though, I'm a better musician than they are, but that's not saying very much. But yeah, that first band was just super tight as a band and their guitar tones were really together. Both of the guitarists had great tones and they were playing together super well. I just love a good twin guitar team. One focused on rhythm while the other played lead. They pretty much stuck to that formula on all the songs. It would've been cool if they had like a twin lead guitar solo or something. They didn't have guitar solos, which was disappointing but I'd say overall they were a good band.  I feel like if you're in a band and you're a good guitar player, then you must always have guitar solos. Maybe not in every song because that's overkill but in general you should be displaying your talent and getting your name out there as a great musician.
      Now, not only did some of the music suck here. But there was a mosh-pit. And that is straight-up just not my thing. We didn't have any problems at first because when we watched the first band we just chilled by the front door. I was standing next to this short girl who was just watching the band from the side. It was great. There was a pit but none of the people could reach us because we were on the sides. Then, unfortunately my friend gets the idea that we should stand further in the back. We do so on the second set, and people starting moshing hard. This one guy that me and my friends know started crowd bashing (basically punching people in the crowd) pretty hard and he hit me a few times. I wasn't seriously injured or hurt but it was super annoying and just made the whole concert experience worse. If you don't want to mosh in the pit, you don't go in the pit. People shouldn't be able to attack random people from the crowd that aren't in the pit. That's just fucked up. Anyways, by then I was pretty disappointed in the music and just wanted out. I asked my friend to drive me home and that was the end of that metal concert for me. Although I would overall it sucked, that first band was still really good. I could see myself playing music similar to them, although I would be a lot more progressive and have more solos, maybe even more rhythmic motifs on the drums and bass. Their rhythm section was a bit dry. So it wasn't all bad. I think next time, I would definitely be down to go a metal show with them, but I'll just not stand anywhere near the pit.
      Anyways, back to the point of this post. I've been listening to a ton of Eric Dolphy stuff. Today I met this cool Korean guy that plays Smash 4 really well (a Rosalina main) and he told me that he played classical saxophone. I thought it was interesting that someone would choose classical saxophone over more jazz sax stuff. I mentioned to him that I love Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Eric Dolphy. He asked me if I liked Mingus and I said 'he's ok', something like that, and he seemed a bit disappointed in me at that moment. I gotta say that although Mingus is a great bassist and composer, I've never really listened to his work a lot. I think he was at his best working with Eric Dolphy, just because Eric brought that sense of instantaneous improvisation and unique timbre from the alto saxophone. He was just such an original that anybody he was working with would really stand out. The thing I like most about Dolphy is his saxophone tone. He sounds so original. He can swing hard like Charlie Parker but his solos have unique lines that really go places. Not only is Dolphy a great improviser, he's also a great composer as well. A lot of his original compositions sound like they'd be great songs to listen to in a fancy multi-million dollar home, or even the confines of a space station. That's how awesome Dolphy is. Also, Dolphy's bass clarinet playing takes you to the moon, it really sings and squeals in the best ways possible. Jazz music is just such a great adventurous music that I really can't compare it to jazz. Metal is so dumbed down, slow, aggressive, and loud. Listening to jazz after a metal show is like the new meta in a video game.What have you been listening to? Comment below.