The State of So Called Jazz

     I've been thinking about this topic for a long time so I figured I'd write a little piece with my two cents on the issue. The state of so called Jazz is not a very good state, in my opinion. I've heard all kinds of theories and ideas from people like Nicolas Payton, with his idea that Jazz should be called Black American Music, listened to great newcomers like Kamasi Washington from right here in my town of LA, and listened to extensive and informative interviews with some of the guys from the AACM; people like Roscoe Mitchell, Jack Dejohnette, and Henry Threadgill. What I can say about Jazz right now is that it feels to me like Jazz is dead/and or declining, becoming either lounge and smooth jazz fusion stuff (which is pretty much what LA jazz is all about). If you aren't playing lounge, smooth, or fusion you just don't have a chance to become a well known musician or band in Jazz. I feel like straight-ahead has become drowned out by lounge musicians, who's idea of jazz is to simplify and 'pretty up' the music. People would rather play for the crowd rather than go all out, reaching out for the hidden chord, or extensive real improvisation. A big name that's come up in the media is Kamasi Washington and when I first heard of him I thought,"This is great, a great Black saxophonist from right here in LA, getting fame for playing Jazz". But when I actually heard his music and what he was doing I realized that it ain't really Jazz and he ain't really improvising too much. For one thing he released an album called The Epic that is three hours long. Doing something like that will get you tons of attention, but for him I feel like it was overkill and that the songs ended up all sounding similar-with fuzzed out wah wah bass, 70s Miles Davis era fusion keyboards, and very light-weight horn arrangements. Basically fusion. LA does a lot of fusion. I've seen a lot of it up close and personal at a club in Studio City, called the Baked Potato.
     I really dig the stuff that those musicians and bands do but I wouldn't call it Jazz, its more like rock music with a little bit of improv. I've been to some great shows at the Baked Potato. None of the guys that play there are overwhelmingly famous and its a great experience to watch a band right in front of your face in a small venue. I would say that hardly any 'real' Jazz groups ever play the Baked Potato, yet its considered one of LA's primer Jazz clubs. Now, you're probably wondering who made you the Jazz police? Well, even though I'm a youngin' I consider myself something of a connoisseur of Jazz and I feel like Jazz has to be defined in a certain way, because in today's world Jazz means something different to everybody.
     Here's what I think Jazz is. Jazz is a style of music developed back in the 1920's and earlier, that has a rhythm called swing, with harmonies based on African, modal, and European sounds. But is not limited to just this classification because Jazz had its greatest and most important evolution last in the late 1960's when musicians like John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman created the idea of just playing, sometimes with no rhythm and no set melody, instead just 'going for it'. This lead to a more extensive style that I would dub collective improvisation. The musicians were playing off of each other rather than just a head of a standard, or the changes of a tune. This is what Jazz means to me. A lot of the musicians doing traditional (straight-ahead) Jazz have become older and they've since gone to a more lounge type of playing environments. Whereas the collective improvisers (aka Free Jazz musicians) are playing really anywhere that will have them. I've seen Free Jazz musicians play everywhere from churches to one room buildings in New York to the Library of Congress..
     In an interview with a guy from the Library of Congress Henry Threadgill said it's hard for a musician to make a living and find places to play these days. I would imagine its even more difficult because Threadgill plays such a wild and non-commercial style of Jazz. He basically said that to make a living he ends up playing the same areas over and over again for a while, which for him was in Philly and around New York. You could say that people like Kamasi Washington bring more popularity to Jazz, which is a great thing! But if all the people who are turned onto Jazz think Jazz is like Washington's Jazz they will be sorely mistaken and mislead. But overall it's great to have young people in Jazz who are "spreading the gospel". That's the way I see it. If you're playing music that's related to Jazz, you're helping the cause.
     In the beginning of this rant, I made it seem gloomy and that Jazz hasn't been doing so well. Well sometimes I realize that today's current Jazz artists are just "coasting", which I don't blame them for, because they have to make a living. For example, recently I was checking out some work from guitarist Bill Frisell and he's doing tunes from movies with a young singer, but the singer is so white-bread that everything sounds like something you'd hear in a lounge. Very disappointing. And it was especially lame because they even did "Gold Finger". Not only that but today my dad said he saw the singer Buchelli on TV with some famous Jazz pianist and they were doing tunes from movies as well. It was kind of funny that he told me that. But hey, not all current Jazz is lame and disappointing. Last year around Christmas I saw Brad Meldau's Trio and the Bad Plus. That was a real eye-opening Jazz concert for me. It was probably the most 'authentic' Jazz concert I'd seen since I saw McCoy Tyner play some years before when I lived in Wisconsin. The Bad Plus is probably the best Jazz band you could introduce to your friends that say "I don't like Jazz". They will just eat that shit up. All their works are catchy, memorable, and have great improvisation, especially the latest stuff with Joshua Redman, Dewey Redman's son. They sometimes dabble in playing pop and rock songs, which is cool. In addition, I've seen some great stuff online from saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, John Coltrane's son. I even met one of Coltrane's other sons at my work! It was pretty sick. Anyways, I feel like real Jazz is something that's closer to Free Jazz, which is probably my favorite style of Jazz, other than the straight-ahead stuff of the 1950's and early 1960's. Sometimes I tend to like everything and say "It's all good". But in actuality, when it comes to Jazz, its not. You have to know what to listen for. And you have to realize that even the best of the best have bad nights. I think that with government backing and schools giving instruments out to young kids, Jazz has a bright future. Peter Brotzmann said Jazz will stay strong as long as it "stays away from the bullshit electronics". I've heard other musicians say why would a musician play Jazz if they can make more money playing another style of music? Jazz has a very iffy future. One thing that is problematic is the fact that just to see a Jazz concert in this day and age costs a lot of money, money that a lot of middle and lower income people don't have. Jazz is in some ways becoming like classical music-something of musical elitist snobbery. On the other hand Free Jazz musicians don't play their music for free, they expect to get paid. I think the government should do more to encourage Jazz education in young students and grants for musicians who are keeping the art alive. After all, Jazz is America's greatest art form.
    

Thanksgiving-Battlefront III-Legacy of the Void

     So Thanksgiving was just on Thursday, it was a great celebration with me and my folks. I hope it was a great experience for you all as well. I did work on Thanksgiving but thankfully it was only for a good four hours and then I was the hell outta there! Haha, but seriously, it sucks working on Holidays and I'm going to try to get off on Christmas and New Years. Check out that cool anime Starwars pic I found online, it's pretty cool. The idea of a female Jedi taking on Vader just gives me nerd chills man! Anyways, so work was aight and when I got home I just relaxed and played a few games and waited for dinner. Dinner was good. We had our "traditional" Chinese turkey that we get from a Chinese restaurant called A&W Seafood down on Reseda. It's a great place and they do a great job with turkey, cooking it in a way different style than the really really overly dry American way of cooking turkey for Thanksgiving. I really can't eat a traditional American style turkey anymore because this Chinese turkey just tastes so much better!
     Later that night around 11 30-midnight me and two friends went out and got some cool stuff for Black Friday. We ended up going to my old job-Fry's Electronics and Best Buy. We bought some stuff at Fry's. My friend got the Wii U bundle that comes with Splatoon and Smash 4 for $249. I got Starwars Battlefront III for $60. And my other friend got this fighting game arcade stick that was retailed $170 online on Amazon and stuff for only $30 because Fry's put it in the wrong spot on the floor so when they said it was $170 he showed them that there was like ten of them in a spot with a price tag of $30, and he was able to get it for that price because Fry's mislabeled and put their stuff in the wrong spots. He even said that the women helping him out was a little ticked off that he said that it was only $30 not $170. I feel like in a way he bamboozled Fry's but hey Fry's is at fault because they mislabeled their shit and put it in the wrong spot, misleading customers. I used to work at Fry's and I talked to a couple of my old friends, acquaintances, and employees. It was cool. It was good to see them still doing the same thing they were doing 2 years ago. I like when people have longevity in hobbies and work.
     I didn't play Battlefront III until the next day after it installed (took a while, even on my monster PC). But when I did get to playing it I couldn't help but feel that this game is just a Battlefield game with a Starwars skin. Don't get me wrong, the graphics and visuals in this game are stunning, especially on the PC version. But the game-play is simple, with mostly firing from the hip being the best way to shoot. All the guns look and fire the same red lasers, although at a different fire-rate. The game is so easy to play that I don't think it takes much skill to be great. I think Call of Duty or Halo is much harder to be great at than this game. I guess the first word that comes to mind when I think of Battlefront III is shallow. There's no campaign so there's no real story or point to all the fighting you're doing, its just mindless killing and shooting. I don't care about playing some no name rebel or empire trooper. I care about the actual characters from the movies, and possibly new characters that could have been created in this game. I wanted to return the game but I'm stick with it because I bought it at Fry's, and you can't return a game you already opened. And you can't return it through Origin because I didn't buy it online. I have two options. Never play this game again, or give it another shot, trying out more of the game modes that the game has to offer. If I had to rate this game based on what I've seen and played so far, I would give it a hard 7 out of 10, mostly just because of the visuals. The music is terrible and the game modes seem to get boring because there's only a small handful of maps. Also, they make you pay an additional $50 for dlc content that includes more maps and game modes. Thankfully, because I bought it at Fry's it actually came with the dlc somehow. Casual gamers will love this game because of how simple and easy it is to play. But for the hardcore fps guys, this game won't cut it for them.
     On Friday, other than trying out Battlefront, I beat the Starcraft II Legacy of the Void campaign. All I can say is 'my life for aiur!' It was a great ending to an epic space opera. The ending was a little cheesy with the chtulu like creature being the Xel Naga and it giving all its energy to Kerrigan, and she turned into this angelic-like being that was suddenly strong enough to kill Amon, a dark god that was the game's endgame villain. I enjoyed the campaign thoroughly and tried to get all the achievements. I think I'm at something like 50% achievements, which ain't good but it ain't bad either! I've always been more of multiplayer Starcraft player, I never even beat the original Starcraft or Broodwar campaigns. I heard those weren't that great anyways. What awaits me now for Starcraft is the Legacy of the Void multiplayer experience. I haven't gotten ranked or played any matches but I feel like Terran might be really weak in Legacy and I'm not sure if I'm ready to play a turtle race like Terran when Protoss and Zerg have such cool new units. So when I start playing multiplayer I might switch back to Zerg, which was my original race going back to Broodwar in middle school. I only switched to Terran at the end of Wings of Liberty because the guys in my clan on battlenet said it was the easiest race I could play with minimal micro and still do pretty well. I feel like they've been wrong but I actually fell in love with the Terrans, even though I don't consider myself a turtle-up kind of player. I'm more aggressive which maybe makes me feel like I'm more suited for Zerg. For the swarm!
     Music has been good as well. I've been practicing a bit, mainly trying to focus on playing songs rather than just improvising or learning chord voicings. I've really been listening to this guy Henry Threadgill, a great alto saxophonist, composer, and improviser. I really dig his new band called Zooid. All the cats I really dig and admire are sax players; people like Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Peter Brotzmann, etc. Even though I'm a guitar player, I'm a big sax guy. I might actually buy one someday. I had a buddy at work who was going to sell me his but its kind of been forgotten that I've mentioned it to him. I still want it. Maybe that'll be my Christmas gift to myself. Can you imagine me with a saxophone? Talk about bizarre.
     Its been good to get back to writing. It's been so long since the last post. I'll try to keep em coming, and get back to writing music stuff eventually. This blog was originally meant to only be for music but now its like a gaming blog. I play too many games, and eventually I'll have to stop because it gets in the way of guitar playing and playing music, my main love in life. But I digress. Peace out cub-scouts.
    

Update 1.12

     Hey, whats up readers, fans, family, and just general internet peeps? I haven't written in a long time. I guess its fitting because there's been just so much going on that its a bit overwhelming on where to start and what to write about. For one thing I've been working a lot, hanging out with friends, playing a lot of games, and watching a ton of anime. I just finished Hunter x Hunter, the longest anime that I've ever watched. It has a staggering 148 episodes. I'm not going to be watching any super long anime anytime soon. I'm going to go back to the regular 24 episode stuff for a while. My regular group of friends has been super cool lately and we've been enjoying each others company, playing a lot of Project M and Smash Bros Melee. We all kind of quit playing Smash 4 because we realized the game is kinda lame in comparison to Melee and PM. I still like it but I haven't played it in like a month or two now. In addition, I've been reading books. I just got Yngwie Malmsteen's biography Relentless. Malmsteen is this neoclassical rock guitarist from the 80s that inspires me a lot, although I don't really play too much like him. But I've tried. Also, I got this comic book Saga from the library as well and Neal Stephenson' book Seveneves, a cool science fiction novel. Saga is a cyperpunk opera in a world of magic and space. I'm off the next two days so I'll spend a lot of time reading all this stuff. In addition to that, there's the book Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music, this is the book that inspired the tv show Mozart in the Jungle, a great show that I've been watching on Amazon Prime. The book is a little dry in comparison to the book but it might prove to be good if I read farther in. 

     Anyways, I'm pretty good at Project M and Melee. I would say I'm way better at PM and Melee than I am at Smash 4. Also, I've met some real life friends at the store I work at. We've been gaming online together and chatting with our headsets. Its been fun and its great to game with people you know. Lately, we've been playing a lot of Heroes of the Storm and Starcraft. Tomorrow Starwars Battlefront 3 comes out so I'm looking forward to that but I probably won't buy it right away because I just bought Starcraft II Legacy of the Void, the special edition that comes with a big ole' fancy box and extra cool stuff. Until I beat that game and enjoy it to the fullest I probably won't be buying anymore games. But the plan is to eventually get Battlefront 3, Black Ops 3, Xenoblade Chronicles X, and Metal Gear Solid The Phantom Pain. I'll probably get all these next year as the year goes later on. I don't expect to get them all anytime soon or anything. Also, there's Fallout 4! Games for the win. Starcraft has been amazing so far. I plan on finishing the game sometime this week if we get the time to play. 

     I've been listening to Michael Romeo, the guitarist from Symphony X. Symphony X is one of my favorite metal bands. They don't rely on satanic imagery or lyrics, just straight up beast metal riffs and fascinating solos full of neoclassical melodic-ism and technique. I just got their latest album, Underworld, it's nowhere near as great as the stuff they were doing in the late 90's or early 2000's but the songs are good and the guitar playing is top notch. Romeo is one of the best in the business and he's not even as famous as Kerry King is. His style reminds me of Malmsteen but he holds back more and plays more to fit the songs rather than just to show off at every possible second (Malmsteen's signature). 

     And how about this attack in Paris? It sickens me that people commit these heinous acts of murder. I think as Americans and the general public has become desensitized to terrorism because it happens every single day. Just not here in America. It happens in the Middle East so we figure we're safe from these kinds of things. The truth is that with the rise of Isis and terrorism in general there may be no place safe suicide bombers and the like. We have to fight back but I'm not exactly sure how. Drone strikes aren't working. Sending troops on the ground isn't working. Maybe we can't fix every problem in the world. Maybe we have to let those countries handle it themselves. I am not in favor of troops on the ground. That will just create more terrorists, as it happened with the creation of Isis. The truth is that we may never be able to defeat terrorism, partly because we created it. If we defeat Isis some other terrorist group will just rise to take its place. Cut off one head and two more will pop up (Hydra reference). One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. (Farkaan reference). Just my thoughts on the subject. Let us pray for Paris. Amen.

Update 1.11

     Life has been good. I've been working a lot of hours and making that bread. I've been saving a lot and getting some cool things as well. Like I recently bought a new wallet, a white stretchy belt, a white musicians hat (I like the color white), and a Nintendo Gamecube is on the way. I'm excited about getting the Gamecube because my little brother sent me our copy of Smash Bros Melee not too long ago, and I would like to play it for fun as well as to practice technical skill like wavedashing and stuff, which I need to practice for Project M, a Super Smash Bros Brawl mod that I play with my friends quite often. I have a small old crt tv that I can play it on when I'm chilling in the backyard. Its going to be perfect for those lazy days just sitting around in the backyard. It will be made better with friends! Melee is worth around $200 brand new and you can sell it for about $50 used so its a pretty rare game to have the actual CD. Most people just illegally download the game on their PC's and just call it a day. But why pirate when you can actually play the game on the system it was meant for. I believe there's probably input lag if you play emulated games on your PC using a controller through usb connections. Just my opinion, I don't know if its true. Anyways, so work has been kicking my ass lately but in the end its worth it to have the money to save for the uncertain future that I have. My job has really sustained me lately and I'm grateful to have the job I have. I've been in the service industry (retail) all my career, sometimes its great and other times its not pretty, but in the end we all must serve someone.
     Anyways, I've also been watching a lot of anime and amazonprime tv shows. I'm super into Hunter x Hunter, and I've been enjoying JoJo's Bizarre Adventures. Also, I've been watching this show based on this book about the Manhattan school of Music (where my step-mother went to college). The book is called Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music and the show is about classical musicians in the New York Symphony and all the shenanigans they get into. Its labeled as a comedy but I consider it more of a drama type of show because of the lack of funny jokes(at least to me it ain't funny). I really enjoy it because it focuses on many characters but the focus point is this 26 year old girl who's like the Hendrix of oboe, but instead of playing in the Symphony Orchestra, she's just the Conductor's assistant doing like everything from scoring music to making strange teas. She kind of reminds me of myself in a way because I'm a great guitar player but I haven't done anything or made it anywhere with my music, despite putting in a lot of time and effort on the instrument. I highly recommend all three of these shows. They're hype. It's fun staying up late into the wee hours sitting at the edge of bed, wondering whats going to happen next. But doing this is just being a consumer, and I want to be a creator! Which leads me to my next point.
     I've been keeping up with my guitar lessons but sometimes guitar practice escapes my grasp. Right now its because I'm trying to study the driving handbook so I can take the written test and learn how to drive. I'm pretty old and I still can't drive. And I live in California. You have to drive here otherwise your life is very contained to where you live and where you work. Part of the reason why I have money is that I don't own a car. The plan is that a friend is going to take me and another friend to the DMV on the 10th and take the written test then. Hopefully it all works out and I pass the first time.
     Now that its November, my favorite Holiday is coming up, Thanksgiving! Time for that Chinese Restaurant turkey! Not only that but Black Friday is at the end of the month. I'm going to try to get some of my buddies to go out to some stores and see whats up. Places like Fry's, Best Buy, and Gamestop seem like logical options. Not only that but Starcraft II Legacy of the Void is coming out in a few days. I've been looking forward to that for months. Happy Halloween! Hope everyone had a good Halloween. Apparently my step-dad said we only had like 5 trick or treaters this year, but it included some hot 20-something babes. I ended up working late into the night on Halloween but thankfully I closed the store with a friend so it wasn't so bad. The Holidays are coming. I'm prepared for turkey, Black Friday, new video games coming out, guitar sales, Christmas, and New Years. I'm thinking about trying to get a 7-string guitar during the Holidays. I'm interested in the range for jazz chord voicings and metal stuff. That gothic Starfox picture is pretty sick. Peace.