It really pains me to admit it but jazz, America's art form par excellance is dead. 

Its been moldering for a long time.  Like John Brown's body in the grave but now its dead.

Why is that?  Improvisation is a hard thing to explain.  You spend a lot of time honing your skills.  Its much like martial arts.  You practice your moves.  If the piano or guitar play does this...what do you do?  What are the advantages and disadvantges of using this or that scale?  Is a 11 really necessary or is it better to just rhythmically play around with the root?

But when you are actually doing it.  At least for me. You forget about this stuff.  Not all the time. You have your days when you think, "hmmm...maybe I could impose a whole tone scale and just not worry about that chord change." But when you are really doing it.  You arent thinking about that shit.  You are telling a story.

You're thinking about moods.  You're thinking about your life.  Your family. Your friends.  The state of the world. 

My whole life I've heard things.  The whistling of trees is a note.  Getting in trouble at school.  That was a note.  More like a drone with melodies being improvised off of them.

   Whatever songs I was hearing.  I heard melodies.  I remember once when I was camping with my parents.  I played different songs for them on twigs by the campfire.  They looked at me like I was crazy but I was hearing songs.

Jazz nowadays is about learning a repetoire.  Learn some standards.  Learn some of the classic patterns of the past.  Pick an idol.  Try to mimic his style. Hopefully you will become as close a carbon copy to the original as you can.

I recently went to Minton's for the 1st time.  For those of you who dont know Minton's is the place where bebop was born.  I went there around 9 p.m. at night. 

Its in Harlem.  Me and my wife walked in.  It seemed like a neighborhood bar.  Mostly black with an occasional white person here and there.   The music being played on the jukebox was 80s funk. 

Around 10 p.m. a band started playing.  It was an organ trio.  Fronted by Bill Saxton on tenor, a  name player in New York circles.  Within 15 minutes all the black people at the bar had left.  They were replaced by a busload of french tourists.  Around 20. 

They were a mix of black and white french people.  I think the drummer of the trio was confused by this.  He kept trying to talk to the black people in the group in english but was confused by how they couldnt completely understand him.  At one point he asked where they were really from.

So I was listening to jazz at mintons.  And I was realizing it was a museum.  It was divorced from America.  Where were the stories?

For the last couple weeks Ive been listening to Lester Young's "the Alladin Sessions" douple Lp.  I bought it for 5 bucks used.  Its vinyl.

Its more vital than anything Ive heard recently.  lester Young was supposedly past his primed by the time they made these recordings.  He was a drunk.  A mess. Angry.

Every song is amazing.  His tone on saxophone says more than any clever pattern he could play.

And he misses notes.  even cracks a few.  But the thing is.  He keeps going.  He doesnt just have it fixed in protools.  He lives with it.

Tone is supreme.  Lester young's tone is amazing.  It vibrates so much it almost fries out my little record player.

Tone has become secondary in jazz.  Its all about succesfully completing the patterns. 

to be continued.