Re: looking for a little respect

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (rderieux) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> To me jazz is about improvisation.
> 
> So I think we just institute a set of playoffs like college football.
> 
> Kenny G/KOZ/Nadjee(sp?)/etc. vs. Branford Marsalis/Frank Morgan/David
> Murray/Joe Henderson/John Zorn/etc.
> 
> We have each side write 3 songs.  The side that did not write the song
> plays first and then you exchange.  You let them play for 32 bars each
> and then they trade 8's or 4's.
> 
> Then we have them for other instruments:
> > Latest guitar guys vs. John McLaughlin/etc.
> > The guy from entertainment tonight/the guy that is/was married to the soap opera 
> > hag vs. too many, take your pic.
> 
> Do you think the smooth jazz team will be able to improvise for that
> long without resorting to cliches and repeating themselves?  Will they
> write them out and then come out with "improvisation crib notes"?  Do
> you think that the average "smooth jazz" fan would know what
> improvising sounds like?
> 
> That would be fun!!!
> 
> Rene'
> 
> P.S.  Would the average "smooth jazz" fan say that Kenny G is a better
> jazz player than Coltrane?  Let's say we play them Naima or Spiritual
> (something that won't be "hard" to listen to)?
> P.S.2  I stopped telling people in casual conversations that I liked
> jazz because I always got the Kenny G line that the article mentions. 
> My wife and I would quickly excuse ourselves and laugh in the corner.
> Yes I am a snob and proud of it.  I like my scotch neat and single
> malt; I like my shirts made of cotton, fitted and pressed; I like my
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] hardcore; I like my classical music big and bombastic ("Would you
> like a little Mahler for breakfast?") and I like my jazz to be
> traditional, not smooth.

This idea was actually done more or less -- between the boppers and
the Dixieland trad-style players in about 1947, in a radio broadcast
to raise funds for war bonds. They chose "standards," not originals,
for the opposition to play. I've never heard the trad sides, but the
bebop sides are fantastic.
 
Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie (replaced by Fats Navarro on the
second broadcast), Lennie Tristano, Billy Bauer, John LaPorta (cl),
Ray Brown and Max Roach play "Tiger Rag" (!) -- using the "Koko" intro
to open it up! The Parker-Tristano interplay is great. They also play
"Sunny Side of the Street" and a couiple of other tunes. I think Barry
Ulanov chose the boppers (well, in my estimation, although LaPorta is
one too many Tristano guys than needed).

The Arranger