On Jun 23, 2007, at 5:56 PM, John Howell wrote:
And yes, I agree with whoever said that active performance practice
is going to differ from what's taught in "Jazz Studies" courses,
which seem to me mostly to concentrate on the ritual adoration of
the be-boppers complete with transcriptions and imitations. (If
I'm wrong, tell me so, but isn't that the whole Berklee approach?)
I have to jump in here in defense of a common educational tool in jazz.
I don't know about Berklee, but understanding the "common practice
era" of jazz (basically everything post Swing-era and pre-fusion) is
as important to jazz studies as understanding the common-practice era
of classical music is to general music studies. Most of what is
played today in modern styles grew from bebop, and it is essential to
understanding jazz as an idiom.
Transcription and imitation develop the ear to a high level, and by
ear is the way jazz is acquired. Granted, if one stops after
transcription and imitation and never goes on, this is not going to
develop an original voice in the player. It is only a start, but an
admirable one. The idea is that is if one has chosen a number of good
and representative performances from various styles and studied and
reproduced them in great depth, then one can glean lessons in
performance practice from these works. One may not play exactly this
way out in the trenches, but at that point you are expected to have
gotten far enough ahead to make your own decisions, and not be a Bird
or Sonny clone.
Performance practice as a concept is much more important in jazz than
in classical music, as far as I can make out, and furthermore is much
more prescribed than the average non-jazz musician seems to think. As
a chess player, I liken it to memorizing and analysing great games by
Capablanca, Fischer or Spassky. There are a limited number of ways
certain things can be accomplished.
What you call the "ritual adoration" of beboppers is no different
than the study of the accepted canon of classical masters. It's a
base, and a darn good one to start out with.
Christopher
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