Forum Overview :: No Stairway to Heaven :: Jazz

[quote name="Mischief Maker"]I see both sides of this debate. On the side of Jazz, on-the-spot improvisation is one of the most challenging things for a musician to do. You can go an entire career of classical performance and read every note off sheet music. In Jazz, it's all but mandatory that you take your turn at improvising in just about every song, so Jazz musicians <I>do</I> get a certain amount of respect over other musicians coming out the gate. On the other hand, all this improvisation gives Jazz a big culture of experimentation, and over the decades the experimentation has entered realms so abstract the music becomes at best impenetrable to casual listeners, at worst weird for the sake of being weird. I've been to Jazz concerts where the musicians start out playing old standards and the audience is bopping their heads along, tapping their feet, and having a great time. Then the band announces they're going to play a free jazz song and a perceptible shudder goes through the room. [quote name="skip"]the only people I hear bitch about vegetables are kids or fatties. [/quote] Or conservative politicians/supreme court justices. I swear, broccoli affects republicans like garlic affects vampires![/quote]