July 17, 2005
Where you are, does everyone assume you like jazz?
Read Oscar's post. My comment is over there. Then come back here and answer my question. Or stay over there and answer Oscar's question. Or answer his question here and mine there. Whatever you like. Your call.
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16 comments:
Much of tree town is a jazz-mandatory zone. I hate that! I wear a jazz chip on my shoulder because people are such boors about it...
"one bad note is an accident, but two bad notes? That's jazz!"
On the other hand, I still hear a lot of easy-listening piped into stores, dressing rooms, elevators and on hold and no one assumes I actually like it. It's there because marketing people discovered that people respond to music: shop longer, wait longer, stay calmer. Jazz, no matter what your taste in music, has got to be better than Mancini.
Ziemers: I don't think liberals are monolithic. I've certainly heard many feminists very at odds with traditional liberals. I've heard liberals concerned about things like hate speech tangling with first amendment absolutists. I've frequently seen people on the left vilify those not as far on the left. I've heard critical race theory types disagreeing with every other type of liberal. In fact, within the academy, most of the debate is liberals disagreeing with liberals.
Jazz reminds me a lot of baseball: Completely American and dull.
But the stories, people, and history behind both are endlessly fascinating. I love reading about both and loved Ken Burns' 20 hour meditations on both.
...and that is not unusual. Pretending you like opera is another biggie. It's okay to say you don't dig opera, but if you say you love it, you are in with any number of "enlihtened" types whos company you covet. Jazz and opera share this. Other music is more unpredictable in what status it is likely to buy you.
Yes Miklos, and liking any music by white people means supporting oppression and exploitation. Sheesh. Liking jazz is not equivalent to supporting black people. Liking jazz is just that - enjoying a particular genre of music.
No matter the topic, there'll be at least several conservatives positing on how it's just more evidence for how liberals are shallow or conformist or alarmist or amoral or fill-in-the-blank.
And where one might argue that conservatism offers a diverse rainbow of ideologies, the practical outcomes are consistently orthodox as conservative voters and candidates kowtow to the anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-Enlightenment actions of the hardcore social faction. When I see conservatives actually out there in the streets, actively opposing anti-gay legislation and challenging the nitwits who want to replace science with theology in our schools, then I'll be impressed by the movement's diversity. Otherwise, all a GOP candidate has to do is promise tax cuts to one side, "family values" to the other, and that's all she wrote for that campaign. Diversity? Not so much.
And none of that has squat to do with jazz.
I'm almost an old white fart and I've loved good jazz since before hearing the Ramsey Lewis track, "In Crowd" on the Sex Ed film strips in 7th grade...(circa '65...OK, I am an old fart!).
IF you like good jazz, seek out Quincy Jones' early album (available on CD), "Walking In Space"...entire CD is fantastic! Get it!
Ann is right that a lot of people like to think of themselves as the kind of people who like jazz. But that's nothing but the older-generation version of white kids liking hip-hop.
For me jazz was an acquired taste. I had to learn to like it, because it's the only music my husband (77, white, Eastern European, labor-camp survivor, streetwise, former jazz bar owner) will listen to, in the car or elsewhere. And I came to love it, though I still feel rock'n'roll is the proper accompaniment to driving.
Jazz is like Abstract Expressionist painting (an analogy and homage made by the painters themselves). It is not easy and natural to enjoy, because it's a fine art, like classical music, not a popular art. At its best, what I love about it is that it is intellectual and emotional at the same time, thinking-feeling with no separation between them.
Although, I must say, it's not totally an acquired taste. My family was into Broadway musicals, and when I was about 6 I was taken to see/hear "Guys and Dolls." Imagine what a 6-year-old made of "the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York"! But I especially loved the song "My Time of Day," which is a difficult, dissonant, jazz song. I knew there was something great about it, though I had no idea what.
Amba: Interesting to bring up Abstract Expressionist painting. Although no one cares what kind of painting you like anymore, not that long ago, it seemed that you were supposed to recognize the superiority of Abstract Expressionism. The good, smart, evolved, enlightened people aligned themselves with AE.
For myself, growing up in Detroit, jazz was the music for black people -- the black people who were moving out of Detroit! The ones who remained behind listened to blues or gospel, but not jazz.
ziemer,
My social circle is quite large, thanks, and includes people of many stripes. I too have met all the various liberals you describe, and have no less problem with them than you. I don't neatly divide the world into liberal and conservative, by the way.
I have no clue how you're defining "conservative" or perhaps "anti-gay" if you truly believe what you're saying and not playing games with rhetoric. But the only way you can honestly say you've never met an anti-gay conservative is by using one or both of those terms idiosyncratically.
Hip hip? How hip is that!
ziemer: "i assume the reasons liberals assume everyone is likeminded is because they impose a rigid orthodoxy on thought. there is no dissent."
Look in the mirror. Liberals would say the same about conservatives. That's why the dialogue in this country is so bipolar. No one is considering the view from the other side. Conservatives appear to be absolutely ideological and orthodox from a liberal perspective.
There are two kinds of people, those who likes Jazz and those who don't. Some people can acquire a taste for it if they are forced others to do so, other people, circumstances, the environment or whatever. But this phenomenon is an intrinsic feature of humans: "adaptability". However if you like it and it gives you pleasure, or any kind of sense of feeling. It's OK.
I am a guitar and a pianist player and and I think, if you like Jazz, something weird happens into your brain. But, don't worry that's OK.
Music is an intellectual creation with emotional content, but in Jazz, improvization is important and this by itself diminish dangerously its intellectual part.
I am so inclined to think that Jazz fans must have a personality , kind of perception of order, personal experiences and environments that globally leads to an increase of low intellectual analytic status.
¿How many scientist or thinkers enjoy Jazz? Is a good question.
P.D. Excuse my grammar mistakes I'm not an english language native.
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