You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Should You Worry about the Jazz Police? - #2

Episode Date: February 1, 2018

Adam and Peter delve into how to deal with the long arm of the law. You better lawyer up! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Peter Martin. And I'm Adam Anis. Welcome to the You'll Hear It podcast. Today, we're going to talk about whether you should worry about the jazz police. Adam, should you worry about the jazz police? You should not. You should not worry about it? Now, ask me the same question.

Peter, should you worry about the jazz police? No. And do we think that anyone should worry about the jazz police? No. Okay. So we could end it there, but let's just unpack, as they like to say, this concept a little bit. First of all, the Jazz Police, as I know it, can appear at any time. They're like the FBI and the CIA and the KGB all wrapped into one.

They're always undercover. They're always undercover. They're always undercover. But once they rear their ugly heads, you'll be able to identify that. Yeah. But, I mean, basically, the Jazz Police are people that say jazz is this. Jazz has to be played in this in X way. And this isn't jazz if it sounds like why.

And I think, you know, for me, it really just goes against the, creative and boweless and fenceless nature of the music to even be thinking in those ways. I totally agree. If you are always worried about what, you know, some kind of nameless, faceless entity that decides what isn't anything, you're never going to make good music. What you want to do is take in as much knowledge and opinions and you want to listen to what people are saying about the music and what they have said about the music. And then you want to do what's right for you. This is a personal music. And if you're trying to, to appease in a way that that's not natural for you, the audience is going to smell it out

way before the jazz police will. So just do what you are, you know, what feels right to you, and that will always connect with the audience. Absolutely. And I mean, this is the thing. When we say, don't worry about the jazz police, we don't mean just string together a bunch of random notes and play whatever you want without any attention to the detail of the actual rules of music. That's very different. Right. So that's all based around, you know, playing. You know, things that sound good, however you're going to do it. And there's many ways to do that. And that's what we're putting our energy and attention into how the music sounds as an ensemble and how we fit into that. Well, and you can actually string together random groups of notes

if that's your concept and you have a reason behind it and you know what the opposite of that is and how it works and it grooves and you're connecting the way you want to. I think that's part of it. That's what we're kind of saying. Like, you know, you do you as long as there's intent. You want to make sure that your audience knows the intent of what you're doing. And if you're doing that, I mean, there's no police, jazz, or otherwise that can tell you what to do. You know what I mean? You have the right away. Absolutely. And I think, too, you mentioned the audience earlier. I think a big barrier to many people over the years, and certainly in this time as well, to audiences coming out to enjoy jazz music, is they kind of, they might not know the official

jazz police, like, as we're talking about, but they feel like, oh, I have to know a certain amount about the music. I have to, there's like an entry exam at the jazz club before I can get in, and I'm not hip enough if I don't understand this. And I think, you know, if you look at great jazz musicians, great jazz music, great creative music, period, there's no barrier for entry at all. You just have to come with an open mind and open ears. And so as musicians, if we come with that same spirit and present it to the audience in that

way and without dumbing the music down, but making it beautiful and accessible and making it simple. Absolutely. We're supposed to make something complicated and difficult sounds simple and enjoyable. That's what our job is, not to satisfy some jazz police critic type of situation. Absolutely. I mean, you're there to do the legwork for the audience. You need to be curious about the music you're playing and get as deep into it as you can so that you can present it in a way that is the most.

impactful for the audience. Now that sounds like, you know, some, some kind of off-the-wall artistic speak maybe, but that is exactly the nuts and bolts of the job. Don't worry. I'm not going to turn you into the jazz police for saying that. Don't worry. I was in jail for like a couple of years. I made a smooth jazz. Yeah, but I think for everybody, you know, I would just encourage you to continue to develop your craft at your instrument and get in touch with what your voices. And a lot of these episodes are really about that, trying to help you, just give you some tips to be able to progress as a creative improvising musician so that you get confident enough that you don't even think about the jazz police. In fact, we never really think about it,

but people ask us about it, so we wanted to put a little something out there for you guys. So thanks for listening. I'm Peter Martin. I'm Adam Manus. And that's it for today's episode of the You'll Hear It Podcast. For more information or to hear more of these podcasts, go to openstudio network.com slash podcast.