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Brush off stereotypes and ignore misconceptions to find your rhythm with jazz
jazz offers more than the stereotypical smoky club and painful trumpet retouching the sortrows of patrons with undone ties. Jazz music shies away from modern media and gets misconceived as one big genre. This makes it harder
to access and appreciate, yet the field is full of distinct genres and accessible songs. Jazz holds a diverse selection that can ignite admiration in any listener.
Genres of jazz, such as avant-garde, tend to leave bad impressions with long solos or unfamiliar song forms. If a listener is unfamiliar with how songs are put together, those songs can be hard to absorb, says Roberta Schwartz, professor of musicology. Most pop songs mix verses, choruses and instrumental sections into common patterns that listeners can easily identify. Jazz songs, though sometimes harder to identify, also hold predictable framework. Jazz songs commonly start with a head, or the main idea of the song, Schwartz says. This beginning section plays the melody before it is improvised and dressed up throughout the song. The head also lays out the basic chord progressions for the song, or the structure of the music supporting the melody. For an elementary jazz song, musicians then pass around the melody, improvising and paraphrasing it throughout.
A musician's time to improvise with the melody depends on several factors, such as tempo,
who's performing and the genre. If the tempo is quicker, usually there is less improvisation time. Improvisation length depends on the taste of the musicians and how long they prefer sections to last. More classic genres of jazz reserve brief sections for improvisation, such as swing jazz.
Swing jazz typically includes danceable beats, light melodies and boasts artists such as Benny Goodman, Count Bassi and Glen Miller. Swing jazz controlled American popular music during the 1940s, Schwartz says. She recommends swing to beginning jazz listeners for its liveliness and simplicity. "Find a couple of artists that you like and start to understand a style," Schwartz says. "Then you can figure out the patterns in it and develop your listening."
Julie Miller, Hutchinson junior, started listening to jazz music through swing. "It was something different from what was on the radio." Miller says. "It was danceable and such a bigger sound." Miller is enrolled in Schwartz's "Introduction to Jazz" class this semester. She says she took the course to deepen her appreciation for jazz and to learn how to identify its genres better. Upon learning more about the art, Miller says she greatly admires the work jazz musicians put into their craft. She is learning about the personal approaches of musicians from Schwartz's class and how to identify certain performers by their playing styles. "It's a lifestyle," Miller says. "It's incorporating whatever happened to you
and putting it in a musical format." Hearing that expression infuses a greater understanding, but it is difficult to develop.
"The feelings that jazz express are as substantial as any other musical genre, but sometimes it's hard to break that language barrier," Nick Curry, junior and KJHK jazz DJ, says. "It has a need for fermentation." Curry says. "It's like that album you buy and you don't know if you like it, but then you listen to it later and realize its greatness."
The exploration of jazz and developing a taste for certain types of jazz can be harder because of the "fermentation" process. Jazz doesn't lend itself to 30-second iTunes clips because of lengthy and diverse songs. Curry spends several hours a week as a jazz DJ sorting through jazz albums and deciding what to play. "I think everybody has the sense of what a good song is and everybody can tell when that meaning isn't there." Curry says. He finds some of the more accessible jazz music to be modern artists who do jazz covers of pop songs. "Hearing people doing Radiohead covers or playing jazz with a modern sound is a fun experience," Curry says. Listening to jazz covers of pop songs can commence the exportation process by cultivating interest in an artists and their genre of jazz.
An attraction to jazz may take some time. Find some of its more flattering features within swing jazz or listen to jazz versions of familiar songs. Try
// TAYLOR BROWN
listening to jazz while you are studying or use it as background music for everyday activities to get exposure. Once your flirting begins, it will be hard to resist the charm of jazz.
Check out some live jazz to experience unique musical moments
Every Wednesday Jazz
The Eldridge, 7-10 p.m., free
Every Friday Tommy Johnson Quartet
iBar 6:30-9 p.m. iFree
April 29 Carte Blanc featuring Migue
"Mambuc"
The Blue Room, 7 p.m., free
April 30 Kansas City All-Star Ellington
Tribute Big Band
The Blue Room. 8 p.m.. $30
May 1 DJ Sweeney Quartet Phoenix Jazz Club, 9 o.m. free
May 2nd KJHK5 Jazz in the Park
Watson Park, 3 p.m. free
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