Date:	03-Jul-1998 13:31:49
From:	Paul Abella (Pabella3@aol.com)
	I can't speak for the rest of the world, but my experience as a jazz musician in Chicago is that younger players like myself aren't playing their tunes and aren't really interested outside of a few really good stories here and there. I'm beginning to think that time has made new deities out of Wayne Shorter and Ornette Coleman, among others. I don't think this is a bad thing, but the fact that many people (usually older critics) still scream that after Bird it was all downhill may be seriously missing the point. Jazz, like the rest of the world, is constantly evolving, and maybe, just maybe, the jazz world may be evolving away from Bird... It could get some interesting responses. Just a thought. Keep Your Ears Open, Paul Abella

 

Date:	15-Jul-1998 00:37:11
From:	Josh Multack (ofomc@aol.com)
	Asking such a question, is like asking does Mantle, Maris, Ruth, or Aaron have any significance on todays ballplayers. Of course the answer is yes. Bird is the Satchel Page of the Jazz world and Dizz maybe the Josh Gibson. Sure someone like Ruth and Mantle got more press, but they weren't half the ballplayers that Page and Gibson were. To hear anyone suggest that Birds music was not relevant today is crazy. The reason no one seems to think it is relevant is because no one could or ever will be able to duplicate the fire that Diz and Bird created.

 

Date:	18-Jul-1998 13:29:50
From:	Paul Abella (Pabella3@aol.com)
	Hey again-- I think Josh may be proving my point. Sure, Diz and Bird were the Satchel Page and Josh Gibson, but who plays baseball anymore because of them? No one. Which brings me to why that question is relavant: Who of today's players are overtly influenced by Bird or Diz? No one important that I can think of. Or to put it in the context of how Ellis Marsalis judges the importance of an artist, who's playing Bird's tunes anymore? I'm not saying they're not important. I am however saying they MAY not be relevant anymore. Keep Your Ears Open, Paul

 

Date:	22-Jul-1998 14:40:31
From:	ChriS
	I can understand your pattern of thought here, but I wouldn't say I agree with it, mainly because of the "you've got to crawl before you can run" syndrome in music. I believe that to fully appreciate how truly revolutionary Thelonious Monk was, you had to be familiar with his "source material," the Mortons, Smiths, etc. Would you try to tell, say, Steve Coleman, that Parker's not relevant? It's the same language putting together different compound sentences, isn't it?

 

Date:	16-Aug-1998 21:03:46
From:	gideon belete (gbelete@aol.com)
	When putting jazz in the time line : you have Moten ...Bird & Diz. These guys were incredible. I have not heard anyone duplicate "Bloomdido" like Bird & Diz. You have both made some arguments that hold alot of weight in respect to what Hawkins has done....but please lets not forget the foundation that was built Bird & Diz they certainly were the pillers of this great music we love to call Jazz

 

Date:	17-Aug-1998 20:38:03
From:	jack s.
	Paul, I don't know if you'd consider him one of "today's players" (though I know a number of people who consider him one of if not the top trumpeter(s) of today, yet maybe you think he's too "old" to be a major player on the scene today), but Jon Faddis -- the director of the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, among other things -- has certainly been "overtly influenced" by Bird & Diz, especially Diz -- indeed, if anything, I'd say he's had to endure people misunderstanding a really unique relationship between a teacher and a student and even more, between friends of different ages (how rare is it to find someone to not only carry a torch but add fire of his own, who also maintains a spirit of cooperative teaching rather than competitive one-upsmanship?), and thinking mistakenly that being able to sound like someone (and choosing to play in that mode, above others he's capable of playing) makes you their clone, tho' hopefully critics are evolving past that out-moded view of Mr. Faddis. Anyone who has seen him at clinics or master classes, with high schoolers & twenty-somethings clustering around him trying to get a little of that Diz imprint and learn what Diz and Bird were all about, knows that Diz lives in every trumpeter -- and a lot of other musicians -- worth his or her salt. Check out John Lee's Happy 80th Birthday Party for proof. And I'd venture to daresay that if younger musicians don't play either Diz or Bird as much, it's as much because it's incredibly difficult as it is anything else -- when I hear "today's musicians" who can actually play like Diz or Bird, but choose not to (much the way Picasso could paint like Michalangelo but opted to experiment out instead -- perhaps even as Diz and Bird took classic constructs and created new and modern sounds out of them once upon a time), then maybe I'll reconsider. It takes discipline, finesse and humor, and that's a tough combo to sustain. You don't happen to catch Phil Schapp's "Bird" program out there on radio, do you? If you're ever in the big apple instead of the windy city, you might want to tune in -- mornings on Columbia University's radio station; if you've got a friend around Manhattan, he or she should tape a few editions of it for you, tho' it might scorch your ears a little too. Good luck with your playing.

 

Date:	08-Oct-1998 02:34:16
From:	Mikael Nyström
	I´d like to put the question this way: How can the evolution go forward when you don´t look back? The standard of jazz today is poor — note! It´s my personal opinion and I do generalize; thanks to almighty God there are exceptions — and I think that is due to the lack of listening to older jazz. Bird and Dizzy were evolutoinary but they looked back. Bebop wouldn´t have come to existence if it wasn´t for the music prior. I listen to Bird and Diz &Co. They had a´lot to say about harmony, rythm and melody. Just listen to how logical and coherent their solos are. I listen to new jazz too, but I miss these things, wich are fundamental in a great solo. Many jazz musicians nowadays are influenced by Bird and Diz without being aware of it. Bird and Diz came with so revolutionary new harmonic and rythmic ideas that cats today havn´t cought up and don´t even care to check out. But why do cats today not check out? Is it too difficult? Don´t they have respect for the art form?

 

Date:	20-Nov-1998 15:02:43
From:	Anthony (hoops2@geocities.com)
	Only a few words about these musical legends, I love Miles Davis and Bird and Diz schooled Miles. Do the math

 

Date:	04-Jan-1999 23:33:54
From:	Tom Hynes (Hynesmusic@msn)
	Bird was and is the Motzart of this century.I have transcribed pratically every one of his solos up to and including the Dean Benadetti's cd's.He was truly one of a kind.The way he worked with harmony and implied harmony,rhythm,melody.Unbelievable.

 

Date:	11-Jun-1999 15:42:16
From:	Abraham
	I believe that bird and diz make a difference. there are the best jazz players ever.Who ever says they are not i want to see themplay a sax like bird or a trumpet like diz. Ya bums you don't know s#%^ so shut th f$#@ up. ya B*^%#.

 

Date:	17-Jun-1999 02:00:54
From:	¡Dizzy!®
	Ok. i think that todays modern jazz is total shit. people are starting to think that kenny g and rick braun are jazz musicians. to me, these so called smooth jazz artists dont deserve to call themselves jazz artists. when i turn the radio on and hear them i think oo god its smooth shit!!! people what im tryin to say is that bird and diz shouldnt ever be forgotten as the ones who first started the modern jazz in the forties. i am glad that we still have some young lions out there, including myself, that wants to keep bebop goin. but face it, we are out numbered to these smooth shit artists and it just doesnt ake sense. be cool and keep bird and diz alive.

 

Date:	17-Jun-1999 02:23:43
From:	Ryan (Faddis888@aol.com)
	First of all I am sixteen and i am a trumpet player, most of my counterparts and friends do not even know who diz and bird are (god help them!) I on the other hand was fortunate enough to be exposed to the greatness and awe-filling music that they pretty much single-handedly created--bebop. There is no other greater thing then hearing diz n bird trading solos on ko ko or any other song they wrote for that matter. The point is that I, being sixteen, fully understand the significance of diz n bird. It really angers me that older and more mature musicians than I try to say that diz n bird "dont matter" or "are a part of the past" the truth is that most people who say that are the same people that cant play the music or just dont dig it. They are the fakes of the jazz world who cant hack it so they play some kenny g crap because they cant play the good stuff, and if you dont think that bebop is the good stuff then, well, just put your horn away forever and hang yourself (dont take literally!) because bebop was and STILL IS one of the most influential styles of the jazz genre and I can promise you if I make it big I will most definitely cover "A Night In Tunisia" or "Dizzy Atmosphere" because thats what its all about. Diz n bird will live forever in the hearts and minds and especially the music of the younger generation, and if you dont think that the younger generation of jazzers are influenced by diz n bird, you're wrong because im a prime example. Ryan "Salt peanuts!! Salt Peanuts!!"

 

Date:	17-Jul-1999 00:57:25
From:	Wilson
	All great musicians are relevant because their influence has touched any good player either directly or through others. Solid accomplishment is the bedrock of jazz. The fashions come and go but each one is built upon the past. To have a sense of the past allows one to create the future - ignorant, incompetent musicians are ephemeral, and are generally irrelevant to the past or the future of jazz. Musicians like Wayne Shorter or Ornette Coleman certainly were not ignorant of Parker & Diz. You can replace Shorter and Coleman with any first rate jazz musicians and the statement stays the same: If you are ignorant you have doomed yourself to insignificance.

 

Date:	19-Jul-1999 08:49:02
From:	Sheldon M.
	WILSON: I agree, and I assume you mean insignificant to the real music - ephemeral/trendy stuff does sell a lot of records - as everyone knows. But most people/musicians aren't aiming for "significance" - they want to make a living that's fairly comfortable and fairly interesting. MacDonalds or Burger King do not result in good cuisine but they do sell a lot of "product." "Significance" requires an incredible level of sacrifice which is not a trait/demand that is attractive to most people/musicians. Of course, it also requires an incredible level of talent which is also not common. So it goes.

 

Date:	24-Jul-1999 11:29:39
From:	Alice
	Boola Boola

 

Date:	27-Jul-1999 20:08:10
From:	Sam
	ALICE: You're a dizzy bird.

 

Date:	03-Aug-1999 00:52:47
From:	Trevor Hanson (Hanson@HansonSmithLtd.com)
	Funny responses in this thread, though I agree it's a silly topic. Good musicians always learn from the past. Name a jazz musician who hasn't learned from playing Bach or Brahms or Ravel? Or Art Tatum or Charlie Parker? Or Cole Porter (or even Paul McCartney)? You listen, you learn. (Though I'm always amused by how many jazz players say they dislike Mozart. Not enough changes....) Bird and Diz (and Clifford Brown and Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt etc.) are relevant today for several reasons: 1) You listen to the music and it's still great, still new ideas. Keep those ears open. 2) You'd feel great it YOU played it like that, even today. 3) The great players of today decided to go into music because of the great players they heard on the way up. There aren't so many guys still in the game who quit their day jobs JUST because they heard Bird on 52nd St. -- but there were plenty who did exactly that, and some of them are still around. They weren't deaf. It WAS a magic time. Would YOU quit your day job because of a nightclub visit? It really happened, over and over. It probably still happens sometimes, but there was something different in the 40's and 50's, when the music was brand new. This last point is really key. Bird and Diz were a phenomenon partly because of when they came on the scene. Like their predecessors, but taken to a new level, they helped the integration of several traditions of musicianship: the ancient and modern African/American blues tradition, the young New Orleans melting pot of Acadian/Creole/African/Cuban/etc., European concert music (which was coming to its full technical maturity and losing steam, but wise and wonderful), the American song form in its AABA perfection, and the popular, emotional, generation-changing pulse of wartime swing and dance music. They worked with great raw materials, and the materials were NEW in combination. The bepop pioneers WERE great musicians; but by luck they ALSO happened to reach their stride in the middle of an incredible fusion of techniques and traditions. J.S. Bach is so important to us today for exactly the same reason. There were other great performers and composers before and after, but he had the right mind at the right time. A great mind, yes, but a great mind maturing at the time when it could do the most. One can find similar examples in so many areas: Duke, for instance, Shakespeare, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ella Fitzgerald all were lucky enough to explore great talents with the different lens offered by new media, new techniques, new audiences. They were great, but especially they were great at the right time. This doesn't diminish their greatness; but it means that WHOEVER was great at that particular time would probably have done great things. You have to feel sorry for a profound composer/technician who came to maturity in (say) the seventies -- lots to say, but everybody already said it. (Yeah, bring up the examples of great players who came on the scene in the 70's. But don't you think they'd have been happier if they'd been born a little earlier or later? The same is true of many painters: Oh, to have been an Impressionist!) To say that Donna Lee or Star Eyes is not relevant is to say that scales aren't relevant, that chords aren't relevant, that all we've learned to date isn't relevant. Which is not to say that we can successfully live in the past. The guys who play straight swing tunes or straight bebop tunes, night after night, are no better off than Dixieland bands, Beatles cover bands, or torch singers. Or I should say, 'no better or worse off' because there's nothing wrong with playing old music; nobody demeans Julian Bream or Yo-Yo Ma because the stuff has been played before. But if you are trying to play NEW music, your own music, by definition it can't be the music of 40 years ago, even if you do it well. But the extreme argument -- ignore the past, play every note like you've never heard any music before -- is pointless. Go ahead and try it. See how many people want to listen to you. See how much fun you have. You learn by listening, and stealing what you like. Some people have said that Bebop is only relevant because 'you have to walk before you can run'; but I disagree. Bebop is NOT like walking compared to today's 'running' -- it's a false image that music is all progress, lesser to greater. The great players of EVERY age were great, are still great. Listen to Bix Beiderbecke or Scott Joplin today, and you'll find great music, not just 'great considering when it was made.' It's HARDER for us today because of the players who came before, not easier -- the standard is already so high. A modern player can of course be as great or as mediocre as his talent and ambition and ears will allow. We will always enjoy technically good playing and composition. However, nothing played today can diminish the great work that was done before. Your favorite player of today doesn't make Bird's contribution less. Perhaps the reverse; the great musician of today is the intellectual offspring of yesterday's players. The better we are, the better Bird was. And remember, in 1935-1955 the music we consider eclectic jazz today was the POPULAR music of millions of devoted fans, who had no MTV. Those players were SUPERSTARs, not just jazz players. :-) And just about every one of those fans could themselves play an instrument -- perhaps not so well, but well enough to be in awe of the great players whom they heard on the radio. (It will be hard for very young readers to believe this, but it's true that basically EVERYBODY played an instrument before television. So of course they were all impressed by jazz players -- guys who got to play more of what they liked than anybody else.) But I know I'm preaching to the choir here. If you're a player, you already know how much you owe to the folks who came before -- even if you got some of that knowledge second- or third-hand on the way down. It's an unbroken golden thread that stretches from the earliest musicians we know, the legendary musicians who were considered gods or godlike, down to the youngest beginner who gets that funny look in his or her eye -- 'Wow, that's beautiful. Show me how to do that.' Today's beginner is YOUR student, but is also a student of Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Fletcher Henderson, Stravinsky, Mendelsohn, Vivaldi, Thomas Tallis, all the way back to Orpheus...and of course, back through the other traditions for which we don't have people's names. So of course Bird and Diz are relevant. Listen to the goddamn music and make up your own mind.

 

Date:	12-Aug-1999 08:45:12
From:	Sid
	If you are a dull simpleton then Diz and Bird and nearly all of the history of jazz is irrelevant. You will remain a trivial musician. There is some justice in the world.

 

Date:	14-Aug-1999 19:49:47
From:	Gene
	If it weren't for trivial musicians great ones wouldn't sound so good - hurrah for us!

 

Date:	15-Aug-1999 15:56:40
From:	Walter W.
	Diz and Bird - hey, Roy Eldridge and Coleman Hawkins didn't hear Diz and Bird when they were learning how to play and they turned out alright. Diz and Bird are a couple of talented, advanced technical noodlers. Unfortunately their influence is pervasive and jazz has dropped off severely since the swing era. Miles Davis has a lot of the blame to carry - the godfather of such abominations as fusion and other "electric innovations" that have dragged jazz to the point that any idiot can/does call himself a jazz musician. Noodlers - the lot of them.

 

Date:	20-Aug-1999 15:10:00
From:	Trevor Hanson
	They WERE Diz and Bird when they were coming up. That's the point. The best of each generation hears new things. I love swing too, as well as Bach fugues, but it's too late for old music to be new and fresh -- just well-preserved or moldy, depending on how it's re-created. There's nothing wrong with disliking a genre -- personal taste is sacrosanct -- but I bridle a little at the idea of dismissing a generation (actually several generations) of creative musicians as idiotic technical noodlers. For most of the people who were there, and frankly for most of today's players, old and young, the music is important, and its creators were giants. I think it's possible to explain the decline in popularity of jazz (and 'classical' music for that matter) as simply the result of running out of interesting new things to play. To create something new, each generation had to get more and more radical, eventually leaving behind the mass audience. It's no argument to say that we should just stop looking for new things to play, and keep doing the same things over and over again. You won't find any healthy art form with that as a model -- instead, you get endless Norman Rockwell christmas card covers, bronze cowboys, and elevator music. It seems like this thread has settled into two basic positions; perhaps it's reaching the time to retire it.

 

Date:	21-Aug-1999 12:12:53
From:	Harold Lewis
	Hey, people like Walter are exactly the reason why jazz has dropped off - if you can listen to Charlie Parker and think that he's just a "technical noodler" then you very limited cognitive and emotional resources. Obviously, he doesn't understand the music, can't follow it, and hasn't even come to the point of realization that the music is very emotional. How can someone listen to "Embraceable You" and take the attitude that Parker is all technique?? If someone isn't willing to put the time in, to immerse themselves in the music, then he/she should have the wisdom to keep their mouths shut. When people like Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter acknowledge publically that there's something to this be-bop stuff, then people like Walter ought to have the wisdom to at least keep their pistols in their holsters - maybe Hawkins and Carter know what they're talking about - just maybe. Some music should be a challenge - the best often is. To be afraid of the challenge and back off in a defensive/aggressive attitude is an indication of fear, not open mindedness, not courage, not intelligence, not wisdom.

 

Date:	22-Aug-1999 15:54:42
From:	Allen
	TREVOR: I think the issue that this thread has stumbled onto is perhaps the most important issue that this site could address - the past and future of jazz.

 

Date:	30-Aug-1999 23:33:09
From:	Shakespeare (he dead)
	"We are what we were."

 

Date:	17-Sep-1999 17:09:03
From:	Paul Abella (Pabella3@aol.com)
	After having become a rather big fanatic of the Dizzy big band the last few months, I withdraw anything I ever said negatively on the subject. I am a fool. Let's watch the idiots jump on me for that. at least I'm keepin' my ears open.

 

Date:	16-Oct-1999 11:30:12
From:	Wendell
	Of course, Diz and Bird are relevant - all great musicians are. If one does not see/hear the relevance that's alright someone else will or the next generation will - fashions come and go but the sources remain. Relevance assumes an ability to make connections - dumb people have difficulty making connections. As a therapist friend of mine once said - There's No Cure For Dumb. So it goes.

 

Date:	12-Jun-2000 11:25:07
From:	Max Turnbull (maxturnbull@hotmail.com)
	Hello, I'm a jazz degree student from England. I think Diz and Bird were the true pioneers of bop. However, do you think that jazz at that point became music for musicians?

 

Date:	15-Jun-2000 08:38:59
From:	alan
	Maybe music for some musicians. I think that be-bop was one type of music within a larger context, meaning there was significant competition. The resources of jazz have been greatly expanded through be-bop - now most good young players learn how to play be-bop competently even if they ultimately move onto other styles. So, be-bop is woven into the very fabric of what is contemporary jazz: in that sense I do believe you are right that be-bop became musicians' music.

 

Date:	09-Jul-2000 22:44:09
From:	Abel
	William Faulkner was out of print most of his life. James Joyce was out of print most of his life. If artists were actually dependent on the wisdom of the masses most great art/music would have never have happened. There's a famous quote by Monk that says something like "sometimes you have to do what you got to do, even if it takes 20 years for everyone to come around to your way of thinking." That's a paraphrase but it sums it up - he was lucky, he did get popular in his life. If artists always took their lead from the masses we'd all be sitting around watching TV, eating fast food, and listening to the current popular muzak. Let's face it jazz is way beyond the masses in the first place - look at the sales.

 

Date:	02-Aug-2000 17:00:27
From:	Reilly Atkinson (Reilly3@aol.com)
	Man, if you are playing jazz, then you are playing some Bird, some Dizzy, some Louis Armstrong,.., even if you are too dumb to recognize it. That people don't play Bird's stuff anymore -- well it probably has to do with 1. the tunes are too hard to play, and 2.those that don't play Bird do not understand Bird, how he worked changes and,...And, while many players can play tons of notes, Bird and Diz are about the only ones who can say somthing while so doing.

 

Date:	18-Aug-2000 15:06:11
From:	Broget Fettstoff
	"Jazz, like the rest of the world, is constantly evolving", Paul Abdella wrote, and suggested that it is thus evolving away from "Bird and Diz". Rather, I feel that jazz WAS constantly evolving, up to a point, but that it is now stone dead. As a performing art, that is. To me and millions of other jazz listeners, Bird and Diz are relevant, inasmuch as we listen to and love their records. But bebop, and jazz in general, is an idiom with limited (as opposed to unlimited, don't misunderstand. Great, but nevertheless unlimited) potentials, and I think that all great bebop-solos have been played at least once already. Trying to play "jazz" today, to be creative within the boundaries that others prescribed 50 years ago, is futile. There is nothing more to be squeezed out of this particular set of rules, so leave Bird and Diz to us listeners, who still enjoy them and probably always will, and let everyone who wants to be a musician practice within a less thorougly explored idiom.

 

Date:	21-Aug-2000 22:08:43
From:	Arnold
	On the contrary, we live in an immensely creative time for jazz although we may be too close to see it clearly. It is a time that has created/sustained David Murray, Julius Hemphill, The World Saxophone Quartet, Chick Corea, Dave Holland, Jackie Dejohnette, Paul Bley, James Carter, Steve Lacy, Roswell Rudd, Jane Ira Bloom, Kenny Barron, Tommy Flanagan, Ruby Braff, Max Roach, Cecil Taylor, Muhal Richard Abrams, Marty Ehrlich, Dave Douglas, Chris Potter, Benny Carter, Fred Hersch, Andrew Hill, Lee Konitz, Bob Brookemeyer, Franz Kogelmann, Gary Peacock, Buster Williams, Sam Rivers . . . I could go on and on. Our time is so rich and varied and decentralized that it is difficult to get a handle on it, but future centuries will be in awe of our own!!!! Including the last 20 years of the twentieth century.

 

Date:	22-Aug-2000 18:45:50
From:	Broget Fettstoff
	Arnold: you mention a lot of brilliant musicians. My point is that very few of these are creating something new today, 2000 a.d. Max Roach and Benny Carter are genuine legends, but can hardly be said to be taking jazz anywhere new as we speak. Benny Carter probably reached his peak back in the thirties. (I am European, and to be frank I didn't even know they were still alive. Sorry!)Tommy Flanagan and even Chick Corea are getting old too, and what I meant to say was that no jazz musician born the last thirty years seem to have anything original to offer. There are very educated and well-practiced young lions that do great impressions of Charlie Parker and Sonny Rollins. And there are young, truly innovative musicians that make remarkable music, but they're not playing "jazz".

 

Date:	23-Aug-2000 22:12:38
From:	Arnold
	I respect your opinion but simply disagree. The work of the World Saxophone Quartet, of the Julius Hemphill Sextet, and of Steve Lacy (especially his solo work) are certainly brilliant and of our time. I could also mention Muhal Richard Abrams, especially his big band work, and Marty Ehrlich (and the Dark Woods Ensemble) as late 20th century contributions to jazz. I think you could also include Anthony Braxton. Also, Sun Ra. It seems to me that all these people are adding to jazz significant new voices & music. I could go on adding names but my point is that you underestimate the development of jazz.

 

Date:	06-Feb-2001 20:27:29
From:	Andreas
	No Bird and Diz, no modern jazz! It's that simple! Duh!!!!

 

Date:	15-May-2001 15:04:48
From:	Eric Bryant-15 (tenorsaxeric@aol.com)
	Is bird and diz still relevant? Of course, with out question they do. They still have many followers, including my self and my freind, and there are probrablly many others also. If Bop still lives on, they HAVE to be relevant. Everybody knows that. That's a sure fact.

 

Date:	15-Aug-2001 14:16:42
From:	Saar Barkat (www.nissanb@arad.co.il)
	Charls Christopher Parkar & Dizzy Gilespy are dead. neverthe less lots of people around the world (I am from Israe) still listen to their music. Either if we want it or not they influenced a lot on our music and they are relevant.

 

Date:	29-Aug-2001 13:22:30
From:	Winston
	If you have a pair of ears and a brain they're relevant - if not, not.