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Jazz is for Everyone
The highest rendition of individual emotion in music
By now I hope you have heard of the really exciting festival of jazz music coming to Brantford's Harmony Square in just four weeks' time. The Brantford International Jazz Festival on Sept. 20 is the realization of a dream for Nancy and Frank DiFelice. They have been bringing a very successful series of jazz concerts to Brantford since 1996 and, with this festival, they are bringing a wide array of jazz sounds to our city centre for everybody to hear.
But why should everybody go to listen to jazz? There is so much music out there now, in so many different styles. Aren't they more relevant than jazz, a music born at the beginning of the last century and that has gone through a large number of style changes of its own? What is so significant about jazz anymore?
Let's set the music aside for a moment and consider first how the word has entered our common vocabulary. Its origins are obscure, but its effect isn't. It has become a popular name for a Canadian airline, an American basketball team, a novel by Toni Morrison, a Honda car, a Matisse art book, a Macintosh computer program, a soft drink by Pepsi and a record album by Queen, plus several real and fictional characters in various media, and I know that list is not complete.
It's a catchy-sounding word, but it's much more, too. “Jazz" implies all sorts of feelings that are important to every one of us, if slightly difficult to define. That's probably why we use it as a short form, saying a place or person is “all jazzed up" or that “something really jazzes us."
“Jazz," in such general use, means something exciting that creates enthusiasm or grabs our attention.
And when we say, “This apartment just needs some curtains and all that jazz," we mean more indefinable stuff to brighten our life. Or if we tell a friend, “Don't give me that jazz," we are rejecting exaggeration or twisted truths.
By now I hope you have heard of the really exciting festival of jazz music coming to Brantford's Harmony Square in just four weeks' time. The Brantford International Jazz Festival on Sept. 20 is the realization of a dream for Nancy and Frank DiFelice. They have been bringing a very successful series of jazz concerts to Brantford since 1996 and, with this festival, they are bringing a wide array of jazz sounds to our city centre for everybody to hear.
But why should everybody go to listen to jazz? There is so much music out there now, in so many different styles. Aren't they more relevant than jazz, a music born at the beginning of the last century and that has gone through a large number of style changes of its own? What is so significant about jazz anymore?
Let's set the music aside for a moment and consider first how the word has entered our common vocabulary. Its origins are obscure, but its effect isn't. It has become a popular name for a Canadian airline, an American basketball team, a novel by Toni Morrison, a Honda car, a Matisse art book, a Macintosh computer program, a soft drink by Pepsi and a record album by Queen, plus several real and fictional characters in various media, and I know that list is not complete.
It's a catchy-sounding word, but it's much more, too. “Jazz" implies all sorts of feelings that are important to every one of us, if slightly difficult to define. That's probably why we use it as a short form, saying a place or person is “all jazzed up" or that “something really jazzes us."
“Jazz," in such general use, means something exciting that creates enthusiasm or grabs our attention.
And when we say, “This apartment just needs some curtains and all that jazz," we mean more indefinable stuff to brighten our life. Or if we tell a friend, “Don't give me that jazz," we are rejecting exaggeration or twisted truths.
For more information contact All About Jazz.
