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Results for "What is Jazz?"
Jazz and the Meaning of Life
by Douglas Groothuis
I find jazz meaningful and delightful for a happy riot of reasons: its grand tradition and respect for standards, its uniquely American (but also global) identity, its breaking of color barriers, its persistence through changing musical fashions (jazz will never die), its courageous freedom within beautiful forms, and more. Therefore, I was fascinated to find that ...
Good Vibes, Bad Vibes: Jazz in Film
by Douglas Groothuis
Several films about jazz depict troubled and vice-ridden musicians, such as Charlie Parker, in Bird, and Chet Baker, in Born to be Blue. I walked out of the latter after twenty minutes of excessive obscenity, graphic vice, and general disgust. These films reinforce the idea that jazz is associated with illegal activities, illicit sex, and generally ...
Love Jazz, Hate Jazz
by Michael Ricci
Years ago, when I dabbled in cartooning, I developed a presentation style where the character on the left makes a statement with a speech balloon while the character on the right responds with a thought balloon--always in sharp contrast. I had a lot of fun with it. Here, illustrator Keith Henry Brown and I ...
Intermission Riff: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Cat
by Anthony Glass
In 1958 I was 20 and in my second year at Swansea University. I also played guitar in a small group with my good friend Russ John. We lived in a small village called Trallwn, four miles outside of Swansea. Swansea was a centre of heavy industry and extensive pollution, yet a few miles away was ...
Jazz Stories: 2017
by Michael Ricci
All About Jazz--a longstanding internet destination for all things jazz--is a community bound by its love of the music. Since March 2016, we've solicited jazz stories from our members asking them to answer any of a handful of questions and we wanted to recognize some of our submissions from 2017. New stories arrive daily ...
Craft Beer and Jazz
by Thad Aerts
As I type these words, I'm sitting here sipping on an Apricot Peach Orange Whip Mimosa Gose while listening to Derek Bailey's Improvisation LP. If you aren't aware of Bailey's work, he was a British guitarist who championed the European “free" style. All improv, all the time-with no structure to speak of. Many have argued that ...
BAN BAM: Talking Music
by Ian Patterson
Regular goers to jazz/improvised music gigs and festivals might have clocked the fact that those on stage tend to be predominantly male--a mirror, more often than not, of the make-up of the audience. Women instrumentalists are the exception rather than the norm. Though what exactly, we should perhaps ask ourselves when it comes to music and ...
Jazz, Suffering, and Meaning
by Douglas Groothuis
“Primary progressive aphasia" was a disease I had not heard until March of 2014. Now it is darkly stained into my life, since it is the form of dementia that afflicts my wife, Rebecca Merrill Groothuis. As Rebecca and I walk down this road, we are not alone. We have our church, our friends, and our ...
The Many Faces of Jazz Today: The Big Picture
by Victor L. Schermer
Five All About Jazz interviews provided source information for this article. To access them, click on the following links: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 [In a series of five interviews entitled “The Many Faces of Jazz: Critical Dialogues," All ...
Jazz and Philosophy
by Douglas Groothuis
Philosophy warms to jazz, but not as much, perhaps, to rock or blues. We can talk through the night about rock and blues, and it may be fun. But just how philosophical can we get about rock and blues--even with the help of a few smart friends and a few adult beverages? Rock is the rambunctious ...
