Ken, we dont even need a coherent thought. If the thread title read sdkfjhsfvnbscmvnbJAZZaksjskjdhlasdjha, it would run into 5 pages of jabber here.
Now isnt that amazing! A so called sidelined, mothballed genre that nobody really gets into, and is supposedly dead, gets the highest ratings, involvement, and passionate comment around here.
I think the epic BIG JAZZ THREAD and the DOUBLE PEDAL thread are the WAR and PEACE of Drummerworld.
We have over 2,000 views. We must be doing something right.
Maybe we should start to charge for the show, get it up on Skype and wear make-up and funny costumes. Can anyone breadth fire, spit blood or chop their head in a guillotine?
On a serious note, from someone who is overly educated and perhaps overly critical, I believe one has to develop a critical faculty to excel as a musician. Being someone who is overly educated, I can tell you that it is the one thing in this country that people look down on and it is a shame. Maybe if people developed a little criticism, these mediocre talents would get less of the focus, and that's all I would really say, that they should get LESS focus, which also means less of their share of the pie.
I'll edit this post to say what I really mean and open up the discussion to the real issue at hand.
why pick on Bob? because in Bob's posts I see the answer to the question being posed. Bob is criticizing Metheny on two grounds:
1) artist should have the freedom for self-expression and that freedom should be unencumbered.
2) he does not see a value in judging someone else's work.
On the first ground one would have to say that this is a constitutional question that Bob has proposed. I don't think that Metheny is addressing a constitutional issue at all. I don't think anyone here is and the closest thing to such is Jay's allusion to Ayn Rand and his libertarian views that obviously come through his posts. It can't be a constitutional question because if it were, then Metheny has a constitutional right to state his opinion. So as much s someone saying this is a constitutional issue has the right to state his opinion, it dies not get to the heart of the matter.
Obviously we don't want the state to tell us who or what we should listen to. When it comes to the marketplace, "caveat emptor." But what about McDonald's advertising "A Big Mac meal supersized is great nutrition for all involved. There is no better meal that you could have ". Would then people not say that they are misleading the public? If someone would to step-up and say, "Hey, that is just wrong. This stuff'll kill ya." would we then say that this guy is too critical and interfering with McDonald's right to free speech? I would think not. If someone is saying that his music is something that it is not, isn't he guilty of the same infringement of the truth? If not, Why is music different? Why is it held to a lesser standard than eating?
2) The second statement goes to the heart of the matter. This question is one of the oldest in the history of human thought. Plato spent his life making the distinction between truth and falsehood. He wanted to limit music and wanted strict controls on it for the very reason we are discussing. That belief has followed man through out history, until we decided that freedom of expression was a basic right. Hey, it's the first one. So Glenn Beck gets to speak his peace even though his rhetoric is based on convoluted logic that any first year philosophy student could see through. People not being able to see through it was the fundamental problem that Plato saw. How much intelligence do you have at a Tea Party rally?
The only counter to misguided rhetoric is for someone to say. 'You know, this just ain't right." Metheny saying it is not infringing on Kenny G's First amendment right; but his criticism will limit the amount of BS he can get away with in the public square. And that is the only correction you have in a free market society, for people to speak up and say, "I am not going to let you tear down this forest." "I am not going to let you pollute this lake." You know, you're music is not really jazz. "
It's kind of a mute point because Kenny really no longer matters. He doesn't garner the type of fame he had ten years ago. Polly was right. I looked at Best Buy today and he is in the jazz section; that is new. But there isn't a sleeve for him at Target. So he's been relegated to the corner shelf, the jazz shelf, the one where nobody goes. Poor Kenny, he may have gotten what he wanted after all.
I think if Smooth Jazz was called instrumental R and B, purists would have less trouble with it. It borrows its improvisation from jazz but it really has more in common with EWF, Stevie Wonder and Steely Dan, and we all love that stuff, so Smooth R and B is great, isn't it?