Contemporary Jazz is merely a shadow of its former self. No one can pull off the "long distance runner" routine and become that face matching those vocals or that instrument anymore. No more Lady Day, Satchmo, Miles, Bird or Coltrane.

The essence of Jazz seems to have gotten lost along the way--as with pop and rock--where it's mostly about making money and McMusic. You really have to sort out the good seeds from the rotting seeds and take them out of the dust.

Now, Jazz seems to be too much about money, mathematics, objectifying, creative incompatibility and lack of a well worn life lived long enough to match that creative performance drive so many great musicians possess(ed) in their souls. Perhaps it is also because of poor PR or lack of interest by the public in learning new musical languages.

Anyway, I'll just go and put on my John Coltrane "Impressions" album and listen to the brilliance of it, nonstop.

Like Bill Evans. But Anthony Braxton? Nah I just don't get it. And yes, while he has the chops, Keith Jarrett is a self indulgent jerk.

Get a Mingus anthology or box set. Get some 60s-era Sonny Rollins. Get some Gil Evans orchestra. McCoy Tyner's The Real McCoy. Art Blakey -- Indestructible. Thelonius Monk -- just a greatest hits is fine for starters. Coltrane's My Favorite Things is obvious and accessible, but also moody, complex and awesome. A Love Supreme is a little more challenging.

Lots more, but.

My 2 cents.

To establish some cred, I host and play a Monday night music show in the East Village; while it isn't jazz (I don't really swing but I do cook) it's pretty well all improvised so I spend hours a week making up music from nothing in front of an audience.

It's pretty clear to me what the trouble a lot of people have with a lot of jazz; it's lacking in tension and therefore in release.

Listen to your typical jazz song. There's the "head", the statement of the tune with the band all together, and then a series of solos. If you watch, you'll see the musicians arrange politely to see who gets to do the next solo. Finally, when everyone's had their fill, they repeat the head and end.

No one ever sweats. You know what you're going to play before you start; and it's probably something you've played before.

One of the reasons why Miles' bands and particularly his electric period were so successful is that he hated this too. He'd literally lead the band; there wasn't necessarily a head; sometimes he'd just stop the band and point to a player out of the blue, symbolically saying, "You're on." As a musician, I can hear it in the solos - some of them start with a scream of musical fear. Nothing mannered about this music!

The first poster wrote: "To the Musician: If you need to study the math of music in order to play it you'll probably never master it."

I assume you don't actually play yourself, right?

I have a good perspective on this as I'm an active player who's also got an old but still fresh degree in mathematics. The point is that it's all mathematics; it's not formal like mathematics but each blue note is a fraction, each riff a geometric pattern. You can hear it in all jazz, heck, in all music; and I'd claim that tons of music like Monk's is simply incomprehensible without an intuitive grasp of mathematical structure.

I still remember the first time I heard "Straight, No Chaser," simply laughing at the outrageousness of the structure of the lead riff and then sitting down to work out that he manages to cover 11 of the 12 tones. You don't need to formally understand the mathematics to understand the cleverly broken geometry of that piece.

I should have put this in the previous post but I'm so bad at the PR part :-(

We play improvised live looping music with dancers and tricks and strange every Monday night in the East Village: http://swirly.com

Thanks for your indulgence.

English speakers tend to love it. Spanish speakers, for the most part, are completely appalled by it.

Example:

To vacuum your carpet - English

Apspirar su alfombra - Spanish

Vacunar su carpeta - Spanglish

Spanglish translation to English:

Vaccinate your *whatever the fuck*

I gots to gently differ here. I wouldn't trade Rahsaan Roland Kirk's recorded output for anything. Live, the man knew how to have fun - I wish more cats would shoot the shit onstage, giving an oral and musical education! Hearing him warble out "Baby Let Me Shake Your Tree" is fun like nothing else. Plus there's his freak-bop phase recordings like Rip Rig & Panic or his gorgeous nose flute compositions on Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith or I Talk With the Spiritis. This wasn't some blind freakshow, this was a man who daubed all kinds of Black and White music onto his palette. "Saxophone Concerto" is a 20-minute breath exercise, sure, but it's also blues and bop and Tin Pan Alley and free come together. And that's after the ethereal yet full-blooded "Seasons" and th' mystical "Salvation and Reminiscing". All on the same album!

Braxton's For Alto is titanically powerful, as is Sonny Sharrock's output. Black Woman was his first solo endeavor, and it's a primal-scream masterwork, as Sharrock gets harmolodical on the guitar and Linda just pukes her guts out - it's brave and beautiful. So is the "primitive" work of Albert Ayler - multiple horns screaming to God. Spirital Unity or Slug's Saloon there. Holy holy holy.

If you dig the big-band thing, check out a mutant version in Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath. I recommend Bremen to Bridgwater - McGregor's crack crew tosses melody after melody into a maelstrom of a large horn ensemble. Affirmations to "Sonia"! And Mingus Mingus Mingus - I'm sure someone's said The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, but I just have to agree. Leo Cuypers' Heavy Days Are Here Again - playful Dutch jazz from the early 80s. If you like it stately, go for Heavy Soul from Ike Quebec - I suppose jazz can track candles, but I prefer to drag it out into the public square.