The Three Doc's or the Three Stooges?

Once again I found myself back at Fayetteville's Botanical Garden Friday evening "on the lawn" concert series.  Once again it was advertised as a concert by the Fayetteville Symphony.  Once again only three out of the seven members of the performing group actually were members of the Fayetteville Symphony.  Once again it should have been billed as "Friends of the Fayetteville Symphony."  All of that said I had an inkling about what may transpire.  I was wrong.  It was an all together different group than last week's tribute to Dave Brubeck led by the symphony's pianist Dr. Scott Marosek.  I had forgotten that a pianist with an orchestra does not get to perform that often.  The same applies to the both the brass and percussion sections.  It wholly is reliant upon what era literature the symphony performs.  I was trying to wrap my head around why the first trumpeter with the orchestra had any interest in being involved with a jazz concert.  It turns out it was gratuitous.  Dr. Timothy Altman was not the leader of the group.  Neither was Dr. Larry Wells.  Neither was Dr. Dean Olah.  That is three doctors in one jazz group, or was it really Three Stooges?  I think the leader of the concert was The Moonlighter's Orchestra Terry Blalock on woodwinds.  It seems the drummer and vocalist was from the Midwest.  That is a long way to travel for a two set gig in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  Again as with the last concert on this series I was a bit confused.  I was not confused about its content, because instinctively I all ready knew for what I was in store.  Jazz is dead in America.  The feeling of swing long has been usurped by the feeling of "pop."  Without once again arguing this personal musical point, only I can say is that real jazz swing is connected to the soul.  Each and every note conveyed is a direct result of a gumbo of feelings, thoughts, and ideas.  More resolvedly the improvisors solo is spontaneous composition.  At the level to which the art from of jazz has evolved, it really is an experience non other than anything in world.  Ironically it does in abstract ways resemble the sport and art of skateboarding.  The process is similar.  Timing is crucial.  Balance is necessary.  "Carving lines" is important.  Responding extemporaneously is paramount.  This is why real jazz is not heard that much anymore.  We are living in a time that does not promote the general mental and physical health of humanity to create such a thing in real time.  There is too much distraction.  I was interested to hear how this ensemble would tackle such a challenge.  I was interested to see how the principal trumpeter of a symphony would fare in the jazz idiom.  More hauntingly I wondered why there was an interest in adopting such a challenge.  I think for the most part I overthought the process.  It seems musicians in this area are trying to earn money.  They are scrambling.  I don't quite see how three doctors would have much interest in playing a little two hour set at a country club.  As usual I felt very uncomfortable at the concert.  While my mother and I were more prudent in choosing our sitting neighbors, a local member of the classical community and her husband sat right next to me.  Because I knew I would not pallet the music well, again I felt like a big black cloud.  (It is difficult for an artist to disguise their true reactions to their own chosen art.)  I tried.  I listened.  I did not judge.  Although I am a collegiately trained jazz trumpeter and pianist, and have been working as a professional for twenty years, I was open minded.  As a professional jazz musician I have certain standards I cannot change.  Why is this?  It is because to learn to play jazz music, it takes years and years of study.  It is like religion.  Its principles are deep, far reaching, and often difficult.  Why are they difficult?  They are difficult because they break stretch the boundaries of the human condition.  Jazz is much more than a music.  It is a spirit.  With such clout brings a mantra that cannot be altered.  Certain crucial axioms must exist for jazz to flourish.  This means in no way can jazz stoop to the superficial levels of pop music, yet it has.  This concert was a swing-oriented affair with a rhythm section and four horns.  There were written arrangements, and these were more specific for the vocal charts.  Like any cruise ship gig they encompass the standard musical repertoire appealing to the masses.  There is "Rat Pack" material.  Luckily these seminal arrangement by Quincy Jones, Nelson Riddle and others are timeless.  If they are played reasonably well always they will satisfy.  Small group "head" arrangements are a horse of a different color.  When trying to play small group jazz, this is when the axioms of jazz come into play.  There are rules of protocol, rules that were well known by Miles Davis and his bands.  Small group jazz is not a "jam" session.  There are strict rules of form and behavior on the bandstand.  These things are what make jazz jazz.  At their deepest level they are metaphors for human life.  It took me many years of study to amass this code.  The group for the most part adhered to many of the standards of a good jazz performance.  No one instrumentalist plays too long, they divide the solos up, and they attempt to end a song the same way.  (Sometimes this fails, but popular culture attributes this to showmanship.)  They really are not interested in a polished product.  This is a difficult pill for me to swallow.  Having studied jazz music for for over fifteen years, it is difficult to watch a group who really have no fundamental understanding of "how" to play jazz.  Orchestral players are competent musicians and instrumentalist.  They play in time, with a good sound, and with musical taste.  They read notes written by a composer in often transcendent compositions.  Jazz musicians compose spontaneously at the gig.  They embody the same musical principles of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Revel, Debussy, Stravinsky, and others.  The study of this music is what made Miles Davis such an effective and iconic band leader.  As a fan of Sly and the Family Stone and Jimmi Hendrix, also he was a fan of Penderecki.  The bottom line is this.  Jazz is an intellectual music form.  There are many music forms in existence today that are not.  The majority of these forms are not artistic.  They are utilitarian.  By intellectual I mean that one simply cannot play jazz with a smile, a desire, and some showmanship.  To play jazz really a theoretical understanding of harmony is necessary.  Not only must a song's chord changes be known intimately, the scales that are actualized over these passing chord changes must be known intimately.  This is how an improvisor knows which notes to play in a solo.  While one's ear is a guide in the process, is is subordinate to the cognitive knowledge of "knowing" the musical theory of a particular song.  This particular group did a reasonable job of bringing off the concert, but it hugely was frustrating to me to watch how politics completely negated the necessary process of jazz improvisation.  It was strange once again to have a concert billed under a member of the Fayetteville Symphony, and have it actualized as someone else's group.  Without being blunt this is a misrepresentation.  Tim Altman while a substantial trumpeter had nothing to do with this gig.  He played some lead trumpet on the charts.  Rarely he played an improvised solo.  All I can think is the gig must be paying heaps to attempt such an amalgamation.  I was required to support the players in an very unrealistic way.  Anywhere in America where you go hear jazz, the politics of an area do not dictate how an audience member is required to behave.  I actually resent being engaged by the group's leaders as a second grader in an elementary school workshop.  I feel no responsibility to boost the egos of orchestra members who have no true ability to understand the process of jazz improvisation.  While I will watch and support their efforts, I cannot make myself lie in public.  I can't clap for improvised solos that sound like beginners.  Especially I cannot clap for improvised solos that sound like beginners that are being purveyed by doctors of music.  It just rubs salt into my wound.  Finally I cannot stroke the egos of college level professors who also hold full time jobs with the Fayetteville Symphony.  It feels too much like corporate monopoly.  What is most distasteful of all if watching these men pull the wool over the eyes of the listeners with immature references to behaviors that are a part of the jazz soul.  Being capable of drinking half a bottle of bourbon in one sitting and improvising an authentic jazz solo, jokes about "adult beverages" and "drinking after the gig" miss the base for me.  For the jazz musicians who are part of America's historical lineage, many were heroin addicts or alcoholics.  It was much too serious of an issue to joke about casually on the bandstand.  To me at least they were not funny.  It was not funny in the least to see a cotillion club attempt to get blasted in public.  Never in all of my years of experience with authentic jazz music has this behavior been witnessed.  Never has a jazz musician stooped to the level of the informal banter of Frank Sinatra.  That is because often they relied upon alcohol as a known and necessary aid to the art of self expression.  Why would anyone find it necessary to joke about the need to eat, shit, or fuck?  We do it because we have to.  Jazz on the other hand is something we think about at a very high level and respect almost as much as the Creator.  That is because art forms in a nutshell are a refection of Him.  They are the quintessential axioms of life.  It is disheartening to watch it.  It was disheartening to watch America's only true art form depicted as such causal selfish musical folly.  It was disheartening to watch human beings empower themselves selfishly with falsehoods.  It happens everyday in North Carolina, and her people are so ignorant they do not know the difference.  While I have no desire to disparage the musicians,  I leave their concert with a more conflicted conscience.  While fully I am capable of representing its artistry authentically, this concert with complete and total deliberation quelled my desire to try to expose its quackery.  It seems you can't ever change the cultural biases of the American South.  We have been hiding in our plantation homes shielded by cotton fields for too long.  Why would we ever want to keep pace with the rest of the world and evolve?