Artistry in Rhythm

Nothing is more insipid than Emanuel Ax playing Brahms.  On the other hand nothing is more inspiring than Alfred Brendel playing Beethoven.  That is the way music is it would seem.  Keith Jarrett recording "The Koln Concert," not jazz, and yet it is the most selling solo jazz piano recording of all time.  It is because it is not jazz.  I listened to "Tapestry" the other day.  It is a lovely recording, and it became clear to me as I listened to it what popular music is.  There is so much disparity about these two words.  Popular Music.  In a nutshell there is much more to its definition.  Put simply "pop" music is a rhythm style forged from the guitar which serves a particular musical and emotional need for the populace.  It accomplishes this goal in several ways.  One, as jazz players realized early on,  "pop" tunes are simple melodies that transcend  hearsay.  Pop is a morphing of words, story, melody, harmony, and orchestration that combine into an effective transcendent vehicle for sensory enjoyment.  Carol King is not the most accomplished singer, but her songs are honest as are her performances.  They achieve her point and convey that point to her listening audience.  Thus the definition of Popular Music is credible in this discussion.  Why is Emanuel Ax playing Brahms not appealing to me?  The answer is the same reason why Keith Jarrett's "Koln Concert" is not appealing to me.  The emotional and aesthetic expression do not reach me.  To enjoy these performances you must have a similarity of soul.  What the musicians are saying in their performances must resonate with your personal experiences.  It is possible to learn to feel what they are expressing in time if one so chooses.  Alfred Brendel playing Beethoven moves me.  His interpretation rises above Beethoven's notes and captures a pure expression of soul and feeling.  It is marvelous.  How can you teach that?  If you work on a cruise ship playing piano, the Musical Director is all anxious that his pianist can play "colla voce."  Colla voce is an Italian musical term which instructs the pianist to follow the solo vocal performance.  The pianist must follow the timing, phrasing, and dynamics of the vocalists performance.  This is a common requirement for pianists, and any pianist with a traditional academic education will have some experience playing colla voce.  The key is HOW does one do this?  Do you watch the vocalist?  Obviously you listen to them, because that is a basic requirement of good musicianship.  Listening while performing on one's instrument may be the best advice one can get, especially in jazz music.  It does not apply to all musical situations and especially today.  So called musicians are so poorly trained and amateur many of the rules of professional music do not apply.  Try your first cruise ship gig playing with a track.  The most unpleasant and not enjoyable gigs are ones where the musicians do not listen to one another and attempt to play together.  If a song is going to be successful on the pop charts, you better believe that the musicians are on the same page musically speaking.  They are going to "hit" in the same place, which means the interpret the time or the groove the same way.  In music you can play in front of, behind, and in the middle of the beat.  Doing so creates tension in the music that often is desirable.  It is interesting that the "pop" groove as I have come to understand it uses a permutation of this formula.  The rhythm tracks stretch forward and backward so to leave space in the middle for the vocal.  Jazz music does not do this, because the transparent nature of acoustic drums and bass do not get in the way of the piano sound.  The piano sound itself is very unique in that it too is transparent in some ways.  Ironically the "pop" groove has infiltrated the jazz scene and often when you are hearing a so-called jazz song the bass and drums actually are playing what I call the "Pop" groove.  It does not interest me really, because jazz did not originate with this rhythmic feel.  In most successful jazz all the players in the group hit in the same place.  Therefore it swings.  Most cruise ship bands don't swing, and thus they play the "pop" groove by default without really knowing it.  Try playing along with this rhythmic accompaniment and you will realize you must change your rhythmic and technical approach to the piano.  You must play like Leon Russell, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, or the rest of the pop players.  Physically they approach the piano in a way very different from what is taught in either classical or jazz technique.  In ways it is an abandonment of the principles of effective piano playing, because the fingers strike the keys in a seeming uncontrolled many.  Interestingly there are varying approaches to the "pop" piano technique, and I witnessed most of them while accompanying Guest Entertainers on cruise ships.  You can stab the key with outstretched and stiff fingers.  You can swipe at the keys with limp noodles.  You can play penguin style like Stevie Wonder and hang your fingers over the keyboard as so to be very close to the keyboard.  This is a necessity if you can't see the keyboard, so perhaps being blind was one root of the pop piano style.  Certainly Ray Charles exploited this approach physically playing from side to side with his arms.  Leon Russell plays between his hands in an extremely small rhythmic pocket  also undulating from side to side.  It could be described as the difference between playing single stroke or double stroke with a drum stick.  Try tapping on a snare drum with a stick with only one hand over and over.  Then try doing the same thing but alternating from hand to hand.  Truly this is the difference in the "pop" feel.  The pop feel alternates, and it often is an alternation between the feet and the hands.  It is common for the notes to swing a little bit between very much like a basic strumming pattern on the acoustic guitar.  If you loosen your wrist, the notes will swing a little bit between your down and up strokes.  If the feel solely can be created with this motion and not an emotion, it has the potential to be devoid of passion.  It could have no real feeling at all as does most superficial pop music today performed by con artists.  Music that should be appreciated should have feeling, an emotional expression that shapes the sound and rhythm.  Igor Stravinsky might disagree, because he has said that music itself has no capability to express emotion on its own.  Discuss.  Without feeling or passion art will not mean much, and if that passion is not somehow related to the reality in which we live, it will be more nondescript.  If artists cannot discern their reality and thus express an opinion about it thought music, then the man has won.