Start Where You Stand

I hear two types of jazz music. The cool jazz, a more modern, disrhythmic mixture of music, seems light and airy, a creation of the mind and intellect. In a university town, that seemed to be the predominant jazz.

The other kind of jazz music, with old-school artists like Louis Armstrong, B.B. King, Bessie Smith and so many others in New Orleans, Memphis and Harlem. There’s lots of blues and some rock ‘n’ roll themes in what I personally call New Orleans blues. My taste in music, my preference for the old jazz over modern jazz relates to my character.

In the Middle Ages, when armored mounted knights rode horses into battle, they found the horses large enough to carry them to have placid dispositions related to their heritage, their breeding to tone down aggressiveness to make a large animal easier to control by in front of the plow or the cart. Knights wished for a large horse, yes, but one with more fire and aggression, more suited to overcome the fear of the battlefield. During the Crusades, they witnessed the fiery spirit of the hot-blooded breeds, the Arab, Turcoman, and Barb horses ridden by Islamic cavalry. The Europeans interbred these hot-blooded breeds with their massive European draft horses to create warm-bloods, giants with spirit.

I find the cool jazz too airy and intellectual and based in thought. It arises from the head, not the heart. I find traditional jazz to arise from passion, loss, anger, love, betrayal woven together in a musical story, more often tragedy than triumph.

In my life, I’ve leaned more toward fire than ice. I’ve been a military officer for most of my adult life. I flew military aircraft and airliners, I served on warships at sea as an officer on the bridge, I’ve been a trial attorney, an emergency medical technician, and served in the combat arms of artillery and infantry. My blood runs hot.

I found it amusing when university professors would decry traditional jazz as unsophisticated and simple, favoring the disconnected, discordant musical strains of modern jazz. I’ve asked good jazz musicians a question: “When you play and musicians fall into a common musical theme or melody, do you intentionally change your playing to not be in harmony with the others?” Both times the musician said, yes, that’s exactly what they did.

I’ve heard fans of modern jazz criticize old school jazz, saying modern jazz is more ‘evolved’. I disagree.

I think it’s a matter of which type of music resonates with you based on your internal ‘temperature’. If you live mostly in your head, and work behind a desk or in front of a podium, you may prefer music centered on thinking. If you live more from your heart and soul, as may be more common in the combat arms and other occupations immersed in the nitty-gritty of life, then the New Orleans Jazz is your anthem, written in the language of your soul.

Just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.