Questions about music...

[misanthrope]

...Just wondering:

Are there many jazz fans here?
If so, how old are you?
What are some of your favorite styles and or artists?
How did you get turned on to jazz?
Why do you think more people aren't drawn to it?

[politicaholic]

1. Jazz fan here...

I'm 35.

I like everything from Dave Brubeck to Jellyroll Morton. I can't STAND adult contemporary jazz like Kenny G. Probably my fave is Ray Anderson, a trombone player out of New York. I also think The Dirty Dozen Brass Band is smokin' hot. Any jazz that has some musicianship and balls behind it is great.

I grew up in a family of musicians.

People aren't drawn to it because they A) don't understand it or B) they just don't like it in any form, they're entitled to their opinion.

[Jessica]

3. Dirty Dozen is awesome.

So is Brubeck. I also love Medeski, Martin & Wood - and the classics, especially Miles Davis & Ella Fitzgerald.

I'm 25 (tomorrow), BTW. :)

[GoddessOfGuinness]

2. My favorite jazz is old stuff...

Grapelli/Rheinhardt, Ella, Billie, Duke...

I'm 46. Started listening in my 20s, going to clubs with a friend who sometimes performed on open mike nights.

Like classical music, really appreciating jazz requires that you actually listen to it. I think a lot of people lack the patience to listen longer than a minute or two.

[sendero]

4. I love music...

... and have listened to a lot of jazz over the years.

IMHO, like any other genre, there is genius and there is crap. There is a lot more crap than genius :)

My favorite jazz is the "cool jazz" of the late 50's and early 60's. The stuff I tend to like is the stuff everyone likes from that period and is generally critically acclaimed.

Which is strange becuase most of the other music I really like nobody has even heard of much less listened to and critics hate :) I'm 50. I suspect that jazz would be more popular if more people were willing to invest the time in listening to music instead of wanting instant gratification background music.

[Squeech]

5. I am intimidated by jazz

There's this phenomenon where somebody plays something, and all of a sudden the real aficionados are looking at each other and raising their eyebrows, as if to say "Yes, that's an allusion to the great Pee Wee Russell recording of Salt Peanuts live at the Five Spot in 1952!" When what I thought was supposed to be whether it works in the moment, for the real jazzbos it's all about name-checking each others' record collections.

I think this attitude is a disincentive to more people getting into jazz. It's closely related to the phenomenon where people whose name is "Marsalis" arrogate to themselves the right to dictate what is and what is not jazz.

That said, I have peculiar tastes in jazz (just as I do in rock and classical music). My favorites are Thelonious Monk, Charlie Mingus, Eric Dolphy, and (early) Carla Bley. I don't like Miles very much, and I know that's a heretical attitude, but I find him cold.

My opinions, and worth what you paid for them.

[misanthrope]

7. Arrogance is everywhere...

...and can be used as an excuse for anything.

It obviously wasn't enough to deter you from focusing on the music.

[Aristus]

6. I'm a JimmyJazz fan.

Does that count? :-)

[Spider Jerusalem]

8. Me...

I'm 27, and my favourite styles of jazz are hard bop, post-bop, and what gets called "straight-ahead" jazz...but there's some really good free jazz, swing, Dixieland, and so on, too...my only real criterion is "Do I LIKE this, or no? Is it any good?"

Some of my favourites: Miles Davis (especially with his quintets from the late '50's and early '60's), Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and several others...

I first heard Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" when I was about twelve. My immediate reaction was "wow", and I've loved jazz ever since.

And I think jazz isn't more widely popular because it demands a certain intellectual involvement to be appreciated. You have to pay attention to what's going on with the music. It's not all about the backbeat and general lyrical tone the way it is with so much popular music. I recall an ex who told me once "I like music for the way it makes me feel; you like it for the way it makes you think", and I think this is a pretty good description of the difference between most people who like jazz and those who don't.

[democracyindanger]

9. 'Bird'

That movie is really what got me into it.

I just can't get into free jazz, though.

[Magrittes Pipe]

10. I will be thirty tomorrow.

I prefer the Impulse! style. Trane's post-'63 output, Sun Ra doing Space Is the Place, Ayler, Shepp, Hawkins, Pharoah.

[misanthrope]

11. kick*

nm

[98geoduck]

12. Fusion lover, myself....

Love Soulive, Brubeck and Spyro Gyra, whom I've partied with (except Brubeck).

Beginning "mid life"... vitality is wasted on the youth.

Amature drummer, and have a deep appreciation for the talent incorporated in Jazz, but no snob by any means.