Jazz is personal

I was listening to Miles Davis this morning.  I think I realized an important way that appreciating jazz differs from appreciating other forms of music.

Straight jazz--the kind that is filled with long improvisations that stray wildly away from the original melody--is personal.  More than most forms of music, the soloists express themselves as individuals.  Other great forms of music, such as classical music, require that the musicians conform more to the overall melody, harmony, and rhythm.  These other forms are great--in part--because the individuals focus on the needs of the group.  How best should they fit in so that the orchestra performs best as a whole?

Jazz takes a different approach.  Each soloist is encouraged to express his or her unique emotions and style even if he strays far away from the style, melody, and rhythm that the other soloists use when it is THEIR turn.  At it's best, in straight jazz, each soloist expresses their personal feelings and energy in a way that can never be repeated by any other musician.

The challenge for the listener, I found this morning when listening to Miles Davis, is to empathize with each soloist when it is their turn.  This morning, I had to sense the passion in the trumpet, the playfulness in the piano, and the swing in the sax.  Then I heard a tenor sax that could only have been played by John Coltrane.  It was uncomfortable to listen to.  Coltrane's sax was SO fast, SO intense, it felt like it would be painful to be in his mind.  I was struck by how different Coltrane's solo was than the other sax player's relaxed, swinging melody.  But that's the point.  Each musician doesn't CARE that the other soloist has a completely different style.  The point is for each soloist to be who they are.  And, as listeners, the only way to appreciate jazz is to imagine what the soloist feels when they are "into it".   Otherwise, it just sounds like a bunch of notes that are barely connected to the main melody.

I think people often enjoy live jazz more easily than they do recorded jazz because they can see the player's emotions.  They see the body language.  It becomes easier to empathize, to also get "into it" when each player plays.  The trick, when listening to recorded jazz, is to picture each musician's passion as though watching it live.