JazzCore2/part one

"Music should not have any mandates. Jazz is not supposed to be something that is required to sound like jazz." (Wayne Shorter)

"Players are coming from other backgrounds: rock, folk, ethnic music. It's changing jazz for the better." (Billy Taylor)

"There's so many ways you can hit one note." (Stanley Turrentine)

JazzCore2/part one

Break’s over, JazzCore returns!

Welcome to JazzCore2/part one—a jam session, a medley of choruses:  Eleven St. Louis musicians who play jazz answer the question, “Do you consider yourself a jazz musician?” 

A question for you: As you read, what do you notice?  The comment jar awaits.

“Do you consider yourself a jazz musician?”

I do.  I do.  Although I’ve had to play other kinds of music to survive because obviously the majority doesn’t listen to jazz these days.  Jazz has been my primary focus over a lot of years, and I think that to be a jazz musician you have to be focused on creating your own language—your own personal language—and always working on that, whether or not it’s applicable to the gig you’re doing at the time.  Expanding it, expanding the things you can hear…. It’s like you’re constantly listening to other players and trying to pick out things that you can use…. I also think you have to be involved in improvising to be a jazz musician—although improvising isn’t the exclusive territory of jazz….

   Eric Slaughter, guitar

Yes.  Although I don't consider myself to be exclusively a jazz musician…. Improvisation is a big part of what makes jazz a unique form of music…. I don't really know that you're playing jazz unless you're improvising to some extent.

You can certainly play a tune and play it well, and it can swing and you can have good phrasing…. I guess I consider myself a jazz player because I incorporate those elements into the music when I perform--specifically when I perform jazz repertoire. 

   Tom Byrne, guitar

Oh, yes, I do. 

When I first started getting interested in music, it was boogie-woogie that caught my fancy--I guess you can call it an early form of jazz—and I just took the whole thing and ran with it.  I loved it! 

I was a dropout as a little beginner student until that came along.  So I went that route, and I have followed it as I grew up--people like Nat Cole, George Shearing, and then later on, Errol Garner, Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans—you name it—and those are all extremely well-known and excellent jazz pianists.  So I would call myself a jazz pianist because I followed their art.

My playing makes me a jazz musician. 

   Herb Drury, piano

Yes.  My playing swings, for one thing.  I do not profess to know every jazz tune that was ever written.  Basically, most of my repertoire is the American songbook, along with a number of jazz tunes. Being able to improvise is also an essential part of it.  It’s what you play and how you play it?  That's exactly right. Playing jazz and swinging at home, without an audience, you can still be a jazz musician.

   Dave Venn, piano

Yes.  I’ve been trained as one, and I practice jazz when I can.  There’s not as much opportunity to do it here in St. Louis on a daily basis, and I perform a lot of different kinds of music, but jazz is one of them. 

When I say ‘practice,’ I mean I perform it.  I think that I could call myself a jazz musician maybe in the same way I call myself a blues musician or a pop musician.  I don’t necessarily feel that that is my only label…. It’s one of a number of different kinds of styles that I play…. The jazz musician part of it feels as much like a lifestyle as it does an art form, so there’s a certain spontaneity to it, and also for me there’s a part of my life that I bring to it.  So my experiences in life I bring to the art form.  I’m not sure that I could say that about a lot of other art forms…. It ties into the improvisational nature of the music…. Maybe over 30 years I’ve been practicing this art form.

   Tim Garcia, piano

I never say to people, ‘I'm a jazz musician.’  Other people call me that.  I say that I'm a musician or a bassist.

Yes, jazz is very prominent in my life.  I especially like any kind of improvised music.  But…I've always enjoyed just about any kind of music--listening and playing.  So not calling myself a jazz musician reflects that I enjoy playing many kinds of music.  I'm often disappointed when I find out that people in other areas of music who are looking for a bassist didn't think to call me because they think I only do jazz….

Being able to improvise is an essential element of jazz and being a jazz musician.  I don't think that playing out or not makes the difference.  But I do think that improvising does.

   Willem von Hombracht, bass

Absolutely.  Yes.  I have for over 20 years just because of how deeply I enjoy the music and the act of improvisation and the community of it as well—interacting with different people--and the opportunity to play music that’s not repetitive all day long—which I’ve also done, and I imagine most jazz musicians have also done.  You know, you play rock, and you’ve got to stick to that bass line, stick to that drum beat….

Is someone just playing Real Book tunes at home without improvising a jazz musician?  Simply playing the melody?  No, I would liken that to me being at home practicing Chopin on the piano.  I’m not a classical musician…. But it is about the community, getting out and interacting with other musicians.  That’s how it’s learned—not through the school…. So playing standards from a book—no, I wouldn’t consider that jazz.  That would be the idiom—like the standards are obviously the vehicle for jazz—but improvisation, yes, is key—absolutely. 

   Bob DeBoo, bass

I do.   I mean, I think both musically first and foremost because even as a kid in orchestra in grade school, high school, I wanted to improvise and make my own stuff up.  And then, as I studied through college, grad school and everything,…the focus is the improvisation. That’s who I consider jazz musicians—people that are trying to make music in the spirit of the moment. I also feel like the lifestyle—even though it varies from person to person…I feel like I fit into that as well….

I know classical musicians and other musicians throughout time improvised, so it might not just be that.  It might be that within a certain context—like a certain style, like the history of the music.  So there has to be some connection to what came [before]…. It has to be based on if you’ve listened to the music and understand some things about it. 

So I’m not sure if someone just messing around on their guitar infinitely at home is considered a jazz musician per se…. I mean, maybe if you’ve never played out or played with other people, you might be missing some aspect of it.  I do think some phenomenal players play at home, and…they’re probably playing some really amazing music, and I would consider them still to be a jazz musician. 

   Ben Wheeler, bass

Yes.  For my entire adult life, I have specifically worked to develop skills within the jazz tradition…, and that remains my primary focus—as an instrumentalist and as a composer.  And then for the last 30+ years as a teacher.  That’s not to say I don’t have experiences outside the realm of jazz as performer or as teacher.  But the vast majority of time I put into the task of preparing to be a performer…and a teacher is spent within the discipline of jazz or within the style of jazz and the disciplines attendant to that. 

Over the last 40 years, the playing [I’ve] done has been primarily playing jazz…. My early professional experience—and this is the late ‘60s—was playing in saxophone sections in big bands, and a lot of them were these so-called ghost bands in various places in the Midwest, bandleaders that had reputations that had been established in the swing era or slightly later, who had books but no standing personnel, and you’d end up just on a free-lance basis through a contractor…. Some of that was jazz, some of it was more peripherally related. I suppose for most of the time, it was dance music.

And then I’ve done an enormous amount of show music and pops concerts…with the symphony, where jazz phrasing is central to making the music work…. If you’re phrasing correctly, then you’re playing like a jazz player regardless of whether anyone else is or isn’t doing it. 

Then there’s the whole notion of improvisation.  And, of course, improvisation is not strictly the domain of jazz, but the improvisation I’ve done has by and large been with jazz musicians involving a context that involves swing and using more traditional jazz forms.  The whole definition of what is jazz is…we could go on forever about that…and about what a jazz musician is.

   Paul DeMarinis, saxophone

No.  I study the music, I love the music. I think maybe there are a few people who consider themselves purely jazz musicians.  I love everything about the music, and it embodies how I approach playing, but in terms of whether I make a living off of the music, no.  I find other outlets that aren’t considered necessarily jazz…. I have enough reading ability to play with various jazz bands…but I’m definitely not hustling and trying to stay true… and only do jazz gigs.

I don’t know if there’s a way to strictly define ‘being a jazz musician.’   I guess I could consider myself a jazz musician in the sense that that’s the kind of music I listen to—the majority of it—and it’s the music I study to improve my musicianship, but then I go out and apply all of that knowledge to a gig that’s totally unrelated to jazz.  So I think that would probably be one way of being a jazz musician, where actually the majority of your livelihood is created and generated from that music.

   Ben Reece, saxophone

That’s an interesting question.  Yes, I do, but there’s still so much to learn about the idiom itself, there’s just so much to it.  And I think people take it very lightly in terms of what jazz is—and it’s been categorized in various ways—but there are so many different facets of it that you continue to learn about what works with what and how you can turn other kinds of music into jazz.  So I say, ‘Yes.’

I’d say I’ve been a jazz musician over 25 years.  I also consider myself an artist.

   Don Cook, saxophone