On Thursday night, I spent a considerable amount of time sitting in a wooden chair, listening to some world class jazz musicians playing some music that I absolutely failed (that’s right, not even partially failed) to appreciate.
This all began when a friend at uni decided they were keen to see a show at the Melbourne Jazz Festival. I had a look at the website, and one act caught my eye – it would have a solo piano player, followed by a jazz group. ‘Great,’ I thought. ‘This’ll be good fun – some nice jazz standards probably.’
Oh retrospectively created naive Gelati Gecko, if only you had known what was to come.
So a plucky group of us went along and jazzed up to the concert.
What followed was not jazz standards as I had foolishly assumed, but CONTEMPORARY, MODERN, JAZZ.
During the two forty minute pieces that the group played, I was able to pinpoint why the music left me completely cold:
- There is no melodic narrative.
The music just went all over the place. There was no melody, and no chords or underlying HARMONY against all the dissonance. Notes, notes, notes, came flurrying out of the instruments, and without some sort of original melody, it felt to me like the improvisation filling the room had no context.
- It was as if, if it were to be compared to language based art such as poetry, the diction was clear, the voice was sometimes nice, but it was speaking quickly to me, blurring words which on closer inspection were just gibberish anyway. If I wasn’t able to understand what they were saying, it is very difficult to relate to it.
- They did something like three rounds of improvisations in each of the forty minute pieces. And throughout the piece (and I’m really just repeating the above two points in another form), I found myself just thinking ‘so what?’ when they played a blur of notes which could have occurred 20 minutes earlier, or could be 10 minutes ahead, and it wouldn’t make any difference to me. There was no journey or progression for me to enjoy. I just didn’t get it.
But apparently some people did get it. There were a few people (who were clearly culturally sensitive, enlightened, artistically attuned souls), who were doing a head bobble with the music. Then there were the ones who exaggerated it into a full on ‘top half of their body bobble’.
After a while I began to wonder whether they were thinking in their heads ‘Christ, where’s this going? No idea, just nod attentively, Greg. Show everyone how much you get it.’ Ten points to Gryffindor for the woman who opted for a head SHAKE in place of the more popular head nod.
And of course there was some guy who was filming the whole thing on a digital camera. I watched the flashing red dot in the top corner for a bit, when I bored of watching the musicians on stage, who, as one of the group present put it, “seemed to be enjoying it more than anyone in the audience”.
I did wonder why he was filming it...
Filming man (at next dinner party): Oh yes, well Beryl and I went to the Jazz Festival the other week.
Guest #1: Really?
Beryl: Oh yes, we thoroughly appreciate the modern jazz scene. There was some very thought provoking music this year. Glen actually recorded it.
Guest #2: Nobody is impressed. Shut up.
Beryl and Glen: ...
And then people started walking out of the concert. So I guess we weren’t alone in signing up for something we had no idea about.
The leaving happened exponentially, too. Once one couple left, another person realised that they could leave too. And then, well, nobody’ll mind if I just slip out? The funniest one was someone that left ten seconds before the concert finished (though in fairness, there was no sense of finality in the musicians’ playing, so the person had no guarantee that it would end).
And afterwards, we all agreed that it was ‘an experience’.
You may be wondering, or perhaps even shouting at your computer, “But Gelati Gecko, why are you wasting our time telling us this? We are not interested in your cultural escapades and/or misadventures.”
No, perhaps you’re not. But I am recording this so that if I EVER, EVER, go to another concert of a similar brand of jazz, it will be entirely indefensible.
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