The Weak Hand Of Virtuosity

by Minim
Virtuosity and instrumental facility have been an intrinsic part of jazz since its conception. In the early days, bands would often travel from town to town on open-backed trucks. Their gigs weren't booked, they would just roll into town and put on a show, making what money they could on the night. When two bands happened to meet in the same town, they would park the trucks next to each other in the middle of the street and blow furiously at the same time until one band gave up and scuttled off the next town with its tail between its legs.

Winning these contests was all about volume. Some clarinet players were using saxophone mouthpieces and some went as far as to use metal ones to give them a louder sound. The most prized trumpeters were the ones who could literally 'blow others away' with the sheer volume of their playing. Later on volume gave way to expanding the range of the instrument as the jaw-dropping requirement of jazz cutting contest performance. Louis Armstrong used to use that white handkerchief to cover his fingerings on the trumpet so other players couldn't know what he was doing and he was often accused of having a 'trick' trumpet as some of his contemporaries couldn't believe how high he could play.
The big bands would hire 'high trumpet' specialists, like Cat Anderson who played with Duke, and their job was to blast it out in the upper echelon's of the trumpet's register. The best bands had the best players - and part of being the best, was being the highest. When be-bop came along in the 1940s the technical focus changed to speed and the ability to navigate complex changes. Bird and Diz were playing jazz faster than it had ever been played before - faster than people knew it 'could' be played. They made the harmony denser by adding new substitutions to familiar progressions and even the 12 bar blues was transformed into a minefield of ii-V progressions that shifted key from bar to bar. If you couldn't navigate your way round the changes at top speed then man, you couldn't play.
And so it went. Sax players like Trane and Sonny Rollins continued to push the technical boundaries of their instrument, pianists like Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett burst onto the scene with monstrous techniques honed through classical training. Clifford Brown and Freddie Hubbard pushed the trumpet forward with their speed, clarity and harmonic conception. Bass players like Ron Carter, Eddie Gomez and Jaco Pastorious appeared to expand its solo possibilities and guitarists spanning Charlie Christian to Pat Metheny have added another virtuosic solo voice into the instrumental mix.

Whilst all of these people were undoubtedly truly great musicians in every sense of the word, it can't be denied that part of their appeal to audiences was their instrumental virtuosity.
Can you imagine a time when your entire knowledge of the jazz world would have come from 3 minute 'singles', live performances and word of mouth?
With so little to compare it to, can you imagine the impact that seeing Charlie Parker or Bud Powell live would have had?

These days, recorded music is so freely available that it's increasingly harder to be truly blown away by a live performance in the same way - just because you know what to expect. You may not have seen Joshua Redman live, but if you're going to go to one of his gigs, chances are you'll be familiar with his playing from CDs, DVDs and MP3s. Today's players take great care over the quality of their recorded output and it stands as a great representation of their musicianship and general playing style. Modern recording techniques are so good that 'live' albums can sound as good as studio albums with crystal clear sound, perfectly capturing all the nuances of a performance.

With unprecedented access to high quality audio and video, the modern jazz listener is a lot more knowledgeable, experienced and well-versed in the history of the music than at any time before. When you stand on stage and play to a jazz audience, they will be judging you in a different way than previous generations of listeners. No longer will they only compare you to the other players in your town, and a handful of national players on the few, 3-minute-78s in their collection. Now you take to the bandstand knowing that the jazz fans out there will be familiar with nearly all the great players of your instrument for nearly a hundred years.

Scary eh?
If there is one thing that this unprecedented access to music has done, it has redefined the role of instrumental virtuosity in jazz. Now, it's simply taken for granted. There will be no more great virtuosos who appear and rock the jazz world to its foundations with their sheer instrumental ability. Why? Because a) in terms of technique, it's all been done and b) the standard is so high to start with anyway.

Does this mean that jazz as an art form is exhausted and the music is finished? No, not at all. What it does mean is that you're going to have to come up with something more than virtuosic facility if you're going to make an impact. Does the jazz world need players who can blow like Charlie Parker or John Coltrane? Nope, there have been thousands of Bird and Trane clones and I can listen to the very players they are copying with the click of a mouse.

On the other hand, does the world need players with the uniqueness of conception and individuality of a Thelonious Monk?
Absolutely.
I'm convinced that the focus of the modern player should be on adding something to the music that wasn't there before, on finding your own voice. It doesn't necessarily have to be revolutionary, but I strongly believe we should be striving for a recognisably unique sound when we play - both as individuals and bands. I think most of us would accept that modern, grass-roots jazz players face a struggle to find and develop an audience. A personal theory is that today's musicians, consciously or not, are resentful of the fact that they are not more respected for their technical ability. Whenever our music gets ignored or shouted over at a function gig, there's often a voice in us silently screaming:

'What's wrong with you people? Are you deaf? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to learn to play this stuff?
Why don't you respect us?'
As a result, it's a commonly held belief that the audience is too ignorant, or not sophisticated enough, or too used to ignoring music to be able to appreciate what we do. My personal theory is that the audience is probably more musically aware than ever. Even the non-jazz fan will probably hear jazz a lot more than at any time in history. TV commercials, film soundtracks, background music in coffee shops and restaurants and crossover albums by pop artists are all situations where the Man On The Street would be exposed to jazz without having to seek it out. As a result, whether he is aware of it or not, he is probably more familiar with the language and conventions of our music than any of his ancestors.
This means that the bar is set higher than at any time in history for aspiring jazz musicians. It's not enough to turn up and jam through the standards, displaying great instrumental prowess and relying on our technique and facility to provoke interest and excitement in an audience. It's my belief that the player with nothing but great technique and a mastery of traditional jazz vocabulary is holding a very weak hand.
Today's audience is less impressed by technique than any in history - it is so familiar with the greats, that awesome technical ability is taken for granted.

In other words, it's not enough to be just a great player any more - and we can't push the envelope by playing faster, higher, louder or more notes than anybody else. If we want to take this music forward, if we want to develop an audience that wants to come and listen to us rather than sit at home and listen to the greats on iTunes - in fact, if we want to be listened to at all we're going to have to come up with something unique to say.
http://playjazz.blog.co.uk/2009/12/07/the-weak-hand-of-virtuosity-7527881/