Jazz
2017 01 07
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I love jazz. This is not a secret - nor is the fact that I hate scat and bebop; but that's not important right now. I was reminded the other day, by a crack someone made, that as much as I might love jazz, I actually listen to very little of it.
I sing it. I don't listen much to it, unless I'm learning something.
I have always followed the rule that the only way to learn a song, is to listen to it only enough to get the basics down, then stop listening to it. You need to learn to rely on your own memory, cues, rhythm - which never happens if you're waiting for the cues in someone else's performance. You never internalise, so memorise, a song if you keep listening to it.
When it comes to listening, I spend most of my time with rock - punk, indie, late 70s/early 80s Joe Jackson and Tom Petty types. I like guitars. I like the blues for listening.
I think the jazz song I've listened to most, though, is probably Julie London's 1964 live on Japanese TV version of Cry Me A River. I think I do fair justice to it, but I never want to sing it in front of anyone else, because every other cover of it I've ever heard is shit, and I don't want to have that arrogance about me that screams that it can do justice to a song owned so much by one singer, when everyone else has failed at it. I'll sing it to myself at home, and leave it at that.