drsmooth wrote:Kid, I'm right now listening to a Jackie McLean performance of Charles Tolliver's Right Now, and thinking to myself that I've almost certainly listened to that piece at least twice as many times as either fellow did in their lifetimes (Tolliver still lives, so he might catch me, but...).
And for me, it's still new.
what are we to make of that?
I had a professor in music school who talked about coming back to an art work and making new discoveries. He said that music that was fertile in the way had a lot of what he called "middle-ground", that most music had fore-ground and background, but that music deep with middle-ground and where things shifted between the levels was the music that allowed to keep coming back to it and experiencing it in new ways.
There is also interpretation. There is a well known famous Piano Sonata by Chopin, the B Minor. Beautiful piece of Chopin and his heights. I first heard it at 15 years old and have been collecting versions of it for years. I got a version maybe 15 years ago? Maybe a little longer -- and it was from a master pianist who had recorded it early in his career and now again later in his career-- it was like hearing the piece anew, because he had such a deep understanding of the piece and the style and the composer and such control and depth -- that he was able to still play the notes, and yet deliver something unlike the 15 other recordings I had heard over the years... it blew me away.
That's great.
The cool thing about Jazz, is that certain tunes are done over n over n over as vehicles to present new ideas.
You listen to the original of Moment's Notice on Blue Trane and then listen to the version McCoy Tyner does on Super Trios in 1977!!!??!! And you really learn something about how the music moved forwards.
There's an old jazz singer Chris Conner, I had an old Bethlehem recording of her doing a tune called "Blame it on my Youth" that she recorded in her 20's in the mid-50's, she recorded the same tune again 30 years later in her late 50's -- it's amazing to hear the contrast.
I'm sure that many BSGers that don't follow jazz do enjoy covers of songs they are familiar with.
