We are going to try to investigate jazz.
Not through the usual historical approach of Up the river of New Orleans, et cetera.
Which has become all to farmilliar.
But through approaching the music itself.
We are going to examine the musical innards of jazz to find out, once and for all, what sets it appart from all other music.
Jazz is a very big word.
There are those who argue that jazz is love.
Besides, it's not always love.
It is very often very delicate.
Perhaps this subjection stands from the irrimediable situation of, what is after all, a kind of brass band playing in a room too small for it.
But that is not the fault of jazz itself.
However the main argument against jazz has always been that it is not art.
I think it is art, and a very special one.
But before we can argue about weather it is or not, we must know what it is.
So I propose so share with you some of the timgs that I know and love about jazz.
But even more important than melody in jazz is element of rythm.
Rythm is the first thing you associate with jazz, after all.
There are two aspects to this point; the first being the beat.
The beat being what you hear when the drummer's foot is beating the bass drum; Or when the bass player is plucking his bass.
Or even when the pianist is kicking the pedal with his foot.
All this is elementary.
The beat goes on from the beggining to the end of a number.
Two or four of them to a bar.
Never changing in tempo or meter.
This is the hard beat, so to speak, of jazz.