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Bunny M." is a sixteen year old Dallas resident who plays drums, piano and clarinet. Her passion for jazz and the challenges she faces as a youthful fan of it is the focus of her Jerry Jazz Musician column, "Accent on Youth."
Listen to Dinah Washington sing Accent On Youth
by Bunny M.
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Questions and Answers, Volume 1
My journey along the road of jazz admiration has led me to meet so many wonderful people of all ages-- jazz fans like myself, and incredibly talented local musicians. One of the high points of my personal jazz experience is always meeting fellow young people involved with jazz -- listening to and performing alike. Meeting a young jazz-lover always leaves me overjoyed, and curious. I know why I like jazz, but what is this other young person's reason for liking jazz? This month, I gained some insight from two young jazz fans. My good fortune of knowing them has enriched my life and enhanced my experiences with jazz.
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Mitch Monson is a 17-year-old high school senior from Moline, Illinois. Among other musical projects, Mitch plays trombone with The Bix Beiderbecke Youth Jazz Band, a group featuring top musicians from Quad City area schools. I met Mitch at the Bix Beiderbecke 100th Birthday Festival in Davenport, Iowa, in July of this year, and his friendship has been among the fond memories I brought back with me.
Bunny Mitch, how were you first introduced to jazz? Why did it appeal to you? What kind of music did you listen to before you discovered jazz? What sort of music do your parents listen to? Had you heard of jazz artists prior to your discovery of it? Mitch Playing in a middle school jazz band on Tuesdays and Thursdays before school. Prior to this I had no experience with jazz, and my family had never been very music centric, although growing up listening to the oldies with my mom in the car gave me a great taste of Motown. Bunny You discovered jazz while playing in the school band. What was it about jazz that made you fall for it-- was it a certain song, swing rhythm, a "riff" or what? Mitch It was just playing with kids. I got to play loud and have fun -- I just had fun with it, swinging and playing music, just like I always had. I've always had a good time playing music. I'm sure there is more psychology to it than that, but I just took to swinging. Bunny So would you say then it was the swing that brought you in? Mitch Kind of. See, I never really played anything in junior high with any merit. I mean, junior high charts are just like that in nature. I think it was the social and communication aspects of playing in an ensemble that it really started from. And the dynamics and fun nature of jazz is what really drove it home. But swinging too, I was always fascinated by it.
Bunny How do you feel about modern music? Do you listen to/ enjoy it? How do you think modern music appeals to/ affects youth? Mitch I listen to as much modern music as I do jazz. It's important to pay mind to past, present, and future with music. While seemingly different than past music such as jazz, I see more similarities between modern and older music than fans of both would care to admit. What's most important is that kids rally around and appreciate music even still, and what was true for jazz fifty years ago is now true for rock, and power pop, and rap, and indie, and the countless other musical genres around. But I do think people get too caught up in what they are comfortable with to appreciate what came before or after what they're used to. Branching out is important, finding a balance between old and new. Bunny You said you see similarities between modern and older music. That's really interesting. Could you elaborate a bit on that? Mitch Modern music -- let's say rock and rock derivatives -- and jazz share a lot of common chord progessions. The form is also similar, with choruses and bridges and verses. They both use the same type of scales, and make use of melodic lines, and variation among them. It's hard to explain from a technical standpoint, but I just see rock as a variation on jazz where the volume has been turned up -- rap too, especially. Nobody agrees with me, but rap is exactly like jazz -- it is improvisation, making songs out of other songs, playing over a repeated or common background. Rap is just jazz with words instead of instruments. Bunny <<laughs>> That's a really interesting idea! Mitch Even the rap guys, they are cocky and fashionable and do everything the jazz guys did. Instead of wearing sharp suits, they now wear bling. Honestly when you think about trends in jazz, they are cocky bastards. Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colussus? Come on. On all the "-ology" tunes -- "Ornithology," "Doxology," etc -- tell me rappers don't copy each other like that. They parallel each other really well though. And back to rock and things like that, it's great live just like jazz is, and the big thing is just that the focus is to try to pack intensity and a good time into a song, just like jazz. I wish I could explain it better, but I see modern music as just repeating the thirties through fifties. On the surface they sound nothing alike, but a closer look really shows that one is just derivative of the other. Bunny I guess the social background of modern and older music (of the twentieth century) is the same -- namely, every succeeding generation seeking to distance itself from the previous. Mitch Exactly, and by doing that they are really the same. Bunny How do you think jazz could be made more appealing to youth today? Especially from a performer's perspective, what are your thoughts on jazz, and what aspects of it do you think might appeal to today's youth? Do you think it's possible for older, "classic" jazz to appeal to youth? What are your thoughts on younger, jazz-oriented artists, such as Michael Bublé, Peter Cincotti, Harry Connick, Norah Jones, et al, appearing on the music scene today? Do you think such artists will help or hinder the introduction of jazz to a wider youth audience? Mitch The big hump with jazz is images that get conjured up when you mention it. Jazz, along with everything else from previous generations, will naturally be rejected by youth because kids are going to want to migrate away from their parents and tradition, which is why I think kids should find and be introduced to what they like now and work backwards from that. It's pretty hard to push Coltrane on a teenager, but if you go from rock to blues and cross over to funk and hit all the decades sooner or later you're going to end up in the jazz era. People aren't any different now than they've ever been, so they have the same capability of liking jazz as liking classical, as liking rock and roll. It's really just a matter of linking them all together, going from one stepping stone to the next. Crossover genres are also very helpful. Jazz-pop and blues-funk, which have a modern appeal, could be the bridge for someone to bop. A recent trend in jam bands helps for the jazz cause too. Bands based around improvisation with elaborate percussion and wind instrumentalists put out records that all of my friends own. Its a variation on jazz, and its immensely cool that it's as popular as it is. The bottom line is that just because things arent the same as they used to be, isn't a reason to discount it. Appreciating the former and the latter is the real key to getting a full musical diet. Miles Davis was a fan of Jimi Hendrix and Prince.
Mitch Monson can be emailed at: mitchmonson@mail.com
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Brandon Seitzler, a native of Plano, Texas, is the drummer for 15th Street Jazz, a local jazz youth band made up of Bryan Aduddell on guitar; Chris Casey on tenor and alto sax; and Steve Saverance on bass. I first had the pleasure of hearing 15th Street Jazz live at a local Christmas Festival in the historic district of East Plano. The fact that these young musicians (all high school students at the time) were playing jazz standards with all the finesse and professionalism of the original musicians, completely blew me away, and further fueled my ventures into jazz/youth relations. Their debut album, The First Session was recorded this autumn.
Bunny How were you first introduced to jazz? Why did it appeal to you? Brandon I was introduced to jazz by my uncle, Ken Griffith. Ken is a fellow jazz drummer and one of the greatest I've had the privilege of knowing and playing with. When I came to the question of "why does jazz appeal to me?" it made me think. When I listen to jazz, as silly as it may sound, I can't seem to sit still. There is something in jazz -- swing-- that makes the body want to move. It's hard to not want to play music that truly consumes your body. Bunny What was your attitude toward music previous to your jazz discovery? Did you listen to it at all, or were you just like "eh, whatever?" Also, what did you hear growing up around the house? Oldies? Hard Rock? Brandon Previous to my jazz discovery my favorites included Primus and Metalica. Growing up around the house my family listened to most everything: classical, jazz, country, Vanilla Ice -- seriously -- pop, but never really much hard rock. Bunny What sort of music do your friends listen to? What are their attitudes towards jazz? Do they listen to/ know about jazz? Brandon Up until my senior year in high school, most of my friends listened to a span of music from Hendrix to 50 Cent, but it wasn't until 15th Street Jazz that my friends started listening to jazz. We prided ourselves in feeling that we began to almost popularize jazz at Plano Senior High School. On a daily/ weekly basis we would have students and teachers coming up to us and asking us when and where they could hear us play next.
Bunny How do you think jazz could be made more appealing to youth today? Do you think it's possible for older, "classic" jazz to appeal to youth? What are your thoughts on younger, jazz-oriented artists appearing on the music scene today? Brandon After what we did with 15th Street Jazz in only one year in Plano -- a very cosmopolitan and pop culture-driven town -- it is obvious that jazz is appealing to the youth of today. The problem is getting the men and women of the music industry to understand this. 15th Street Jazz was able to do a lot on our own, but in trying to expand, we're seeing we need help from the music industry. Some of our fan's favorite songs were "classics". The youth of today associate well with this music, they just need young people like 15th Street Jazz to play the tunes and help lead the way. Bunny Along with public performance, especially of young musicians, are there any other methods, in your opinion, that would help to get today's youth interested in jazz? Brandon Obviously marketing comes into play here. Don't get me wrong -- I don't think the music needs to change. 15th Street Jazz proved that the music is a hit, but I think that if the industry is trying to reach a younger crowd then they simply need to market towards a younger crowd. First the music industry needs to recognize the presence of a young audience that is interested in jazz. There has been about a fifty-five year time period in which jazz was no longer a young person's music. With bands like 15th Street Jazz showing that there is this audience of young people out there interested in jazz, the music industry will catch on and shift their marketing towards the younger jazz audience.
15th Street Jazz can be contacted via email at: FifteenthStJazz@yahoo.com Peace is the word,
Bunny
You can contact Bunny at: lotusflower1922@hotmail.com
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