Is a great album, and I'm going to write a blog post about it right now. About a half a year ago I thought that it'd be a good idea to try it make it through Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-20120531) It is a few years old, but I'm still having a good time chugging through it. Of course, making a list of the 500 greatest albums of all time is impossible, but I'm looking at it as a reason to listen to music that I might not otherwise. TLC's CrazySexyCool is a great example. I've been keeping notes on some other album highlights that I will share at some point, for now this will have to do.
In a nutshell, CrazySexyCool is a funky throwback from a great era of history. It was the same year that the world series was cancelled, Nancy Kerrigan got hit really hard in the knee (ridiculous), Tiger Woods was still innocent and Microsoft ruled the world. I was 9ish when the album first came out, so I don't know much about it's immediate impact on society, but today I wish people would bring it up more often. I haven't heard a more honest album in a long time, and everyone needs a reminder to stop chasing waterfalls, they are dangerous. Listen to it, I guarantee you will love it. Babyface, cheers to a job well done.
Moving on, another thing that has been on my mind lately is how hardjazzswingbop comes across to the people that haven't grown up listening to, or playing the music. What is hardjazzswingbop you ask? It is basically any instrumental song that is played over a standard jazz form. A few weeks ago I had some friends in town, and decided to pick their brain a bit about instrumental music. I'm not the biggest fan of musical genres, but I'd rather use them in this post instead of naming individual musicians. The responses from my friends were generally the same when I played them songs from a wide range of era's, so it makes it a bit easier to lump them together in this post(hardjazzswingbop). Welcome to the world HardJazzSwingBop!
To make a long story shorter, one night we saw a great modern jazz group, and the next night we saw a talented group playing hardjazzswingbop. Both were instrumental, and in my opinion both were of high quality. So when I asked my friends what they thought, the general consensus was that the modern music was actually much easier to follow because the difference between sections were more clearly defined. This confused me a bit, because these same people probably know more words and melodies to older tin pan alley era songs than I do, but found hardjazzswingbop to be some of the most confusing music that they have ever heard.
So I'd like to start a conversation about why people think this is so, and how much it matters to the future of instrumental music. Making another long story short, it seems like many people today have just completely skipped over the hardjazzswingbop era, and have labeled it as slightly introverted and confusing basically in the same exact way that many musicians view the direction of modern instrumental music. Weird?
I've wondered for a long time about what would happen if a DJ suddenly decided to play a a swing track at a crowded bar or dance club late at night. Would people be confused? Would they dance? Would they leave? Would they do heroin? To me, exposure to instrumental hardjazzswingbop music in dance settings is a big reason for it's decline in popularity. When I would play "funkier" hardjazzswingbop (I love this word) examples, their reaction was still confusion, but not as much so. What was most interesting was that my buddies all agreed that they would be more open to dancing if; 1. The music was played in a setting that was more dance appropriate than a small club 2. Other people were dancing as well.
So my idea is that we as improvising instrumental musicians start buying DJ's drinks and asking them to play some funky swing, and then live music will be saved. My laundry is done drying, more on this later.
Leon
