Hector's "Barely O's" Jazz Club: Opening ... Never

Had the pleasure of attending the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra last night (March 15). It's something that for the price of late season fill-in tickets ($20), I find quite enjoyable. When I went last month (OK, tix were 2 for $40), pianist Yakov Kasman playing Rachmaninoff was the big attraction, so I didn't go there for any other reason than to listen and enjoy the music. Last night, being vaguely familiar with Bartok (the first session), Ravel (also the first session), and better than vaguely familiar with Berlioz (the second session, Symphonie Fantastique), I attended the concert, first, to enjoy the music, and second, to find some kernel of linkage to jazz music which I could apply to my music. And while I know from my introduction to music course in college that all western music shares similar roots and structures due to being based on the diatonic and chromatic scales, other than an occasional distracting dissonance put in (what I thought were) obvious places specifically to upset the emotions of the listener (don't forget: we're hanging a guy in the fourth movement), I don't think I learned much about jazz last night. This morning, I spent some time thinking about it more, going over the notes, both literal and allegorical, and really, I can't come up with anything. I don't know. For me, having been brought up listening to a lot of choral and liturgical works, then pops, and much later a steady diet of classical work, all eventually leading me to jazz, personally, I find jazz just too different from other types of music. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure it's not all that different. Just for me, at this stage in my learning about jazz, I only learn about jazz when I'm playing, listening, thinking, or talking about jazz.

I read somewhere that when learning jazz, one should listen to only jazz, and listen to it continuously. And, in my zealousness to become a jazz musician, I followed that for a time. Now, I disagree with that. I think, if anything, jazz benefits from having modern and classical influences, pop and traditional influences, and finding those influences is easier if one is listening to a broad range of music with an open mind, looking for applications, variations, and "cross pollination".

But I'm still a big Berlioz fan. One can't help but wonder what the audience thought back when this symphony was first performed and the oboe player stood up, walked off stage, and then, began the third movement, the oboe echoing in the distance, being answered by the rest of the orchestra. It's echoes (sorry) of an avant garde musician in the jazz tradition, so I guess I can take that as my kernel. Nonetheless, Hector is no longer with us, though I'm sure he's jamming somewhere, just not here. The Barely O's jazz club is not to be.