Leprechaun's jazz corner

[Leprachaun]

I think jazz can be a highly unappreciated genre of music and so I have decided to start posting a song a day that will be music to your ears.

The song of the day is: April in Paris by Count Basie
Filled with rich saxophone melodies an outstanding trombone solo. This song brings us back to the early days of the era.

[Vengaboy]

Salt n Peanuts.... is about all i remember from jazz history.

[Leprachaun]

I'm assuming they were trying to emphasize the looseness that is jazz and I could see that in conjunction with poetry as it is popular for english teachers to pair the different arts together from the same era. So if you discuss Gwendolyn Brooks you might also look at African American jazz culture. I personally am not a fan of the song but that is just because I enjoy the slow dance. Most lessons on jazz won't reflect the simplistic beauty found throughout jazz culture.

[Leprachaun]

Today's jazz tune comes from one of my favorite games and contains some of the smoothest rhythms and a croon that could turn you gay, "Ain't that a kick in the head" by Dean Martin

[Some Guy]

Lep,

From a trained jazz musician to an appreciator of fine music, it seems that you've confused "Big Band"-style Swing with Jazz.

For some serious jazz, see Miles Davis. Compare the rhythm and chord pregression (ii-V-I vs I-IV-V). For someone a bit more contemporary, take a listen to Wes Montgomery's take on the Beatles' 'A Day In The Life', or Stanley Jordan's Autumn Leaves (or really anything from these artists. I'll also give an honorable mention to Weather Report, if not only because Jaco Pastorious might be the great bassist that ever lived, and they/he are 100% the reason I got into jazz bass initially).

I'm not saying the music you posted isn't good - it's GREAT, actually. I love both of those songs very dearly and actually have "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" picked out to be the first dance at my wedding . They're just not jazz. History has a funny way of lumping Jazz and Big Band together - but both Dean Martin and Count Basie (and others from this era of music) are music closer in music theory to swing than bonafide jazz.

Let's jam sometime .