Young Musician Jazz Award 2014

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

On BBC4 tonight

a quite thrilling event; capably and coolly presented by Josie D'Arby and Soweto Kinch .... judged by Jason Yarde, Trish Clewes, Django Bates & Julian Joseph

five stellar youngsters
Sean Payne [Purcell School] a cool poised alto player with a great sound; i could hear him in a Tristano Quintet with a guitar in the front line - only 13!
Bass Player Freddie Jenson aged 14 [Cheethams] what delightful; facility and command he has, a LaFaro in the making watch that space he is phenomenal
Alex Bone sax [Cheethams] 17; an accomplished alto player somewhat in the Sandbourn style - also interested in dance music - a very strong performer
Jake Labazzi trumpet [Purcell] 18 a member of the NYJO and a very accomplished soloist, his version of Anthropology on Flugelhorn was stunning
Tom Smith alto sax, 18, [St Pauls doing Music A level and going to Royal College] brought the house down with storming soloing

the judges picked young Mr Bone for the award

there was one clear and outright winner at this event - jazz won

very academic youngsters, well schooled but immersed in the art of jazz - the ineffably anarchic art continues its seduction of young minds ....

[Tom Audustus]

I really enjoyed the programme. Pity that we were only given edited highlights of the performances.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

perhaps more this afternoon on JLU

[MrGongGong]

Does this mean (and i'm not taking ANYTHING away from these youngsters and have work colleagues in the places where they study etc etc ) that to be excellent at Jazz (as well as "Classical" music) you need to go to a specialist or private school ?

What I heard was wonderful (and I love the Taylor Trumpets flugel )

but not sure it's a sign of a

ineffably anarchic art

? or a sign that Jazz is firmly part of the musical "establishment" (which isn't necessarily a bad thing either !)

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well who can say what it might be a sign of ..... my instinct is to always trust the triumph of anarchy but that is no guarantee!

it does suggest strongly that the needed virtuosity is most likely in the domain of fees and scholarships and that is dispiriting ... on the other hand a cadre of well educated jazz musicians should be able to arrange a much higher quality of disorder ..... we may well have to wait a few years before the ineffable turns up though .... i think this is a challenge for serious music altogether, the schools and colleges keep turning them out but the employment prospects are daunting no? and not just for musicians ... straight from a Baliol PPE to a call centre doesn't cut it eh?

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Well, if they cant make a career playing they can always go back into academe (le factory) and teach....but this of course requires an ever fresh supply of young wide eyed hopefulls who will be given the illusion that they can make a career playing....et so on...keep filling the tanks...

"Round and Around Ol' Joe Clark" as the fiddle tune goes.


"Jazz" has truly eaten itself.

BN. a cynic down the clinic.

[Tenor Freak]

First, congratulations to all the finalists and to Alex Bone. Let's hope you all keep it going with this music.

However I find it depressing that none of them is from a state school. Then again, that is a symptom of how badly music education has fallen in the state sector - to get the necessary technical chops requires dedication and bread. Competitions like this are going to be impossible for the talented kids in state education to break into, unfortunately. It's the same for the straight Young Musician contest, no? (Please someone tell me I'm wrong.)

One thing that does encourage me though is that this is a lifetime's work - some musicians blossom early, others take their time - talent, an inquiring mind, determination, dedication to the craft, a work ethic and years of practice are more important than mere $$$. (But $$$ speeds things along.)

[Tenor Freak]

Well, if they cant make a career playing they can always go back into academe (le factory) and teach....but this of course requires an ever fresh supply of young wide eyed hopefulls who will be given the illusion that they can make a career playing....et so on...keep filling the tanks...

"Round and Around Ol' Joe Clark" as the fiddle tune goes.


"Jazz" has truly eaten itself.

BN. a cynic down the clinic.

Yes, well even Jackie Mac got a job down at the academy in the end.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Yes, well even Jackie Mac got a job down at the academy in the end.

Er after some twenty plus years on the street. In one "working" year his total earnings were $360. He was only kept afloat by Dolly teaching. And he/they then created an entire faculty.

Jackie's life wasnt "hanging" at the Guildhall.

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

First, congratulations to all the finalists and to Alex Bone. Let's hope you all keep it going with this music.

However I find it depressing that none of them is from a state school. Then again, that is a symptom of how badly music education has fallen in the state sector - to get the necessary technical chops requires dedication and bread. Competitions like this are going to be impossible for the talented kids in state education to break into, unfortunately. It's the same for the straight Young Musician contest, no? (Please someone tell me I'm wrong.)

One thing that does encourage me though is that this is a lifetime's work - some musicians blossom early, others take their time - talent, an inquiring mind, determination, dedication to the craft, a work ethic and years of practice are more important than mere $$$. (But $$$ speeds things along.)

I detect a reflection of the exigencies of background and income in the kinds of music being produced by these youngsters in this country. It first of all strikes me that jazz is initially seen as one possible musical option among many. My own prejudices incline me towards the assumption that jazz offers the most creative option to the young person in the appeal of its rich development and diversity, coupled with the primacy of personal involvement and development shaped by an immediacy of procedures unparallelled by other musical genres with their do's and dont's. These positive aspects probably "endawn themselves" on the aspirant young jazzer as he or she proceeds from an initially limited appreciation of what they are getting themselves into, to the whole unbusinesslike business of contextualised self-realisation that defines jazz as liberatory praxis beyond structures of academe and state. Hence the emphasis on acquiring technique, and, much mentioned, acquiring something of a "common tongue" which makes for something of a homogeneity of approach to improvising, as compared with greater individuality in the compositional field, an emphasis which will shift from the latter to the former over time by experience on the stand, as is always the crux in jazz. In a broadcast interview with Ian Carr in 1989 which I have on tape, Max Roach pointed out the roots of hip hop as residing in a deprivation of funding to black working class districts of Chicago for musical education, a similar situation to that which had given rise to bebop, 40 years previously. Much of early jazz innovation started from the streets and clubs and later married up with the academy in mimicry of the united fronts between working class grass roots action and parliamentary reform. Jazz will always attract gifted musicians because of it being an uniquely satisfying way to make music, and so colleges will have it on the syllabus as a marketable skill; but the music is much too important to be left to formalisation if formalisation means procedural ossification - the source for continuing its spirit has to come from elsewhere, I think.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I detect a reflection of the exigencies of background and income in the kinds of music being produced by these youngsters in this country. It first of all strikes me that jazz is initially seen as one possible musical option among many. My own prejudices incline me towards the assumption that jazz offers the most creative option to the young person in the appeal of its rich development and diversity, coupled with the primacy of personal involvement and development shaped by an immediacy of procedures unparallelled by other musical genres with their do's and dont's. These positive aspects probably "endawn themselves" on the aspirant young jazzer as he or she proceeds from an initially limited appreciation of what they are getting themselves into, to the whole unbusinesslike business of contextualised self-realisation that defines jazz as liberatory praxis beyond structures of academe and state. Hence the emphasis on acquiring technique, and, much mentioned, acquiring something of a "common tongue" which makes for something of a homogeneity of approach to improvising, as compared with greater individuality in the compositional field, an emphasis which will shift from the latter to the former over time by experience on the stand, as is always the crux in jazz. In a broadcast interview with Ian Carr in 1989 which I have on tape, Max Roach pointed out the roots of hip hop as residing in a deprivation of funding to black working class districts of Chicago for musical education, a similar situation to that which had given rise to bebop, 40 years previously. Much of early jazz innovation started from the streets and clubs and later married up with the academy in mimicry of the united fronts between working class grass roots action and parliamentary reform. Jazz will always attract gifted musicians because of it being an uniquely satisfying way to make music, and so colleges will have it on the syllabus as a marketable skill; but the music is much too important to be left to formalisation if formalisation means procedural ossification - the source for continuing its spirit has to come from elsewhere, I think.

It's become something of a cliche that jazz no longer has any real link to its original community. But without that, its a clock without a spring. It still sort of "ticks" but doesn't tell the time.

Mine's a Hank Rolex.


BN.


And that link was once organic. Frank Lowe talking about hearing Gene Ammons on a jukebox and being spellbound...

[Serial_Apologist]

It's become something of a cliche that jazz no longer has any real link to its original community. But without that, its a clock without a spring. It still sort of "ticks" but doesn't tell the time.

Mine's a Hank Rolex.


BN.


And that link was once organic. Frank Lowe talking about hearing Gene Ammons on a jukebox and being spellbound...

Then I'll make mine a Lee Marvin.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Should have been a Sonny Rolex! Newks Time.

BN

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Interesting discussion on the implications of "jazz education now bigger than the music itself" from Julian Joseph etc.

The learning on the job scene when too young largely gone...

In my day kids went down the jazz mines at 12.


BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

Julian is delving much deeper into the issues nowadays than I've heard him do in the past, when he sounded a bit laid back. Claire too - what about the absence of women in this finale, she quite rightly asks? I wouldn't have been satisfied by Julian's reply that this is a scene dominated by males in any case.