Since I last went off on how irritating I find true jazz, I’ve had a few people asking me why I dislike jazz/hate America.  Some of them, including a few friends, expressed bewilderment at my distaste for jazz.  So I have to backtrack a bit from my I-hate-jazz harangue.

I don’t hate all jazz.  I don’t really “hate” any jazz.  I just don’t get what I guess is called “traditional jazz” or what enthusiasts might call bebop or free jazz, the No Limits-No Boundaries type.  It is jazz that – to me – has little of the traditional qualities of traditional music, which – I guess – is the point of that particular jazz genre.

Maybe that’s why it makes my head hurt.  It hurts just thinking about it. 

But there is a wide range of jazz that I like.  The works of Grover Washington, Jr., Herbie Hancock, Maynard Ferguson, Tower of Power, Bruce Hornsby (The piano and guitar is – in my opinion – much more conducive to pain-free jazz than is brass.)  …  And at this very moment I’m listening to some Yusef Lateef from his album Eastern Sounds.

So rest easy, jazz aficionados, it ain’t all bad in my humble opinion.