Of course, the East Coast news people go exactly the opposite way.  It only becomes news to them when it actually hits New York.  Chicago COULD have been wiped out by a freak snow fall and they wouldn’t notice or acknowledge it until the giant snow balls were rolling down 5th Avenue.

It turned out that it did indeed snow.  Then it rained.  Then it was freezing rain.  When I went to bed last night, it looked like everything outside was encased in plastic.  Then, when I woke up, a freak warm front had gone through and much of the ice had melted and it rained all day.  Then the weather people came on during the Bears game to scream that the melted ice w0uld re-freeze tonight.

People, we live in Chicago.  We should all be used to this by now.  Unless you just moved here from a life living on the equator, none of this should be a surprise to you.  You should also all learn how to drive in this stuff or else get off the road so I can get past you in my Jeep.

Sorry, I realize this has nothing to do with jazz.  As such, I suggest you go back to the top, and start reading it again with the Smooth Jazz song “New Snow” by Flim and the BBs playing.  Yeah, sure, it may be hard to find that song and the song itself may be the audio equivalent of a marshmallow dipped in honey…

But when the tenuous connections get tough, the tough dig up the elevator music.

Post from: Jazz & Blues Lounge

Of course, Chip and other purists will be quick to point out there are a lot more than two types of jazz.  I know that.  There’s Latin jazz and other forms of jazz from around the world.  New Orleans jazz is just a little different than Chicago jazz and on and on it goes.

For me, the two types of jazz are classic jazz and the new Smooth Jazz that you hear on most commercial jazz radio stations like WNUA.

I am a fan of classic jazz.  For me, this includes all of the forms of jazz I mentioned before in that list of jazz genres.  Any jazz that has horns and sounds like something you would hear from Gillespie, Davis or Parker is classic jazz as far as I am concerned.

WNUA plays mostly Smooth Jazz.  For me, there is nothing very musical or enjoyable about this type of music.  It is bland.  It is electronic.  It lacks all of the soul and passion of a Miles Davis riff or a Charles Mingus’ “Haitian Fight Song.”  It sounds, to me, like the kind of stuff that plays in the background while the dentist grinds your teeth or the stuff that plays in the background, slowly melting your brain, while you read old and outdated magazines in your doctor’s office.

Still, even I have drifted.  My own CD and music collection, in addition to the Miles Davis and John Coltrane, also has Tom Scott, David Sandborn and a group called Flim and the BBs.  So, even I can slip up.

I am not embarassed by that, though.  I celebrate the fact that this country and this genre is so diverse that it makes room for Wynton Marsalis and Kenny G.  I prefer to listen to Wynton, but if Kenny manages to crank out a good tune (it has yet to happen, as far as I know) I would give it a listen and maybe even download it.

So, for those of you wanting to listen to cool jazz sounds in Chicago, you can listen to two radio stations online.  The first is WDCB and the second is WNUA.  If you Google them you’ll find how to listen to them online.

Celebrate diversity.

Post from: Jazz & Blues Lounge