A performance that transcends genres and makes you genuinely happy and satisfied is a rare thing. Josh Dion is a new name to me and clearly I have been living under a rock for too long having not checked him out.
A tremendous drummer and vocalist, this performance had me captivated from beginning to end and leaving me wanting to go out and find every second of music Josh has ever recorded.
This guy clearly has some amazing jazz chops and I think that, currently, jazz is fighting an identity crisis. When I watch this performance, it stirs some much larger issues in my mind. This is something that most jazz musicians would really enjoy watching, but would you classify this performance as ‘jazz?’ Sometimes I think we identify too much with that word to describe what we do. I’m guilty of it too; heck I named my podcast the 10 Minute JAZZ Lesson. But I wanted people to know what it would be about, and jazz is the best word to use. If I had my way, I would have called it the 10 Minute Creative Music Lesson Podcast, but I don’t think the people like you who have found my show, would have found it.
I’m not sure what to think about this. On one hand it’s just a question of semantics, on the other hand there is a lot of connotations that go along with a label. All I know is that I see the younger generation of musicians accepting many different forms of music as valid and I see this as a wonderful thing. The jazz world is being opened to many different influences and the jazz fundamentalist that only sees certain time periods and styles of this art is being pushed out of this new landscape. I feel that this will be extremely good for creative musicians and will lead to many new opportunities going forward. I think we all know that the term jazz used to describe someone’s music send many people running to the door without checking out a note. I see that as a bad thing, but I also don’t have a better solution.
What do you all think about this issue? Enjoy this video below and then join in the discussion about what this means to you!
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