In Howard Reich’s jazz review headlined “Sound at new Jazz Showcase better already” (Tempo, March 28), I was struck by the sentence, “Yet listeners who dismiss this kind of playing as more emotional than intellectual miss the harmonic subtlety and melodic complexity of (Hank) Crawford’s solos.”
Since when is jazz supposed to be more intellectual than emotional? I grew up in an era when jazz was, above all, emotional.
The ignorant masses of that day–among whom I must include myself–had no idea jazz was supposed to appeal only to a narrow audience of qualified highbrows. I doubt if even the distinguished jazz practitioners were aware that they were belting out intellectual stuff.
Jazz is my favorite music. For me, it has all the emotional appeal that rock appears to have for its fans. It seems to me that many music critics who claim to be reviving jazz are really in the business of embalming it.
