My experience with Jazz hasn’t always been good.

As a listener, I would fidget while performers on stage rattled off a bunch of mystery notes. Some songs made sense: Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi. Time out by Dave Brubeck. But otherwise, nope, just a bunch of noise.

When I learned to play jazz, it all became much more interesting. I learned about the parts of a song (AABA, for instance). I learned why jazz sounds the way it does (The circle of fifths is an amazing thing). I could recognize a good solo versus random musical scribbling.

Let’s be honest. A lot of jazz concerts are just plain stiff. If you’re paying attention, you’re looking at a group of musicians who seem to be very interested in what they are playing, but you probably don’t have any idea what they are doing.

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