| You are welcome to pose a question or offer a
comment related to my music career, the bassoon, performances or
recordings. I will post a response here that can be shared with others. — Daniel Smith |
| Submitted by: | Adnor Pitanga | Date: | Feb. 28, 2014 |
| Question/Comment: | What is the difference between playing classical and jazz? | ||
| Response: | While in both cases the most important thing is to bring the music to life, the skills involved are quite different. In classical music, whether playing in an orchestra, performing in a recital, making a recording, etc. the entire process involves replicating the music on the printed page on one's instrument. In jazz, one has to have a working knowledge of all the scales, chords and other aspects of a particular piece along with the ability to improvise creative ideas based on these scales and chords as the music moves forward. Many great classical players, especially in orchestras, rely on the printed page, and often feel lost when there is nothing to read off of...In jazz, sometimes the opposite..A great jazz player, who might not be on the same level insofar as the orchestral player and interpreting the music (reading) exactly as on the printed page. Nowadays, there are quite a few great musicians who can cover both aspects...this due to a variety of factors including conservatory training. To sum this up, and as Wynton Marcellus put it...'.In classical music you are a re creator...in jazz you are a creator.' While not a complete answer to a broad subject, I hope this answers your question to some extent. |
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| Submitted by: | Fred Miacci | Date: | Dec. 25, 2013 |
| Question/Comment: | As a well-known artist of the bassoon with many recordings and performances in classical, jazz and crossover music, are there any other genres of music that you wish to record? | ||
| Response: | Thank you for your interest and timely question. By coincidence, I recently came across two CDs I recorded when living in London some years ago. One is 'Jazz Suite for Bassoon' by composer Steve Gray and the other is made up of five Baroque selections in a setting with a jazz quartet made up of bassoon, piano, bass and drums. The Jazz Suite was recorded with some of the UK's top studio players while the drummer on the Baroque adaptations was Oscar Peterson's drummer along with my bassist and pianist. These recordings were never released on a label and I had sort of forgotten about them until I sat down and heard them again recently. Steve Gray was the pianist and chief arranger for SKY, a major rock-pop group and his intent was to come up with something along the lines of the Claude Bolling suites written for Jean Pierre Rampal, Yo Yo Ma, and others. Bolling himself had phoned me from Paris with the idea in mind of his writing another Suite for me, but unfortunately for various reasons, this never happened. In any event, the Suite contains elements of jazz, rock, pop, classical, improvisation and will hopefully be released in the future after being remastered. The Baroque jazz treatments will then flesh out a full CD when combined with the Jazz Suite. Hope this gives you some info in regard to your question. |
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