Yes, mcjnic, I think that's a fair assessment. I don't want to get too heady-sounding because I have a big bias when it comes to this subject and I realize it's easy for me to go off.
I was vindicated in a peculiar way, one day...years ago...
I was watching a movie that a friend recommended. It's called "Tous les Matins du Monde" -which translates to "All the Mornings of the World". It's set in the mid 17th century in France....powdered wig and snuff box days...
There's this musician named St. Colombe. He has dedicated his life to his wife and playing music on an instrument called a viol da gamba -which is something like a cello....kinda. He has two daughters who he teaches to play. He plays a few gigs here and there and his life is very complete and he is very happy, etc.
Then, his wife dies and he is distraught. he begins to immerse himself totally into the music. He goes so deep into the music that he somehow is able to conjure up visitations from the ghost of his wife....or he is hallucinating from depression and sheer exhaustion.
One day, while practicing, a courtier from the King's orchestra is sent to inform St. Colombe that he has been invited to join the King's orchestra where he will be well-paid...but, to make a long story short, he'd have to compromise his music to become a subordinate.
He refuses the offer and basically tells the guy that he'd rather play to his chickens and pigs in the freedom of his own creation than he would to play for the bourgeoise.
The courtier is insulted and vows to come back...which he does. They try to pressure St. Colombe into joining the Kings band ...He won't join. They blacklist him. They know that St. Colombe is renowned for his dedication to playing. The King actually respects him in a way. But, still, they do everything they can to put him in his place and teach him a lesson. But he doesn't care about any of it. In fact, he's not a very good dad, either. His priority is the music. He disregards his own daughters many times because he forgets them while he is practicing.
Later, St. Colombe takes on a student (Marin Marais) and begins to teach him some of the secrets he has attained over the years. Eventually Marais gets really, REALLY good...but then HE sells out and joins the King's orchestra. This disappoints St. Colombe and everything comes spiral downward from there.
What does this have to do with thoughts on jazz sized drum kits? HAHAH! nothing.Burger Kin
And yet, this movie drew a lot of parallels for me that would apply to the understanding I've always had about the kind jazz players who really live inside the jazz lifestyle -even insofar as the similarities between the pickiness of the musician when it comes to his/her instrument. There is a great scene in the movie regarding instruments, too. (There! I tied it into the topic! heh heh)
It's really a good movie. If you can extrapolate information, then you'll understand how it's a jazz movie...with just a bit of imagination! You gotta look beyond the powdered wigs and fancy-lad look of the era, though...You gotta change the instrument...and it's subtitledMister T. But, of all the jazzy movies I've ever watched, it's by far the most "jazz" of them all -and it's not about jazz! (But oh, those parallels!) St. Colombe was the John Coltrane of the mid-17th century. And the King's orchestra, of course, represents the the music biz and the system that imposes restrictions on art.
Jazz is like St. Colombe. It's the constant fight to be free -sometimes, literally from note-to-note -and always in the moment...and then you get there for a moment and then...it's gone. Take every atom and electron in your body, disintegrate them, rearrange them and then reassemble them so that you never lose yourself or get too discombobulated and then imagine doing the same thing with other musicians who can also disassemble themselves, interact with all the other disassembled particles and then reassemble themselves at the end.
In some styles of music, you walk a path. Some paths have footprints that have been followed so exactly, each print is individually indented into the pavement. And when you walk that path, you take each step the same as everyone else who walked the path before.
In jazz you walk a path, too, but you walk it differently each time. You don't care to take the exact same steps as anyone else. You don't think about it...because you are absorbed into the entire experience and not just on where you're placing your feet. But you stay on the path, nonetheless. You start out as yourself. You see a forest ahead. You walk into it. You become a part of the forest for a few moments and then you emerge at the other side as yourself...but always slightly changed from the experience. Remember how The Fantastic Four went into outer space and were bombarded by cosmic rays that gave them super power? yeah....jazz is like that. singer
Maybe jazz sized sets are the way they are because they're just cooler? Maybe they started out as a regular sized set, but then got bombarded by cosmic rays? Perhaps...perhaps.
/jazziness
heh
