24. August 2007 · 7 comments · Categories: Ramble

I know, I know, I am not all that smarrt when it comes to jazz, as has been pointed out in the past. But still … I’d heard of opera. And rock opera. But not jazz opera.

7 Comments

  1. Never heard of Kurt Weill’s “Threepenny Opera”, have you?

    ACD

  2. Yes, of course I have. I enjoy Weill, although I’ve never gotten the opportunity to play his music. (Many of his works call for doublers.) I just never think of him as a jazz composer, but as a theatre composer. Thank you for filling me in.

    I’ll have to talk to my sister … she worked, for a time, for a man who was with the Kurt Weill Foundation.

  3. Patti, I love it when you bait me 😉

    I will admit to being a bit of a snob, and wary of labels that are self applied. I know, we need an official who will give a fine stamp of authenticity. Mere words, opera, jazz, rock, classical… what do they really mean? In todays world of crass commercialism, labels are just… Maybe it is great (or as in jazz, “cool”)!

  4. Tee hee. 😉

    But email me … I didn’t mean to sound harsh. And right now I’m extremely sensitive and feeling so stupid you might not even believe it.

    Hmmm. How can a stupid person even know she’s stupid? But I know. Sigh.

    I seem to have lost your email address. Not sure what’s up with that.

    But is Weill “jazz”. Why does he not really feel like jazz to me? I guess the things I have of his seem more “torchy” … is “torch music” (whatever the heck that means!) considered jazz.

    I’m not one who hates being educated. Really! I don’t mind you filling me in. As long as you don’t make me cry. 😉

  5. “I just never think of him [Weill] as a jazz composer, but as a theatre composer.”
    ——————————————————-

    He was indeed a theater composer — and a composer of concert music as well. I was making reference to a particular score in which Weill made major use of jazz idioms in his own inimitable way — a kind of sinisterly corrupt jazz to realize musically the sense and spirit of Brecht’s stage work.

    ACD

  6. Wasn’t Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess a jazz opera?

  7. Hmmm. I’ve never thought of P&B as jazz.

    So perhaps I’m just not understanding what JAZZ is! That could be it. I always think jazz includes improvisation. (I don’t think P&B does …?)

    Maybe I’ll blog about this and see what the jazz folk say.

  8. Pingback: oboeinsight » Blog Archive » What IS ...?