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Yogi Berra on Jazz


craigb

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Interviewer:  Can you explain Jazz?

Yogi:  I can't, but I will. 90% of all Jazz is half improvisation. The other half is the part people play while others are playing something they never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the wrong part, its right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it's wrong.

Interviewer:  I don't understand.

Yogi:  Anyone who understands Jazz knows that you can't understand it. It's too complicated. That's what's so simple about it.

Interviewer:  Do you understand it?

Yogi:  No. That's why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldn't know anything about it.

Interviewer:  Are there any great Jazz players alive today?

Yogi:  No. All the great Jazz players alive today are dead. Except for the ones that are still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead.

Interviewer:  What is syncopation?

Yogi:  That's when the note that you should hear now happens either before or after you hear it. In Jazz, you don't hear notes when they happen because that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can be Jazz, but only if they're the same as something different from those other kinds.

Interviewer:  Now I really don't understand.

Yogi:  I haven't taught you enough for you to not understand Jazz that well.

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3 hours ago, PhonoBrainer said:

He only left out that the best notes a jazz player plays are the ones in the gaps he plays that are left out.

Yes. Even if I say so myself, I've written some truly masterful jazz pieces where I left out nearly all of the notes. That is the mark of true genius. The music becomes whatever the listener wants to hear. If they don't like it, they only have themselves to blame.

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On 1/7/2022 at 2:14 AM, Pragi said:

Yes, and our Kenny is smarter than Yogi and  Berra together and more capable to explain the Jazz.

 As they say in "Kenny ville ". I think I have just heard it all  because that there my friend is a one whopper of a story?

Speaking of Jazz ...I wonder how the movie Deliverance would have turned out if the banjo player was playing this on his banjo ?  

 

Not to be out done a Parrot improvises on Giant Steps ?everybody is getting into the act

you can't make this stuff up :P

Kenny

 

Edited by kennywtelejazz
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