I love me some music criticism

Jazz Flayed
TIME Archives, Monday, Sep.20, 1926

At present jazz is not an art but an industry, the whirring of a standardized machine endlessly turning out a standardized article... The thing is already dead from the neck up. That it will remain popular for some time among the musical illiterate is quite possible and if the dancers like it there is no reason why they should not have it. But the day has gone by when musicians can even take a languid interest in the thing, for musical people it is now the last word in brainlessness and boredom.

WTF of the day

This is the second time I am seeing a contraption like this. The device in the picture above was sold on eBay without much info to go with it (i.e. "belonged to my grandfather, don't know what it is" or some such). I assume eight keys on this one are equivalent to a major scale.
I saw a similar instrument on shopgoodwill.com previously, except it had thirteen keys, arranged in a vaguely piano-like pattern (i.e. eight "white" keys on one side, five "black" on the other); not much info there, either. The absence of slides is also notable.
I am completely lost as to what this could be and how it is supposed to work... was it made for creatures with eight fingers on one hand and thirteen on the other?

A chapter from Lennie Tristano: His Life in Music by Eunmi Shim, detailing Tristano's pedagogical approach - read it on Scribd. Maybe jazz educators should get a f-ing clue...

I firmly believe that modern jazz education as it is practiced in American colleges serves only one purpose, and that is to castrate the student, kill his creative impulses, stamp out the natural ability to enjoy music making, and force him into conformity. The music that is taught and played there is not jazz, but modern American classical music that semi-convincingly emulates jazz.

The following four things can rectify the situation:
* The students should play by ear and from memory as much as possible.
* The focus should be not on individual solos, but on the band sound - namely, the arrangements, the balance, the communication and interplay between the group members.
* As a long-time student in the "jazz combo classes," I know first-hand that it is possible to finish the class and get an A without hearing the original tunes once. This SHOULD NOT be the case. If the students play covers, they MUST listen to the originals.
* The students should be not just encouraged, but forced to take creative control - come up with their own arrangements, write and perform their own tunes.

DIXI

Need to vent

I could never imagine that a teacher in a jazz combo class not only won't encourage playing by ear and/or from memory, but would actually discourage it. Truly the end of this style has come, my friends. The so-called jazz is dead.