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Showing posts with label foreigners play jazz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foreigners play jazz. Show all posts

Jan 6, 2012

Americans, how do you think foreignes playing jazz?

Ever listened to jazz music played by foreigners, you Americans? Being a foreigner I have been wondering for long time what it could be like.

We, had encountered a debut of foreigner as the "Enka" signer in 2008. It finally made me understand what it was like. The beautiful music is the music and nothing but the music, that what I've found.

There is this Japanese specific category of music called "Enka", It is like American country music, I assume. A foreigner has made his debut as the "Enka" singer in 2008. He was born in Pittsburgh, PA, 26 years old, a quarter of Japanese and American and named "Jero".
When I heard him the first time, I had been bewildered a bit. He has a face of foreigner yet sings beautiful Enka. Most of us, Japanese welcome his debut and he is active singing here.

The melody line is written in minor scale and sounds like there is the fixed grammar for the composition. Yes, I've meant to say that they sound pretty much same.

What you listen to is the verse.

I reckon in these days that I had been too easy to get into tear by listening to Enka and that could be the reason why I started to play piano jazz myself. Since "Enka" has nothing without its verse. On the other hand jazz sounds beatiful without any verse at all. Right! you can filter through your nerve touching particles out from the music and can enjoy the rhythm, melody and technicality of the players along with their personality.



Ever heard this? merci beaucoup! Michel Petrucciani, piano player. He is a foreigner, a French. He has his style and we can enjoy if we don't know the French language, right?