More Buzz For the Blog

My, my, my, how exciting! Occasionally I go into the stats page to see how readers are finding my blog, and was I surprised to see a blurb written up on the CBC Jazz Radio blog! CBC is like America's NPR in Canada, and I listen to the CBC Jazz Station online, so I was quite pleased to see this! check it out:

http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/programs/2010/10/jazznerd.html

Jazz Nerdism

Posted by Li Robbins on Oct- 2-10 at 3:00 AM

Are you officially a Jazz Nerd, or would you rate yourself more as a Jazz Lover, or perhaps even a Jazz Dabbler? The question comes after having stumbled on a blog post called 38 Ways to Change the World Through Music.

Michelle Payne, the woman who writes the blog, is a musician but until recently no jazz fan. In fact for years her attitude towards jazz was "Let those Jazz nerds have their music. I don't understand it, so I don't care either way."

But when she was teaching some of her students the blues scale, (foundational in jazz) she had an epiphany. She could see how her students "personalities come out with the help of jazz."

And that's led her, in a funny way, to her current state of jazz nerdism. She calls it a "beautiful jazz-obsessed monster" she's created through teaching. The good news, for her it's less about arguing over whether Miles or Bill Evans wrote a certain tune, more about an excitement that she can "understand it now."

That sums up the path many people take. You just don't get it. Then you kind of get it. Then you love it. And once you love it, well, your goose is cooked.

Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean nerdism, which does imply a certain obsessiveness, a Nick Hornbyism, if you like.

So where do some of the Tonics stand on the matter?

Tim tells me he's a "fun jazz lover," as well he should be, what with being a founding member of the Fun Jazz Society.)

Robert, Katie's producer, tells me he's a "jazz lover. "I do more than dabble, but I'm no good at the 'alternate take' geeky stuff. I just know what I like."

Where do you rank yourself on the jazz nerdism scale?