Blues is a Zen thing.
There are no hard fast rules,
But you can overdo it or underdo it
People who know all about the Blues can miss it.
People who know nothing about it can feel it.
Many who practiced the tao of the Blues,
Never heard of it.
I play the blues every day.
I play the reds. They go faster.
In the blues, I see real identification with emotions.
Funny. Ya know, the blues referred to Blue Devils and the reds to Red Devils. The Reds were hotter too. amazon.com/Stomping-Blues-Da … y+stomping
Jazz, to me, is more Zen. Spontaneous play and keeping the emotions cool.
The blues are a cry from the heart.
If jazz and blues were actually polarized that would be the case. But, they are not. Jazz is more or less saturated with blues. Jazz started out when African-American musicians played the blues over European harmonies. BeBop progenitor Charlie Parker was the quintessential blues saxophonist. Blues can be a cry from the heart as in the case of slide guitar classic “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” Blind Willie Johnson It can also be a stomping on the blue devil’s head as in the case of “Wang Dang Doodle” by Willie Dixon. Jazz covers similar emotional territory and goes other places too. So, to me, they are not like Yin and Yang. There is between 33 and 66% intersecting ground. I’m inclined to think the higher number.
And WEstern harmonics is cooler and the Culture around jazz prioritizes cool, whereas the Culture around the Blues, and both the way the Music is played and the form of the musik, emphasizes being down authentically in the pain and grit of Life. Of course there is no hard line, but if one of them is Zen, it would be jazz. The direction jazz moved blues songs was away from the blunt emotions. It is more distanced, more Buddhist. Though even with Jazz the ideais a stretch. Blues is very much in the first there is a mountain stage, and God bless it for that. Mountains are Mountains, a woman who left me, done left me and, yes, is a woman. Take a blues attitude into a zen monastary and if you are not kicked out right off you will find yourself being corrected by a man with a stick.
There is only No Blues, which is rather depressing. The No Blue Blues is a sullen wince of slapstick.
The no blues is when bb king has to explain, “Why I sing the Blues”. See him in Montreau, Utube. The very meaning of it comes clear in the middle when he sings he has left her.
Any way you look at it…it’s still called the blues.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4S0Fi00BL0[/youtube]
“All Blues” by Miles Davis [live] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loG8EDaC6a4