Listening. Responding. Reacting. - by Greg Osby

I enjoy exchanges with fellow artists and educators when the discussion covers the variances and responses that persons, in and outside the musical realm of creation, experience when listening to new music. Many can give explicit details when called upon to define which elements in a work appealed to them and in which ways. Others are steadfast and only "like what they like and that's it," which is also acceptable. And sometimes the spirit of the discussion is broadened when I speak to players who are challenged beyond their capacities of comfort, and they feel the need to defend or validate their opinions. Spirited (and sometimes very humorous) volleys are practically guaranteed. 

For example, in my experience I have witnessed more than a few classically-trained musicians balk at the prospect of improvising a solo. If it isn't written out, they are openly dismissive of the very idea or recoil in fear. Jazz is as challenging a listener's medium as it is a player's medium. While some soloists may indeed be telling a story, others are painting a picture. The listener's abilities in "getting" what they're painting is sometimes more of a factor rather than whether or not the soloist is objectively "better or worse" at playing a solo.

So, the answer is in between. You don't get it, and or the soloist just isn't as skillful at communicating to you as you wish he/she was. But listening to classical music sometimes creates a "classical" expectation in the listener, which may or may not be realistic depending on the type of jazz played, or the player of the jazz solo. Carefully composed music will usually have a polish that isn't there with Jazz but it will also lack an immediacy and an energy that Jazz provides. Sometimes the jazz player has no desire to tell a story at all He/she may have an aim at simply providing an emotional or even a physical or auditory energy. There are so many different types of jazz (as there is also many types of classical) music, the question is very general.

You have your ability as a listener and you have the soloists intention of what is to be presented with the solo during the piece of music, and there is an interaction between the two that creates a yin/yang balance of sorts between the song and the listener. How the player presents the solo varies from player to player and song to song. It is a composition on the spot, but it may also be a variation of the theme or it could simply be a sonic emotional energy transfer. The rules aren't as hard and fast but it has been my experience that, both as a listener and a musician, the more time I spent with various types of music and the more open-minded I am with the different types of soloists, the better I become at feeling and/or understanding subjectively what the artist is conveying with the solo. Or, at the very least, what they are attempting to convey. The message isn't always clear. 

But then again, the message may indeed be quite solid. It could very possibly be that I'm just not HEARING it..... yet.