Life Happens…

The college year is now done and I am working full-time (for the summer) at Salvation Army. I have a handfull of posts that I am working on and I hope to be able to work in some time each week to spend on articles for Jazzworks. Until then God bless, -A.M. Perkins.

College Finals Week Blues

Hello everyone,

This is finals week at Grove City College so I’ll be finishing the semester up very soon. Until the end though, I’ll be quite busy.

I have a few articles in the works that I hope to finish during Christmas break.

Until then, God bless.

The Music Never Stops

As the year winds down, I would like to take a few moments to honor those from the world of jazz who have passed away this year.

Alice McLeod Coltrane (August 27, 1937 – January 12, 2007) was a woman of many talents, including but not limited to jazz pianist, harpist, organist, and composer. She was the wife of jazz legend John Coltrane; playing piano in his band from 1965 until his death in 1967.

What is Jazz?

What exactly is jazz? What kinds of music can be called jazz? Where did jazz come from and where is it going? What about education: does jazz have a place in schools, and if so, what is it? And what about all the modern technology, how is jazz affected by it? These are a few of the questions that I am going to examine in this blog.

In my experiences with music, I have learned that the best way to learn jazz is to experience it: listen to it, play it, go and watch it. You can learn far more about jazz by going to a jazz concert than you could ever hope to learn from a book. But once you’ve heard the what that is a jazz musician’s sound, you should want to know the why, the reason why that musician sounds the way they do. Why does John Coltrane sound like Coltrane and not like Charlie Parker or Dizzy Gillespie or Theolonius Monk? And it’s not just because they play different instruments.

Something else I have learned is that no one should ever stop learning, and music is certainly no exception. There is always something else out there: some things are old, and there’s always something new. Music cannot be perfected because no one is perfect, it can always be better, and that’s what I like most about it. Jazz is a perfect example of this because even as new genres of jazz are born, all the old styles are still alive and kicking.

My main goal with this blog is to share my knowledge and love of jazz music. In the upcoming weeks, I will be writing new posts about different jazz musicians, genres of jazz, and charts that changed the jazz world, as well as a few articles about jazz in music education, jazz in technology, as well as a few other topics. Until then, God Bless.