jazz my azz sounds more like a gimmick quartet WHAT!!no monkey and a organ grinder please don't insult this creative american art form and have it bombarded with a bunch of unnecessary shit but apparently your definition of jazz must mean "circus". hotep!

Re: pacojam1:

Although I certainly respect your right to state your opinion, I hardly see where such an acidic approach is necessary. I feel compelled to defend myself against your accusation of "insulting a creative american art form and bombarding it with a bunch of unecessary shit". If you're referring to the usage of a cello, then I'm dissapointed by your apparently narrow-minded instrumentational focus. If you look at jazz music's roots, and throughout the history of some of its most creative musicians, you'll find a plethora of different instruments being used in a variety of different ways, enhancing the music with different sounds. When did jazz become a music that was only acceptable to play on nine or ten specific instruments? Furthermore, there isn't even anything new about usage of the cello specifically - the instrument has a lengthy history in the music, advanced by a number of fine musicians including Harry Babasin, Oscar Pettiford, Fred Katz, Calo Scott, Ron Carter, Abdul Wadud, and Erik Friedlander. If you're referring instead to the incorporation of video game music to my repetoire, I would maintain that this practice too has precedent in the foundations of jazz. The body of works we refer to today as "jazz standards" was drawn from a variety of different sources. Re-interpretation of popular tunes, such as the Tin Pan Alley and Broadway show tunes everyone was familiar with in the 40's, is a practice that has been continued by most of the good jazz musicians in every era. Familiar tunes are a great launching point for jazz musicians, not least because they provide a common ground with the audience, a reference point from which the audience can often better appreciate the improvisations of the musicians. If you automatically shun musicians such as Rachel Z for re-interpreting rock and metal music in a jazz trio, you're missing out on some great stuff. Just because a piece of music was composed as part of the soundtrack for a video game doesn't make it an inherently "lesser" work; there are some great composers working in that medium, just as in other multi-media fields such as film soundtracks and modern dance accompaniment. It is my goal to gather those melodies and musical ideas which speak to me, from any source, and re-interpret and share them in a respectful way with as many people as I can. I maintain that such an approach is part of the essence of good jazz music, indeed, of good music in general. As described by Dave Brubeck, jazz is an entity which is apt to soak up the music of other cultures and genres like a sponge. It is not a music that stays static, frozen in time, but rather one that is constantly renewing and enriching itself, while still recognizing and cherishing what came before.

You can easily hear some samples of my work for free at http://myspace.com/bradmellenquartet and get a rough idea of what I'm doing; the track "Sanctuary Dungeon" is a good example of my interpretation of a piece of video game music. If you don't like my work, I certainly can't fault you for that, and would in fact welcome any useful criticism. But please judge it by actually listening to it, rather than an apparently knee-jerk, close-minded reaction to a short description. I'm not bothered that you posted such a hateful comment to my own personal event so much as I'm bothered by the very narrow musical perspective you seem to advocate that could leave a person blind to a great deal of very wonderful music.