Mind Fields: What Is A Jazz Musician?
Posted: April 30, 2025 Filed under: Mind Fields, music | Tags: Art, Arthur Rosch, Jazz, Mind Fields, music, news, Reviews, Writing to be Read 10 Comments
What makes a jazz musician?
The first word that comes to mind is Commitment.
Jazz is a high-order musical language that has developed by incorporating various other musical languages. Blues and classical techniques are fused in an ongoing exploration of sonic vocabularies. It is a complex, demanding musical discipline that requires time and effort. Jazz began as an American language because it arose from the experience of black Americans in the formation of our culture. Having survived slavery and all the rest of it, the African Americans developed identities unique in the world. These musicians have their roots in southern blues, gospel and church music. When combined with virtuoso classical techniques, The music that emerges is emotional, loose, given to hyperbole both dark and funny. The Blues is like the bottom layer of a pyramid: everything else is built on top of this idiom. Jazz maintains the cries of both pleasure and suffering that arrived on the guitar strings of early blues musicians. The singing voice has some gravel in it: slightly hoarse and redolent of something more ancient, something like voodoo magic. In jazz it is the Mysterious that beckons so powerfully. It is a musical world of spells and trances, of going ever farther “out” but never straying from its roots.
Jazz has spread across the world. Go anywhere: go to Japan. you’ll find jazz. Go to Europe, go to Thailand, go to California. Jazz is everywhere you go.
To go back to the original question: what is a jazz musician? It is a musician dedicated to long hours of practice and study. Jazz is difficult to master. It requires intellectual exertion and physical strength. At the heart of all this mighty effort is the thing that keeps jazz active: love. Ask anyone involved in jazz music and you’ll find this passionate heart beating with every breath. We love jazz as passionately as we love anything at all. We are a lot like priests of a universal religion.
I was just a child when I was first embraced by jazz. I was twelve and playing trumpet when I acquired two LPs. I had The Birth Of The Cool, by Miles Davis, and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Blakey’s drums are signature: chotta chotta boom boom, and the oceanic wash of his color cymbal as he holds the time in his limbs. What a band! Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, Jimmie Meritt, Wynton Kelly. Wow!
A musician who is devoted to jazz can expect a hard road. Jazz becomes commercially viable by way of dilution. The less “real” jazz is in it, the more money it makes. This requires wrenching choices in the lives of musicians.
Not everyone is Stan Getz. He got lucky and…he was white. He landed a hit tune, a bossa nova, and he made a ton of money. But Getz was a very fine jazz player. Getz played his jazz at all of his gigs, pausing only to render his hit Brazilian tune for the audience. One could say that “he sold out but gave all his profits to jazz.” No harm for Stan Getz: only respect.
The only thing easy about jazz is the word “play”. That’s what jazz is. A game to be played, a musical puzzle that needs resolution, figuring out how it works, why it works and when it works. Ask any jazz player how much fun it is to play with one’s peers. It is FUN! Nothing beats playing with others whose abilities are matched to one’s own. Or better, yet, playing with more advanced musicians in order to learn from mentors. Jazz is love, fun, blues, bossa, soulful, adventurous, mystical and profound.
About Arthur Rosch
Arthur Rosch is a novelist, musician, photographer and poet. His works are funny, memorable and often compelling. One reviewer said “He’s wicked and feisty, but when he gets you by the guts, he never lets go.” Listeners to his music have compared him to Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, Randy Newman or Mose Allison. These comparisons are flattering but deceptive. Rosch is a stylist, a complete original. His material ranges from sly wit to gripping political commentary.
Arthur was born in the heart of Illinois and grew up in the western suburbs of St. Louis. In his teens he discovered his creative potential while hoping to please a girl. Though she left the scene, Arthur’s creativity stayed behind. In his early twenties he moved to San Francisco and took part in the thriving arts scene. His first literary sale was to Playboy Magazine. The piece went on to receive Playboy’s “Best Story of the Year” award.
Arthur also has writing credits in Exquisite Corpse, Shutterbug, eDigital, and Cat Fancy Magazine. He has written five novels, a memoir and a large collection of poetry. His autobiographical novel, Confessions Of An Honest Man won the Honorable Mention award from Writer’s Digest in 2016.
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This segment of “Mind Fields” is sponsored by the Roberta Writes blog site, where you can find the poetry, photos, videos, and book reviews by Robbie Cheadle and so much more.
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Growing Bookworms – Developmental benefits of music for young children
Posted: March 8, 2023 Filed under: Children's Books, Growing Bookworms, music, Teaching children | Tags: Growing Bookworms, Musical, Musical Stories, Robbie Cheadle, Teaching children, Writing to be Read 44 Comments
When I was at school, we had music lessons during which we learned to play certain easy songs on an instrument like a recorder or a xylophone. We were also taught to sing musical notes in much the same way as Maria teaches the von Trapp children to sing notes in the film The Sound of Music.
I can remember listening to stories that taught me and my classmates about musical instruments and the different sounds they make. Peter and the Wolf comes to mind, as well as my personal favourite, Sparky’s Magic Piano.
If you are interested in watching Sparky’s Magic Piano, or have a child you would like to share it with, you can watch it here:
I always wanted to learn how to play the piano. Our neighbour started teaching me once and I was getting along nicely, but then we moved to another town and the opportunity didn’t present itself again.
Both my sons had music lessons and Gregory passed Grade 5 theory and practical piano. Michael initially wanted to learn the violin, but that didn’t last very long. He went on to learn the piano for a few years and is now having drum lessons.
Before my sons were born, I remember reading that learning to play an instrument was beneficial to the study of mathematics and this is one of the reasons I encouraged music so much with my sons. I understand that this link has been demonstrated through a study conducted by NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants Foundation) (You can read more about it here: https://www.nammfoundation.org/educator-resources/why-learn-play-music-advocacy-brochure-0).
More recently, I discovered recently that scientists at the University of Southern California’s Brain and Creativity Institute have discovered a link between music in early childhood and accelerated brain development. You can read more about that study here: https://news.usc.edu/102681/childrens-brains-develop-faster-with-music-training/
Studies have demonstrated that learning music can improve speech and readings skills in children by increasing their abilities to differential between different sounds and understand the patterns of language.
The top ten benefits of music and learning a musical instrument for children are as follows:
- Improved brain development due to music’s ability to stimulate parts of the brain that govern hearing, memory, movement, and emotion.
- Improved social skills as music helps children identify facial expressions, communicate with peers, and empathise with others.
- Increases creativity and builds problem solving skills.
- Learning to play an instrument promotes self-discipline in children.
- Learning to play an instrument increases children’s self-esteem.
- Musically trained children have better memories as music strengthens the hippocampus in the brain, which plays a vital role in regulating learning, memory encoding, memory consolidation, and spatial navigation.
- There is an overlap of the brain connections which process music and language with the result that learning music and learning to read complement each other.
- Music is a natural mood enhancer and helps children to reduce stress by calming and soothing them.
- Children who learn music have a better ability to control their own behaviour, emotions, and impulses.
- Learning a musical instrument improves co-ordination in children.
The one thing I noticed with my son, Gregory, who was reading music fluently at the age of five, was that the transition from written musical notes to written letters was a bit of an effort for him. It was a bit like learning a second language. This was not a big disadvantage for him, but it did take a little longer for him to learn the alphabet than I expected. Michael learned the alphabet before I started music lessons with him, and he found it more difficult to learn the music notes than the alphabet.
About Robbie Cheadle
Award-winning, bestselling author, Robbie Cheadle, has published thirteen children’s book and two poetry books. Her work has also appeared in poetry and short story anthologies.
Robbie also has two novels published under the name of Roberta Eaton Cheadle and has horror, paranormal, and fantasy short stories featured in several anthologies under this name.
The ten Sir Chocolate children’s picture books, co-authored by Robbie and Michael Cheadle, are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision.
Robbie’s blog includes recipes, fondant and cake artwork, poetry, and book reviews. https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com/
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Growing bookworms – Audio books that teach children about music
Posted: March 9, 2022 Filed under: Children's Books, Fairy Tales, Fiction, Growing Bookworms, music | Tags: Growing Bookworms, Musical Stories, Petr and the Wolf, Robbie Cheadle, Sparky's Magic Piano, Storytelling, Writing to be Read 50 Comments
Peter and the Wolf
When I was a little girl in the pre-preparatory school, one of my favourite music lessons was when our teacher played the audio book of Peter and the Wolf. I loved the story about Peter who needed to protect his pets from a hungry wolf. Most of all, I loved the sounds of the musical instruments that accompanied the story. Each character in the story has its own musical instrument and each sound is perfectly suited to the character. Our teacher used this story to teach us about the different musical instruments, which family of instrument it belonged to, and the sound it made.
Peter is played by the violin (string instrument family), the bird is played by the flute (woodwind family), the duck is played by the oboe (woodwind family), the cat is played by the clarinet (woodwind family), the grandfather is played by the bassoon (woodwind family), the wolf is played by the French horn (brass family), and the hunters are played by the timpani (percussion family). I have never forgotten the names, sound, or family of any of these instruments. In fact, I loved the cat (clarinet) so much, I literally forced Greg to play this instrument for two years. I took advantage of his devotion to me and the fact he always liked to please me. I came to realise this wasn’t fair of me and allowed him to give it up in grade 6. Greg never took to the clarinet.
The purposes of Peter and the Wolf, created by Sergei Prokofiev, are as follows:
- the teach children how to identify a variety of musical instruments, instrument families and instrumental themes;
- the demonstrate how music can convey different emotions; and
- to extend a story through the use of movement, story sequencing, and musical art.
Peter and the Wolf is approximately 30 minutes long and you can listen to it here:
Sparky’s Magic Piano
My parents noticed my enthusiasm for music and my Dad bought me a Sparky record when I was about 9 years old. I listened to this record over and over again.
There were four stories on the record, as follows:
- Sparky and the Talking Train;
- Sparky’s Magic Piano;
- Sparky’s Magic Eco; and
- Sparky’s Magic Baton.
Of these four, two had a strong musical theme, namely, Sparky’s Magic Piano and Sparky’s Magic Baton.
In Sparky’s Magic Piano, the most famous of the Sparky stories, Sparky is a young boy who does not like practicing the piano. One day, when he is frustrated with practicing, the piano talks to Sparky and tells him he will show him how wonderful it is to play the piano well. Sparky then proceeds to amaze his mother and piano teacher, and then the larger world with his amazing piano playing.
Wikipedia says that these are the piano works which appear in Sparky’s Magic Piano in the order in which they appear in the story:
- Léonard Gautier – The Secret
- Chopin – Waltz in E minor, Opus posth.
- Chopin – Etude in C minor (“Revolutionary”), Opus 10 number 12
- Rimsky-Korsakov (adapted from the arrangement by J. Strimer) – The Flight of the Bumblebee (electronically played at double speed)
- Chopin – Etude in C sharp minor, Opus 10 number 4
- Liszt – Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2, in C sharp minor (excerpt from the end of the piece, arranged for piano and orchestra)
- Beethoven – Piano Sonata number 14 (“Moonlight”) in C sharp minor, Opus 27 number 2 (excerpt from the 1st mvt, arranged for piano and orchestra)
- Chopin – Waltz in C sharp minor, Opus 64 number 2 (excerpt)
- Rachmaninov – Prelude in C Sharp Minor (truncated, and arranged for piano and orchestra)
- Mendelssohn – “The Spinning Song” (from Song Without Words), Opus 67 number 4 (announced by Sparky, but the piano refuses to play it, so the music is not heard)
You can listen to the version of Sparky’s Magic Piano I loved here:
Do you know either of these stories? Let me know in the comments.
About Robbie Cheadle
Robbie Cheadle is a South African children’s author and poet with 9 children’s books and 2 poetry books.
The 7 Sir Chocolate children’s picture books, co-authored by Robbie and Michael Cheadle, are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision.
Robbie has also published 2 books for older children which incorporate recipes that are relevant to the storylines.
Robbie has 2 adult novels in the paranormal historical and supernatural fantasy genres published under the name Roberta Eaton Cheadle. She also has short stories in the horror and paranormal genre and poems included in several anthologies.
Robbie writes a monthly series for https://writingtoberead.com called Growing Bookworms. This series discusses different topics relating to the benefits of reading to children.
Robbie has a blog, https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com/ where she shares book reviews, recipes, author interviews, and poetry.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://www.robbiecheadle.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
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