Jazz History, blah.
(Cross posted in my myspace blog)
So, I thought learning about Jazz would be cool, and by all means, the subject matter is definitely interesting. The musicians we learn about, and the songs and recordings we have to listen to are very enlightening. I'm definitely learning to think about Jazz in different ways than I normally would, but I don't accredit any of my learned knowledge of jazz to my dimwit of a professor who thinks the Beatles began a revolution that ended any type of coherently written music.
So fucking what if he's a "famous Jazz musician" who one time ate dinner with Duke Ellington. He judged every one of his students as an idiot the minute they walked in the door on the first day of class, and assumes we've all been spoon-fed unintelligent music since birth. In the rare moments of his lectures, where he's not beating us over the head about how our generation is stupid, he drops names of obscure musicians faster than the most pretentious kid, then, assuming we have a chance to write it down in our notes, (god knows he's too good of a musician to repeat anything more than once) and we remember it for the test, we get docked for spelling!
Today he said, and I quote directly from his lecture, "Do any of you have anything intelligent to say about music? I think you're all brainwashed!"
I will give him props for identifying a lot of today's pop music today as very simply written, however, if I wanted an hour of lecture about how stupid I am for listening to music I enjoy (which a lot of it happens to be very artfully composed, and non-mainstream), I'd spend my time somewhere else. I have never has a professor that was as belittling and discouraging as Chuck Israels. I leave his class every day feeling worse about myself than I did before attending. I hope he realizes that he is single-handedly turning all Western Washington University music majors who take his class against Jazz as an artform by helping us hear the artistic value in music that he clearly hates.
If I fail his class, I'm going to throw a very jazzy musical fit in his face!
Oh, if you want to see him, or listen to his music, I recommend it.
Www.ChuckIsraels.com
So, I thought learning about Jazz would be cool, and by all means, the subject matter is definitely interesting. The musicians we learn about, and the songs and recordings we have to listen to are very enlightening. I'm definitely learning to think about Jazz in different ways than I normally would, but I don't accredit any of my learned knowledge of jazz to my dimwit of a professor who thinks the Beatles began a revolution that ended any type of coherently written music.
So fucking what if he's a "famous Jazz musician" who one time ate dinner with Duke Ellington. He judged every one of his students as an idiot the minute they walked in the door on the first day of class, and assumes we've all been spoon-fed unintelligent music since birth. In the rare moments of his lectures, where he's not beating us over the head about how our generation is stupid, he drops names of obscure musicians faster than the most pretentious kid, then, assuming we have a chance to write it down in our notes, (god knows he's too good of a musician to repeat anything more than once) and we remember it for the test, we get docked for spelling!
Today he said, and I quote directly from his lecture, "Do any of you have anything intelligent to say about music? I think you're all brainwashed!"
I will give him props for identifying a lot of today's pop music today as very simply written, however, if I wanted an hour of lecture about how stupid I am for listening to music I enjoy (which a lot of it happens to be very artfully composed, and non-mainstream), I'd spend my time somewhere else. I have never has a professor that was as belittling and discouraging as Chuck Israels. I leave his class every day feeling worse about myself than I did before attending. I hope he realizes that he is single-handedly turning all Western Washington University music majors who take his class against Jazz as an artform by helping us hear the artistic value in music that he clearly hates.
If I fail his class, I'm going to throw a very jazzy musical fit in his face!
Oh, if you want to see him, or listen to his music, I recommend it.
Www.ChuckIsraels.com