Ulviyya was in Oslo with the Azerbaijan delegation for Eurovision 2010. She live-tweeted her impressions while there.
While Ulviyya is not pop, she was helping represent her country in an international arena. over the last three years, Eurovision has turned into an event to gain much media attention for Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan's entry, Safura, came in fifth after millions of votes throughgout Europe.
But what is the difference between pop and jazz at these types of events?
So, we can all describe pop and Eurovision certainly has its fans and critics. But what if it was a jazz competition? What would the differences be?
Pop is about competition. If it were a jazz 'competition', there would be jam sessions, and collaboration. While the pop camps send insulting tweets about each other, jazz musicians would express their competition through music. The musicians staying in the hotel together would be playing together, not worried about destroying the other participants.
Pop has rules. Jazz doesn’t. A pop song is around 3 minutes. Otherwise you don’t get radio and video play. Verse, chorus, maybe a bridge. Certain chords go together, certain beats can’t be used. Jazz is about freedom, so – no rules! 12 minute songs, improvisation, solos, performing the song differently each way, experimenting with chords and harmonies and rhythms - everything is allowed. It's the expression of the performer.Pop is about the masses, not the individual. Pop is short for popular, after all. It’s about cutting down the music to be as comfortable as possible for as many people as possible. Often pop is a production goal, not an artist achievement. Jazz is all about the individual. Even if the artists didn’t write the piece, how it is performed is an individual expression of feeling at that time. Melodies are stretched and molded to mean what the artist wants.
Jazz is about music. And jazz holds festivals, not competitions
ReplyDeleteThink you might just have highlighted the main problem with Eurovision here. Rather than bring countries together, which was its original intent, it now pitches them against each other.
Nice post. :)
Agreed. A jazz competition could never work. Eurovision runs on a tight schedule. Imagine if the singers could choose to go on for 12 minutes!
ReplyDeleteBut jazz festivals are usually more fun
A jazz conmpetition would be less political as well. Look at the voting in the Eurovision Song Contest. Or even look at commenst on twitter. People don't vote for the songs they like, they vote for countries with similar cultures. Belarus and Russia. Russia and Armenia. Azerbaijan and Turkey. Cyprus and Greece. The Balkans.
ReplyDeleteBut with jazz the audiences would be proud, but the focus would be on musicianship. You don't see nationalists yelling at each other at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
At the Caucasus Jazz Festival, Azerbaijani and Armenian musicians jam with each other.
ReplyDeleteAt Eurovision Armenian and Azerbaijani supporters insult each other.