Blog Post 2

I would like to study the jazz music-culture in Dallas for my music ethnography. There are two main types of jazz ensembles you will find in Dallas. The first kind is a small ensemble of two to three people you will find in jazz clubs in downtown Dallas, such as the Brooklyn Jazz Café. The jazz groups at these clubs will typically play a “smoother”, softer jazz due to the environment in which they are playing. However, they will occasionally venture away from this “smooth” jazz music depending on the musician performing. The second kind is the larger ensemble groups, usually found in high schools and universities. These ensembles typically play a much wider array of jazz music, since they have more instruments and therefore more flexibility in manipulating the texture of their sound. The jazz band at UNT is world renown for their jazz band, and never ceases to amaze. I will be focusing on this second music culture of jazz in my music ethnography. The primary instrumentation of a large jazz band includes saxophones (alto, tenor, and bari), trombones, trumpets, keyboard, drums, and occasionally electric guitar or other percussion instruments as needed. The jazz culture as a whole focuses on improvisation much more than other forms of music. The jazz culture in Dallas differentiates itself from the jazz culture as a whole in that the jazz culture here in Dallas draws a much greater listening base than in other regions, partly due to the talent in the region. While the jazz culture here in Dallas mostly attracts other musicians (or people who were in a music program at one time in their life), they also have another following, albeit this non-musician following typically consists of older adults. The jazz culture here in Dallas continues to draw together these two groups of listeners to further be impacted by the complexity and difficulty of this very entertaining form of music.