Nobody answered my last post about jazz on the violin in six days; I'm getting the distinct feeling there's not very much interest in jazz here, which is a real shame. When I did the CTABRSM there was a definite attempt to approach all genres of music equal openly, and we were all encouraged to enable our pupils to improvise. Jazz is a fantastic vehicle for improvisation so why the lack of interest in jazz here on this forum?

Anybody out there???

yes there is somebody out here who is interested in jazz. Besides planning to take the jazz piano exams, I have an extensive collection and have studied the histology of the genre. Besides what I consider the best genre for improvisation, it tunes your aural skills and expands your theoritical knowledge beyond even that of classical music. As an addition try listening to the Blues sometimes too.

At least I got one reply....

And I know you didn't mean to be patronising, but, um, I've listened to quite a lot of blues... it'd be difficult to get started with jazz without learning the blues scale and playing over a 12-bar blues sequence in any case.

I suppose what I'm noticing here is how narrow we can be here in England. I've been contributing to an American jazz string educators forum called IAJEStrings (International Jazz Educators) (anyone can look at it and/or contribute). It can be found at IAJEStrings@yahoogroups. They discuss every possible issue related to jazz on the violin and post reports on jazz violin workshops and camps etc in the US. There's such a lot going on over there it makes me feel quite frustrated, but I suppose rather than complain about the darkness, light a candle yourself, and in fact I'm running my first jazz strings workshop for a large group in a couple of weeks time (gulp).

To be fair, there's somebody in England called Aidan Massey who gives jazz violin workshops. He teaches at the Guildhall School and gave a workshop a few months back in Exeter; it was advertised by ESTA (European String Teachers Association). There's also Alex Yellowlees and Graham Clark who I think both give workshops, plus a few others I'm sure, (names, anyone?) but there certainly don't seem to be a lot of people running jazz violin workshops specifically for violinists/string players in the UK, and judging by the numbers who've enrolled for my workshop at the end of this month, the interest is definitely there.

A few years ago I remember reading a very moving article in the Guardian about a string educator who came over from the US and gave an improvisation workshop at the South Bank in London to a group of diploma-level violinists. Some of them had such an emotional response as they realised for the first time that they actually could let go and improvise that they broke down in tears...

I still wish I could find that article and remember who it was.

Comments, anyone? particularly string players..

I love Jazz, i have about 50-60 jazz al######s on CD. Mainly Be-Bop and 60's. Artists like Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, J J Johnson and the great pianist Thelonius Monk.