Editor’s note: Jazz enthusiast, performer and former Al Sears Jazz Fest chair Bill Maakestad shares how he grew to love this genre of music.
I just love listening to jazz, and that's it. I have such great respect for what some people call America's classical music because it’s so fresh and so different. In popular music, you have a kind of formula and, once it starts, you're going to have a lot of repetition. Someone called jazz the music of surprise because you don’t know what’s coming next.
There are a lot of people who are afraid of jazz, intimidated by it because they don’t understand it, saying it’s too wild or you can’t hum to it. When I first heard it, jazz didn’t do anything for me.
In terms of my learning to appreciate it, I drew an analogy to learning how to enjoy wine. Some people don’t like their first sip of wine. But then you may have spaghetti one night and someone gives you red wine to go with it. You say, “That’s not bad.” The next time, you might think, “I’ll try something else tonight.” Then you learn to you say, “This wine's pretty good.” And then you try other wines, learning about the different types. All of a sudden, you know the difference between chardonnay and cabernet.
Someone said jazz is like an octopus. It grabs popular music, Broadway music, rock music, blues, and it just turns it into something unique.
