Join Wimberley humorist Susan Rigby as she attempts to navigate “the small stuff.”
What’s so jazzy about jazz?
Driving home one night, I searched the radio for music that would keep me awake. It seems that many morning and evening shows include jazz. What exactly is jazz? I am not talking about cool music like Etta James, but the stuff that sounds like white noise.
I think some jazz is developed by men – for men – so they don’t have to dance. Most men would rather chew off their toes than get on the dance floor. “Honey, I’d love to dance with you, but as you know, I don’t have toes, so instead let’s go to the great jazz bar I found.”
Jazz also eliminates sing-alongs unless you want to aimlessly purse your lips at various rhythms of “ba-baba-bababa.”
I also notice that men tend to hum randomly when a woman is talking, but that’s another story.
Speaking of rhythm, the little jazz I’ve been forced to listen to seems to lack a beat. When listening to other music, I can at least keep time by slapping my leg. With jazz, I can start a regular leg beat, but soon I’m way off the mark.
Once, when coerced to go to a jazz club with a guy, I asked him how do you know when a song is over? And he said that when the musicians finished their solos, they stop playing. To my ears, those solos sounded like an orchestra tuning up. At least when I hear other types of music, I can figure out when a song is ending. But not so with jazz. It seems to end just before I am ready to stand up and scream, “I can’t take it any more!”
Yet, when I look at my male friend, who’s totally immersed in the music, I am at a loss to understand our different reactions. It makes me think that this difference plays a role in the way men and women communicate.
This might sound like a stretch, but consider this - if jazz is white noise to me, do men think women’s voices are white noise too?
I’m just saying.
