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The Question Is …
By Dan Ouellette
Should there be
a Jazz Band
video game?
Today’s video games, particularly Guitar
Hero and The Beatles: Rock Band, could
become gateways for kids to get off their
couches and into learning how to play
music. What are the prospects for a jazz-centered
video game to do something similar?
Pianist Eldar Djangirov: That’s comical. I know Guitar Hero, but I don’t play video games.
Of course, the impact of these games on my generation has been profound, but never
with musicians. But a jazz game? It brings up the question again, what is jazz? Without a
definition, the range is so broad. What do we choose to represent jazz? If you’re talking
about bebop, you have to have a different controller to play. Otherwise it would be retarded.
The most accessible you could have would be drumming along with the drummer,
which might be feasible by using the controls they have today. Maybe then people would
get more interested in jazz.
Guitarist Roni Ben-Hur: Anything that will expose young
people to jazz is positive, so yes, but with lots of reservation.
My concern is that the makers of such a product, in their
attempt to draw as large a group as possible to buy it, will
water down the music so much that we will end up with
some neither-here-nor-there music called “smooth jazz.”
Anywhere we perform, we find people who become infatuated
with jazz, whether they are regular listeners or have just
heard it for the first time. This is true of people of all ages,
but in a most accentuated way with children. Our problem is
that most of the people who run large media corporations
don’t believe this to be true, and still think that jazz alienates
listeners and viewers. Having a video game with Wes
Montgomery’s music on it would be very hip, and I’m sure
kids would enjoy it, but that’s a very long shot.
Saxophonist Marcus Strickland: I don’t see any reason
why not. The many trials, tributes and eras of Miles Davis,
John Coltrane, Art Blakey, Charles Mingus, etc., would
make a great platform from which to develop an interactive
video game. I don’t think it will gain any more popularity
or fans for the music, though. Like most mass media
ventures with jazz, it will mostly be of interest to those
who already appreciate this music—sort of like preaching
to the choir. The money necessary to develop and market
such a game would be better spent toward developing
more cohesion among jazz festivals in the U.S., which
would make touring here a lot more lucrative for the
bands. Giving an ordinary customer a choice between a
jazz video game and a rock video game seems to be more
awesome than effective.
Saxophonist Noah Preminger: If a jazz game would increase appreciation for jazz, why
not? But you need enough interest in the first place to get people to support it. On a creative
level, what exactly would you do with a game like that, though? Jazz is one of the
most expressive and individualized types of musical art forms, so how would you incorporate
that in a video game? Could a game present the opportunity to the player to get a
sense of improvisation, to come up with interesting music? They should make a video
game that has the player practice with a metronome, sing and memorize lyrics to jazz
standards and learn scales. How many people who play Guitar Hero actually go out and
learn how to play an actual guitar?
Got an opinion of your own on “The Question”? E-mail us: thequestion@downbeat.com.
March 2010 DOWNBEAT 19