Jazz

I'm working on the Jazz collection right now. I've noticed that Latin Jazz and 'American' Jazz seem to be separate animals. I've wondered about this. Why? Recently I've been listening to Tito Puente, Cachao, and Eddie Palmieri and these guys are fantastic musicians and the Jazz is first rate. I know that it was a fusion of Latin Jazz with American Jazz that resulted in Bebop but it wasn't until the last week or so since I've been researching Jazz that I realized that it's the spiritual/blues roots of American Jazz that differentiate American Jazz from Latin Jazz. Both American and Latin Jazz have African Roots and it was the mixture of African, Latin, and American musical influences that led to Jazz but the main difference between the two is the lack of blues influence on Latin Jazz. Listen to Tito Puente. It's just more upbeat and happy.

I'm still researching early Jazz. But it's popularity was that it was dance music. I think Jazz lost something when it morphed into Bebop and Cool Jazz. The music is fantastic, but you almost need to be a sophisticated listener to get it. Sort of like when Rock moved on to Progressive Rock and lost the dance beat. Then it got stomped by New Wave and Punk. I'm probably wrong. It's early in the morning and I'm just musing.

New DVD's

We had a grumpy old man go through the Library a couple of weeks back complaining about the lack of new releases purchased by the Library. Its not always easy to communicate our mission to our customers. It's one of the things I'm trying to do with this blog. This Library will probably never concentrate on providing the latest motion picture releases. There are other community resources that already do that. It would be a waste of taxpayer money to duplicate what Blockbuster is already doing and the Library does not want to use taxpayer money to compete with area businesses.

However.

Video and DVD are an excellent form of media for delivering certain kinds information and the Library has to carry them. One thing I'm doing is purchasing Ballet on DVD. It's almost a right of passage for young girls to take Ballet. So I'm going to build a small collection of Ballet DVD's with famous dancers so these young girls, their parents and teachers can see what quality ballet looks like. These are the types of things a local video store might not carry.

And of course as I've stated before movies and television have had a huge impact on American Culture. No library could be complete without Rudolf Valentino in the sheik or Charlie Chaplin as the Little Tramp. They may be silents but they are a part of American cultural and you ignore them at your peril. I'm building up the DVD collection. We are behind in that area. I'm starting with classic motion pictures and classic television. I will eventually get caught up and stay more current with my purchases but for now I'm still concentrating on building a retrospective collection.