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I think you're right etcetera, that's an interesting point you made about classical and jazz people listening to classical music differently. I also think jazz people might tend to play classical music differently, such as emphasising different beats and swinging the eighths more.
Re Bill Evans, are you saying the classical jury didn't think much of his approach ? What initially attracted me to him was his individualistic approach to scales in his improvs.

I read Bill Evans' biography, and from what I remember he played classical piano very well.. the problem was that while he played his pieces with no problem, he struggled to play scales and arpeggios, which is required for passing the jury. So his teachers were puzzled about it. I read the book a long time ago so I might not be exactly right on the detail.. but it just shows that many of the jazz pianists didn't have the kind of "formal training" like we did, or their approach was rather unusual.

I've also read that Kenny Werner actually flunked his first year as a classical piano and swtiched school to Berklee to do jazz.

Kenny Werner is a great player. Went to Wikipedia about Chick Corea after spouting off about his classical education, and he didn't have as much as I thought - lessons as a kid, 6 mos. at Julliard and 1 month at Columbia. But he had some. He wanted to play his own stuff [like always use a diminished chord in your tunes - insert tongue in cheek smiley here]. The thing I like about classical is that it's like reading an old book - with usually good ideas in it. At my age-advanced- I try to play things that make my brain work, just to keep it around longer. I find it helps my technique to play anything. I like reading through the old real book, etc. But I'd rather play jazz than classical.

daviel,

I didn't know that about chick. I always thought he had extensive classical training. BTW I want to clarify that there is a big difference between learning a classical piece and studying a classical piece and making it a part of your jazz vocabulary. I think people like chick and kenny did the latter, but they might not have learned an entire piece at a recital level.

In fact Kenny talks about how you can benefit by learning parts of a classical piece and not necessary finishing the entire piece. You can work on an entire section, or just couple of measures of a piece.. for him it doesn't matter & the only thing that matters if whether you have sufficiently mastered the material.

btw I was wrong about Oscar Peterson.. the DVD i saw gave me the impression that Oscar learned piano from his sister, but he actually had a teacher.

Listen to this performance by Keith and Chick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4i8G2USqe4

Then listen to this performance of the same piece played by Gilels and Zak.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4i8G2USqe4

I find that Keith Jarrett's, and Chick Corea's is clean, and nice, the ensemble is pretty good, etc. Nothing very dynamic about it. Nothing interesting about the interpretation. The stuff that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up when you hear either of them improvise just isn't there.
There's nothing wrong with it. It's just a little straight, and plain.


The Gilels Zak recording is, IMO on a different level entirely. Very articulate, much more dynamic range, ensemble is more together. It just sparkles from beginning to end.

I think that's what classical people** mean when they comment on Jarrett and Corea's classical playing.

Now to be fair: here's Gilels playing "Straight No Chaser."


**I don't mean people who see Jarrett and Corea's name, and immediately dissmiss the recordings.