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I like all sorts of music, including jazz. This cleared it up for me a lot better than Prof. North's research:
Yogi Berra Explains Jazz
Interviewer: Can you explain jazz?
Yogi: I can't, but I will. 90% of all jazz is half improvisation. The other
half is the part people play while others are playing something they
never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the
wrong part, its right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you
play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it's wrong.
Interviewer: I don't understand.
Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can't understand it.
It's too complicated. That's whats so simple about it.
Interviewer: Do you understand it?
Yogi: No. That's why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldn't know
anything about it.
Interviewer: Are there any great jazz players alive today?
Yogi: No. All the great jazz players alive today are dead. Except for the
ones that are still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones
that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead. Some would
kill for it.
Interviewer: What is syncopation?
Yogi: That's when the note that you should hear now happens either before
or after you hear it. In jazz, you don't hear notes when they happen
because that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can
be jazz, but only if they're the same as something different from those
other
kinds.
Interviewer: Now I really don't understand.
Yogi: I haven't taught you enough for you to not understand jazz that well.
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