Greg Avakian wrote:
Although obviously the early jazz recordings were not edited, editing was used by every kind of musician (classical, jazz, whatever) as soon as it became available. I think it's safe to say that musicians would have been in favor of editing their earliest recordings if they could have. What's more, if you think about it, music was always edited -it was just edited in someone's head as they decided who would get a solo and who would not. Of course that is part of the beauty of hearing live jazz -"they just wind it up and let it go".
This implies that the DJ has as much claim on editing music as the musician did. Which, to overuse my pet phrase, is mind-boggling.
To me, the beauty of jazz is that so much of it emerges directly from the heart, head, and fingers/throat of the musician, unfiltered in live performance. Sometimes there are clams. Sometimes a solo is awkward. Sometimes the phrasing is lame. But when the musician or producer chose that particular cut to release, that lameness was included. That's their artistic decision.
DJs make a commercial decision to edit. I think that is significantly different.
Like I said before, keep on editing if you want to. I personally don't like second-guessing what the musician intended us to hear -- which reiterates my feeling that if the musician intended us to dance to it, why would they put out a cut with such undanceable parts? In other words, why are we modifying the music to fit the dance? To stretch the analogy, isn't that a bit like recording a disco version of swing music so people can hustle to it?