[geebee]

Jazz is just really, really hard. Good improvisation is incredibly demanding on both a mechanical and cognitive level. A jazz pianist needs the physical dexterity and skill of a classical pianist, but they also need to think like an arranger in real-time.

I tend to agree, but it's unlikely that jazz players possess all the skills of classical musicians plus other stuff. At some point, both start to bump into limits.

I remember Grappelli answering a question about classical. An interviewer asked him if he considered playing more classical pieces, and his response was along the lines of "I suppose I could, but why? I could take a few months to do it worse than a top classical musician would achieve in a few days. However, I do have other skills - for instance, I can improvise."

I like this answer, because Grappelli is really, really strong technically. But in the end, if you're going to spend the time developing the mental fluidity and improvisational ability for jazz... eventually something has to give. Top classical players can take on certain technical pieces that probably will elude the top jazz players.

[brooklyn_ashey]

Good point. Classical training aims to make the player as invisible as possible-- jazz training (one hopes, anyway)aims to train a player to value and enhance their personal idiosyncracies. It is difficult for a classically trained player to value all sound as texture and color and to feel free to play with less than "perfectly efficient" technique. A jazz player is making something of their own- while a classical player aims to channel the composer more-- and then make their own bold statement on whatever they are playing. It is unfortunate that classical evolved that way- to value a kind of technical arms race-- and then jazz education began to follow that too-- and as someone who switched, I can say that it was a difficult transition- my brain certainly felt like it had to change first before I could physically do the playing on call.