Q: if you dont know if something is jazz when listening to it, then how do you know something is jazz when you are performing it? (referring to your jazz page)
A: the reason that page is labeled jazz is because it's just opening up the book to a tune, picking a tempo (perhaps not even the original tempo!) and jamming through it with the boys. usually playing the head once through, and then improvising over the form. this activity has been called jazz. jazz can mean many different things but that's one of the things it has meant, and the title of that page is a reference to those types of sessions. as a twist, when it is used in that context it usually refers to a different instrumentation than i'm using, and it is a live jam between 4 different people. whereas i'm doing it all myself. but the activity is very much the same. especially considering that the first several dozen tunes i did were sight read from the Real Book, which has been a staple of these types of sessions