Library: A young bard's tale, or how Jazz came to be

There are few more daunting tasks for a young bard-to-be than picking up his or her first instrument. An unnamed young bard had bravely done just that several years ago and practised rigorously. It was time to make a petition for bardship. Having learned to say 'yes' again and again one fateful night which we shall not discuss here, the bards quickly accepted him to their growing order. Years passed and the young bard eventually learned all the bardic repertoire by heart, including the lighter numbers such as the wizards' office christmas party classic 'A Wizard's Staff Has A Knob On End' and the incredibly saucy 'Do the Locomotive' by the Arelium Railroad Appreciation Society. Somehow he was still not happy. "Why do we keep doing these same songs night after night? Can't we do something different for once?", he was asking his fellow musicians. Months passed. One night during a performance the horn player, a certain young bard, after perhaps a drink or two too many suddenly went berserk. He started playing notes that were not in key, and some of them were probably not actual notes at all. Because the audience had paid for the tickets, the band had no choice but to try and cope with the apparent on-stage mental breakdown. They played the rest of the songs to the best of their ability, trying to make it seem like the spaced-out hornwork was actually part of the plan. After the show they were concerned about the horn player but he seemed to slowly regain his composure. "What the hell was that!? You ruined the show! We're never going to get another gig here", the bandleader yelled at the young bard. Before there was an answer someone knocked at the backstage door. The concert hall owner entered and through the open door they could hear the noise of a larger crowd. "We are so dead now", said the bandleader as he turned to face the owner. "Your performance was unbelievable, I loved the trippy horn parts, real edgy stuff. So unlike the usual stuff we have here. There is a crowd of people outside the hall who saw your performance, you know, waiting for you", said the owner. "What do you call your music?", he asked. Stupefied, the bandleader looked at the young bard who was their apparently demented horn player. All the others listened intensely. "I... I shall call this... Jizz", said the young bard. There was a short silence. "Umm, how about something slightly different, like jazz", said someone, trying to salvage the situation. "Yeah jazz is definitely better", agreed someone quickly. "Fine. I shall call this... Jazz!", decided the young bard. The word of the crazy new thing called Jazz spread quickly and the band, spotting their niche, put the young horn player as the new frontman. The musicians (and the drummer!) were suddenly not playing the old songs anymore, but this wild new stuff where the structure, and often the melody too was suddenly more of a guideline. Some copycat bands didn't even have traditional songs, they just went on stage and played random stuff off the top of their head. It took years for the bard guild to recover from the heated row between the guildmasters concerning the status of this new fad. Was it music or not? The young bard certainly believed so, as did a growing group of audiences all over the BatRealm. Eventually even the guildmasters agreed with him. The young bard? He was finally happy. "Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny" -- Frank Zappa

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Library: A young bard's tale, or how Jazz came to be