On a first-name basis.(ad lib)

There's Beethoven, Debussy, Copland, Segovia, Horowitz, Callas, Abado, Perlman.

Yet, there's Duke, Miles, Dizzy, Oscar, Ella, Maynard, Herbie, Thelonious.

Many musicians tend to refer to the most admired in classical music or jazz in this way. There are exceptions to this pattern, but it seems significant that so many jazz players are commonly referred to by their first names.

As an adolescent pianist in my first jazz quartet, I noticed that my slightly-older bandmates talked about their idols like this. Later in a college jazz band, it was the same. I didn't give much thought to it again until years later while serving on a university search committee for a jazz piano position. The conversations among us and with the candidates for the position rarely referred to prominent jazzers in any other way. It was not a matter of anyone trying to impress that they had worked regularly with those notables (although a few had occasionally shared a stage with one). The references were made with an air of genuine respect and affection.

I have wondered about this dichotomy in naming because it implies different emotional relationships between the listener and the artist. The performance venue might be a contributing factor. Since classical music has traditionally been presented in a somewhat formal setting, this has fostered a greater emotional distance between players and audience, at least on the surface. The two genres have been moving closer toward one another in this regard for a while, but there still remains a sizable difference.

The music and how it is made might be an even larger factor. Expressive musicians in any genre (including students) display a personal flavor in their playing, some more than others. They have a healthy respect for the limitations of the printed page, a mere blueprint that guides the player's choices in bringing the music to life. A quotation, which I believe is from Leonard Bernstein (two names there, but even he was referred to by some in the general public--tongue-in-cheek at first--as "Lenny" during the initial years of the democratization of classical music in America after World War II) of "It's all jazz," suggests that personal and spontaneous expression are desirable traits in all music. Live performances of ...