Is a Jazz Musician Just a Pianist (should we say Instrumentalist)?

Ok DrJellyFish, even the conductor, for almost their entire course of study, deals with composition... but while conducting and preparing a symphony, they are an interpreter... I think as much as a conductor of a Big Band, and I think you're saying that between the lines. What they do incidentally (their performances on the instrument) has little to do with the act of conducting, right?

So wouldn't they be a Jazz musician?

It is a very interesting discussion, but I am wondering (not rhetorically) why there is such a felt need to define (in fact, more: to establish) inflexibly the scopes of things, even when they could be serenely entrusted to common sense (assuming a minimum of knowledge on the subject, that is, which almost everyone here has).

The definition of a jazz musician needs to be clarified here. That they do not necessarily have to be an improviser. It is someone who knows that language.

Let me explain: if I say that I am a baroque music performer, regardless of my role, what do you expect from me?

DrJellyfish wrote:

The definition of a jazz musician needs to be clarified here. That they do not necessarily have to be an improviser. It is someone who knows that language.

Bingo!

Essentially, it is a composer who specializes in that language or has made that language their aesthetic. The performer's craft is not remotely close to that of the composer; that is why I feel a difference and asked the question.

I am talking about those who perform music. Even a conductor.

In other words, if we distinguish between composer and performer, I would place the conductor in the second category.

But this way you are taking a step backward, I'll restate your sentence:

"Here the definition of jazz musician would need to be clarified. That they do not necessarily have to be an improviser"

A jazz musician (therefore everyone) does not necessarily have to be an improviser; therefore, a composer who knows how to write and decipher a lead sheet is a jazz musician.

What I mean to say is that Jazz is a musical genre like any other, there are composers and performers. Of course, in Jazz improvisation is practiced more than elsewhere and this causes the two roles to often appear, albeit in a different way from other musics, in the same person, but this is not a prerogative of Jazz. I would like to be able to say that the jazz musician is the complete musician, but...

Bit wrote:

But this way you are taking a step backward, I'll repeat your sentence: "Here the definition of jazz musician would need to be clarified. That they do not necessarily have to be an improviser" The Jazz Musician (therefore everyone) does not necessarily have to be an improviser; therefore, a composer who knows how to write and decipher a lead sheet is a jazz musician.

no more than I, who know how to read a piece by Bach, am a specialist in Baroque music.

Is a composer who knows how to write and decipher figured bass a harpsichordist or, in any case, a baroque music performer?

A jazz composer is one who knows how to write using that language, a performer one who knows how to play using that language. As with all musical genres.

Carlos, I will come to hear you when you conduct music by living authors that perhaps I might meet at the concert...