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I apologize if this question pushes anyone's buttons. Definitely not my intention.
I just turned 65. I've been making music for over 50 years. Always as a creative outlet, never professionally. I didn't play much while my children were growing up, but got back into it around the turn of the century as they were going out on their own.
When I resumed playing guitar in the early `00s and played what I had played in the past (classic rock, folk and blues), I found it boring and repetitive. Ditto a lot of contemporary pop and rock. I became interested in jazz mainly for the expanded musical vocabulary.
While the study has benefitted me as a musician, I still don't feel that I can adequately explain jazz as a genre. I see everything from traditional big-band jazz, to New Orleans jazz, to bop, fusion, free, ... and I'm finding it difficult to understand why these are all under the same umbrella. I mean, just consider the first and last items on my list: big-band and free jazz. To me, they seem diametrically opposed, yet they're still "jazz".
How can I usefully understand this?
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06-22-2019 10:13 PM
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According to the internet...
Polyphony means more than one part indicating simultaneous notes with independent melodic and rhythmic interests within and between parts.
Homophony means no such independence; multiple parts move in the same rhythm (chordal) emphasizing the concord and alignment between voices in the texture.
Monody means distinct or soloistic role of the main melody with emphasis on a single upper line of melodic interest, accompanied by instrumental parts filling harmonic texture.
So as far as what is jazz?, just taking one dimension it is clear that jazz includes some of all just these three things, as do other distinctly named music forms. Adding more dimensions is likely to get the same result - jazz has all of those things, and so do other kinds of music.
Socrates used to ask the same kind of question (to make people think) that in modern terms might go, "What is the difference between a sport and a game?" The irritating thing is that for any named example to test (checkers, 20 questions, arm wrestling, golf, sky diving...), virtually all may agree instantly and easily that the thing is either a sport or a game, but it seems impossible to formulate a rule by which to determine how to consistently and completely classify each example.
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By reading up on it. It didn't come from nowhere, it evolved, much like anything else evolves - language, culture, science, etc.How can I usefully understand this?
Jazz - Wikipedia
It's too complex to give a whole history here. It's the result of huge creative input from many sources over time. Actually not that long, maybe only 120 years if you start from 1900.
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Works for me:
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I remember seeing a documentary from Ken Burns on Jazz that really helped me get a grip on all that. I know for people who grew up with Jazz that is a little like saying I finally understood hamburgers because I went to McDonalds. But I didn't grow up with jazz, so all I knew were snapshots. A little Bossa Nova, some Dave Brubeck, and maybe a little Louis Armstrong. And just like someone who has been given a Louis' lunch burger on white toast and no condiments and next had an Emily burger on a pretzel bun, slathered in "sauce", caramelized onions and melted cheese, I had not idea how any of that went together. I am sure the documentary was offensive to many, deeply unsatisfying for many more, and borderline sacrilege for the deeply pure, but it did a good job for me to give it all context and a continuity that gave me the freedom to explore and enjoy. Check it out, if you haven't already.
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There's a saxophonist and music teacher by the name of Greg Lutz. He has a nice series of videos on his YT channel called "Drive by Music Theory." Anyway, he defines Jazz as follows: take the 12-bar Blues and rhythm changes, put them in a bag and shake it up. What you pour out is Jazz.
Yeah, I know, it's overly simplistic and will incite some people to argue, but I like it. The best teachers have a way of simplifying things. He's pointing out the crucial roles the Blues and the cycle of 4ths play in Jazz.
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How about this?
Jazz itself isn't defined in terms of content, instrumentation, harmonies, melodies. Although the sub-genres mentioned in the OP may be.
In my opinion, it is defined by history, where it has come from, how it has evolved; a tradition, if you like. Most jazz innovators were products of the previous generations of jazz.
Much of prog rock is not defined as jazz, even though it contains many of the same elements: rhythmic and harmonic complexity, extended instrumental solos etc. But it didn't evolve from the Jazz tradition, but from the pop and rock n roll stream.
It's like asking "what is the difference between the French and German languages? " Functionally - nothing. They just evolved in different places and most people can immediately tell the difference.
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Jazz is when you think you’ve done something outside of the genre and then people who aren’t jazz fans listen to it and say ‘that’s very jazz.’
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Echoing what others have said - there’s a strong line of evolution from form to form, so it all connects even though it’s very diverse.
I think other genres are similar though. To compare the early rock of Bill Haley etc to the latest offerings from Meshuggah, that’s quite a journey, but it all makes sense, so:
Early rock —> British Invasion —> Blues Rock —> hard rock —> early metal —> nwobhm —> us thrash —> death metal —> prog death —> DJENT!!!!
Or something (I’m sure an actual metal fan can quibble with that like they do)
But you get the idea.... rock has been around for a bit less time but it’s been around for 60 odd years, so there’s been a lot of water under the bridge.
And of course we can take it back and point out the influence from swing music and country on early rock and so on. Rock and jazz have common ancestors if you go back far enough.
I find these historical evolutions interesting to track.... if anything the rate of development in jazz has slowed down a bit. It took from circa 1920 to 1969 - only 50 years - to get from New Orleans March form tunes and collective polyphonic improv to free jazz and jazz rock via bop and swing. Have the past 50 years been as revolutionary? Not really, although he have seen development we are still dealing with the basic concepts - from blowing on standards, to playing on modes to the classic line ups - that come from that initial growth spurt.
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Each of those forms evolved from (or as a reaction to) what went before, so they were perceived at the time as still being in the same genre. But you are hearing them all in one go now, so those connections are less obvious.
In any case, ‘jazz’ is now such a broad term and genre, and has developed in so many directions, that it can encompass almost anything or so it seems.
Reading a good history of jazz will help and is a valuable exercise anyway.
In any case, why worry about it? Listen to and play whichever things you like.
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Jazz is a community.
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You take a familiar song with a familiar melody with a familiar chord progression. Then you find a way to fuck it up over the changes without really fucking it up all the while keeping the song barely recognisable. And yeah, do it all with a swing feel.
That is my definition and I am sticking with it.Last edited by Jabberwocky; 06-23-2019 at 07:51 AM.
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For me, the meaning of jazz came as a player. Jazz has a unique sensibility that is inclusive and adaptive and holds first and foremost to the dictate that it be creative as opposed to re-creative.
Many other musics, particularly in the western tradition, exist as a way to recreate and interpret or simply be able to play something that has been created by another person. Composition-wise or just playing Blackbird the way it was played by the Beatles. If you can play that song, it's good.
Jazz, in the traditions I learned it, acknowledges a song form, but the jazz itself it what you create each time you play. A work of jazz is a composer's art that exists in real time. You can have a set lexicon, a set syntax, and there is semantic content, which means you have a language with given phrases, ways to use them and something to say that orders your statement, but jazz is the way it all comes together in the real time moment your solo begins; the composition you create that is entirely of your making. It's the statement that is a summary of your compositional abilities that encompasses all you know in an expressive moment of time and form.
That's why King Oliver and Cecil Taylor, Ellington and Michael Brecker, Sun Ra and Gary Burton, Charlie Christian and Julian Lage share a kinship despite a very different sound to a record seller's categorical world. All of these people approach the real substance of jazz with a composers' attitude and in the moment of creation, the process is totally up to them.
That's the way I understood it. That's the way I play it.
David
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Jazz, defined in six words:
"Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Charles Parker"
I believe that is attributed to Miles Davis.
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So, I'm wondering why use an existing song as a basis for jazz? Why not just start fresh and come up with something new, entirely? If this is such a creative genre played by advanced players, it should be relatively easy to accomplish. I know that if I hear a version of 'Georgia' or 'Darn That Dream' that is played to sound like anything else, I'll quit listening. Imagine a non jazz listener buying an album (and I use that term loosely) with a list of his/her favorite tunes on the back and finds out that none of the music sounds like the songs he/she expected? I've played 'surf' music since it came out out in the early 60's and was interested to hear Bill Frisell's take on the stuff and was, I won't say completely disappointed, but slightly taken aback at the weird phrasing - personally, I'd rather hear my version of 'Surfer Girl' or 'In My Room' because it sounds like the song. Now, I don't mind an improvised chorus on a tune but don't like to hear it completely changed. That's probably why I like the Wes pop albums and Johnny Smith's stuff (check out 'JS Plays Van Heusen' on Roost - the solo on 'Swingin' On a Star' is as good as it gets IMHO) because the tunes sound like they're supposed to with a little improv thrown in. I love Dixieland, Big Band, Bossa, and swing but very little that came later. Just me, I guess....I'm old!
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Originally Posted by Skip Ellis
You mean original compositions? Everybody does that now. They must at least partially agree with you that playing classics in a non-classic style is not the way to float people's boat.
But you also say that you don't like much music that came along after Bossa. OK - That's cool, and understandable, I'm no spring chicken either.
Just as long as we realize that (1) those two positions are contradictory, or (2) we may have checked out, as listeners.
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I think there's a vast danger in making a mystery out of it. Jazz isn't some magical revelation, it's just a form of music which has its beginnings and inevitably evolved through endless input from many cultures and experimentation. And it'll doubtless go on evolving too; it's doing so as we speak.
Tap your foot and hum something. That'll do, that's jazz :-)
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All the wrong notes in all the right places with all the right feel behind them.
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What's the 'right feel'?
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The one that evokes a positive emotional reaction.
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Jazz is Listening.
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Heres your answer
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Much of today's music does just the opposite for me - it evokes a negative emotional reaction and I don't want to hear it. I guess that's why we have buttons to change the channel or turn it completely off. Probably why I only listen to old music. Fortunately, in this day and age, it's possible to only listen to what we want and what's meaningful to each of us. Again, just me....... Originally Posted by lammie200
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I hear you. Originally Posted by Skip Ellis
I was thinking about starting another thread that I am curious about. It pertains to anything with aesthetic appeal.
I am wondering if there is term for the phenomena of an "acquired appeal?" Like when you see or hear something that you don't like at first and then come around to it. For example, when Fender changed the Stratocaster headstock from small to large. A first reaction may had been to throw up in your mouth a bit, but then after a while it may have seemed OK and may have even become your preferred shape. Countless other examples like when a car that you find appealing gets a cosmetic "upgrade" and your first reaction is that you liked the previous version better, but then come to realize that the new version is actually more refreshing and appealing. Miles Davis' music went through a lot of changes and the fusion period may have thrown some of his fans off initially. Others may have come around to it. Bob Dylan going from folk to rock is another example when some fans liked it after hating it. Is their a term for that?
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It's called "it grows on you". Originally Posted by lammie200
We must factor out the Heritage headstock, however.
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