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Just because people can be dumb, doesn't mean my explanation isn't accurate. :P I'm pretty sure that's it.
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06-23-2022 06:10 AM
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Thanks all.
It somehow seems that jazz in general could be best described as a musical attitude rather than a dogmatic genre definition.
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Is it wrong if I say :
"jazz is the son of the blues (like many other styles) combined with the influence of the european classical/baroque music" ?
it's not swing , it's not improvisation, it's not harmony or/and melody it's a human creativity coming from blues and classical at first ?
(Blues is so important when I think jazz, but that's me).
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"I don't know what you mean by the 'failure' of jazz and its players. Failure to do what?" Ragman
Hi, R,
A failure to keep alive the one thing that placed Jazz at the pinnacle of artistic creativity--spontaneity in improvisation based on the mood, the musicians, your personality, and what was happening to you(playing) at that very moment in life. Look, I'm very happy to live in the past musically in both Jazz and Classical Music since I could never scratch the surface of the music that exists. However, I do lament that Jazz has become so sanitized, academic, and predictable based on my opinion of the majority of young contemporary players who play memorized patterns matched against pre-conceived chord changes and call it Jazz. Where are the creators like Miles, Coltrane, Dexter, Monk, Burrell, Baker, etc. today? They're not here and, sadly, the examples of contemporary Jazzers provided by some members during these discussions are embarrassing in a comparative historic sense. I hope that explains my position. Finally, the greatest impediment today to becoming a creative musician is the inability, for most, to play live with a group nightly for extended periods of time. It is this very thing that gives a musician seasoning for developing his/her style and creativity. Sitting in your bedroom playing against backing tracks will never duplicate the experience of playing with live musicians since there can never be the spontaneous give and take which is the meat and potatoes of quality Jazz music. So, if only 1.4% of the people want to listen to Jazz, why would a club owner, restauranteur, or any other venue want to book Jazz musicians? Until Covid, 100% of my live gigs since the early '90s were solo Classical guitar with a select few Jazz/Bossa pieces mixed in with great discretion. If you mentioned Jazz to most venues when you're looking for a booking, you'll be dead in the water. And, if they might be interested, they wouldn't pay more than the three-chord Rock band--$25.00 per man for a 3-hour gig. Finally, there is a serious musician among us with untold hours of practice/study/performance who recently posted a video of a "gig" in a grocery store. I don't know if they got paid but if that's the future for Jazz . . . and serious Jazz musicians . . . well, need I say more?
Marinero
P.S. I hope they got paid! M
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The creativity also comes from having a story to tell, doesn't it?
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interesting, there is a philisophy point of view around your words.
Originally Posted by teeps
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Hi, T, Originally Posted by teeps
I think we came from the same tree!
Marinero
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Philosophers speak of necessary and sufficient conditions.
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This is true, but you still have to describe the result. Originally Posted by itsmyname
This isn't true. It is not any one of those things.it's not swing , it's not improvisation, it's not harmony or/and melody it's a human creativity coming from blues and classical at first ?
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That isn't true of any genre. If Bach played power chords at 160 it wouldn't be classical and if Sid Vicious played prelude in C it wouldn't be punk regardless of their attitude. Originally Posted by teeps
Think what you do when you go to play jazz 99% of the time - immediately continuously blend harmony and melody.
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I don't think this is the primary activity in jazz nor is it exclusive to jazz. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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Jazz is fairly simple music, you dont need to read music, merely play what you hear, and change it a lot, probably everytime ( i may be incorrect on that ). However Jazz is difficult should one want/need to earn a steady income, although a few have made relatively lots of cash.
"Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny" that person who said that made lots of money, but did not (himself play Jazz) he did employ some people who did. They did not make money.
is this a Jazz Story, or fantasy Jazz Story?
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It is the primary activity, what else would it be? Playing guitar? Keeping a beat? And it is exclusive to jazz. No other genre has a practice of continuous melody/harmony interplay thru improv. Originally Posted by drbhrb
Last edited by Jimmy Smith; 06-23-2022 at 03:51 PM.
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Sure there are plenty other types of music that do this. Baroque musicians improvised melody and harmony (basso continuo and otherwise), Indian Classical music also has this type of interplay, Brazilian choro, Folk and bluegrass. Any music performed live with melody and harmony players will them responding (or interplay...ing) to each out in real time throughout. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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Like I have said 4 or 5 times throughout the thread, continuous improvised melody/harmony interplay is the main definition of jazz, while sometimes accompanying elements that developed during the golden age of jazz are required to decide. Bluegrass is a type of jazz because it is constantly improvising melody and harmony identical to jazz. Classical is not jazz because it is either composed, designed to sound composed, and predated jazz and so shares no other characteristics. Folk is not jazz because they don't have constant melody/harmony interplay, although there could of course be exceptions with songs that sound jazzy. I was listening to a Modest Mouse song that sounded like jazz in a section. The guitar and bass were both playing melodically while outlining the chords and interplaying with each other. This one little section could be considered jazz (especially if it was improvised rather than written) but the majority of their music aligns with rock. Even think of the birth of the term of jazz. There were lush standard compositions that the musicians would 'jazz up.' How did they jazz them up? Did they put sound effects to them? Did they play them faster? Did they use some novel instrument? No, they embellished the melody and harmony.
3:33
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ok but wiki is not bad :
Jazz - Wikipedia
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This has been an interesting discussion. I think Teeps has touched on what is, for me, the most important element for a performer when he says a musician needs a "story to tell." And, it is just this element that is missing in contemporary Jazz music today. When a person attends a Culinary Arts school, they learn how to properly dice produce, make a consistent roux, how to blend various elements for a good sauce, and proper cooking techniques based on time, temperature, and desired results. . . before they ever make their first creation. This is certainly the same with Jazz music. Before being able to play Jazz, one must learn the elements of music needed to perform before any song can be played. However, after you have assembled these elements and you don't have a "story to tell," is it really Jazz . . . or just an academic exercise? What story are you telling when you're playing memorized licks against staid chord changes and expecting your audience to be moved. We, musicians, ARE storytellers no different than a visual artist or a novelist/poet. And, if the story you tell is a showcase of your pedagogy and mathematical, preconceived improvisations . . . what are you saying? And, why would any serious listener give you more than a few bars before tuning out? That's my problem with Jazz today. I can remember in my early days when Bebop exploded on the Jazz scene, many younger horn players disparaged the work of Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster who were masters of lyrical Jazz and groundbreakers of style. They wanted to play only the "sheets of sound" made popular by Coltrane, Dizzy, Parker, Miles, etc. And, in doing so, many lost their musical personalities or worse, descended into the musical doggerel of say Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, and Pharoah Sanders to name a few. We musicians need to strive to be magicians, as all good artists, and find our individual Zen nature . . . otherwise, we're nothing more than practitioners of elevator music.
Marinero
P.S. In the visual arts, Gauguin and Van Gogh became famous artists of the 19th century and I have often used them as a comparison to music. Van Gogh ,largely, painted landscapes throughout his life** while Gauguin, especially when he lived in Tahiti, painted portraits of people. And, although Van Gogh's painting technique was revolutionary at the time with his use of color and stroke, Gauguin entered the minds of his subjects in his portraits to create some of the most psychologically moving depictions of human nature ever painted on canvas. Van Gogh was a craftsman; Gauguin . . . the artist.
M
**one of the few exceptions was VanGogh's "The Potato Eaters"--a highly Expressionistic painting
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My dad was a huge jazz fan raised me on the stuff... though his style was very narrow: He favored the New Orleans style with banjos... revived briefly in his college years in the early 1950s for about 5 minutes. Think New Orleans 2nd line.... and EVERYONE loves that stuff. Following from his definitions though, I think more broadly than he did, and to me - as many definitions I see here run a range, jazz is and can be many things, has many definitions, but is basically American classical played by folks in a sense that dates way back to what we think of as the classical era - when it was creative, innovative, and what folks played for themselves and to the enjoyment of others. Jazz was briefly also pop in the 1920s and 1930s or thereabouts and then pop moved on.
I have particular favorites but that doesn't exclude either my Dad's definition or anyone else's. It's just the music strain within Jazz that I prefer to hear, play, etc. For example, my dad got to a point where he liked Bix Biderbeke and that was about it.... the rest he'd listen to but not really dig.
Jazz is not necessarily ONLY anything or one thing. It's not ONLY improvising.. though that can play a big role. Narrowing it to music played by musicians for other musicians is a sad reflection.... making it something like Classical Guitar which is today IMHO guitar music played for other guitarists who play a certain type of guitar in a certain way.... and a few others willing to go to the few small venues where it's played. Jazz can be much broader and should be. Louis Armstrong demonstrated from the beginning that it is NOT only instrumental either... much as I liked his playing more than his singing.
What I like has the Blues influence as important. I also like the instrumentals that favor a stronger adherence to theme , and favor more musicality, melody and less a demonstration of virtuosity. But maybe that's 'cause I tend to like danceable music more than the rest. Same holds for my tastes in classical music where I find ballet music tend to keep the composers from losing coherence and a strong beat. But that's just me. Doesn't mean that other stuff isn't great or beautiful, it just means that I find the odds of my liking something rise when these factors are in play.
Just saying.
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The discussion seems to have three intertwined branches ... one touching the technical characterization of jazz, another touching the more artistic aspect of (jazz) music and the third touching the dynamics between the sender (musician) and receiver (musician (fellow or competitor), audience). I hope this discussion also gives something back to you too
thanks.
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Good point here: I took the question as rhetorical, in that how someone answers provides insight into what they think and feel about jazz and being a jazz musician but there isn't any good or bad answers. Of course there are some folks here that insist the question is simple, and, they have all the answers; I.e. their view is infallible. But there again, I learn something about them. (which is mostly trying to avoid any discussions with them). Originally Posted by teeps
The discussion seems to have three intertwined branches ... one touching the technical characterization of jazz, another touching the more artistic aspect of (jazz) music and the third touching the dynamics between the sender (musician) and receiver (musician (fellow or competitor), audience). I hope this discussion also gives something back to you too thanks.
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It's clear no-one really knows what jazz is. That's OK with me. I don't like the term at all. I hate it when people ask me what kind of music I play.
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Jazz = jazzing up tunes = embellishing the melody and harmony = continuous melody/harmony interplay.
Maybe you don't know what jazz is but I do.
What happens 99% of the time when 99% of you go to play jazz?.. You jazz up tunes by playing melodies through the harmonies.
But that's not the definition lol.Last edited by Jimmy Smith; 06-25-2022 at 06:29 AM.
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So, jazz is No Mystery Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
Edit: Besides the word play the performance quite well matches the description. The -ations are there as well and Chick an Stanley seem to have something to say. To each other and to the audience. Something fresh despite having played this many times before. And it is played before a live audience. Only the sunglasses are missing.Last edited by teeps; 06-25-2022 at 05:11 AM.
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Well, not really, unless everything is a mystery :-) Originally Posted by teeps
So, jazz is No Mystery
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Sometimes someone thinks that he is playing jazz and this is not jazz ...
The "language of jazz" makes it easier to determine whether we are dealing with jazz.
The "language of jazz" is essential.
what is a jazz language?
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