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I'm starting my own thread because the silliness is bothering me.
Handy what jazz is flowchart:
1. Is the band or member(s) in the band doing continuous melody/harmony interplay improv?
Yes --> Jazz
No ---> Continue to question 2
2. Does the music primarily overlap with jazz elements established in the golden age?
Yes --> Jazz
No ---> Parent style
The end.
"We got the jazz, we got the jazz."
No, you don't.
Is there any continuous melody/harmony improv? No. Does the music overlap primarily with attributes established in the jazz golden age? No. They sampled green dolphin st but the rest of the attributes align with rap, so therefor it's rap.
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06-24-2022 10:17 PM
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Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
So, ok then, logic boy - if you are doing flowcharts, I’ll need a precise definition of what you mean by ‘jazz elements established in the golden age.’
And is it necessary for all those elements to be present in your view, or for a specific number of them, or just one?
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Necessary and sufficient conditions again. We could be here for some time.
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Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
If this is the case what does creating your own thread do for you since there isn't anything you can learn from others on this topic?
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Don't get all bitter because I don't live in logic lala land and know how to define the music I've been playing for 20 years lol!
Yes, Christian, I am serious. Are you serious? Do you view yourself as the arbiter of this forum? I'd be glad to go example by example if you want to go over the characteristics because I'm not writing out a comprehensive list just for you to compulsively try to out semanticize me. Examples are big band where improv is limited or modal like so what where changes are forgone.
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Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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Yay, gatekeeping.
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^ Yay not having to call rap, funk, and rock jazz.
Originally Posted by drbhrb
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Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
1) jazz is something I can concretely define by certain specific criteria
2) however I refuse to pin down what these criteria are because I know you will examine them for flaws and debate me on them
3) take me seriously
Let me know if I’ve got that right
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Jazz = Music
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Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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Originally Posted by drbhrb
I just don’t think it’s possible to prove it isn’t using Facts and Logic. Any definition that I can think of that excludes bluegrass also excludes perfectly accepted examples of jazz.
the other thought being that maybe it’s not so terribly important to define an edge to the genre and a lot of the fun is to be had at the margins anyway. I don’t see how that takes anything away from obvious core jazz idioms like bop or straightahead or whatever.
Otoh there’s plenty of music I love that isn’t jazz and there’s plenty of jazz I can’t be bothered with, so I don’t have too much emotional investment in this one.
But maybe Jimmy here has some criteria I haven’t thought of, if he’d tell us what they were.
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
As a general rule of thumb, I tend to think of jazz as basically - swing rhythm + improvisation = jazz. This is perhaps too broad since it might include some blues or what have you but it makes sense to me for example in describing the difference between free jazz and free improvisation, where the former will have rhythms more clearly indebted to the jazz tradition i.e. swing. But then again, much of my most favourite music isn't typical of whatever category or genre one might wish to put it in.
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Yeah. About Bitches Brew and slightly off topic but also related point - the jazz critics like Stanley Crouch who accused Miles of ‘grovelling before commercial arenas’ and I always think that they must have had absolutely no concept of what popular music of the era actually sounded like. It always made me laugh. (Pace the late great Stanley.)
i mean BB did great for a jazz record, but stylistically it’s not exactly Led Zeppelin II, let alone the monkees.
I suppose the message I take from this is that sometimes those who are supremely knowledgable about jazz are not the best placed to see it in a wider social context; you sacrifice breadth of knowledge with depth perhaps
you know jazz people have been constructing narratives about what is - and isn’t - jazz for as long as the music has existed.
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Maybe it's better to ask if a song has jazz rather than if it is jazz. Think of jazz as an adjective rather than a noun.
As a noun, the question leaves us with a dichotomous question. It either is or isn't jazz.
If a song can have jazz, then we are open to gradations. This allows us to question what about a piece is using elements of jazz.
Remember the term "jazz" is over a hundred years old and encompasses a huge range of music. The broader the definition the less useful a term is when defining one particular object.
Vivaldi and Mahler are both called classical composers in the broadest sense but they're born 200 years apart and their music reflects that.
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Originally Posted by drbhrb
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Originally Posted by setemupjoe
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Yea, I have opinions of what jazz is and I've posted them for decades, but generally I see and hear jazz as a style of playing...
I'm playing later with a great bluegrass player who's toured for years. He's working on learning to play in a jazz style. He's been at it for at least 10 years. He improving all the time.
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Originally Posted by setemupjoe
Oh well, can't please everyone, all of the time!
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
If you want to use Bitches Brew as an example.. Do they flow through changes? No. Do they use golden age jazz characteristics? No --> Parent style. --> Fusion. How hard was that?Last edited by Bobby Timmons; 06-27-2022 at 07:27 AM.
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Originally Posted by drbhrb
Last edited by Bobby Timmons; 06-27-2022 at 08:00 AM.
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Stop and think for a second how stupid this is. You guys are triggered.. because I know what jazz is. Oooooookkkkkkkk
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Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
If I listen to Miles Davis, this man was a bebopper, then a cooler, then a fusioner etc....He was not doing exactly the same thing, listen carefully to his records from the 50's to the 90's.
And I'm not triggered at all... why would I be ? , we are on a forum exchanging point of view, that's all.
Gibson ES-125 from 1958
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