Where will jazz be in x years.

[ragman1]

In x years jazz will be at x.

[DawgBone]

There is too much musical amalgamation in popular culture and in the university system for jazz to retain an identity like it used to. It's like blues, relegated to a few die hards and everyone else is playing what amounts to rockabilly or just blues-rock.

Most young jazz guys I know are into fusion, that is their "jazz". They might even know the trad forms but their definition seems less rigid and more encompassing. Most listeners and many musicians hear/play some soulful pentatonic leads and that's "blues" to them. I've been thrown off enough forums over these sorts of discussions to know I'm right, lol. Your average guitar forum guy has to make sure their favorite rock legend guitar player is always included among blues greats. "Jimmy Page is blues" and remarks like that. Not very accurate IMO.

[Lionelsax]

Where will I be ?

[ragman1]

You will be now. It's always now. There is only now.

[EastwoodMike]

That "20th Century Improvisational Music" was a good shot.
21th should be better but is it?

Fans of Snarky Puppy would argue yes!

[Litterick]

Fans of Snarky Puppy would argue yes!

Imagine the horror of arguing with a Snarky Puppy fan.

[Christian Miller]

I agree that Snarky Puppy play 20th century music


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[ragman1]

I quite like Snarky Puppy. I don't really go for the traditional big band sound but SP I can handle :-)

[mr. beaumont]

Snarky Puppy: I enjoy the music as long as I don't have to look at them mugging for the camera and wearing headphones on stage.

[AllanAllen]

Is Cory Wong in that band or not? I thought he was, anyway, he had a youtube series about the reality of being a musician. All the stuff that's not practicing or playing on stage. It was cool.

[Litterick]

Snarky Puppy: I enjoy the music as long as I don't have to look at them mugging for the camera and wearing headphones on stage.

They had the audience wearing headphones in one video.

[pamosmusic]

Is Cory Wong in that band or not?l.

Cory Wong was in Vulfpeck.

So basically yes.

[EastwoodMike]

Cory Wong was in Vulfpeck.

So basically yes.

Cory Henry on the other hand is.

there is a good dvd documentary of them recording and Album in Europe.
they played live to sitting audiences. It appeared as though the band members had earphones for individual monitors and the Audience were listening to the desk mix.

Not sure I would call it 20thC. I’ll be seeing them in about 2 months time in Sydney.

[Christian Miller]

It has been noted that there is a strong element of ‘sniffing your own farts’ in the live presentation. In this they join a mighty tradition in jazz fusion music.

Haha maybe not c20, but my immediate reaction was ‘this sounds a bit like 70s Herbie/Chick’ etc. SP is one of these things like Jacob Collier that basically doesn’t show up on my radar most of the time. (I’m reminded of my wife’s incredulity when I said people think of Jacob Collier as jazz. It was pretty funny.)

I heard the big band at the school I work at play an SP tune the other week. If I was directing a school jazz band I’d be all over that stuff and the kids would like it and it would be a lot of fun. It’s a moral alternative to Chameleon the millionth time, and that’s great.

There’s a fair bit of stuff like that. All the kids learning guitar are obsessed with Polyphia, and the children I played it to in class LOVED that music right away in a way that they didn’t any of the older music I played. I don’t quite like it myself, but it doesn’t have to be about me.

As a listener, there are bands and groups I find more to my taste and more modern to my ears.

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[AllanAllen]

I'm wondering if 1970's is close enough to the 21st century, since we are talking centuries, to push it over. Maybe, the Beatles and rock was the end of the 20th century and then funk, hip hop and electronica start the 21st century.

[Christian Miller]

I'm wondering if 1970's is close enough to the 21st century, since we are talking centuries, to push it over. Maybe, the Beatles and rock was the end of the 20th century and then funk, hip hop and electronica start the 21st century.

Nah it’s all c20

Edit: well funk is a stretch. You could argue for hip and hop and electronica as that music is still somewhat relevant.


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[emanresu]

This is more fun than Snarky Puppy.

[RLetson]

Looked up Polyphia--"Playing God," to be precise--and it sounded like three minutes of reasonably competent intro, with just a dash of Flim & the BBs (but with a lot less melody). But then, I've never been much taken by "prog rock" or fusion or the general leakage of rock into jazz. (Though I quite liked the BBs, especially that first digital LP.)

And I'm impressed by Snarky Puppy's large-ensemble precision and the percussionists in particular--though there's something weird about listening to a live horn-driven band in person but through headphones. I have vivid memories of hearing the Wolverines big band close up, and the visceral, unmediated aural experience was as important as the arrangements. I think I understand that the SP arrangements are more studio-mix-centric and that the dynamic contrasts are probably best controlled that way (l'm listening right now to the keyboard/synth solo on "Lingus"), but I remain old-fashioned in my preference for live acoustic sounds. (Though I'm getting some serious 1960s/70s flashbacks from those keyboard textures. Hand me down my platform shoes.)

[BWV]

[mr. beaumont]

Looked up Polyphia--"Playing God," to be precise--and it sounded like three minutes of reasonably competent intro, with just a dash of Flim & the BBs (but with a lot less melody). But then, I've never been much taken by "prog rock" or fusion or the general leakage of rock into jazz. (Though I quite liked the BBs, especially that first digital LP.)

And I'm impressed by Snarky Puppy's large-ensemble precision and the percussionists in particular--though there's something weird about listening to a live horn-driven band in person but through headphones. I have vivid memories of hearing the Wolverines big band close up, and the visceral, unmediated aural experience was as important as the arrangements. I think I understand that the SP arrangements are more studio-mix-centric and that the dynamic contrasts are probably best controlled that way (l'm listening right now to the keyboard/synth solo on "Lingus"), but I remain old-fashioned in my preference for live acoustic sounds. (Though I'm getting some serious 1960s/70s flashbacks from those keyboard textures. Hand me down my platform shoes.)

Re: Polyphia

It's one of those things that I can appreciate because I know the skill level involve in getting something that tight...It's just also the kind of music that I'm really not into.

A lot of the kids today seem to like music that's really "tight." Vulfpeck comes to mind too...

I like stuff that sounds like it's going to run off the rails a bit.

I find the Knower and Domi/JD Beck stuff more entertaining...Domi in particular sounds like she's taking some chances.

[rictroll]

I haven’t heard much from the 21st century that moves the needle much beyond this - and this was a long time ago.

i’m open to suggestions, though.

[RLetson]

What I hear in the Laufey snippets in that Neely video upthread is, first, a really good set of pipes, and, second, music solidly rooted in Neely's "mid-century pop" that elides musical theatre, jazz, blues, cabaret, "latin," and probably some other traditions I'm forgetting--which suggests that Laufey has very big ears as well as a fine vocal instrument, and she clearly borrows from traditions and performers from before she was born, and does it very well. I'm struck by how seamlessly her compositions and delivery connect with those traditions.

Maybe I'm hopelessly middlebrow, but I hear "jazz" in a lot of straight-up pop/cabaret singers who are not generally considered jazz singers--say, Keely Smith or Rosemary Clooney. Jazz offers a way around a song even if the singer doesn't scat or do adventurous things to the melody line. It isn't all Carmen McRae or Sarah Vaughn. Jazz is now woven through American music in the way that the blues are woven through jazz. (Though there are plenty of other threads.)

Another thing that I find interesting in Neely's commentary is the observation about who is reviewing and interviewing Laufey--not jazz-savvy (and, I suspect, not historically-informed music-savvy) people. I mean, have these folks never listened to Ella or Chet or even Tony or Frank? (Would they get the first-name references?) Neely's take on generational cultural discontinuity strikes me as on the money--not unlike the kind of discontinuity that arises from kids who don't watch black and white movies and thus know bugger-all about film before 1960.

[Bop Head]

I'll repeat it again and again and again:

Their music is an interpretation of London's underground dance music of 30 years ago on live instruments:

"Drum & bass" music comes from "jungle" which comes from reggae. The drum beats of jungle music were sampled drum breaks from e.g. James Brown records that were not played back at approximately the original tempo but at 160 to 180 beats per minute (dub reggae tempo double-timed) and often cut up and sliced.

There were bands already back then (1990ies) that were interpreting that kind of music on live instruments, e.g. Red Snapper.

My own former band Les Babacools had a reggae sound system back around the turn of the century with a monthly live jam session where we would often mix up reggae with drum and bass and jungle.

Jazz Musicians are often a little ignorant regarding "electronica". There is an interview with Joe Henderson and John Scofield on Youtube where Sco is laughing about the fact that there was now a music in England called "trip-hop". One member of one of the two most successful bands of the so called "Bristol sound", Portishead (the other one was Massive Attack), was British jazz guitarist Adrian Utley ...

[Christian Miller]

One of Goldie’s favourite musicians is Pat Metheny. You can get it on the harmony of inner city life.

Check out the 20th anniversary performance with the Heritage Orchestra. Adam Betts is drum God.

EDIT also the brilliant arranging/orchestration of Jules Buckley who has since gone on to the Metropole Orchestra.

Oh good grief this album is coming up for its 30th
Anniversary this year.

The main thing I think is different about the current jazz/groove crossover (inc Alfa Mist etc) is that there’s more emphasis on the soloing. The music itself sounds very much in the same vein as the stuff I was listening to in the mid-late 90s. ‘Intelligent drum and bass’ being the label.


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[Litterick]

Drum & Bass is horrible, Jungle is worse. It is all studio work. Domi & JD Beck are musical. He does play fast, but her keyboard skills make it all worthwhile. Besides, unlike the Brits, they have no aggression in them.