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If so.. Why? If not.. Why not?
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06-19-2016 09:59 AM
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I am a Dead fan, but not Dead obsessed. My own two cents - no. Improvisation (or acid tripping) alone does not equal jazz. I wouldn't even consider the Allman's instrumentals jazz, but they are closer to a tight form of jazz than the Dead's IMHO.
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I heard it mentioned recently that some of the early 60's rock was Jazz-like compared to modern rock. Mainly because the early bands when they played live were playing off each other and would have extended solo. That today's rock bands use backup tracks and some are just doubling their parts live that the spontaneity is gone.
So from the standpoint of live and working off each other and improvised solos you could say there was a Jazz element to Hendrix, Cream, Allman Brothers and others, compare to today's band leached to digital playback tracks.
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I guess if you're a hippy stoned on LSD and think that "jazz" is the sound of a band tuning up and then jamming on the I (one) chord for 40 mins...
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I think a bit of jazz is one of about 20 ingredients that goes into the soup that is "Grateful Dead Music."
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Originally Posted by OldGuitarPlayer
Should tell Branford Marsallis. Ornette Coleman, Charles Lloyd, Greg Osby, David Murray who have played with them.
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I wouldnt call them jazz which is probably mostly because of the rhythmic things going on I guess. More "vibe" than anything else I could put my finger on. They have a similar sensibility though ... Like there's a definite tradition they established that a lot of their acolytes are expected to be fluent with. European and american folk music that formed a basis for what they did in the same way that New Orleans music and Tin Pan Alley sort of became a jazz song form tradition.
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I don't think you can classify the Dead as anything but a rock band. However, when their 1st album came out (67?), I was enthralled. What struck me was the improvisation. I didn't have a name for it at the time, and certainly there were plenty of great Jazz improvisors around, but, as a teenager growing up in the suburbs of Phila, I had never heard anything quite like it. Now I'm retired, and spend a whole lot of my time improvising over Jazz standards. So, in some respect the Dead opened my eyes/ears to a new aspect of music. Seeing Jimi Hendrix play back in the 60's was pretty darn cool too...
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Sure they're jazz. Jazz is a word for anything that's trendy and needs word cache. I got a pair of New Balance running shoes, they're called jazz. Ted Nugent plays a jazz guitar. A girl I know goes to jazz dancercise. I went to the supermarket today and got jazz eggs to have with my jazz milk.
I'll share a little known marketing strategy you may not know about, please keep this among our little group here. Shhh, you can make anything into jazz simply by putting the letters "j" "a" "z" "z" in front of the word. Try it.
"What kind of music do you like?", "Well, you know... jazz music"
"Is that a "jazz" idea?" "Sure it's a "jazz" thing."
"Hey that little fan on your desk really keeps you cool!" "Of course it does, it's a jazz fan, it's cool by definition."
Jazz is a meaningless word used to promote things that don't have a neat word yet. Grateful Dead? 100% jazz!
David
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No less jazz than a lot of the music that gets categorised as jazz now.
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Originally Posted by TruthHertz
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Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
Anybody use Jazz Ninja two ply toilet paper? That's some Killin' Sh!t, man. So killin' it's almost Dead.
David
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GD drummer Bill Kruetzman shared in his book that after Ornette played with them, the jazz great looked at the band and said in frustration, "you guys don't listen to each other..."
They jammed a few more times on stage together over the years and Billy confesses that during those Ornette shows, the band worked very hard to earn Ornette's approval.
I've heard the "GD are really playing jazz" before. I don't buy it from a technical perspective but I do think the vibe, creativity, and spirit is shared.
-C
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Originally Posted by h1pst3r88
Sometimes you work with good jazz musicians. They play different things too. That don't make it jazz. Herb Ellis played on the Tonight Show. I never thought of that as a jazz program. Archie Shepp played with Zappa, and Frank even titled a recording of his Jazz From Hell, but I don't keep Zappa's Fillmore with my jazz records.
It's the music you play and not the name on the package that makes it the music I call jazz.
David
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Originally Posted by TruthHertz
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I seem to remember reading somewhere that Bobby Weir studied the way McCoy Tyner comped behind Trane as a model for how to comp behind Jerry.
In any case, the Dead's music is an amalgam of pretty much every American style of music there is. Country, folk, blues, rock, gospel, and jazz (Plus a hint of reggae - though not an American style). I wouldn't call them a jazz group any more than I'd call them a country group. I'd call them a rock group with some jazz elements.
(I always wanted them to do a "great american songbook" tune. "I left my heart in San Francisco" seems made for them.)
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Being that I grew up in Texas, I never really heard the Dead until I was in my 30s and playing bass in a hippy jam band. It was a good time. I had just moved to Pa and didn't know lot of folks, and since we played at all these campout festivals, I had a pretty good time
The Greatful Dead tunes do have a form that you keep repeating while people are soloing, and the solos do have to take up at least one time through the form, so that's similar
but that is about where the musical similarity ends
the chords you are going to encounter are more like the chords in country music than the harmonies you encounter in jazz.
so no, not really even close. The harmonic vocabulary and the feel are different.
people improvise in bluegrass, too, but nobody would mistake grass for jazz
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Originally Posted by Nate Miller
Louis casts a long shadow.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
but bluegrass is so different from jazz, though. You wouldn't mistake Earl Scruggs for a bebop banjo player. that's what I meant.
But I see what you mean, though. probably a bad example
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I can't recall Jerry discussing the modes of the melodic or harmonic scale in anal detail, so how could he possibly play jazz
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Originally Posted by boatheelmusic
Budda boom
Can't get no respect.
David
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I think they had a jazz approach insofar as listening to each other goes and rolling with the moment, plenty of risk-taking, but jazz? No. No swing or deep harmony, harmonically rooted in folk and pop, but I respect the fact that they were willing to go onstage and fall flat on their faces.
That's part of jazz, but not all of it.
They are, however, jazzier than Kenny G.
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Originally Posted by Thumpalumpacus
Hey even the solo sounds kinda jazzy
A lot of useful guitar stuff on a Kenny G. tune!
David
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Originally Posted by TruthHertz
Getting Transcriptions Wrong
Today, 09:05 AM in Getting Started