"Why do modern jazz musicians all sound the same?"

[pamosmusic]

I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but I think you need to define the audience

Okay but to be fair, I think the dudes with 10,000 subscribers making YouTube videos claiming that modern players all sound the same should probably define the audience.

Someone trained at Berklee who has studied modern players in detail would have little difference distinguishing between players, and the same with a conservatory-trained classical guitarist. But the larger community of guitarists--I mean, some of us don't even listen to modern players or only keep up with a couple. And same with classical.

And then there's the larger community of jazz lovers or even casual listeners who couldn't distinguish Pat Martino from Pat Metheny. Just because there are differences doesn't mean most people are attuned to them.

Okay, but I guess my question is … how is this any different than how any music has ever worked? Professional jazz pianists could tell old young McCoy Tyner from prime McCoy Tyner from early Chick Corea, but the guy who listened to jazz all the time but was only into big bands couldn’t. So what are we actually saying about modern jazz musicians or guitarists?

We’re not saying they sound the same. We’re saying that differences are more apparent to those more familiar with their style. Which … again … would be uninteresting to the point where I have a hard time believing anyone would make a YouTube video about it.

I think this does apply to bluegrass and other genres. I can tell the difference between Billy Strings and Michael Daves and Molly Tuttle and Tony Rice and Doc Watson, but how many casual listeners who haven't listened to all their work could?

Absolutely true, but again … if this is the way all music and art more broadly works, then how is it any different than modern music?

I think you might be making a more measured argument than the videos are. I could only make it through the first half of the first one, but I watched all of the second one, and that guy is saying modern guitarist all sound the same. No examples to prove it, naturally, but that is what he’s saying. And it’s a silly thing to say.

[Christian Miller]

Just time I could spend doing something else.

For instance I found a sight reading exercise channel! The guy can't spell, but that's actually helpful as many can't, and the quality of the reading material is steadily improving.

[Christian Miller]

He can't swing either, which is far worse, sight-reading it with a plodding rhythm like that could do more harm than good.

Nah it’ll be fine.

(I think it’s the notation package default sounds.)

I don’t tend to lock in with that. It is however useful for letting me know when I’ve miscounted haha.


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[wolflen]

help...I got through about 9 mins of this..(rant)

and I consider the "topic" to be click bate..there are too many examples of players that dont conform to any style
but are considered in the the same genre..Bill Evans , McCoy Tyner, Lafayette Gilchrist and Oscar Peterson do NOT sound alike in any way even playing the same tune

Now if you dont know who these gifted players are and its the first time you are hearing "jazz" piano then this is a moot point..your not even using your ears
but a memory of what pianos sound like..not who is playing them.

Grrrrr

[Litterick]

Maybe the video makers are not talking about the top players, but about ordinary jazz guitarists. People here are coming up with examples of players who sound like nobody else, but they are not the problem. Top players, by definition, are exceptional. Ordinary players are unexceptional.

[Christian Miller]

Again, are people seriously going to tell me that in 1969 the world wasn’t full of low rent Clapton and Hendrix imitators?

Most people imitate.

Was the market for signature guitars and TrueFire courses created by perfidious Big Guitar to thereby remove the Noble Guitarist from their natural state of Arcadian Creative Savegery and hurl them into the gears of the Culture Industry in exchange for the base blessings of capitalism?

No of course not, they sell them that stuff because most people want to sound like their heroes. It has been ever thus.

Including jazz guitar students. I am reminded of guitar tutors at jazz conservatoire in the 2000s muttering darkly about ‘Kurt bloody Rosenwinkel.’ That stuff was not being forced on students. He was the hip guy everyone wanted to sound like.

Some move on from that, but most I would say do not. Because most often playing guitar is an escape.

Over time we forget the imitators, even the capable ones. It creates a false sense of history.

[Christian Miller]

(OTOH it is entirely possible to not imitate anyone and still not sound like yourself.)


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[Cunamara]

Sometimes it's good for me to try and find the positive in things that bother me, and so I tried for this.

Perhaps I am not the audience he is trying to reach; maybe he's talking to the musicians who make the YouTube video demos that all sound the same to him. He's telling them to have something distinctive to offer, not just to be technically proficient. Something along the lines of, "Don't try to be Allan Holdsworth, be yourself, whatever that is."

Ah, yes, that recalls to mind the old saying: "always be yourself... unless you suck."

The failing point of the claim that "all modern jazz musicians sound alike", which has probably been sufficiently belabored above, is that the "naïve" audience does not discriminate well between different creators of an art form with which they are unfamiliar. The naïve listener rule of thumb doesn't prove anything except that it takes some experience and learning to be able to make those discriminations. Someone who has not learned any arithmetic skills, probably couldn't tell the difference between 2+2 = 4 and 3+3 = 6 other than maybe the shapes are a little different. The ignorance of the audience does not cast a shadow upon the artist.

So to me, Allan Holdsworth sounds different from Lage Lund from Jonathan Kreisberg from Julian Lage from Bill Frisell. It would be astounding to me that someone could mix those players up, but perhaps there are people who couldn't tell the difference because they haven't learned. That ignorance, however, is not proof that all modern jazz musicians just sound alike, just as my ignorance about modern female pop vocalists would prove that they all sound alike.

[starjasmine]

(OTOH it is entirely possible to not imitate anyone and still not sound like yourself.)

Christian, meet AI :-) ... which imitates everyone and sounds like no one... i.e. hasn't a unique voice.

[Litterick]

Mary Halvorson said, in the Wire interview in 2018, that the guitar students in the music schools she visited all tried to sound like Bill Frisell. Those students will be out in the world now.

[ccroft]

Why do all tea-bag youtube music pundits sound the same?

[supersoul]

Lafayette Gilchrist

Lafayette!
He deserves to be in the same sentence with Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner.

[Cunamara]

Mary Halvorson said, in the Wire interview in 2018, that the guitar students in the music schools she visited all tried to sound like Bill Frisell. Those students will be out in the world now.

Huh. I always have a hard time telling Mary Halvorson from Bill Frisell, oddly enough.







Kidding, of course. I'll take her word for it that her observation is correct. Bill does seem to be, let's face it, almost everywhere all the time. He's constantly traveling and playing, he frequently appears on albums as a side man as well as under his own name, is a prolific composer and, in his bemused and somewhat awkward style, is very media friendly. Much like Jim Hall who was the big influence before him, Bill's technique is not superhumanly daunting and sounds pretty accessible. He sounds modern and forward-facing. He often plays accessible modern pop tunes which sound more familiar for many young folks than the standards repertoire, which is approaching 100 years old. For a 20-year-old in a music school today, most of the standards are the music of their great-grandparents and grandparents, not even that of their parents (their parents were listening to Nirvana). It's not a surprise that there would be a tendency to emulate Bill.

[johny_gtr]

In my opinion, a similar question could be asked about any genre—blues, hard and heavy, even (neo) classical music (just kidding). The first rule here is that there is no universal standard for originality or quality in music; everyone can only decide for themselves. Secondly, time itself determines whose music will remain interesting for future generations and what will be forgotten. For instance, even though I didn’t live during the peak of Grant Green’s and Kenny Burrell’s careers, I listen to their music over and over again. At the same time, there are thousands of jazz-blues musicians from that era I’ve never heard of or might skip through quickly if I came across them.


Thirdly, musicians who are highly focused on their careers and self-expression often strive to expand the boundaries of the genres they play in, yet they are frequently judged by standards from almost a century ago. Our ears (or maybe our brains, correct me if I’m wrong) expect the kind of music and sound we’re accustomed to. Hence, the persistence of outdated beliefs, such as the idea that bends aren’t appropriate in jazz, or that only flatwound strings should be used, or that the sound of an old archtop guitar is the most authentic. This will continue to be the case until new influential artists break these notions—like Bill Frisell with his Telecaster or Julian Lage, who might throw in a bend or two and add hints of cowboy music to his sound.

[ragman1]

So you've got some chords and a nice Strat playing some jazz stuff on them... guess what's going to happen.

[Stevebol]

Why do all tea-bag youtube music pundits sound the same?

Andy Edwards is a good rock drummer. With his latest news he says Diddy is the decline and fall of western civilization.
I guess you could say that. What took so long?