:) I don’t hope to provoke any major argumentation or hard feelings :)
Personally I feel that jazz is such a broad description, it can mean so many different things to so many different people!
When I meet new people and it comes to musical tastes I will say I love jazz, and often they’ll scrunch their noses “oh I hate jazz”
It always reminds me of something my father said many years ago “I don’t like curry”. Which of course was kinda insane, because he loved curry, he just didn’t know it was called curry or had curry elements!
I talk about the above personal experience because I want to set the tone for the discussion here, as not having to decide what is and isn’t jazz, but in the context that it means something different to everybody. And wanting to discuss as a community what it means to each of us without that being “right” or “wrong”
I think for me, the first thing that made me connect to jazz, was it’s absolute defiance. So that’s what jazz is to me: defiance. It doesn’t mean it’s not other things too!
I really believe what made me fall in love with jazz was a song from The Flying Lutenbachers called Fist Through Glass. I could not stop listening to it… It was the first time I heard anything that just said fuck you. Like really just fuck you. And also that underlying the apparent dischordance and chaos, was a meticulously crafted statement. I didn’t know I was listening to jazz though!
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Miles Davis is jazz to me. There’s a lot more I could say, but Miles is my kind of jazz.
Miles pioneered what is called modal jazz, and undoubtedly he was a visionary. But he’s anything but a cool cat - actually a complete asshole with no friends. The reason his voice is raspy is because he had a freak out on somebody in session after having vocal chord surgery.
Miles’ strength has always been recognizing the skill in other musicians and giving them the platform to work their magic.
While I do like his music very much, I’ve never really looked into his personal life, save for a couple YouTube videos.
Didn’t know he was an asshole. I’ll definitely have to look into his personal life more.
It’s just when someone says jazz, that’s who I think of. I like a lot of other types of jazz/jazz fusions as well.
Thanks for the info.
I tend not to get involved in the personal lives of artists, because I like the output not the drama
But Miles has a very interesting story… he grew up a very privileged kid, went to Juilliard and dropped out
Went on to pioneer modal jazz, which was revolutionary at the time… the concept that the entire jazz band was there to create musically, not just noodle around to support the “big solo”
Miles describe himself as a complete outsider who doesn’t even understand people, he doesn’t know what human relationships are
Not unexpected for a genius of his caliber, how on Earth could you possibly relate to other people when you’re that brilliant?
Jazz is a very big tent!
I could describe it as: Not a specific melody or style of melody, but a particular approach to melody. Not a specific rhythm but a particular approach to rhythm. Not a specific harmony but a particular approach to harmony. All of these “approaches” should have at least an acknowledgement of the tradition of jazz that has come before, even if the extent of that acknowledgement is “but I’m doing it my way.” And all of these are optional. You can mix and match and still call it jazz.
(I may have accidentally described M-Base instead of jazz, which isn’t what I was going for. Oh well.)
Possibly the only way to say for sure that something jazz is to find two people who agree that it is jazz, and then it’s jazz.
I had a music teacher in college. We were talking about kind of just mixing up rhythm of the main melodies on pop songs and she mentioned how that was kind of what jazz was at its core.
It just struck me as interesting because maybe at its inception, what she said is very true. But I look at jazz through the opposite lens. My introduction was with modern prog rock and jazz fusion, and working my way backwards in jazz and music history.
I feel like we are at a very different place in the genre, now.
Edit: Alternative answer - its kinda like porn vs art. It can be hard to describe where the line is, but you know it when you see/hear it.
I’m glad you said you like prog, would you like to check out an album that is dear to my heart?
There are very few albums I will ever listen to more than five times, this one is on regular play for me!
I’m not familiar with the band. I just listened to a few random bits of this and can tell it is up my alley.
I have a drive to make later tonight. I think you’ve gifted me a soundtrack for the ride :).
One of my professors asked this same question on day one of our jazz combo class. He asked everyone to write down their answers and pass them up to him.
He then read them aloud, and one by one, crumpled them up and tossed them away. Many were about the technical side, swing and syncopation etc., I’m pretty sure mine was one of those (this was almost 20 years ago so I don’t remember my exact answer), all crumpled up and tossed casually over his shoulder. He got to one answer, chuckled, then put that one at the back of the stack, then resumed the reading, crumpling, and tossing of all of our freshman best guesses.
When he finally got back to that last page, he read it to us: “Jazz is weird.” He left it at that and we pulled out our Real Books, but it stuck with me. Jazz is just weird, it doesn’t need any other labels.
Jazz is weird
I think that’s basically it. There are a lot of ways you could say it, but I define jazz as subverting musical expectations; breaking the common rules. Chord voicings, progressions, rhythm, everything. The more you deviate from “safe” musical conventions (major triads, 4/4 time, etc) the jazzier you’re going to sound.
What a nice inspiring topic. Thanks for the discussion!
For me, jazz is variation. You take a straight melody, you play it in swing. After some time, you get bored with swing, so you surprise with a few measures of straight notes. One hundredish years ago, people heard popular music and got kind of bored with it, so they played a million variations on it. When Brad Mehldau does it with Radiohead, with melodies his audience already knows, it’s exactly the same thing.
In Belgium, we have this crazy drummer called Lander Gyselinck. He had a ‘classical’ jazz training, but wanted to do something less ‘classical jazz’, so he took hip hop beats, rock elements, crazy synths coming from a digital saxophone and created weird, crazy and wonderful music. This, for me, was the most jazzy thing to do. It’s all about variation. The band is called STUFF. by the way. You won’t regret listening to it.
I have to admit that I got in a theoretical swamp lately. On a certain moment, everything I heard and liked, became jazz in my head. And isn’t variation always the essence of interesting music? Bach and Beethoven did nothing else.
And then, you hear a nice version of ‘Round midnight with it’s syncopated rhythms and changes full of tritone substitions and you think: this really is jazz. So there is a style element that cannot be ignored.
Very interesting comment, your last remark about Bach and Beethoven made me reflect.
I don’t think there’s anything Jazz about those types of music, in fact they are highly formulaic and mathematical almost. To me they possess absolutely none of the qualities of jazz!
Found it!
Very punk!
to me ity lookin for something new. allways advance to new sounds.
it probably makes your fingers hurt if you’re doing it right.
Way too difficult to define. Jazz is straight, swung, 4/4, 6/8, 3/4, etc., often syncopated, usually trading solos, sometimes loosely structured, sometimes fused with rock or even metal, expressed with a huge variety of instruments, etc. Perhaps the only universal truth in jazz is that it came about through the fusion of African and European traditions, a direct result of the transatlantic slave trade. One can find common claves in New Orleans jazz and Brazilian jazz and traditional West African music.
What is jazz? Whenever I’m asked that question I tend to reply with this song. It conveys the concept better and more succinctly than I ever could.
If you were to press me though I will say the essence of jazz to me is the meeting point of musical freedom and an emphasis on spontaneity and improvisation. But that sounds so dry and sterile.
To me Jazz is to appreciate timeless music such as those from Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.
Jazz is also my way to appreciate improvisation explosiveness such as those coming from Herbie Hancock ,Chick Corea, Hiromi Uehara, Joey Alexander. they are just blew my mind! Then Miles Davis - the smartest, sexiest, grooviest musician along with Wayne Shorter, they make me learn “ahh this is what a great band leader should do”.
Jazz is my kind of music at any time, whatever mood i have there will be music that goes along with it. Recently, i streamed Laufey, Gregory Porter almost everyday while in the office, it helps me focus and keep me in a good mood.
Jazz is not pretentious, i look at most of my heroes i mentioned before play live and in interview they are always humble even with all those skills. Marcus Miller is probably one of the most skillful and resourceful musician but also the most down to earth musician, unlike typical rockstar or metal musicians mentality that posses “i am the man, with all those pretentiousness” (i have no intention to start a flame war, it is just my own opinion).
Lastly, My controversial opinion is that i think Jazz is America version of classical music, and somehow they are always doing things better when it comes down to music (and cinema).
