I’m not trying to snub anyone’s taste or anything, but could someone maybe please explain jazz music to me? I know there are different varieties of jazz, so let me explain:
On B.E.T.'s Jazz channel I see one guy playing a bass, one guy playing drums with brushes, another guy playing a sax, a guy on a trumpet, and another guy on a piano.
Now, it seems to me that every one of these guys is playing a completely different song from the other. None of the instruments seems to fit with the other. Like these guys are each in their own world, playing their own thing. Meanwhile, this black woman stands there with a microphone in her hand, but she doesn’t sing a word. She just stands there bobbing her head while these dudes play this musical mess. After about 10 minutes of these, she starts singing some goof ball lyrics “dobba doobba, bop, bop, bop, he’s my man, he’s my man, dobba dooba, bop, blah, blah, blah”.
What I quickly notice is, the rhythm/tempo of her singing in no way matches with that of any of the instruments being played. She sings this nonsense for about a minute or so, then stops, but the music goes on for about another 5 minutes, then is capped off by one long bleat on the trumpeters horn. The crowd goes wild. They play more “songs”, which to me sound like all the same mish-mash. What is the object of this? Do you have to be high to dig this? You can’t dance to it, you can’t tap your foot to it. You can’t even snap your fingers to it.
My sister says that a person either “get’s” jazz or does not “get” jazz. Is that all there is to it?
Or am I missing something here? I try to explore & appreciate all types of music, but man, I just don’t “get” jazz. Can anyone fill me in?
Well, she was using a style of singing called scat. As for the rest of the band, jazz uses a very different style and is based on a very different theory than blues. What you are used to hearing is blues. Most rock music is some form of blues or has some blues influence in it. (Without music training it can be hard to hear). I’m sure someone else will be able to explain it much better than I can. But, I think what it comes down to is that it is a very different style of music, the call and response forms are different from traditional blues and the way the musicians communicate with each other is different. Also the jazz scale and chord progression is different from other music (in blues, you generally only have three chords to work with and it is usually in some derivation of 4 bar blues). Jazz also seems to be much more of an “aquired taste” type of music.
“Pffff, Jazz. They just make it up as they go along.” --Homer Simpson
That’s about the way I see it.
Jazz is somewhat of an aquired taste. I like many different styles of jazz, but not all.
Depending on the band/artist some jazz is pretty far out there. It does seem like everyone isn’t on the same page of music. But after you listen a few times you’ll notice that isn’t always the case. There is a form and function to what is going on.
Many of my friends who don’t care for jazz say “jazz is music for musicians by musicians.” I somewhat agree.
Having said that, I DO NOT consider people like Kenny G Jazz. I think of it more as jazz-like pop. To me it seems very fluffy and boring. Hardly an effort beyond hitting the correct notes and holding a tone.
Take someone like Dave Brubeck. He managed to take things outside of the normal 4/4 signature (which most pop music is based on) and make it sound comfortable to the normal listener. Find of copy of “take 5” by him. Give it a listen. Most people don’t even notice it’s in a different time signature then 4/4.
There are a few bands I found on music websites that do a good job at Jazz. These are “indie” artists. If you have a moment hop over and check them out. Some really good stuff. I’ll list the song and provide a link to their pages.
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opps. The site seems to not be working right now so I can’t verify the addresses. I’ll get back to you on this. 
Having gone through the complete “Jazz” series from Ken Burns…
Yer Right!
At one point jazz sold over 70% of the records in the U.S.
The earliest jazz, or jass, came from musicians who couldn’t read music but had great ears. Those musicians could get close to the melodies they wanted to play.
Then they’d improvise.
Slowly the improvising took over and it became totally free form.
Just My Opinion
I believe jazz walked away from the public. It evolved into a “musicians” music.
Think of it like this: Woody Allen directing his films for a narrower and narrower audience. The joke being that one day he’ll direct a film for an audience of one.
I kinda think that’s where jazz ended up.
Like others, jazz is just noise to me. I once heard a jazz interpretation of a familiar Christmas carol. The idea seemed to be to use the original rhythm and melody, but to always miss.
I could appreciate the difficulty. It just didn’t seem worth it.
I play several kinds of music: classical (e.g., Beethoven), rock (Beatles), and Jazz (the standards from compilations). I get equal enjoyment playing them. In different moods.
Now.
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I’ll listen to well-played rock. That means a good song concept, good singers and instrumentalists, good recording, and an unusual idea. About 5% of what’s on the top 40.
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Classical music seems to bring out the serious side of musicians. There are not too many performances that are competely worthless or offensive. Quite a few are boringly uninventive, say 50%. But that’s nothing like bad rock, which creates the desire to turn off the CD–whack it if necessary.
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Jazz. There are wildy crazy and amusing jazz compositions. There’s a good body of jazz that is intellectually and physically engrossing. Rivals rock or classics.
Unfortunately. 99% of jazz is just utter muzak. Guys who imagine that shifting to unusual chords, using declasse instruments somehow makes a difference. Jazz is the perfect listening music for people who don’t want to make a commitment to lyrics, beat, musical structure. It’s not patently Sesame Street, but because the notes are unpredictable (don’t read: cleverly improvised) listeners and players fool themselves into believing they’re a part of some grand artistic process.
They aren’t.
Ok. the site is back up. Take a quick listen to these songs and see what you think.
Newspeak - They do a fun horn section in the middle. Improvised it sounds like, parts get rather noisy, abstract, but great fun IMO,. check out the lyrics. They are double-plus good.
[Dig that crazy sound] - more of a be-bop jazz thing. This is one of my favourite sytles of jazz. Toe tappin beat daddy-o.
[url=http://www.ampcast.com/music/4901/artist.php]Roof Sleeping](http://www.ampcast.com/music/5926/artist.php) - Visions of Pink Panther perhaps? Some improvised sounds that fit pretty good I think.
Now none of those songs are over the edge. Perhaps some nice “beginner” jazz tracks.
There were a few more, but I can’t find the links to them at the moment. I’ll see if I can dig them up for you.
Drat. I murdered that little bit of formatting. Let’s try those links again…
*I must hit preview this time. 
I’ve got news for you: so is 99% of classical and rock music too. Heck, a huge chunk of the chamber music oeuvre was intended to be background music for dinner and parties anyway (Tafelmusik, anyone?). The difference is that with classical music, most of the crap isn’t played anymore, and the rest are treated like museum pieces.
As for rock, well…just turn on a radio. How much of that will anyone want to hear in even a year’s time?
Bollocks. You make it sound like people use ninths and elevenths because they’re pretentious rather than because it’s the sound they want. And what exactly is a “declasse instrument”?
I’ll accept the criticism that jazz (read: well-written and performed jazz) is music for musicians. Which suggests that it isn’t lacking in “lyrics, beat, musical structure”, else musicians wouldn’t listen to it. If anything, it’s pop with its three-chords and its extremely repetitive lyrics that belies a slovenly creative process.
(Next up: was Handel just too damn lazy to write all those ornaments in?)
Jazz is sort of like punk rock in the fact if you dont know anything about it its noise
But when its good you never know that 90 percent of iut was made up on the spot as they went along
Now for my question … is it true some of the early jazz greats didnt want to be recorded becuase they would be expected to play the song the exact same way once they were since they improved most of the time ?
I dont remeber where i heard this tho …
Well, first of all. Somebody of intelligence can useful things out of anything. You, apparently. That does not make it especially inherently valuable.
Tafelmusic? A perfect example of classical superiority. It’s 1700. You’re in the midst of poor heating, lackluster food and company: it might be amusing or otherwise. In the background is a reminder of something finer, musicians playing on soft violins. Your mind wanders… One can’t speak here of modern violins, with steel strings for volume, instead of gut strings for beauty. The musicians can lull you to sleep, fiddling with essentials, massaging your ears to amazement.
Okay. 9ths and augmented lah-de-dahs? Yeah. It’s INCREDIBLY pretentious. What drivel! If Beethoven had used those, Jazz idiots would be claiming that perfect thirds were “getting back to nature” or “radically basic” or who knows what.
Grrr.
Now. I wasn’t even pretending that pop music was more than saliva on the wall. There are some few good ideas, no more.
Nor do I think that classical music is played, today, in general, anything like the masters who made it compelling. Imagine Lizst destroying a piano! Imagine Beethoven improvising on his own pieces and leaving people spellbound and amazed! Imagine child Mozart mesmerizing audiences at 15!
It is, absolutely as you said, as if contemporary classical music was being aired as museum showpieces. But one has only to pick the best-selling classical CDs from the last 10 years to realize there’s something beyond those compulsory local performances to which we’re subjected.
I was, by chance, walking recently to a concert of one of the current classical recording stars. The group was practicing as we arrived. Such virtuosity! I was shocked. One forgets that there are geniuses…just playing music.
Errata:
“Somebody of intelligence can make useful things out of anything.”
Hem. Your comment about Handel being too lazy to ornament caught my eye as I was re-reading.
Handel was lazy? Ok. When I’m imagining slothful composers, Rossini comes to mind. But Handel’s ornaments…a trill is so profound one needs to stop transcribing the inspiration of a melody?
You know. Oddly. I place classical musicians in two catagories. The ones that work and work and work to play other peoples music. Mostly “parrots” of the music world.
The other half, when they aren’t playing classical, are off playing jazz.
I understand this is a very broad general statement and many of the working “classical” musicians I know are horn players. But that seems to be the trend with the ones I DO know.
I don’t think someone who plays jazz and uses strange time signatures and chords means they are pretentious. Some people just feel the music that way. 4/4 and 2-3 chord melodies are mass consumable. If anything I would lean to say classical musicians are more pretentious. I think many are above the trite melodies found in classical music which they follow note for note from a sheet of paper but they continue to play them because “first chair” looks good in their musical portfolio whereas “improv horn player in dinky, smoke filled bar” does not.
Follow the horn players friday night after playing Beethovan in some stanchy Opera house for the umteenth time to the place they have after show drinks. We used to hang with a group that hit up a small jazz club. They’d break out their horns again and put some love into the music.
Note: This accounts for the handful of classical musicians I knew and hung around. Your classical musician mileage may vary.
Thanks for the compliment, but let’s not confuse analysis of the music with the music itself.
I’m curious how much you actually know about this stuff, because my own musicological readings lead me to believe that many 18th century chamber musicians were merely competent hacks, gut strings go out of tune easily even in climate-controlled concert halls (so imagine a drafty dining room with a roaring fire or two), and dinner guests paid very little attention to what was being played. Yes, some of it was very good (Telemann springs first to mind here, but there are others), but most of it was pretty banal and isn’t played anymore.
I take it you’re not a big Wagner fan, then, as he used ninths and augmented lah-de-dahs all over the place. Tristan, anyone?
Again, don’t confuse the analysis and terminology with the music. Yes, most modern jazz performers know jazz theory and notation well, but in the end (and certainly to the early, pre-“jazz theory” performers), it’s just a sound.
I like that.
If you’ve never been to a compelling live classical performance, you have my deep sympathy. And you’ve obviously never been to a compelling jazz performance.
I never forget that. I just don’t limit them to one genre. Whether it’s Emma Kirkby or Miles Davis or Slash, there are phenomenal musicians in all musical forms. Don’t confuse your personal preferences with whether something is good or bad.
Baroque ornamentation is a little more than the occasional trill, but that’s not the real point. If I can dust off the old Baroque/jazz comparison for a moment, solo performers in this era were often expected to add elaborate ornamentation during performance, sometimes deviating quite far from the written music, and the same work often varied from performance to performance. That was the standard practice: the composers knew it, the performers knew it, and the audience knew it. So no, Handel wasn’t being lazy in leaving out ornaments; he was letting the performers do their thing.
There is strong evidence that Mozart left notes out of some of his piano concertos, which he filled in in performance. Should modern pianists play what’s on the page (as many do) or what Mozart may have intended? And how does this differ from, say, Erroll Garner, who, during transcription of his works, was asked “Are you really going to play all those notes?” and replied “No – I’ll fill in the rest in performance.”? Improvisation has a long history.
Actually, though, Handel is notorious for recycling music, both his own and others (he liked to steal from Rameau, as I recall), so we could make a case for laziness…but that’s another thread.
As the OP states, there are many styles of jazz, from Fusion to Hot Jazz to Cool Jazz to Be-bop and so on.
I admit that the style of jazz described in the OP does grate on the ears at first listen. But it can grow on you after a while. Of course, it can also make you go want to jump in a river. An innovative and/or improvised solo can be fun and musically enticing. But then there are the musicians (and critics) who think that blowing into their instrument (or plucking on the strings or whatever) more or less at random is pure musical genius. Once while listening to Jazz with Bob Parlocha on NPR I heard a five-minute sax solo where the guy made such high-pitched screeches and squawks that I wanted to clean out my ears with a Roto-Rooter afterwards. It literally sounded like a sixth-grader who just picked up his brand-new sax and started blowing into it just to hear what it sounded like :O.
I recommend getting into Dixieland Jazz. It’s not as free-form as what the OP describes, it (generally) has an uplifting tempo, and the banjo, clarinet and coronet solos are fun.
17 posts, and no one’s quoted Louis Armstrong.
I beg to differ with this recommendation. I generally find it too strident, boring and repetitivefor my liking, and I think that many other people would too.
I found my way into jazz via a superb record by Errol Garner called “Concert by the Sea”. This is a magical showcase of virtuosity which can be readily appreciated by the untrained ear.
My taste in jazz is hugely influenced by my father’s collection, which includes a healthy slice of piano soloists and trios, and a large chunk of Brazilian input as pioneered by Joabim.
I will accept that much of this could be poo-pooed by jazz-snobs as wallpaper muzak, but because it is undemanding and pleasant noise, many would find it far more accessible than Dixieland.