I don’t think this is true for me at all. I like to consider myself very open minded and there are plenty of times when artists previously below my radar, or ones that I’ve thoughtlessly filed under “dislike” have been revisited and proved to be a revelation.
(it happened with rap and most recently, with the “krautrock” genre, Neu! and Kraftwerk included)
As yet, this has never happened with"Jazz" (defined as the twiddly, noodly, stuff). Never even a hint of happiness or pleasure when listening to it but I promise it isn’t an active decision to dislike it on my part. Not saying I’ll never like it, but the
visceral reaction of unease means it is unlikely.
I think maybe you are unwillingly falling for a common human error. A difficulty with understanding other tastes and accepting that what we personally appreciate, others may not.
Given a whole spectra of human emotional complexity to work with, it is entirely reasonable that some forms of music will work for some, and not for others. For a given form there will be lots of room for manoeuvre for those multitudes in the middle, but some of us exist much further out. No hope for us I think.
But, importantly, that isn’t due to a lack or intelligence, empathy, understanding or sophistication.
Thankfully, the people writing in this thread show an understanding of this and are helping a lot of non-Jazz fans clarify where they stand and why in a non-judgemental way. That is very helpful.
I’m not a jazz hater at all. There’s a good deal of it I like. But at the same time, I can see why somebody might dislike it.
There was a period back there in the fifties when all the serious musicians went off to do very esoteric and difficult music – free jazz, bebop, etc. So the stuff left in the popular sphere was rather vacuous, sentimental, and mawkish. I’ll risk offending someone by describing it as Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra sitting by the fireside with a pipe kind of Jazz. It was safe, sanitized, and had absolutely nothing of consequence to say to anybody. Yeah, fly me to the moon baby.
And yet, if you go back to the earlier period Jazz is nothing like as corrupt and empty as that. It was the rock n roll of its day. It was played with passion and energy. It was risky. That’s the kind of Jazz I like. But of course, the 1920s and 30s are one more generation removed from the modern era, and so, just that little bit more alien. So people don’t go for that either. Of course, it doesn’t help that a lot of popular culture from that early in the twentieth century was openly racist.
NB, I think you may have mis-read Le Ministre’s intent. My read of his quote:
Is “*you *choose what *you *like” - and with all the variety he offers at his house, you get a lot to choose from! (we really do need to expand our business to Canada so I can get a trip or two in - Scotch, cheeses and pates, please ;))
So - also a great post, Le Ministre; as a professional Opera singer-cum-guitarist, your take on jazz comes from a very different place than mine. I always think of the statment that “Charlie Parker was a huge fan of Bach” and ponder it from a variety of musical, historical and social perspectives. Thank og Bach didn’t have access to heroin, though.
And thank you for invoking Wynton Marsalis’ statement that “jazz is a conversation” and using Coltrane as an example. That feels like it really builds on my attempts at using improv theater and Modern art. I picked on Coltrane to keep the storyline simple and clear - but you’re absolutely right; context really matters - on two levels: what’s going on around your music scene, and who are you playing with at the time? In both senses, we see Coltrane “conversing” using the language that his peers were using at the time - and for particular “conversations” varying his tone and approach.
If anyone would like to hear some “not melodic like Miles, but very beautiful, accessible jazz” I recommend Coltrane’s first album where he was the bandleader, Blue Trane. Wonderful - a way to introduce yourself to Coltrane and maybe even be able to say you like him! Here’s the song Blue Train off the album. His saxophone voice is reedy and clear, but not so insistent; he does quick scales but in a melodic, not “sheets of sound” sort of way…BUT - he is “talking” to you and does pull a note or two out and waggle it at you; there is a honk to his tone. Just think of Charlie Brown’s teacher - if you don’t hear the words but hear their tone and delivery, what do you think they are trying to say? And if you make it to 7 minutes in, listen to the slinky, bluesy piano of Kenny Drew - such a contrast to 'Trane…
As for your comments on Free jazz, well first: I don’t know if that term has been introduced - so: if you play “out” jazz and take that to an extreme, you end up with **Free Jazz *- the stuff that sounds like you’re throwing cats at a big stack of pots and pans ;). Here’s a link to Ornette Coleman- check out the Modern art they use for the picture… I love your “dogs off the leash” analogy - cry havoc, indeed.
*“Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war” - Shakespeare, well, and Star Trek VI
May I apologize for not putting my statement very well? The use of ‘choose’ was a poor choice - I was intending to distance myself from jazz snobs who say things like ‘You HAVE to listen to this.’
Even in the throes of my enthusiasm, I try to express my feelings in terms of how much I like something. I hope by trying to express what it is that catches me about artist x to at least give those who don’t enjoy it something to consider as why they don’t like it. (‘I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t respond to that…’ sort of thing.)
Jesus Christ will everyone stop being so damn reasonable!
I want a jazz meltdown, people, preferably where, although it follows the original 32-bar AABA structure, instead of providing a harmonic departure from the A section, the bridge resolves the rising chromatic pattern. Great.
That’s hilarious, too - what is that from? What’s funny is that the musicians are actually really good (oh, wait - are they just miming over recorded tracks? :smack:…and the guy’s statements are technically correct…kinda. Really funny.
That’s not my understanding of what this thread is about: it’s about hating jazz and wanting to know more about why. Trying to understand what it is about jazz that is off-putting. (Though some people don’t care: often, simply disliking something is enough. Sometimes it’s not worth the effort to discover the reason, and sometimes “I just don’t like it” is the reason.)
In April I went to a scatting seminar that was part of the Smithsonian’s Jazz Appreciation Month (I’m finally starting to improvise when I sing, but scatting scares me a little and I haven’t tried it yet), and one of the exercises was exactly that: two people would go to the front of the room and have a conversation in scat. It was really, really interesting to watch/hear – and it was similar to what you’d hear in an improv-ing jazz combo, since one of the keys to scatting is to imitate an instrument.
That seminar sounds amazing - it would take a huge pair of brass ones to get up in front of crowd and scat sing. Here’s Lambert Hendricks and Ross- one of the most respected scat-singing groups - stretching out…and here’s the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald stretching out on One Note Samba…
D’oh, both you and WordMan are right. I did misunderstand somewhat. Your meaning is perfectly clear now and I agree.
and I agree with jjim, not enough hostility, what is this the UN?
Co-incidentally. I was at a pantomime in Canterbury on Sunday and who should be the “Sheriff of Nottingham”, Mr. John Thompson himself (the Jazz club host on jjim’s clip)
He did do a little jazz club “nice” aside to the crowd and I burst out laughing as I thought of this and the other thread. No one else got it though and I got stared at.
Classical music can provide transcendant experience on the weight of the composition itself, if the performer reaches a certain, easily attainable level of competency.
I’m no amazing pianist, but give me time with, say, a Chopin nocturne, and I can do a fine job bringing Chopin to anyone who wants to listen. (This is not to say that the performer isn’t important, or that better players than I don’t bring something else to pieces that I cannot).
Jazz, on the other hand, by in large, is about the performer’s artistic and creative quality much more than the composer’s. Not to knock jazz composition, but take any jazz “standard.” It’s probably a 30 second to 1.5 minute melody and harmonic structure. Some are better than others, but typically they’re a vehicle and a launching off point for the improvization that is to follow.
Most jazz uses a lot of the same chord changes, modes, scales, and so forth, and so more often than not, once you get beyond the head of a tune, the improvization of average-level players is going to sound the same, tune to tune. I think a lot of why jazz is ‘boring’ for people is related to this. Unless the arrangement is unique, or the playing is top notch (and even then), an uptempo solo over related ii-V-I’s, or a balad of I-vi-ii-V’s is song independant. An hour performance might include 5-10 minutes of ‘the melody’ and 50 minutes of soloing with the same scales over the same tired progressions.
It’s actually a big part of why I don’t go out to see much jazz around here; out of big cities, all the jazz available on a regular basis are just combo groups playing basically unrehearsed standards in predictable ways.
But, to get back to my long-winded point, in combo jazz, an average or even pretty good player really can’t rely on the composition or lyrics to inspire the listener, it’s all about the solo, and the players that can carry the interest of the listener from song to song are few and far between.
I agree with that completely. Jazz works best as a medium for improvisation and virtuosity, but most players aren’t virtuosos, so most jazz is pretty tedious. It isn’t really based on compositional hooks, and the solos are usually pedestrian, so it’s too esoteric to engage non-jazz fans, and rarely creative or virtuosic enough to really be exciting.
Jazz is like free form poetry. When it’s done really well, it soars, but few can do it really well, so most of it just lays there.
It’s like folks who can recite Latin poetry - just being able to do it is, at some level, impressive - but once you get past the technical skills involved, you still have to decide if the poetry itself is any good. What if the twit is reciting Steve Miller’s song lyrics?
I’m not really sure I completely agree with this. A good jazz solo takes the song into account and does try to throw in melodic phrases that hint at the melody or rhythms. I can’t speak for “the average performer,” but listen to what Coltrane does in My Favorite Things.
The first time around, he plays an embellished melody line. Then there’s a little vamp before the melody comes around again (the second version of the melody coming in at about 0:30). During the vamp, he plays around with the staccato root-fifth-fifth (the “raindrops on” part of “raindrops on roses” in the lyrics). This, so far as I can tell, is the melodic and rhythmic theme that is the launching off point of the solo. Sometimes, it’s the fifth he emphasizes. Sometimes it’s the ba-DUM-DUM-DUM rhythm. The second time the melody comes around (at 0:30) he truncates some of the phrases, embellishes them a bit more, but hits all the melody notes to keep the melody still recognizable, before he takes off even farther from the original notes.
When he starts the solo, he plays a little downward “skipping” melody that’s formed from the little and melodic idea that starts with his final embellishment on the “things” part of “these are a few of my favorite things.” (Note he plays “things” as two notes–a quick grace note on the minor third above “things” and then the “things” melody note–the fifth.) He transposes and shifts this rhythmic and melodic idea downward (not always playing it as a minor third, but keeping the same movement). When he hits the bottom of this pattern, he shifts to another rhythmic and melodic pattern going upwards. It’s not a random string of notes going through scales (although the approach to this song is modal). There’s a rhythmic and melodic kernal there that is shifted upwards to keep the solo tied together.
He gets back to the “skipping” part of the solo again and repeats his theme, with more melodic variation, but still staying true to the general feel and rhythm. He ends on a low B, (we’re at 1:08 now) with a melodic lick that goes “F#-E-B” (which, if you had to distill the song into its melodic essence, would be those three notes. “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens/Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens” is only those three notes.)
And here’s where the solo really starts to take off, but there are still intimations of the melody. I’d say at 1:13 there’s a little quote of the “E-B” of the original melody, then he goes into a melodic sweep across the high end of the saxophone, there’s a little build (1:18-1:19) that quotes the melodic lick at 1:09-1:10, and is transposed upwards until he quotes the first three notes of the melody again at 1:20. Immediately afterward, Coltrane plays with the “these are a few of my favorite things” (at 1:22-1:24) melody line. He doesn’t play it verbatim, but it’s clear that he’s riffing on the notes and general shape of that melody.
And then he goes back to the actual melody.
Anyhow, I’m not going to go through the entire song, but my point is that many jazz solos have a lot more structure and take a lot more inspiration from the source material than you seem to be giving them credit for. And there are melodic and rhythmic hooks in a good solo, too (unless you’re playing one of the freer forms of jazz, I suppose, but I really don’t know much about that sort of stuff.) A solo (in my opinion at least) should not be a random, loose connection of scales. There needs to be some connection to the original piece, and the ideas formed out of it should progress from the melody, the rhythm, or general feel of the original tune. It need not be all three, but at least one of these.
Wow - great post, puly; at least a couple of reasons why:
whoa; I didn’t know *any *of that; I gotta go back and do a re-listen with your liner notes in hand.
you illustrate a key theme in this thread and in different folks’ approach to jazz: if you know how to crack the code, there is some cool shit in there. But few folks really get that - and many that do are insufferable; most don’t take the time and too many claim to know for insider status, but don’t. That is why so many folks are commenting on the tone of this thread; it’s like having a rational discussion of politics in D.C. these days…
That’s what so frustrating - getting potential listeners past the hype/code/intimidation and just point out the stuff that sounds bitchin’
Thelonius Monk was a big proponent of respecting and preserving the basic structure and melody of a song, and that’s what he practiced, albeit in his own very peculiar way.
I have the most profound respect for Monk. He plays with such conviction and perfect phrasing that he could pretty much hit any note during a solo and make it sound right. I remember buying a book of piano jazz transcriptions and they had a transcription of “Nice Work If You Can Get It.” I’m not exactly sure if it’s from this performance, but the underlying harmony sounds about right. I remember playing through that and going “what in the fuck? how do you make this sound good?” Witness the performance I linked to. Sounds completely natural and relaxed, even though the harmonies underneath are pretty odd. I just don’t have the jazz feel and phrasing to make it sound that effortless and convincing. The man was a master.
(we really do need to expand our business to Canada so I can get a trip or two in - Scotch, cheeses and pates, please ;))
