This is sort of a companion to my other jazz thread (asking for recommendations).
Is it important to know what is going? I can’t tell when a band switches time signatures or if “Miles moved to a dorian scale, man.” Is it important to know what is going on? Am I missing a lot because because I just think the music sounds cool? Would I get a lot more out of jazz if I could pick out these type of things from the music? Will I start to pick up things just my listening to the music?
I’ll just subscribe to this puppy.
I don’t have a clue what’s going on.
I like Coltrane better than Brubeck.
I’m in the same boat as you, Karl. I know what I like, but I don’t know a damn thing about it.
The more you know about music I find, the more you get out of it though you don’t have to know anything about music to reap enjoyment. You enjoy it on more levels however. I find understanding the way music works is the door to understanding less listenable kinds of music (free jazz, atonal music, country…)
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with listening to the music cause you enjoy it. I don’t know that there’s much benefit to being able to describe the time signature changes within a given song, but being able to describe the difference between two styles or two artists that play the same style will give you a greater insight into the music.
You definitely don’t need to know jazz theory to enjoy jazz music. Just listen and enjoy.
I think that jazz musicians do have a different type of appreciation for jazz music to some extent. Some songs are really well known in jazz circles for successfully using strange chord progressions or reharmonizations and such. After getting “The Jazz Theory Book” by LEvine, I look at a lot of pieces with whole new respects and angles. But still, as a jazz musician, I try to enjoy the music for what it is rather than how well they can use half-diminished and augmented chords.
a few thoughts:
no, you don’t need to know theory to appreciate jazz. According to those who do know it, it can help, but I have been a musician for decades, can’t read music and can’t play jazz, but I love it.
a key for me was the following: With Rock, you follow time by following the snare and/or kick drum (think about how you keep time with a rock song and think about what drum sounds you hear when you are tapping along - typically a snare or a bass drum). With jazz, you typically keep time following the high hat - the double-cymbol clam thingy the drummer has off to one side - they either step on a pedal to “close the clam” or hit the cymbols with their drum sticks or both. So you if you listen for that cymbol sound, you can usually end up following it with your tapping hand. Since the other drums are often doing wacky things, lasering in on the high-hat turned out to be a big deal for me…
start with melodic, more standard-ly structured jazz before you go “out there” - i.e, for instrumental stuff, start with
Kind of Blue by Miles Davis
King of the Tenors by Ben Webster
Duke Ellington’s orchestral work
Swing Jazz - Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, etc…
Louis Armstrong
All melodic, where the drums and backing instruments are more in support of the melodic line. After that, you can progress to be-bop - Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk etc… - for music where the backing instruments are starting to break away a little and play that are less in support of the soloist, but complement the soloist.
After that, you can branch out - Giant Steps by Coltrane is a good place to start. Jazz progresses to where the players are doing divergent things that come together at key points - but that is hard to get when you aren’t grounded in jazz. (fwiw, I find Coltrane hard to get in a lot of ways - his style is often “in opposition” - he tends to find the one melodic and rhythmic spot in a piece that runs counter to what everyone else is play and he riffs in that space - hard to do but abrupt and confusing if you don’t know what to listen for…)
You might consider Ken Burns’ CD collection that accompanied his documentary Jazz - since jazz is a progression of sorts - there are SDMB threads I have contributed to that comment on this - maybe this CD/documentary lays out enough of the landscape for you to learn from there…I didn’t get to see all of it.
Hope this helps.