# Jazz is crap **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 12, 2000, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385 "2000-01-12T04:03:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Occam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Occam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Occam)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2000, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/81 "2000-02-07T16:52:00Z")
I don’t want to the listen to the notes they’re not playing. Jazz sucks. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2000, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/82 "2000-02-07T17:06:00Z")
Sorry about the triple-post; my computer was acting up (always blame your tools!). It is indeed W.C. Handy’s Orchestra. Darnit, I was hoping it would be worth enough for me to sell it and buy myself a new Victor Talking Machine so I could actually listen to my 78s again . . . ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2000, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/83 "2000-02-07T19:11:00Z")
I don’t know what Kenny G sounds like, spankboy. But when you’re done with the mallet, can I use it on Wynton Marsalis? Talk about your pointless coronations… Thanks for the valuable input, Occam. Always a pleasure to see your pin head again. Eve: Can’t you play 78s on a regular turntable? ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2000, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/84 "2000-02-07T19:40:00Z")
I could, but (sadly!) my 3-speed 1977 Montgomery Ward’s record player finally gave up the ghost last year. I’m sure it could be easily repaired—IF I could find someone to do so! I have 33s, 45s and 78s, and I’d like a record player for all of 'em. It’s tough to find a 3-speeder these days. Oh, and where can I get my 1920s Royal Typewriter repaired, too? —“Archaic Annie” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2000, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/85 "2000-02-08T16:19:00Z")
Many years ago, I went to a nightclub, the old Golden Fox, in Clarksville, Ind., and heard the female singer make this introduction to a song: “We are going to play a Rolling Stones song now. We are aware that many of you may not like the Rolling Stones. However, our opinion is: if you don’t like the Rolling Stones, go fuck yourselves.” Substitute jazz for the Rolling Stones, Dark Wing Duck and other jazz critics, and you have my feelings exactly. I would much rather listen to Bird, Trane, the Duke, the Count, the Dorsey Bros, Billie Holiday, etc, than the nauseous cacophony that passes for popular music today. ---
**Author:** ![plank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@plank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plank)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2000, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/86 "2000-02-15T23:37:00Z")
Does anyone remember a film called The Commitments? It was about an Irish blues band, and one of the characters (whilst pissing into a urinal) describes jazz as ‘musical wanking’. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2000, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/87 "2000-02-16T14:29:00Z")
. . . And there would be something BAD about “musical wanking?” ---
**Author:** ![Jomolungma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b2d939/32.png) [@Jomolungma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jomolungma)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2000, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/88 "2000-02-16T14:36:00Z")
Five letters should settle this whole thing: \

**B-L-U-E-S\** ---

**Author:** ![plank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@plank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plank)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2000, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/89 "2000-02-17T01:23:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Eve: > \*\* . . . And there would be something BAD about “musical wanking?”\*\* _Actual_ wanking is a lot more fun… ---
**Author:** ![Sweet\_Basil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4bbf92/32.png) [@Sweet\_Basil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweet_Basil)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2000, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/90 "2000-02-17T06:27:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Jomolungma: > \*\*Five letters should settle this whole thing: > > \

**B-L-U-E-S\** \*\* So… Is that to say that “Blues” is superior or inferior to jazz, or what? I think of Blues as a subform of Jazz, possibly the origin of Jazz. All Blues is Jazz, All Jazz is not Blues. Sweet Basil [http://www.selfrighteousbrothers.com](http://www.selfrighteousbrothers.com) ---

**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2000, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/91 "2000-02-17T19:29:00Z")
SweetieB: I’ll agree with the second part of the statement, but not necessarily the first… Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey incorparated jazz musicians (Satchmo for one!) into their blues singing performances, leading to the fabulous marriage of the two forms. Pretty much any jazz artist out of Kansas City was SATURATED in the blues, from Count Basie to Charlie Parker. But many blues artists had/have little or nothing to do with jazz. Charley Patton is certainly blues, but how is he jazz? Same thing with Blind Willie McTell, Robert Johnson, Memphis Minnie, John Lee Hooker. All great songwriters and singers and acoustic guitar stylists, but not jazz musicians. Jump ahead to electrification and the Chicago blues explosion…what does Junior Wells have to do with jazz? Or B.B. King or Willie Dixon or Stevie Ray Vaughan? ---
**Author:** ![Jomolungma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b2d939/32.png) [@Jomolungma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jomolungma)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2000, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/92 "2000-02-18T10:47:00Z")
It was a statement meant simply to assert my love for the music. **Ike** has the essentials right. While all jazz can trace its roots to the blues, all blues is decidedly NOT jazz. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2000, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/93 "2000-02-19T13:23:00Z")
my crackpot theory: Blues, Country, a good deal of Rock: all basically one kind of music. “Jazz”: a name applied to several, radically different kinds of music–broader than Blues, Country, Rock, Hip-Hop, Show Tunes, Gospel, the Hymns, and Soul put together. So don’t give me some blanket statement about Jazz. Lots of crap is called Jazz. Some of it is truly cool. But true Jazz IS OFTEN fundamentally different from the kind of music in most of Country, Blues, Rock, Hip-Hop, Show Tunes, Gospel, the Hymns, and Soul, and you have to listen to it differently. It’s not always singable or danceable by the same principle. (And some “Jazz” apparently is like some “modern art” in the visual arts–amateurish, weak, ugly, and pretentious. Or so I am told. Or maybe that’s really just eye of the beholder. Jazz is often more abstract than representational–and it is supposed to be so.) ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2000, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/94 "2000-02-19T13:24:00Z")
Actually, I dig swing myself… and rock. see my sig? * * * A new world order has been formed/between the cheque book and the dawn/A new renaissance man is born" Jim Moginie/Peter Garrett/Martin Rotsey(Midnight Oil), “Renaissance Man” ---
**Author:** ![Sweet\_Basil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4bbf92/32.png) [@Sweet\_Basil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweet_Basil)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2000, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/95 "2000-02-19T23:52:00Z")
Wow! this almost deserves a Great Debates thread… Ike- I humbly submit that Blues as a form is a substyle of Jazz. To me it’s like saying “Dance Band” or “Bop” or “Third Stream” or “Avant Garde” are forms of Jazz. I would draw a Venn diagram that would show the blues circle completely within the Jazz circle. As a sub-form or substyle, by definition all Blues are Jazz, but all Jazz aint Blues. Does that make sense? I see the point you make, and it’s valid. I WOULD call Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Charlie Patton, et.al. Jazz players as an overall umbrella term. We usually specify them as Blues musicians because it says so much more about what they do. And then what do you do about folks like Matt Murphy, who are as back-alley, greazy, low-down and dirty Blues as it gets until they go off on bop-like changes and suddenly whip out the Gillespie-Parker catalog etc…? Sweet Basil ps. this thread is fun! [http://www.selfrighteousbrothers.com](http://www.selfrighteousbrothers.com) ---
**Author:** ![Jomolungma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b2d939/32.png) [@Jomolungma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jomolungma)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2000, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/96 "2000-02-21T15:18:00Z")
I’d turn it right around on you, **Sweet**. I see jazz as a subset of blues. Can’t grok it your way. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2000, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/97 "2000-02-26T03:31:00Z")
Shit, men. I don’t even file the two together in my CD/LP collection. If you’re in the mood for Albert King you don’t want to distractedly grab Lee Konitz by mistake. Or vice versa. * * * Uke ---
**Author:** ![SaxFace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SaxFace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaxFace)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/98 "2000-10-06T15:06:48Z")
Miles is neat. (I think I said enough in that _other_ thread - no need for me to rehash.) ---
**Author:** ![stofsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@stofsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stofsky)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/99 "2000-10-06T17:31:13Z")
First, reading suggestions from the guy doing his dissertation on blues, jazz, and the intersection with literature: Ralph Ellison _Shadow and Act_. Ellison grew up in Oklahoma City when it was the home of most of the jazz acts travelling between Kansas City, Chicago, Dallas, and New Orleans. The guy went to school with Charlie Christian. Aside from being a great one-hit-novelist, he had a hell of an ear for music, though I disagree with his statements on bebop. For those calling blues a substyle of jazz, check out Alan Lomax _The Land Where the Blues Began_. He spent his lifetime (from when he was a kid, traveling with his dad) moving around the delta recording down-home musicians, muleskinner hollers, etc., for the Smithsonian. His records go back to the etched-into-aluminum-master days. Jazz came from blues. Blues was first. Therefore, in a Venn diagram, it’s the big circle–jazz, rock, rap, hip-hop, etc. all come from there. Lots of old “hillbilly music,” bluegrass, country & western come from blues too. As to the list of other American art forms–I didn’t see art in there anywhere, except perhaps in “movies.” And even then, American movies rarely make it there. But comic books? Come on! And don’t you be talkin’ no shit about no Miles! Until “Bitch’s Brew.” One more point (this is the problem with coming into a 2-page thread: too many points to respond to) is that jazz is “adult music.” That’s why it’s not popular. Real jazz isn’t background music; it requires full attention to listen to it properly. Listening to good jazz while doing something else is akin to trying to read Faulkner while watching TV–you just won’t get it at all. But then again, in our current society, people don’t want to work for their art (or facsimile thereof), but want ease handed to them on a platter. Look at movies, TV, music, best-selling books. Anything challenging is history. ---
**Author:** ![SaxFace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SaxFace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaxFace)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385/100 "2000-10-06T17:48:49Z")
Stofsky, for the record, this is an old thread. I accidentally posted to it instead of the _new_ discussion on him in the “In My Humble Opinion” forum. Check it out! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jazz-is-crap/4385.md?page=6)