I’m a jazz musician (and some would take umbrage with me using the word musician since I’m a singer but that’s another thread entirely) but it seems to me that the word “jazz” gets thrown around and related to music that isn’t even remotely jazz. I understand the difference between what I play (what I would call straight ahead or classic jazz) and smooth jazz but what I don’t get is people or nightclubs describing what they do or what they offer as jazz when it clearly is not.
I happened upon a web site for a night club with the word jazz in the title. I can’t remember it now but something simple like “The Acme Jazz Club” and yet when I perused their web site the groups they had playing were blues and classic rock and funk groups (by their descriptions on line) Why bother to call yourself a jazz club if that is not what you offer?
There are a number of bands around Central Floorida who use the word jazz in the description of what they do but the music is very clearly something else. I find this especially true with soul, funk and R&B groups. They’ll tell you that they’re r&b and jazz or soul and fund and jazz but there’s not really anything jazz about what they do. What makes it jazz and not something else? What’s wrong with calling yourself what you are?
I realize now that this is starting to sound like a rant but seriously, if you play one jazz standard that doesn’t really make you a jazz group any more than me singing a blues song makes us a blues band.
I’m wondering if it’s just me. Do people who aren’t musicians go to “jazz” clubs and expect to find a funk and blues band. Is this acceptable? Personally if I went to a nightclub to hear jazz and I walked in on something that wasn’t I’d walk out (and I have, many times, in great disappoinment)
All of this has got me asking the question: what makes a particular piece of music “jazz”? also, why use the term jazz if that’s not what you do?
All I can say in response is that I agree with your basic gripe. My hunch is that using “jazz” as a come-on might work with people who don’t want Country or Rap or Zydeco or Semi-Classical. Other than those groups I can’t see who would gravitate to a place with Jazz in its name or to groups professing to play (or sing) jazz.
Another thing along the same lines as your gripe is how many sub-divisions of musical genres really make sense to anybody outside the groups so labelled.
To me, Rock covers a multitude of sounds and is satisfactory to distinguish that variety of music from genres like the ones above. Fusion as a blend of Jazz and Rock makes a little bit of sense, but not enough for me to care.
I understand your frustration. But I decided long ago that there were two kinds of music: good and bad. I don’t see the point of categorizing beyond that. Music should be thought of in the broadest terms possible. If you want to bang on telephone wires with toothbrushes and call yourself a rock band - go for it.
But I agree with your basic premise. Lots of music gets lumped into the jazz box just because there is a sax player, or it’s in an odd meter, or there’s no vocals :rolleyes: . But it’s that type of logic that made me abandon the concept of labeling music.
I get where you’re coming from and I like to listen to any kind of music that’s done well and with conviction. I guess my frustration is partly from a marketing standpoint. It’s always a scramble to get gigs and an even bigger scramble to get jazz gigs in this town. Having every bulls$%t r&b or funk band or blues band calling themselves jazz only devalues what I do. OK, maybe that sounds like a bit of musical snobbery but if I’m out chatting up a club owner trying to get a gig and they tell me, yes, we love jazz here, we have the funky RB brothers here all the time. Now I’ve got to explain that we won’t sound anything like the funky RB brothers because we’re a jazz group and if what they want is something that sounds like that we may not be what they’re looking for.
Yes, color me frustrated.
I was in a neighboring city on business and it just to happened that there was a night club right next to the office building where I was working. The name of the place was something like The XYZ jazz and blues club. As I was standing in front of the place after work reading the menu on the window I was approached by a gentlemen who turns out to be one of the musicians in the band that’s playing that night. Blues? nope. Jazz? nope. They’re a funk band. Glad I found out before I ventured out. Ended up in my hotel room that night.
You might ask a similar question of all the “Houses Of Blues”. They book not only blues and blues-rock bands as you might expect, but anything from pop to disco to hiphop to rap. While those last two, strictly speaking, are part of the broader R&B scene and hence could be considered blues, they’re still not the kind of “blues” evoked by the clubs’ name, or the Sunset Strip location’s homage to the tin-roof shack where Robert Johnson is alleged to have lived.
Duke Ellington agreed. My own experiences and refusal to pigeonhole music has even left me unable to decide whether something is good or bad. There’s stuff I like or dislike but even your typical Brittney Spears song is well made by competent musicians while poorly written and played pieces, like the songs of The Shaggs, may be unlistenable but still have their charms.
velvetjones, accept that some people’s definition of jazz differs from yours, understand that this argument has gone on for nearly a century, and either go on with your life or expand your repetoire so those clubs will hire you.
“Jazz” is a ridiculously broad category anyway.
You could take all “country,” “rock,” “soul,” “roots music,” & most “folk,” & include it in “blues”–that would be a comparable category to jazz.
As a fellow jazz musician I understand the frustration in the term. What is important to remember that categorization systems usually break down at a point regardless of what they categorize. The term Jazz can apply I have found to any music that contains an element of improvisation (though that definination is debatable) Usually jazz playing should be sophisticated harmonically which seperates it from the blues and most rock. Having said that though I know there is many rock pieces that can fit under the term Jazz/rock (John McLaughlin’s music is an example)
I’ve found the best categorization system for music to be this: The music of (fill in musician name or band name here) Music results from people, not from categorys
