What is Jazz

Latona

New member
Bloody hell, you lot don't mind tackling the big questions do you? ;)

I don't know enough about musical theory to even try to answer something like this. Jazz just sounds like jazz to me, whether it's Satchmo or Arve Henriksen, and I know I like it.
 

JHC

Chief assistant to the assistant chief
@ Latona.
OK you don't need to know musical theory! not more than a handful of early jazz musicians did, but try to analyse what it is that actually appeals to you and I will bet it is rhythm and sound once you have that sorted out you can delve further but that depends upon you. :cool::cheers:
 

Latona

New member
@ Latona.
OK you don't need to know musical theory! not more than a handful of early jazz musicians did, but try to analyse what it is that actually appeals to you and I will bet it is rhythm and sound once you have that sorted out you can delve further but that depends upon you. :cool::cheers:

:grin:

Yeah, it's just such a difficult topic for non-musicians to try and pinpoint what exactly they are hearing. Some of what you guys were discussing was WAY over my head, but in the end it's hard for me to even use my own words to capture what jazz is.

I mean, I get that improvisation is very important in jazz, but if something is not necessarily improvised i'll still enjoy it. If I hear a musician doing pretty much the same solo as Coltrane did on 'Naima', say, it doesn't mean it's not fundamentally jazz coz he didn't add his own ideas. Ellington and Strayhorn wrote some incredible tunes for their groups and orchestras, which left a little space for improvisation in the solos, but bore the very strong mark of a personal musical mind, and with many changes, times and structures which were just as important to the tunes.

There are just so many things that I love about different kinds of jazz - some say it's the group dynamic and interplay that makes jazz special, but I also love many solo jazz records. I love improvised jazz, but I also love many jazz tunes that swing the same way every time. I love the blues or classic songbooks in jazz, the frame and structure that then lets the soloist or group fly, but I also love a great deal of modal and free jazz, where so much is left to the player and then the listener to try and connect with. I love hard bop, Dixie, fusion, electronic jazz... it's just gotta have the right feel.
 

JHC

Chief assistant to the assistant chief
Great stuff Latona you are obviously well into it, I do look forward to your future comments in jazz discussions, btw do you like classical at all? you seem to be keeping the same hours as me but I am off for a wee drinky now. g night :cheers:
 

teddy

Duckmeister
Things can get a little intense here. Millions seems to have disapeared from this scene, gone the same way as so many others who are not tolerant of an opposing idea.

teddy
 

OLDUDE

New member
Thanks Latona,
I was just trying to sort out a definition of jazz to suit my own views, when,
low and behold, you have just done it for me.
"its just gotta have the right feel" sums it up beautifully.
Cheers John
 

JHC

Chief assistant to the assistant chief
A lot of folk music has the same basics even (if I dare mention it) Pentatonic scales (not that these are a required ingredient) but lets keep it simple. apart from folk music Shostakovich and Bernstein got very near to the jazz rhythms etc but of course they do not use the instruments in a way that a jazz man would so in this case it is the overall sound that you go for? also in classical there are parts that the player may improvise if so inclined but apart from Nigel Kennedy they are nothing like the jazz sound or feel...........................:cool::cool:
 

OLDUDE

New member
In my case I like"straight - forward" jazz, albeit in a range of formats. When it becomes what I
class as pretentious I mentally switch off.
However things can adjust with time (ie Age).
I didn't used to care for Kenton - now I listen to him regularly.
 

Latona

New member
Great stuff Latona you are obviously well into it, I do look forward to your future comments in jazz discussions, btw do you like classical at all? you seem to be keeping the same hours as me but I am off for a wee drinky now. g night :cheers:

Sorry JHC, never really been able to get into classical much, apart from the odd track. Perhaps in the future though - i never say never with music.
 

JHC

Chief assistant to the assistant chief
Sorry JHC, never really been able to get into classical much, apart from the odd track. Perhaps in the future though - i never say never with music.
Is that Vic Harbour HK?? are you in a leaking boat or just rough weather :grin: I agree with you never say never also that our tastes change, as John said in his post age changes your tastes as well, one of the first big bands I really got into was Kenton and IMO he was the best but I really do not go for the big band stuff to day I much prefer the intimacy of the small groups say trio to septet and I have the same liking with classical much preferring chamber music as opposed to orchestral works.
 

OLDUDE

New member
Hi Colin'
I doubt if I have mentioned it before (since this is a jazz forum), but I also appreciate quite a bit of
Classical music. I recently fully enjoyed a John Wilson Orchestrial performance at the Sage Theatre, Gateshead.
However I think my greatest treat was when I saw Erroll Garner at the City Hall Newcastle many years ago.
 

JHC

Chief assistant to the assistant chief
It is amazing how many classical lovers also like jazz perhaps next to Classical jazz is/or can be quite complex whereas Folk and pop are pretty basic, don't misunderstand me there is nothing wrong with basic and I can't comment on the Rock genre as I just don't listen to it. I had to google John Wilson Orch as he was new to me but glad you enjoyed it.
 

teddy

Duckmeister
Certainly a great trunpet player John and a great band generally. Never was really a fan of Sinatra but you have to give him his due.

teddy
 

JHC

Chief assistant to the assistant chief
How about this from one of my CDs
https://app.box.com/s/4ta5fegty01cevsv11kf

One of the top classical violinists of his day and confined to a wheelchair due to polio ‘I think’ here he performs Klezmer music which also is not jazz but…………………

Total = 4:30 but it breaks into a toe tapping rhythm at about 2:45.

 

millions

New member
Millions "disappeared" not because of opposing viewpoints, but because this forum is so slow-moving. I'm used to faster, like Amazon, which unfortunately has retired.

Interesting book, "The Rest Is Noise", which is a history of 20th century music. In it, the author discusses how the tin-pan alley songwriters, most of whom were Jewish, (Gershwin, Cahn, Jerome Kern, etc.) liked jazz, and how these songs became what we now see as "jazz standards" (All The Things You Are, Sweet Georgia Brown, Summertime, I Got Rhythm, etc.).
So a major factor in jazz's transforming and continuing assimilation into American Western Culture was the adoption of these tin-pan alley harmonic progressions, which gave us the ubiquitous ii-V7-I progression, the I-vi-ii-V7 and all the other variants; and most of this was due to a Jewish influence. They were 'outsiders' who could relate to black music, and wanted to assimilate.

Still, the very earliest jazz, like early Louis Armstrong, was horn-driven (not piano-driven) and was more basically blues in nature, not harmonically advanced or Westernized yet.
 
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