4 ms·

In one sense jazz is all about freedom - you can play "whatever you want!"- but in many other senses it's as incredibly traditional and formulaic.as classical.

In one sense jazz is all about freedom - you can play "whatever you want!"- but in many other senses it's as incredibly traditional and formulaic.as classical. There is a canon of songs that is worshipped, and song structures and instrument combos are mostly frozen in amber, and there are lines you just cannot cross. Every genre gets like that after awhile I guess.

i_am_proteus 4y ago
This is true of several sub-genres of jazz, but there are many musicians who play a genre that they call jazz who do not worship this canon, do not follow these song structures or instrument combos rigidly, and cross these lines with abandon. I'll go as far as to say that the entire modern jazz movement recognizes earlier jazz (swing/bebop/cool/funk) as seminal to the art form, but deliberately experiments and takes risks away from classical jazz forms.
slater- 4y ago
there's this concept of jazz "as a verb" vs "as a noun." musicians back in the day were limited by the technology of the day, so they played things like horns and upright basses. the thing that made their music "jazz" was the improvisation. the jazz was something they did, not an objective genre standard. if monk or miles or coltrane were alive today, their music would be way different. they'd probably take advantage of samples, synthesizers, maybe even AI? i don't know. but the key to their genius was the intent behind their playing, the way they bent harmonic structure in service of their improvised melodic ideas. this is jazz as a verb. as soon as jazz became "america's art form, now playing at the lincoln center and available as an honors track college major" it wasn't actually jazz. so many people are doing it wrong. welcome to america!
- galaxyLogic 4y ago
  Miles did some nice synthesizer stuff as well. And he said he would never go back to be-bob it was all done already.
  - jefurii 4y ago
    I remember watching a documentary about Miles right before he released Tutu. The interviewer asked if he ever got nostalgic for the old bebop or cool jazz stuff he used to play. Miles paused for a long time, then he said I love those old tunes but they're in the past and I can't go back there. I got to keep moving. I really respected him for that, but when I got to college the music program was so focused on the past. It looked like the only prof who was doing contemporary stuff was the percussion guy and I played trumpet. I got booed out of the room once for suggesting it'd be cool to mix jazz and hip-hop (this was 1989). If I'd stuck with it I probably would have discovered all kinds of new stuff going on, but I followed what Miles said and got into electronic music.
    - slater- 4y ago
      one of my favorite tidbits from the Miles book is when he says he's obviously proud of Kind Of Blue, but that he didn't quite manage to get the sound he had in his head. if i recall, he said he was trying to go for the vibe of an african thumb piano. i think about this all the time. it's like a koan. good on you for breaking with the orthodoxy. or as miles might call them "non-playing motherfuckers"
    - galaxyLogic 4y ago
      Schools must teach the current well-known art. If you want to do something totally new, school is not the place to learn that. It's still good to learn bebop AND funk and after you learned them then perhaps mix them together. Not saying student's shouldn't experiment but teachers really are there to teach the old stuff, in case anyone's interested. Teachers don't know what the new stuff is, how could they teach it :-) I took organ lessons from an established jazz-pianist as a teenager. I was an all time beginner but he got his job from a music store where we bought the electric organ, so he couldn't choose his students. :-) He made me practice old pop tunes like "Moon River" I remember. I told him I'm getting tired of this crap I don't like these oldies but goldies. Why can't you teach me jazz or rock or something cool. He told me listen, maybe you don't like these songs, or maybe you don't like the way you play them. Then he played it and dropped in some cool jazz chords and syncopation. I was amazed and inspired. I realized I couldn't do what he did unless I learned to play the song the old way first.
- smcnally 4y ago
  You’re right — Herbie Hancock played with all those guys then, still alive, and has made way different music since.
- pixelfarmer 4y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR_rPd_ufK4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR_rPd_ufK4
  - slater- 4y ago
    omg i love this
analog31 4y ago
Yes, that's the inherent tension within jazz. It's pure freedom, but it's also inseparable from its history, the people who play it today, and even the audience. Disclosure: I'm a performing jazz bassist. I'm at a level where I can collaborate with bands, but am not good enough to blaze my own path, except to the extent of having a playing style of my own. The canon of tunes, and the "standard arrangement" are both a blessing and a curse, and are hardly worshipped. Those things make it easy to assemble a band and perform with no preparation, but get boring after a while. At least one of my bands plays virtually none of that stuff. Another plays complex written arrangements. A third is mostly old tin pan alley material, but raucous and fun for the audience. It's all jazz. I've noticed that audiences respond quite well to the variety, including my long solos.
- galaxyLogic 4y ago
  > audiences respond quite well to the variety, Variety is the fulcrum of all music. And there can be no variety without repetition. Then the variety itself must vary. You're proceeding on the knife's edge, on the other side too much repetition on the other too little. And the proportion of those must vary over time. https://youtu.be/XwIehM-x6kA https://youtu.be/XwIehM-x6kA :-)
- jefurii 4y ago
  The standard arrangement -- it enables you to put together a group of players who've never worked together to play tunes nobody has even heard before, but then it just sounds like every other jazz band. I'd love to hear your various groups, and am always up for a long bass solo -- I switched from trumpet to bass in college. I don't know if it's possible but it'd be awesome to mix up all of those styles into a single performance!
  - analog31 4y ago
    Indeed, and just for the non-musicians here, I'll document what the "standard arrangement" is: Melody Solo 1 Solo 2 Bass solo Drum solo or "trading fours" Melody Ending Moreover, this arrangement lends itself to playing from a "lead sheet" which is just melody plus chord symbols, and players bring "fake books" full of thousands of lead sheets, making it unnecessary for anybody to actually learn tunes. There are some good things about it, for instance, a beginner can function well enough in a band to play low profile gigs, and gain experience. I certainly owe my present skill level to getting that start, along with playing in the high school jazz band. Unfortunately, within any given locale, the actual list of tunes that gets played can be quite small, leading to the same tunes getting played over and over again, ad nauseam. It takes some effort, and I think, respect for the audience, to break out of this local minimum, for instance writing more interesting arrangements, rehearsing the band, or just agreeing to explore a wider variety of tunes. Personally, I decided to ditch the fake books, a couple decades ago, and made the effort to either learn the repertoire, or get good at figuring things out by ear. Unfortunately my various groups are completely un-recorded. </rant>
RHSman2 4y ago
As long as it’s jazz
aczerepinski 4y ago
Jazz education is a blessing and a curse. Most high level high school programs are focused on the Essentially Ellington competition, meaning that they learn to swing, to play with humanity and emotion, and to blend together. All good things, and I do believe that Ellington is the greatest American composer period. But it appears learning an 80+ year old style usually is not a gateway to discovering the modern day equivalent. Still, if you look in the right places jazz is still very much alive and evolving. I made a top ten list for 2022 if you want examples that acknowledge the tradition but don’t touch the worshipped canon and to my ears are relevant to right now. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NUGbkID4mmc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NUGbkID4mmc
- jefurii 4y ago
  Thanks for those recommendations! Yep, I didn't make it past early college music classes, which just weren't doing it for me. I got booed out of the room once for suggesting it'd be cool to mix jazz and hip-hop (in 1989). Probably should have gone some place like Berklee but I didn't see that path at the time. I recently discovered multi-instrumentalist Robert Stillman, who opened for The Smile (Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood's side project with Tom Skinner). He played solo tenor saxophone with some kind of looping effect, along with some lo-fi sampling involving multiple lightly-synchronized cassette tapes of himself playing other instruments. Amazing stuff.
  - aczerepinski 4y ago
    I did go to Berklee and loved it - the most open minded and forward thinking of the music schools in my opinion. Also, I'm a huge fan of The Smile, and that was my overall favorite record from last year. I covered one of their tunes a week ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkYGuqAiveQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkYGuqAiveQ I'm not super familiar with Robert Stillman other than seeing him with The Smile on Tiny Desk last week. I'll have to check out his own stuff.
browningstreet 4y ago
I think Adam Neely (youtube) does a great job of talking about this.

i_am_proteus 4y ago

This is true of several sub-genres of jazz, but there are many musicians who play a genre that they call jazz who do not worship this canon, do not follow these song structures or instrument combos rigidly, and cross these lines with abandon. I'll go as far as to say that the entire modern jazz movement recognizes earlier jazz (swing/bebop/cool/funk) as seminal to the art form, but deliberately experiments and takes risks away from classical jazz forms.

slater- 4y ago

there's this concept of jazz "as a verb" vs "as a noun." musicians back in the day were limited by the technology of the day, so they played things like horns and upright basses. the thing that made their music "jazz" was the improvisation. the jazz was something they did, not an objective genre standard. if monk or miles or coltrane were alive today, their music would be way different. they'd probably take advantage of samples, synthesizers, maybe even AI? i don't know. but the key to their genius was the intent behind their playing, the way they bent harmonic structure in service of their improvised melodic ideas. this is jazz as a verb. as soon as jazz became "america's art form, now playing at the lincoln center and available as an honors track college major" it wasn't actually jazz. so many people are doing it wrong. welcome to america!

galaxyLogic 4y ago
Miles did some nice synthesizer stuff as well. And he said he would never go back to be-bob it was all done already.
- jefurii 4y ago
  I remember watching a documentary about Miles right before he released Tutu. The interviewer asked if he ever got nostalgic for the old bebop or cool jazz stuff he used to play. Miles paused for a long time, then he said I love those old tunes but they're in the past and I can't go back there. I got to keep moving. I really respected him for that, but when I got to college the music program was so focused on the past. It looked like the only prof who was doing contemporary stuff was the percussion guy and I played trumpet. I got booed out of the room once for suggesting it'd be cool to mix jazz and hip-hop (this was 1989). If I'd stuck with it I probably would have discovered all kinds of new stuff going on, but I followed what Miles said and got into electronic music.
  - slater- 4y ago
    one of my favorite tidbits from the Miles book is when he says he's obviously proud of Kind Of Blue, but that he didn't quite manage to get the sound he had in his head. if i recall, he said he was trying to go for the vibe of an african thumb piano. i think about this all the time. it's like a koan. good on you for breaking with the orthodoxy. or as miles might call them "non-playing motherfuckers"
  - galaxyLogic 4y ago
    Schools must teach the current well-known art. If you want to do something totally new, school is not the place to learn that. It's still good to learn bebop AND funk and after you learned them then perhaps mix them together. Not saying student's shouldn't experiment but teachers really are there to teach the old stuff, in case anyone's interested. Teachers don't know what the new stuff is, how could they teach it :-) I took organ lessons from an established jazz-pianist as a teenager. I was an all time beginner but he got his job from a music store where we bought the electric organ, so he couldn't choose his students. :-) He made me practice old pop tunes like "Moon River" I remember. I told him I'm getting tired of this crap I don't like these oldies but goldies. Why can't you teach me jazz or rock or something cool. He told me listen, maybe you don't like these songs, or maybe you don't like the way you play them. Then he played it and dropped in some cool jazz chords and syncopation. I was amazed and inspired. I realized I couldn't do what he did unless I learned to play the song the old way first.
smcnally 4y ago
You’re right — Herbie Hancock played with all those guys then, still alive, and has made way different music since.
pixelfarmer 4y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR_rPd_ufK4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR_rPd_ufK4
- slater- 4y ago
  omg i love this

analog31 4y ago

Yes, that's the inherent tension within jazz. It's pure freedom, but it's also inseparable from its history, the people who play it today, and even the audience. Disclosure: I'm a performing jazz bassist. I'm at a level where I can collaborate with bands, but am not good enough to blaze my own path, except to the extent of having a playing style of my own. The canon of tunes, and the "standard arrangement" are both a blessing and a curse, and are hardly worshipped. Those things make it easy to assemble a band and perform with no preparation, but get boring after a while. At least one of my bands plays virtually none of that stuff. Another plays complex written arrangements. A third is mostly old tin pan alley material, but raucous and fun for the audience. It's all jazz. I've noticed that audiences respond quite well to the variety, including my long solos.

galaxyLogic 4y ago
> audiences respond quite well to the variety, Variety is the fulcrum of all music. And there can be no variety without repetition. Then the variety itself must vary. You're proceeding on the knife's edge, on the other side too much repetition on the other too little. And the proportion of those must vary over time. https://youtu.be/XwIehM-x6kA https://youtu.be/XwIehM-x6kA :-)
jefurii 4y ago
The standard arrangement -- it enables you to put together a group of players who've never worked together to play tunes nobody has even heard before, but then it just sounds like every other jazz band. I'd love to hear your various groups, and am always up for a long bass solo -- I switched from trumpet to bass in college. I don't know if it's possible but it'd be awesome to mix up all of those styles into a single performance!
- analog31 4y ago
  Indeed, and just for the non-musicians here, I'll document what the "standard arrangement" is: Melody Solo 1 Solo 2 Bass solo Drum solo or "trading fours" Melody Ending Moreover, this arrangement lends itself to playing from a "lead sheet" which is just melody plus chord symbols, and players bring "fake books" full of thousands of lead sheets, making it unnecessary for anybody to actually learn tunes. There are some good things about it, for instance, a beginner can function well enough in a band to play low profile gigs, and gain experience. I certainly owe my present skill level to getting that start, along with playing in the high school jazz band. Unfortunately, within any given locale, the actual list of tunes that gets played can be quite small, leading to the same tunes getting played over and over again, ad nauseam. It takes some effort, and I think, respect for the audience, to break out of this local minimum, for instance writing more interesting arrangements, rehearsing the band, or just agreeing to explore a wider variety of tunes. Personally, I decided to ditch the fake books, a couple decades ago, and made the effort to either learn the repertoire, or get good at figuring things out by ear. Unfortunately my various groups are completely un-recorded. </rant>

RHSman2 4y ago

As long as it’s jazz

aczerepinski 4y ago

Jazz education is a blessing and a curse. Most high level high school programs are focused on the Essentially Ellington competition, meaning that they learn to swing, to play with humanity and emotion, and to blend together. All good things, and I do believe that Ellington is the greatest American composer period. But it appears learning an 80+ year old style usually is not a gateway to discovering the modern day equivalent. Still, if you look in the right places jazz is still very much alive and evolving. I made a top ten list for 2022 if you want examples that acknowledge the tradition but don’t touch the worshipped canon and to my ears are relevant to right now. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NUGbkID4mmc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NUGbkID4mmc

jefurii 4y ago
Thanks for those recommendations! Yep, I didn't make it past early college music classes, which just weren't doing it for me. I got booed out of the room once for suggesting it'd be cool to mix jazz and hip-hop (in 1989). Probably should have gone some place like Berklee but I didn't see that path at the time. I recently discovered multi-instrumentalist Robert Stillman, who opened for The Smile (Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood's side project with Tom Skinner). He played solo tenor saxophone with some kind of looping effect, along with some lo-fi sampling involving multiple lightly-synchronized cassette tapes of himself playing other instruments. Amazing stuff.
- aczerepinski 4y ago
  I did go to Berklee and loved it - the most open minded and forward thinking of the music schools in my opinion. Also, I'm a huge fan of The Smile, and that was my overall favorite record from last year. I covered one of their tunes a week ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkYGuqAiveQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkYGuqAiveQ I'm not super familiar with Robert Stillman other than seeing him with The Smile on Tiny Desk last week. I'll have to check out his own stuff.

browningstreet 4y ago

I think Adam Neely (youtube) does a great job of talking about this.