All That Jazz

19165 Views 98 Replies 37 Participants Last post by Mirror Image, Sep 1, 2009

Nox

Discussion Starter · Aug 3, 2004

My 12 year old daughter is having her (our!) first Band Camp experience. Before we left last night, some of the staff put on an impromptu Jazz concert - 5 musicians who never played together before...trumpet, alto sax, double bass, piano, percussion...

...as I was listening to the concert I came to a conclusion...

...I don't like Jazz...

...it wasn't just them...although I commend them for putting together a 40 minute concert in no time at all...it wasn't, in my opinion, very good...it was the music itself...it all sounded the same! So what's the point?...

...and sadly to say...I was least impressed by the double bass player, apparently a prof. at the University of North Carolina (?)...

...they did well on a Norah Jones improv., but the rest was just noisy and was well on the way to giving me a headache...if it wasn't a Band Camp (re: learning experience) I would have left...

41 - 60 of 99 Posts

Edward Elgar

· #41 · Mar 19, 2007

Yes, there is something to jazz in the sense that every jazz peice has its different emotions and ways of handling the music and structure. Maybe the emotions concerned with jazz are so different from those concerned with classical music, that we find the transition harder than most people. I believe it's possible to enjoy all types of music that is performed/recorded with a professional and exited outlook on music in general.

G

· #42 · Mar 29, 2007

Ed, I found that in classical, unless you are a top soloist, that you have to concentrate so hard to get it all right you don’t have the luxury of getting right into the music until you have it memorised perfectly, where as in jazz you get into the feeling first and the music just follows, it is different music. Improvised, players try different things when they want to and the other musicians work in and around each other.

tzadik

· #43 · May 13, 2007

I like jazz quite a lot actually... I think however, you need to listen to jazz with different 'ears' than to classical. Classical music is all about perfection, the pieces are practiced and practiced with the intent to reach some platonic ideal of how a certain piece should sound. Jazz is much rougher, much more music of the moment. Much of the improvisation is a search for that one moment of perfection. It's sad but true, some musicians don't come any further than the search itself, but when jazz works, it can be awesome. Try Charlie Mingus' album blues and roots or Miles Davis - kind of blue for instance.

G

· #44 · May 14, 2007

I will bet my last dollar that Mozart, Beethoven, Bach etc etc, would have played jazz had it been around, they were great at improvisation.

zlya

· #45 · May 14, 2007

Jazz died when Charlie Parker blew his first note. This modern blowing, this defiling of those glorious instruments, the saxophone, piano, trumpet, double bass, this is NOT Jazz, it is, at best, a performance art based around noise.

Go back, my fellow music lovers, go back to the 30s, the 20s, the teens and beyond, go back to the very edge of the era of recording when country blues met marching bands, when voodoo drumming met French dances and piano ragtime met high opera. That, my friends, THAT was jazz.

Mark Harwood

· #46 · May 14, 2007

Some recommendations.

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band: "The Complete Set" Retrieval RTR 79007 2 discs.
This may be the pinnacle of recorded jazz in the classic, collective improvisation style. It dates from 1923.

Louis Armstrong: Hot Fives and Sevens JSPCD 312-5 4 discs
Two discs of the Fives and Sevens genius, then the transition to accompanied-soloist jazz before it became too tiresome.

Vintage Cy Laurie Lake LACD242
British 1950s revivalist jazz at its most joyful and concise.

Panama Jazz Kings: Sweet Like This Raymer RSCD843
Recorded live in 2005, showing that the spirit of real jazz is alive.

The Merseysippi Jazz Band, founded in 1949, still performs in the old way.
I'd be more than happy to discuss Ken Colyer and Crane River Jazz Band recordings offline.

See less See more

Reactions: 1

G

· #47 · May 15, 2007

Mark Harwood said:
Some recommendations.etc etc
I'd be more than happy to discuss Ken Colyer and Crane River Jazz Band recordings offline.

I agree there are a lot of good sounds even to day, but why discuss off line Mark??

Mark Harwood

· #48 · May 16, 2007

Andante said:
I agree there are a lot of good sounds even to day, but why discuss off line Mark??

Hello Andante. I'll discuss Ken Colyer any time, any place, but don't wish to burden the jazz section of a classical site with my obsession! By all means, let's discuss jazz here, but I doubt that many people wish to follow a Ken Colyer thread. On the other hand, I'm open to suggestions.

Reactions: 2

G

· #49 · May 21, 2007

Mark, I don’t have a huge jazz collection just a mixed lot of CD and Vinal, I was sure that I would have a Ken Colyer vinal, but was very surprised to find that I had nothing, which puzzled me because I do know the name, have you a link that we could listen to, and why not do a brief history of the man, if some don’t like it there is plenty of other posts to go to, why not see where it leads?

Mark Harwood

· #50 · May 21, 2007

Thank you, Andante. I'd like to post an account of Ken Colyer's career along with a personal musical appreciation, so I'll do so soon enough. Meanwhile, there's a link that I posted elsewhere; after posting it I remembered that doing so is against a rule of this site, and I invited the moderators to remove it. As they didn't do so, I assume it's an OK link so here it is:
www.kencolyertrust.org

Reactions: 2

G

· #51 · May 21, 2007

Thanks, Mark I am sure they won't mind. I found the link that you have given, about an hour after making my post, I should have tried harder fist time, it is a very good site and I shall explore it with interest. Andante

Drew93

· #52 · Jun 22, 2009

zlya said:
Jazz died when Charlie Parker blew his first note. This modern blowing, this defiling of those glorious instruments, the saxophone, piano, trumpet, double bass, this is NOT Jazz, it is, at best, a performance art based around noise.

Go back, my fellow music lovers, go back to the 30s, the 20s, the teens and beyond, go back to the very edge of the era of recording when country blues met marching bands, when voodoo drumming met French dances and piano ragtime met high opera. That, my friends, THAT was jazz.

I'm glad I'm not alone in this sentiment, Zyla, I started on the Alto saxophone about 2 years ago and, whilst looking for inspiration, I stumbled upon the aberration known as Bebop. Thankfully I found proper jazz as well, people like Acker Bilk (with his Paramount Jazz Band), Ken Colyer, Chris Barber, Satchmo, Bix Beiderbecke etc. My favourite form of music at the moment (and it's unlikely to change anytime soon) is the original 1890-1920s jazz e.g. Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Bunk Johnson and the like.

Taneyev

· #53 · Jun 22, 2009

IMO, the best jazz of all times was Duke Ellington's

G

· #54 · Jun 23, 2009 (Edited)

Taneyev said:
IMO, the best jazz of all times was Duke Ellington's

That era was certainly just about the best also what came out of Dizzy Gillespie band such as MJQ was a gift to us.

Mirror Image

· #55 · Jun 23, 2009 (Edited)

Andante said:
That era was certainly just about the best also what came out of Dizzy Gillespie band such as MJQ was a gift to us.

Have you heard the Prestige Jazz Quartet, Andante? They were the "alternative" to the Modern Jazz Quartet. In my opinion, their music had more drive and was much more adventurous than the MJQ. Too bad they didn't record more together.

Prestige Jazz Quartet -

Teddy Charles - vibraphone
Mal Waldron - piano
Addison Farmer - bass
Jerry Segal - drums

They only recorded one album for the Prestige label. It's been out-of-print for many years now. I was able to scrape up a copy of it a few years ago for about $5:

As you may or may not know, Concord Records owns the rights to all of those small jazz labels like Prestige, Contemporary, Milestone, Riverside, Fantasy, etc. It's interesting how they let things go out-of-print. OJC, also owned by Concord, had a "Limited Edition" series and they really were limited!

See less See more

Mirror Image

· #56 · Jun 23, 2009

zlya said:
Jazz died when Charlie Parker blew his first note. This modern blowing, this defiling of those glorious instruments, the saxophone, piano, trumpet, double bass, this is NOT Jazz, it is, at best, a performance art based around noise.

Go back, my fellow music lovers, go back to the 30s, the 20s, the teens and beyond, go back to the very edge of the era of recording when country blues met marching bands, when voodoo drumming met French dances and piano ragtime met high opera. That, my friends, THAT was jazz.

I'm happy to disagree with most of your comments.

For me, jazz BEGAN when Parker blew his first note. Before Parker and Dizzy, there wasn't much interesting music happening in jazz in my opinion. When Parker got up onstage and started blowing everything changed. This is where jazz became a musician's music. It wasn't about getting up and dancing, it became about challenging the very conceptions of what jazz was at that time. Of course this music resulted in bebop and it's many stylistic cousins: hard-bop, cool jazz, modal jazz, etc. These were all related to the very basic principles of bebop, which were rapid tempo and key changes, swung 4/4 rhythms (many drummers experimenting with different time signatures in the process like Elvin Jones and Joe Morello), and complex chord changes. What remained intact was the penchant for the blues and the overall energy of swing music. This music challenged even the best soloists. Jazz musicians now had to think of different ways of playing and a lot of this lead to much experimentation.

This, my friends, this is jazz.

See less See more

G

· #57 · Jun 23, 2009

The 20s and 30s were a great period and I do agree that this was the start of Jazz as serious music at least in the states the rest of the world had to wait a bit longer.

Mirror Image

· #58 · Jun 23, 2009

Andante said:
The 20s and 30s were a great period and I do agree that this was the start of Jazz as serious music at least in the states the rest of the world had to wait a bit longer.

Like I said, when Parker blew his saxophone it was all over, jazz music really took off from this point forward.

By the way, have you checked out that Prestige Jazz Quartet recording yet? They were so much better than the MJQ who were too conservative for my tastes.

G

· #59 · Jun 24, 2009

No I have not checked them out yet but I will, the MJQ were the nearest thing in Jazz to approach the classical Qt, they may have been what you call conservative but they had and still do have a dedicated following even from classical musicians

Mirror Image

· #60 · Jul 5, 2009

Andante said:
No I have not checked them out yet but I will, the MJQ were the nearest thing in Jazz to approach the classical Qt, they may have been what you call conservative but they had and still do have a dedicated following even from classical musicians

When I listen to jazz, I want to hear jazz, not classical. This is probably why I'm not to keen on the MJQ. They're a little too delicate for me.

41 - 60 of 99 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.