Quote:
Originally Posted by TomiPaldanius
Only thing I know about jazz (well almost) is that it is basically the first American music art form and was developed by ear players who modified ragtime tunes by jazzing them up. Basically all great things have been developed by ear players who were considered "low class" for the highly educated music readers and composers.
People looked down for the musicians who changed Joplin's rags because you cannot be better than the composer who wrote it perfectly already.
But to be honest, you rarely hear extremely beautiful improvised music.
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I don't think this is really correct.
Essentially Jazz is an elongation the blues, ragtime, soul easy listening and certain forms of classical music. But the heart of it - and I think it has been mentioned already here, although I am not sure - is an advanced substitution process for the 3 chord blues. What jazz has grown into now is something quite extensive but I rarely hear jazz sounds that are not still rooted in the blues or least reference the sound or structure.
In terms of the upper class musical establishment frowning upon ragtime or blues players I think this is somewhat of an exaggeration. Many composers would have understood its roots and influences and certainly some 20th composers (Gershwin, Debussy, Stravinsky etc) openly used and borrowed from the repertoire.
I suppose the points above can be argued but in terms of rarely hearing beautiful improvised music I think you are completely wrong.
Go listen to Miles, John Coltrane, Michael Brecker,
Metheny, Wes Montgomery, Django Reinhardt....and many, many, many more.
Its extremely beautiful nearly everytime.