jazz players: help - i don't speak your language

[Paikon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC4Fzrn7ozM

[dgb]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Well, I can't speak for your hair, but if you can't hear a melody in this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9SlZ7IwjZI

or this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixD-B...eature=related

or...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiw8CTK2o_Q

Then maybe melody isn't your thing...

Sorry, nothing that memorable there. Just more meandering. I don't think I'd find myself humming any of those "tunes".

Is this jazz?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BrLEuzVCVQ?

[mr. beaumont]

dead link.

what are some great melodies, in your opinion?

[jasperguitar]

Agree .. and disagree .. I like jazz, a little .. and I agree, what is passing for jazz today, or at least what I hear, is horrid.

I remember, late at night, getting my am radio tuned to WNEW, NY, the Milkman's Matinee. Charlie Barnett .. if I have this right.. lots of old Sinatra, Dizzy, Miles... on and on...

When I think of jazz, I think of 1950's jazz... no synthesizers, pure instruments.. And I always think of jazz in black and white, smoked filled bars, in New York ...

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by jasperguitar

Agree .. and disagree .. I like jazz, a little .. and I agree, what is passing for jazz today, or at least what I hear, is horrid.

I remember, late at night, getting my am radio tuned to WNEW, NY, the Milkman's Matinee. Charlie Barnett .. if I have this right.. lots of old Sinatra, Dizzy, Miles... on and on...

When I think of jazz, I think of 1950's jazz... no synthesizers, pure instruments.. And I always think of jazz in black and white, smoked filled bars, in New York ...

Are you talkibg about smooth jazz? That"s not even jazz....there's plenty of modern jazz being made without synths...check out all the links i posted a few hours ago...those are just a few of hundreds of modern jazz players...

[woa_horsey]

Personally, I spent way too many Monday nights playing bop when I was younger. If I never play Straight No Chaser again I'll be perfectly content.

Bop and free jazz both suffer from lack of coherency. Good music allows the improvisor to thread his way through various connections. Bop just puts a little head on things that gets referred to after each solo and that's about it. Free jazz has no connections at all. Without coinherence sound is just sound. It's like poetry that's free verse. In my opinion, without a meter scheme poetry is no longer poetry. It's just words. What makes art of any kind exciting is the web of connections and the coinherence of the players.

In most bop and all free jazz you can play just about any note without it sounding like a sour or wrong note because of the lack of harmonic structure. I'm sorry, but if there are no wrong notes, then there are no right notes.

[Howard Klepper]

Originally Posted by woa_horsey

Personally, I spent way too many Monday nights playing bop when I was younger. If I never play Straight No Chaser again I'll be perfectly content.

Bop and free jazz both suffer from lack of coherency. Good music allows the improvisor to thread his way through various connections. Bop just puts a little head on things that gets referred to after each solo and that's about it. Free jazz has no connections at all. Without coinherence sound is just sound. It's like poetry that's free verse. In my opinion, without a meter scheme poetry is no longer poetry. It's just words. What makes art of any kind exciting is the web of connections and the coinherence of the players.

In most bop and all free jazz you can play just about any note without it sounding like a sour or wrong note because of the lack of harmonic structure. I'm sorry, but if there are no wrong notes, then there are no right notes.

I have to wonder if you ever were really playing bebop if you can say this. A good bop solo follows the chord changes. It does use more altered chord extensions and a lot of chromatic passing tones as compared with swing, but the chord tones are all emphasized, the changes are all played, and the chromatic tones frame and resolve to chord tones. The listener (or player!) who is not used to hearing the changes will tend to confuse the greater freedom to use all the tones in bop with the no structure free jazz approach. But bebop is really very highly structured music and follows classical western tonal harmony.

I'm sorry to see this thread go from the OP's request for help in learning how to solo in jazz to a discussion about the merits of jazz as a genre. "PLAY" is the wrong place for that, and such discussions always get a bunch of posts from people who think the only important thing about the merit of any music is them and how well they like it.

[mr. beaumont]

The complex structure of bop IS the chords...

[jasperguitar]

Jazz is jazz.. smooth, rough, or irregular...

From the Wik:

Kind of Blue is a studio album by American jazz musician Miles Davis, released August 17, 1959, on Columbia Records in the United States. Recording sessions for the album took place at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City on March 2 and April 22, 1959. The sessions featured Davis's ensemble sextet, which consisted of pianist Bill Evans (Wynton Kelly on one track), drummer Jimmy Cobb, bassist Paul Chambers, and saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley.

After the entry of Bill Evans into his sextet, Davis followed up on the modal experimentations of Milestones (1958) and 1958 Miles (1958) by basing the album entirely on modality, in contrast to his earlier work with the hard bop style of jazz.

Though precise figures have been disputed, Kind of Blue has been described by many music writers not only as Davis's best-selling album, but as the best-selling jazz record of all time. On October 7, 2008, it was certified quadruple platinum in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It has been regarded by many critics as the greatest jazz album of all time and Davis's masterpiece.

The album's influence on music, including jazz, rock, and classical music, has led music writers to acknowledge it as one of the most influential albums ever made. In 2002, it was one of fifty recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. In 2003, the album was ranked number 12 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

....... I don't know that much about jazz or listen that much jazz to label it, but for sure... that late 1950's stuff was something else...

........ I attended the Newport Jazz festival back in the day... the old festival. Dizzy played ... amazing stuff.. amazing night ...

[ruger9]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Are you talkibg about smooth jazz? That"s not even jazz....there's plenty of modern jazz being made without synths...check out all the links i posted a few hours ago...those are just a few of hundreds of modern jazz players...

"smooth jazz isn't even jazz".... now who's being elitist? And I'm not trying to get a dig in- seriously, convince me- WHY is smooth jazz not jazz, but non-melodic bebop is?

Not trying to be confrontational, being serious.

[mr. beaumont]

smooth jazz started as jazz...some of it was great, the early CTI stuff, for example.

Over time, it became watered down...improvisation was gone...real musicians replaced by synths and drum machines.

You can't have jazz without improvisation and interaction between musicians (if playing in a group) The harmonies used in a lot of smooth jazz music are not extended jazz harmonies either, and the beat has more in common with adult contemp/ R and B.

Not all modern jazz swings in the traditional sense, but it has things like improv, extended harmony, group interplay, solos that reflect changing harmony, dtums that play outside of strict timekeeping, melodic minor harmony, etc...hallmarks of jazz...much of what you hear on smooth jazz radio doesn't havy ANY of those.

My definition of jazz is actually very broad scoped...


Now truthfully, if you think bebop is non musical maybe just move on. I can't explain that one to you if your mind and ears are closed.

[usb_chord]

Originally Posted by ruger9

"smooth jazz isn't even jazz".... now who's being elitist? And I'm not trying to get a dig in- seriously, convince me- WHY is smooth jazz not jazz, but non-melodic bebop is?

Not trying to be confrontational, being serious.

Can we get a reset button on this thread? We went from the OP asking about how to understand jazz ...to some random guy asking to be convinced of something. Who cares what you like? This is ridiculous.

[Howard Klepper]

There is not always a bright line between bad jazz and not jazz. The player that seems to be trying to play jazz and doing it badly may be trying to do something else and doing it well.

Uh-oh, now I'm also guilty of joining the thread-hijack.

[ruger9]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

smooth jazz started as jazz...some of it was great, the early CTI stuff, for example.

Over time, it became watered down...improvisation was gone...real musicians replaced by synths and drum machines.

You can't have jazz without improvisation and interaction between musicians (if playing in a group) The harmonies used in a lot of smooth jazz music are not extended jazz harmonies either, and the beat has more in common with adult contemp/ R and B.

Not all modern jazz swings in the traditional sense, but it has things like improv, extended harmony, group interplay, solos that reflect changing harmony, dtums that play outside of strict timekeeping, melodic minor harmony, etc...hallmarks of jazz...much of what you hear on smooth jazz radio doesn't havy ANY of those.

My definition of jazz is actually very broad scoped...


Now truthfully, if you think bebop is non musical maybe just move on. I can't explain that one to you if your mind and ears are closed.

So, you're talking about MUZAK crap that's played on the weather channel? If so, I wholeheartedly agree. However, I have seen Johnny Smith referred to as "smooth jazz", "mild bebop" and "mellow bebop"... which leads me into...

I love Johnny Smith. Kenny Burrell is great to. Technically, both bebop, however I hear a musicality that I don't hear in alot of the "too many notes bebop club" guys. I wish I could give you names, but I can't... because I only pay attention to the music I LIKE. I hear it on Pandora, like it, see who it is, and download their stuff. The people I don't like, I ignore or skip.

And I didn't say all bebop is non-musical...

And it is possible to play a hell of alot of notes and still stay musical... Les Paul, Roy Lanham to name but two.

[jasperguitar]

Jeff the Beaumont ... smooth jazz? Like the syrup music played by Kenny G ? that is some real puke music .. on the other hand... I have some old records which may not be too far out there.. but the players are good... and it does have a more mellow sound... ... As a kid, in the south, listening to some rhythm and blues.. I thought that was jazz ... Tell you the truth, I never really like Bee Bop .. but that doesn't mean much ..