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Agree or disagree?

39K views 231 replies 54 participants last post by  jaleelshaw 
#1 ·
Does anyone else feel that a vast majority of jazz today is purely intellectual, that it is directed towards the "in" crowd rather than made to sound good?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRWLsdmVJxs
 
#35 ·
All types and forms of music come and go. But jazz is a little different because the definition of jazz has changed over the years and currently there are many different types of music called jazz. In reality, everyone loves some form of jazz. It's just that many don't care for the predominant modern type.

Additionally, jazz has quit being a form of pop music (which is originally was) and has been formalized into academia. While this may be good to some, this actually limits the form's ability to change with the times. There are very few experts that would walk up to the band, Maroon 5, and tell them that what they play is not technically "Rock". But everyday, someone on SOTW claims what Kenny G plays is not really jazz.

It's just something to think about. :bluewink:
 
#42 ·
KB's remarks are plausible to me, and he is in a much better position than me to assess the state of jazz today. His remarks are plausible because he says "a lot of the young players" are playing intellectually, and I expect many of these young players are university schooled and not as mature as they will eventually be. This is different from the state of affairs 50 years ago.

That said, I think jazz took a major turn at bop and free jazz. These genres don't appeal to the masses, but on the few occasions when I have taken kids or friends to hear good bop players, they enjoyed the music (albeit in limited doses). That suggests to me that bebop and free jazz typically suffer from being undanceable and unfamiliar, but that they are not inherently "intellectual", and they can connect with peoples' guts.
 
#44 ·
Was it you or milandro (or someone else) I reminded about how lucky you were being in the NL? Your musical culture is positively laid-back compared to ours in the US. ;)

And does this conservatory try to teach expressiveness, or leave time out for the student to start absorbing it?

I wish what I wrote WAS bs. Unexpressive noodling has become the public image of jazz, and is well on the way to being the academic reality. Thankfully there are cats like that teacher you visited (we have them here too) who can at least remind us of another world - even if there's no time to get into it.
 
#47 ·
Sorry for the harsh reaction. Well laid-back is not the word I would use to describe it since you have a exam(performance) every year and you get kicked out if you get a bad grade(they expect you do practice at least 4-6 hours a day). I think it helps that almost all the teachers at our conservatories are professional musicians who teach on day one day a week. They are really passioned and sort of protective about the state of jazz in the Netherlands.

I think you just get private saxophone lessons so it depends on the teacher. They just want to help you develop into a good musician so technical skills are important as well. My current teacher teaches my how to be more expressive by playing and letting me imitate it.

Is it really that bad? I was quite shocked about the story Pete Thomas told about his teaching experiences. I just don't get why they would teach that way? I can understand that you need to have a an understanding in bebop and standards because that's the foundation from which you build, but don't they want to educate students into good musicians?
 
#45 ·
I think you can make a generalization about all music throughout history. Each type of music starts as simple, primarily emotion-based content. As the music becomes more popular, the practicitioners become more proficient and technical, and the music itself becomes more intellectually based. As it does so, it's popularity to the broad base of people wanes, and that form of music is eventually supplanted by a newer, more simple and accessible type, and the cycle begins all over again.
 
#48 ·
Yes, they do. Good musicians in a sense classically-trained faculties can accept - rigorous in all things technical, and following faithfully in common practice.

Jerry Coker, the pioneer jazz educator, claimed that he was the first to use the Greek names of modes in a curriculum, and that he did so on purpose, to relate to classically educated department heads and get his program the greenlight. Now the modes are taught as not just another way to think of harmony, but as the principal way.
 
#50 ·
Too many scales, no memorable melodies...

Nothing new there - I felt the same way about a lot of Coltrane's work (and still do).

I was just listening to a feature of Nick Brignola on this morning's drive - same thing of too much scale work and not enough melodic lines to the solos. Of course, it must work for some listeners else he wouldn't be held in such high esteem.

So why is there such apparent widespread value for "intellectual" jazz?
 
#52 ·
So why is there such apparent widespread value for "intellectual" jazz?
I'm not sure how to quantify the appeal. These statements I hear sound like this; "this music is awful; why do so many people like awful music. They play too many notes that amount to nothing and are just senseless noodling; why would you be interested in senseless noodling that amounts to nothing."

So let me try and answer the questions:

Q, Why do people like awful music. A. I'm not sure they think if it as awful so I don't know if anyone would answer the question directly.

Q. why would you want to listen to senseless noodling that goes nowhere and does nothing. A. I'm not sure that anyone who likes that music thinks of it as senseless noodling so they really wouldn't be able to answer that question.

It's funny how many of us (myself included) will search for ways to justify or defend music that we think the academic world thinks is "beneath" them. But if someone enjoys something that may be considered academic; there is ususally a line around the corner of people who are ready to sacrifice "sacred cows".

Fact, I know more saxophone players who dislike more of Coltranes music than like it. And who will try to explain to me why they don't like it. And I have no problem with that. Except when they try to tell me why I shouldn't like it.

So, I like much of this music because I find it appeals to me. Maybe for the same reason I like action and adventure movies or sci-fi, drama, and comedy. I know a lot of the words they same are the same - it's really kind of pointless.
 
#55 ·
Very interesting all that's been said. We hear this complaint from older players sometimes. I remember years ago Phil Woods lamenting that all the young cats were playing their own tunes, but couldn't play September Song (or other standards). In an old Downbeat from the late 70s, Jimmy Knepper (trombonist with Mingus, etc.) complained that a lot of jazz was mostly empty pyrotechnics.

While, I personally really dig a lot of jazz played by people still alive, young, middle-aged and old, I acknowledge that a lot of it may seem like superficial technique. As sax players, it's easy to get addicted to fast complex lines, awed by technique. Miles said Mike Stern needed to go to Notes Anonymous because he's addicted to playing so many notes - many sax players suffer as well. Still, I really enjoy some of the guys with loads of technique that can do it musically. I also enjoy people who are more raw in their approach.

A few months ago, I heard Doug Lawrence play and it was very inspiring. No flash, just a big powerful sound and really well connected musical phrases played behind the beat with soul (definitely a Dexter Gordon influence). Maybe it takes more guts to play less. Just because you've got lots of chops, maybe the trick is not to have to let everyone know it all the time.

Ah...tweech his own.
 
#57 ·
I think music in general is about communication. Some people are good at communicating with others and some aren't. This is true all through life as well as in music. In the past, people had to learn by watching and understanding how the best players communicated with their audiences. Now there are so many opportunities to learn this in a more 'sanitised' way, the instinctiveness of this is diluted.
I don't think the content of what people play is very important in the scheme of things (unless its bad). Its more about how the message is being communicated to the audience... and how the audience responds. Any good communication is about sending and receiving - a 2 way conversation.
 
#59 ·
An aside -

Regarding tonality and academic composers of the 50s/60 generation, there was certainly a snobbery against tonal composers, but Barber, Rorem, Amram, Schuler, Hovhaness and a ton of others were writing a lot of tonally oriented music that was well accepted.

I was one of those composers-in-academia and never felt any pressure to compose atonally. One of my professors was Samuel Adler who was certainly a progressive composer, but I'm not sure one would put him in the same category as the New York aleatoric/serialist/atonal cliques, and he's had a considerable career writing what I would consider music with tonality.

Bernstein was Bi, BTW.
 
#60 ·
Bernstein was Bi, BTW.
Bernstein was a notorious chickenhawk. He only got married because Koussevitsky and Mitropoulos was afraid his homosexuality would ruin his career. (Remember I was at IU when he was 'in residence' there re-writing Trouble in Tahiti).
 
#62 ·
OK, I'm glad to hear the composing scene was a little looser outside the conservatories. I am no specialist in that era or genre, only curious. But if I know one thing about artists in that era, it's that they had to be "joiners" - at least socially if not artistically - or the going was all the tougher.

Still, artistic politics is only real if we make it real, and only bs if we overcome it. Some take pride in it and draw strength from it. This book, by a U. of Michigan professor, lays out a thesis that the gay music community was the only one really receptive to the lessons of French impressionist composers, and because of that, they were the only ones who were free to write modern music that the American public could really relate to.

The thesis doesn't pass the smell test with me, but I imagine there was a lot of pressure to fall into line back in the day, and that some fell in, some didn't.
 
#64 ·
Were his three children chores begrudgingly done by a dutiful husband?
 
#70 ·
I'm the Jazz correspondent for a regional newspaper and, one month ago, I had the luck to make an interview with Al Di Meola before a concert over here with his present band featuring the fantastic Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Al started, as a rock teen, with private jazz lessons, went to Berklee and the rest is history. He pushed "fusion" much farther than the combination of rock and jazz, encompassing a full range of "alien" musics like tango, middle-Eastern, Cuban, etc. His present career is a huge commercial success. His view of present jazz is interesting and leads us back to the question of the materials to be used for impro :

Q: « Jazz » seems to me in a state of indecision, no clear trend seeming to appear, opposite to the time where, e.g. « free jazz », « fusion », « mainstream » all had strong fans and stars and a large audience. Do you think the ways you explore, with many « exotic » influences is the only way for it to survive and develop ? A: Yes, jazz is lost and quite boring because most Jazz artists are oblivious to the audience getting bored with their way too long solos. Half of them are oblivious and half don't care! Audiences get tired of long bass, drum and even sax, guitar and piano solos that don't find their way back to the composition in due time fast enough. In our case I think this timing and focus much more so on strong composition is key to the survival and future!
 
#71 ·
(Al Di Meola) "Yes, jazz is lost and quite boring because most Jazz artists are oblivious to the audience getting bored with their way too long solos. Half of them are oblivious and half don't care! Audiences get tired of long bass, drum and even sax, guitar and piano solos that don't find their way back to the composition in due time fast enough."
This has always been obvious to me. Very few audiences are comprised of enough dedicated jazz fans to warrant stretching out for chorus after chorus. The people I play for don't want to hear it. They want a tune - a "song" - that they can identify as a melodic head, even if they're not familiar with it. They want to hear the permutations of the tune in the instrumental solo. They want to hear how the different soloists treat the tune. They enjoy watching interaction within the band - trading fours, background riffs, those occasional chuckles of amazement - and they're looking forward to the next tune. They're not interested in listening to someone wandering through a long solo that has no apparent underpinnings, and they're not interested in trying to figure out the "hook", some involved structure which substitutes for changes and differentiates the music from total improvisation.

It wasn't always this way. I remember seeing avant garde concerts in the 60's and the cats had the crowd going wild; the image of Pharoah Sanders with a long string of saliva hanging off his mouthpiece, the Ayler brothers playing nursery tunes, Black Power harangues, hours of polyrhythmic percussion with no discernible beat - we ate it all up. But it would be crazy to try to present that style in the venues I play these days. So maybe I'm not doing anything cutting edge and I'm not really playing "jazz" - I really wonder why it matters.
 
#75 ·
Just don't do it backwards. I played in a "natural" way before going back for a few freshman rudiments such as ear training, class piano and theory. No woodwind or ensembles at all. Even piano class took the desire to play music, sing, etc., right out of me. Music wasn't something to love anymore. It was just drill.

I finally had to disenroll because of moving house, and altho I feel like a bit of a quitter, it really was the right decision.
 
#76 ·
Esperanza Spalding, Snarky Puppy (an amazing band, check them out) and Robert Glasper were top 3 in the iTunes jazz charts last I checked. While the charts themselves don't set anything in stone, they do show that jazz can be accessible without being too "Kenny G-ish." G man is good at what he does, it just lacks in honesty.
 
#79 ·
(...) Snarky Puppy (an amazing band, check them out) . While the charts themselves don't set anything in stone, they do show that jazz can be accessible without being too "Kenny G-ish."
Wow! Great and nice surprise! Thanks for the tip (they're unknown over here)
J
 
#77 ·
well, I think the question is irrelevant and even inappropriate; just asking it implies an anti-intellectualism that is contrary to the freedom musicians need in order to create. One could have said the same about a host of classical music post 1920. As for jazz's intellectuality, it's much more than Diz's glasses. A whole school of early avant gardists moved things along in the '50s- Hal McKusick and Teddy Charles (both recently deceased); Paul Bley, Hall Overton, George Handy, Gil Melle, John LaPorta, Charles Mingus, Gil Evans, George Russell - this movement is over 50 years old and to question it all indicates that there are just too many gaps in our knowledge of jazz. Check it out - it's deep and serious (all of the above) but swings and is very satisfying, intellectually and emotionally.
 
#78 ·
How do you think it compares to the young cats running changes today? Could they stand to learn from it? I can't see how jazz pedagogy is likely to be filling in those gaps in the knowledge, considering that out of that group, only Mingus is really part of the canon (and not much of him).

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if any area of academic study was "intellectual" in some ways and "anti-intellectual" in others. Especially not music, which has to serve many masters.
 
#83 ·
#84 ·
this is silly stuff:
"Jazz has reached a state of artistic "homeostasis" where there is really no major creative advancement left to make so it has become an art of interpretation instead of innovation"

if you think this, than there is too much stuff you are missing. Ever heard of Tyshawn Sorey? Matt Shipp? William Parker? Vijay Ayer? Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre? Roscoe Mitchell? Leo Smith? Mary Halvorson? Darius Jones? Greg Ward? Marc Ribot? Marty Krystal? Me? You better get busy.

"Culturally speaking, jazz does not have a social role anymore, ergo the musicians drawn to it are seeking the intellectual, not cultural aspects of it"

these are inseparable, and I have been composing and performing for 30 years while dealing with this (projects with David Murray, Julius Hemphill, Ribot, Lewis Porter, Don Byron); and there's lots of people like me out there in jazz, integrating form and content in ways which speak of life and society and the whole social thing.
 
#91 ·
^^^
I guess it also comes down to the "definition" of "jazz." It's branched off so much that it's hard to label. The roots, the origins, of jazz are clear but what I think is a problem is that people hear "jazz" and they expect to hear a saxophone or trumpet backed by the typical "chingchingkaching" ride pattern.... stuff like that. The thing is, take Snarky Puppy or Marcus Miller's Tutu Revisited group and compare it to Branford Marsalis or Mark Turner. It isn't a small jump from one to the other. Yeah, it mainly originates from stuff like ragtime and blues but along the way it's been diluted and morphed into much more than one definable sound.
 
#92 ·
I started trying to play jazz around 1972 and it seemed like only 2% of the population wanted to hear it and they seemed a little more enlightened intellectually. Today 40 years later it still seems like about 2% of the population wants to hear jazz and it's still pretty much the same type of crowd. The percentage doesn't go up and it doesn't really go down. The music still comes in pretty much the same varieties, mainstream standards, bebop, post bop, and things more atonal and complex, maybe more intellectual? It hasn't really changed much that I can hear. I mean there were people doing really out, intellectual stuff in the 60's, Coltrane, Ornette, etc. It's not really music for the ignorant and never has been.
 
#93 ·
The population of the US was 209896021 in 1972 and 312780968 in 2012. That's 178,115,053 more people.
At 2% fan rate, there are 3,562,301 more jazz fans now than in 1972.
 
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