Let's talk about Jazz !

[SoIGotTheGroov]

Originally Posted by bigtrain45

I saw his electric band, with Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea on keyboards, Dave Holland on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Airto on percussion, and a variety of sax players. This is my favorite piece, from "Bitches Brew." To me this is very erotic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QCOJo9YH9M

You are now my hero ! how lucky you've been ... as a bass player more into into the funky-soul kind of jazz I'm more into the very 80's Miles stuff like "Decoy"... but of course Kinf Of Blue too, I'm more into the cool, post bop, hard bop kinds of jazz, even if I have to play any genre. For example now I'm working with a nice singer more into the crooning style, it fits well with our pianist who's definitely into the American Songbook, a well trained guy who's done at least 50 gigs a year in Toulouse comping for female singers



I must admit that I've used a kind of "Click Bait" thread title, my bad... jazz comes from the blues, and the blues, to me, as a huge erotic power (specially that 4+ intervall chromatically descending) that can clearly be heard in any Miles Davis record.


It's cool to read your opinions, cos' of course jazz includes many genres and styles. I don't get angry if someone can't stand it, it's of course not easy to listen to for everyone, specially since the Bebop era, there's a great article here explaining why, in a way, Bebop killed jazz... well, for some people to say the least:
https://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/25/e...azz/index.html


"When jazz trumpeter Nicholas Payton wrote a famous essay about the demise of jazz, "On Why Jazz Isn't Cool Anymore," he made a curious declaration:"I create music for the heart and the head, for the beauty and the booty."



When, however, was the last time anyone associated shaking their booty to jazz music? Probably not since the swing and big band era of the 1930s and '40s, when people actually danced to jazz.

They also sang along to jazz tunes. Vocal standards like "Summertime," "Alone Together" and "Days of Wine and Roses" were written for Broadway or Hollywood. Jazz offered accessible melodies that anyone could hum along to.

Then bebop came along after World War II and fans had trouble keeping up. Titans like trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and saxophonist Charlie "Bird" Parker played music that was hyper-fast and fiendishly complex. The focus was on the virtuoso soloist -- not a catchy melody. People stopped singing and dancing to jazz; bebop supplanted the booty.

"Bebop found a home in the nightclub and eventually on the concert stage," DeVeaux says. "In both of these venues, there isn't room for dancing. It's understood that the music is there to be listened to."



Jazz also became more esoteric, its leaders becoming self-indulgent and playing primarily for themselves. If you were too square to follow, too bad. So when trumpeter Miles Davis started turning his back to the audience while performing live, it symbolized what jazz had already done -- it tuned out its audience.

"Jazz separated itself from American popular music. Big mistake. The music never recovered," Payton wrote.


"Jazz, like the Buddha, is dead." "

I've been educated to jazz very early, as my mother was hosting a jazz radioprogram in the early 80's, following the family tradition as my grand-ma was a barmaid in a jazz club in the 50's in The Hague, then owning her club in Belgium. My brother (12 years older than me) is a well trained guitarist, pianist, tuba and trumpet player, so I've been scatting solos and walking bass lines since I was a less than 5 years old child probably before playing any instrument. My mother is more into the famous singers, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Ernestine Anderson. Grand-ma was into Eartha Kitt, the french gipsy tradition (Reinhardt, Grapelli to name a few) and big bands like of course Duke Ellington. So of course Diana Krall speaks to me ! my brother is more into Miles Davis (any album) the 70's jazz-rock stuff like Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett of course.



I started on guitar, did some basic piano noodling, all autodidact learning and experimenting, but then I saw teenage friends doing blues, rhythm n' blues and funk stuff on stage (well trained guys too, some of them have learned in conservatoires) and that bass... man, dat bass ! 30 years now that I play it (some will say I love having a big stick in hand hahaha), it's part of me, I'd be really sad and... blue without bass.

[Greenman]

One thing I really hated was this ludicrous scat singing by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald to Cleo Laine what was that all about ? It's not singing it's just someone who didn't know the words making it up as they went along

[SoIGotTheGroov]

Hahaha ! it's only soloing over the chords progression, and the whole song form, like any other musician does ! I can tell you Ella Fitzgerald did know well the lyrics ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JaJtNLhlfk


Plus, I really like to transcribe her solos, she had really cool blues and bebop licks ! very melodic ! some scatters can be really harsh and boring I agree, Ella never was... well to me !


(and... that's something erotic again: jazzers lick and solo all the time !)

[Davemetalhead]

I know nothing about jazz to be honest, I'm a metalhead so it's not really my forte. Saying that, I do really enjoy the music from the 3 Beiderbecke TV series from the 80's, staring James Bolan and the ever sexy Barbara Flynn - The Beiderbecke Affair, the Beiderbecke Tapes and The Beiderbecke Connection. James plays a jazz freak (his words!) obsessed with all things jazz so there's lots of classic music in the programs.

Just don't ask me anything about the music - I have no idea who the artists are or the songs played, except some of it is Bix Beiderbecke, hence the name of the programs. I highly recommend you search out the shows if you like gentle British humour.

[wimbo77]

I once bought a Miles Davis cd. Hardly ever listened to it and started using it like a coaster to stand hot drinks on. The only reason i found out about Deodato was because one of his songs called Super Strut appeared on G.T.A Vice City.

[otokonomidori]

Originally Posted by Greenman

One thing I really hated was this ludicrous scat singing b

"Scat"!! They're not singing , they're just going through the motions....

[bigtrain45]

I had the good fortune of seeing some amazing jazz musicians in person, including Herbie Hancock's electric band, Weather Report, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, perhaps the most amazing musician I've ever seen. In a two-hour performance in a small jazz club, he played 3 different saxophones, all of them at once on one song, and two of them at a time, playing "The New World Symphony" on one, and "Sentimental Journey" on the other. He also played Ravel's Bolero on two different clarinets at the same time. He also played piano, flute, and nose flute.

[Meini Again]

Neanderthal Alert.

Instead of rejoicing in your ignorance and tone-deaf status....

TRY THIS... ONLY AN HOUR OF YOUR LIFE....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htwe0NBjq4c

An Award Winning Film
Jazz on a Summer's Day (1959)

The film features performances by Jimmy Giuffre, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Stitt, Anita O'Day, Dinah Washington, Gerry Mulligan, Chuck Berry, Louis Armstrong, and Jack Teagarden. Also appearing are Buck Clayton, Jo Jones, Armando Peraza.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htwe0NBjq4c

JAZZ 101 for Neanderthals.... includes weed and booze.... catch-up

[countjimmoriarty]

As the great Alan Plater (a jazz aficianado) wrote (for Barbara Flynn in The Beiderbecke Connection'):

There are three types of jazz: cool, hot, and 'what time does the tune start'...

[blondifan]

I'm probably more into rock/Jazz fusion than most other forms of music.

Instrumental music I find sometimes harder to 'get into' initially but ultimately more rewarding, well that's what I tell 'others'.

I liked John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra's Birds of Fire (and some others) from the first time I heard them. Particularly Miles Beyond.
Years later someone played me Bitches Brew by Miles, but it wasn't until I heard Kind of Blue that I really dug Miles Davis and later, Dave Holland's Conference of the Birds.

Am a huge fan of Zappa's instrumentals, particularly the Grand Wazoo, and Jaco Pastorius, but not so much Weather Report. Ayers Rock covered one of their pieces more to my liking on their first album, recorded live in front of a small studio audience.

Mingus 'Ah Um'. Often it's an album or more often a particular piece.
I have numerous versions by different artists of Goodbye Porkpie Hat.
I think that may be one of my all time favourite instrumentals.

Saw Stanley Clarke during his world tour with Miroslav Vitouš.
One of the best shows ever. Two bassists, very little if anything else.
From memory Piano on one piece and programmed? percussion on a few.