Goose-ZA
Someone please try and help me here. I firmly believe you should be able to appreciate all forms of music but I just really struggle to understand jazz. It's so all over the place i can't follow what the player is trying to do, notes sound out of key or out of place, it just confuses me.
Blues on the other hand I ADORE! I can hear the emotion in the singer's voice, feel the groove moving my body, feel every note and every bend (I even pull guitar faces when listening to it)
With jazz all i can manage is a blank stare. Someone please enlighten me.
inflames
There is allot of Jazz guys on the forum that will answer this for you.
My comment on
I firmly believe you should be able to appreciate all forms of music
I still don't understand how people listen to Rave type music. To me it boils down to make short jerking movements like a rat that just ate some poison ?
Goose-ZA
I still don't understand how people listen to Rave type music. To me it boils down to make short jerking movements like a rat that just ate some poison ?
I said all forms of
music ?
I hear you but there's something that makes people like it, something that distinguishes a good rave song from a bad one. Whether it's the samples, the synth sound, the beat, I personally don't know, but there are peeps who are electronic connoisseurs just like there are metal, jazz, blues connoisseurs. They clearly know something we don't.
I want to find out what that is so that when a electro song (or jazz song to stay on topic) comes on the radio I don't go "pfffft.... i hate jazz" and switch to something I know I'll like. If you do that then I guess you limit your enjoyment of music as a whole and cut off potential influences you can learn from.
Dirk
I know what you mean Goose. I was exactley like that. I think the key is to start listening to easier listening jazz, like smooth or fusioin Jazz, and gradually work your up to the complicated stuff.
One thing is for sure, once you're at that point where you can really appriciate Jazz, nothing comes close to it.
FatBoy
I think its a different strokes for different folks sort of thing. Some people like Sokkiejol Treffers, and although I can't for the life of me appreciate that stuff, I realise that THEY do.
A blues groove might move your body and soul (and mine), while one of the Sokkiejol brigade just hears a couple of stray cats being slaughtered. As with a lot of things in life, don't bang your head against the wall trying to understand it, just realise that people are different, and different things work for different people.
NorioDS
Was also there and like blues addict says, you start off on the easy stuff and you develop a taste for the more intricate stuff.
It actually takes some serious mental development to appreciate it because jazz challenges almost every popular musical convention while still (not alway) obeying the rules of music theory.
At this stage, I'm still at the point where the more complicated stuff flies over my head but I trust that I'll start to understand and appreciate it soon enough.
AlanRatcliffe
Bear in mind there are many different types of jazz. Don't jump straight in to the bebop stuff - it'll be alien to you. If you're a blues fan, ease yourself in by way of Django Rheinhard, Charlie Christian, Dixie Jazz and modern players like Scott Henderson. Also take a listen to the vocal jazz like Nina Simone. If you're also into Rock, take a listen to the fusion players like McLaughlin, DiMeola, etc.
Any other suggestions anyone?
Goose-ZA
Alan Ratcliffe wrote
Bear in mind there are many different types of jazz. Don't jump straight in to the bebop stuff - it'll be alien to you. If you're a blues fan, ease yourself in by way of Django Rheinhard, Charlie Christian, Dixie Jazz and modern players like Scott Henderson. Also take a listen to the vocal jazz like Nina Simone. If you're also into Rock, take a listen to the fusion players like McLaughlin, DiMeola, etc.
Any other suggestions anyone?
Thanks for the suggestions. I'll give them a listen. I reckon I owe it to Jazz to give it a proper go.
Bob-Dubery
Well "jazz" is not one thing. I don't think there's a genre named "jazz". There may have been 90-odd years ago, but not now.
I do quite well with what is commonly termed "trad jazz". The rhythms and the harmonic devices are things that I can wrap my head around.
But then you get bebop - which is certainly part of the broaded world of "jazz" - and which blows a lot of my fuses.
Some of the modern jazz forms are, to my ears, completely unstructured and thus unlistenable. I suspect that it may be the case that they ARE completely unstructured and it's a case of the Emperor's New Clothes. Frank Zappa once likened "modern jazz" to "a bunch of wild geese honking". And Zappa could get pretty "out there" himself - as a composer and as a soloist.
But I would not extend my philistinical judgements to jazz PLAYERS. Playing even the less esoteric forms of jazz that I can get my ears around takes chops and a good deal of musical knowledge.
Neps
Well, from my perspective I love a bit of jazz once in a while.. Chick Corea is always a bit of fun!!! (still can't spell the name) But thats mainly piano based with some mean drumming.. But it took me about 2 months to get into it.. And I realy can only get into it when I have a whisky, sigar and a good sunrise or sunset to admire!
Keira-WitherKay
heheheh i recall a story i heard when a news paper reporter was tasked to review one of Miles Davis's albums.... and actually got an an interview with Miles and was reported as saying just what Gooze Za said ... he said to miles that "he has listened to whole whole album and did not get it" to which miles apparantly as folk lore goes did not bat an eyelid but softly replied..."You weren't meant to "
but i love jazz in all forms and i do think that the audience of jazz lovers who like the more intense jazz actually are quite musically informed.... maybe not all players but they understand harmony and chord substitution and this i have found world wide ...thats why jazz audiences are not lurking around the venue drunk and hitting on the opposite sex or the same sex for that matter .... but have their eye's fixed firmly on the soloist watching and anticipating each note.... watch a sincere jazz audience they all tapping out intricate time on the table subconsciously and their boby language shows they all 100% engrossed in music ....not wanting to miss a thng ........ and oh so critical.... heheheh after the show they will tell you which players cut it and which don't.
i love jazz..... it truly consumes one
oh and as for off sounding notes.... i spent almost a semester learning how to play "outside the scale" in jazz there are no mistakes and melodies are reharmonised and normally it's on the the spot improv.... and off notes are deliberately used to create tension and release ....and then set up the more melodic parts
PS> so yeah i like your attitude of you wanna give it a shot.... have you studied music ? if not no sweat just get on net read up about jazz reharmonisation and chord substitution and you will "get it"
oh and a useful pointer kenny G is NOT JAZZ (sorry couldn't resist that heheheheh see the jazz snobbery coming out )
LMinnie
You can also try Hiroshi Fukumura (weird ass jap jazz),Michael Franks,Nina Simone,Chuck Mangione These are just some of the artists I like... :bopping:
Goose-ZA
Keira WitherKay wrote
oh and a useful pointer kenny G is NOT JAZZ (sorry couldn't resist that heheheheh see the jazz snobbery coming out )
HAHA! that's funny. I was chatting to a work colleague about this issue and he linked me this article (apologies for the MASSIVE wall of text). It seems you're not the only jazz musician who thinks mr G is terrible =)
http://www.carrothers.com/pat_metheny_vs_kenny_g.htm
As for the music theory part, I've just started diving into theory properly in the last 2 months or so (after nearly 15 years of playing by ear!!!) and I must say i find it absolutely FASCINATING (and it explains a lot of the "tricks" i discovered over the years which is also very exciting)
I don't think I'm ready for all that substitution stuff (or whatever it was you said - my brain tried to comprehend it but I ended up just seeing spots) but when I do maybe then Jazz will make more sense =)
Wizard
Jazz scales are still well-defined scales.
Just different than the one's we're used to.
In a similar way Equal Temperament is something we're all used to ... but when we hear the 'better' Just Intonation it sounds way weird initially.
We recorded a song once - West African singer and percussion.
The singer sang this one not just WRONG.
It was a traditional song, he was the master singer - so no-one challenged.
But he had perfect pitch, and every time he sang it, he hit exactly the same note.
After 2 weekends of recording, this 'wrong' note had really grown on us and had become very right ... even though it couldn't be found on a western piano.
Bach's music was played in his time on a harpsichord which was tuned using Just Intonation to the key of the piece.
Hence - we've never heard Bach the way that he composed it. Food for thought.
Dirk
Any other suggestions anyone?
[/quote]
Some of Larry Carlton's new stuff is also cool.
Neps
Kenny G not JAZZ!! ? My world needs re-evaluation!! :'(
No more late nights, switching on some smooth rythms of ol' Kenny, pouring a glass of wine, and telling the girl 'now this is good music..' hahaha.. It never worked in any case!!
Griffin
Keira WitherKay wrote
.... but have their eye's fixed firmly on the soloist watching and anticipating each note.... watch a sincere jazz audience they all tapping out intricate time on the table subconsciously and their boby language shows they all 100% engrossed in music ....not wanting to miss a thng ........ and oh so critical.... heheheh after the show they will tell you which players cut it and which don't.
Interestng. I went to a Pat Methany concert with a group of Jazz fanatics. We were in the second row and what amazed me me (apart form the music) was that half the front row, and the folks I was with, spent most of the concert with thier eyes closed or looking down at the floor. They may as well have stayed at home and listend to a CD. After the concert a huge argument broke out about whether or not it was jazz. I was blown away by the music and skill and realy did not care.
Bob-Dubery
Keira WitherKay wrote
heheheh i recall a story i heard when a news paper reporter was tasked to review one of Miles Davis's albums.... and actually got an an interview with Miles and was reported as saying just what Gooze Za said ... he said to miles that "he has listened to whole whole album and did not get it" to which miles apparantly as folk lore goes did not bat an eyelid but softly replied..."You weren't meant to "
These things cut both ways and lots of people "don't get it". In 2007 SABC radio fired a DJ who ran a late night jazz show. They fired him for playing "odd" music. What he played was Charlie Parker.
Bob-Dubery
A quote from Frank Zappa. "Jazz is not dead. It just smells funny."
Werner-Carstens
Noel Gallager said that Jazz is "4 people on stage having more fun that the 400 in the audience". I guess you have to take it from whom it came.
I love Jazz, although I cannot play it. It is just way to complicated for my theoretical knowledge. Try some local stuff like Jimi Dludlu. This guy makes me sick. If I could do only half of what he can do I will retire from playing guitar.
