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I highly recommend this Vox explainer on John Coltrane's "Giant Steps", for anyone interested in learning about the math behind one of Jazz' greatest innovations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62tIvfP9A2w
It’s still used to torture music students to this very day!
In one sense jazz is all about freedom - you can play "whatever you want!"- but in many other senses it's as incredibly traditional and formulaic.as classical. There is a canon of songs that is worshipped, and song structures and instrument combos are mostly frozen in amber, and there are lines you just cannot cross. Every genre gets like that after awhile I guess.
Yes, that's the inherent tension within jazz. It's pure freedom, but it's also inseparable from its history, the people who play it today, and even the audience. Disclosure: I'm a performing jazz bassist. I'm at a level where I can collaborate with bands, but am not good enough to blaze my own path, except to the extent of having a playing style of my own. The canon of tunes, and the "standard arrangement" are both a…
I'd love to hear your various groups, and am always up for a long bass solo -- I switched from trumpet to bass in college. I don't know if it's possible but it'd be awesome to mix up all of those styles into a single performance!
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I've seen acceptance of all kinds of avant-garde music here but the one genre that repeatedly gets called out as perhaps not fitting the requirements for qualifying as music is rap. Couldn't help think of that with your description. It's too bad because even with endless repetition and copying it's a genre that continues to innovate every year, eg Playboi Carti who is among the most popular yet works in the realm of…
Where current popular music (I would call it EDM) is pushing the sound more than the song, rap is obviously about the words. Maybe hence the schism in the value of rap in music.
the criticism i read most often here is that rap lacks melody as a requirement of music - two absurd ideas
At every moment in history there were artists moving the boundaries of what was considered music. Every so often, a near past style was frozen and called a genre, you could call it a major version. Once the jazz as most people know it was part of a movement pushing those boundaries, but so was debussy, chopin, or almost any other composer. Now, this jazz has little freedom and has more in common with classical music,…
I've seen acceptance of all kinds of avant-garde music here but the one genre that repeatedly gets called out as perhaps not fitting the requirements for qualifying as music is rap. Couldn't help think of that with your description. It's too bad because even with endless repetition and copying it's a genre that continues to innovate every year, eg Playboi Carti who is among the most popular yet works in the realm of…
holy crap, where are you seeing this happen? I haven't encountered that kind of thing since literally the 1990s. possibly even the 80s.
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Miles did some nice synthesizer stuff as well. And he said he would never go back to be-bob it was all done already.
I remember watching a documentary about Miles right before he released Tutu. The interviewer asked if he ever got nostalgic for the old bebop or cool jazz stuff he used to play. Miles paused for a long time, then he said I love those old tunes but they're in the past and I can't go back there. I got to keep moving. I really respected him for that, but when I got to college the music program was so focused on the past…
i think about this all the time. it's like a koan.
good on you for breaking with the orthodoxy. or as miles might call them "non-playing motherfuckers"
In one sense jazz is all about freedom - you can play "whatever you want!"- but in many other senses it's as incredibly traditional and formulaic.as classical. There is a canon of songs that is worshipped, and song structures and instrument combos are mostly frozen in amber, and there are lines you just cannot cross. Every genre gets like that after awhile I guess.
Jazz education is a blessing and a curse. Most high level high school programs are focused on the Essentially Ellington competition, meaning that they learn to swing, to play with humanity and emotion, and to blend together. All good things, and I do believe that Ellington is the greatest American composer period. But it appears learning an 80+ year old style usually is not a gateway to discovering the modern day equ…
I recently discovered multi-instrumentalist Robert Stillman, who opened for The Smile (Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood's side project with Tom Skinner). He played solo tenor saxophone with some kind of looping effect, along with some lo-fi sampling involving multiple lightly-synchronized cassette tapes of himself playing other instruments. Amazing stuff.
At every moment in history there were artists moving the boundaries of what was considered music. Every so often, a near past style was frozen and called a genre, you could call it a major version. Once the jazz as most people know it was part of a movement pushing those boundaries, but so was debussy, chopin, or almost any other composer. Now, this jazz has little freedom and has more in common with classical music,…
Last time they were active was 2021, but at this point I'm sure they'll play again.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've seen acceptance of all kinds of avant-garde music here but the one genre that repeatedly gets called out as perhaps not fitting the requirements for qualifying as music is rap. Couldn't help think of that with your description. It's too bad because even with endless repetition and copying it's a genre that continues to innovate every year, eg Playboi Carti who is among the most popular yet works in the realm of…
Where current popular music (I would call it EDM) is pushing the sound more than the song, rap is obviously about the words. Maybe hence the schism in the value of rap in music.
There's countless examples of rappers incorporating, collaborating with and evolving every genre. One of my favs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZTYgq4EoRo
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where current popular music (I would call it EDM) is pushing the sound more than the song, rap is obviously about the words. Maybe hence the schism in the value of rap in music.
That is not an educated or reasonable conclusion, and not just because rappers artists use their voice as a (tuned) instrument. There's countless examples of rappers incorporating, collaborating with and evolving every genre. One of my favs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZTYgq4EoRo
Of course Kendricks work is pushing boundaries. He has an excellent produced voice, the rap a timbre and meter that is fresh. These are musical components of his words, but mere details in all the music in this track. However, the words in his rap are not details.
Personally I have never been into words in music. I barely could hear them growing up listening to metal, and still only register a phrase or two in music today. If you see music and lyrics as different things, I see how you would give rap a bad rap, musically speaking.
My current fav (I can only understand every fifth word obviously): https://soundcloud.com/icespiceee/ice-spice-no-clarity
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, that's the inherent tension within jazz. It's pure freedom, but it's also inseparable from its history, the people who play it today, and even the audience. Disclosure: I'm a performing jazz bassist. I'm at a level where I can collaborate with bands, but am not good enough to blaze my own path, except to the extent of having a playing style of my own. The canon of tunes, and the "standard arrangement" are both a…
The standard arrangement -- it enables you to put together a group of players who've never worked together to play tunes nobody has even heard before, but then it just sounds like every other jazz band. I'd love to hear your various groups, and am always up for a long bass solo -- I switched from trumpet to bass in college. I don't know if it's possible but it'd be awesome to mix up all of those styles into a single…
Melody
Solo 1
Solo 2
Bass solo
Drum solo or "trading fours"
Melody
Ending
There are some good things about it, for instance, a beginner can function well enough in a band to play low profile gigs, and gain experience. I certainly owe my present skill level to getting that start, along with playing in the high school jazz band.
Unfortunately, within any given locale, the actual list of tunes that gets played can be quite small, leading to the same tunes getting played over and over again, ad nauseam. It takes some effort, and I think, respect for the audience, to break out of this local minimum, for instance writing more interesting arrangements, rehearsing the band, or just agreeing to explore a wider variety of tunes. Personally, I decided to ditch the fake books, a couple decades ago, and made the effort to either learn the repertoire, or get good at figuring things out by ear.
Unfortunately my various groups are completely un-recorded.