Historic Jazz

[Mike Schwartz]

Painting with a broad brush, for those who go back years in jazz chat-board membership recall discussions of classic dates, iconic players and the like were quite common, today are rather rare. Then came the wave of contemporary music lovers who shoved the old stuff aside, and even shunned established forms.

Today, happily it's all good in the hood!

[moldyfigg]

Perhaps I'm too narrow in my definition but most of the stuff today doesn't qualify as jazz: melody, harmony, rhythm and musicality..

[pig pen]

Perhaps I'm too narrow in my definition but most of the stuff today doesn't qualify as jazz: melody, harmony, rhythm and musicality..

I guess it's all a question of perception, but I find a lot of all of those things in many recent recordings that I have.

[Mike Schwartz]

Perhaps I'm too narrow in my definition but most of the stuff today doesn't qualify as jazz: melody, harmony, rhythm and musicality..

Clint, you're are angel-hair pasta narrow in your definition and absolutely wrong to boot, even if your qualifiers " melody, harmony, rhythm and musicality " are applied.

You know I've done radio for a while now [17 years], and I'm listening to and spinning new music by the bushel that's jazz by any description.

I've been posting my show playlist on Jazz News.
In a 4 hour show yesterday I played from a total of one [1] recording that wouldn't fit in the moldyfigg game plan (although it was a fine recording IMO nonetheless )

[bluenoter]

doesn't qualify as jazz: melody, harmony, rhythm and musicality..

Pop goes the weasel word. Let me guess---the test of a piece's musicality will ultimately be whether Clint digs the piece, and around we'll go.

[moldyfigg]

Fusion, electronic, Coltrane clones, etc. Nothing important has happened in jazz for the last 40 years.

Straight ahead or get outta here.

[Mike Schwartz]

Fusion, electronic, Coltrane clones, etc. Nothing important has happened in jazz for the last 40 years.

Straight ahead or get outta here.

Perfect thread for you then Clint.....BRING IT ON!!

[Gentle Giant]

I would argue that everything Dave Holland has done in the last 20 years is important.

I would also argue that the form is evolving; though it may be getting simpler, especially rhythmically, instead of more complex, it's where the music is heading - which may be preferable than not moving at all.

[Tom Storer]

Jason, you think jazz is getting rhythmically simpler? So much of the modern jazz I hear seems to be going in the opposite direction. I think of drummers like Nasheet Waits, Marcus Gilmore, Eric McPherson, Eric Harland, Dan Weiss, all the Dave Holland drummers over the years... it seems like all of them bring so much complexity, and it's demanded of them as well. And the straight-ahead drummers of note play very refined swinging drums. Where do you see the simplification occurring?

[Mike Schwartz]

Adding to Tom's point, it's so common since the 90's that bands play in odd meter so much and so often as to be the near norm these days.

[moldyfigg]

Odd meter - Dave Brubeck did it 50 years ago!

Nothing new here.

[Mike Schwartz]

Odd meter - Dave Brubeck did it 50 years ago!

Nothing new here.

It was more than 50 years ago.....no mention that it's something new, though more common than ever.

Was a reply to another thing that came up from another poster.

[Gentle Giant]

Jason, you think jazz is getting rhythmically simpler? So much of the modern jazz I hear seems to be going in the opposite direction. I think of drummers like Nasheet Waits, Marcus Gilmore, Eric McPherson, Eric Harland, Dan Weiss, all the Dave Holland drummers over the years... it seems like all of them bring so much complexity, and it's demanded of them as well. And the straight-ahead drummers of note play very refined swinging drums. Where do you see the simplification occurring?

Jazz is not, never has been, monolithic, and for every Hamid Drake there's an Omar Hakim (the two chosen largely for assonance and alliteration, as well as comparison between those who play out of and within the mainstream). Sure, there are incredible players doing remarkably innovative things. Hence my own mention of Dave Holland above. But there are legions of other jazz players who are perhaps a generation removed from the smooth jazz movement who play over a reasonably easy to follow rhythmic foundation designed to be more accessible to mainstream audiences. GRP may no longer be around but I don't think their aesthetic has gone away.

[steve(thelil)]

Fusion, electronic, Coltrane clones, etc. Nothing important has happened in jazz for the last 40 years.

Straight ahead or get outta here.

You can get off the train whenever you like, but just because it stops moving YOU doesn't mean that it has stopped moving. New stuff is happening all the time, including within straight ahead. And what was an odd meter when Brubeck played it isn't odd, just like guys who play overly Bird-like aren't that "important" now. To suggest that jazz musicians stopped being creative 40 years ago makes little sense. Whether it's important to people isn't that important

[Monte Smith]

I like the train metaphor. America was built with railroads and jazz. Try finding a train going anywhere you want to go today. It's all Amtrak or worse, Lincoln Center. Jazz stopped transporting the public decades ago. They still have awesome jazz in Europe and trains that do a job, but in America trains are toys for hobbyists.

Clint is always right. Moldy figs unite.

[steve(thelil)]

You're talking apples and origami. If by "important" we are talking about jazz "moving the public as a whole," most of it never did. It may seem like it now, but it's a myth. Big bands and Sinatra and Ella and the like were popular music, but I doubt that the number of people who listened to Bird or Trane in their times is no greater than the number of people listening to Wynton or Branford or Dave Holland today. What's important in jazz has always REALLY meant what's important to serious jazz fans. What's important to people who for one reason or another aren't serious jazz fans any more isn't very important.

[Tom Storer]

Yes. I'm more concerned that a lot of modern jazz doesn't move ME than that it doesn't move the masses.

To point the thread back toward its original intention, I'm listening to a contemporary recording of old-fashioned New Orleans music, "Danza," by Tom McDermott (piano) and Evan Christopher (clarinet). Great music!

[steve(thelil)]

You're talking apples and origami. If by "important" we are talking about jazz "moving the public as a whole," most of it never did. It may seem like it now, but it's a myth. Big bands and Sinatra and Ella and the like were popular music, but I doubt that the number of people who listened to Bird or Trane in their times is no greater than the number of people listening to Wynton or Branford or Dave Holland today. What's important in jazz has always REALLY meant what's important to serious jazz fans. What's important to people who for one reason or another aren't serious jazz fans any more isn't very important.

You know, I'm not so sure about that. I'd have to think it wasn't simply popular music in name alone. And in those days it didn't have Rock and Roll to contend with. And even when Rock music started up it didn't imediately become the most popular music in the country.

I'm not sure either whether more people listened to Bird or Trane than Wynton or Branford, but if you look at the pre-rock charts, I think it was mostly pap (eg Andrew Sisters, Eddie Fisher, How Much is that Doggie in the Window, etc.) and not what we would consider real jazz. It certainly wasn't bebop . I'm gonna look at some old charts.

Here's the top 30 hits of 1953. From what I can tell, nothing here swings or shows that jazz was really influencing the big hits. The closest is Eartha Kitt's C'est Si Bon.

1 Percy Faith: Song From Moulin Rouge
2 Les Paul and Mary Ford: Vaya Con Dios
3 Patti Page: Doggie In The Window
4 Eddie Fisher: I'm Walking Behind You
5 Ames Brothers: You, You, You
6 Teresa Brewer: Till I Waltz Again With You
7 Les Baxter: April In Portugal
8 Perry Como: No Other Love
9 Perry Como: Don't Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes
10 Frankie Laine:I Believe
11 Pee Wee Hunt: Oh
12 Frank Chacksfield: Ebb Tide
13 Nat King Cole:Pretend
14 Richard Hayman:Ruby
15 Stan Freberg:St. George And The Dragonet
16 Hilltoppers:P.S.: I Love You
17 Gaylords:Tell Me You're Mine
18 Julius La Rosa:Eh Cumpari
19 Tony BennettRags To Riches
20 Silvano Mangano: Anna
21 Perry Como: Say You're Mine Again
22 Ray Anthony:Dragnet
23 Frankie Laine and Jimmy Boyd: Tell Me A Story
24 June Valli: Crying In The Chapel
25 Joni James:Why Don't You Believe Me
26 Joni James:Your Cheating Heart
27 Frank Chacksfield:Limelight (Terry's Theme)
28 Eddie FisherWith These Hands
29 Eartha Kitt: C'est Si Bon
30 Joni James: Have You Heard? -

The top records of 1952 were just as lame and non-jazzy

http://www.musicoutfitters.com/topsongs/1952.htm

And here's a list of the number 1 Billboard singles from 1953. All lightweight pop pap. Nothing anything like serious jazz.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bi ... es_of_1953

[moldyfigg]

I'm not putting down current players, they are talented and well educated.

My point is jazz, like "classical", reached its peak long ago. High quality music, of any form has rarely reached a general audience. During the swing era, jazz influenced music probably had a wider popularity even though a lot of crap was very popular.

I would rather listen to Jeannie and Jimmy Cheatham than Dave Holland.

Rock was better in the 60s, too.

[moldyfigg]

With the loss of Castro Neves, the thought occurred that the last truly unique new style for jazz was bossa nova, which came in the early 60s.

[moldyfigg]

Well, unless you considered Fusion a completely new style.

That's highly debatable, I suppose.

Then again, Bossa Nova was a fusion of sorts just like Afro-Cuban Jazz. So if Bossa Nova was "unique" I guess the Rock/Jazz fusion would have to be as well.

I suppose so, but fusion is the most boring stuff around.

[moldyfigg]

Yes they were and I've got a bunch of their LPs from that era.