Define Jazz

[Taverner]

I know - impossible huh?

But I know it when I see it.

[KamaAina]

1. "Man, if you gotta ask, you'll never know"

An actual reply to the question "What is jazz?" from an actual jazz musician, whose name has slipped my memory for the moment.

[grasswire]

8. Was it Louis?

I'm thinking Louis Armstrong. But I could be wrong.

Here's a good link to a discussion of the genre.

http://www.smithsonianjazz.org/class/whatsjazz/wij_start.asp

[WritingIsMyReligion]

34. That was Satchmo, I believe.

:loveya:

[KamaAina]

36. It was indeed Louie, BUT...

..as it turns out, he was actually being asked to define swing.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jazz

"If you have to ask, you'll never know."
Louis Armstrong when asked to define the rhythmic concept of "swing", quoted in Jazz 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Jazz by John F. Szwed, 2000.

[1gobluedem]

2. From Ken Burns..

..as told to me by a man who hosted a national jazz radio show for many years:

When Ken Burns decided to do a documentary on the Civil War, he collected a few scholars, sat down with them, roughed out an outline in agreement together, and produced the piece. He did the same with his baseball documentary (and, yes, I know there are many who didn't care for either because of what was emphasized and what was left out but I'm making a different point).

When he decided to do the documentary on jazz he followed the same formula. He collected a few scholars and aficionados and sat down to put together an outline. They couldn't agree on one single thing.

'Nuff said. There is no real definition of jazz.

And, as a person who works at a jazz radio station with fifteen jazz hosts, I have seen screaming matches and near fistfights over what one feels is jazz and another taking violent exception.

Jazz is jazz. You know it when you hear it.

[BlueJazz]

3. Usually, it's a combination of improvisational notes played....

...over chord changes. (although some experimentation groups play without chords)

Any musician, in any style on any instrument, once they achieve a
particular level of ability, will naturally begin to improvise.

[billyskank]

10. It doesn't have to be improvised

You can play from a score and it can still be jazz. Jazz is a feeling, nothing more or less than that.

[BlueJazz]

11. I speak only from what I personally think of as Jazz.

To me...anything that is written down and played the same every time, while
being a "Jazz Song" is not Jazz (again..to me)

Even in a Rock song, if a player plays a solo...whether it be a bass, Guitar or whatever,
they (for the solo) are playing Jazz. (IF they don't play it the same every time).

[billyskank]

12. "In The Mood" is not jazz?

That piece is played as a standard, the same every time. You can say the same for practically the whole Glenn Miller catalogue.

Don't think you'll find many people agreeing with that: "even in a Rock song, if a player plays a solo...whether it be a bass, Guitar or whatever, they (for the solo) are playing Jazz."

[BlueJazz]

17. No...to me..."In the mood" is not jazz...although the solo.....

..usually played by a sax, is usually a Jazz solo.

"In the Mood" ...to me...is just playing a bunch of Chords with different inversions.

[billyskank]

18. Like I said...don't think you'll get many takers on that one

[Le Taz Hot]

19. So, by your definition,

Ellington would be excluded from your definition of jazz?

[billyskank]

20. (S)he's already excluded Glenn Miller

I would say it's open season on jazz greats. :eyes:

[BlueJazz]

28. I understand your point but...Even when I listen to the Rock Song..

"Jump"...the solo..(which I LOVE) is a form of Jazz Playing.

I must stress..over and over...all the stuff I'm saying is just my feelings on Jazz..
Your Millage may Vary.

[BlueJazz]

27. No...If Ellington Soloists played the same notes in every Solo...

...then I would call it Good Music...but not Jazz.

I mean..If I play "Take Five" and I play Desmond's Solo (the original version) the same every time
(which I can...it's not that hard) then...To me..I'm not playing Jazz...
I'm "Parroting" a Jazz flavored tune.
Which is not a bad thing and it sounds cool but the level of skill is nowhere near as high
as if I play my own interpretation on the chords.

[Le Taz Hot]

38. But Ellington's solosists didn't play the same notes

in every solo. This is it. Ellington and most of his musicians were conservatory trained so they all read music, not just lead lines. There were always places for solos (cadenzas) in which they DID improvise, there just weren't as many opportunities to do so. Contrast this with Basie's orchestra, same time frame, but most of his musicians were not conservatory trained and most did not read music (in the classical sense) so there was much more opportunity for improv. That does not make Basie's music "more jazz" than Ellington's, they're just coming from different backgrounds and laying down differently. Both, I assure you, are jazz.

[BlueJazz]

39. I agree. I never said Ellington wasn't Jazz. Another poster said that..

..I said that Ellington didn't play Jazz...Not True. :)

[Le Taz Hot]

40. My dear, please refer to your Post #27

But no matter. Here endeth the lesson.:smoke:

[BlueJazz]

41. I posted >>>>

If Ellington Soloists played the same notes in every Solo...
...then I would call it Good Music...but not Jazz.

Well..They DONT play the same notes in every solo....so I would call Ellington a Jazz Band.

With all due respect, why is that so hard to understand?

[Bridget Burke]

33. Bluegrass players often improvise....

Is that Jazz? Some of the more open-minded ones also play Gypsy Jazz--inspired by Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grapelli.

[kwassa]

Definition of jazz, good one, too.

Music originating in New Orleans around the beginning of the 20th century and subsequently developing through various increasingly complex styles, generally marked by intricate, propulsive rhythms, polyphonic ensemble playing, improvisatory, virtuosic solos, melodic freedom, and a harmonic idiom ranging from simple diatonicism through chromaticism to atonality

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/jazz

[kwassa]

24. .

[otherlander]

4. Jazz music goes looking for things.

[begin_within]

5. Here are several attempts to define it:

"Jazz is an original American musical art form originating around the start of the 20th century in New Orleans, rooted in African American musical styles blended with Western music technique and theory. Jazz uses blue notes, syncopation, swing, call and response, polyrhythms, and improvisation."

"Jazz - an American art form and an international phenomenon! Jazz is not the result of choosing a tune, but an ideal that is created first in the mind, inspired by ones passion and willed next in playing music. Jazz music is not found in websites or books or even written down in sheet music. It is in the act of creating the form itself, that we truly find Jazz."

"An academic definition of Jazz would be: A genre of American music that originated in New Orleans circa 1900, characterized by strong, prominent meter, improvisation, distinctive tone colors & performance techniques, and dotted or syncopated rhythmic patterns. But Jazz is so much more than that!"

"A style of music, native to America, characterized by a strong but flexible rhythmic understructure with solo and ensemble improvisations on basic tunes and chord patterns and, more recently, a highly sophisticated harmonic idiom."

"Jazz is a language, the musical language of African American slaves and like any language, it reflects its speakers and grows with them."

The last one is a quote from Branford Marsalis.

[bridgit]

6. i miss progmom...

:cry:

[asthmaticeog]

14. .

Agreed.

[Cathyclysmic]

15. Indeed.

:(

[Kali]

7. Jazz was a black lab-german shorthair pointer,

I "bought" her at the Tanque Verde Swapmeet (when it was still out on tanque Verde) in 1981 for $5.

She was special.

[CBGLuthier]

9. It don't mean a thing

If it aint got that swing

Ella Fitzgerald


There are a lot of dry facts that could be added but I think that is the essence right there.

[johnnie]

13. I'll get it for this but...

I'm not really big on jazz and I always say that jazz is frustrated musicians who can't play the blues. :)

[CBGLuthier]

16. Oddly enough

I find the opposite to be true for me.

I can play the blues. Jazz, however, is still a challenge.

[BlueJazz]

21. Jazz and Blues is pretty much intertwined. I will say this though...

...After I became a decent Blues player (Maybe after 2 years of playing)...
It took me 7 years to become a decent Jazz player.

[johnnie]

23. Honestly, I respect jazz a lot

It's just that when I was younger (teen), people who were into jazz always seemed to act like their shit didn't stink. I was a bit of a rebel back then and when people would get all into that jazz thing I would say that they were just people who tried to play the blues and couldn't so they just play a bunch of random notes and call it jazz..lol.

About the blues though, there are very few players these days who play blues the way it is intended. Most so-called blues players just play a few blues riffs and think they are blues players. Blues is feeling and not riffs. Seriously, people like Stevie Ray Vaughn and Eric Clapton, although good guitarists are and were not good blues players in my opinion. Johnny Winter blows away both of them on his worse day.

Very rarely do you find a person who plays the blues correctly. Learning a few licks and knowing the pentatonic scales doesn't make anyone a good blues guitarist.

[BlueJazz]

29. Oh..Yeah..I agree 100 percent of what you're saying.

I knew a Guitar player once..(He died from Drugs..sadly) that was a Monster Blues player.
BUT..sometimes he would play so "Outside" the Chord Changes that I would think..
"Geez..I love what he's playing but I wonder what "It" would be called"
Maybe "Bazz or Blazz" :)

[Bridget Burke]

22. Some say the word came from the Irish....

In a series of "Special Dispatches" written from the San Francisco Seals baseball team's spring training camp at Boyes Hot Springs, Sonoma county, forty miles north of the city, and from Recreation Park stadium in the heart of the old Mission District, sports reporter "Scoop" Gleeson used the new word "Jazz" more than forty times in March and April, 1913. This hot word "Jazz" soon spread like verbal wildfire to the Bulletin sports headlines, other reporters, feature stories, and even the cartoons.

Gleeson's first use of the word "Jazz" was on March 3rd, 1913: "McCarl has been heralded all along the line as a "busher," but now it all develops that this dope is very much to the "jazz."

www.edu-cyberpg.com/pdf/JasmGism.pdf

Of course, the musical form now called "Jazz" has African-American roots. But cultures have been mixing for a long time. For example, Irish step-dance is one of the roots of tap dance. Michael Flatley + African dance = Gene Kelly. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Daniel Cassidy wrote this article; next year, he'll publish The Secret Language of the Crossroad: How the Irish Invented Slang.

Or--this could all be Blarney.

[NewWaveChick1981]

25. The only type of jazz (whatever that is) that I DON'T like is

"fusion jazz". :grr: Hate it, hate it, hate it... :yoiks:

[bif]

26. "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture"

Isn't that what Frank Zappa said?

[wildhorses]

30. its a feeling...

carried away and sometimes brought back again

[bridgit]

31. jazz will be 'recognized', but little defined as an assembly of elements..

that assembly itself not unlike a Calder mobile balanced, turning just so in response to whatever wind, or breeze has afforded it's energy momentarily & seen/experienced by all; jazz will establish a theme or melody within the first opening bars of it's excursion, the theme, so stated, may well be the last time you recognize it as such until it is revisited upon conclusion & resolution of the piece in sum total but it will be thus; jazz meter will little be found in the drum kit as is the case with genres such as 'rock', or as is the case 'in the baton' of a classical music conductor...you get lost in jazz, take heart instead & listen to the bass player as he/she will be: On The Beat; jazz will be delicate even while expressing hard edged matters, delicate while expressing the wind blown light & airy; jazz snares are tight & it's symbols sizzle; jazz will modulate it's improvisation as is it's right to do so

jazz is not unlike opening a window filled with fresh air :)

[LanternWaste]

32. The last uncorrupted style of music in Western Civ...

The last uncorrupted style of music in Western Civ...

[Ptah]

35. Wikipedia says,

Jazz is an original American musical art form originating
around the start of the 20th century in New Orleans, rooted
in African American musical styles blended with Western music
technique and theory. Jazz uses blue notes, syncopation, swing,
call and response, polyrhythms, and improvisation.

For a good example, tune in to http://wemu.org/





9 am, Mountain Standard Time, Saturday

[Jamastiene]

37. I know the answer. Not meaning to offend anyone, but please read this.

My band and I once wrote a jazz song using my definition of jazz. I have always seen jazz as a group of musicians playing different songs all at the same time. Don't get me wrong, because I love listening to jazz. Jazz musicians seem to break all the rules when it comes to music. Yet the music is some of the most delightful sounding cacaphony of mismatched notes I have ever heard. I love listening to jazz just to catch interesting blends of different notes that no chord book would ever print. I love making up my own chords on guitar now because of my side adventure listening to jazz. Jazz taught me that if it sounds good, who cares if the chord or phrase was found in a chord book or not. Go with it and see where it takes you. Jazz rocks.

Once I came up with the idea that each member of my band play a different song, but all at the same time, we decided to try it. We ended up writing the strangest yet most interesting song and it truly did end up sounding like a real jazz song. Since that experiment I have written many of my new age songs ignoring the typical chords and scales on purpose in many cases to get the music I write to sound as close to what I "hear" in my head. I usually end up having to work for hours to find the next "chord" to match that sound. Thanks to jazz, I get to enjoy music that comes from inside. Before listening to jazz, I was stumped constantly and cound not write the music that plays in my head because it required those strange intervals and chords and a strange collection of notes to write the song. I'm thankful for that. It's truly priceless.