Jazz? It's not all wank

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Re: Jazz? It's not all wank

Post by mike »

I've been looking forward all week to coming back to this thread and watching all of the clips undisturbed on the cheap internet rates.

Had breakfast, fired up the computer and what a feast it was!

Thanks for posting them people.

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Re: Jazz? It's not all wank

Post by Rog »

I used to be on the committee of the Jazz Club and the snobbery of some of the performers amazed me.

"If you can't sight read, you can't play".
"If you can't improv, you can't play"

I found those two statements rather confusing, as I've met and played with many cats who could only do one of the above and yet who were actually bloody brilliant players. According to the jazzsnobs, they couldn't play?
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Re: Jazz? It's not all wank

Post by bender »

Rog wrote:I used to be on the committee of the Jazz Club and the snobbery of some of the performers amazed me.

"If you can't sight read, you can't play".
"If you can't improv, you can't play"

I found those two statements rather confusing, as I've met and played with many cats who could only do one of the above and yet who were actually bloody brilliant players. According to the jazzsnobs, they couldn't play?
Highlighted for emphasis- jazzknobs would also be appropriate.

I partially agree with the improv part, but only in the context of Jazz, and only to the degree of knowing the core of the song and being able to comfortably vary it a bit on the fly. It could be as little as being able to change the feel slightly to respond to the drummer being in a particularly funky mood, or adding a hammer-on where you might not usually do one, or adding a little lick in somewhere just because you feel like it at the time. Spontaneity is pretty important to the genre IMO.

I really dislike overly intellectualised music in general and Jazz (and quite a bit of metal TBH) has some pretty horrendous offenders as a genre.

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Re: Jazz? It's not all wank

Post by mike »

I really dislike overly intellectualised music in general and Jazz (and quite a bit of metal TBH) has some pretty horrendous offenders as a genre.
Indeed!!! A lot of people dislike jazz because of these kinds of issues. But also, to a lot of people improvisation sounds like elevator music, which I think comes from common formulaic improvisation on licks and scales when musicians have been hired to play, but have run out of ideas. I have battled all my life to break out of muscle memory into those flowing moments you get sometimes that make it all worthwhile.

I'm still on the video binge at the moment at Jack Johnson at the moment after a long detour into a series of videos from that telecaster guy Jim. Hadn't heard Jack Johnson before.

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Re: Jazz? It's not all wank

Post by Rog »

Mike, my wife is one of those who gets very bored with most jazz because of the never-ending solos. She prefers singing, a short instrumental if they really must, although why do it? and no repetition. When I went through an R&B phase, many of the songs have long repetitions of a line or two and she'd almost throw things at the stereo in frustration.
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Re: Jazz? It's not all wank

Post by Bg »

Nope, its not all wank.
I had the pleasure of seeing some pretty awesome jazz back in the uk, I used to go with the old man every week to the local jazz club. We were lucky enough that the bass player used to be quite famous and he managed to drag some great people along to our little club :)

Love anything by the great ladies of jazz, Ella, Nina, Sarah, Etta etc...

However, some of it is very self indulgent wank. Like any kind of music.
So, is that low alcohol or no alcohol at all? mmmm, no alcohol, do you want to try it? Noooooooooo.

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Re: Jazz? It's not all wank

Post by mike »

Yes Rog, my wife has a similar emotional response to music she doesn't like, but I've been lucky because she's turned me on to a number of different people I hadn't listened to before (John Hiatt most notably but many others) and she has been very supportive of my writing approach over the years as a balanced critic I can depend on, who doesn't get annoyed if I don't run with her suggestions. Having said that we've also cowrote and occasionally performed together, including putting music to her poems which I find particularly challenging because of the need to preserve the spoken word feel and not take away from the poems themselves.

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Re: Jazz? It's not all wank

Post by Danger Mouse »

benderissimo wrote:
I really dislike overly intellectualised music in general and Jazz (and quite a bit of metal TBH) has some pretty horrendous offenders as a genre.
Ah no, the overly intellectualised metal is a pretty small part of the genre, I read an interview with Steve Vai ages ago where he said it best. He was talking about metal guitarists and he said the metal scene constantly amazed him, there were all these guys that could shred like motherfuckers, but had absolutely no idea what they were doing musically.
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Re: Jazz? It's not all wank

Post by godgrinder »

godgrinder wrote:Painkiller - Buried Secrets / Guts Of A Virgin
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More John Zorn wankiness:
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Re: Jazz? It's not all wank

Post by Vince »

mike wrote:I'm still on the video binge at the moment at Jack Johnson at the moment after a long detour into a series of videos from that telecaster guy Jim. Hadn't heard Jack Johnson before.
I really like it, probably more than Bitches Brew, even.

You can either get all intellectual about it or just hear it like it's some guys having this really good jam with some guy on trumpet. 8)
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Re: Jazz? It's not all wank

Post by bender »

Vince wrote: You can either get all intellectual about it or just hear it like it's some guys having this really good jam with some guy on trumpet. 8)
This.

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Re: Jazz? It's not all wank

Post by bender »

Danger Mouse wrote:
benderissimo wrote:
I really dislike overly intellectualised music in general and Jazz (and quite a bit of metal TBH) has some pretty horrendous offenders as a genre.
Ah no, the overly intellectualised metal is a pretty small part of the genre, I read an interview with Steve Vai ages ago where he said it best. He was talking about metal guitarists and he said the metal scene constantly amazed him, there were all these guys that could shred like motherfuckers, but had absolutely no idea what they were doing musically.
That's exactly my point though- those are exactly the horrendous offenders I'm talking about. What I mean when I say 'overly intellectualised' is heavily studied, whether it be technically or in terms of musical complexity. Both of those things seem to come at the expense of feel/groove/whatever (at least in an extremely general, historic sense). Of course, the point you make is exactly the point I've been trying to make about jazz from the beginning and I would be pretty willing to bet that it would get similar negative opinions to the ones that have been expressed in this thread. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to define metal as a genre as being like that- I'm just saying that it's very easy to find examples where a focus on technical skill seems to be the defining feature.

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Re: Jazz? It's not all wank

Post by alanp »

Iggy Pop commented on jazz in a Metal Evolution episode -- "A lot of jazz sounds like what it is -- poorly thought out musical masturbation. But there are guys in there who were masters of their instrument."

I think he was coming from the viewpoint that drummers (Buddy Rich) and guitarists (Django) have very, very often learnt from jazz cats. The episode also interviewed Bill Ward, who talked about how his drumming was very influenced by jazz (as was Iommi and Butler.)
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Re: Jazz? It's not all wank

Post by Danger Mouse »

benderissimo wrote:
Danger Mouse wrote:
benderissimo wrote:
I really dislike overly intellectualised music in general and Jazz (and quite a bit of metal TBH) has some pretty horrendous offenders as a genre.
Ah no, the overly intellectualised metal is a pretty small part of the genre, I read an interview with Steve Vai ages ago where he said it best. He was talking about metal guitarists and he said the metal scene constantly amazed him, there were all these guys that could shred like motherfuckers, but had absolutely no idea what they were doing musically.
That's exactly my point though- those are exactly the horrendous offenders I'm talking about. What I mean when I say 'overly intellectualised' is heavily studied, whether it be technically or in terms of musical complexity. Both of those things seem to come at the expense of feel/groove/whatever (at least in an extremely general, historic sense). Of course, the point you make is exactly the point I've been trying to make about jazz from the beginning and I would be pretty willing to bet that it would get similar negative opinions to the ones that have been expressed in this thread. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to define metal as a genre as being like that- I'm just saying that it's very easy to find examples where a focus on technical skill seems to be the defining feature.
I'm not really explaining myself clearly, but that isn't quite what I mean. There certainly are players in metal guilty of that theoretical overload, but they really are not as prevalent as you might think. The guys Steve was on about are the guitarists that have spent years building up their physical dexterity to the point where they can play very well, but have almost no theory knowledge, can't read music, hardly even know what the scales they use are. The Dimebag Darrells (he definitely could groove), the Dave Mustaines (who once said scales are for fish), the Jeff Hannemans (Slayer might sound basic, but theres some tricky stuff to play hidden in there) etc. No questioning their ability but they are far from the metal equivalent of jazz wanks.

In fact, thinking about it, none of the metal guitarists I've played with over the years have anything more than very, very basic theory knowledge and I'm very much in that camp too. Sure, we might still sound emotionless and lacking in feel and be all flash for the sake of it, but it's certainly not because we've studied too hard.
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Re: Jazz? It's not all wank

Post by bender »

Danger Mouse wrote: I'm not really explaining myself clearly, but that isn't quite what I mean. There certainly are players in metal guilty of that theoretical overload, but they really are not as prevalent as you might think. The guys Steve was on about are the guitarists that have spent years building up their physical dexterity to the point where they can play very well, but have almost no theory knowledge, can't read music, hardly even know what the scales they use are. The Dimebag Darrells (he definitely could groove), the Dave Mustaines (who once said scales are for fish), the Jeff Hannemans (Slayer might sound basic, but theres some tricky stuff to play hidden in there) etc. No questioning their ability but they are far from the metal equivalent of jazz wanks.

In fact, thinking about it, none of the metal guitarists I've played with over the years have anything more than very, very basic theory knowledge and I'm very much in that camp too. Sure, we might still sound emotionless and lacking in feel and be all flash for the sake of it, but it's certainly not because we've studied too hard.
You're confusing the point- I'm not talking exclusively about musical theory or academic study. Training your dexterity is still part of the same issue. It's just an emphasis on technique rather than theory. It also emphasises my original point- that the kind of playing that seems to define Jazz to most people isn't necessarily representative of the genre. What you seem to be saying is that the same is true of metal, which I completely agree with.

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