New Content
- 01/03/2009 - 19:19
- 12/31/2008 - 22:33
- 12/31/2008 - 22:33
- 12/31/2008 - 22:32
- 12/31/2008 - 22:31
Random Image
Latest Interviews
Stephen Romano
by Joshua Jabcuga
George Gallo
by Christopher Stipp
Clark Gregg
by Dennis Widmyer
Amy Hempel
by Rob Hart
Search For Books
Our Social Networks
Jazz Music
I have been playing saxophone for 17 years. I have thousands of CDs. I've read countless books and biographies on this music. I have access to many professional musicians in cities throughout the country (ones that you have heard of but I will not name, but who I would gladly ask any questions and post them). This is a weird topic, but is one that is kind of specialized and would help anyone that is working on things based in NY, chicago, New Orleans, etc.
Who would you say is really on the bleeding edge of Jazz music these days, and where would you draw the line between progressive jazz and simply avant-garde?!
And, is there any strong new and young forces out there nowdays working the old standards but with a very fresh and 21st century sensibility?!
Anyways, those are my bigtime fancy questions for now...
Well, I'll offer this:
[URL=http://charliehunter.com/][B]Charlie Hunter[/B][/URL]: He's an unbelievable guitarist, he plays these custom made 8 string guitars and he actually covers the bass line, chords and lead line all at once.
He does solo stuff, trio stuff (with himself and 2 drummers) and quintet stuff.
There's audio and video of him playing on his website and it's definitely worth checking out. You won't believe it's one guy playing all that stuff on one guitar. Even if you have a slow connection, it's worth it to watch one of these videos.
[B]Diana Krall[/B]: She's pretty young, maybe early thirties, and she has a very simple approach to old and not so old jazz stuff. She's a singer with an incredible voice, I think.
But that's all I know... I'll get out of the way now.
I love Jazz music.
I used to date a jazz singer and she learned me up on the subject. Now when I watch it performed live I can see the interaction between the players. It completely changed my perception.
Would you talk about that interaction and how it's different from playing rock music?
Please kick us a few recommendations on what to pick up at our local cd emporium. (as Moonie suggested)
[QUOTE=succotash moon]Who would you say is really on the bleeding edge of Jazz music these days, and where would you draw the line between progressive jazz and simply avant-garde?!
And, is there any strong new and young forces out there nowdays working the old standards but with a very fresh and 21st century sensibility?!
Anyways, those are my bigtime fancy questions for now...[/QUOTE]
Good questions. I'll do my best to answer them although those kind of cover a lot of ground.
Jazz really stopped being “progressive” in its pure form in the late 60s. Specifically with the end on the two best bands in the history of the music: John Coltrane’s Quartet (Tyner, Garrison, Jones) and Miles Davis’ Quintet (Shorter, Hancock, Williams, Carter). To me, all the best jazz music that has been recorded over the life of the music has been made by musicians who form a band with other musicians that compliment them, and they get somewhere with it. Really, if you think about, just about all music that is considered “great” is made this way.
Anyway, after those bands split up, jazz slipped into what I deem “the grey area”, because of Miles Davis. (Before I go on, I love a lot of the music I am talking about here, so if it sounds like I am speaking of it in a derogatory manner; just know that is not the case. Bitches Brew is one of my favorite records, but I don’t really consider it to be jazz in its pure form). Anyway, after Miles started to include electrified music into jazz, it started a trend that has really lasted up until now. Jazz has become a fusion of all types of music, which it originally was when it started back in New Orleans, with blues and gospel, but it has become very convoluted and has many forms that cross a wide-variety of genres..
I could go on forever, but for the sake of getting to your questions, I believe the best working jazz musicians today are two that have working bands that are getting somewhere musically and spiritually by sticking together. These are the Branford Marsalis Quartet (with Joey Calderazzo, Eric Revis, and Jeff Tain Watts) and Wayne Shorter’s Quartet (with Danilo Perez, John Patitucci, and Brian Blade). This is how I see jazz progressing. You can only add so many electrified instruments, new sounds, etc. etc. into the music—its all been done, and the net effect is that Jazz has become such a broad term it is being applied to many things that don’t have the essence of the music there anymore. Jazz has to have empathy, knowledge of the blues, and swing.
And here is where things get touchy: I just said that, and that pisses people off because someone they love plays music that is deemed jazz but falls out of that category, and they get offended -- Like it has to be called Jazz for some reason to be considered relevant. Jazz does not equal “good”. There has been a plethora and will continue to be plenty of music in the jazz idiom that sucks. I mean really, really sucks. I don’t really consider any of Miles’ later music jazz, but I love it all the same. Just because it is filed there in the record store does not make sense. People are too obsessed with labels these days.
The line between progressive jazz and avant-garde is a blurry one, but really, once you start applying jazz sensibilities to music and start moving away from the swing feel into free-time, you cross the line over to avant-garde. The best working AG musician out there to me is David S. Ware. He’s the real deal. There are probably plenty in the avant-garde that I have not thoroughly studied enough to be very authoritative in talking about it. Ornette Coleman is the man to start with.
As for young musicians that are playing standards with 21stth Century sensibility, there are a few, but most are playing their own music most of the time. I think Keith Jarrett is the pinnacle of doing this, although he is hardly young. Brad Mehldau is a good one, and he throws in lots of pop-crossovers too. I think his last 3 or four records have had a Radiohead tune on them. Don Byron is another. And one of my favorites is Bill Frisell – that dude can take a guitar and play everything from Louis Armstrong to Madonna and have it feel like jazz and be relevant.
[QUOTE=rkdaley]I love Jazz music.
I used to date a jazz singer and she learned me up on the subject. Now when I watch it performed live I can see the interaction between the players. It completely changed my perception.
Would you talk about that interaction and how it's different from playing rock music?
Please kick us a few recommendations on what to pick up at our local cd emporium. (as Moonie suggested)[/QUOTE]
The interaction is really similar in a lot of aspects to plying rock music except that rock is usually based on a 4/4 feel, has little to no improvisation, has a driving bass and drum line and has an ABA form, so there is really not a whole lot of room for the song to evlove other than changing the dynamic range. Even bands considered on the edge of rock like radiohead don't really improvise that much, so the tunes stay fairly static every time they play them.
If you listen to good jazz bands, the songs they play will vastly differ every time they play it. I have a ton of bootlegs of Wayne Shorters current band, and one tune specifically, callned Masquelero (which he played when he was in Miles band) sounds completely different everytime they play it. I mean completely. They start on a theme and it just goes where it goes.
The best way I can describe it is this--you know when you are writing and the words just start to flow and you kind of zone out and get to that place where it is all happening but you just seem to be outside your own mind in a way? Imagine sitting in a room with 3 other people and finding a way to communicate together like that. That's what it feels like when it gets there.
As far as records, here are some that should give good examples of some of the things I have talked about above, and that almost everyone would enjoy:
Wayne Shorter Quartet - Footprints Live
Branford Marsalis Quartet - Eternal
John Coltrane - Crescent (the best one. trust me)
Mile Davis - Filles de Killmanjaro. (there is also a box set called Live at the Plugged Nickel that is my favorite. But its pricey).
Keith Jarrett - Whisper Not
Make sure you guys get me in the next mix CD exchange and I'll hook you up with some good stuff. Or I could make one and send it to all that want it. I'm down for whatever.
[QUOTE=ireLocus]Well, I'll offer this:
[URL=http://charliehunter.com/][B]Charlie Hunter[/B][/URL]: He's an unbelievable guitarist, he plays these custom made 8 string guitars and he actually covers the bass line, chords and lead line all at once.
He does solo stuff, trio stuff (with himself and 2 drummers) and quintet stuff.
There's audio and video of him playing on his website and it's definitely worth checking out. You won't believe it's one guy playing all that stuff on one guitar. Even if you have a slow connection, it's worth it to watch one of these videos.
[B]Diana Krall[/B]: She's pretty young, maybe early thirties, and she has a very simple approach to old and not so old jazz stuff. She's a singer with an incredible voice, I think.
But that's all I know... I'll get out of the way now.[/QUOTE]
Charlie Hunter is a great great musician. I love his music. But to me, he is an example of one of those guys that has been labeled jazz that isn't really playing what is jazz music. Doesn't diminish it in any way. Labels are dumb. But yeah, he is pretty crazy playing all that at once.
Diana Krall is good. Harry Connick Jr. is actually a FANTASTIC piano player and musician and has made tons of great records. the fact that he is a phenomenal musician get lost in the fact that he is a movie and television star, but make no mistake, he is a bad motherfucker and has the respect of the music community.
[QUOTE=budfox]The interaction is really similar in a lot of aspects to plying rock music except that rock is usually based on a 4/4 feel, has little to no improvisation, has a driving bass and drum line and has an ABA form, so there is really not a whole lot of room for the song to evlove other than changing the dynamic range. Even bands considered on the edge of rock like radiohead don't really improvise that much, so the tunes stay fairly static every time they play them.
If you listen to good jazz bands, the songs they play will vastly differ every time they play it. I have a ton of bootlegs of Wayne Shorters current band, and one tune specifically, callned Masquelero (which he played when he was in Miles band) sounds completely different everytime they play it. I mean completely. They start on a theme and it just goes where it goes.
The best way I can describe it is this--you know when you are writing and the words just start to flow and you kind of zone out and get to that place where it is all happening but you just seem to be outside your own mind in a way? Imagine sitting in a room with 3 other people and finding a way to communicate together like that. That's what it feels like when it gets there.
As far as records, here are some that should give good examples of some of the things I have talked about above, and that almost everyone would enjoy:
Wayne Shorter Quartet - Footprints Live
Branford Marsalis Quartet - Eternal
John Coltrane - Crescent (the best one. trust me)
Mile Davis - Filles de Killmanjaro. (there is also a box set called Live at the Plugged Nickel that is my favorite. But its pricey).
Keith Jarrett - Whisper Not
Make sure you guys get me in the next mix CD exchange and I'll hook you up with some good stuff. Or I could make one and send it to all that want it. I'm down for whatever.[/QUOTE]
I didn't finish my thoughs on the interaction in rock music. The basics of interaction are there in rock but are more thought out in before-hand, whereas jazz they happen organically. Its more magical in a way.
Sorry, the way I wrote that above sounds like I was being a smartass, but that was not my intent.
The thing that always fascinated me so much was how really jazz sorta progressed to the point of really blowing itself wide open and apart, and in a way mirroring in both action and time the progression of modern art into the conceptual and postmodern...
It's been quite some time since I even listened to a jazz album, I don't know why I really feel out of it, but when I was younger, late highschool and early college, it is all I ever listened to. I played bass for years, trying to digest as much as I could, but when I stopped playing bass, I stopped listening to Jazz...it's been a while...
Anyways, unfortunately there is far more I have forgotten than I remember, but I still know what I liked...
I listened to and breathed everything Paul Chambers worked on, if there was one bassist I really strove to mirror, it was him. My introduction to him was my Teacher handing me a copy of Giant Steps and saying, "Learn this!" We probably spent a year working start to finish through everything on that album...I know it back to front, and yet didn't even scratch the surface, what a great fucking album...
Anyways, what was I talking about?!
[QUOTE=budfox]I have been playing saxophone for 17 years. I have thousands of CDs. I've read countless books and biographies on this music. I have access to many professional musicians in cities throughout the country (ones that you have heard of but I will not name, but who I would gladly ask any questions and post them). This is a weird topic, but is one that is kind of specialized and would help anyone that is working on things based in NY, chicago, New Orleans, etc.[/QUOTE]
are you black?
So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historically and otherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby-Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory.
[QUOTE=succotash moon]The thing that always fascinated me so much was how really jazz sorta progressed to the point of really blowing itself wide open and apart, and in a way mirroring in both action and time the progression of modern art into the conceptual and postmodern...
It's been quite some time since I even listened to a jazz album, I don't know why I really feel out of it, but when I was younger, late highschool and early college, it is all I ever listened to. I played bass for years, trying to digest as much as I could, but when I stopped playing bass, I stopped listening to Jazz...it's been a while...
Anyways, unfortunately there is far more I have forgotten than I remember, but I still know what I liked...
I listened to and breathed everything Paul Chambers worked on, if there was one bassist I really strove to mirror, it was him. My introduction to him was my Teacher handing me a copy of Giant Steps and saying, "Learn this!" We probably spent a year working start to finish through everything on that album...I know it back to front, and yet didn't even scratch the surface, what a great fucking album...
Anyways, what was I talking about?![/QUOTE]
Yeah, Giant Steps is one of those records with so much technical information that it would take a lifetime to digest. Part of the problem with jazz is that people take that record specifically and use it codify Coltrane's playing into a series of patterns and use that as a foundation to learn to play. so jazz becomes kind of rehashed in a sense, when the reality is, that album doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of where Coltrane would get to musically.
Jazz is a language. You don't learn to speak/read by hearing a person speak a series of sentences and then taking those specific phrases and repackaging them in different forms. You learn by hearing the language and then using your knowledge to communcate and express yourself. So jazz really can't be learned by just playing Coltrane-esque patterns because it destroys the organic and spiritual nature of the music. Allthough learning from those records would give someone the tools to later make a statement.
[QUOTE=budfox]Yeah, Giant Steps is one of those records with so much technical information that it would take a lifetime to digest. Part of the problem with jazz is that people take that record specifically and use it codify Coltrane's playing into a series of patterns and use that as a foundation to learn to play. so jazz becomes kind of rehashed in a sense, when the reality is, that album doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of where Coltrane would get to musically.[/QUOTE]
Would you say that maybe Kind of Blue is the same for Miles Davis?! A sorta everything-I-know-about-jazz-I-learned-from albums
[QUOTE=succotash moon]Would you say that maybe Kind of Blue is the same for Miles Davis?! A sorta everything-I-know-about-jazz-I-learned-from albums[/QUOTE]
Yep. Those are the two records that seem to be the most touted and studied. The worst part is that in both cases they don't hold a candle to the artists' later work.
[QUOTE=budfox]Charlie Hunter is a great great musician. I love his music. But to me, he is an example of one of those guys that has been labeled jazz that isn't really playing what is jazz music. Doesn't diminish it in any way. Labels are dumb. But yeah, he is pretty crazy playing all that at once. [/QUOTE]
I'll give you that, I suppose, because it really becomes a semantics game at that point.
I'd love to get my mits on one of those 8 string beasts. Seriously.
.jpg "Dr.Jekyll8Mr.Hyde's picture")
Ah man.. one of my guitar teachers was really into jazz.. I learned so much from those classses (being that at the time, I wasn't into jazz [I am now], thus having quite the undiscovered pool to learn from)... We used to play/jam to lots of Monk & Coltrane in those classes... I miss those days.. the next student's session was always late. ;) ...I've gotta get back to that stuff.
Straight, no chaser...
~t
P:S: I got your disc mailed today.
If anyone is writing a bit that involves jazz musicians and wants to do research, most jazz players are very easily reached. They need work, they don't keep unlisted phone numbers. Most HMO executives have larger fan bases.
Yeah, there's superstars like Pat Metheny. Good luck if you want to talk to him, I've been friends with his big brother (the self proclaimed Latoya Jackson of jazz) for over ten years and never met Pat.
But Pat Martino, he chatted me up for a couple of hours after the first show I caught. And the next time I saw him, first thing he asked was how my girls were, and this was almost a year later. I guess amnesia makes for a memory fetish, but still, not exactly inaccessable.
Plus, because the art is so commercially marginal, most of the Stan Gets/Sonny Stitt sort of asshole players are long gone. With so few gigs, why would anyone call a guy with bad social skills? There's cats who can play and who are easy to deal with. The same thing that makes them popular with other players makes them an easy nut for a curious fan.
Hell, most people in general, you ask them questions about themselves, they look at you like you're Zeus. Jazz musicans are no different.
If someone were not particularly into jazz, like myself, not for any real dislike or anything but more a "meh, it all sounds the same, no big whoop." What would you (or any of the afficiandos here) suggest as [b][u]The One Album[/b][/u] to get to really see and experience that best of what jazz can be or do?
Whats the one of Miles' thats always in the top ten of greatest albums of all time? is it really that far superior to everything else?
So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historically and otherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby-Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory.
[QUOTE=nathaniel parker]If someone were not particularly into jazz, like myself, not for any real dislike or anything but more a "meh, it all sounds the same, no big whoop." What would you (or any of the afficiandos here) suggest as [b][u]The One Album[/b][/u] to get to really see and experience that best of what jazz can be or do?
Whats the one of Miles' thats always in the top ten of greatest albums of all time? is it really that far superior to everything else?[/QUOTE]
Well, that's gong to get a different answer from pretty much any fan. I mean, I don't think 'Crescent' is the top of Coltrane's stack. I think of 'Giant Steps' 'Coltrane's Sound' 'Blue Trane,' and then I think of the great free jazz albums he did, 'Sun Ship' and 'A Love Supreme,' and so on.
If it connects with you, that first album is like the first hit of heroin, it becomes what you come back for, that chill down the spine, that sense of intensely knowing this sound was so right.
'Kind of Blue' is the Miles album that most people start with, but if you turn out to like fusion, 'You're Under Arrest' might be where to go. Or 'Bitches Brew.'
Pat Metheny's 'Bright Size Life' started me off, but for someone else it might be Thelonious Monk's 'Brilliant Corners' or Sonny Rollins' 'Saxophone Colossus.'
What is his "BIG" album though? i can't remember the title of it for the life of me but I know i'd recognize it if I saw the name
So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historically and otherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby-Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory.
[QUOTE=Underscore]Ah man.. one of my guitar teachers was really into jazz.. I learned so much from those classses (being that at the time, I wasn't into jazz [I am now], thus having quite the undiscovered pool to learn from)... We used to play/jam to lots of Monk & Coltrane in those classes... I miss those days.. the next student's session was always late. ;) ...I've gotta get back to that stuff.
Straight, no chaser...
~t
P:S: I got your disc mailed today.[/QUOTE]
LOL. Straight no chaser is on the mix CD I sent you. Sent yours yesterday.
[QUOTE=jane s.]What do you think is Davis' best work, then?[/QUOTE]
Best work for me is really anything he did with his Quintet that involved Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams.
My favorite stuff of his is the box set Live at the Plugged Nickel.
If you had to pin me down and make me pick an album though, I would say "Miles Smiles" for his Quintet, and "Round About Midnight" for his work with Coltrane.
[QUOTE=nathaniel parker]What is his "BIG" album though? i can't remember the title of it for the life of me but I know i'd recognize it if I saw the name[/QUOTE]
Miles' biggest and most popular record, which happens to be the best selling jazz record of all time is Kind of Blue. Its not a bad place to start.
In my experience, when I give people a stack of stuff to listen to, the one record the seem to gravitate toward is John Coltrane - Blue Trane.
Copyright 2008 - A Writers Cult, LLC
Joined: 2006-06-01
From: