What a fabulous thread. I am a novice with the listening and "getting" the few jazz albums I own. There is something seductive about it for me and it is not music I can listen to casually. I love to be in bed with the lights out, candles lit and headphones on. It seems ~ hard to define ~ but sort of minimilist, making each instrument's contribution extremely important. I've listened to a fair amount of Miles Davis and generally love it ~ the diversity of On The Corner, In A Silent Way, Sketches Of Spain and others just amazes me but they are, almost from the first note, unquestionably by the same man. Please, experts, keep posting ~ I'm a thirsty student!!! And the rest of us ~ keep asking questions and discussing your journeys. Another example of the depth and generosity on the org.

I think to "get" jazz, one will need an appreciation for space.

If you think of a jazz trio, for instance -- drums, bass and piano -- consider the drums and bass as establishing a perimeter in which the pianist can exist/frolic/trudge/storm/lament/etc.

The trio can create a tight pocket for swing or a saggy 3/4 ballad. The trio can put tons of time between each note or frantically flit from measure to measure.

Space is variable. Space is important.

Space can be color: the effect that folks get by blending certain notes. What's the space between the notes? Whole steps? Half steps? The effect depends on the space. The feel from changing the bass' direction while the chords remain static... It all amounts to the effect on the listener.

Space can be time: the number of beats by which the pianist can resolve a chord or finish a phrase... But maybe he or she doesn't want to resolve or finish. Maybe the tension that can come from bending or breaking a rule will make the composition all the sweeter.

Maybe, in that instance, space is less about the technical approach and more about the tension between the expectations of a listener and what the musicians actually deliver. In this regard, I'm thinking of a band covering a well-known song. The melody is firmly established in the listener's mind. But, as he hears a new interpretation of a well-known song, there always is some tension or space between the expectation and the delivered piece.

Some new chord or voicing. Some new rhythmic approach to introduce the bridge. Some new key change to use as a vamp.

I think, to "get" jazz, one must have an ear for space ... and all its dimensions and possibilities.

theAudience said:

That's it right there...I think it's Kool to keep in mind that the jazz artist is taking a piece of music, deconstructing it, improvising with it using notes in a given scale, and reconstructing it. Along the way, that musician, with a thorough knowledge of their instrument, begins to explore a number of rhythmic and harmonic possibilities that they can rearrange with.

It's like they have to examine a piece as they're playing, and draw on their knowledge of every chord that would fit at any given part of that music and create a new line that would go along with the original notes in the melody.

But like tA said, you have to understand composition and structure before you can go about taking the structure apart. A group of good jazz players could all solo at the same time if they wanted, yet all be able to come back together on the same beat. You have to be aware of the timing, and where the other musicians are in a composition(or decomposition, lol!), no matter how wild it gets....like Branford Marsalis once said, there are some people who think they can play free and avant garde music, yet they can't even play a twelve bar blues...that's backwards, retrograde....










...
[Edited 7/4/06 6:52am]

... a library card.

To really "get" jazz one must study jazz.

Not just listen to it--listen carefully, read books on it, know its history.

Last but not least--to really get jazz you need to learn how to play jazz.
[Edited 7/2/06 13:52pm]

rushing07 said:

This may be true for most people, but some, a lucky few, are born to it.
I have the education and I played in a jazz band in uni and I believe that it helped me achieve a level of competence that I, myself might not have achieved on my own. But I know many musicians that are self taught, born to play artists that have no secular training, homegrown technique but it works for them and no amount of education would improve on what they do on their own.
Likewise, some people are natural listeners, perhaps they don't have the educated ear of a music scholar, but they know good music when they hear it.

After all, jazz is the music of the common people.

Novabreaker said:

rushing07 said:

In some ways that's true but in others it's not true at all.

As with any of the arts there are many layers of appreciation.
I will always believe the the layer that you can connect to blindly is the most important.
It's the one that's not corrupted by what you know. Without this level...the others don't matter.

Sure, the more you understand the more you will appreciate but sometimes you get so caught up in technique and the components of the whole that you forget to experience it for what it is.

It's good to learn and understand all that goes on. It's good to know what to listen/look for.
This builds appreciation on other levels.

Being the artist yourself, you will have that level of appreciation that many others won't but that doesn't mean that they can't have a full, or fuller experience.

tA mentioned all the study and discipline that went into the greatest improv guys, and that they learn it all and then forget it all. It's that way with appreciating art also. Learn all you can so that it's intuitive but then let go of it. That's the best way to fully experience.

It's not always the musician that has the fullest experience. Far too many get lost in the technicalities.

It's also fair to say that a person can "get" jazz and appreciate the history, mechanics,subtlties ect, but still not like it. To each their own.

smoke some "jazz" cigarettes and listen to "kind of blue" sometime, anx... your left and right brains will mingle and procreate to the beauty of it all

shellyevon said:

Yes, there are amazing musicians who have never read a book on music, players who never had to study scales, chord structures, etc. Still I think that have they acquainted themselves with the history and theory of genre that they are performing, such 'genius' performers would reach an even 'higher-ground' of virtuosity.

What's more, though I agree that jazz is (was?) a music of common people, still I don't believe that jazz music is about total freedom: careless playing is not enough to be a real jazz musician: first you have to know the rules to consciously break them. A three year old child can sit on a keyboard and thus violate some piano-playing rules, but it doesn't make him or her a jazz musicians, does it?

Moreover, Jazz music is more than sound--it is a mode of expression that adheres directly to the African tradition of signifying and repetition. In other words it necessarily has to comment on the recordings/compositions/performers/events of the past. This is not to say that jazz musicians must copy works of older musicians, but as Gates Jr. explains, good Jazz always comments/reverses/revisies/ridicules/appericates the past.

Following this path of reasoning, to be a good jazz musician you have to know the history, know the theory and be a pretty damn good player.
[Edited 7/3/06 6:19am]

anon said:

I agree with your statements apart from the one in bold.

While the initial response is often the most sublime and the most pleasing, yet it by no means definite. Jazz, especially bebop or the-so-called free jazz is a quite demanding type of music, and at the first listen these genres may appear too chaotic, accidental, psychedelic. Yet after a careful study--listening to representative songs over and over again--one can learn to like the noises coming out of Coltrane's sax.

As you have rightly noticed, the same goes with all art. I remember my first reading of 'Invisible man'* by Ralph Ellison. I have always had problems with books based on stream of consciousness, thus my immediate response to this novel was rather negative. I simply couldn't get what the book was about—it letft me frustrated, bored and angry. Some time later, however, I came across an interesting paper on the book, which encouraged me to seek for similar critiques in the library. After reading let's say five or six other interpretations I decided to re-read Ellison's book. That was a very good choice, for I have found a whole new meaning to the novel, in other words, thanks to the background knowledge I have learned how to appreciate it.

*I chose the 'Invisible Man' as an illustration for the book was constructed to resemble jazz performance.

To sum up, while the initial response to a work of art is important I must not be taken as definite and permanent.

PS. Notice that you can also learn to dislike a given genre. When I was 16, I used to like the swing. Nowadays, having listened to other, arguably more complex and less commercial jazz genres, I have completely lost my interest in a music style, which seemed an epitome of jazz.
[Edited 7/3/06 6:21am]

rushing07 said:

I agree with you completely, even the example of Trane. But consider Love Supreme.
With your first experiences, without understanding it or any of the history (forget even understanding Jazz at this point), you have the ability to simply listen and feel on a very pure and honest level. You may not walk away feeling that it's a "beautiful" piece of work, but you may get it on the level that transcends even music. You may feel the cries of a man...of a people. You may feel the frustration, the anger, the power...you may feel all that he felt and all that he was channeling thru his art form.

Once you understand a history and what to listen for/look for, it's easy to appreciate many things. YOu can even like something before you see or hear it based on what walk in knowing. Sure, you can enter with a knowledge that will help you to decipher...but at that point you risk the mind getting in the way of connecting on a "soul" level. Not saying that everyone will...but it's good to at least trust yourself to respond to something that you enter blindly. It may leave you feeling frustrated as the book did you. But I'm sure as you reflect back, you get why you responded the way you did. Maybe it was the timing and pace that threw you off. Maybe you were frustrated because you went in expecting it to conform to your norm instead of you letting it lead in the journey.

I don't believe that at all.

I've never really been into jazz but I did start paying attention to it with an open mind when shit hop took over R&B and I got bored as hell. I've noticed some jazz sounds slightly funky. I can see myself eventually getting into it one day enough to buy a full fledged "jazz" album.

I'm not sure you need to have an ear for anything. You just need to listen to it a lot with an open mind. Jazz is like a different language, so you can't just expect to "get it" by listening for this or that.

You need to spend enough time with it so it begins to make sense on its own terms.

Once again, I agree with most of what you said.

Yet, I get the impression that at times we are talking about two essentially different things. I feel that you, quite justly, are arguing that one can 'like' jazz without knowing anything about it. I strongly concur this stance. When I first heard Love Supreme I knew nothing about its history; who recorded it, why and when. I loved the song, nonetheless, and decided to buy the album, which I also enjoyed.

Now here is the difference--you can easily 'enjoy', 'like' or even 'feel' music without knowing the first thing about it, but IMO you cannot really 'get' the music without paying closer attention to it. By that, I mean not only reading history books on the genre but to LISTEN to it, analyze and memorize it--in other words, LEARN it.

Consider--I know a girl who loves Spanish--she likes the overall sound of this language. Yet, she doesn't know Spanish at all--she has absolutely no understanding of what the Spanish-speaking people are talking about. Simply put, although she likes the language, she doesn't get it.

I realize that music governs itself with rules different to those of languages.
Language-use essentially involves author’s intention to convey a message. In art things are not so simple.

There are many different approaches to art interpretation an many questions that one must answer (to himself/herself) before analyzing a work of art: do we need the author?, do we want to decipher his/her message?, is it relevant to know what the author wanted to say?, or maybe its all about the reader/listener/audience. Maybe we make the music and its meanings when we listen to it?

There are no definite answers on this matter—probably there will never be and that why all of the above-quoted statements should be read as my personal beliefs. I don’t claim that I am the only one right—I’m too young and too inexperienced to make such a claim.

I myself believe in moderate formalism, as laid down by Toni Morrison, who said (paraphrase) that in interpreting art it is useful to adhere to the technique of close listening / reading but merged with close analysis of context, of which a given work grew out.

Studying art in such a manner is precisely what I mean by ‘getting’ music/literature/painting.
[Edited 7/3/06 14:49pm]

rushing07 said:

so you'd say that jazz is music recorded strictly for the enjoyment of other musicians?

Anx said:

I wouldn't say "strictly" but musicians can be a vain lot. "This'll get 'em. This run right here, during this chord, over this beat. This'll get 'em..."

ThreadBare said:

i always thought that was the purpose of steve vai albums.

ThreadBare said:

There is a bit of that.

Anx said:

I never made such a claim.
I refer you to my previous post where I explain the difference between 'enjoying' and 'getting' music.
[Edited 7/4/06 3:18am]

CinisterCee said:

There is and there should be some of this.
[Edited 7/4/06 3:18am]

theAudience said:

It's too bad that he's gone the corny way .
His work with the Jeff Lorber Fusion was cool .





http://audiophileimports....p?id2=1223

http://audiophileimports....p?id2=1224

100MPH said:

i own thi...erm, i've seen this around!

it's mainly your general issue collection of bootleggage, with a couple of tracks allegedly recorded with miles.

Louis Armstrong:

“Man, if you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.”

“What we play is life.”

“Jazz is played from the heart. You can even live by it. Always love it.”

“There’s only two ways to sum up music; either it’s good or it’s bad. If it’s good you don’t mess about it, you just enjoy it.”

“Jazz is what I play for a living.”

“Jazz is played from the heart. You can even live by it. Always love it.”

“The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago.”

“I don’t need words — it’s all in the phrasing.”

“If they act to hip, you know they can’t play shit!”

“Hot can be cool, and cool can be hot, and each can be both. But hot or cool, man, jazz is jazz.”

“Never play anything the same way twice.”

“To jazz, or not to jazz, there is no question!”
'Nuff said....