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What jazz are you listening to right now?

 
 
 
Thomas II said:
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I like Chuck, even his dreaded smooth jazz, nice guitar on that track, but also his earlier stuff, especially that period with his orchestral marching band sound.


[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mLdUFw4Xfc[/YOUTUBE]


[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEyf--n14Fs[/YOUTUBE]


He also did some more standard work. This is with Steve Gadd and Tony Levin and his frequent saxist Gerry Niewood.


[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKDh8dVk9b0[/YOUTUBE]
 
ideologyhunter said:
McCoy Tyner Quartet live at Montreux on the Enlightenment CD (a 1973 date.)
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Thanks, going to check this out now.

Actually, I think I also need to find a list of under-exposed jazz groups from back in the day. Not sure if Tyner fits that bill or not, but I definitely get caught up going with the giants as I scramble to pick something to listen to during the workday.
 


Sounding good in our new library/listening room:



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Have been enjoying this Davis/Coltrane disc over the past few days, and yet I'm reminded again of my feelings about Coltrane. I'll take Davis' trumpet instead, thanks.
 
Finally got around to Kamasi Washington's Heaven and Earth, when reminded of it by Ted Gioia's best of 2018 list. Sounds good, here's an excerpt:

 
rousseau said:
Finally got around to Kamasi Washington's Heaven and Earth, when reminded of it by Ted Gioia's best of 2018 list. Sounds good, here's an excerpt:

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Pretty cool stuff. And...the video is hypnotic.
 
Tharmas said:
rousseau said:
Finally got around to Kamasi Washington's Heaven and Earth, when reminded of it by Ted Gioia's best of 2018 list. Sounds good, here's an excerpt:

Click to expand...


Pretty cool stuff. And...the video is hypnotic.
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Well done, but seems pretty typical of most modern stuff to me, which is to say too serious.

I think where jazz lost it's way is that at some point it branded itself as serious music for serious listeners, and stopped being fun. This album is a musical accomplishment, but I can't imagine wanting to sit down and listen to it from front to back.
 
I'm not sure that "serious" music can't be fun, but then I probably tend to take all music too seriously (I was raised by professional classical musicians). Jazz started to take itself seriously some time after WWII, with Bop and Cool etc. No longer was it dance music. Ellington with "A Tone Parallel to Harlem", was being very serious, even classical in his composition. There were still some relics from when jazz was hot into the fifties and sixties, such as this take by Louis Armstrong, which really swings:

[youtube]wcUsapcOVpc[/youtube]
 
Tharmas said:
I'm not sure that "serious" music can't be fun, but then I probably tend to take all music too seriously (I was raised by professional classical musicians). Jazz started to take itself seriously some time after WWII, with Bop and Cool etc. No longer was it dance music. Ellington with "A Tone Parallel to Harlem", was being very serious, even classical in his composition. There were still some relics from when jazz was hot into the fifties and sixties, such as this take by Louis Armstrong, which really swings:

[youtube]wcUsapcOVpc[/youtube]
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Well, at least fun for people who like music that's lighthearted. I'd even consider the cool and bop eras to be in that vein. But Coltrane looks like a dividing line: after that point the genre seems to have stopped appealing to the masses.

A few years ago my partner and I saw Fred Hersch when he came to town, and the crowd was sparse enough that we were sat at a table. Seated with us was a young guy who didn't make eye contact or speak with us a single time, sipped a single beer slowly for the entire show, then disappeared. That seems like the target market for jazz musicians these days - people who want an 'intellectual or spiritual' experience when they listen.

If that's your bag fair enough, but most people don't want to listen to that, which is probably why the older guys still seem to eclipse the modern ones in popularity.

But there again, jazz may have become serious by necessity: you can't just have new Charlie Parkers every decade. And outside of that jazz seems to have taken on wider integration in other genres, rather than being a genre itself.
 
I think Jazz becoming serious music was inevitable - because it is. More a process of self discovery than an artistic or marketing decision. People heard the potential and explored it.
 
Horatio Parker said:
I think Jazz becoming serious music was inevitable - because it is. More a process of self discovery than an artistic or marketing decision. People heard the potential and explored it.
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I wonder at what point it's due to a limitation in jazz instruments. In theory, what you can do with a saxophone, trumpet, or piano should be limited within the definition of 'music'. Any of these guys could replicate Miles Davis or Bill Evans, but that's not how the industry works: there must be change

While reading Conversations in Jazz by Ralph Gleason, it sounded like Coltrane, for instance, religiously studied old records so he could find something new to do. Exploration, as you put it.

Maybe at some point genres just get dried up, and elements of them become fuzed with others (as you once mentioned). For instance, is a sax solo on a hip-hop album still 'jazz'? As it progresses it must be combined with other styles to create new sound.
 
No one says that there is nothing left for violins or orchestras to do, and that's a far older tradition.

I think Jazz's "problem" is no different than any other genre. Also, any fan can be elitist or snobbish about their music.

It's also typical for artists to seek inspiration from other sources.
 
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