Are chords Jazz or is Jazz played over chords?

[Phil Smith]

Bruce,

Are chords Jazz or is Jazz played over chords? Yes or no?

 

[Peter McFerrin]

Moreover, if inner city youth had launched the hip hop movement with harmony and instruments as opposed to rhythm and lyrics, what would be calling the resulting music?

That raises an interesting point--I've always thought of a freestyle rapper as being very much like a jazz musician. Each has a repertoire of favorite phrases, and each is expected to be fluent in his respective language. Thematic development is crucial for both--I'm a sucker for a dis on somebody's mom that can last eight bars

FWIW, I'm much more impressed with a good freestylist than some of the sorry-assed Miles and Trane wannabes who I've seen in student jazz ensembles. Something something find your own voice yadda yadda.

 

[Peter McFerrin]

Originally posted by marc40a

I thought I'd clarify this. I'm referring to the stuff that doesn't get mainstream play.

Yeah, I have a feeling that when most people put down rap, they've only been exposed to the stuff that's on MTV. It's not all about bling-bling and Thug Life.

 

[Peter McFerrin]

Originally posted by Ed Fuqua
Bottom line, I hear a lotta 8th note stuff that starts and stops in the same place in a bar, some quarter note triplet stuff that does the same thing. What I don't hear is anybody taking and developing a rhythmic composition the way that Bird or Lee Konitz or Billy or Elvin or Bu or abouta buncha other jazz players do. I don't hear the same openess and flexibility. I don't hear the interactivity and suppleness in the interplay between "soloist" and rhythm section.

Because, after all, you heard so many people who sounded like Bird and Konitz in the '30s...

Hip-hop is still a young form. It's nowhere near finished with its development. It would have been very foolish to say, "Jazz is never going to amount to a hill of beans" in 1935, which is what many people say about hip-hop today.

The trend toward live instrumentation and a more organic feel has already encouraged experimentation and interaction--even at Cornell, which ain't exactly at the vanguard of musical development (we seem to be stuck on Phish and Sublime), I have heard hip-hop groups who, while not completely improvisational, are definitely getting there.

In short, don't underestimate the potential for sophistication within the form.

 

[Peter McFerrin]

Well, hey, my grandmother thinks music went to hell when Bird made the Dorsey brothers obsolete, so one man's regression is another's progress.

Certainly, hip-hop sounds a lot less stilted now than it did 20 years ago, and a lot of rappers are very lazy with their phrasing. However, I think guys like Cannibal Ox and Outkast are quite interesting in their rhythmic approaches.

 

[Peter McFerrin]

Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield


So I have the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, which has 1,618 pages (in very small type) of albums - which are cross-referenced by thousands of musicians - and they explain why they have left out large categories of music and other formats like vinyl etc.

Dude--GREATEST BOOK EVER. My copy is so well-worn that the covers have come off!

 

[Peter McFerrin]

Originally posted by marc40a
In economic terms, is that equal to 'white lower class' ???

Speaking from a socioeconomic viewpoint, there's not a whole lot of difference between now and then....sadly so.

You're stunningly wrong, and this perception is harmful to the black middle class--which is just about 50% of black America.

Here's the thing: a lot of "the ghetto" is really middle-class housing (there are several very nice areas in Chicago and NYC that are almost 100% black) and is quite safe. It's just that blacks have historically been forced to live in those locations, because so many white suburbs were (and, unfortunately, remain) segregated de facto.

I mean, yes, 50% of African-Americans live in poverty. That's a big problem, although having grown up among impoverished rural whites I'd argue that dealing with white poverty is ultimately much more difficult. Still, there's no need to overinflate it and ignore the progress of the last 40 years.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Originally posted by Phil Smith
I've created this new thread based upon comments by Bruce Lindfield and Chris Fitzgerald in another thread.

Oh man, I'm not sure I like the way this thread is starting.... did you have to link me and Brucie up as if we were contending for a tag-team match? I mean, he's going to do most of the talking no matter what, and I don't want to be held accountable for what he says when he gets on a roll in the ring.

Bruce seems to think that the chords i.e. the progressions are what make music Jazz.

Not to defend my "partner in crime", but I think what BLUES MINEFIELD said was a bit more complicated than that. At any rate, I think he's being misunderstood...

Chris seems to think this Link Removed of a cover of Outkast's Ms Jackson is R&B. The excerpt here is an improvisation over the changes to the tune.

True, but I also said that it was only my opinion based on what I was hearing sounded like to my own personal corn-fed Kentucky ears. That doesn't make it so, it just makes it what it sounds like to me.


Countless Jazz tunes have their origins from show tunes i.e. the chord progressions from show tunes have been used as a improvisational framework.

No one is disputing this

Can the improvisation in this excerpt be considered Jazz?

Sure, if you want to call it "jazz", call it "jazz". To me it sounds like a good funk player blowing over a three chord vamp. Whatever you call it, it doesn't change anything, and I certainly won't be offended if you want to call it jazz.

Moreover, if inner city youth had launched the hip hop movement with harmony and instruments as opposed to rhythm and lyrics, what would be calling the resulting music?

I have no idea.

Just to set the record straight, what I said in the other thread was in answer to this:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Phil Smith


Jazz isn't a chord progression, the what and the how that's played over a progression is Jazz.
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Exactly my point. Smooth Jazz = R&B style over jazz changes, hence the "smooth". I'd only give the nod to the word "jazz" in the title because ATTYA is a jazz standard. But to my very bucholic ears, that excerpt was what I'd call R&B. All it needs is BOYZ TO MEN IN THE HOOD singing, "Baby, I'm so sorry I ****ed that other girl, she don't mean nothin' to me, please take me back".



Yes, jazz is a way of playing, but it is also a harmonic language. I don't know where that line is drawn, and I don't much care. And before I get labled an "elitist", I'd like to mention that in the original group I play with (Java Men, viewable at www.javamen.com ), we don't draw any boundaries between styles. Although three of us are primarily "jazz" players by label, we write tunes based on whatever we're feeling at the moment. We've got Jazz tunes, "Prog" tunes, a "Cajun" groove tune, Funk tunes, a "New Grass" sounding tune in 5/4, etc. It doesn't really matter what you call it as long as it sounds good.

And I'm not going to get drawn into any argument about where the boundaries of "Jazz" are, as I don't even pretend to know or care. I just thought that excerpt sounded like R&B to me, so I called it R&B.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Originally posted by DEAD HORSEFLAY
For my stance you might wanna review a thread called ARE JAZZ AND HIP HOP COMPATIBLE or something like that. I've already typed a buncha stuff about my view that I din't really feel like typing again. But if it raises new issues feel free to bring it back, either here or there.

What MR. FUNGUS said. We did that already in DB, and there's no point in doing it again. And as my (hopefully) final contribution to this thread, I just wanted to say that my big problem with "RAP" is that anybody who wants to call themselves a musician but can't be bothered to deal with MELODY is only a partial musician - and one who has thrown out one my favorite elements of music just because SINGING seems not to be as "stylish" as TALKING these days. To me, this is like someone claiming to be an auto mechanic, but who can't be bothered to deal with engines. Do what you want, but I'll be taking my car elsewhere...

This is a personal opinion only, of course, without any scientific evidence whatsoever being offered to back it up....and, as always, Brad Johnson could be wrong.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Originally posted by Phil Smith

The first raps over instrumentals of R&B hits were done by DJ's, commercial ones, as well as those that were spinning at clubs. This is also where the remixes of tunes occurred as the dual turn table setup became popular.

My understanding - which is very limited - was that the origins of rap came from folks imitating the way that Jamaican DJ's would spin records, talking rhythmically over the record as it played. There was one in particular...DJ COOL HERC?? (sp??)...that I understood was one of the first to really spread this practice to the states by doing it in New York before anyone else. Of course, my memory is so bad, I could be talking out of my @$$, but does any of this ring a bell?

 

[XavierG]

Link Removed

I think the article pretty much sums it up. Bottom line is, I don't think anyone can agree on what jazz is, but everyone seems to know when they hear it.

 

[Kraken]

I'll listen in on this one, I love it when Bruce gets a full head of steam!!

(even if I've been the one to get the steam there - Noone mention TAB)

Sorry folks just here to keep up with where this goes

Krakkers

 

[Howard K]

That raises an interesting point--I've always thought of a freestyle rapper as being very much like a jazz musician. Each has a repertoire of favorite phrases, and each is expected to be fluent in his respective language. Thematic development is crucial for both--I'm a sucker for a dis on somebody's mom that can last eight bars

Yeah, totally. Freestyle rap is awesomely impressive. I saw Herbaliser a few years back and they had some big dreaded rasta geezer rapping with them for few songs - he was rhyming on the spot in perfect rhythm and groove about anything everything at the gig, SO damned cool.

For what it's worth, the relevant dictionary definition I have is follows: from Collins concise dictionary
Jazz: music of US Black origin, characterised by syncopated rhythms, solo and group improvisation and a variety of harmonic idioms and instrumental techniques.

...sounds pretty good to me?

Personally, I find musical 'genre' a very hard thing to decribe.
Chords themselves can be jazzy, but this is because you associate the sound of certain chords with 'jazz'... in the same vein certain scales, melodies and harmonies are associated with 'jazz'.

I don't think there is an either-or definition.

Another idea would be to say that jazz is ANY musical improvisation over a structure.

In which case Outkast's clip mention above is in fact jazz.
I wouldn't refer to it as jazz, because jazz has become more of a record store genre than a way of playing, like punk. The attitude of punk is what defined the name for the genre, but now the genre is limited to a certain sound & style.

The guys who first played jazz in marching bands or whatever in the late 1800s maybe called their musical style 'jazz'.
But almost a hundred years later the likes of herbie hancock are recording a weirdest mix of repetative beats and synthesised noises, which purists of the earlier style might not think of as jazz.

So who's to say that jazz can't incorporate any kind of improvised music around a structure?

I think the problem is that the marketing of music (on any scale) requires it to be classified into genres.
So we think of jazz as a genre, rather than a method of making music - which I think is closer to the truth.

Howard K's definition: A method of making music defined by improvisation, usually around a common form.

 

[Howard K]

Ok there is style and attitude, but the most noticable difference is a set of extended scales and chords that "work" in Jazz but not everywhere else.

I disagree. These 'jazz chords/scales' might well work in other places, but I think this is limited by the fact that the vast majority of musicians have limited knowledge of such scales/chords and that music tends to be limited by what is and isn't commercially viable for the record label.

I'd bet 'something fairly valuable' there is probably a whole bunch of music in every genre using wacky chords, weird rhythms and exotic scales that are used in jazz, but it never gets heard because your average music buyer wants something easily accessable (Ms Dynamite for example) and therefore commmercial.
Ever heard of Squarepusher? - This guy is a trained jazz drummer and bass player (and he is sh*t hot!), who uses drum machines, live kit, synths, upright, leccy bass... everything to make fkd up drum and bass at 180 odd bpm. Fantastcially creative music, but it's difficult to listen to (as is some jazz) that it doesnt sell all that much.

Anyway, I think it is out there, but it's just hard to find.

 

[Howard K]

Well, I don't want to get into saying what Jazz is, but I can certainly say what it is not! So it is not about throwing in random "odd" or unusual chords!

I agree 110%. My hard rock band played a gig supporting a 'signed' US metal band on tour - they called themselves 'jazz-metal' because they did just that - dropped the odd chord that "wasnt a power chord" and called it jazz. It left me seething, I ranted about it for bloody hours. Not that I am able to say what jazz is, but I know that rehearsed metal with a couple of weirdy beardy chords isnt fkn jazz!
Anyway, in that statement I didn't even begin to imply that jazz was as mind numbingly simple as just throwing in a 'jazzy chord'. Don't even bloody go there!

Your original comment was "...the most noticable difference is a set of extended scales and chords that "work" in Jazz but not everywhere else"

I then suggested that I didnt think the use of these chords/scales is what defines jazz simpley because you dont hear those scales/chords played anywhere else and that it was limitations of other musical genres, the average listener and the industry that bring about the over simplification of non-jazz music, and the lack of these 'interesting' scales/chords.

If you're saying that only jazz can make good use of these extended scales/chords and what is commonly known as 'jazz theory', that's pretty damned limiting, IMO?
I also didnt say that 'squarepusher' was jazz. I used it as an example of non-jazz music that obviously uses 'jazz theory' to some degree.

The point is that there is actually a "Jazz Theory" and each chord can be explained in term of functional harmony and there is a reason for why it works "in context"!

So does this jazz theory you speak of HAVE to used in the context of jazz?

If this 'theory' can only be used in the context of jazz it kinda reduces the potential for development somewhat, don't you think?
I mean where does jazz go once it's pushing the boundaries of it's theory?

Sorry, but I think the phrase 'jazz theory' is a limitation in itself. I thought the beauty jazz was the limitless possibilities and the freedom of expression to be found in improvisation?

 

[marc40a]

Though jazz and rap are two distinctly different styles, I consider rap (the real deal, roots, street corner, freestyle stuff) to be the 'jazz' of today. Or should I say, the equivalent of what jazz used to be in it's heyday.

Rap is clearly along the same lineage as jazz as far as being an American music form based on improvisation, rooted in African tradition and pioneered by African Americans.

 

[marc40a]

Ed, I agree. I just wanted to point out that there's a direct lineage.

As far as what qualifies as jazz - we're totally on the same page.

 

[marc40a]

>>As far as hip hop and jazz, dint we have that discussion already? I still have yet to hear a "free styler" that has either the rhythmic flexibility and responsiveness of a Billy Higgins OR the melodic inventiveness of Bird....<<

Definitely not the melodic inventiveness of Bird but the artform is really pushing the boundaries of rythmic complexity vocally. So much in fact, that, like bebop was initially, it's not commercially viable or even palletable to the average listener or fan.

 

[marc40a]

>>Definitely not the melodic inventiveness of Bird but the artform is really pushing the boundaries of rythmic complexity vocally. So much in fact, that, like bebop was initially, it's not commercially viable or even palletable to the average listener or fan.<<


I thought I'd clarify this. I'm referring to the stuff that doesn't get mainstream play.

 

[marc40a]

Ed, I'm not trying to pick a fight w/ you. As I stated earlier, we're on the same page concerning most of this stuff. But.......

>>consider rap (the real deal, roots, street corner, freestyle stuff) to be the 'jazz' of today...". I don't consider it to be so, either musically or culturally. Musically for many of the reasons stated in the older thread. Culturally, because the advent and history of jazz is more about the outlet for a growing black middle class in a horribly segrated and racist society than disenfranchised youth commenting on their social strata. I'm not even sure that the statement " <<

Maybe not musically because it's not technically 'jazz' - there's really no debate there. I don't see anyone saying that rap is jazz. As far as socioeconomic class....... yeah dude, it's the same deal, except you made the mistake of saying 'black middle class'???? What does that mean?? In economic terms, is that equal to 'white lower class' ???

Speaking from a socioeconomic viewpoint, there's not a whole lot of difference between now and then....sadly so.