Are jazz musicians musical elitists?

[buldog5151bass]

Play a 12 bar blues the right way takes just as much time as learning jazz. You're just learning different things. Do you really think that people like BB King or Sonny Boy Williamson or Paul Butterfield, or to mention bass players, someone like Tommy Shannon, just took a week to learn the twelve bar form and then started playing the way they did?

If you don't get that, then you don't understand blues and/or you're a "jazz snob".

No.

 

[Shortie]

No.

Yes.

 

[buldog5151bass]

Yes.

Objectively, no. Even jazz songs based on a 12 bar blues progressions tend to have more complicated chord progressions and chord substitutions, never mind different and more complex rhythms. And the 12 bar blues format is only a small portion of jazz song formats.

As I have said, I prefer blues, both listening and playing, but jazz is much more complex. And I play both with bands on a weekly basis.

 

[Shortie]

but jazz is much more complex.

You did not understand my post. I suggest you read it again..

As I have said, I prefer blues, both listening and playing,

Ditto. When I was younger, I listened to a lot of jazz because I was blown away by the chops that jazzmen show. These days, I mostly find it boring - listening and playing. I would much rather stretch out and mess with a good blues or funk riff that's musically simple, than falling asleep while playing a walking line even if it's 32 bars with 28 changes.

 

[Pdaddy1978]

Pop has always gotten the sneers of jazzmen. Glen Miller used to be scorned by the Benny Goodmen and Duke Ellington's in his era. But the elitism mostly exist's within their own circles. His recordings outsold them 10 to 1. That's why they call it "pop", because it's popular.

 

[vmabus]

No, man. Jazz is coming back, and it'll be bigger than ever!
There will be plenty of work for all of us. Just you wait...

 

[Jean Rodriguez]

Pop has always gotten the sneers of jazzmen. Glen Miller used to be scorned by the Benny Goodmen and Duke Ellington's in his era. But the elitism mostly exist's within their own circles. His recordings outsold them 10 to 1. That's why they call it "pop", because it's popular.

I like to take my bass amp, connect an aux chord to it and jam out to the songs and genres which they consider to be boring and not up to their standards of expertise at every seminar that I go to. The stink eye that they give me because the volume doesn't allow them to play "A night in Tunisia" or "Blue Bossa" for millionth time while indulging in a 10 minute solo is priceless to me xD

 

[Steven Ayres]

No, man. Jazz is coming back, and it'll be bigger than ever!
There will be plenty of work for all of us. Just you wait...

I play jazz because that's where a lot of the available gigs are around here. The 'jazz is dead' meme just isn't true.

 

[Jean Rodriguez]

I play jazz because that's where a lot of the available gigs are around here. The 'jazz is dead' meme just isn't true.

I will agree to that. There are a crapload of jazz gigs here in Puerto Rico. Ironically enough, two of the members from the previous rock band that I was in approached me about forming a jazz trio so that we can make some money. I don't mind that. All we have to do is download a Real Book PDF off of google and start picking out the standards that everyone knows. Lucky for me, I know a few of them by heart at this point

 

[Shortie]

r is it just something that the jazz players here in Puerto Rico do?

It has nothing to do with Puerto Rico, it has to do with the attitude of certain musicians. Some jazz musicians are definitely 'musical snobs' although I believe that's less prevalent now than it was in the past. People like Jaco came along and broke down some of those barriers.

But only some - others are open minded and understand that different sorts of music require different sorts of skills and have different sorts of appeal to different groups. It's not a competition.

 

[buldog5151bass]

It's not a matter of what is more popular, or more enjoyable (9 out of 10 times when I put on the radio, I'll tune in a rock or blues station). But jazz is a much more complex music form than blues - as I said, jazz includes the 12 bar format, but often more complex both with regard to chord structure and rhythm - and that is only one small part of the groups of jazz standards.

I will agree there are jazz snobs - just as there are metal snobs, fine art snobs, etc.

And @Steven Ayres - I gotta spend more time in Arizona...

 

[whatizitman]

Elitists exist in every genre.

'Round these parts there are few bluegrass/old timey snobs, unfortunately. It's sad, because outside of newer alt-country stuff, real bluegrass and old-timey traditions are dying. Not a lot of kids learning the ways, as it were. There is always some NPR bit about groups outreaching to younger generations to take up the craft to keep it alive. Well, if younger and newer players aren't allowed in the circles until they 'earn' their wings, it could limit things a bit, no?

There's that. But for me the cost and toil of buying, maintaining, and transporting a double bass is beyond me. And I couldn't flatpick guitar to bluegrass to save my life. So, no oldtimey for me, I'm afraid. Oh well.

 

[Robroy]

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

Jazz is full of elitists because it is difficult to learn. Rock is full of elitists who feel their better than jazz players, they didn't need fancy "theory" or how to read. Metal is full of elitist who are better than anybody who doesn't like their specific brand of metal.

I could go on. There are elitists in all genres, not just jazz.

Just for the record, The Dude abides, and I take comfort in that.

 

[Chalotrejo]

It might be just a "narrow minded" form of thinking from some younger snobby jazz players, I know the feeling. Modern music use a set of tools that you learn, and then you apply to any kind of musical form, be it jazz, rock, folk, salsa, merengue. I was classically trained, but in my teens I wanted to play rock and roll, got an electric and give it a go. Then, fusion jazz become all the rage, and I wanted to be a part of it but had a hard time getting gigs because I wasn't a known jazz player and couldn't play it well at first. It took some time to get used to the fact that a lot of jazz music is written harmonically, and you HAVE to improvise always (walking bass is improvisation as such). In an orchestra, or a rock band, you play the written notes or the "bass line" that defines the song. The learning curve will happen in any form of music you get into. I'll say learn music, reading, writing, arranging, improvisation, It won't make you lose your rocker skills at all, and It'll make you a better musician. A lot of rock bass players are well trained musicians, like John Paul Jones or John Deacon.

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

Try playing with a classical musician. At least IME, it gets even worse.

Just recalled an occasion from long ago when trying such folly. Classically trained pianist. I said play a C major chord. I got a terrified deer in the headlights stare. (audition over)

 

[Robroy]

Funny, we've just seen the 'elitist' meme in the bluegrass and classical disciplines, maybe it was inevitable that the spotlight turns to jazzers. I said my piece on that here. But I'd like to address the question of why workshops tend to focus on jazz, speaking as an R&B guy who can get by in the jazz context.

If you're taking a workshop, I'll presume that you want to learn more about music and how to handle your instrument. To me that means deeper understanding of harmony, rhythm and melodic structures, technique and tonal control, yes, but most important is learning how reach inside, find your own music and express it. Jazz is where all those aspects come together.

Jazz has always been about starting with the familiar and actively seeking ways to go deeper and express wider. What you learn in that realm informs and expands your knowledge and facility with any kind of music. You don't have to have a special affinity for the song "All of Me" to appreciate what a master musician can do with it, and that's the real lesson.

Musicality, technical skill and harmonic complexity may have generally fallen out of favor in popular music since the '80s, when nihilistic punkers decided that knowing anything was elitist and the rappers tossed melody out the window in favor of mechanical contrivance and dance moves, but for musicians those choices are self-limiting.

I strongly agree with your points, however, I think music is like pizza. When you get it every day, you find yourself moving on from the "familiar and actively seeking ways to go deeper and express wider". In my case, it meant acquiring a taste for anchovies on my pizza.

But most people still don't like anchovies on their pizza.

 

[steelbed45]

Just recalled an occasion from long ago when trying such folly. Classically trained pianist. I said play a C major chord. I got a terrified deer in the headlights stare. (audition over)

...sure.

Edit: who are the elitists we're talking about again?

 

[buldog5151bass]

Try playing with a classical musician. At least IME, it gets even worse.

Really depends. The sax player in my jazz band was a performance major at Berklee School of Music - the whole "spend days transcribing Bird's solos and memorizing them in all 12 keys" etc. Put him in front of a blues band and he can go nuts. Joe Satriani was classically trained, as well as in jazz.

It's not a matter of what amount of training you had, but what you do with it.

 

[blue4]

Elitists exist in every genre.

'Round these parts there are few bluegrass/old timey snobs, unfortunately. It's sad, because outside of newer alt-country stuff, real bluegrass and old-timey traditions are dying. Not a lot of kids learning the ways, as it were. There is always some NPR bit about groups outreaching to younger generations to take up the craft to keep it alive. Well, if younger and newer players aren't allowed in the circles until they 'earn' their wings, it could limit things a bit, no?

There's that. But for me the cost and toil of buying, maintaining, and transporting a double bass is beyond me. And I couldn't flatpick guitar to bluegrass to save my life. So, no oldtimey for me, I'm afraid. Oh well.

Yeah the way to NOT excite your kids about bluegrass is to constantly hammer them with "that's not how grandpa did it."

 

[twinjet]

Secretly, I am an elitist. I find that jazz takes more brain power to understand and play well than anything else. But you don't have to take my word for it.