Double Bass Christian McBride's short bebop masterclass.

[Co.]

I think, what makes music truly modern is not the "sound" but the approach. You can make very modern music with a piano trio or a string quartett, if your approach is a fresh one.
With Kamasi, I hear a sound, that is more contemporary than an acoustic jazz group, but the approach is very conservative. To me it sounds like an updated Buckshot Le Fonque. No problem with that, but it really has already been done.
I wouldn't think too much about the word "modern" in the McBride video. It is a great demonstration and the second solo and walking is definetely a more modern approach than the first one. I wouldn't think too much, whether it is "modern" in an absolute sense. What is that anyway? What modern is in a jazz context might be 100 years old in a contemporary music context and vice versa.

 

[Roger Davis]

I suppose 'modern' means different things to different people. I was extolling the virtues of my favourite modern jazz groups, mainly from the bop era and beyond, to a well known British Trad leader. Modern, he scoffed, that was sixty years ago! He had a point, I think.

 

[oliebrice]

There are two bassists on it for chrissake. This ain't your momma's Clifford and Strings...

Duke Ellington was using two bassists in the 1930s...

 

[damonsmith]

The criticism of pop and progress has to do with the rhythmic ideas involved. A boxed in, static rhythm is a ten steps back from the earlier jazz. End of story.
Relating to contemporary culture is one thing, moving the music to a new place is another.
Christian plays a lot of music with a lot of people. There is this:

If progress and modernism means interfacing with pop to you, then the guy also plays with Sting and other pop projects.
When you look at the avant garde, ideas move fast, but at the same time, the ideas need time to develop and move forward before they are abandoned. If we look at classical composition, few listeners and performers have come to terms with Webern, much less Cage and Xenakis, few reading this will have any idea about the Wandelweiser movement.
If was to say who was at the forefront of jazz innovation right now I'd say it was Roscoe Mitchell. It is not a quick turn over like pop music. The idea has to be born are worked through by many different hands to get anywhere.

Lastly, even I don't think "new" is the end all be all. I am not willing to go as far as some of my colleagues with that as the primary value.
In visual art the new ideas are very often refined into a pure version of just the idea.
In music, we often use the style we are playing in to frame a few new ideas mixed with older ones, the older ideas serve as a frame and a context. When Christian "plays like Paul Chambers" he is using that to frame the ideas he has from his own experiences.

 

[damonsmith]

I
With Kamasi, I hear a sound, that is more contemporary than an acoustic jazz group, but the approach is very conservative. To me it sounds like an updated Buckshot Le Fonque. No problem with that, but it really has already been done.

At his best, I feel like he finds some juice in the old Eddie Gale and Donald Byrd Blue note albums with choirs, as well as picking up some strands of Alice Coltrane. Some people in my world get down on him, but I feel he has some strong ideas and predict there is a lot more to come from him.

 

[Don Kasper]

At his best, I feel like he finds some juice in the old Eddie Gale and Donald Byrd Blue note albums with choirs, as well as picking up some strands of Alice Coltrane. Some people in my world get down on him, but I feel he has some strong ideas and predict there is a lot more to come from him.

Yikes.
White Hooded Robes on the album cover?
Just sayin'.

 

[M0ses]

If progress and modernism means interfacing with pop to you, then the guy also plays with Sting and other pop projects.

No, not exactly what I was trying to say when I said "borrowing from pop is jazz's oldest tradition."
I did get another good chuckle out of this one, tho. You know Sting is absolutely ancient by pop and rock standards, right?

Anyway here's another track I but I suppose gospel-jazz-rap has totally been done in and out already, too, hasn't it? At least it's not so "boxed in, static rhythm"-ey.

 

[damonsmith]

Anyway here's another track I but I suppose gospel-jazz-rap has totally been done in and out already, too, hasn't it? At least it's not so "boxed in, static rhythm"-ey.

This is different in that it is pop borrowing from jazz ideas to get somewhere pop hasn't quite been, that direction has more promise than the other direction.

 

[ctrlzjones]

This is different in that it is pop borrowing from jazz ideas to get somewhere pop hasn't quite been, that direction has more promise than the other direction.

This is a good perspective. The only thing is that there are those (prominent in this very same thread) who are seeing it the other way around: jazz borrowing from pop. And they are ready to fight for it. Their motivation might be an interesting subject matter.

 

[Paul New]

If music with actual musical content is not modern, I don't care.

 

[M0ses]

Personally, I would not categorize Kendrick Lamar's music as "pop" in much of any way at all, in spite of the fact that it is very popular at the moment. I can trace the lineage from Billie Ellish back to the Beatles, tho they don't appear to sound much alike, but I don't hear rap anywhere in that chain. And there are many devotees who would argue that hiphop and rap were spawned directly from the jazz tradition. There's a radio show here in LA on KJAZ where they play hip hop and the very same jazz tracks they sampled licks from back-to-back. It's a great show.

"Modern" isn't a value judgement, it's a relationship. Our collective relationship with music changes over time, that's unavoidable. Music doesn't degrade as it ages but our perception of it may. I am much younger than a lot of the music I love most so I hope people don't see my propensity to argue these points as an attack.

 

[nogbert]

so is this just a semantics debate then?

 

[Sean Riddle]

Wadada Leo Smith — Twenty Questions
This quote from this interview with Wadada Leo Smith is pertinent to this whole "modern language" discussion:

"Tradition means that you observe what has been done before. That observation doesn't mean that you have to learn how to do what tradition has done from the beginning to the end because that means that your life would be meaningless. But tradition means that you observe, either intellectually or culturally through some kind of perception about what that means and what has occurred before but you can only want and only gain access to tradition only when they add something to it. Not when they join it and just become practitioners of it. Every artist must add a niche though however thin it might be so that the tradition itself can grow and grow."

What we're doing now will eventually be considered "old school." Bebop was the language of its era and reflects the social and political climate of the time. It is a modern music, but not modern for our era. I think we should be more focused on development and embracing this tradition of change Wadada is talking about, rather than getting caught up in this whole "what is modern" debate. Being caught up in trying to be the most "modern" cat on the scene may inevitably be just as restrictive as trying to be the most "traditional" cat on the scene. And one more AACM member quote to close this:

"Sometimes we tend to forget that before Charlie Parker played his music, it didn't exist"-Anthony Braxton

 

[ericsmith]

McBride is great!

 

[Huy Nguyen]

By saying "modern is better" there is a sort of anchoring and hindsight bias involved that makes you think today is always better than yesterday which isn't always true. It just makes you feel better and might be false.

Tradition is tricky, esp in jazz where innovation is actually part of tradition. If you codify it, does it still speak to the spirit of jazz?

 

[yodedude2]

so is this just a semantics debate then?

mos def

 

[damonsmith]

so is this just a semantics debate then?

Not at all. It is a confusion of two completely different things: pop trends and actually new ideas in how to make music.

Personally, I would not categorize Kendrick Lamar's music as "pop" in much of any way at all, in spite of the fact that it is very popular at the moment.

It is just higher quality pop, pop doesn't always mean bad or "throw away". It has to do with intent. It is work within an established pop genre. A joke I've made in the past is that if his work was functioning properly as hip hop all the middle aged white jazz dads who love it would actually be offended by it!

 

[M0ses]

so is this just a semantics debate then?

IDK, what do you mean?

tradition of change

this is perfect I love it. it makes more sense when you define tradition first.

By saying "modern is better"

did anyone say that?

It has to do with intent.
A joke I've made in the past is that if his work was functioning properly as hip hop all the middle aged white jazz dads who love it would actually be offended by it!

Very well put LOL. You might be right about KL's attitude.

Alright now here's a group I really don't believe is pop at all. They borrow pop melodies, as is tradition, but are some of the loosest, most explorative artists ever IMO. Dave King is a rhythm mystery machine. Ethan Iverson's hands have split personalities. The band stuck together in Minneapolis for almost twenty years but they are working with a new keyboardist now...

 

[Bruce Calin]

Two of my nephews had a popular punk band back in the day and we had a conversation once about what it was about this music that had no interest for me but was for them the only music they had any interest in. It was a discussion about esthetics(sp?) and musical goals that didn't change anyone's mind but was interesting from the standpoint of how musicians from different perspectives perceive music and what draws people to certain genres that may have nothing to do with age or other interests in life. They could analyze and dissect punk music that I couldn't get much out of and they felt the same about music I related to. Interestingly, the stuff I played for them that they both took to the most was Coltrane's "Live at the Village Vanguard" album which for most listeners would be challenging to say the least.
As an unrelated side note, Reid Anderson of the Bad Plus was briefly a student of mine on electric bass back in the '80's in Mpls. I'm quite sure the only thing he learned from me was what he didn't like.

 

[damonsmith]

They are pop in the worst sense of the idea. Mediocre players just crassly using bad pop covers to get their foot in the door. I will concede that King has a bit more going on than the other two, there is exactly zero reasons we should have to know who that absolute dullard Iverson is. There are whole threads about them and we should continue over there. They have nothing to whatsoever with Christian McBride.
Seriously, they are not loose or exploratory in any sense, I mean start by checking out some Paul Bley records and keep going with any pre 1985 ECM album and you will see just how stale they are.

Alright now here's a group I really don't believe is pop at all. They borrow pop melodies, as is tradition, but are some of the loosest, most explorative artists ever IMO. Dave King is a rhythm mystery machine. Ethan Iverson's hands have split personalities. The band stuck together in Minneapolis for almost twenty years but they are working with a new keyboardist now...