I Can't Play Piano

[turf3]

Hey twofingers, do you think the tenor sax solo starting at 1:22 "sounds like gobbledeegook"?

It's only two of the most renowned and influential jazz musicians of all time. You will not find a single jazz musician who would not consider this recording to be "jazz".



Do the solos in this one sound like gobbledeegook?



OK, so you say, that's old stuff. Well, here's something a bit newer:



How would you characterize the soprano solo that starts at 2:16?

 

[two fingers]

Hey twofingers, do you think the tenor sax solo starting at 1:22 "sounds like gobbledeegook"?

It's only two of the most renowned and influential jazz musicians of all time. You will not find a single jazz musician who would not consider this recording to be "jazz".

I actually enjoyed both solos immensely. They were both ridiculously melodic to my ears. This is not the kind of music I'm referring to at all.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

Jazz is weird...

That's what my wife thinks King Crimson sounds like. And Rush.

 

[turf3]

I actually enjoyed both solos immensely. They were both ridiculously melodic to my ears. This is not the kind of music I'm referring to at all.

Well, it's jazz. Go over to Berklee or North Texas and stand out in the quad and ask people at random "was Lester Young a jazz musician?"

 

[definenredefine]

I love free jazz (starting with "classics" like Coltrane and Mingus and Ornette Coleman and going through to contemporary stuff like Gold Sparkle Band, Trevor Dunn Trio Convulsant and Matthew Shipp.) I also love metal bands like Psyopus where the guitar player sounds like he's trying to cram as many notes into 10 seconds as he can, and the rhythm section is just barely hanging on.

I also recognize that I have terrible taste in music. So you don't care for jazz. Who cares?

I also can't play piano.

Also H Jon Benjamin is really funny.

 

[two fingers]

Well, it's jazz. Go over to Berklee or North Texas and stand out in the quad and ask people at random "was Lester Young a jazz musician?"

I never said I didn't like jazz. I'm not seeing your point.

 

[BassBrass]

You don't know jazz, but you know what you don't like.
P.S. I played these (not "free form", just nuts) for my pro guitarist brother. He said "am I allowed to laugh?" and I replied "of course!"

Zorn, Horvitz, Baron, Frisell, Fred Frith on bass, Eye this is a super-group. I grew up down the street from this Jackson Pollock, a photo can't capture it, live it shimmers and reflects in more than 2 dimensions, and you can't really criticize it without coming off as a crank Phosphorescence - Jackson Pollock Art Reproduction | Galerie Dada

 

[Holdsg]

piano was my first instrument, at age 8
long before bass
I like jazz...conceptually
and I tried playing jazz in jr high, high school, college.
I really tried. I tried writing jazz songs too.
I just found that for me, it's too hard....I gave up...rock and roll is much easier to play and listen to for me
so other than occasionally breaking out my real book, and stretching the limits of my improvisational ability, its all rock and roll for me.
99% of people I meet only know or recognize maybe 5 "jazz" tunes (pop jazz), because they are always in TV commerials

Take Five
In the Mood
Take the A Train
Girl from Ipanema
it's a long drop from there to #5, I bet

talk to them about Miles, or Coltrane, or Coleman, or even freakin' Chick Corea and you just get deer in the headlights eyes.

 

[HolmeBass]

How much dissonance and unpredictability listeners want covers a vast spectrum. Most don't need much, which is why "pop" music is so popular.

It turns out very few crave a large helping of both, which is why Jazz is much less popular. The same spectrum of listener desire for dissonance and unpredictability exists within Jazz itself.

@two fingers your list of Jazz you like includes bands I like too. (As an aside, I wonder if @Esteban Garcia considers The Yellow Jackets to be Jazz?)

I humbly suggest giving Kamasi Washington and Snarky Puppy a listen, I think they should fit in with what you like while being a bit different, too.

I do like Mikes Davis, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, and John Coltrane too. Ornette Colman's stuff, especially the two-bass stuff, is really interesting but not a "go to" for me by any stretch. Heck, I have to be in the right mood to listen to Giant Steps, in a way that does not apply to, for example, Kind Of Blue.

To each their own.

 

[logdrum]

I'm simply not passionate enough about jazz to do a deep dive. Give me some Joe Sample, Yellowjackets, Soulive, Fourplay, Medeski Martin and Wood (with and without Scofield) etc. and I'm fine/chill. It's about as jazzy as I'm ever going to feel.

Fourplay -- MMW and Sco can play and have played traditional (which has a large scope ) and free form jazz. I have been to Soulive shows in Brooklyn and they can also play out.

Many of the harmonic permutations in jazz if not all of them are based on classical music or have a counterpart. Jazz Blues can be expanded harmonically to a point that all 12 notes can be played and "fit". But notes and harmonies may feel dissonant or not making sense. To get it, familiarity with the diminished scale, alt scale/chords, tri tone substitutions (pop music use a lot tritone subs)

The outside jazz stuff is a natural progression of improvisation IMO -- John Coltrane is an example. Again in new classical music there are equally out stuff and in parallel with jazz. Both are acquired tastes and are appreciated by a small audience. Traditionalist like Wynton Marsalis do not like and actively against free-form jazz/

Then there is also conduction - structured free form and pioneered by Butch Morris.

There are some fakers in the free jazz scene, but the adage is "If you can't play in, you can't play out" Hence the term inside-outside

In June there is the Vision Festival in Brooklyn. They also have stream concerts every month.

Santa Fe NM has a new-music. avant garde free form scene. Many of the players play pleasant, chill music or associated with the orchestras or teach music but come together in these free jams - which can get dissonant and crazy.

 

[two fingers]

Fourplay -- MMW and Sco can play and have played traditional (which has a large scope ) and free form jazz. I have been to Soulive shows in Brooklyn and they can also play out.

Many of the harmonic permutations in jazz if not all of them are based on classical music or have a counterpart. Jazz Blues can be expanded harmonically to a point that all 12 notes can be played and "fit". But notes and harmonies may feel dissonant or not making sense. To get it, familiarity with the diminished scale, alt scale/chords, tri tone substitutions (pop music use a lot tritone subs)

The outside jazz stuff is a natural progression of improvisation IMO -- John Coltrane is an example. Again in new classical music there are equally out stuff and in parallel with jazz. Both are acquired tastes and are appreciated by a small audience. Traditionalist like Wynton Marsalis do not like and actively against free-form jazz/

Then there is also conduction - structured free form and pioneered by Butch Morris.

There are some fakers in the free jazz scene, but the adage is "If you can't play in, you can't play out" Hence the term inside-outside

In June there is the Vision Festival in Brooklyn. They also have stream concerts every month.

Santa Fe NM has a new-music. avant garde free form scene. Many of the players play pleasant, chill music or associated with the orchestras or teach music but come together in these free jams

I understand theory better than the basic level. But, to me, music is about emotion. I want it to make me sad, make me happy, heck even make me angry. I do NOT want it to make me THINK "Oh, I see what he did there with the counterpoint doohicky in the flat 5 Qm diminished/destroyed/scattered smothered and covered chord in the bridge! Brilliant!" Music is not an intellectual pursuit for me. Either it "sounds cool" or it doesn't.

 

[Guitalia]

Here's where jazz began going wrong or right, depending on your point of view.

 

[logdrum]

I played the piano as a child - I wish I always played and did not drop it. I am okay and was subbing for almost a year for a local rock cover band. Not good enough for jazz trios.

Have a tall Yamaha u[right piano in the house for 21 years now and I also have very good controllers "Kawai VCP1 and a Studio Logic/Fatar SL88 was the best Fatar keybed but now superseded by the one on their new NumaX- GT piano) and I have piano libraries from UVI, Native Instruments. Spitfire and Keyscape. Piano is the best tool to demonstrate harmonies and helps in compositions and arrangement.

 

[two fingers]

I played the piano as a child - I wish I always played and did not drop it. I am okay and was subbing for almost a year for a local rock cover band. Not good enough for jazz trios.

Have a tall Yamaha u[right piano in the house for 21 years now and I also have very good controllers "Kawai VCP1 and a Studio Logic/Fatar SL88 was the best Fatar keybed but now superseded by the one on their new NumaX- GT piano) and I have piano libraries from UVI, Native Instruments. Spitfire and Keyscape. Piano is the best tool to demonstrate harmonies and helps in compositions and arrangement.

I keep telling my daughters ...both of whom are into music...but a little more into karate and volleyball...that they should take piano. I tell them they'll be glad they did later.

 

[logdrum]

I understand theory better than the basic level. But, to me, music is about emotion. I want it to make me sad, make me happy, heck even make me angry. I do NOT want it to make me THINK "Oh, I see what he did there with the counterpoint doohicky in the flat 5 Qm diminished/destroyed/scattered smothered and covered chord in the bridge! Brilliant!" Music is not an intellectual pursuit for me. Either it "sounds cool" or it doesn't.

That music does appeal to my emotions. Cecil, Ornette, late Coltrane, William Parker, David Murray, Peter Brotzman, Even Parker, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Matts Gustaffson, Sun Ra etc. I do not analyze them, but I do get what they are musically doing if asked. I also know where they were coming from philosophically and politically specially when in relates to African American history and the European jazz and improvisation movements

I think you are missing the point. There is really no need to explain what these musicians were doing as much as a 3 chord folk musician also does not have to. I blame all the jazz schools. All those late night early morning post gig jams was where most of these jazz explorations happened and there was no theory class "Thelonius Monk had these sessions in his apartment for example. It all came from creativity and emotion. John Scofield has an album called "Country for Old Men" -- yes improvisation based on country songs. Like someone said - not everyone will like and get everything and that's okay but just because you don't get it doesn't make that music irrelevant or bad.

Jazz musicians in general do not criticize other genres. Many session musicians are jazzers at heart even in Nashville -- possibly same ratio as NYC or LA.

 

[bmusic]

This thread made me think of this video a friend shared on FB the other day. How could it not? It's got piano, and jazz, and many, many notes.

It's all about taste—not some objective value of what's good/bad, but what any given individual has a taste for. Country music sounds like muzak to me. Rush (and most other prog) is a giant snooze fest. And I don't sit around listening to jazz of any sort on a regular basis. But this performance is absolutely mesmerizing to me. I like it when my ear is challenged just the right amount, in just the right way. And I don't enjoy "shredding" of any sort…but I am a fan of joy.

 

[truand85]

This thread made me think of this video a friend shared on FB the other day. How could it not? It's got piano, and jazz, and many, many notes.

It's all about taste—not some objective value of what's good/bad, but what any given individual has a taste for. Country music sounds like muzak to me. Rush (and most other prog) is a giant snooze fest. And I don't sit around listening to jazz of any sort on a regular basis. But this performance is absolutely mesmerizing to me. I like it when my ear is challenged just the right amount, in just the right way. And I don't enjoy "shredding" of any sort…but I am a fan of joy.

Hiromi is great. Here's another worth a listen:

 

[BassyBill]

 

[J Wilson]

I can play piano very well; sell them, not so much.

My problem is that while I admire latter-day 'smooth jazz' and the like, what I would really like to learn is the stuff from the 40's through the 60's, and almost always these were cut with upright bass and often, as Will Lee once remarked of those classic recordings, the 'bass is more felt than heard'. It's almost impossible for me to pick out the bass lines.

I'd have to investigate for modern recordings of those classics. That was why I instantly glommed onto the Natalie Cole recordings where she revisited her Dad's classics and others from in-period: I could hear everything.

I'd have to admit I'm virtually, totally ignorant when it comes to jazz, and it pains me to say so.

 

[Aussie Player]

Went to a jazz night once with a couple of famous names headlining (in jazz circles)
Bored to death and nodded off. Only time I ever nodded off when live music was being payed.
Just cannot feel it.