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I HATE HATE HATE INCIDENTAL JAZZ.

#41
Snarf said:
That's not punk, that's emo. Punk is actually good stuff. Think Black Flag and Dead Kennedys.
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Dead Kennedys? Isn't that some antique band? Heck, I'm so old Jello Biafra's father was a friend of mine (and his surname was not Biafra).

Sounds like I would hate your music. But it's your bass and your music; not his and not mine. Play with a wimpy pick all you want to, I don't care. I'l continue to play with my strong, manly, calloused fingers. As long as you are playing a bass and not a mandolin, you are ok in my book.
 
#49
Bruce Lindfield said:
As people have mentioned - Ska grew out of a fusion of Jazz and "West Indian " music !

So in Jamaica , DJs started playing Jazz records from the US in the 1950s and this influenced the local musicians to develop their own version of Jazz - so a lot of original Ska has fast walking bass lines, but without swing or chromatic notes - the horn players were influenced by what they heard on US Jazz records and so Ska was born.

Add a lot of Ganja, slow it down and then you got Reggae!! ;)
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I asked a legitimate question, and I got some good answers. That's why I'm here. :cool:

There's actually some pretty cool reggae/jazz fusion stuff out there these days too, played by some top shelf jazzers. Not really my cup of tea, but interesting to listen to, for sure.

I'm not sure what you mean by a walking line that doesn't swing or use chromatic notes, but it's sounds a bit like how you've sometimes defined "not really jazz", maybe? ;) I haven't heard much real group improv in what passes for modern ska, but maybe I'm not listening to the right stuff? I don't have a problem calling all sorts of things jazz-inflected, or just calling them jazz. That's what I crave, and I'm all ears if you can point me towards some modern ska bands that swing, play improv, and preferably are primarily instrumental.
 
#51
Bruce Lindfield said:
As people have mentioned - Ska grew out of a fusion of Jazz and "West Indian " music !

So in Jamaica , DJs started playing Jazz records from the US in the 1950s and this influenced the local musicians to develop their own version of Jazz - so a lot of original Ska has fast walking bass lines, but without swing or chromatic notes - the horn players were influenced by what they heard on US Jazz records and so Ska was born.

Add a lot of Ganja, slow it down and then you got Reggae!! ;)
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True enough, but most of the original guys trained to play while in Juvenile detention (they were the original rude boys), and they had to pick up a 'trade' while being reformed. Since there was money working resorts in Jamaica with all the wealthy tourists, it was an easy match (this was the mid 50's). That up-beat first shows up in 57 or 58, and is a comination of Jazz Calypso and Mento...and soon ska is the big thing...

...until 1966. 1966 was a very hot summer, and while there was weed involved, it was plainly too hot for such fast playing and dancing...at the same time, american radio in places like New Orleans was playing lots of soul, and the stations could be picked up in Jamaica...This is the birth of Rock Steady. Rock Steady is the Jamaican sythesis of american soul, with an emphasis on vocal harmonies and a de-emphasis on horn solos. Check out some of the classic Duke Reid produced stuff for the feel of this era.

As the post-colonial mood grew worse in the late 60's and poverty and hopelessness became the rule, the Rastafarian movement became a bigger social and political component of 'popular culture' in Jamaica. The weed, which had been there, became much more prevalent and now there's the emergence of "Roots Reggae", Dread Reggae (dread minor key vocal harmonies that came out of the soul/rocksteady era in a new palate of tonality), and of course the one drop.

I would suppose that Mr. Lindfield being a Brit, might know something of not only Ska, but Soul & Bluebeat, and probably Skinhead Reggae, which was more of an English invention than a Jamaican one. These things were much more popular in the UK in the 60's than here in the US...The 'Mod' youth culture embraced the Jamaican side of things in a similar way to the 77 era punks did about 10 years later with Roots and Dub.

In a side note, in my conversations with Lloyd Brevett, bassist of the Skatalites, I was told that not only was he the first Rastafarian Jamaican musician, but that he also introduced Mr. R.N. Marley to the faith. He indeed also taught Family Man how to play bass, who later gave Robbie Shakespear his first bass and taught him, providing a pretty nice bloodline of important Jamaican bass players.

For those who might not know, The Skatalites were THE big studio band for most of the 60's on the island. They backed probably close to 90+ percent of the recorded Ska/Rocksteady tracks...for people like the Wailers, Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, Ken Boothe, Delroy Wilson, etc...the list goes on and on.
 
#52
Passinwind said:
I asked a legitimate question, and I got some good answers. That's why I'm here. :cool:

There's actually some pretty cool reggae/jazz fusion stuff out there these days too, played by some top shelf jazzers. Not really my cup of tea, but interesting to listen to, for sure.

I'm not sure what you mean by a walking line that doesn't swing or use chromatic notes, but it's sounds a bit like how you've sometimes defined "not really jazz", maybe? ;) I haven't heard much real group improv in what passes for modern ska, but maybe I'm not listening to the right stuff? I don't have a problem calling all sorts of things jazz-inflected, or just calling them jazz. That's what I crave, and I'm all ears if you can point me towards some modern ska bands that swing, play improv, and preferably are primarily instrumental.
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Charlie, drop me a line, I'd be happy to provide some listening material....I have some stuff I've been meaning to upload anyway.


Some stuff does swing (think Millie's My Boy Lollipop)...and ska can have a walking bassline but it's almost always a repeated figure, and not 'freeform'. It's also bad form in 'old school' ska to get too far 'outside' when playing. It's tight and melodic and driving and most improvisation is done by the horns.
 
#53
BurningSkies said:
Charlie, drop me a line, I'd be happy to provide some listening material....I have some stuff I've been meaning to upload anyway.
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Cool, much appreciated. There are so many styles that I've thought I didn't like all that much, and it turned out I really only needed to be exposed to the right stuff. Seeing Jimmy Cliff play at a benefit show I was working sound for really opened my eyes to reggae beyond the classic Marley axis, for instance.

Some stuff does swing (think Millie's My Boy Lollipop)...and ska can have a walking bassline but it's almost always a repeated figure, and not 'freeform'. It's also bad form in 'old school' ska to get too far 'outside' when playing. It's tight and melodic and driving and most improvisation is done by the horns


Makes sense. Playing bass like that has always been a huge challenge to me, maybe that's why so many people have called most of what I play "jazz". :cool:
 
#54
Stoned Bass said:
Im sorry it just sounds like noise from 1925 but it's a personal thing.(sorry jazzers, If you love it play it)

But I play in punk, rock and classic rock styles and I can't tell you how many stuck up Jazz bassists have scowled at me because I use a pick and like a crisp hard sound rather than a wimpy thud.

Yesterday I was just jamming at my local music club and I was making some mean sounds with my beloved pick.

Then out of nowhere some south-african guy(nothing against south africans) takes my P bass off me (Grrr) and says "you don't know how to play, listen"
Then he show's me a C (well duh I've been playing for 4 years)and starts slapping the hell out of my poor bass playing this incidental jazz/ska rubbish.
It sounded awful and all my mates were really p'd off.
what is wrong with a pick???

sorry about the rant but I had to get it off my chest..
no offense. :bawl: :scowl:
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He could have been hitting on you in some bizarre way.
 
#55
Stoned Bass said:
I hope I hear some of the good stuff too.
Can you name some good jazz bands/people before I become permanently jaded by the rubbish I heard the other day, otherwise I fear I may be scarred for life. :hmm:
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There have been lots of "help me get jazz" threads on Talkbass, check out the search function and see if you can find 'em. I might not be the best guide, I'm a geezer and I have fairly scary taste. :cool:

You could try cruising Amazon for sound clips to get an idea of which flavors of jazz you might enjoy. As far as the influences on the punk movement that I mentioned, I'd say that free jazz, which is pretty noisy and disorderly, was an obvious influence on bands like the MC5, Stooges, and Sonic Youth, all of whom are/were pretty influential in their own right. I know that Henry Rollins and many others were very much influenced by the beat poets of the 50's, who often read with jazz accompaniment. You might try reading Jack Kerouac if you want to get into the mindset of the beatniks back then.

The early ragtime, swing, and R&B jazzers pretty much influenced all rock music, and you can still hear that influence all over the place, once you're familiar with the vocabulary of those times.

If you're mainly a rock fan, it might be easiest for you to start with some jazz that features electric guitar. I'm partial to Pat Metheny, John Scofield, and John McLaughlin, for pretty accessible starters. Not all their stuff is that easy to digest at first though. That's part of the deal with jazz, you need to learn the language before it really speaks to you. If you'd like to hear someone who stayed on top of the "new thing" for a lot of years, Miles Davis is a great musician to trace through his career. If you then trace all his great sidemen, it could easily years to check it all out.

If you want to hear some great jazz bass players, maybe start with:

Paul Chambers
Ray Brown
Charlie Mingus
Jaco Pastorius
Marcus Miller
Victor Wooten

If none of this is fun for you right now, don't sweat it. The light switch might come on eventually, or not. Nobody can make you like something, eh?
 

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