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Double Bass Jazz vs. "smooth jazz"? How to articulate the difference?

#42
I guess I'm more likely to put 'smooth jazz' in the catergory with the musical style the particular artist most resembles. A lot of John Pattituci's stuff is great, but I'd probably classify his electric stuff as more complicated\intellectual R&B. I think you can do that with most of the 'smooth jazz' artists. It seems that the wall people seem to be hitting comes up when you add the word 'jazz' to the equation.
 
#43
Ed Fuqua said:
I dunno. The best "real" jazz has more of a sense of conversational interplay than what I hear in "smoov". If you count off the tune and the rest of the band knows EXACTLY what everybody else is going to play before you start, that's prolly NOT jazz. Sure there's arrangements blah blah blah, but at some point there should be moments of pure conversational spontaneity.
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This might be the best description I've heard yet, and is exactly why I can't consider bands like Yellowjackets smooth. There's a deep sense of interplay and improvisation within their compositions and arrangements.

For the record, I like both kinds, for different reasons.
 
#44
Wow. Lots of feeling in those comments. But it sure is hard to articulate, isn't it? I'm not sure we're much closer after all that, but the discussion was good, I think.

My wife's one word was "predictability." Smooth jazz has it, and she likes that about it.

My word was "improvisation," and it seemed to me that "predictability" may be just another way of saying that Jazz emphasizes improvisation and "smooth jazz" doesn't. So, Jim and Ed were right there where my wife and I were, I think.

But then what do you do with Ellington's big band arrangements? Were they not jazz because they were written down? Were only the improvised solo parts of them jazz, but not the written arrangements?

And if a smooth jazzer tootles out an original improvisation solo that is in keeping with the style of the rest of the smooth jazz tune he's playing, does that make his solo jazz?

That can't be it, either. Because we all can recognize whether we're going to be listening to Jazz or smooth jazz during the first four bars of a piece. Maybe my wife's word is best, then, because we know right away whether what we're going to hear is "predictable"--including whether the improvised solos are going to be predictable. Does that work? I think that's what Ed was saying, too.
 
#45
Among practitioners of woodworking, my main field of endeavor, there's an ongoing conversation in which we discuss craftsmanship of risk versus craftsmanship of certainty.

Although I share the OP's inability to use words to adequately describe the differences between smooth jazz and bona-fide jazz, IME, smooth jazz is more akin to craftmanship of certainty (risk averse), while be-bop and other forms of "legit" jazz seem to eschew certainty in favor of risk.

Over the years some forms of jazz have been so richly laden with risk that I found they challenged my preconceptions, sometimes confused me, and sometimes stirred up emotions mightily. In general, so-called smooth jazz seldom evokes much of an emotional response from me, except, perhaps, melancholy or boredom; to my ears, most smooth jazz sounds like modal exercises with accompaniment.

My dad was a fabulous jazz bassist. One day, Kenny G was being played as background music in a restaurant and Pop peered over the tops of his glasses and deadpanned, "when is he gonna quit noodling around and play something?"
 
#47
OK then! That makes smooth jazz less than adequate booty, due to it's craftsmanship of certainty.......but for that one word call.....I'd still say it still boils down to "Booty". :DWhite wine and cheese.

For that sort of vibe, I'd personally turn to Jagger/Richards, as at least they get down to dirty business without hiding it behind an established form of high art. ;)
 
#48
The difference is the elevator. You can play smooth jazz and nobody stays on the elevator to hear the end of the song. If you played real jazz in the elevator some people would have a hard time ever getting off on the right floor.

That said Yanni has some outstanding musicianship and very intricate structure.
 
#49
Here's another skew.

When Smooth Jazz players come here to Hawai'i, they stay in some of the finest hotels on the planet. From what I can surmise, this is Written Into The Contract. Often, I've been hired to play Moderately Unsmooth Jazz at these hotels, depending upon the Ambient Smoothness contained therein, all of which is predestined by the Smoothness Scrutinizer, usually a small, shrill woman in a smaller pantsuit.

I think I'm unable to perform with most Smooth Jazz Stars. My thumb just ends up hurting afterwards. But when I do the occasional Smooth Jazz performance, the backstage food is spectacular (usually light on beef and pork, though), and when the gig is over, it's over.

When Unsmooth Jazz players come here, they often stay at my place, or at the home of someone else in the local "jazz" community. They are adept Couch Surfers. They usually need to be driven everywhere. If I'm fortunate, I get to also play bass with the Unsmooth Ones. They generally stay up really late, and get me in trouble with my wife.
 
#54
I can't quote it, I don't own the book (autobiography?), but there was a reference to the 'dare-devil' aspect of performance - which is that spontaneous element already mentioned.

I heard a harpsichordist improvise a cadenza in the Brandenburg No. 3 once - I thought it kicked! But "Lucy had some 'splaining to do" afterward, and there were ominous references made to scholarships and all sorts of fall out for the rest of that semester.

My point is that the performer who brings something of himself to the moment - regardless the genre - gives me something I value highly. It is this, and not the form or the person, which is the watershed in my listening.
 
#56
Marcus Johnson said:
One other thing I've noticed.... a smooth jazz artist is much more likely to own a wireless mic than a nonsmooth jazz artist.
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smooth jazz players like to move around on stage while jazz is not as visual an art (not that i really consider smooth jazz to be art).

we're all really just saying the same things pretty much so i'm going to stop posting on this thread. if you decide to comment on this post please note that the word 'as' is italicized.

p.s. what was that opera comment about?
 
#58
dan stanton said:
I'd like to know what "jazz" you all are talking about. 1900's, 1920"s 1940's 1960's? Jazz has been as fluid as the "Bird". When you can define "Jazz", please let the rest of the world know.
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Can't do that, either. So, then, why does smooth jazz seem so strongly not to be jazz? If we can't define jazz, you'd think that we wouldn't be able to know whether something was jazz or not. Yet we do know that Montovani, Barry Manilow, and smooth jazz ain't it.

And if predictability is a key, what do we do with freestyle rap? That Jazz Department Head I mentioned in the original posting, doesn't even consider rap to be music, much less jazz.
 
#59
Marcus Johnson said:
Here's another skew.

When Smooth Jazz players come here to Hawai'i, they stay in some of the finest hotels on the planet. From what I can surmise, this is Written Into The Contract. Often, I've been hired to play Moderately Unsmooth Jazz at these hotels, depending upon the Ambient Smoothness contained therein, all of which is predestined by the Smoothness Scrutinizer, usually a small, shrill woman in a smaller pantsuit.

I think I'm unable to perform with most Smooth Jazz Stars. My thumb just ends up hurting afterwards. But when I do the occasional Smooth Jazz performance, the backstage food is spectacular (usually light on beef and pork, though), and when the gig is over, it's over.

When Unsmooth Jazz players come here, they often stay at my place, or at the home of someone else in the local "jazz" community. They are adept Couch Surfers. They usually need to be driven everywhere. If I'm fortunate, I get to also play bass with the Unsmooth Ones. They generally stay up really late, and get me in trouble with my wife.
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Marcus, this one had me laughing so hard I woke up my wife who was asleep in another room.
 

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