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

#102
My wife, who seems to articulate this better than I do, has now added to her "predictability" a couple more differences between Jazz and smooth jazz: (1) Smooth jazz is more romantic. That's why women like it better, she says; and (2) Danceability with a prominent beat. That smooth jazz beat does right away jump in your lap, doesn't it. Almost like rock--or disco, even.

My friend the Jazz Department Head came back from a "jazz ambassadorial" type of trip to Europe a few months ago, and reported the same thing that a few of you have commented on: There is no smooth jazz in Europe. When they do talk about it, they call it--brace yourself--"American Jazz." My friend came back to his Jazz Department thinking that American Jazz now is smooth jazz to the rest of the world. How sad is that?

Edit: He also has the impression that the future of jazz is now in Europe. Unthinkable.
 
#103
Paul Warburton said:
I guess, in the end, it's about the emotion thang. I would hope that any art would get an emotional response from the person looking/hearing in. Bill Evans' and Miles' playing can sometimes almost make me feel embarrassed for them, in their ability to expose their most intimate feelings through the music.
Smooth jazz doesn't spark any kind of emotion in me.
I can't listen to my favorite players at home without at least devoting a couple of hours to each. I've actually become almost physically and emotionally impaired after a long listening session. Like, riveted to where I sit.
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I get this. That dimension is definitely part of it - even when jazz has a relatively flat affect and the emotion is more a kind of tautness or coiled-spring feel, a la Lennie Tristano (this is a hard type of "emotionalism" to articulate verbally). It still engages your gut, when it's well done.
(I think there are probably folks, though who are moved emotionally to some degree by soul jazz, too, a la Grover Washington.)
Which prompts me to add that I think jazz also engages the intellect to some degree, while I think smooth jazz intentionally avoids doing so. To me, that's the closet I can come to a clear-cut distinction. There's also watered-down easy-listening-type jazz, of course (why does Wes Montgomery playing "Goin' Out of My Head" always start goin' into my head when this topic comes up?) - but to some extent I think that simply represents the antecedents of smooth jazz before smooth jazz became a more formulaic, self-conscious style.
 
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#104
Bruce Lindfield said:
I agree with you - I love the Sidewinder and play the Lee Morgan CD quite often - but we were trying to define what makes Jazz, Jazz and you were saying that the band should be interacting and the OP was talking about predictability.

So in tunes like the Sidewinder and a lot of "groove-based" Jazz ( I could have named many others, but people wouldn't have heard of them) is that the rhythm section are predictable and don't necessarily react or interact...?

But I still know it's Jazz and it's great! :)
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That's a great record and the thing about "groove based jazz" is that it is still as open to the moment as stuff that doesn't have the ostinato based rhythm section stuff going on. Just like there's an audible difference between BIG BERTHA off of SWEET HONEY BEE and whatever ZOOT SUIT RIOT called their "appropriation" of postions of that melody.

There was a segment on BET many years ago where they played something by Najee, Kenny G, some other light weight and Grover. And the thing you could hear in Grover's playing was how it was informed by Hank Crawford and Trane and Mobley, folks whose music he came up listening to. And then the cat played something by Branford (offa that trio record with Milt) and it really was like night and day.

If you like something, you like something. But, and here's the fun part, do you like it because it touches you in a real and personal way? Or do you like it because it says something about who you want to be as a person? Or because everybody says you're supposed to? Or because that's a way to show something to someone else?

One thing I don't ever see, relating back to my DP quote - cats putting on a Boney James record (for instance) and sitting down, rapt on every note coming out of the speakers, like it was the 10 commandments coming down. I've learned to be very careful what I put on the stereo when folks are coming over for dinner or drinks or something. If you put on something that has some substance, especially (but not solely) when there are musicians there, it literally stops the conversation. Because there is so much THERE there, it takes everyone's attention from anything else going on. I haven't really seen that happen with smooth. It's background music.
 
#105
I'll just chime in here...

Smooth jazz is the new way to say R&B.
The players and singers in R&B (the main artists) who had a firm hand in bringing R&B to the fore front 20 or so years ago, tried their best to survive the main stream R&B of past to present.

So, in a nice of saying it, they were not main stream anymore, meaning, their music wasn't reaching young people of the world. So with that being an Achilles heel for many of our great (R&B artists), they now choose the avenue of Smooth jazz, which I'm sure some of you all can understand that. We use to hear it called "Wave", which started out on the radio, then transformed into Smooth Jazz. The Wave was playing alot of instrumental stuff, then began playing songs with a vocalist or two. And today, we call it "Smooth Jazz", I still call it R&B, the adult version. And this was the only way the many R&B artists from back in the day can be heard by a nice wide range of audience

I my self love Smooth Jazz/R&B! I play both Smooth jazz and REAL Jazz, as one bassist here said.:D
 
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#106
Jack Clark said:
My wife, who seems to articulate this better than I do, has now added to her "predictability" a couple more differences between Jazz and smooth jazz: (1) Smooth jazz is more romantic. That's why women like it better, she says; and (2) Danceability with a prominent beat. That smooth jazz beat does right away jump in your lap, doesn't it. Almost like rock.

My friend the Jazz Department Head came back from a "jazz ambassadorial" type of trip to Europe a few months ago, and reported the same thing that a few of you have commented on: There is no smooth jazz in Europe. When they do talk about it, they call it--brace yourself--"American Jazz." My friend came back to his Jazz Department thinking that American Jazz now is smooth jazz to the rest of the world. How sad is that?
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I would also suggest anybody here to link up to what George Duke has to say about "Jazz coming out of Europe". It's an Observation from him.

The "American Jazz" thing hit. We all know that Jazz IS FROM America,:D right? Have a read, it's long, but worth the read. Maybe some of you have read it.
http://www.georgeduke.com/corner.html
 
#110
Ed brought up Dorothy Parker, one of my favorites. I'm sure many of you have heard this one, but it's my favorite Dorothy Parker story, so . . .

Supposedly, she was sitting alone at a table drinking heavily, when one of her friends came up and said, "Dorothy, every time I see you there's a bottle in front of you." To which, she supposedly replied: "I'd rather have a bottle in front o' me than a frontal labotomy."

Now, that's improvisation.
 
#112
I think the line about predictability says a lot, to which I'd add lack of dissonance or surprise. Every new kind of music requires some learning on the part of the listener to get to a comfortable place where some of what they hear is expected, and some is a surprise. If every note is unexpected, that's too much for most of us, although some love the kind of free jazz people were playing in the 70s. Kenny G (to use an archetypal example) never plays a dissonant note, and his riffs are almost all scalar. There's nothing jarring, but at the same time, there's nothing of interest to someone who's actually listening to the music, as opposed to someone who wants a soothing background texture. And if you're playing scalar, predictable music, the kind of feeling and emotion that Paul was talking about never enters into it.

And IMHO, good R&B is not smooth jazz! ;-)
 
#113
When I listen to a lot of what could be called jazz favorites around here it is often because I want an "easier" listening experience than the free jazz and improv I listen to most and play.
So it is all context and point of view. I find a lot Dave Holland's recent recordings to border on what I hear as too "Smooth Jazz", it is often to slick a tone from the saxophone that makes me hear it that way.
Live, the band has always been great.
ECM albums are often thought to be "smooth" or Newage-y (rhymes with sewage). I love a lot of ECM's catalog both jazz/improv and classical - though I do turn to it when I want and easier experience.

When I have people over I most often put on classical music either early music or worse - 18th and 19th century double bass music!
 
#116
damonsmith said:
I find a lot Dave Holland's recent recordings to border on what I hear as too "Smooth Jazz", it is often to slick a tone from the saxophone that makes me hear it that way.
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I think Dave Holland's stuff is as far away from what people are talking about here as possible!

So - you have great original compositions, often in odd time signatures and there is a huge amount of group interaction, with the lack of piano opening up huge latitude for the soloists...:)

ECM albums are often thought to be "smooth" or Newage-y (rhymes with sewage). I love a lot of ECM's catalog both jazz/improv and classical - though I do turn to it when I want and easier experience.
!
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I have a lot of ECM - the only common thing is a production that favours reverb - but the music is nearly always very interesting and bands like Eberhard Weber's "Colours" are doing some very interesting stuff, involving group improv and a lot of unpredictability!

So, the Art Ensemble of Chicago made albums on ECM and they are the most riotous opposite of smooth you could imagine - there's a track called "Charlie M" by Lester Bowie - which is the smooth fan's nightmare - all raucous horns and weird percussion - it is anything but predictable!! :eek:
 
#117
Jack Clark said:
My wife, who seems to articulate this better than I do, has now added to her "predictability" a couple more differences between Jazz and smooth jazz: (1) Smooth jazz is more romantic. That's why women like it better, she says; and (2) Danceability with a prominent beat. That smooth jazz beat does right away jump in your lap, doesn't it. Almost like rock.
Click to expand...

Well again I would say to you - is Miles playing a ballad like "Funny Valentine" not romantic - is Chet Baker not romantic....:eyebrow:

The Sidewinder as one example of groove in Jazz, is quite "predictable" in structure and rhythm...?

My friend the Jazz Department Head came back from a "jazz ambassadorial" type of trip to Europe a few months ago, and reported the same thing that a few of you have commented on: There is no smooth jazz in Europe.
Click to expand...

Yup - I told you that earlier in this thread!! :)

When they do talk about it, they call it--brace yourself--"American Jazz." My friend came back to his Jazz Department thinking that American Jazz now is smooth jazz to the rest of the world. How sad is that?

Edit: He also has the impression that the future of jazz is now in Europe. Unthinkable.
Click to expand...

Well - there is a lot of good Jazz over here and it is developing new fusions that are nothing to do with rock or blues - although informed by the Jazz tradition.

In England - Polar Bear are quite extraordinary and have been nominated for general, mainstream music awards despite playing Free Jazz mixed with electronics ...:hmm:

Also nominated for similar categories - Basquiat Strings pair a string quartet that improvises, with DB and drums in music that fuses Schonberg with New Orleans Jazz!

Tom Arthurs has written music that incorporates Olivier Messiaen's harmonic innovations with Free Jazz and Gilad Atzmon has made Jazz mixed with all sorts of music and things like Palestinian Micro-Tonal singing.

Europe has a great Acoustic Free Jazz scene, which was never affected by Jazz Rock and I think it is because you have a continuing tradition of music schools which produce great players of Acoustic instruments...? Whereas American kids are bombarded with electric rock music from an early age..?
 
#118
I'd say that bop has more extended, abstract solos and more complex chording. That said, I often prefer mainstream jazz to bop. I don't think mainstream (or "soft") jazz should be called jazz at all. It should have another name.
It is the complexity of jazz that sometimes turns me off to it. So instead, I will throw on some Spyro Gyra or Mark Egan.
 
#119
Mark came came here with Danny Gottlieb a few years back, and they played until they ran out of tunes.... but they kept going. Then it got really interesting... it was some of the most out slab playing I've ever heard. Mark has some multi-string basses, with paired strings.... it was not "smooth" at all. Very gnarly. I dug the hell out of it. He's a fantastic musician.
 

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