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

#141
My view is that "smooth jazz" is more of a marketing category than a musical genre -- the result of applying a selection process to jazz. Perhaps what sticks in my craw is simply the impression that the selection process has excluded the particular kinds of jazz that I love to play. It's like a party that I don't want to attend until I find out that I haven't been invited. If they didn't use the word "jazz," then I probably wouldn't even notice. After all, it doesn't bother me that the music I love to play is also excluded from "light FM" and "all the hits all the time."
 
#142
fdeck said:
My view is that "smooth jazz" is more of a marketing category than a musical genre -- the result of applying a selection process to jazz. Perhaps what sticks in my craw is simply the impression that the selection process has excluded the particular kinds of jazz that I love to play. It's like a party that I don't want to attend until I find out that I haven't been invited. If they didn't use the word "jazz," then I probably wouldn't even notice. After all, it doesn't bother me that the music I love to play is also excluded from "light FM" and "all the hits all the time."
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As I mentioned, it doesn't really happen in Europe and there has hardly been a flutter in the UK - but the closest we came was a radio station...?

We have much fewer radio stations in the UK and no Jazz ones now ...:( But there was a Jazz station set up and it was mostly limited in transmission to London.

So, I was a bit annoyed that living outside London, I was missing out - but then when I actually got to hear the station, it was all the kind of stuff people are talking about in this thread and no Jazz at all, as far as I was concerned!! :eyebrow:

I think a lot of people complained about this and the station went bust, but was revived and due to the complaints was just called "smooth" (no Jazz) and it's still only available in London and not where I live - but as there is no promise of Jazz, I can happily ignore it!! :)
 
#144
Yes - Radio 3 does Jazz, but only for like a couple of hours a week and quite late at night!

(Jazz On 3 , broadcast every Monday from 23.15-01.00)

They do occasionally have some good stuff, but I always seems to miss it and whenever I have listened, it is completely mad Free playing - i.e it sounds like people randomly strangling their instruments!! :p

99.9% of Radio 3 is Classical.
 
#147
MLysh said:
Didn't the whole movement start when Miles decided he wanted to play to the same crowds as Hendrix and Sly?
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But Miles' electric period is one of the most radio unfriendly and least likely to get an approving nod as background music!

When I put the CD of Miles live at Fillmore East 1970 on - the same people who love "Kind of Blue" run screaming from the room!! :p
 
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#148
ok, in the meantime the BG guys have picked up this topic as well :)

fearceol said:
What you say is very true.

"Jazz" is just an umbrella name that covers a multitude. Louis Armstrong, on first hearing bebop, to his eternal regret, remarked something along the lines of.. "that is not jazz".

Why do people not want to include smooth jazz under the "jazz umbrella"? This pigeon-holing and name-tagging of music always amuses me. Who cares what it is called.. just enjoy. Life is too short for such trivia. :rollno:
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PsychoScout said:
Because smooth jazz just doesn't jazz... there's no way to explain it, but some music jazzes, other music just doesn't (even music not described as jazz can jazz imo)
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#150
As far as the "What's in a name" argument, intellectually that is true, of course. But, for whatever reason, aren't we glad that New Age wasn't called "New Age Jazz" or that Rap wasn't called "Rap Jazz."

For me, the addition of the name Jazz to Smooth leads to confusion and mixups. I mean, I'm over at my sister's house, and she asks if I like Jazz. I say yes, so she puts on her "favorite 'jazz' album" and it's Kenny G. About that time, I wish I'd said, "No, I really don't like jazz." But, after so saying, I have to admit that I also don't care for some of what is more universally considered to be jazz, either, so . . .
I think our inability to define Jazz is going to keep us from ever truly satisfactorily answering the OP's (i.e., my) original question.

Even at our own Idyllwild Jazz in the Pines Festival, held every year in August, the headliners tend to be Smooth artists. After 17 years, I've come to accept that that's what most festival-goers want. Fortunately for me, however, we have three venues going at once and one of them--the Stephens Recital Hall (aka "the Barn")--is almost entirely dedicated to "real" jazz. I spend very little time in the other two venues--the Holmes Amphitheatre mainstage and The French Quarter--although I freely admit that they can be a boat-load of fun sometimes.
 
#152
For years, I read volumes on 'jazz', and jazz musicians-including autobiographies. One of many conclusions: Lots of jazz artists harbor a strong dislike for 'smoooth' jazz.

Compare someone standing in an elevator listening to 'smooth' jazz to someone sitting near a big band that is playing THIS!

The elevator is meek and mild, the other-IN-YOUR-FACE!

John
 
#155
MLysh said:
My comment had nothing to do with what Miles played and everything to do with what others took from it.
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There's a case to be made for Miles' influence on "smooth jazz" as we've come to know and love it. But attributing the roots of smooth jazz to Miles' attempts to reach new audiences and his use of electronics and popular music elements to accomplish it is way over-simplistic, IMO. For example, it overlooks other clear antecedents of smooth jazz such as the albums Creed Taylor made with Wes Montgomery (which I alluded to in an earlier post), the first of which I believe was "Bumpin'," which was made in 1965, before fusion was a glimmer in Miles' eye.
 
#157
eggfan said:
There's a case to be made for Miles' influence on "smooth jazz" as we've come to know and love it. But attributing the roots of smooth jazz to Miles' attempts to reach new audiences and his use of electronics and popular music elements to accomplish it is way over-simplistic, IMO. For example, it overlooks other clear antecedents of smooth jazz such as the albums Creed Taylor made with Wes Montgomery (which I alluded to in an earlier post), the first of which I believe was "Bumpin'," which was made in 1965, before fusion was a glimmer in Miles' eye.
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The main point: Improvising musicians from a jazz background trying to reach a larger audience via the incorporation of rock rhythms into their music. While he may not have been the first, he was definately the most important. He made it O.K. for others to try.
 
#159
BTW, are the Yellow Jackets considered smooth jazz? (See Invalid Link Removed) Or are they "American jazz fusion"? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowjackets.)

The Wikipedia entry is a bit ambiguous since, as we've discovered, in Europe smooth jazz is called "American jazz." So if the Widipedia editor meant "American jazz . . . fusion" instead of "American . . . jazz fusion," he/she might have been referring to what we Americans might call "smooth jazz fusion," if there is such a thing.
 
#160
MLysh said:
The main point: Improvising musicians from a jazz background trying to reach a larger audience via the incorporation of rock rhythms into their music. While he may not have been the first, he was definately the most important. He made it O.K. for others to try.
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I would argue that Creed Taylor has to rank very high on the importance scale as well, as far as the roots of smooth jazz go (actually I was incorrect earlier, "Movin' Wes" was his first collaboration wigth Wes Montgomery). Whether or not Miles is "definitely the most important" progenitor I think requires actually making a case rather than a statement, especially given Taylor's establishment of the very influential CTI records circa 1970.
 
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