Modern Jazz is No Fun

[eJake]

It begs the question of music schools:
Do they exist to make players, or music teachers?
A lot of upper education is designed as a perpetual motion machine - their only product is more teachers.

Had not considered that thanks.

 

[Nevada Pete]

I'll take a stab at this one. Coming at it from the music studies angle, I would suggest that you can take anything that was organically developed, analyze it under a microscope, then replicate what you've seen under that microscope and have a facsimile of that original, organic thing. And I think that's what happens with a lot of art studies, not just music. Bottom line is that you can teach many technical things, but you cannot teach soul. That's something individual players will either bring to the table or not. So I think that it's just the way it's always been; you will always have lots of people out there who go through the motions but aren't getting feel, and then you'll have those rare players who are actually living each note they play. Schools just allow the first type to proliferate a lot more.

I'd like to add to this, because I think it's so true. The music schools apply technical analysis to music that was not originated that way. Nobody was choosing one out of one hundred scale types they learned in college to improvise over the changes. The originators played straight from the heart, from the soul if you will, and brought into sonic reality what they heard in their head in real time. That's what made them masters. Analysis came later by people who hear nothing. Easier said than done, of course, but hear the music in your head that your muses sing to you. Then play that on an instrument. You can't learn that in school. Mostly it's about intervals. Not massive numbers of various scales.

 

[gmarcus]

The vangaurd of Jazz is now Hip Hop.....or what ever it evolved into these days.

 

[bass12]

It begs the question of music schools:
Do they exist to make players, or music teachers?
A lot of upper education is designed as a perpetual motion machine - their only product is more teachers.

Music schools are like any other schools: they exist to make money and that's pretty much it. Jazz is perfect for music departments: it offers tradition, an already-laid-out, colour-by-numbers programme steeped in theory and ear training - and a student's progress is easily quantified (which schools love). Small combos and big bands (gives the kids plenty to do) come with the terrain and there is an intellectualism that is considered part-and parcel of the genre (something is much easier for a school to justify if it has built in intellectualism). Most kids going into school couldn't care less about jazz. They want to play metal, or funk or pop or whatever - but jazz is what is shoved down their throats at school. So you end up with a lot of passionless jazz pastiche players thinking jazz is what they should be playing - even if they're not really feeling it.

 

[Altitude]

I'm sure everyone on this board hated "La La Land" if they even saw it. It came to mind though, because this topic is a subplot.

The protagonist (the Ryan Gosling character) is a jazz purist who wants to play trio bop music every night. His nemesis (John Legend's character) has expanded his definition of jazz to include new elements like electronica. Legend respects Gosling's character and even tries to pull him into his group as a player, but Gosling is so disgusted by anything other than the tradition in jazz that he refuses. To his own peril; Legend is much more successful ultimately.

I actually thought it was a pretty good movie.

 

[Dexterzol]

I feel ya completely. I went to a local Jazz night. I saw these kids, my age - just plunging their noses into sheets of paper, reading every note from it. There was no improvisation, they all looked stone-faced and focused on their own stuff.

These were art school wunderkinds by the way, and here I am, playing the same songs - improvising pretty much everything, smiling and moving my ass around if there are any people watching. They were fantastically good, but it was all so very clean and sterile

 

[Altitude]

Music schools are like any other schools: they exist to make money and that's pretty much it. Jazz is perfect for music departments: it offers tradition, an already-laid-out, colour-by-numbers programme steeped in theory and ear training - and a student's progress is easily quantified (which schools love). Small combos and big bands (gives the kids plenty to do) come with the terrain and there is an intellectualism that is considered part-and parcel of the genre (something is much easier for a school to justify if it has built in intellectualism). Most kids going into school couldn't care less about jazz. They want to play metal, or funk or pop or whatever - but jazz is what is shoved down their throats at school. So you end up with a lot of passionless jazz pastiche players thinking jazz is what they should be playing - even if they're not really feeling it.

That's a little rough. The theory behind jazz is math, and it never changes, even if instrumentation does. Any player, no matter what style of music they want to play, benefits from playing jazz. And I don't recall any of it being shoved down my throat in college, we only participated in the jazz program if we wanted to.

 

[Dexterzol]

Music schools are like any other schools: they exist to make money and that's pretty much it. Jazz is perfect for music departments: it offers tradition, an already-laid-out, colour-by-numbers programme steeped in theory and ear training - and a student's progress is easily quantified (which schools love). Small combos and big bands (gives the kids plenty to do) come with the terrain and there is an intellectualism that is considered part-and parcel of the genre (something is much easier for a school to justify if it has built in intellectualism). Most kids going into school couldn't care less about jazz. They want to play metal, or funk or pop or whatever - but jazz is what is shoved down their throats at school. So you end up with a lot of passionless jazz pastiche players thinking jazz is what they should be playing - even if they're not really feeling it.

That's sad. I love jazz, because that's what comes out when I play bass, or guitar for that matter. It's in my soul, and I'm sad to think that a lot of the people I could be playing jazz with would feel that way

 

[king_biscuit]

To your point about Miles and pushing things forward, I'm not sure why that is necessary. If you started now, and listened to a different song back to back, 24/7, you would not come close to listening to all of the music already created before you dropped dead. Bedtime Math We really don't need any new music at this point

Seriously, though, this mindless possession to "move forward" might have some pretty drastic consequences in the future, here is something to think about: Cyborgs will replace humans and reshape the world, famed scientist says

 

[knight of ni]

How about mentaly challenging?

And also how about being transported ? Moved ? Feel strong emotions ? Actually these days and after listening to a lot of excellent jazz this year (a lot classics and some recent - contemporary), I feel like "Fun" is not far from "Boring". Sorry if sound contemptuous, intellectual or whatever. It's just the truth.

 

[bass12]

That's a little rough. The theory behind jazz is math, and it never changes, even if instrumentation does. Any player, no matter what style of music they want to play, benefits from playing jazz. And I don't recall any of it being shoved down my throat in college, we only participated in the jazz program if we wanted to.

I didn't have it shoved down my throat either but I know a lot of people at other universities who did. And I wouldn't suggest that studying jazz harmony is in itself a bad thing but what I'm talking about goes beyond that. There is a lot of jazz snobbery in a lot of music departments and that I think can be very damaging.

 

[Sbassman Scratch]

Miles, Byrd, Evens were all junkies. Maybe kids these days are musing the wrong drugs.

 

[groooooove]

I get your point. I do know some savages who are self-taught though.

I really think going to music school and studying western tonal harmony made me a stronger jazz musician. The "school" you are speaking of would be the "jazz college" types. I agree that the vast majority of them are boring folks to play with and really do make life stale.

the folks I met in "regular" music school who happened to play jazz because they loved it, (but also were studying western tonal harmony as their higher education) are the best musicians I know. Just off the top of my head, the best bass players I know are ones who secretly were out playing jazz while studying orchestral excerpts and solo repertoire with their teachers in college.

 

[Jazz Ad]

OP you only tell us about music from 50+ years go. I mean, Lester Young died in 59.
Why do you expect kids to play the same stuff ?
There are tons of artist in jazz related genres that make me entousiastic.
Mohini Dey is fantastic while not even being in her 20s.
Snarky Puppy, extremelly talented.
Hiromi Uehara, passionate and inventive.
Ibrahim Maalouf, fabulous composer and creator of landscapes.

But yeah, they don't sound like Lester Young.

 

[Altitude]

I think actually whatever you want is out there. There's so much diversity in music, and it's so easy to consume. I know the people earning royalties hate the model, but I love it.

Apropos, there's this entire modern jazz scene in Sweden and Norway. Fantastic players and composers who are using some fresh new ideas. The music has lots of space and is maybe a little mellow, but it's right up my alley. I would never have known about any of it until Spotify started telling me I might like it.

Tingvall Trio
Wolfgang Haffner
Julian Wasserfuhr
Lars Danielsson

Check out any of those guys and follow the "similar artist" recommendations from there.

 

[knight of ni]

Check out Snarky Puppy and get back to us, I think they started at the jazz program at North Texas State, but they're not afraid to incorporate a lot of other things they grew up in order to make some modern music.

While they certainly make good music, I'm not that impressed with Snarky Puppy (with the exception of some solos I grant you that). With schools comes the adjective "Academic" which throughout any age has always been associated to "(much) less than exciting art". So now there are jazz schools, they produce a lot of academic jazz players which are like master painters students : enough skills to finish off the master's works, yet never produces paintings that would print their name in art history.
I recently compared latest Tower of Power album with the historic ones. Sound is better, music is perfectly played. An academic painting for sure. But it's an empty shell, however shiny and polished it is.

Concerning the comparison between the good ol' times and now, there is, I believe, a time compression effect. We now have instant access to a century of fantastic works by wonderful musicians. It is very difficult to compare that to the production of say a month, semester or even a year of jazz recordings. I listened to recent records by Hiromi, Spirit Fingers, Tenderlonious, Damian Erskine and others which are really really good. Maybe these names don't ring the same as Miles Davis, but I'm pretty sure that when Miles Davis was recording "So What", plenty of people would say jazz would never be as good as it was in those "Swing" days...

What is more concerning maybe is that jazz is less and less a popular music. People used to go to club, dance, or lest listen to some piano jazz in a bar. Now it's perceived as an 'intellectual' music, which, I firmly believe, it's not (even if some of it can be)

 

[Altitude]

While they certainly make good music, I'm not that impressed with Snarky Puppy (with the exception of some solos I grant you that). With schools comes the adjective "Academic" which throughout any age has always been associated to "(much) less than exciting art". So now there are jazz schools, they produce a lot of academic jazz players which are like master painters students : enough skills to finish off the master's works, yet never produces paintings that would print their name in art history.
I recently compared latest Tower of Power album with the historic ones. Sound is better, music is perfectly played. An academic painting for sure. But it's an empty shell, however shiny and polished it is.

Concerning the comparison between the good ol' times and now, there is, I believe, a time compression effect. We now have instant access to a century of fantastic works by wonderful musicians. It is very difficult to compare that to the production of say a month, semester or even a year of jazz recordings. I listened to recent records by Hiromi, Spirit Fingers, Tenderlonious, Damian Erskine and others which are really really good. Maybe these names don't ring the same as Miles Davis, but I'm pretty sure that when Miles Davis was recording "So What", plenty of people would say jazz would never be as good as it was in those "Swing" days...

What is more concerning maybe is that jazz is less and less a popular music. People used to go to club, dance, or lest listen to some piano jazz in a bar. Now it's perceived as an 'intellectual' music, which, I firmly believe, it's not (even if some of it can be)

I like Snarky Puppy, but it's not improvisational enough to fit my definition of jazz. It's very good music but it's something else. Very composition-driven and arranged. It's almost like classical music with jazz instrumentation and and active rhythm section. Or maybe it's some kind of neo big-band music.

Whatever it is is good, but it's not a direct descendant of Coltrane in the way that Chris Potter (for instance) is.

 

[LBS-bass]

I like Snarky Puppy, but it's not improvisational enough to fit my definition of jazz. It's very good music but it's something else. Very composition-driven and arranged. It's almost like classical music with jazz instrumentation and and active rhythm section. Or maybe it's some kind of neo big-band music.

Whatever it is is good, but it's not a direct descendant of Coltrane in the way that Chris Potter (for instance) is.

I'm a fan of SP, but was less than enamored of their latest album. Just my opinion, but it sounded like they phoned in some new tracks because they felt obligated to create another release.

Far more impressed with their offshoot, Ghost-Note, because Sput and Nate have put an amazingly groovy-funky thing together and brought in some great players to do it. By far the best live show I've seen in years.

 

[Tom Baker]

music is fun.
"Jazz" musicians not so much.
just my opinion/experience.

 

[brianrost]

It's hard to knock players for not doing "modern jazz standards" because those don't really exist. Tunes only become standards when lots of musicians play them. The standards of the bebop era were just tunes from Broadway shows and movies that a wide range of the public knew. Those sources have dried up...movies don't have muscial numbers in them, as was so common before the 1960s, and we're not hearing jazzers doing songs from "Rent" or "Les Miserables".