New Jazz... boring! Well my friends, the most profound musical prodigy on the planet is about to take jazz to a new level. Her name is ANGELINA JORDAN and this is her take on jazz. Enjoy the journey. ua-cam.com/video/6Ln9Tajsuzk/v-deo.htmlsi=mQ6CrKd2oWggDqix
* Can a “proper”jazz musician wear outlandish clothes? Not according to Wynton Marsalis. He called the outfits Miles was wearing onstage “dresses”. “Proper “jazz musicians wear dark suits. - Can a “proper” jazz musician use electronic effects? Wynton Marsalis thought the Miles Davis album “Bitches Brew”, which experimented with electric instruments, as being like “a general who has betrayed his country”. - Miles called Marsalis “the police”. * In the definitive history miniseries, “Jazz”, directed by Ken Burns, Wynton Marsalis is the final climax of what jazz should be. - The jazz gatekeeping has recently gotten fired up with the singer Laufey. Laufey Is a throw back to the bosa nova jazz style of the Getz / Gilberto album. The jazz gatekeepers are out in force trying to limit jazz singing to say that the bosa nova style is not “proper” jazz.
We should be celebrating that young musicians are gravitating towards the spirit of jazz, if not the form. I haven’t witnessed so much experimentation since the 1970’s. Is it jazz? Who cares, it’s awesome! The biggest problem I have is finding time to absorb all the brilliance.
But after all, isn’t the “spirit” of jazz really with jazz is all about? There’s no such thing as a strict jazz “form.” As long as you have improv/non-basic chord harmony/feel for “the blues” that’s jazz.
@@RonaldoWoke-No-MoreBand-y5m they keep rejecting my music and drove me and my spouse into poverty for decades and wont stop harming artists like myself
Mendoza Hoff Revels, John Zorn, Chess Smith, Vijay Iyer, The Bad Plus, Brad Mehldau, Théo Ceccaldi (just to name a few). All great musicians, all making new urgent music. John Zorn alone has recorded nearly 400 albums and is largely the father of hardcore jazz, a genre that has evolved greatly and still has a lot to offer.
It became dull and elitist when a certain group of people decided it should be presented like classical music, followed by the insane push for every music college in the world to offer a jazz degree. That’s how.
Luckily, jazz isn't only Marsalis at Lincoln Center, or whatever... there's something for almost everyone, but often people experience first a variety that doesn't suit them, and then they "don't like jazz".
Growing up, I loved fusion - especially the Mahavishnu Orchestra - but I also loved a lot of ECM albums. Like most people I started with Keith Jarrett, but I discovered a lot of European jazz by artists like Terje Rypdal, Eberhard Weber, Jan Garbarek, Azimuth etc. When I moved to London and met some “real” jazz fans, I found they were incredibly snooty about the jazz I liked, and often for rather weird reasons. Of course there was the “Europeans can’t play jazz” argument (even though ECM recorded the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Don Cherry and many other great African American artists). But there were also complaints that ECM records were “too well-recorded”. As far as I can tell, some of these jazz snobs actually wanted the records to remind them of New Orleans w--houses and Prohibition era speakeasies; and apparently Rainbow Studios in Oslo just didn’t. I pointed out that a lot of great African American musicians like John Coltrane were very spiritual. They really weren’t seeking to evoke that atmosphere at all…
Brilliant.I have the same history (ECM/Vishnu etc). Did you know Johnny "Rotten" Lydon is also an ECM fan? Those artists you mentioned were also HIS inspiration of his avant guard band PiL. (Public Image Limited). Thus Tony Williams, Ginger Baker all played with PiL. He is no dummy and a very astute bloke. Thus ECM and Sex Pistols!
"getting it" has a real inside/outside quality to it.. there's knowing your stuff about something that's fun and there's being a snob about academic, historical, cultural tropes that have to be so, or else. It's not fun at all, which is what music actually is. They miss the point trying to be the smartest guy in the room. It happens all over the place though. Terje Rypdal rocks and gets jazzy and weird/out there.. It's.. fun.
What a magnificent verbal improvisation! Intelligent, energetic, thought-provoking, even gripping... I've been watching your channel since the earlier "why modern jazz all sounds the same" video, and I think you really outdid yourself today. I know of no better speaker on youtube!
I don't find Dave Holland, Bill Frisell, Dave Douglas, John Abercrombie, or Chris Potter to be dull at all. I do find some jazz critics to be dull and elitist.
I could add to that list names like Marc Ribot, John Zorn, Chess Smith, Vijay Iyer, and bands like Mendoza Hoff Revels, Simulacrum, Ceramic Dog, Bad Plus and Fire! Orchestra (to name but a few).
Another aspect of jazz studies compared to other styles is the skillset of the jazz musicians is to work with standards and develop the appropriate inner-dynamic in playing melodies and soloing (e.g. Swing, slurs, scoops, flurries, etc). This, along with repertoire demands of perpetually recalling the massive volume of standards, doesn't necessarily serve most musicians in other styles (folk, rock, classical, etc) . Thus, being a jazz musician has become a very demanding, yet limited, specialization.
New Jazz... boring! Well my friends, the most profound musical prodigy on the planet is about to take jazz to a new level. Her name is ANGELINA JORDAN and this is her take on jazz. Enjoy the journey. ua-cam.com/video/6Ln9Tajsuzk/v-deo.htmlsi=mQ6CrKd2oWggDqix
Dear Andy, thank you for your insightful words-they really struck a chord with me. As a passionate music lover, jazz holds a special place in my world. In my view, every music genre has its golden era, and for jazz, that pinnacle was the 50s and 60s. After that, the 70s brought a new wave of innovation, with the last bold expressions emerging in the 90s and early 2000s. Since then, we've seen a few bright moments, but nothing truly lasting. This sentiment applies, at least for me, not only to jazz but also to classical music, rock, and many other genres. I wholeheartedly agree with you-jazz, once daring and rebellious, now feels like an "elite" art form, distant from its roots. But I don't point fingers at the musicians; it's life that’s changed. The pulse of modern society is so different now. We chase fleeting, artificial pleasures, often measured in seconds, while true art-the kind that demands openness, both inside and out-feels like it's fading. I hope this trend reverses, and I truly hope I'm wrong. Thank you once again for sharing your fascinating thoughts with us.
Excellent video. I'm only 17 minutes in, so you may have made this point but I think jazz follows the natural course that pop music does when it's no longer popular: it becomes boutique and esoteric. It's what happened to classical music in the 20th century, it's what happened to jazz in the 70s, and it's what's happening to rock & roll now.
Disco music did the same thing in the 70s & Rap doing much the same thing in the 00s .. i think the production companies tend to morph music into ways that push it into the mainstream but can strip away the soul of the music as it becomes less connected to the places & people it comes from. i think any type of music that comes into the system we live in will do this ? idk .. just a thought
It's already happened with rock & roll. The best period and most fertile period ended after the 1980s. The peak period ended with 1973, and sped up in the 1990s. When you sample, you've lost.
This is very US and euro centric, though. If you go to Brazil, Jazz is everywhere. Street artists play classical cutout guitars, play jazz chords and progressions. It is bossa nova, but it still speaks the language of jazz.
As far as I've witnessed Andy is UK centric + America (but not "Americana", that's the no no) with a couple of drops from the rest of the world from time to time. That is his prerogative and maybe he ain't no no bones about it.
@@garygomesvedicastrology growing up in Norway jazz was for sure considered a elite music form that regular people considered noise, but among musicians it was revered, .mostly due to the technical ability and mindboggling complexity of their music. There was a fusion group called Lava that had some popular success, and jazz was often on TV. We had a popular brass jazz quartet, and a jazz festival. But it was far from mainstream. I went to a bebop concert in a jazz club once, but that was a pretty sad affair with wine and cheese and nicely dressed people who barely would stomp their foot. I don't remember who played but I remember the cheese. At least in Brazil, bossa nova is played everywhere and very popular. Of course there is a danger mellow bossa nova in elevators and T stations turns into muzac but at least it is in the blood. The 9 and 11 and maj7 cords well and alive, and no ginger 4 chord pachelbel disciples anywhere to be seen.
@@bjornlangoren3002 Yes, but the bebop tradition seems to be what has passed for all of jazz. It's the reference point; but people seem to forget free jazz and other forms came about as a reaction to bebop and cool. To most people, at least as far as I can tell, Bebop and Cool ARE jazz. There were some astonishing Bebop players and I think, for example, the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band was amazing!
Jazz has been about fusion of styles throghout its history. Blues, dance music, latin, folk music, art music and modern classical, rock, funk, ambient, electronica, world music...most standards are from the american songbook and not jazz at all to begin with. Taking influences from all around is an integral part of jazz, when that stops jazz will truly become a museum piece.
Jazz education is the reason for this. Look at all the greats, they were rebels and fearless badasses. I got fed up with the castrated jazz scene and left 25 years ago. Been happy ever since. Can’t tolerate safe jazz.
@@bebopisthetruth Can’t remember when I listened to a new generation jazzer and went ”Woooww!!!” like I still do when listening to the old greats. There’s no danger. Modern jazz is like battling but no killing so what’s the point of that, heroin or no heroin.
@@Babassecretchannel so there is nothing out there at all that you find appealing in what would be called the jazz world? What do you like musically that’s being produced in the present day, or do you just stick with your recordings of the past?
Dizzy was a populist. I saw him play a couple of times and he wanted people to be happy after they came out of a Gillespie performance. He was also a staggeringly great player who really wanted jazz to be popular.
@@SaxSithTrue, but certain performers will deliberately ignore audiences, like Miles Davis and Roger Waters, for example. Dizzy was always incredibly happy and showed it and joked with the audience. That's what I meant. Dizzy 's personality was intensely focused on connecting with the audience, perhaps moreso than any jazz performer I ever saw live. Gary Burton had that trait, too. That doesn't mean Miles, for example, didn't want to be popular--it's just that Dizzy made an effort to interact and socialize with the audience. Gillespie was a genius; he was one of the most important people in jazz history, but he also clearly loved the audience and would use humor to interact with people
@@garygomesvedicastrology Miles would say he was just focusing on the band. I would’ve loved to be have been a member of an audience when he was with that quintet. Would love to have seen dizzy as well. Different experiences, both valid and wonderful.
Excellent program and analysis. I myself being a student and lover of jazz and its offspring, I can point to an interesting period in the 60s where this splintering occurred in reaction to listener rejections from both ends of the spectrum. for one apposing force example would be Coltrane and others had stretched the art form to galactic levels of musicality that the average listener didn’t find palatable. While on the opposite spectrum, you had let’s say a Wes Montgomery that was criticized for abandoning his raw roots in favor of a more commercial audience with the lighter fare orchestral backed pop covers (great stuff btw). I think mixing these responses with financial needs drove the youngest and no so young to go with the hot sounds drawing crowds, which was heavy electric rock and raw funky/ RaB like James Brown. I believe the groundwork for this transition had already been set by earlier artists in the late 50s into the 60s experimenting with the fusion of Eastern music plus Afro Caribbean rhythms ect.. together with traditional jazz forms. I always found one thing interesting is that for instance Miles with Bitches Brew going forward to 1975 evolved completely separate from the complex fusion of ,example, Mahavishnu, Eleventh House and many others. Miles fusion was almost a unique genre in itself. His entry into this was influenced by his Funk Diva wife who told him he could gain great success while pointing to the great rock concert festivals of the 60s and infectious danceable grooves of funk masters like JB. I’m tired of writing but I actually think much of this magical direction Jazz had gone in was fueled by a desire to reach the masses with commercial success. You can even see it in the old traditionalists that carried on into the 70s . Even a McCoy Tyner record would have one or two funky grooves on there. I wrote too much but I think the later changes in pop of the late 70s and 80s left Jazz artists that were on an eclectic whirlwind since 1969, high a dry with more simple beats and synth driven sounds emerging. I don’t think they ever did that right. I remember seeing McLaughlin in 1986 feeling dissatisfied with his overuse of the synth guitar tones along with Metheny at that time. I think the Kenny G generation and smooth Jazz, that infected every artist , damaged the art form. I love that Jazz is embedded in all corners of music nowadays. I wrote too much and lost the point. Sorry to anyone who read this.
The return to conservatism in the 80's as you mentioned, Pat Metheny worded it as "something changed and people started to play for their parents rather than their peers" (in his Beato interview).
@@robertlamkin6464It has to do with wanting to revive a mythical presentation that hearkens back to a supposedly purer era, but actually is a caricature that never existed, yet cynically is marketed to old people. Like whitewashing a heroin-soaked culture for a Lincoln Center crowd, a re-enactment rather than a continuation of the culture that develop the form into the 21st century, as part of a vibrant and continuous scene.
@@GizzyDillespee Yep, got it in one. Older hardcore jazz fans, the ones who grew up in the 1960s, as with a lot of things, now claim to own the rights while losing track of what really went on. Cultural NIMBYs you could call them. And I can feel it somewhat in myself too, for the 1990s. 1993 was the last whole year before everything changed (Netscape), then things really set in in the late 90s with the advent of mobile phones. And 2012 was the last year before smartphones started to devour society (willingly btw) and kid's mental health. So anything from 1993 and back is another era.
Rudy was a dentist, and made a home studio in his home in New Jersey. He would invite the artists to record in his home and the rest is history. Such wonderful recordings from that setting. Wayne Shorter, Bill Evans etc. My faves.
Are you familiar with Jack Kerouac? He said It really well in one of his novels. I think it was "Desolation Angels" it went something like: "Jazz, the music of the mad American night. Jazz, once the joyful noise of the ten cent beer joint, stolen by crew cut Madison Avenue executives, hijacking the good tables sipping ten dollar Manhattans while pretending to groove to Brubeck and impress their chicks who act like they aren't there while true beats rattle empty pockets as they shuffle past Birdland" I think that's a pretty close paraphrase. Kerouac was a lot like Hunter Thompson. A madman capable of stunning moments of clarity. Anyway. That's how jazz became so dull and elitist.
New Jazz... boring! Well my friends, the most profound musical prodigy on the planet is about to take jazz to a new level. Her name is ANGELINA JORDAN and this is her take on jazz. Enjoy the journey. ua-cam.com/video/6Ln9Tajsuzk/v-deo.htmlsi=mQ6CrKd2oWggDqix
@@Borin86 The intersection that John Zorn has made in jazz from influences as disparate as Carl W. Stalling, Napalm Death, Ennio Morricone and Edgard Varèse (to name but a few) has resulted in a “school” that has produced and continues to produce challenging, modern and, yes, relevant music. The list of projects that have emerged from these mergers - to which others have been added - is enormous. As I live in Portugal, I'm lucky enough to see some of these projects live every year at the Jazz in August Festival. Simulacrum, Ceramic Dog, Mendoza Hoff Revels, Peter Brötzmann, Many Arms, Iceburn (the list goes on and on). Then there's a whole musical universe, closer to rock, which has been influenced by Zorn's jazz, such as Mr. Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3, etc. I would also be very attentive to the influence of 90s electronic music on current jazz. All of this is relevant, only the idea of what jazz is seems to have changed, or evolved.
One of the finest rebuttals to the tired "jazz is dead" and "jazz is elitist" arguments is the book 'Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century' by Nate Chinen. Chinen is one of the leading writers on jazz and the book is an invigorating look at the scene today and developments in aesthetics in jazz over the last 40 odd years. Highly recommended!
Chinen is great. Just finished his book and he makes a lot of good points. And speaking of the music as “dead” and/or elitist is just lazy. Plenty of things happening. Take ‘Big Ears’ for example.
You made me want to read Nate Chinen's book. I'm from Portugal and in Lisbon we have the Jazz em Agosto festival, which for decades has brought a huge number of innovative and truly spectacular musical projects to our country. Honestly, I can't see the point of Andy Edwards' reflection. “The problem with contemporary jazz”? What problem?
Thank you for recording this video; it has given me great insight. After many years of listening to music and playing the bass, and following some deep reflection during the COVID-19 pandemic, I feel that I’ve defined two core influences for myself in music: 1. Ricky James - Street Songs 2. Blue Mitchell - Blue’s Moods
Jazz has more in common with 1950’s abstract painting than with other popular music. Both required attention (and a basic familiarity with what came before). Both require cultural literacy. Meanwhile, we’re bred dumber and less literate with every generation. Anything that inspires (or requires) independent thinking has become a target.
Bill Evans said something about jazz isn’t a body of material , it’s a method , it’s a way of making music that has improvisation as a core component. I’m a pianist , I’ve played in some bands that people would think of as Jazz that has very little improvised content, and some Latin / salsa bands that have a ton of improvised sections. I had a disagreement with someone recently about playing a pop tune as it “wasn’t jazz, and we are not a covers band “ I think bill Evans definition has links with that “what is art “ argument . “Art is something an artist makes”.
I fundamentally agree with Bill (continued RIP) and understand where he is going with this statement. The irony here is…a “body of material” is what you are left with when one of two things happens: when you stop playing/having your playing recorded for posterity before you die (e.g. Theolonius Monk) or your playing/recording of said playing is cut off by your demise (just about everyone else, but most prominently Miles, Coltrane, Brubeck, Bird, Dizzy, Benny, Lester, Bud, Cannonball, and the aforementioned Mr. Evans among many others I didn’t mention). (Un)/fortunately for me, I have a below average short-term memory and can enjoy the improvised creativity of these artists again and again because of that. Speaking of irony: I think that the invention of recorded sound (thank you, Mr. Edison) while preserving the above and the unique sounds, improvising talent, etc. these people exhibited - also seems to be at odds with the idea of music-making “in the moment” and can be seen as a preventative to truly creating something at least different if not new if you are a practicing musician in the “jazz genre” and you have been exposed to quite a bit of previously recorded and released material.
I share most of your perceptions of Jazz history. I’m a musician from Lima, Perú, was born in 1954. I grew up with rock music and the Beatles. Later on “discovered” its roots in african american folk music and listened to blues music in 1970. Learned to play the blues harmonica in 1971 and again “discovered” Jazz sometime in 1972 or 73. That led me to the decision to study music and start playing saxophone and I’ve been doing that ever since. Now I also teach at a university and have a history of Jazz course now for more than 10 years and I just subscribed to your channel and would like to get in touch with you to maybe have a conversation and share or discuss on our favorite subject…
So much happened in the 1970’s and 1980’s outside of fusion and the “young lions” as well. Jazz has a multifaceted history since 1970! I dig it all! An example would be the great records of Woody Shaw…I think often overlooked in jazz history
A fairly balanced review. Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis and others did investigate the continuing crossovers of jazz and popular music, or even blues derived music throughout the 70s and 80s. Older artists tried to do that also to some degree. I'm thinking Woody Herman and Stan Kenton as Woody dove into the fusion pool with a big band through 1978 as he recorded works by Steely Dan and Chick Corea. Stan covered an album's worth of Chicago. You had the same issue in the 70s with rock when you had the revivalists of neo-rockabilly and punk music against prog rock and such. The jazz world had revivalists and rebirth of older artists that returned to recording, i.e. Benny Golson, Benny Carter, Roy Eldridge, Art Pepper, who had a wonderful rebirth in the years up to his death, among others. One can debate endlessly if a rock hybrid group such as the Grateful Dead fell under the umbrella of jazz as they are improvisatory in their music, and they played with/recorded with David Murray, Ornette Coleman, Branford Marsalis, etc. Thank you for the review!
Love this, thanks Andy! I'm a young trumpeter from the UK, and most of the jazz education I've had just puts Miles, Dizzy, Chet on a pedestal and there's nothing past Wynton to even look at. First time hearing about the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Alan Holdsworth was from your channel, I think it's not talked about enough. Cheers
Jazz is now a broad and varied topic and that’s a good thing. Jazz is not dull and elitist at all because it can be thought of as; Pat Metheny, Tito Puente, Eliane Elias, Michael Brecker, Kenny G, Chris Botti, Diana Reeves, Patti Austin, Tom Jobim, Dirty Loops, Matteo Mancuso, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Bill Evans, Joe Sample, Michael Franks…… And on and on and on. So what’s wrong with that?
Because of you, Andy, I've now discovered 'Nothing" by Louis Cole and I love this album. Some happening music!! Great lecture Andy, btw!! -- On another note Andy, I think it was you who said that the jazz world didn't know what to do with Alan Holdsworth's music and you are spot on! We jazz (whatever we need to call ourselves) musicians are the only people who can appreciate what Holdsworth was doing, what he contribute to the language of music. Thank you for this.
The essential difference is playing for an audience and playing for yourself. Armstrong, Ellington, Basie, Goodman etc played for audiences, but the bebop thing started the journey towards self satisfaction over audience satisfaction. That is not to say that many great post bop jazz artists had no audience. The popularity of Davis, Coltrane and the Blue Note artists etc confirms that an audience existed and it still does today. You could drive yourself mad going around in circles discussing things like jazz-rock, but does any of this matter? Just accept it or reject it for what it is and then enjoy the bits that you like.
Yes, that's close to my way of thinking. Let's not forget that it was black musicians who forged real jazz - mostly in a totally unconscious way. Bebop was the last great flowering of jazz in my book, but within that lay the seeds of its own destruction.
I think this is an oversimplification of musical development. We are under the impression that we choose what we listen to, and this isn't true. Record companies and radio and TV make those judgments for us based on what they think we'll like. I wasn't expecting to like Ornette Coleman the first time I heard him. Instead, I loved it! I think we underestimate how much our tastes are shaped by society. I am not saying everyone will love new developments in music; but I can guarantee they won't like what doesn't match what they have been exposed to already.
@@markodern789Pop musicians write for themselves but look for something that will sell. They want to grow their audiences. Jazz in the 1960s had a decreasing audiences and survived by playing with increased frequency in Europe, even the Blue Note artists. Cecil Taylor was a Blue Note artist at one point, for example! But many, including Dexter Gordon, toured Europe a great deal.
Elitist perhaps, but dull? I'm not talking about these jazz retirement homes called North Sea Jazz Festival or the Montreux Jazz Festival, which have been presenting us with the same pensioners from the 70s for decades - that's dull indeed! The exciting contemporary jazz today takes place largely outside the mainstream event horizon: I had a strong Punk background when I went to the Moers Festival for the first time in 1983. I saw musicians and bands like John Zorn, Fred Frith, Skeleton Crew, Massacre, Naked City, the Odean Pope Trio and James Blood Ulmer, Cassiber, Steve Coleman and man... was I flashed! Here it was - the same raw energy I loved about Punk, but combined with an infectous joy for experimentation and pushing the borders of music. It felt like the marriage of Punk and Free Jazz. And this exciting journey continued in the 90's and 2000's with the discovery of stuff like Doctor Nerve, Elephant9, Steamboat Switzerland, The Flying Luttenbachers, Supersilent, Zu, The Thing, Fire!, Fire! Orchestra, Talibam!, Terry Ex and Han Bennink, Original Silence ...man, I could go on forever! Now thinking about it, all these musicians didn't even had an elitist attitude!
What are you talking about. Montreux and North Sea really don't highlight old jazz players anymore and instead heavily promote big pop artists like John Legend, Sam Smith, Lizzo and Lil Nas.
@@shaft9000 that's not a good point. There's way too much music now for musicians to have a consensus on which modern tunes to learn off by heart in the hope that they can turn up at a jam session and play them. Plenty of great tunes that could become 'standards' but impossible to make that happen in this era.
In the 1970s I became a jazz fan, loving the great music from Coltrane, Miles, Mingus, Monk, Kirk, Parker and many more, and what originality, what depth of feeling. And, being in London, in the music business, I often went to Ronnie's and other venues, and loved it madly. I also loved Weather Report, creators of great tunes, and less so Return to Forever and the Mahavishnu band, who seemed increasingly more pretentious and self indulgent. Calling yourself a 'jazz rock band' meant you didn't have to create good songs and could jam instead. Cut to 2024 and although there's a great jazz club near me with ma y of the best groups playing there, I gave up going because everything is so formulaic, so head-solos-head that I'm bored after the first track. Jazz is like ALL the arts in the 21st century: it's stalled, uncreative, despite some great technical players. Jazz is only spawning tribute acts of various kinds. Yes, astonishing virtuosity, the equivalent of guitar shredding. Look, every art movement goes through three stages: 1. the birth, with energy, exploration, vitality,.surprises. 2. The maturity and.the masterpieces, establishment of strong forms. 3. The spirit progressively vanishes as young, well-trained jazz-college players work within the established categories and create tribute big bands and combos. A.good big band is worth hearing,that's for sure, but I can no longer listen to small combos with players blowing long in the style of recordings of seventy years ago and getting a small ripple of applause. Yes, it all does all sound the same but check out all the other arts and see the same phenomenon. What do you think?
Prog rock actually expanded my mind to such a degree that I was able to get into and appreciate jazz more than I ever did before (especially post 'Bitches Brew' Miles). I've always felt that Mahavishnu Orchestra was more prog than jazz and fits easily next to 70s King Crimson (Crimson even had saxophones which Mahavishnu didn't). I do wonder what you think about the "smooth jazz" genre considering that has been the most commercial form of jazz in recent decades (although the jazz snobs abhor it) but it's kept the genre alive and it harkens back to the historic role of jazz as popular music for the masses. Artists like George Benson had the musical chops but still had plenty of pop chart hits.
Another great video Andy, some real insights into music. I did the Ba jazz course at Middlesex University in the mid 90s. I felt they did a pretty good job of including all the different styles from Louis Armstrong to Django Bates. There was a great range of tutors there who really delved into all kinds of music, Latin American, swing, Balkan, Indian, modern classical, it was a great course. It certainly opened my eyes to a lot of stuff I never would have heard before. Whenever I had conversations with the tutors there they were always open to including all styles of music, I didn’t feel that it was closed off into just Ellington and bebop. I did feel amongst some of the students that there was a bit of elitism though. However this course is now no more - a real shame.
Andy… You really did a fantastic job here. I was tracking the whole time. Yes … I’ve heard many interviews with Winton Marsalis, stuffed shirt. I even heard him implying Sachmo was too frivolous, eg : Popular to be taken seriously. I will not repeat it word for word because it was very offensive. More please.
For me, the only jazz artist that consistently surprised and delighted me was “Weird” Wayne Shorter, who was and is my favorite musician I ever saw live. He treated each concert as if it was his first time playing. He told me when I saw him after a show, that Miles once said to him “Wayne, what would it be like if we played as if we didn’t know how to play?” And that’s how Wayne treated his music, especially with that final Wayne Shorter Quartet he led for 20 years. For me, he was the essential jazz artist, along with Miles and Gil Evans. Saw Gil Evans with his big band numerous times, and also saw him with Lee Konitz. These guys, along with Joe Zawinul, just epitomized Jazz for me.
@@TroubleinZION I was just offering a thought. And it matters to me and maybe to a few others. Doesn’t have to matter to you, to everyone or actually anyone. I was just offering my two cents. Sorry it wasn’t worth even that to you. No problem.
@@RabbiSteve1 I’m sorry. I’m frustrated that people have colonized jazz and everything else. Jewish people protect their traditions. Their practices are shrouded in mystery but everything that is black must be owned, analyzed, and offered up to people who have nothing to do with the why’s, who’s, and what’s of jazz.
from my perspective ... a 74 year old musician still scrambling to keep his head above the water ... anyone who attempts to analyze the complex history of jazz music is a brave and ambitious individual and (of course) ... entitled to their opinion ... good luck with that my man ... i've subscribed ... this is intellectually very stimulating / pervocative
Yes, I always thought that all forms of popular music (jazz, Rock & roll, classical, rap) have gone through similar life cycles. First, they all started as dance music and got very popular. Then they became more virtuosic, they pull from other genres and folk music, stretching the boundaries. Last, they break apart and the original form dies. Also each new form includes elements of the older music. So most of the examples you give I see as "not jazz" and "not blues", but they were strongly influenced by them (like the blues had a baby...) It's kind of the same way with people - when you're young you just want to dance, in mid-life your tastes become more "refined" and when you're old, you have nostalgia and seeing what your kids are up to.
This was a fascinating video to watch. As a graduate of a contemporary music program at a small liberal arts school I was always dismayed to hear of the experiences of some of my fellow musicians in more traditional programs, not in terms of their technical training, but in terms of their understanding of and openness to different approaches and their flexibility as artists. I've never before heard this particular explanation but the phenomena you describe make perfect sense. Your arguments might suggest a more "biographical" approach to jazz history, one that traces the evolution and emergence of individual artists as the history of the genre itself. This might be one way to avoid the infinite regressions and ambiguity of classification and categorization. In any case, I have subscribed and will be watching for your next video.
In France we say Rock musicians know three chords and plays before thousands of people while Jazz musicians know thousands of chords and play before three people.
Lulwut, 95% rock band earns nothing meanwhile being a jazz dude you can play in bars, cruise ships, whatever, and have some stable income without headache
In my opinion being a hobby sax player in my bedroom... I think it comes down to how a lot of young students are introduced to "jazz". Which, for me in the 1990's was through school band and their jazz band. We did play some Herbie Handcock and things like Fireshaker, and we knew those were out there, but since we were a big band we stayed in that lane of big band music. Some friends and I did have Real Books, but again due to skill and frame of reference we stuck around that "traditional" jazz. So although I was lucky and had a decent to great school band program (I can nitpick 20 some years later) it drove my frame of reference. Apply that same thing to college and everyone getting music degrees or even learning theory. Granted I didn't go to college, so I'm making some big assumptions, but I would think they still have "bands" and a lot of frame of reference to students would be via what they play and then (since they would be great players on their own) looking to the virtuosos of their instruments as inspiration. So then, at least for me being a saxophone player and following other players, this drives them to copy "the greats" and this "jazz" circle you're talking about keeps going. Although I dislike some aspects of social media, I do think youtube has opened up education for music theory and learning an instrument. I also think it allows new groups to get a voice and following to push music forward. Now, I'm not saying this is the end all and be all of "jazz" but we have groups like Leo P., MoonHooch, Grace Kelly, and others dancing and having fun playing, and sticking traffic cones in the end of their horns... We also have people like Saxsquach doing raves and electronic events. So I think that jazz, is starting to move away from the large concert halls were audiences sit around and politely clap and nod, and I think that modern players are looking to different and current role models now.
Jazz fractured into different styles already in the 1920s/30s (stomp vs swing vs substyles of these) and 1940s/50s (swing vs bebop vs latin, and more). What happened around 1970 is that the music ("rock&roll", "r&b", "funk") that had taken over the popular scene from jazz a couple decades earlier, now started to copy more complex harmonic elements from jazz and bebop, that had been largely rejected in the 1940s and 50s. And also that some jazz musicians started to use the same instruments and sounds as was popular in the newer and more electrified music ("rock", "r&b", "funk" again). Such as the Fender Rhodes, electric bass, electric guitar, and more.
@@herrbonk3635 The first time I encountered the "that isn't jazz" arguments was when I started exploring the music in the latter 1960s and the reaction to free jazz. Then I saw it in the early 70s or a little earlier with fusion. Looking back on the history, the reaction to bebop wasn't so tolerant either-I believe some folks referred to bebop as "Chinese music"! However, official intolerance was institutionalized around 1980, and the larger audience (which is my concern here) has limited knowledge of anything developed after around 1965 or so. The other musical expressions didn't die, of course, but the larger audience has gone to other things, because it is now perceived, like pre-20th Century "serious" music, as a lovingly recreated period piece by most listeners. That is the unfortunate part that needs to be corrected. Music will always change; it's inevitable. Once it is perceived as unchanging, it's stuck as a fossil form. Jazz isn't a fossil!
@@garygomesvedicastrology I see where you are coming from, and largely agree. But I don't think one should try to "correct" people's taste or even "intolerance" towards sub cultures. That group mentality is just part of life, as I see it, probably as old as humanity. But sure, exposing young people to living and breathing improvised music is probably a good thing! Personally, I have no problems with (some) music styles being traditional for hundreds of years, as long as improvisation is "allowed"... Like it is in all (well?) forms of jazz and also in many forms of folk- or ethnic music. One of the worst things that happend to music (after hiphop, boy bands and k-pop :) is that classical music successively stopped improvising altogether! Some of it remains in so called art music though. And speaking of that, Schönberg, Stravinskij, Bartok, et al were somewhat inspired by jazz. Conversely, early jazz acutally copied most (but not all!) basic elements from popular european styles. Cabaré music, schlager, french gypsy music, klezmer music, german marches, etc. From scales and chords to the instruments used.
@@herrbonk3635 I think one thing was misunderstood. I am not trying to "correct" tastes at all. I agree with you completely about that. But I am in favor of increases exposure--sort of like a sampler. If we don't know something is there, we will never know if we like it. That is what I am advocating--not forcing anything on anyone, just sharing information more uniformly. In large part, I think of this as a form of promotion, not forcing. Budgets for promoting stars are huge-I just want to see a little more promotion of what lies underneath the water line in of the music iceberg. I remember a time, admittedly short, in which listeners could hear the Who, African music, free jazz and other music all on the same show. That's the ideal for me, personally. Commercial pressures made these stations convert to rock, then AOR...I know it sounds a bit like DEI but it is something much broader, because it isn't an advocacy model. It's just exposure. As for the matter of improvisation, it was reintroduced into classical music as early as the 1930s by Vaughn-Williams, later by Cage and Stockhausen, was allowed for performers like Liszt, and has never stopped being an integral part of classical organ music-there are improvisational competitions in that area of classical music.
I have to agree with you on a number of levels… it certainly has changed from when I started to embrace it and what I truly loved about it… and now it has moved is not something that really excites me… it had to do with the quality of the artist that we had that are no longer with us… thanks for stepping up on this.. it does take some courage to put this out there
Easy one this, when the mountains of dull and elitist people started to play it. Loads of them with very dull and conservative temperaments and beliefs making very conventional jazz. Their music is very competent but it's also forgettable. There's not enough wild three headed dogs roaming the surface of mars making jazz, not enough people making jazz like they're trying to pound new craters into the moon, not enough pirates making jazz like they're looking for the buried treasure that still hasn't been found. It takes adventurous people to make adventurous music. None of this applies to Roy Marchbank though, he's f**king ace!
in part, thats because if you want to play at the highest level in the UK you have to be in London. If you're in london you have to generate loads of money to be able to survive. If you want to generate loads of money then good luck being a wild three headed dog. The nature of capitalism has forced people to have to be less of a personality, to play safer because you won't then work the corporate scene, which is massive at the moment. It is that, primarily, which is the cause of what you're talking about, not the actual humans playing it. It sucks, but there's no solution other than to be rich, in which case you probably aren't hungry enough for it, so we're fucked unless something massively changes.
@@Junglesmells Hey cheers for getting back to me. I think you're dead on about the challenges about making money from making experimental music in the current economy. I have a little bit of experience of being a wild three headed musical dog though and I don't quite agree it's the sole factor inhibiting people from making experimental music and having success with it. I can easily think of a whole cabal of musicians who I think would be more successful in the spheres of electronic dance music, videogame composition and the jazz circuit (areas i'm more familiar with) if they were more, rather than less adventurous with their compositions. I'm very much a left winger usually at the front of the queue to relate the systemic problems of capitalism to cultural and artistic problems, but do I think enough proletarians like me are doing enough to bring the ruckus in these conditions? I don't. Best wishes anyway buddy, these are just my thoughts on the topic so far.
New Jazz... boring! Well my friends, the most profound musical prodigy on the planet is about to take jazz to a new level. Her name is ANGELINA JORDAN and this is her take on jazz. Enjoy the journey. ua-cam.com/video/6Ln9Tajsuzk/v-deo.htmlsi=mQ6CrKd2oWggDqix
Hi Andy, Of course, your title caught my eye-this is a subject I can really relate to these days. Something changed after the millennium, with the rise of social media and the way PR people started taking over the jazz landscape. Being a musician (and more) for a long time-someone who put in all the effort to become the best I could, going to school, getting my grades, and all that-jazz is where I ended up as a musician. I have my influences, my heroes, who shaped my musicianship, and I’ve always been more interested in those who try to say something meaningful with their music, rather than just show off their skills. I was drawn to players who wanted to innovate, and that became what jazz meant to me. The problem lately is that everyone is just trying to get gigs. PR agents, who often have no real connection to music or any musical education, have the power to tell musicians how they should sound, what they should play, and who they should be. This creates a chain of individuals who are now closely connected, forming an almost cartel-like industry. They judge every artist and determine the flow of the entire scene. Many musicians have already been indoctrinated into a certain taste and sound because they see what kind of music gets booked, and they also want those gigs. This leaves very little room for those who are trying to innovate or change jazz in any way. As you said, the current landscape is dull, with similar players and music that sounds the same everywhere. The academic world of jazz education also plays a role, as you mentioned, focusing only on a narrow expression of jazz. It’s all connected. But I do think there’s some hope. There are bands and musicians who are keeping the core values of jazz alive while also daring to explore the unknown. Jazz is an art form that will survive underground and eventually find its way back up again.
New Jazz... boring! Well my friends, the most profound musical prodigy on the planet is about to take jazz to a new level. Her name is ANGELINA JORDAN and this is her take on jazz. Enjoy the journey. ua-cam.com/video/6Ln9Tajsuzk/v-deo.htmlsi=mQ6CrKd2oWggDqix
wait. no one sees the irony. man in jacket and tie sitting in a rehearsal room (or whatever specifically named/designed type of room it is) discussing elitism and dullness.
The Ken Burns documentary initiated two beliefs that had led to quite a few false conclusions. The best known is that free and fusion were not jazz. The second is what I call the dance myth-that dance was critical to popularity. This overlooks the fact that the two best selling jazz albums of all time (Davis' Kind of Blue and Brubeck's Time Out) had nothing that was dance oriented. Jazz was supplanted by rock and roll, and the record buying audience became younger. Younger people want their own music, dance or not.
Blame writers like Stanley Crouch and Albert Murray who criticized the common man’s approach to listening and enjoying the music. These writers and some of their contemporaries have done for the music. They became snobs.
Fascinating topic, and great video! I'm excited to hear more. The impact of government funding on music throughout history is something I would find particularly enlightening. How do you feel about the impact of musicians like Barry Harris or Pat Martino on the jazz scene? Cheers 🍻
Have just found an interesting definition of the word jazz from the 1860's....back then it was "jasm", meaning energy, vitality,spirit. As you say, bands like Cream Jimi Hendrix Experience, Lifetime etc, these produced the connective tissue between genres, jazz is "improvisation on a theme".
“I found this interesting” lol, not just a quote. Thought provoking, food for thought. Thanks, I learned a few names of musicians and bands tonight. It will be fun to check them out.
whenever you try to teach something in Universities, you have to standardize things to be able to grade people. But when you standardize things the magic and creativity goes away
This is one of the best comments anywhere on UA-cam, I'm not a bot. It took me years to figure out, no one should think of themselves as a having a 'specialty' , like a graded potato.
I'm not so sure about Jazz being now so elitist and dull. As a matter of fact, I think that it has been/is one of the most creative, open minded and genre bending genre of music out there alongside Metal and Hip-Hop/Rap/Urban music. So much exciting stuff out there, Lady Blackbird, Moor Mother, Irreversible Entanglements, Colin Stetson, Makaya Mccraven, Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog, Matana Roberts, Monika Roscher Bigband, Nels Cline, Nubya Garcia, Rob Mazurek and his Exploding Star Orchestra, Damon Locks and his Black Monument Ensemble, Sons Of Kemet, Shabaka Hutchings, Steve Lehman, Tigran Hamasyan, Kamasi Washington, Ambrose Akinmusire, Błoto, Kinga Młyk, C'Mon Tigre, Chassol, The Comet Is Coming, Desire Marea, Ezra Collective, Fire!/Fire! Orchestra, Heliocentrics, Hidden Orchestra, Jeff Parker, Sun Ra Arkestra, Kamaal Williams, Chicago Underground Quartet, you name it...
Back in the late 1970s when I was working in public radio, it was the accepted truth that the most open-minded music audience was the jazz audience with opera fans being the most elite snobs. I still think that way even though I love classical music too. But how do I stay in touch with what is going on in jazz today?
@@pasadenaphil8804 Yeah, that's definitely hard to do today. Fortunately I follow some sources/websites which promotes/reviews a lot of great stuff (both jazz as well as rock, pop, hip-hop etc.) that is happening in the world of music today and don't promote the same stuff that is so often promoted elsewhere. If more such sources like websites/music blogs/magazines etc. would do that, it would be much easier
A really interesting monologue I stumbled in here. I’m a musician who is mixing up lots of different music styles. Flamenco with Progressive Rock/Metal, Fusion, Blues, Classical music, all that Funk, Soul etc.stuff with classical music of India, North African,Balkan and German folk music etc.etc. and yes I borrow from Jazz a lot. But I started to get allergic to the categoritis. When I look back to composers from the baroque and classical era, I can’t find anyone like for example Bach or Weiss calling himself a baroque musician, or Beethoven calling himself a classical composer. The inspiration and comes from expanding and breaking the boundaries and by musicians competing with each other there are zillions of new ideas coming until someone makes a theory about it and gives it a name. Kirkegard once said : Don’t give me a name. If you name me you’re killing me and rob me of all the things I could be. Sorry for my bad English. I’m not a native speaker.
Most jazz musicians I know KNOW the history. The economics of a big band makes it a labor of love. The Village Vanguard Monday night orchestra, theGill Evans bands barely pay cab fare but the greatness of the music helps keep them alive. The honor of getting to play those books is awesome. PERIOD!
Yes, but to your point, much jazz was elitist when it was created. Nobody plays jazz to get rich and famous. Those that did, hello, George Benson, were called sellouts because they got paid
My favourite jazz-period runs from the late fifties to the late sixtees (so called hard bop). Once the avant garde took over I wasn't interested no more. By the way, the same happened in classical music; when the avant garde (Pierre boulez et all) took over people were not interested no more.
I think you're falling for a fallacy here: What does it mean that the avantgarde in whatever field of culture "takes over"? There are always artists who "progress" a genre who go deeper, further, elsewhere. That does not mean that the rest becomes obsolete or goes away. Unless the mediators - the press, the culture critics with mainstream and industry clout - tell them to, and they follow or are pushed from avenues of production and attention. Your beef should not be with avantgarde artists but with the snobbish elitist journos who only accept the avantgarde and sneer about anything else.
@@finneoganThis is a good point. From the standpoint of music history, the avant garde gets attention because it is new, but in reality, how many classical lovers spend time listening to it? The popular stuff remains popular, and the forward looking stuff is only of interest to academia, at least until modern concepts slowly get absorbed and assimilated by the popular, and many never reach this point.
I think there is a common misconception that the avant garde is one thing in any music. It's not. You can go from Boulez to Cage, Stockhausen, Riley in classical (who all sound different) to, in jazz, Ornette sounds different than Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, World Saxophone Quartet, Muhal Richard Abrams, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sun Ra --all of whom include elements of hard bop, bebop, march music, dixieland, etc. I don't ever get the impression the avant garde took over in either jazz or classical. It was struggling for survival well into the 1980s, when it settled into an alternative music idiom, and after the late 1960s, independent record labels. Music history is not linear. When you go to Europe, South America, Japan, etc. Check out Chris McGregor from South Africa! South African melodies, tight interlocking sections, and very structured, especially in their early releases. Post bop and contemporary classical are not musical styles. They are multiple musics built from the tradition. Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman could play Charlie Parker perfectly--Ayler was called Little Bird because of this ability.
I agree with most of this analysis. In my opinion the giant of jazz is still Charlie Parker. Before Parker, jazz was popular music. After Parker, jazz became virtuoso music. Bebop was never intended to be commercially popular; it was jam session music. But Bebop took over, and it continues to be modern, in my opinion.
Bass desires, Michael Brecker, Steps Ahead, Bill Frisell, John Scofield, Mike Stern, Michel Petrucciani, and many many more...all amazing musicians playing amazing music. Anything but dull that is for sure.
A friend of mine listens to exactly those musicians. We have an ongoing minor bicker as to whether this is jazz or not. I can listen to these guys, it's not as if it's abstract as such - but I'd still rather listen to old jazz, ie: pre-1950 black jazz.
@@TalesofWiltshire There is always someone more of a purist than you. Some will say only dixieland qualifies, etc... Charlie Parker thought of himself as a jazz man. Who are we to disagree?
@@brianholden6618 - Actually it's a posh rehearsal studio where posh proggers get together and jam. Andy is totally a family man in a lovely little house or semi-detached unit, def not a council house.
Jazz is an attitude not a commodified label or sound and it always swings back and forth between its two mothers: intellect (Classical) and emotion (blues). That same intuitive creative spark moves through forward thinking music of all types regardless of what it is labelled as to sell it.
This was a fascinating analysis. I would like to add one comment, however. There is a tendency among critics, a tendency that I think you fall for yourself on occasion, to look down on music this is considered too "commercial". But all music has to be commercial. If no one will pay for its production, it won't happen. If no one bought Pat Metheny's albums, his career would be ended. I think what critics really mean by this, is that they dislike anything which is too popular. This condescension to anything that might appeal to the masses I personally find rather distasteful. At one stage, Shakespeare, not to mention Mozart, was quite popular with the masses of the time. Does that mean we should not respect them? And I think that sometimes this form of snobbery in music has a perverse effect. Atonal music in the "classical" genre became acclaimed by the critics because it certainly could not be accused of being popular. The consequence of this was that this encouraged composes to write music that was almost unlistenable, and certainly not enjoyable. Those determined not to caught liking anything "popular" praised it and bought it for no other reason than their snobbish attitudes.
Jazz is alive and well, one just has to open his or her mind, heart, and ears to it. The New Masada Quartet is the greatest jazz quartet in the world, and they are alive and thriving! All one has to do is listen. And of course they are not alone.
Free Jazz (Ornette style) meets Jewish scales and klezmer - I love it! That said - some of Zorn's music is weird but I love his Jewish inspired music like the Book of Angels series
I just wanted to quickly comment on one thing you said about synthesizers. Yes they were big modules, but they were actually great instruments for jazz because, with time and forethought, you could actually easily improvise on a synthesizer. Jon Appleton and Patrick Gleeson worked early on with modular synths with Cherry and Hancock; but the more user friendly synths appeared with the mini Moog and Arp Odyssey and the AKS synthi, for example. Paul Bley had a full modular Moog on the road in 1968 (which, if one believes his story in Cadence Magazine, Annette Peacock helped him steal from Bob Moog. Sun Ra was provided a prototype Moog by Bob Moog. The reason I bring this up is because it wasn't the nature of the instrument that made it difficult to improvise with (the Hammond Organ was an early synth, after all, but the players worked with it), but the damn cost. Early modulars cost about 12,000 to 15,000 dollars. Small portables were about 1500 to 2000, I believe. In today's money that's about 60,000 for a modular and about 6,000 for a mini synth. They didn't really start coming down in price until the late 1970s early 1980s, thanks in large part to Roland, Korg, etc. Want more proof that jazz is becoming an elite music? Look at the prices of saxophones now. It's about 6 grand for a Selmer, Jupiter or Yamaha sax. Great instruments, but you could get one used for about 300 dollars to 500 dollars in the late 1960s, early 70s (there are inexpensive saxophones around, btw... check Amazon) but the costs I cited were for top brands. Ian Anderson traded in his Stratocaster for a Selmer flute and got cash back. That's unlikely to happen today. Instrumental popularity, how well it fits in with the music you're playing, etc are all part of it, but I heard Sun Ra, Mike Mandel, for example, do some pretty wild things with synths that were not based on sequencers or rhythm. Paul Bley too. The cost of the new is high; so is the cost of a prestige instrument. I always look at this when evaluating how successfully a new technology is adopted. Fusion grabbed synths when they were affordable. Improvisers, like Michael Waisvisz in Holland, built an electric instrument called a crackle box. So, there were limits on a synth, but it was expense more than its modular nature that drew the line, I think. Those things, even the small ones, were very expensive initially. And, finally, many had tuning issues. I saw Jan Hammer tweaking his mini moog in real time to keep the pitch stable. It was a problem on the early instruments. I also think synths can have an overwhelming sound that can drown out most other instruments--folks like Zawinul and Hammer made it acceptable in fusion contexts, as did a lot of synth players. Perhaps the only time I heard it work in a more traditional jazz setting was in the Hal Wilner double record set that was a tribute to Monk from different artists, but Monk was so bizarre as a composer it worked really well!
I have gradually come to realize that rather than jazz not having a history of continuing development, that instead a lot of music just got memory holed, and I don’t just mean jazz fusion. Jazz fusion itself didn’t just disappear in 1976, and in the mid 1970s smooth jazz became a thing. Much derided but after a lifetime of being a jazz snob I listened to a few albums and some are actually just… really good jazz. Winelight by Grover Washington Jr, Breezin by George Benson, David Sanborn’s Straight to the Heart - I’ll take any of them over 90% of the “serious jazz”. But that’s not the only stuff that was forgotten! McCoy Tyner made a ton of amazing later albums, notably Infinity with Brecker but also albums like Soliloquy. Pharoah Sanders made Journey to the One. Lots of good stuff that doesn’t fit the narrative of jazz dying and being “saved” by the traditionalists. Bands like Steps Ahead and the Yellowjackets made a bunch of great stuff; Brecker on “Self Portrait” is as amazing as anyone ever, right up there with Trane and Young. Lots of music happened, lots of good music, some of it so good it’s unimpeachable. I’m not sure Wynton has ever made an album as good as Breezin and he’s made some amazing albums. Claiming it’s “not real jazz” is a cop out.
Check out Earl Bostic. John Coltrane earned his chops playing in bands like his. Check out Louis Jordan. Check out Western Swing and hillbilly jazz like Jimmie Rivers and the Cherokees. Art Ensemble of Chicago, Fela Kuti, the whole effing continent of Africa! Swing low, sweet chariot. Listen to Sir Duke "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." Jazz was the cry of the black people of America. Freedom Now! You haven't lived until you've been black on a Saturday night. Once the soul and experience of black America left jazz, jazz became a walking corpse, a zombie bearing the shape and look of life but inside just a walking dead thing, a Frankenstein's monster.
What a great analysis. There was so much back and forth between Jazz and other forms after WW2. On the audience side, classical people pretty much hated any popular music. They usually would point out its lack of sophistication, Steve Allen made comic sketches on putting down pop music in the late 50s and early 60s. It wasn't hard to do. Some classical people couldn't fault jazz for being unsophisticated. They started to legitimize it and made it elitist. I'd go over to my friend Tom's house, and he'd play Schoenberg and Modern Jazz Quartet or Ornette Coleman. Tom felt content with himself. In the meantime, Miles Davis recorded BITCHES BREW which changed everything. It was like a nuclear bomb on Rock, Funk, Soul, Disco, Hip-Hop, etc. Like those of us who listened to Jazz, when Steely Dan showed up, it was more Jazz than rock. It hit the same neurons. The Jazz purist didn't get that. Like where does a singer like Donna Summers fit singing Jazz vocals to Disco music??? Yes, this is exactly right. TY for making the video.
George Benson was often criticized for popping up his jazz but I thought it was absolutely great. It did not compromise on virtuosic solos but still was something that you could dance and hum too. He was a real monster player who actually knew how to write memorable melodies without that elitism.
Thanks Andy. I've always liked jazz, jazz funk, jazz fusion. Be etc There's a some proper musicianship within there, that' just brings goosebumps at times.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this video… Particularly the characterization of bebop as a strait jacket, which led to free jazz as an escape. I just don’t see it. Bebop was created as a rejection of swing, but it still relies heavily on the blues, on common chord progressions via contrafacts, has a great beat, and has great energy. What you see as a strait jacket, Andy, I see as a language, complete with grammar, conventions, and cliches. Christian MacBride said the language of bebop is the language of jazz, and I believe is still its highest form. So I sat down and listened to Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come album for the first time in many years. Although I did hear more than the last time, it still strikes me as abstract, esoteric, and challenging to listen to. I don’t think jazz was trapped by bebop nearly as much as it was thrown off the rails by free jazz, much like classical music was by serial/12 tone music. Loving this topic and the quality of comments. Maybe in another 20 years I’ll dig out some Ornette Coleman and see if he makes more sense to my ears then. Cheers!
I have to agree. I understand the level of musicianship needed to be a jazz player, though I come nowhere near to possessing it myself. As a listener, I have to admit that being able to recognize a song underneath improvisation greatly increases my enjoyment. As for tonality, the absence of a sense of resolution to "Do" is unsatisfying, as well as with rhythm, the lack of being able to sense a downbeat in some free jazz becomes boring to me. I sense music very physically. Being subjected, as a listener, to an extended performance of a miasma of squawks and bleats quickly leads me to a feeling of resentment, and the suspicion that "the Emperor has no clothes". It's hard to admire chops without the structure of some musical discipline for the players to test themselves against.
I just attended the Monterey Jazz Festival, the longest running jazz festival known, I believe. I’ve attended since I was a kid in the 80s. It’s always had a very diverse and challenging lineup of acts - from Woody Herman to Ornette Coleman, from Big Joe Turner to Steve Coleman. No one knows what “jazz” actually is. The word means something that sells tickets to this festival that a very diverse crowd of people have loved for nearly 70 years now. It’s always felt good. It’s always been meaningful.
Nice discussion, Andy. Part-not the entirety, but part-of the challenge you face in this video is the desire to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the proper application of the the term 'jazz'. As Wittgenstein taught us, this is, in most cases, a fool's errand. Once we accept that the best we can do is recognize that there is some kind of family resemblance between the music of Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Allan Holdsworth, and Louis Cole, then we can surrender the aspiration to discover *the* essential characteristics that define a term like 'jazz', and move on to the more interesting points you raise regarding the socio-historical/economic/material reasons for the evolution of jazz since the 1970s.
Have been diving into jazz like a history course since UA-cam, so I won't worry about where -jazz is going or how to label today's scene. But I'm going to search for the Dixieland cut from 1917. This commentary added a ton of context to history.of jazz/rock/blues/hip-hop. Great commentary, Andy.
That is the most pernicious thing one can say about jazz. The drug epidemic in music started in the late 1940s and was introduced by the mob. Professors are a problem, but certain communities, like the AACM and Sun Ra in Chicago, were largely drug free. Coltrane 's most adventurous work was done after he quit drugs. Drugs were part of the musical culture, not just jazz.
It's too theroical. That's why Jake Collier isn't good but someone like David Brubeck is timeless. Jazz is anti creative in nature so there is definitely a balance that most jazzers never find. Not to toot my own horn but I've written songs with chords I've never seen or seen anybody use. I didn't need to know or understand what I was playing I just needed to find the next chord or progression that fit. If you think you already know anything then certain things are off limits. Most jazz players are 1D and that's why people don't listen to them. It's not rocket science that it sucks
@@rillloudmotherActually, I studied jazz history with a famous jazz bass player named Reggie Workman in college. I knew Max Roach and Archie Shepp as well. I learned this from them before the Godfather movie was released. Cecil Taylor also indicated that the mob owned most of the clubs in New York. I didn't even see the first Godfather movie until around 1978. I graduated from college in 1974. I think I saw perhaps two currently playing movies when I was in college-a rerelease of 2001 and A Clockwork Orange. I am not saying that heroin use started with bebop, but its prevalence really started in the late 1940s. Bebop wasn't THAT elitist, by the way. The rhythm was steady and there were some composers who really wrote catchy tunes, like Gillespie, and especially Monk.
Some great jazz coming out. It almost died in the UK in the 80s but Courtney Pine and Andy Sheppard helped revive it. Since then, we have some great soul/jazz and spiritual jazz coming out of London.
Larry Burkett's book on "Giving and Tithing" drew me closer to God and helped my spirituality. 2021 was a year I literally lived it. I cashed in my life savings and gave it all away. My total giving amounted to 27,000 dollars. Everyone thought I was delusional. Today, 1 receive 65,000 dollars every two months. I have a property in Calabasas, CA, and travel a lot. God has promoted me more than once and opened doors for me to live beyond my dreams. God kept to his promises to and for me
Great stuff! My personal opinion is that peak jazz is 1935-1965, then it became “free” and transformed into other styles. Just like jazz is a combo of military orchestras and south blues music - another big switch was during the 80s with electronic music. The essence is the same - the human spirit manifesting via vibration called sound which leads to emotion❤
Rockabilly hairstyle, yeah🙂....I am just jealous....and yes, I agree. You ask the right questions. One thing about education, please don't forget that there are countries where music education on an university level is totally free. Here in Austria you don't have to pay for studying Jazz, it is 100% free of charge. This is a British/USA thing we don't have.
"I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic." - Miles Davis
New Jazz... boring! Well my friends, the most profound musical prodigy on the planet is about to take jazz to a new level. Her name is ANGELINA JORDAN and this is her take on jazz. Enjoy the journey.
ua-cam.com/video/6Ln9Tajsuzk/v-deo.htmlsi=mQ6CrKd2oWggDqix
* Can a “proper”jazz musician wear outlandish clothes? Not according to Wynton Marsalis. He called the outfits Miles was wearing onstage “dresses”.
“Proper “jazz musicians wear dark suits.
- Can a “proper” jazz musician use electronic effects? Wynton Marsalis thought the Miles Davis album “Bitches Brew”, which experimented with electric instruments, as being like “a general who has betrayed his country”.
- Miles called Marsalis “the police”.
* In the definitive history miniseries, “Jazz”, directed by Ken Burns, Wynton Marsalis is the final climax of what jazz should be.
- The jazz gatekeeping has recently gotten fired up with the singer Laufey. Laufey Is a throw back to the bosa nova jazz style of the Getz / Gilberto album.
The jazz gatekeepers are out in force trying to limit jazz singing to say that the bosa nova style is not “proper” jazz.
We should be celebrating that young musicians are gravitating towards the spirit of jazz, if not the form. I haven’t witnessed so much experimentation since the 1970’s. Is it jazz? Who cares, it’s awesome! The biggest problem I have is finding time to absorb all the brilliance.
But after all, isn’t the “spirit” of jazz really with jazz is all about? There’s no such thing as a strict jazz “form.” As long as you have improv/non-basic chord harmony/feel for “the blues” that’s jazz.
@@RonaldoWoke-No-MoreBand-y5m they keep rejecting my music and drove me and my spouse into poverty for decades and wont stop harming artists like myself
Most of it is musical masterbation
@@Rebelconformist82 Yes, music is masterbation.
Mendoza Hoff Revels, John Zorn, Chess Smith, Vijay Iyer, The Bad Plus, Brad Mehldau, Théo Ceccaldi (just to name a few). All great musicians, all making new urgent music. John Zorn alone has recorded nearly 400 albums and is largely the father of hardcore jazz, a genre that has evolved greatly and still has a lot to offer.
It became dull and elitist when a certain group of people decided it should be presented like classical music, followed by the insane push for every music college in the world to offer a jazz degree. That’s how.
You mean be-bop?
Not the whole jazz scene is like that!
yes this pattern happend to rock, school of rock etc
You conclusion is based on a wrong premise...it isn't dull or elitist..
Luckily, jazz isn't only Marsalis at Lincoln Center, or whatever... there's something for almost everyone, but often people experience first a variety that doesn't suit them, and then they "don't like jazz".
Growing up, I loved fusion - especially the Mahavishnu Orchestra - but I also loved a lot of ECM albums. Like most people I started with Keith Jarrett, but I discovered a lot of European jazz by artists like Terje Rypdal, Eberhard Weber, Jan Garbarek, Azimuth etc. When I moved to London and met some “real” jazz fans, I found they were incredibly snooty about the jazz I liked, and often for rather weird reasons. Of course there was the “Europeans can’t play jazz” argument (even though ECM recorded the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Don Cherry and many other great African American artists). But there were also complaints that ECM records were “too well-recorded”. As far as I can tell, some of these jazz snobs actually wanted the records to remind them of New Orleans w--houses and Prohibition era speakeasies; and apparently Rainbow Studios in Oslo just didn’t. I pointed out that a lot of great African American musicians like John Coltrane were very spiritual. They really weren’t seeking to evoke that atmosphere at all…
Brilliant.I have the same history (ECM/Vishnu etc). Did you know Johnny "Rotten" Lydon is also an ECM fan? Those artists you mentioned were also HIS inspiration of his avant guard band PiL. (Public Image Limited). Thus Tony Williams, Ginger Baker all played with PiL. He is no dummy and a very astute bloke. Thus ECM and Sex Pistols!
This is interesting. About Richie Beirach's relationship with ECM early on. ua-cam.com/video/NrC8C210u2I/v-deo.html
@@SPY1964-LL I'm a PiL fan too. Metal Box, Flowers of Romance etc...
@@georgesdelatour Love Metal Box! That began John's ECM journey. He was listening to Keith Jarret etc and thus Metal Box.
"getting it" has a real inside/outside quality to it.. there's knowing your stuff about something that's fun and there's being a snob about academic, historical, cultural tropes that have to be so, or else. It's not fun at all, which is what music actually is. They miss the point trying to be the smartest guy in the room. It happens all over the place though. Terje Rypdal rocks and gets jazzy and weird/out there.. It's.. fun.
What a magnificent verbal improvisation! Intelligent, energetic, thought-provoking, even gripping... I've been watching your channel since the earlier "why modern jazz all sounds the same" video, and I think you really outdid yourself today. I know of no better speaker on youtube!
I don't find Dave Holland, Bill Frisell, Dave Douglas, John Abercrombie, or Chris Potter to be dull at all. I do find some jazz critics to be dull and elitist.
I could add to that list names like Marc Ribot, John Zorn, Chess Smith, Vijay Iyer, and bands like Mendoza Hoff Revels, Simulacrum, Ceramic Dog, Bad Plus and Fire! Orchestra (to name but a few).
depends on taste, background etc. I do find ur listed guys a bit boring.
It looks like you are the elitist
Ouch!
@@jorgemabarak2723elitist in what way ?
Another aspect of jazz studies compared to other styles is the skillset of the jazz musicians is to work with standards and develop the appropriate inner-dynamic in playing melodies and soloing (e.g. Swing, slurs, scoops, flurries, etc). This, along with repertoire demands of perpetually recalling the massive volume of standards, doesn't necessarily serve most musicians in other styles (folk, rock, classical, etc) . Thus, being a jazz musician has become a very demanding, yet limited, specialization.
New Jazz... boring! Well my friends, the most profound musical prodigy on the planet is about to take jazz to a new level. Her name is ANGELINA JORDAN and this is her take on jazz. Enjoy the journey.
ua-cam.com/video/6Ln9Tajsuzk/v-deo.htmlsi=mQ6CrKd2oWggDqix
Dear Andy, thank you for your insightful words-they really struck a chord with me. As a passionate music lover, jazz holds a special place in my world. In my view, every music genre has its golden era, and for jazz, that pinnacle was the 50s and 60s. After that, the 70s brought a new wave of innovation, with the last bold expressions emerging in the 90s and early 2000s. Since then, we've seen a few bright moments, but nothing truly lasting.
This sentiment applies, at least for me, not only to jazz but also to classical music, rock, and many other genres. I wholeheartedly agree with you-jazz, once daring and rebellious, now feels like an "elite" art form, distant from its roots. But I don't point fingers at the musicians; it's life that’s changed. The pulse of modern society is so different now. We chase fleeting, artificial pleasures, often measured in seconds, while true art-the kind that demands openness, both inside and out-feels like it's fading.
I hope this trend reverses, and I truly hope I'm wrong.
Thank you once again for sharing your fascinating thoughts with us.
Excellent video. I'm only 17 minutes in, so you may have made this point but I think jazz follows the natural course that pop music does when it's no longer popular: it becomes boutique and esoteric. It's what happened to classical music in the 20th century, it's what happened to jazz in the 70s, and it's what's happening to rock & roll now.
Disco music did the same thing in the 70s & Rap doing much the same thing in the 00s .. i think the production companies tend to morph music into ways that push it into the mainstream but can strip away the soul of the music as it becomes less connected to the places & people it comes from. i think any type of music that comes into the system we live in will do this ? idk .. just a thought
It's already happened with rock & roll. The best period and most fertile period ended after the 1980s. The peak period ended with 1973, and sped up in the 1990s.
When you sample, you've lost.
This is very US and euro centric, though. If you go to Brazil, Jazz is everywhere. Street artists play classical cutout guitars, play jazz chords and progressions. It is bossa nova, but it still speaks the language of jazz.
Yes exactly, and not just Brazil.
As far as I've witnessed Andy is UK centric + America (but not "Americana", that's the no no) with a couple of drops from the rest of the world from time to time.
That is his prerogative and maybe he ain't no no bones about it.
Europe and Japan still value jazz. I think the problem exists in the UK and US
@@garygomesvedicastrology growing up in Norway jazz was for sure considered a elite music form that regular people considered noise, but among musicians it was revered, .mostly due to the technical ability and mindboggling complexity of their music. There was a fusion group called Lava that had some popular success, and jazz was often on TV. We had a popular brass jazz quartet, and a jazz festival. But it was far from mainstream. I went to a bebop concert in a jazz club once, but that was a pretty sad affair with wine and cheese and nicely dressed people who barely would stomp their foot. I don't remember who played but I remember the cheese.
At least in Brazil, bossa nova is played everywhere and very popular. Of course there is a danger mellow bossa nova in elevators and T stations turns into muzac but at least it is in the blood. The 9 and 11 and maj7 cords well and alive, and no ginger 4 chord pachelbel disciples anywhere to be seen.
@@bjornlangoren3002 Yes, but the bebop tradition seems to be what has passed for all of jazz. It's the reference point; but people seem to forget free jazz and other forms came about as a reaction to bebop and cool. To most people, at least as far as I can tell, Bebop and Cool ARE jazz.
There were some astonishing Bebop players and I think, for example, the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band was amazing!
These history lesson with analysis videos you do might be your best videos. Keep it up mate!
Jazz has been about fusion of styles throghout its history. Blues, dance music, latin, folk music, art music and modern classical, rock, funk, ambient, electronica, world music...most standards are from the american songbook and not jazz at all to begin with. Taking influences from all around is an integral part of jazz, when that stops jazz will truly become a museum piece.
Still plenty of classical stuff yet to be improvised on.
Exactly
Jazz/rock/fusion of the 70s was a phenomenal game changer..it opened up all forms of popular modern music..
Jazz education is the reason for this. Look at all the greats, they were rebels and fearless badasses. I got fed up with the castrated jazz scene and left 25 years ago. Been happy ever since. Can’t tolerate safe jazz.
Never cared for that cacphonous noise they called free jazz.
They don’t teach you about heroin in Jazz 101!
@@bebopisthetruth Can’t remember when I listened to a new generation jazzer and went ”Woooww!!!” like I still do when listening to the old greats. There’s no danger. Modern jazz is like battling but no killing so what’s the point of that, heroin or no heroin.
@@Babassecretchannel so there is nothing out there at all that you find appealing in what would be called the jazz world? What do you like musically that’s being produced in the present day, or do you just stick with your recordings of the past?
@@markcollins1497guy clearly knows fuck all like anyone else making these kinds of ridiculous statements
This reminds me of how Branford felt he had to apologize for his brother.
I heard Dizzy Gillespie once say in an interview that he wished he and other be-boppers had made more music that people could dance to.
Dizzy was a populist. I saw him play a couple of times and he wanted people to be happy after they came out of a Gillespie performance. He was also a staggeringly great player who really wanted jazz to be popular.
@@garygomesvedicastrologyain’t that the reason to perform for an audience?! 😅
@@SaxSithTrue, but certain performers will deliberately ignore audiences, like Miles Davis and Roger Waters, for example. Dizzy was always incredibly happy and showed it and joked with the audience. That's what I meant. Dizzy 's personality was intensely focused on connecting with the audience, perhaps moreso than any jazz performer I ever saw live. Gary Burton had that trait, too.
That doesn't mean Miles, for example, didn't want to be popular--it's just that Dizzy made an effort to interact and socialize with the audience. Gillespie was a genius; he was one of the most important people in jazz history, but he also clearly loved the audience and would use humor to interact with people
He then went on to supercharge the Afro Cuban music movement…so he got what he wanted in the end I guess!
@@garygomesvedicastrology Miles would say he was just focusing on the band. I would’ve loved to be have been a member of an audience when he was with that quintet. Would love to have seen dizzy as well. Different experiences, both valid and wonderful.
Excellent program and analysis. I myself being a student and lover of jazz and its offspring, I can point to an interesting period in the 60s where this splintering occurred in reaction to listener rejections from both ends of the spectrum. for one apposing force example would be Coltrane and others had stretched the art form to galactic levels of musicality that the average listener didn’t find palatable. While on the opposite spectrum, you had let’s say a Wes Montgomery that was criticized for abandoning his raw roots in favor of a more commercial audience with the lighter fare orchestral backed pop covers (great stuff btw). I think mixing these responses with financial needs drove the youngest and no so young to go with the hot sounds drawing crowds, which was heavy electric rock and raw funky/ RaB like James Brown. I believe the groundwork for this transition had already been set by earlier artists in the late 50s into the 60s experimenting with the fusion of Eastern music plus Afro Caribbean rhythms ect.. together with traditional jazz forms.
I always found one thing interesting is that for instance Miles with Bitches Brew going forward to 1975 evolved completely separate from the complex fusion of ,example, Mahavishnu, Eleventh House and many others. Miles fusion was almost a unique genre in itself. His entry into this was influenced by his Funk Diva wife who told him he could gain great success while pointing to the great rock concert festivals of the 60s and infectious danceable grooves of funk masters like JB. I’m tired of writing but I actually think much of this magical direction Jazz had gone in was fueled by a desire to reach the masses with commercial success. You can even see it in the old traditionalists that carried on into the 70s . Even a McCoy Tyner record would have one or two funky grooves on there. I wrote too much but I think the later changes in pop of the late 70s and 80s left Jazz artists that were on an eclectic whirlwind since 1969, high a dry with more simple beats and synth driven sounds emerging. I don’t think they ever did that right. I remember seeing McLaughlin in 1986 feeling dissatisfied with his overuse of the synth guitar tones along with Metheny at that time. I think the Kenny G generation and smooth Jazz, that infected every artist , damaged the art form.
I love that Jazz is embedded in all corners of music nowadays. I wrote too much and lost the point. Sorry to anyone who read this.
@@Heathsmusic1 T/So much to tell. Where to start and where to end? J🙃ZZ
The return to conservatism in the 80's as you mentioned, Pat Metheny worded it as "something changed and people started to play for their parents rather than their peers" (in his Beato
interview).
I know Metheny is a climate cultist, but what does “conservatism” have to do with it?
@@robertlamkin6464It has to do with wanting to revive a mythical presentation that hearkens back to a supposedly purer era, but actually is a caricature that never existed, yet cynically is marketed to old people. Like whitewashing a heroin-soaked culture for a Lincoln Center crowd, a re-enactment rather than a continuation of the culture that develop the form into the 21st century, as part of a vibrant and continuous scene.
by the 80's basic culture had it's fill of acid casualties defining what's in and out. I dunno if that's good or bad, but that wheel keeps turning.
@@GizzyDillespeeWell said.
@@GizzyDillespee Yep, got it in one.
Older hardcore jazz fans, the ones who grew up in the 1960s, as with a lot of things, now claim to own the rights while losing track of what really went on. Cultural NIMBYs you could call them.
And I can feel it somewhat in myself too, for the 1990s. 1993 was the last whole year before everything changed (Netscape), then things really set in in the late 90s with the advent of mobile phones. And 2012 was the last year before smartphones started to devour society (willingly btw) and kid's mental health.
So anything from 1993 and back is another era.
I just love this kind of discussion. Nobody I’m aware of on UA-cam does it better.
Agreed. Andy knows musical history.
@@loucontino4804totally. Really scratches a lot of itches.
it's a good thing you aren't planning on another jazz / blues exploration! This is a festival crowd.
That sounds like a Spinal Tap reference...🤔
@@f666frida The Jazz Odyssey with Puppet Show. Boston gigs cancelled! ...not much of a college town....
It's more blues/jazz...
Andy also has the best comment section. Thank you all!
I collect Rudy Van Gelder recordings specifically. Nothing beats the music that came out of his studio.
yes i always looked for them and have a large collection over the years.
Rudy was a dentist, and made a home studio in his home in New Jersey. He would invite the artists to record in his home and the rest is history. Such wonderful recordings from that setting. Wayne Shorter, Bill Evans etc. My faves.
@@SPY1964-LLHe wasn't a dentist
@@arize84 correct he was an optometrist
while perhaps not the best technical engineer, it is amazing how many of the greatest jazz sessions of all time he oversaw
Are you familiar with Jack Kerouac? He said It really well in one of his novels. I think it was "Desolation Angels" it went something like:
"Jazz, the music of the mad American night. Jazz, once the joyful noise of the ten cent beer joint, stolen by crew cut Madison Avenue executives, hijacking the good tables sipping ten dollar Manhattans while pretending to groove to Brubeck and impress their chicks who act like they aren't there while true beats rattle empty pockets as they shuffle past Birdland" I think that's a pretty close paraphrase.
Kerouac was a lot like Hunter Thompson. A madman capable of stunning moments of clarity.
Anyway. That's how jazz became so dull and elitist.
New Jazz... boring! Well my friends, the most profound musical prodigy on the planet is about to take jazz to a new level. Her name is ANGELINA JORDAN and this is her take on jazz. Enjoy the journey.
ua-cam.com/video/6Ln9Tajsuzk/v-deo.htmlsi=mQ6CrKd2oWggDqix
I don't know what jazz this gentleman listens to, but the recent jazz I hear is ultra-stimulating and urgent.
But not relevant.
@@ManelRuivoIt just needs to be relevant to the listener, my friend. I see little point in this tiny essay by Andy Edwards. It smells of mold.
Names or didn't happend :)
@@Borin86 The intersection that John Zorn has made in jazz from influences as disparate as Carl W. Stalling, Napalm Death, Ennio Morricone and Edgard Varèse (to name but a few) has resulted in a “school” that has produced and continues to produce challenging, modern and, yes, relevant music. The list of projects that have emerged from these mergers - to which others have been added - is enormous. As I live in Portugal, I'm lucky enough to see some of these projects live every year at the Jazz in August Festival. Simulacrum, Ceramic Dog, Mendoza Hoff Revels, Peter Brötzmann, Many Arms, Iceburn (the list goes on and on). Then there's a whole musical universe, closer to rock, which has been influenced by Zorn's jazz, such as Mr. Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3, etc. I would also be very attentive to the influence of 90s electronic music on current jazz. All of this is relevant, only the idea of what jazz is seems to have changed, or evolved.
@@mrfugazi3557ok I will check that besides Zorn that you know and like i was on the Concert of Peter Bootzmann and it was absolutly dull, sorry :/
One of the finest rebuttals to the tired "jazz is dead" and "jazz is elitist" arguments is the book 'Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century' by Nate Chinen. Chinen is one of the leading writers on jazz and the book is an invigorating look at the scene today and developments in aesthetics in jazz over the last 40 odd years. Highly recommended!
Chinen is great. Just finished his book and he makes a lot of good points. And speaking of the music as “dead” and/or elitist is just lazy. Plenty of things happening. Take ‘Big Ears’ for example.
You made me want to read Nate Chinen's book. I'm from Portugal and in Lisbon we have the Jazz em Agosto festival, which for decades has brought a huge number of innovative and truly spectacular musical projects to our country. Honestly, I can't see the point of Andy Edwards' reflection. “The problem with contemporary jazz”? What problem?
Thank you for recording this video; it has given me great insight. After many years of listening to music and playing the bass, and following some deep reflection during the COVID-19 pandemic, I feel that I’ve defined two core influences for myself in music:
1. Ricky James - Street Songs
2. Blue Mitchell - Blue’s Moods
Jazz has more in common with 1950’s abstract painting than with other popular music. Both required attention (and a basic familiarity with what came before). Both require cultural literacy. Meanwhile, we’re bred dumber and less literate with every generation. Anything that inspires (or requires) independent thinking has become a target.
Bill Evans said something about jazz isn’t a body of material , it’s a method , it’s a way of making music that has improvisation as a core component.
I’m a pianist , I’ve played in some bands that people would think of as Jazz that has very little improvised content, and some Latin / salsa bands that have a ton of improvised sections.
I had a disagreement with someone recently about playing a pop tune as it “wasn’t jazz, and we are not a covers band “
I think bill Evans definition has links with that “what is art “ argument . “Art is something an artist makes”.
I fundamentally agree with Bill (continued RIP) and understand where he is going with this statement.
The irony here is…a “body of material” is what you are left with when one of two things happens: when you stop playing/having your playing recorded for posterity before you die (e.g. Theolonius Monk) or your playing/recording of said playing is cut off by your demise (just about everyone else, but most prominently Miles, Coltrane, Brubeck, Bird, Dizzy, Benny, Lester, Bud, Cannonball, and the aforementioned Mr. Evans among many others I didn’t mention).
(Un)/fortunately for me, I have a below average short-term memory and can enjoy the improvised creativity of these artists again and again because of that.
Speaking of irony: I think that the invention of recorded sound (thank you, Mr. Edison) while preserving the above and the unique sounds, improvising talent, etc. these people exhibited - also seems to be at odds with the idea of music-making “in the moment” and can be seen as a preventative to truly creating something at least different if not new if you are a practicing musician in the “jazz genre” and you have been exposed to quite a bit of previously recorded and released material.
I share most of your perceptions of Jazz history. I’m a musician from Lima, Perú, was born in 1954. I grew up with rock music and the Beatles. Later on “discovered” its roots in african american folk music and listened to blues music in 1970. Learned to play the blues harmonica in 1971 and again “discovered” Jazz sometime in 1972 or 73. That led me to the decision to study music and start playing saxophone and I’ve been doing that ever since. Now I also teach at a university and have a history of Jazz course now for more than 10 years and I just subscribed to your channel and would like to get in touch with you to maybe have a conversation and share or discuss on our favorite subject…
So much happened in the 1970’s and 1980’s outside of fusion and the “young lions” as well.
Jazz has a multifaceted history since 1970! I dig it all!
An example would be the great records of Woody Shaw…I think often overlooked in jazz history
A fairly balanced review. Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis and others did investigate the continuing crossovers of jazz and popular music, or even blues derived music throughout the 70s and 80s. Older artists tried to do that also to some degree. I'm thinking Woody Herman and Stan Kenton as Woody dove into the fusion pool with a big band through 1978 as he recorded works by Steely Dan and Chick Corea. Stan covered an album's worth of Chicago. You had the same issue in the 70s with rock when you had the revivalists of neo-rockabilly and punk music against prog rock and such. The jazz world had revivalists and rebirth of older artists that returned to recording, i.e. Benny Golson, Benny Carter, Roy Eldridge, Art Pepper, who had a wonderful rebirth in the years up to his death, among others. One can debate endlessly if a rock hybrid group such as the Grateful Dead fell under the umbrella of jazz as they are improvisatory in their music, and they played with/recorded with David Murray, Ornette Coleman, Branford Marsalis, etc. Thank you for the review!
Love this, thanks Andy! I'm a young trumpeter from the UK, and most of the jazz education I've had just puts Miles, Dizzy, Chet on a pedestal and there's nothing past Wynton to even look at. First time hearing about the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Alan Holdsworth was from your channel, I think it's not talked about enough. Cheers
Check out Count Basie Live at Newport. One of the best jazz albums ever!
Jazz is now a broad and varied topic and that’s a good thing. Jazz is not dull and elitist at all because it can be thought of as; Pat Metheny, Tito Puente, Eliane Elias, Michael Brecker, Kenny G, Chris Botti, Diana Reeves, Patti Austin, Tom Jobim, Dirty Loops, Matteo Mancuso, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Bill Evans, Joe Sample, Michael Franks…… And on and on and on. So what’s wrong with that?
Because of you, Andy, I've now discovered 'Nothing" by Louis Cole and I love this album. Some happening music!! Great lecture Andy, btw!! -- On another note Andy, I think it was you who said that the jazz world didn't know what to do with Alan Holdsworth's music and you are spot on! We jazz (whatever we need to call ourselves) musicians are the only people who can appreciate what Holdsworth was doing, what he contribute to the language of music. Thank you for this.
The essential difference is playing for an audience and playing for yourself. Armstrong, Ellington, Basie, Goodman etc played for audiences, but the bebop thing started the journey towards self satisfaction over audience satisfaction. That is not to say that many great post bop jazz artists had no audience. The popularity of Davis, Coltrane and the Blue Note artists etc confirms that an audience existed and it still does today. You could drive yourself mad going around in circles discussing things like jazz-rock, but does any of this matter? Just accept it or reject it for what it is and then enjoy the bits that you like.
Yes, that's close to my way of thinking. Let's not forget that it was black musicians who forged real jazz - mostly in a totally unconscious way. Bebop was the last great flowering of jazz in my book, but within that lay the seeds of its own destruction.
I think this is an oversimplification of musical development. We are under the impression that we choose what we listen to, and this isn't true.
Record companies and radio and TV make those judgments for us based on what they think we'll like.
I wasn't expecting to like Ornette Coleman the first time I heard him. Instead, I loved it! I think we underestimate how much our tastes are shaped by society.
I am not saying everyone will love new developments in music; but I can guarantee they won't like what doesn't match what they have been exposed to already.
Exactly
Most awful pop music is made for the audience, and many great pop artists are writing first and foremost for themselves. So?
@@markodern789Pop musicians write for themselves but look for something that will sell. They want to grow their audiences.
Jazz in the 1960s had a decreasing audiences and survived by playing with increased frequency in Europe, even the Blue Note artists. Cecil Taylor was a Blue Note artist at one point, for example! But many, including Dexter Gordon, toured Europe a great deal.
This is next level commentary. It really changed my view on both jazz and popular music. Great work sir
Elitist perhaps, but dull?
I'm not talking about these jazz retirement homes called North Sea Jazz Festival or the Montreux Jazz Festival, which have been presenting us with the same pensioners from the 70s for decades - that's dull indeed!
The exciting contemporary jazz today takes place largely outside the mainstream event horizon:
I had a strong Punk background when I went to the Moers Festival for the first time in 1983. I saw musicians and bands like John Zorn, Fred Frith, Skeleton Crew, Massacre, Naked City, the Odean Pope Trio and James Blood Ulmer, Cassiber, Steve Coleman and man... was I flashed!
Here it was - the same raw energy I loved about Punk, but combined with an infectous joy for experimentation and pushing the borders of music. It felt like the marriage of Punk and Free Jazz.
And this exciting journey continued in the 90's and 2000's with the discovery of stuff like Doctor Nerve, Elephant9, Steamboat Switzerland, The Flying Luttenbachers, Supersilent, Zu, The Thing, Fire!, Fire! Orchestra, Talibam!, Terry Ex and Han Bennink, Original Silence ...man, I could go on forever! Now thinking about it, all these musicians didn't even had an elitist attitude!
Trouble is: what new standards have they given us?
What are you talking about. Montreux and North Sea really don't highlight old jazz players anymore and instead heavily promote big pop artists like John Legend, Sam Smith, Lizzo and Lil Nas.
@@jonashormann5700 Doesn't sound enticing 😬
@@TheAxel65 Exactly
@@shaft9000 that's not a good point. There's way too much music now for musicians to have a consensus on which modern tunes to learn off by heart in the hope that they can turn up at a jam session and play them. Plenty of great tunes that could become 'standards' but impossible to make that happen in this era.
In the 1970s I became a jazz fan, loving the great music from Coltrane, Miles, Mingus, Monk, Kirk, Parker and many more, and what originality, what depth of feeling. And, being in London, in the music business, I often went to Ronnie's and other venues, and loved it madly. I also loved Weather Report, creators of great tunes, and less so Return to Forever and the Mahavishnu band, who seemed increasingly more pretentious and self indulgent. Calling yourself a 'jazz rock band' meant you didn't have to create good songs and could jam instead. Cut to 2024 and although there's a great jazz club near me with ma y of the best groups playing there, I gave up going because everything is so formulaic, so head-solos-head that I'm bored after the first track. Jazz is like ALL the arts in the 21st century: it's stalled, uncreative, despite some great technical players. Jazz is only spawning tribute acts of various kinds. Yes, astonishing virtuosity, the equivalent of guitar shredding. Look, every art movement goes through three stages: 1. the birth, with energy, exploration, vitality,.surprises. 2. The maturity and.the masterpieces, establishment of strong forms. 3. The spirit progressively vanishes as young, well-trained jazz-college players work within the established categories and create tribute big bands and combos. A.good big band is worth hearing,that's for sure, but I can no longer listen to small combos with players blowing long in the style of recordings of seventy years ago and getting a small ripple of applause. Yes, it all does all sound the same but check out all the other arts and see the same phenomenon. What do you think?
Not a great jazz fan but you do manage to make it so interesting!
As always you just nailed it Andy. Hats off mate!
Prog rock actually expanded my mind to such a degree that I was able to get into and appreciate jazz more than I ever did before (especially post 'Bitches Brew' Miles). I've always felt that Mahavishnu Orchestra was more prog than jazz and fits easily next to 70s King Crimson (Crimson even had saxophones which Mahavishnu didn't). I do wonder what you think about the "smooth jazz" genre considering that has been the most commercial form of jazz in recent decades (although the jazz snobs abhor it) but it's kept the genre alive and it harkens back to the historic role of jazz as popular music for the masses. Artists like George Benson had the musical chops but still had plenty of pop chart hits.
Another great video Andy, some real insights into music. I did the Ba jazz course at Middlesex University in the mid 90s. I felt they did a pretty good job of including all the different styles from Louis Armstrong to Django Bates. There was a great range of tutors there who really delved into all kinds of music, Latin American, swing, Balkan, Indian, modern classical, it was a great course. It certainly opened my eyes to a lot of stuff I never would have heard before. Whenever I had conversations with the tutors there they were always open to including all styles of music, I didn’t feel that it was closed off into just Ellington and bebop. I did feel amongst some of the students that there was a bit of elitism though. However this course is now no more - a real shame.
Fascinating video. Let's have more!
Andy… You really did a fantastic job here. I was tracking the whole time. Yes … I’ve heard many interviews with Winton Marsalis, stuffed shirt. I even heard him implying Sachmo was too frivolous, eg : Popular to be taken seriously. I will not repeat it word for word because it was very offensive. More please.
For me, the only jazz artist that consistently surprised and delighted me was “Weird” Wayne Shorter, who was and is my favorite musician I ever saw live.
He treated each concert as if it was his first time playing. He told me when I saw him after a show, that Miles once said to him “Wayne, what would it be like if we played as if we didn’t know how to play?”
And that’s how Wayne treated his music, especially with that final Wayne Shorter Quartet he led for 20 years.
For me, he was the essential jazz artist, along with Miles and Gil Evans. Saw Gil Evans with his big band numerous times, and also saw him with Lee Konitz. These guys, along with Joe Zawinul, just epitomized Jazz for me.
@@TroubleinZION I was just offering a thought. And it matters to me and maybe to a few others. Doesn’t have to matter to you, to everyone or actually anyone. I was just offering my two cents. Sorry it wasn’t worth even that to you. No problem.
@@RabbiSteve1 I’m sorry. I’m frustrated that people have colonized jazz and everything else. Jewish people protect their traditions. Their practices are shrouded in mystery but everything that is black must be owned, analyzed, and offered up to people who have nothing to do with the why’s, who’s, and what’s of jazz.
What about Bill Evans?
from my perspective ... a 74 year old musician still scrambling to keep his head above the water ... anyone who attempts to analyze the complex history of jazz music is a brave and ambitious individual and (of course) ... entitled to their opinion ... good luck with that my man ... i've subscribed ... this is intellectually very stimulating / pervocative
Yes, I always thought that all forms of popular music (jazz, Rock & roll, classical, rap) have gone through similar life cycles. First, they all started as dance music and got very popular. Then they became more virtuosic, they pull from other genres and folk music, stretching the boundaries. Last, they break apart and the original form dies.
Also each new form includes elements of the older music. So most of the examples you give I see as "not jazz" and "not blues", but they were strongly influenced by them (like the blues had a baby...)
It's kind of the same way with people - when you're young you just want to dance, in mid-life your tastes become more "refined" and when you're old, you have nostalgia and seeing what your kids are up to.
This was a fascinating video to watch. As a graduate of a contemporary music program at a small liberal arts school I was always dismayed to hear of the experiences of some of my fellow musicians in more traditional programs, not in terms of their technical training, but in terms of their understanding of and openness to different approaches and their flexibility as artists. I've never before heard this particular explanation but the phenomena you describe make perfect sense. Your arguments might suggest a more "biographical" approach to jazz history, one that traces the evolution and emergence of individual artists as the history of the genre itself. This might be one way to avoid the infinite regressions and ambiguity of classification and categorization. In any case, I have subscribed and will be watching for your next video.
Rock music..= Play 3 notes and make millions of dollars. Jazz music = play millions of notes and make 3 dollars.
In France we say Rock musicians know three chords and plays before thousands of people while Jazz musicians know thousands of chords and play before three people.
Both the same these days.
All rock acts making millions are pushing 60-70.
They’re cashing in due to being legends, not cause they’re playing rock
That's because millions find the worship of technique dull. Counterculturalists are just tomorrow's snobs in the making.
Lulwut, 95% rock band earns nothing meanwhile being a jazz dude you can play in bars, cruise ships, whatever, and have some stable income without headache
What's rock music to you? In my ears it's groups like Pink Floyd, the Dire Straits, Hendrix, Jimmy Page, ... lots of excellent musicians.
In my opinion being a hobby sax player in my bedroom...
I think it comes down to how a lot of young students are introduced to "jazz". Which, for me in the 1990's was through school band and their jazz band. We did play some Herbie Handcock and things like Fireshaker, and we knew those were out there, but since we were a big band we stayed in that lane of big band music. Some friends and I did have Real Books, but again due to skill and frame of reference we stuck around that "traditional" jazz. So although I was lucky and had a decent to great school band program (I can nitpick 20 some years later) it drove my frame of reference.
Apply that same thing to college and everyone getting music degrees or even learning theory. Granted I didn't go to college, so I'm making some big assumptions, but I would think they still have "bands" and a lot of frame of reference to students would be via what they play and then (since they would be great players on their own) looking to the virtuosos of their instruments as inspiration. So then, at least for me being a saxophone player and following other players, this drives them to copy "the greats" and this "jazz" circle you're talking about keeps going.
Although I dislike some aspects of social media, I do think youtube has opened up education for music theory and learning an instrument. I also think it allows new groups to get a voice and following to push music forward. Now, I'm not saying this is the end all and be all of "jazz" but we have groups like Leo P., MoonHooch, Grace Kelly, and others dancing and having fun playing, and sticking traffic cones in the end of their horns... We also have people like Saxsquach doing raves and electronic events.
So I think that jazz, is starting to move away from the large concert halls were audiences sit around and politely clap and nod, and I think that modern players are looking to different and current role models now.
Jazz fractured into different styles already in the 1920s/30s (stomp vs swing vs substyles of these) and 1940s/50s (swing vs bebop vs latin, and more). What happened around 1970 is that the music ("rock&roll", "r&b", "funk") that had taken over the popular scene from jazz a couple decades earlier, now started to copy more complex harmonic elements from jazz and bebop, that had been largely rejected in the 1940s and 50s. And also that some jazz musicians started to use the same instruments and sounds as was popular in the newer and more electrified music ("rock", "r&b", "funk" again). Such as the Fender Rhodes, electric bass, electric guitar, and more.
@@herrbonk3635 The first time I encountered the "that isn't jazz" arguments was when I started exploring the music in the latter 1960s and the reaction to free jazz. Then I saw it in the early 70s or a little earlier with fusion.
Looking back on the history, the reaction to bebop wasn't so tolerant either-I believe some folks referred to bebop as "Chinese music"!
However, official intolerance was institutionalized around 1980, and the larger audience (which is my concern here) has limited knowledge of anything developed after around 1965 or so. The other musical expressions didn't die, of course, but the larger audience has gone to other things, because it is now perceived, like pre-20th Century "serious" music, as a lovingly recreated period piece by most listeners. That is the unfortunate part that needs to be corrected. Music will always change; it's inevitable. Once it is perceived as unchanging, it's stuck as a fossil form. Jazz isn't a fossil!
@@garygomesvedicastrology I see where you are coming from, and largely agree. But I don't think one should try to "correct" people's taste or even "intolerance" towards sub cultures. That group mentality is just part of life, as I see it, probably as old as humanity.
But sure, exposing young people to living and breathing improvised music is probably a good thing!
Personally, I have no problems with (some) music styles being traditional for hundreds of years, as long as improvisation is "allowed"... Like it is in all (well?) forms of jazz and also in many forms of folk- or ethnic music. One of the worst things that happend to music (after hiphop, boy bands and k-pop :) is that classical music successively stopped improvising altogether!
Some of it remains in so called art music though. And speaking of that, Schönberg, Stravinskij, Bartok, et al were somewhat inspired by jazz. Conversely, early jazz acutally copied most (but not all!) basic elements from popular european styles. Cabaré music, schlager, french gypsy music, klezmer music, german marches, etc. From scales and chords to the instruments used.
@@herrbonk3635 I think one thing was misunderstood. I am not trying to "correct" tastes at all. I agree with you completely about that. But I am in favor of increases exposure--sort of like a sampler. If we don't know something is there, we will never know if we like it. That is what I am advocating--not forcing anything on anyone, just sharing information more uniformly. In large part, I think of this as a form of promotion, not forcing. Budgets for promoting stars are huge-I just want to see a little more promotion of what lies underneath the water line in of the music iceberg. I remember a time, admittedly short, in which listeners could hear the Who, African music, free jazz and other music all on the same show. That's the ideal for me, personally. Commercial pressures made these stations convert to rock, then AOR...I know it sounds a bit like DEI but it is something much broader, because it isn't an advocacy model. It's just exposure.
As for the matter of improvisation, it was reintroduced into classical music as early as the 1930s by Vaughn-Williams, later by Cage and Stockhausen, was allowed for performers like Liszt, and has never stopped being an integral part of classical organ music-there are improvisational competitions in that area of classical music.
I have to agree with you on a number of levels… it certainly has changed from when I started to embrace it and what I truly loved about it… and now it has moved is not something that really excites me… it had to do with the quality of the artist that we had that are no longer with us… thanks for stepping up on this.. it does take some courage to put this out there
Easy one this, when the mountains of dull and elitist people started to play it. Loads of them with very dull and conservative temperaments and beliefs making very conventional jazz. Their music is very competent but it's also forgettable. There's not enough wild three headed dogs roaming the surface of mars making jazz, not enough people making jazz like they're trying to pound new craters into the moon, not enough pirates making jazz like they're looking for the buried treasure that still hasn't been found. It takes adventurous people to make adventurous music. None of this applies to Roy Marchbank though, he's f**king ace!
I like those analogies 👏
in part, thats because if you want to play at the highest level in the UK you have to be in London. If you're in london you have to generate loads of money to be able to survive. If you want to generate loads of money then good luck being a wild three headed dog. The nature of capitalism has forced people to have to be less of a personality, to play safer because you won't then work the corporate scene, which is massive at the moment. It is that, primarily, which is the cause of what you're talking about, not the actual humans playing it. It sucks, but there's no solution other than to be rich, in which case you probably aren't hungry enough for it, so we're fucked unless something massively changes.
@@Junglesmells Hey cheers for getting back to me. I think you're dead on about the challenges about making money from making experimental music in the current economy. I have a little bit of experience of being a wild three headed musical dog though and I don't quite agree it's the sole factor inhibiting people from making experimental music and having success with it. I can easily think of a whole cabal of musicians who I think would be more successful in the spheres of electronic dance music, videogame composition and the jazz circuit (areas i'm more familiar with) if they were more, rather than less adventurous with their compositions. I'm very much a left winger usually at the front of the queue to relate the systemic problems of capitalism to cultural and artistic problems, but do I think enough proletarians like me are doing enough to bring the ruckus in these conditions? I don't. Best wishes anyway buddy, these are just my thoughts on the topic so far.
New Jazz... boring! Well my friends, the most profound musical prodigy on the planet is about to take jazz to a new level. Her name is ANGELINA JORDAN and this is her take on jazz. Enjoy the journey.
ua-cam.com/video/6Ln9Tajsuzk/v-deo.htmlsi=mQ6CrKd2oWggDqix
Hi Andy,
Of course, your title caught my eye-this is a subject I can really relate to these days. Something changed after the millennium, with the rise of social media and the way PR people started taking over the jazz landscape. Being a musician (and more) for a long time-someone who put in all the effort to become the best I could, going to school, getting my grades, and all that-jazz is where I ended up as a musician.
I have my influences, my heroes, who shaped my musicianship, and I’ve always been more interested in those who try to say something meaningful with their music, rather than just show off their skills. I was drawn to players who wanted to innovate, and that became what jazz meant to me.
The problem lately is that everyone is just trying to get gigs. PR agents, who often have no real connection to music or any musical education, have the power to tell musicians how they should sound, what they should play, and who they should be. This creates a chain of individuals who are now closely connected, forming an almost cartel-like industry. They judge every artist and determine the flow of the entire scene. Many musicians have already been indoctrinated into a certain taste and sound because they see what kind of music gets booked, and they also want those gigs.
This leaves very little room for those who are trying to innovate or change jazz in any way. As you said, the current landscape is dull, with similar players and music that sounds the same everywhere. The academic world of jazz education also plays a role, as you mentioned, focusing only on a narrow expression of jazz. It’s all connected.
But I do think there’s some hope. There are bands and musicians who are keeping the core values of jazz alive while also daring to explore the unknown. Jazz is an art form that will survive underground and eventually find its way back up again.
New Jazz... boring! Well my friends, the most profound musical prodigy on the planet is about to take jazz to a new level. Her name is ANGELINA JORDAN and this is her take on jazz. Enjoy the journey.
ua-cam.com/video/6Ln9Tajsuzk/v-deo.htmlsi=mQ6CrKd2oWggDqix
Love Brecker, Sanborn, Greg Howe and Matteo Mancuso - if you say it's dull, go listen to Taylor Swift
@@martynobs6970 She’s annoying but cool too
With or without panties?!😅
Another top video. Highly informative. Thanks Andy 😊
wait. no one sees the irony. man in jacket and tie sitting in a rehearsal room (or whatever specifically named/designed type of room it is) discussing elitism and dullness.
The Ken Burns documentary initiated two beliefs that had led to quite a few false conclusions.
The best known is that free and fusion were not jazz. The second is what I call the dance myth-that dance was critical to popularity. This overlooks the fact that the two best selling jazz albums of all time (Davis' Kind of Blue and Brubeck's Time Out) had nothing that was dance oriented. Jazz was supplanted by rock and roll, and the record buying audience became younger. Younger people want their own music, dance or not.
Do want want to start a band called JaZZTop...we'll do jazz versions of ZZ Top ,which will not be dull or elitist.
Very interesting and open discussion. I totally agree with most of your points and i share some of your opinions and questions
Blame writers like Stanley Crouch and Albert Murray who criticized the common man’s approach to listening and enjoying the music. These writers and some of their contemporaries have done for the music. They became snobs.
Fascinating topic, and great video! I'm excited to hear more. The impact of government funding on music throughout history is something I would find particularly enlightening.
How do you feel about the impact of musicians like Barry Harris or Pat Martino on the jazz scene? Cheers 🍻
Have just found an interesting definition of the word jazz from the 1860's....back then it was "jasm", meaning energy, vitality,spirit. As you say, bands like Cream Jimi Hendrix Experience, Lifetime etc, these produced the connective tissue between genres, jazz is "improvisation on a theme".
“I found this interesting” lol, not just a quote. Thought provoking, food for thought. Thanks, I learned a few names of musicians and bands tonight. It will be fun to check them out.
whenever you try to teach something in Universities, you have to standardize things to be able to grade people. But when you standardize things the magic and creativity goes away
No.
Simple truths turn out to be compound lies...ask Nietzsche
@@spellman007Yes. I can often tell which music college tbey went to these days.
This is one of the best comments anywhere on UA-cam, I'm not a bot.
It took me years to figure out, no one should think of themselves as a having a 'specialty' , like a graded potato.
I want to go to school to play video games
Jazz has been the musician's laboratory of experimentation that has influenced all the contemporary genres from the 50's up to now and on!!!
I'm not so sure about Jazz being now so elitist and dull. As a matter of fact, I think that it has been/is one of the most creative, open minded and genre bending genre of music out there alongside Metal and Hip-Hop/Rap/Urban music. So much exciting stuff out there, Lady Blackbird, Moor Mother, Irreversible Entanglements, Colin Stetson, Makaya Mccraven, Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog, Matana Roberts, Monika Roscher Bigband, Nels Cline, Nubya Garcia, Rob Mazurek and his Exploding Star Orchestra, Damon Locks and his Black Monument Ensemble, Sons Of Kemet, Shabaka Hutchings, Steve Lehman, Tigran Hamasyan, Kamasi Washington, Ambrose Akinmusire, Błoto, Kinga Młyk, C'Mon Tigre, Chassol, The Comet Is Coming, Desire Marea, Ezra Collective, Fire!/Fire! Orchestra, Heliocentrics, Hidden Orchestra, Jeff Parker, Sun Ra Arkestra, Kamaal Williams, Chicago Underground Quartet, you name it...
Back in the late 1970s when I was working in public radio, it was the accepted truth that the most open-minded music audience was the jazz audience with opera fans being the most elite snobs. I still think that way even though I love classical music too. But how do I stay in touch with what is going on in jazz today?
@@pasadenaphil8804 Yeah, that's definitely hard to do today. Fortunately I follow some sources/websites which promotes/reviews a lot of great stuff (both jazz as well as rock, pop, hip-hop etc.) that is happening in the world of music today and don't promote the same stuff that is so often promoted elsewhere. If more such sources like websites/music blogs/magazines etc. would do that, it would be much easier
how can you listen to someone like Steve Lehman and then think Kamaal rapist no playing Williams deserves to be in that list. Have you no ears?
@@Junglesmells What's wrong with Kamaal Williams?
@@pasadenaphil8804 Listen to Jazz FM.
A really interesting monologue I stumbled in here. I’m a musician who is mixing up lots of different music styles. Flamenco with Progressive Rock/Metal, Fusion, Blues, Classical music, all that Funk, Soul etc.stuff with classical music of India, North African,Balkan and German folk music etc.etc. and yes I borrow from Jazz a lot. But I started to get allergic to the categoritis. When I look back to composers from the baroque and classical era, I can’t find anyone like for example Bach or Weiss calling himself a baroque musician, or Beethoven calling himself a classical composer. The inspiration and comes from expanding and breaking the boundaries and by musicians competing with each other there are zillions of new ideas coming until someone makes a theory about it and gives it a name. Kirkegard once said : Don’t give me a name. If you name me you’re killing me and rob me of all the things I could be. Sorry for my bad English. I’m not a native speaker.
If your recycling bin is full of wine bottles, you're sophisticated.
If it's full of vodka bottles, you're a drunk.
Good one. Mine's full of empty expensive single malt Scotch bottle. I guess that makes me a sophisticated piss head.😋
If you're rich, you're "eccentric'. If you're poor, you're nuts
Most jazz musicians I know KNOW the history. The economics of a big band makes it a labor of love. The Village Vanguard Monday night orchestra, theGill Evans bands barely pay cab fare but the greatness of the music helps keep them alive. The honor of getting to play those books is awesome. PERIOD!
Yes, but to your point, much jazz was elitist when it was created. Nobody plays jazz to get rich and famous. Those that did, hello, George Benson, were called sellouts because they got paid
My favourite jazz-period runs from the late fifties to the late sixtees (so called hard bop). Once the avant garde took over I wasn't interested no more. By the way, the same happened in classical music; when the avant garde (Pierre boulez et all) took over people were not interested no more.
I think you're falling for a fallacy here: What does it mean that the avantgarde in whatever field of culture "takes over"? There are always artists who "progress" a genre who go deeper, further, elsewhere. That does not mean that the rest becomes obsolete or goes away. Unless the mediators - the press, the culture critics with mainstream and industry clout - tell them to, and they follow or are pushed from avenues of production and attention. Your beef should not be with avantgarde artists but with the snobbish elitist journos who only accept the avantgarde and sneer about anything else.
@@finneoganThis is a good point. From the standpoint of music history, the avant garde gets attention because it is new, but in reality, how many classical lovers spend time listening to it? The popular stuff remains popular, and the forward looking stuff is only of interest to academia, at least until modern concepts slowly get absorbed and assimilated by the popular, and many never reach this point.
I think there is a common misconception that the avant garde is one thing in any music. It's not. You can go from Boulez to Cage, Stockhausen, Riley in classical (who all sound different) to, in jazz, Ornette sounds different than Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, World Saxophone Quartet, Muhal Richard Abrams, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sun Ra --all of whom include elements of hard bop, bebop, march music, dixieland, etc. I don't ever get the impression the avant garde took over in either jazz or classical. It was struggling for survival well into the 1980s, when it settled into an alternative music idiom, and after the late 1960s, independent record labels. Music history is not linear. When you go to Europe, South America, Japan, etc. Check out Chris McGregor from South Africa! South African melodies, tight interlocking sections, and very structured, especially in their early releases. Post bop and contemporary classical are not musical styles. They are multiple musics built from the tradition. Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman could play Charlie Parker perfectly--Ayler was called Little Bird because of this ability.
@@garygomesvedicastrologyYes, good point.
great discussion - acoustically pleasing and uncluttered with sensible compression and stereo.
Frank Zappa: The music of the unemployed.
Dreadful! And he’s c. I. A.
@@BlowinFree Frank Zappa was CIA? Honestly, where do people dig up this crap?
@@pkmcburroughs go search yourself
C.reative l.ntense A.rtist@@BlowinFree
I agree with most of this analysis. In my opinion the giant of jazz is still Charlie Parker. Before Parker, jazz was popular music. After Parker, jazz became virtuoso music. Bebop was never intended to be commercially popular; it was jam session music. But Bebop took over, and it continues to be modern, in my opinion.
Bass desires, Michael Brecker, Steps Ahead, Bill Frisell, John Scofield, Mike Stern, Michel Petrucciani, and many many more...all amazing musicians playing amazing music. Anything but dull that is for sure.
A friend of mine listens to exactly those musicians. We have an ongoing minor bicker as to whether this is jazz or not. I can listen to these guys, it's not as if it's abstract as such - but I'd still rather listen to old jazz, ie: pre-1950 black jazz.
@@TalesofWiltshire There is always someone more of a purist than you. Some will say only dixieland qualifies, etc... Charlie Parker thought of himself as a jazz man. Who are we to disagree?
You're only naming old cats...
@@jonashormann5700 That's because jazz wasn't "dull and elitist" in that era.
Loved this video and the one that raised a stick to!
Bravo!!
Jazz: Played for those on stage.
Most music: Played for the audience.
Excellent breakdown of Jazz. I could talk music with you for days. 🔥🤘🏽🔥
My flat would fit quite nicely in the drum room.
Was thinking that myself, perhaps it's his entire apartment.
@@brianholden6618 - Actually it's a posh rehearsal studio where posh proggers get together and jam. Andy is totally a family man in a lovely little house or semi-detached unit, def not a council house.
Jazz is an attitude not a commodified label or sound and it always swings back and forth between its two mothers: intellect (Classical) and emotion (blues). That same intuitive creative spark moves through forward thinking music of all types regardless of what it is labelled as to sell it.
This was a fascinating analysis. I would like to add one comment, however. There is a tendency among critics, a tendency that I think you fall for yourself on occasion, to look down on music this is considered too "commercial". But all music has to be commercial. If no one will pay for its production, it won't happen. If no one bought Pat Metheny's albums, his career would be ended. I think what critics really mean by this, is that they dislike anything which is too popular. This condescension to anything that might appeal to the masses I personally find rather distasteful. At one stage, Shakespeare, not to mention Mozart, was quite popular with the masses of the time. Does that mean we should not respect them? And I think that sometimes this form of snobbery in music has a perverse effect. Atonal music in the "classical" genre became acclaimed by the critics because it certainly could not be accused of being popular. The consequence of this was that this encouraged composes to write music that was almost unlistenable, and certainly not enjoyable. Those determined not to caught liking anything "popular" praised it and bought it for no other reason than their snobbish attitudes.
Great show and also great comments !!! Thanks for posting !
Jazz is alive and well, one just has to open his or her mind, heart, and ears to it. The New Masada Quartet is the greatest jazz quartet in the world, and they are alive and thriving! All one has to do is listen.
And of course they are not alone.
Absolutely! No one talks about Zorn. They don't know what they don't know.
Free Jazz (Ornette style) meets Jewish scales and klezmer - I love it!
That said - some of Zorn's music is weird but I love his Jewish inspired music like the Book of Angels series
I just wanted to quickly comment on one thing you said about synthesizers. Yes they were big modules, but they were actually great instruments for jazz because, with time and forethought, you could actually easily improvise on a synthesizer. Jon Appleton and Patrick Gleeson worked early on with modular synths with Cherry and Hancock; but the more user friendly synths appeared with the mini Moog and Arp Odyssey and the AKS synthi, for example. Paul Bley had a full modular Moog on the road in 1968 (which, if one believes his story in Cadence Magazine, Annette Peacock helped him steal from Bob Moog. Sun Ra was provided a prototype Moog by Bob Moog. The reason I bring this up is because it wasn't the nature of the instrument that made it difficult to improvise with (the Hammond Organ was an early synth, after all, but the players worked with it), but the damn cost. Early modulars cost about 12,000 to 15,000 dollars. Small portables were about 1500 to 2000, I believe. In today's money that's about 60,000 for a modular and about 6,000 for a mini synth. They didn't really start coming down in price until the late 1970s early 1980s, thanks in large part to Roland, Korg, etc.
Want more proof that jazz is becoming an elite music? Look at the prices of saxophones now. It's about 6 grand for a Selmer, Jupiter or Yamaha sax. Great instruments, but you could get one used for about 300 dollars to 500 dollars in the late 1960s, early 70s (there are inexpensive saxophones around, btw... check Amazon) but the costs I cited were for top brands. Ian Anderson traded in his Stratocaster for a Selmer flute and got cash back. That's unlikely to happen today.
Instrumental popularity, how well it fits in with the music you're playing, etc are all part of it, but I heard Sun Ra, Mike Mandel, for example, do some pretty wild things with synths that were not based on sequencers or rhythm. Paul Bley too.
The cost of the new is high; so is the cost of a prestige instrument. I always look at this when evaluating how successfully a new technology is adopted. Fusion grabbed synths when they were affordable. Improvisers, like Michael Waisvisz in Holland, built an electric instrument called a crackle box. So, there were limits on a synth, but it was expense more than its modular nature that drew the line, I think. Those things, even the small ones, were very expensive initially. And, finally, many had tuning issues. I saw Jan Hammer tweaking his mini moog in real time to keep the pitch stable. It was a problem on the early instruments. I also think synths can have an overwhelming sound that can drown out most other instruments--folks like Zawinul and Hammer made it acceptable in fusion contexts, as did a lot of synth players. Perhaps the only time I heard it work in a more traditional jazz setting was in the Hal Wilner double record set that was a tribute to Monk from different artists, but Monk was so bizarre as a composer it worked really well!
I have gradually come to realize that rather than jazz not having a history of continuing development, that instead a lot of music just got memory holed, and I don’t just mean jazz fusion. Jazz fusion itself didn’t just disappear in 1976, and in the mid 1970s smooth jazz became a thing. Much derided but after a lifetime of being a jazz snob I listened to a few albums and some are actually just… really good jazz. Winelight by Grover Washington Jr, Breezin by George Benson, David Sanborn’s Straight to the Heart - I’ll take any of them over 90% of the “serious jazz”. But that’s not the only stuff that was forgotten! McCoy Tyner made a ton of amazing later albums, notably Infinity with Brecker but also albums like Soliloquy. Pharoah Sanders made Journey to the One. Lots of good stuff that doesn’t fit the narrative of jazz dying and being “saved” by the traditionalists.
Bands like Steps Ahead and the Yellowjackets made a bunch of great stuff; Brecker on “Self Portrait” is as amazing as anyone ever, right up there with Trane and Young.
Lots of music happened, lots of good music, some of it so good it’s unimpeachable. I’m not sure Wynton has ever made an album as good as Breezin and he’s made some amazing albums. Claiming it’s “not real jazz” is a cop out.
I think Blues is the spine running through 20th C popular music. Jazz was born out of Blues and other elements. Blues. Blues. Blues.
Check out Earl Bostic. John Coltrane earned his chops playing in bands like his. Check out Louis Jordan. Check out Western Swing and hillbilly jazz like Jimmie Rivers and the Cherokees. Art Ensemble of Chicago, Fela Kuti, the whole effing continent of Africa! Swing low, sweet chariot. Listen to Sir Duke "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." Jazz was the cry of the black people of America. Freedom Now! You haven't lived until you've been black on a Saturday night. Once the soul and experience of black America left jazz, jazz became a walking corpse, a zombie bearing the shape and look of life but inside just a walking dead thing, a Frankenstein's monster.
What a great analysis. There was so much back and forth between Jazz and other forms after WW2. On the audience side, classical people pretty much hated any popular music. They usually would point out its lack of sophistication, Steve Allen made comic sketches on putting down pop music in the late 50s and early 60s. It wasn't hard to do. Some classical people couldn't fault jazz for being unsophisticated. They started to legitimize it and made it elitist. I'd go over to my friend Tom's house, and he'd play Schoenberg and Modern Jazz Quartet or Ornette Coleman. Tom felt content with himself. In the meantime, Miles Davis recorded BITCHES BREW which changed everything. It was like a nuclear bomb on Rock, Funk, Soul, Disco, Hip-Hop, etc. Like those of us who listened to Jazz, when Steely Dan showed up, it was more Jazz than rock. It hit the same neurons. The Jazz purist didn't get that. Like where does a singer like Donna Summers fit singing Jazz vocals to Disco music??? Yes, this is exactly right. TY for making the video.
George Benson was often criticized for popping up his jazz but I thought it was absolutely great. It did not compromise on virtuosic solos but still was something that you could dance and hum too. He was a real monster player who actually knew how to write memorable melodies without that elitism.
I rue the day Benson abandoned Jazz and tried to become Stevie Wonder.
Thanks Andy. I've always liked jazz, jazz funk, jazz fusion. Be etc There's a some proper musicianship within there, that' just brings goosebumps at times.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this video…
Particularly the characterization of bebop as a strait jacket, which led to free jazz as an escape. I just don’t see it. Bebop was created as a rejection of swing, but it still relies heavily on the blues, on common chord progressions via contrafacts, has a great beat, and has great energy. What you see as a strait jacket, Andy, I see as a language, complete with grammar, conventions, and cliches. Christian MacBride said the language of bebop is the language of jazz, and I believe is still its highest form. So I sat down and listened to Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come album for the first time in many years. Although I did hear more than the last time, it still strikes me as abstract, esoteric, and challenging to listen to. I don’t think jazz was trapped by bebop nearly as much as it was thrown off the rails by free jazz, much like classical music was by serial/12 tone music. Loving this topic and the quality of comments. Maybe in another 20 years I’ll dig out some Ornette Coleman and see if he makes more sense to my ears then. Cheers!
I have to agree. I understand the level of musicianship needed to be a jazz player, though I come nowhere near to possessing it myself. As a listener, I have to admit that being able to recognize a song underneath improvisation greatly increases my enjoyment. As for tonality, the absence of a sense of resolution to "Do" is unsatisfying, as well as with rhythm, the lack of being able to sense a downbeat in some free jazz becomes boring to me. I sense music very physically. Being subjected, as a listener, to an extended performance of a miasma of squawks and bleats quickly leads me to a feeling of resentment, and the suspicion that "the Emperor has no clothes". It's hard to admire chops without the structure of some musical discipline for the players to test themselves against.
I just attended the Monterey Jazz Festival, the longest running jazz festival known, I believe. I’ve attended since I was a kid in the 80s. It’s always had a very diverse and challenging lineup of acts - from Woody Herman to Ornette Coleman, from Big Joe Turner to Steve Coleman. No one knows what “jazz” actually is. The word means something that sells tickets to this festival that a very diverse crowd of people have loved for nearly 70 years now. It’s always felt good. It’s always been meaningful.
Nice discussion, Andy. Part-not the entirety, but part-of the challenge you face in this video is the desire to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the proper application of the the term 'jazz'. As Wittgenstein taught us, this is, in most cases, a fool's errand. Once we accept that the best we can do is recognize that there is some kind of family resemblance between the music of Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Allan Holdsworth, and Louis Cole, then we can surrender the aspiration to discover *the* essential characteristics that define a term like 'jazz', and move on to the more interesting points you raise regarding the socio-historical/economic/material reasons for the evolution of jazz since the 1970s.
Have been diving into jazz like a history course since UA-cam, so I won't worry about where -jazz is going or how to label today's scene. But I'm going to search for the Dixieland cut from 1917. This commentary added a ton of context to history.of jazz/rock/blues/hip-hop. Great commentary, Andy.
I have done a history of early jazz which is contrary to the mainstream narrative
You are the first critic I have ever heard link jazz to hip hop. Brilliant analysis.
The problem with jazz is that, to a considerable extent, it is being written and performed by college professors instead of drug addicts.
That is the most pernicious thing one can say about jazz. The drug epidemic in music started in the late 1940s and was introduced by the mob.
Professors are a problem, but certain communities, like the AACM and Sun Ra in Chicago, were largely drug free. Coltrane 's most adventurous work was done after he quit drugs.
Drugs were part of the musical culture, not just jazz.
@@garygomesvedicastrology not to mention those great players who never used. McCoy Tyner, Eric Dolphy, Clifford Brown
It's too theroical. That's why Jake Collier isn't good but someone like David Brubeck is timeless.
Jazz is anti creative in nature so there is definitely a balance that most jazzers never find.
Not to toot my own horn but I've written songs with chords I've never seen or seen anybody use. I didn't need to know or understand what I was playing I just needed to find the next chord or progression that fit. If you think you already know anything then certain things are off limits. Most jazz players are 1D and that's why people don't listen to them. It's not rocket science that it sucks
@@garygomesvedicastrology i see you learn your history from the godfather series also, kudos to you!
@@rillloudmotherActually, I studied jazz history with a famous jazz bass player named Reggie Workman in college. I knew Max Roach and Archie Shepp as well. I learned this from them before the Godfather movie was released. Cecil Taylor also indicated that the mob owned most of the clubs in New York. I didn't even see the first Godfather movie until around 1978. I graduated from college in 1974.
I think I saw perhaps two currently playing movies when I was in college-a rerelease of 2001 and A Clockwork Orange.
I am not saying that heroin use started with bebop, but its prevalence really started in the late 1940s.
Bebop wasn't THAT elitist, by the way. The rhythm was steady and there were some composers who really wrote catchy tunes, like Gillespie, and especially Monk.
Some great jazz coming out. It almost died in the UK in the 80s but Courtney Pine and Andy Sheppard helped revive it. Since then, we have some great soul/jazz and spiritual jazz coming out of London.
Larry Burkett's book on "Giving and Tithing" drew me closer to God and helped my spirituality. 2021 was a year I literally lived it. I cashed in my life savings and gave it all away. My total giving amounted to 27,000 dollars. Everyone thought I was delusional. Today, 1 receive 65,000 dollars every two months. I have a property in Calabasas, CA, and travel a lot. God has promoted me more than once and opened doors for me to live beyond my dreams.
God kept to his promises to and for me
There's wonder working power in following
Kingdom principles on giving and tithing.
Hallelujah!
But then, how do you get all that in that period of time? What is it you do please, mind sharing?
How can I start this digital market, any guidelines and how can I reach out to her?
So nice to see Susan Jane Christy talked about here. Her good works are speaking already, and like wild fire, she's spreading.
@@Iacrews7Sure..!!
Great stuff! My personal opinion is that peak jazz is 1935-1965, then it became “free” and transformed into other styles. Just like jazz is a combo of military orchestras and south blues music - another big switch was during the 80s with electronic music. The essence is the same - the human spirit manifesting via vibration called sound which leads to emotion❤
Rockabilly hairstyle, yeah🙂....I am just jealous....and yes, I agree. You ask the right questions. One thing about education, please don't forget that there are countries where music education on an university level is totally free. Here in Austria you don't have to pay for studying Jazz, it is 100% free of charge. This is a British/USA thing we don't have.
Brilliant and needed discourse! Thank you so much.