the jazz plague

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

i love jazz, but when other musics start to look to it there seems to be an inevitable loss of excitement which often then descends to plain naffness (eg JazzRock, JazzFunk, JazzJungle etc etc)

exceptions? comments?

― gaz (gaz), Thursday, 27 February 2003 23:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Talk Talk!

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 27 February 2003 23:52 (twenty-two years ago)

"it's a process not a sound, fools", can usually be shouted in the direction of any of the above genres

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 27 February 2003 23:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I will be shouting that, along with "Joy Division isn't a genre, asshole!"

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 27 February 2003 23:58 (twenty-two years ago)

jazz division

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 28 February 2003 00:02 (twenty-two years ago)

"Dead Souls Blues"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 28 February 2003 00:03 (twenty-two years ago)

"The sound of deaths to come"

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 28 February 2003 00:07 (twenty-two years ago)

"here are the young jazz men"

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 28 February 2003 00:08 (twenty-two years ago)

i think jazz division might be the exception, they sound awesome.

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 28 February 2003 00:10 (twenty-two years ago)

i agree

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 28 February 2003 00:11 (twenty-two years ago)

oh hang on, weren't they called A Certain Ratio?

boom boom

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 28 February 2003 00:11 (twenty-two years ago)

ha ha

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 28 February 2003 00:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Nicely done.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 28 February 2003 00:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I like when bands turn to jazz, because they always start to incorporate more talent to their music

― naga_pampa (naga_pampa), Friday, 28 February 2003 01:04 (twenty-two years ago)

talent != technical skill

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 28 February 2003 01:07 (twenty-two years ago)

incorporate more talent

"I'd like to purchase some talent please."
"Sorry, on back order. We've got some glamour we can sell you, though."
"Great, can I get that delivered?"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 28 February 2003 01:18 (twenty-two years ago)

nothing doing, sorry, i'm a-gonna spit out these two words, soonish, for they do taste sickly no matter how long i chew on them, yuk...

..."Acid Jaaaazzzz!"

(oh. much better now, thank you)

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Friday, 28 February 2003 01:22 (twenty-two years ago)

jazz rock = kick ass (miles' fusion period, soft machine, matching mole, tons of great prog bands)
jazz funk = kick ass (CTI records, david axelrod, freddie hubbard, donald bird)
jazz folk = kick lots of ass (pentangle, john martyn, eugene mcdaniels, terry callier)

jazz jungle = uhhhhh? maybe not

i think what you're thinking about when you add jazz as a suffix is the slick overproduction a band adds to their sound to become "jazzy" and that normally does suck. but as a rule, these genres do not.

― JasonD (JasonD), Friday, 28 February 2003 01:27 (twenty-two years ago)

donald "byrd"

― JasonD (JasonD), Friday, 28 February 2003 01:27 (twenty-two years ago)

prefix, duh

― JasonD (JasonD), Friday, 28 February 2003 01:32 (twenty-two years ago)

talking abount jazz colaborations with other geners, in my opinion the Miles Davis John Lee Hooker colaboration produced some of the greatest tracks EVA!

― rex jr., Friday, 28 February 2003 01:34 (twenty-two years ago)

re: Miles & John Lee, 'The Hot Spot' -- the more sparser the textures there, the more seducing the tracks. as soon as the 'backing band' gets 'into a groove', the rarefied air tends to evaporate. ...well, Dr. Ch**bourne, for one, obviously thinks different, deciding by his AMG review

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Friday, 28 February 2003 01:46 (twenty-two years ago)

i think what you're thinking about when you add jazz as a suffix is the slick overproduction a band adds to their sound to become "jazzy"

yes, but its also often an attempt to have some "serious music made here" tag attached.

and acid jazz? i always thought "where's the acid? where's the jazz?"

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 28 February 2003 01:47 (twenty-two years ago)

its the coolest thing heared, its the Primitivity of the texture that actually make the cool jazz sound even cooler.

― rex jr., Friday, 28 February 2003 01:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Have you heard that Sand album(not the 70's band).I think it's called Still Born Alive.Dude at the record store recommended it to me and I like it a lot.It's jazzy but really heavy.Good experimental rock with cool grooves and horns that don't make me cringe in the rock context.

― Scott Seward, Friday, 28 February 2003 07:25 (twenty-two years ago)

ahem - jazz-punk.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 28 February 2003 07:54 (twenty-two years ago)

i think what you're thinking about when you add jazz as a suffix is the slick overproduction a band adds to their sound to become "jazzy"

Truest thing I've read here all day.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Friday, 28 February 2003 07:59 (twenty-two years ago)

What would the Luttenbacher's "Destroy All Music" be classified as? I've heard it called "punk jazz", but I think it's just "free jazz", though more agressive than most.

― Dave Fischer, Friday, 28 February 2003 08:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Bring on the JazzJazz.

― kevin brady (groeuvre), Friday, 28 February 2003 09:17 (twenty-two years ago)

well, ron carter played with tribe called quest and it sounded pretty good

― brains (cerybut), Friday, 28 February 2003 10:04 (twenty-two years ago)

ahem - jazz-punk. that a recommendation Marcello?

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 28 February 2003 10:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Jazz-Punk?? The early '80s Bristol scene (Pigbag, Vital Excursions, Pinski Zoo etc.) combined punk with funk & jazz...bluddy good fun it was too!

― Jez (Jez), Friday, 28 February 2003 10:18 (twenty-two years ago)

i think there was more punkfunk actually. then again RipRig&Panic, the Pinskis as mentioned. what did they do right that everyone else did wrong?

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 28 February 2003 10:24 (twenty-two years ago)

"its the coolest thing heared, its the Primitivity of the texture that actually make the cool jazz sound even cooler"

note: that was my reply to t\'\'t's take on JLH and Miles Davis's "hot spot"

― rex jr., Friday, 28 February 2003 11:01 (twenty-two years ago)

three letters for you lot:

FMP.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 28 February 2003 11:19 (twenty-two years ago)

jazz-punk

Junk for short. Wait, that doesn't work.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 28 February 2003 13:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Blonde Redhead

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 28 February 2003 13:59 (twenty-two years ago)

''Junk for short. Wait, that doesn't work.''

damn right it doesn't. jazz-punk is the biz!

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 28 February 2003 14:15 (twenty-two years ago)

The Pop Group, they got the jazz elements. "Communicate" for example.

― rex jr., Friday, 28 February 2003 14:18 (twenty-two years ago)

NoU

― schnell schnell, Friday, 28 February 2003 14:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't understand this question.

― Jess Hill (jesshill), Friday, 28 February 2003 14:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Blonde Redhead

No, they're Gap^TM Rock.

― hstencil, Friday, 28 February 2003 14:42 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

is it dead then?

― bulbs (bulbs), Thursday, 4 November 2004 09:25 (twenty years ago)

sorry, 'nother jazz cliche, but anyway:
''acid jazz, nothin' to do with acid or jazz''

― george gosset (gegoss), Thursday, 4 November 2004 11:32 (twenty years ago)

yeah o.t.m. Julio,
more J-punk suggestions needed here.

― george gosset (gegoss), Thursday, 4 November 2004 11:35 (twenty years ago)

oh, not to be confused with J-daddy or Nazz Pomp.

― george gosset (gegoss), Thursday, 4 November 2004 11:39 (twenty years ago)

or diddy wtf...

― george gosset (gegoss), Thursday, 4 November 2004 11:42 (twenty years ago)

i think there was more punkfunk actually. then again RipRig&Panic, the Pinskis as mentioned. what did they do right that everyone else did wrong?

-- gaz (gary.lo...), February 28th, 2003.

Have Mark Springer in the band!

― Pangolino (ricki spaghetti), Friday, 5 November 2004 02:47 (twenty years ago)

Jaz Coleman.

― Rockist_Scientist (rockist_scientist), Friday, 5 November 2004 03:02 (twenty years ago)

(Just checking to see if Alex in NYC is really on hiatus. I've got nothing in particular against Mr. Coleman.)

― Rockist_Scientist (rockist_scientist), Friday, 5 November 2004 03:02 (twenty years ago)

yeah, seems he missed this one at least.
Jaz jazz is really Cole,
but more cool F-junk etc. for me please.

― george gosset (gegoss), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 01:48 (twenty years ago)

yeah, seems he missed this one at least.

No i didn't. It just wasn't worth commenting on.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 01:51 (twenty years ago)

could the minutemen be marginally considered jazz-punk? b/c if so then that's one caveat to completely trashing that stuff.

― Zack Richardson (teenagequiet), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 05:18 (twenty years ago)

a lot of great rock took a weird sort of half-assed inspiration from jazz: the byrds, the stooges, minutemen. most rock that actually incorporates jazz elements is crap, but not all: cf. soft machine.

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 9 November 2004 05:27 (twenty years ago)

I strongly disagree with both the original premise of the thread and the second half of amateur!!st's answer.

Also, what's half-assed about the Coltrane cop on "Eight Miles High" or the horns on Fun House?

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 05:44 (twenty years ago)

i wrote "half-assed" meaning it to be tongue-in-cheek. sort of. i have to think about this.

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 9 November 2004 05:46 (twenty years ago)

Sting is the answer. When all the rock and roll got sucked out of him he went all jazzercisey, dint he? Although at least 4 out of 10 summoner's tales were great!

― p.j. (Henry), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 05:53 (twenty years ago)

I mean, I can't even see the premise of this thread working at all when applied to any of the obvious examples ... De La Soul and Tribe Called Quest killed rap? Herbie Hancock was a blight on funk? Death to Amon Tobin? A pity the Byrds didn't just stick to jingle-jangle Dylan covers? Why don't we just turn off VU & Nico before "European Son"? Too bad Yes (or Crimson or Rush or Henry Cow or . . .) ever dropped in a funky bassline and pentatonic modes - there really weren't enough strings and choirs? Did Prince really have to go stink up 80s pop music like that?

xpost I still think his version of "Round Midnight" was good and more impressive, at least in terms of his voice, than any Police stuff. Although the Police were pretty jazz-influenced to begin with, which made them pretty tolerable by the standards of the genre.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 05:59 (twenty years ago)

well the police were also dub influenced too, and stings voice a non too subtle marley cop.

but i wonder if it comes down to the ambitions and abilities of the groups concerned. ATCQ are somewhat of an anomaly in jazzy hip hop terms (dunno about jazz being an overriding concern for de la!!!), hancocks concerns were with jazz before he went funky, VU had WAAAAY more in the pot than jazz + rock, prince was NEVER jazzfunk solely either (again, a polyglot).

― bulbs (bulbs), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 08:30 (twenty years ago)

Was is it a condition that the bands have to be limited in their influences to just jazz and one other genre?

No one has presented examples of the 'bad' bands yet, just listed the 'good' ones and said that they're the exception.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:36 (twenty years ago)

I'm not aware of all that many hip-hop groups that framed themselves as "jazz hip-hop," although critics threw tons of groups in under that header. Obviously Tribe and Digable Planets (on the first album) and Us3 (much less successfully) were exceptions, but for the most part it seemed like critics threw any NYC sampling group under "jazz-hop." Unless it was "horrorcore."

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:45 (twenty years ago)

I'm not aware of all that many hip-hop groups that framed themselves as "jazz hip-hop,"

uh... stetsasonic?!?!?!?

― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:48 (twenty years ago)

Would freestyling be a form of jazz-hop? Maybe the problem with the thread is the focus upon the style of the musics being hybridised rather than the process (which goes back to the comment jess made).

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:51 (twenty years ago)

Um, Jazamatazz? Not that I'm saying they're good, mind you.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:53 (twenty years ago)

I said "not many," not that there WEREN'T any!
And stetsasonic definitely seems to be a group more concerned with the "process" vs. "hybridization".

And yeah, jazzmatazz is pretty eh.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:54 (twenty years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.