"define jazz, any way you like"

What if it's an open concept that admits only of family resemblances, and not a definition?

nina simone was upset when people called her a jazz singer becuase she viewed at a way to exoticize black music. i find that jazz is a useless terms because it is so wide to have no direction. I think the best way to describe it is music that is communal but not orchestral.

"What if it's an open concept that admits only of family resemblances, and not a definition?"

I have no doubt that it is, and I've read Philosophical Investigations too. But it still would be fun to see some smart people take a shot at defining it.

Anyway, I stole the sentence from Mark and just changed the punctuation.

Does "American Classical Music" sound familiar to you?

Does "American Classical Music" sound familiar to you?

That way leads to Wynton Marsalis and therefore perdition. Repent now!

Dunno, but some people's definitions are eyebrow-raising. "A hoax perpetrated on the public" (Ian Anderson), "Hasn't existed since the RUral Electrification Program" (Steve Albini)

Music which allows for the possibility of improvisation?

Rock. Indian classical. Flamenco. Organ music.

So you're just toying with us then, eh Charlie? ;)

I think Marsalis et al are wrong about the requirements that jazz swing and play (somehow) the blues, but probably part of the reason their position is hard to criticize, aside from the things they do with it, is that blues and swing are pretty important to a very large section of jazz. I'm not sure if he includes improvisation (maybe he's tried to leave it out recently, I'm not sure) but he probably does and it's probably more important IMO than blues and swing. Its presence is not enough, though (see above).

A broader notion of the harmonic tools than 'the blues' is probably out there somewhere, and might be a good way of pulling jazz that more obviously uses the blues together with latin jazz and all kinds of other canonical but not especially bluesy jazz.

Maybe there is a broader notion than just 'swing' (and hopefully broader than 'syncopated rhythms' too) to describe the range of rhythmic ideas that motivate different kinds of jazz as well. But I also suspect that swung rhythm is the least essential part (but even in the case of free 'pulse' some kind of ongoing rhythmic jolt seems to be present in most jazz - can you imagine much jazz played totally straight, that's still called jazz?).

Walter Weasel (of the Flying Luttenbachers, duh) used to assert (might still assert) that FREE JAZZ = DEATH METAL. If you believe that FREEDOM = DEATH (which is a nihilistic viewpoint, but could be true in your world), then some equation balancing reveals that

JAZZ = METAL

Obviously.

pants. fishstick. orangutan. oochy koochy.

My personal definition would be a style of music, native to America, characterized by a strong but flexible rhythmic understructure with solo and ensemble improvisations on basic tunes and chord patterns and, more recently, a highly sophisticated harmonic idiom.

No, wait! That's the dictionary.com definition!

Jazz was pretty easy to define through the early 60s, but since then it's evolved in a million ways and (not coincidentally?) also become much less popular, except when it mixes with rock.

Tune. Leader's solo. Yeahs, cheers. Pianist's solo. Polite applause. Another solo. Applause. Bass solo (optional, usually no applause). Drum solo, some Yeahs superimposed. Tune reprise. End. Applause.

(Repeat five times. One hour break. Repeat six more times.)

All music played in real-time which you used to be able to dance to, but really can't anymore except in theory. Alternately, and perhaps more useful as a "social" definition, is everything you find filed under jazz at a respectable music store.

"- can you imagine much jazz played totally straight, that's still called jazz?)."

Yeah, I don't know. I feel uncomfortable not calling Anthony Braxton's music jazz, and he certainly CAN swing when we wants to, but he plays totally straight on a lot of his records, even when he plays solo or with his quartets (of course, he I wouldn't describe his operas or pieces for four orchestras as "jazz", either-- I haven't heard them but I gather that they're through-composed). But then it seems like if you admit Braxton's small ensemble music, you have to admit a lot of European free improv as well, which seems wrong, maybe because I don't detect the blues in a lot of that music at all, at least not American blues.

If on the other hand you don't admit Braxton's moments of non- swinging, it seems like maybe you have to discount Maneri and maybe Shipp and some other people doing some exciting things, which bothers me.

So I guess the swinging criterion sort of weirds me out. Especially because if you say anyone who uses the swinging rhythm plays jazz, it would seem that Bach made jazz.

... so anyway, I guess I agree with a lot of what you're saying, Josh. But maybe the key, if not to defining it, but at least to getting a little closer, is to claim that there's some kind of reminder of the blues lurking somewhere deep in the music. Like, Braxton doesn't literally play I7-IV7-V7 most of the time, but in a lot of his music, even the really abstract stuff, I hear a sort of sadness that's tough for me to hear in most European improv.

It worried me for a second that I just thought that because Braxton is black and American and most European free improvisors are, you know, European, but after listening to a few minutes of "For Alto", yeah, I think there's something else going on there. Like it seems like a much more emotionally open music than most free improv I've heard.

An interesting thing about defining jazz is you almost need a degree in music theory to do it. All this "Jazz is where the fifth note is flatted in the tonic scale" stuff. No other genre you can name needs this sort of training to define it, which might have somthing to do with why jazz is (mostly) music for musicians now.

well, classical? ;)

but seriously, I don't like trying to define jazz. It's very difficult not to trip over yourself, and the "know it when you hear it" line works fine for me.

A riff or motif played through by the band, maybe repeated a couple of times, then improvised upon; lyrics/singer expendable. Of course this is also the definition for bluegrass.

jazz = bluegrass + horns?

Jazz for me is a way of approaching music, a method of doing things.

What's the way, the method? Can u describe it?

If on the other hand you don't admit Braxton's moments of non- swinging, it seems like maybe you have to discount Maneri and maybe Shipp and some other people doing some exciting things, which bothers me.

I don't think you should let it bother you. You said it yourself-- they're doing exciting things, so who cares what someone wants to label them? So someone says they aren't jazz... whoopdy-shit! If jazz is so narrowly-defined as to discount (and I'm not sure exactly what the connotations of this word are in this situation) a monster player like Shipp, then fuck jazz. Maybe it's because I'm not deep into the culture, but it seems to me like jazzers are generally over- concerned about whether their music is considered jazz by others or not. Whereas it seems like they should be most concerned about making a good racket and blowing minds (or something like that).

I think instrumentation has a lot to do with the labeling of something as "jazz." Most things that are widely considered to be jazz consist of certain (mostly acoustic) instruments--saxes, other smallish winds, holdable brass instruments, bass, piano, drumkit, perhaps guitar or violin. And my tentative definition of jazz, then, is some combination of the aforementioned instruments playing largely improvised music in which (a) no notes are sustained for too long, and (b) some sort of solos are taken. More on this later...

"I don't think you should let it bother you. You said it yourself-- they're doing exciting things, so who cares what someone wants to label them? So someone says they aren't jazz... whoopdy-shit!"

Yeah, I agree entirely, and the jazz vs. "not jazz" thing has absolutely no bearing on my enjoyment of the music. In fact, some players (like Braxton, I think) don't even like the term "jazz" at all. But yeah, fuck genre designations, at least as a reason to listen to or not listen to music. But they are interesting to talk about, and sometimes relevant: you and I would both get annoyed if we looked at a playlist and saw someone playing Apples in Stereo on a jazz show.

But anyway, when I said it bothered me I meant that it intuitively struck me as something that didn't seem right-- I didn't mean I was morally outraged. When we discuss what a particular genre is, it gives us some insight into why we consciously or unconsciously categorize things the way we do-- that's all. It's definitely ridiculous when people use such discussions to blackball artists whose styles they don't like and use genre designations as signifiers of authenticity. (I'm not sure if I used any of those big words correctly.)