what is jazz?

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What Is Jazz?

Your answers, too, if ya don't mind.

― todd burns, Sunday, 9 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oh yeah, it's in the music articles section. if you want to read what geoff has to say about it. he seems rather unwilling to give a clear indication of what he thinks, which is where i think his ultimate downfall in this article is.

― todd burns, Sunday, 9 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

First, any definition will be approximate. It will exclude some music that is arguably jazz and/or include some music that is obviously not jazz.

Bearing this is mind I think that the most serviceable definition is Wynton Marsalis's: it is music with a specific type of more or less triplet-based swing rhythm. This would exclude, say, Bitches Brew: a desert island album for me, but one I'm quite happy to categorise as not-jazz. The definition could also embrace some hip-hop. I am agnostic on the question of whether the definition should be refined to exclude hip-hop but believe it could be easily done.

Most definitions stress the primacy of improvision but improvisation is common to a wide range of musical forms. It also seems to me that certain types of composed-through music containing little improvisation (eg Mingus's "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat") and extended works by Gil Evans, Quincy Jones, George Russell) etc are clearly jazz. Improvisation is a characteristic feature of jazz but not it's defining feature. Definitions which stress improvisation are very poor at defining where jazz stops and rock starts, unlike rhythm based defitions.

― ArfArf, Monday, 10 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Jazz is in my pants. I have Jazzpants.

All other answers will miss the point.

― Gage-o, Monday, 10 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My working defintion for a jazz musician(which may very well be missing the point): one who has an awareness/experience of the tradition known as jazz (for the sake of argument, say about 60-70 years of it) and uses that as a foundation for a method of doing things in musical situations.

Even when working in situations that don't necessarily involve swing or improvisation in the traditional sense, musicians that I genuinely consider jazz musicians have similar musical values and methods that relate to those things.

I suppose that doesn't say anything about what "jazz" is, except to me there is a clear, if sometimes slight, difference between otherwise similar music made by musicians with and without a background in jazz.

― Jordan, Monday, 10 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Funny scales; no distortion.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 10 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...

Okay, amatures, here we go. Music is based on the idea that playing different notes at the same time makes a pleasent sound. Up until the creation of jazz, there was only one basic combintion: root, 3rd, and 5th. That is, the bass note, the note three scale notes away, and the note five scale notes away. Depending on what the exact notes were, we could get a major, minor, diminished, or augmented chord. By the way, excluding the 3rd, will create the infamous "power chord". Almost all music, from classical to pop, was based on root/3/5 chords, that is, except for blues music, which sometimes included a 7th(!). This only happened breifly in other types of music, usaully when a melody was being played, but never as a "real" chord (like at the end of a song). Jazz originaters took this idea a went wild with it, expanding the idea of major, minor, diminished, and augmented chords to inculed different types of 7ths, creating a host of what is now known as a "7" chord. They also played with the idea of off beat, "syncapated" rythms, also borrowed from blues. Soon, the idea of "9", "11", and "13" chords became common place. To me, the important thing is the chords, not the rythms. This is why hip-hop cannot be considered jazz. Jazz was the first type of music to incorpate those chords, but complex, more dancable rythms are as old as tribal african music. Few hip-hop musicians incorpate complex chords, in fact, it's mostly just bass (that's just one note at a time, bra').

― lochrian x, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

amatures

Wrong.

Music is based on the idea that playing different notes at the same time makes a pleasent sound.

Wrong. Music is based on sound, as far as I can tell, but that's about as much of a generalization as you can make now.

Up until the creation of jazz, there was only one basic combintion: root, 3rd, and 5th.

Wrong. Western musicians (can't speak for the Eastern ones) have been using the 7th scale interval, for example, in chords since chant, roughly 800 years or so.

Almost all music, from classical to pop, was based on root/3/5 chords, that is, except for blues music, which sometimes included a 7th(!).

Wrong. Funny thing about classical music, it actually started out as monophonic, i.e., no "chords" (1/3/5, right?), only one note at a time. But that's pretty ancient, say 1000 years ago. As far as complex chords (i.e., beyond using some combination of 1/3/5/7, not including passing notes), you can only go back about 200 years.

This only happened breifly in other types of music, usaully when a melody was being played, but never as a "real" chord (like at the end of a song).

Wrong. Almost any classical music made after 1820 or so defies this statement. But I don't understand the "end of the song" part.

Jazz originaters took this idea a went wild with it, expanding the idea of major, minor, diminished, and augmented chords to inculed different types of 7ths, creating a host of what is now known as a "7" chord.

Wrong. The "7" chord (i.e., a triad featuring the 7th, 2nd and 4th intervals of a scale) has been used in Western classical music (I really do wish I could be more global with this) since the Baroque era, roughly 400 years or so.

"syncapated" rythms

Wrong.

Jazz was the first type of music to incorpate those chords

Wrong. See above.

Few hip-hop musicians incorpate complex chords, in fact, it's mostly just bass

Wrong. Hip hop, pop and just about kind of music made today has access to a thousand years of ingrained theory and harmonic development. Some people say, "it's pop so it can't be complicated", however, it's a mistake to confuse something you are familiar with (or not?) with something that is inherently simple.

― dleone, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

jazz is coffee tables, polo neck jerseys, daffy beards, "ethnic" hats w/ sequins in. jazz is merzbow or derek bailey. AaHH - sussed it : "jazz" is a WORD.

― bob snoom, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Thank you, Dleone. I was hoping someone would rectify that post. Yeesh.

Curiously though, while many hiphoppers make references to getting the rhythms from Africa, the four-four beat that usually makes up hiphop is probably the farthest thing from the polyrhythmic stuff that comes out of Nigeria or Ghana. Strange--maybe the MC's were thinking of griots instead.

― Mickey Black Eyes, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Louis Armstrong said it best: "If you gotta ask, lady, you ain't nevah gonna know."

― Lord Custos, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

three months pass...

Jazz is a type of music that is arguable... so stop arguing

― Aaron Truitt, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Jazz is the last great Queen album

― J Blount, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Jordan bit his theory from George Dickie!

― Josh, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Josh just name-checked Dickie!

― charlie va, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

huh huh huh, charlie said 'dick'

― Josh, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

At least he wadn't bitin off Ortega y Gasset - that mutha was such a modernist priX0r.

― Clarke B., Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

seven years pass...

Spanish fan calls police over saxophone band who were just not jazzy enough

― The bugger in the short sleeves (NickB), Thursday, 10 December 2009 09:53 (sixteen years ago)

Reminiscent of that old Sonny Sharrock story about the outraged German guy pounding the stage with a fist and shouting "THIS IS NOT JAZZ! THIS IS NOT JAZZ!"

― Race Against Rockism (Myonga Vön Bontee), Thursday, 10 December 2009 15:12 (sixteen years ago)

JAZZ is a hamhock in your cornflakes

― m0stlyClean, Thursday, 10 December 2009 17:53 (sixteen years ago)

Lock thread.

― the onimo effect (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 10 December 2009 18:07 (sixteen years ago)

OO-AIIJOO-OOAAN-OO-OOAIJAAANN!

― Tuomas, Thursday, 10 December 2009 21:21 (sixteen years ago)

Whoops, sorry, I was using the ILX post box as a temporary typing pad.

― Tuomas, Thursday, 10 December 2009 21:21 (sixteen years ago)

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