Bad Jazz (as in, Jazz music)

I like the idea that Dave Q was talking with Xagu the Alien from the planet Tharg.

First the proverbial bad jazz musician, Kenny G, but his music isn't exactly jazz, in fact, he does not deserve to be anywhere near the genre of jazz, I think you can say his music is 'easy listening', for me more like 'monotonous listening' to me.

Secondly Wynton Marsalis, this guy just wants to reverse jazz to the days of Louis Armstrong, If the devil offered him to become Louis Amstrong, for the possession of his soul, Wynton would sign the deal before you could say 'Ken Burns' Jazz'.

There is a lot of so called post-bop being released, that is really really 'bad'. For example I recently purchased Arturo Sandoval tribute to Clifford Brown (Brown is one of my favourite trumpeters), to my degradation this was one of the poorest tribute albums I have ever heard, it simply buchered any good thing about Clifford Brown's original music, it turned Brown's music into pop latin jazz, how Scott Yanow gave this 4.5 stars at Allmusic.com, I don't know, I got it for $2, I hated it so much that I threw it away.

the good jazz will seldom leave collections, the collectors not dead yet, the economics sending a false message to the industry, the first industry to champion independant labels, those labels dead, that exploratory one-off material in private hands, dance music mistakenly equated with jazz, and on down ..

Clark Terry is incredible, and deserves to get a lot more recognition than he has. His phrasing, especially, is just out of this world -- next to his fluidity and wit, almost every other straightahead trumpet player sounds stiff and foursquare by comparison: I really don't know how he gets so many different articulations and shadings out of his horn -- which is probably why I'm so impressed by him, as his "skill set" (ugh) is so strong in the areas in which I'm weakest. He seemed like a really nice guy when I met him.

Wish I could recommend an album, but mostly I've seen him live -- he used to play a lot around where I grew up. I remember the record he did with Oscar Peterson as being fun.

Jazz is about improvisation. It has hundreds of great melodies, but (to generalize of course) it's about taking a song form and extending and improvising on it, making it your own. It's about group interplay and being in the moment and swinging, which is hard as hell to do with cofidence and maturity (yes i know it doesn't have to swing to be jazz blah blah blah, i like free jazz too). The 'point' at all times is to say something personal and emotional and to have a musical conversation, and anyone who is focusing on playing 'musical gymnastics on their instrument is doing it wrong (although yes I think it does take a much higher base of technique than a lot of other styles, partly because you have to be ready to play anything, not just something you wrote).

I think part of it not 'sticking' for a lot of people who hear jazz today is because it's so culturally out of context now. For instance, in the 50s most people might have actually known the pop tune that Miles Davis would be playing with his quintet, taking the melody and chords and turning it into something new. Also, I think it takes a bit of time for one's ears to adjust to hearing walking basslines giving the chord progression, and to hearing harmonic progressions that aren't found in any rock music.

I really couldn't care less whether you like jazz or not, but the music has so much weird baggage in our culture now that's perfectly evident in what you said (that it's an 'intellectual' music and that jazz fans are snobs, that it's all wanking), and I think a lot of people have misconceptions about it (that I probably didn't do a very good job of clearing up).

Thanks for your response. I understand what you're getting atbut I don't understand the appeal of jazz in general. I don't think the public does either as reflected in its sales as of late. Perhaps it's because, as you say, the players' aren't having a "musical conversation" that's really appealling. They're using scales like some writers use vocabulary:to show off style when there's little substance.
With any musical genre I want something that will move me or have me humming. Jazz doesn't give me that at all. It moves frantically without really taking me anywhere. I also don't like the intellectual pretentiousness of some of its followers, especially with regard to rock fans. I don't understand the appeal of country or rap either (though unlike jazz those genres sell), but I wouldn't degrade their fans. Could that be part of why jazz is now "culturally out of context"? Instead of trying to be new and fun it's just missed the boat?
Anyway, interesting chatting with you.