Ok, here's how it seems to me: "Jazz people" are actually some of the most loyal, hardcore of all music fans. Classical music seems to inspire a similar kind of exclusive devotion, as does the blues to some degree.

But jazz is more like "classical" in he sense that there are so many different eras and periods and styles, each of which attracts its own ardent followers. So among many jazz heads. Some will insist that Be Bop is the only "true" jazz music. Others will say the same thing about hard bop or big band or whatever. So believe it or not, there are plenty of jazz freaks who believe to this day that Coltrane and Miles Davis were blasphemous sons of bitches.

Like I said, closed no nded.

Must suck to love a genre if you think it's been shit since 1958.

Jazz is the use of theory to improvise upon existing melodies, using modulation, tempo, timbre, volume, etc ALL AT THE SAME TIME, essentially composing on the fly, which is it's innovation and basis for existence. Until you can instinctively improvise on electronic instruments and do all these things in real time, then you will not be playing Jazz music.

the main dixieland jazz community hated the swing era of jazz, and saw it as pop watered down crap. the swing jazz fans, once that was evolved into more artistic forms, hated the bebop era that did away with the swing/big band arrangements and stripped it all down to a small band. the bebop jazz mainstream hated the Hard Bop which took bebop and amped the shit up to 11, creating new forms. Once those were exhausted, the hard bop people hated on MIles "cool" modal jazz, based not on scales but on modal forms of music. When that became the mainstream, jazz fans started hating on Gillespie's explorations into latin samba and bahia music, combining jazz with polyphonic latin rhythms. Once that became mainstream, the Jazz fans hated the Free Jazz of cecil taylor and Ornette Coleman.

it goes on and on. the thing is, that until Miles Davis started making jazz albums with electric instruments, which, at the time, could not be modulated in as many ways as an acoustic instrument could (and still can't really, without three hundred effects pedals), jazz purists felt that what was being created was a new music, not Jazz.

ever since then the "jazz" is formalized and old-fashioned, even though there have been amazing jazz albums by people like Marcus Roberts and the Marsalis bros.

the rock and funk musicians that Miles played with were in no respect the equals musically of a seasoned Jazz musician. This drove people away from Fusion.

Oh, and Kenny G is not Jazz.

YESSONGS (1973)

poorly recorded but a great album regardless. you can sooooo tell the difference when they switched drummers from bruford to alan white.

bruford in "perpetual change" is just... hot fucking damn.... *tremendous*

absolute classic, one of their last shows to my knowledge, so damn tight, TG totally in control of their sound. features this insane track which I guess is somehow based on united https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9jbKed3AZE

it is worth a lot :o :confused: :cool: I thought it was just the free download?? pretty incredible stuff, what you're talking about with regard to hip hop being a logical extension of jazz, this is probably the first time I've totally believed that. totally uninhibited stuff, everything on leaving at the minute is incredible.

wass dat. amy poehler spoken world album?

Yeah, pretty much.

I only disagree with your assertion that Jazz requires both improvisation and the real-time live reinterpretation of already existing melodies.

Many forms of jazz rely heavily on improvisation, and many of the most improvisational styles of jazz also use established melodies taken from either Broadway, swing, folk or chamber music standards, but there are plenty of other jazz subgenres that require little or no improvisation.

True, improv is one of the main characteristics of jazz as a whole, but the way you describe it, jazz can't exist without improvisation and an established melody. Polyrhythm and syncopation, swing notes are all equally important parts of the musical profile of jazz. I feel like what you're really talking about is cool jazz, which definitely relies heavily on improvisation over a traditional melody.

Also, I actually think that techno and beat and electronic hip-hop have evolved to the point where real time improvisation, and live manipulation of styles and sounds can be achieved. It's been like this for some time. It's not as modal as it is in jazz, but maybe that's because it's not an evolution of jazz itself, but the influence of jazz touching other former of music entirely.

But I really don't know. Hah.

big bands don't improvise lots and some survive their founders like mingus or count basie what genre are they?

Yeah, it is... sorry. Meant to say I just "got" it. I didn't actually believe the entire 3 hour album would be available entirely for free, but here we are.

A surprising relevant record to the discussion of Jazz elements coming out in subgenres of breakbeat, hip-hop, and other modern instrumental genres.

Really goddamn impressive piece of work, this. I'm very impressed by it.

Oh, and today I've been listening to this:



Pete Rock - Petestrumentals 2

Well, I don´t think Yessongs is poorly recorded. I think it´s one of the best live albums, but really could be even better if there were more songs where Bruford is in drums.

In Union live there are both, Bruford & White in drums. Even Bruford mostly take care of percussion works and White drums, I think it´s the best Yes live and specially drums are just dynamite! I think this is the best version of yours is no disgrace:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9jyNjyu7UA

Drumssolos are never been very enjoyable to me and I never liked electric drums, but this is great (and really not too long):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeDnavPiMxA

Also. really great version of strarship trooper from same concert:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n81heGR30JY

About Yes lyrics. You can easily laugh at them specially if you´re cynic asshole, who thinks there is no magic in the world. But the Yes world is it´s own, I think it´s same about the music, you just get it or not.

About great drummers I think in this band was greatest Finnish drummer (Ronnie Österberg), just listen the song Colossus little later in this piece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrL_PWYGar0

I just wasted about five minutes skimming a bunch of Kenny G. I was trying to find a song that swings, but I couldn't. Not one. Yeah, he does not sound like jazz one bit. The charge of "White people like Kenny G stole jazz" is a bit ridiculous.


Fair enough.

I listened to chunks of Yessongs and at least I can appreciate how others like them.

But weird question: how do you listen to Yes? Is it something you concentrate on or something you play in the background?

PS - I always liked "Roundabout." The 3:30 single edit. Just played it twice in a row.

--

Before I fell asleep, from out of nowhere, I thought, "Tomorrow I'm listening to Rather Ripped."

of course, it's a live album, and it's fantastic even without bruford, but some parts of it sound pretty bad, seriously. the stravinsky thing is shrill, the alan white drums sound real muddy in some tracks, etc.

---

thanks for all those links, it's a lot to process and i'll check them out. about union, etc:-- i've always been fearful of post-70s yes because, i don't know, it wasn't yes anymore etc. and i have this notion that with their era over and them wanting to keep with the times the result was poor and just no. but i'll check out union & see what my ears tell me.

also the otehr links-- i'm internet restricted early in the morning so i have to wait for the fast verion to be available. thanks for all that.


the bruford tracks are "perpetual change" and... well, look them up. but if you're starting just approach from these albums first: the yes album, fragile, close to the edge. those 3 are their best period and a good point of reference to judge the rest.

I had to pack up all my albums and CDs. Sniffle, sniffle. The stereo components and speakers, all in boxes, taped shut. Next week they go into a truck. And then...

...they all go into our new digs!

big bands are arranged more carefully, but they set aside space for soloists to improvise, and the better big bands do improvise within the charts given them by the composer.

your second point I agree with. The first point however, is a bit off. "cool jazz" is melody based on modal scales, not tonal scales. I did not mean to say that a specific melody had to be followed, but that it was the basis of the improvisation. How to get from note A to note B and do so in a new and never before heard way. Jam bands like Phish and such use such improvisation and so does a lot of latin music, especially stuff like salsa and bossanova, but it is not jazz per se.

Ornette Coleman's early free jazz work consists of the group playing the set melody for about 15 seconds and then going off into free improv of all instruments at once.

Big Bands have everyone keep a set groove and they improv in their individual bits. It depends on whether the jazz is intended as dancing music or listening music. dance music needs to have a set beat and rhythm for the dancers, and jazz/jass originated as dancing music, like the blues.

ah i see-- thanks!

i do have a theoretical question though (the type of shit philosophers like to shoot for whatever reason): what happens if the band plays 100% as on paper? even "arranged to sound like improvisation, but not really"? what does it become

dammit, i don't know if you're right or wrong but it's good to read someone who understands and can describe music this way

i spent about 4 years self-immersing myself in Jazz music, and the whole history of it and it's sonic evolution.

You thought the folkies were upset with Dylan for playing "electric rock n roll?" what I have read about the reactions to Charlie Parker blow that out the water!

where many music forms are based on the beat (ska as opposed to rocksteady as opposed to reggae) or repeated riffs (bluegrass, or blues, or rock n roll), Jazz music is based on the use of musical theory to improvise/compose while playing. This is what blew away Europeans who had never heard Bix Biederbeck or Ellington or people like Lester Young who blew their minds. This composition-on-the-fly is the true genius and originality behind that most American of art forms, Jazz music.

I know what you meant. I'm sorry if my response somehow confused things, or if I gave the wrong impression.
I didn't think you were saying that a specific melody needed to be followed, because with "Cool Jazz", that's not the case at all, and you clearly know enough to know that.

Without getting too wrapped up in technical concepts, or bringing fugue and polytonality into the discussion, I think we both understand how melody is used in Modal Jazz as compared to, say, "big band."

When I think of cool jazz, or try to explain what it is, I usually refer to songs that exemplify the style. Songs like "So What", (which is an example of the point you're making about melody) and "My Favorite Things", which is a perfect example of what I'm saying about standards and traditional numbers being a major part of this era of jazz.

In cool jazz period, modal renditions of melodies from "pop" standards were often used as unifying themes and launching points for modal compositions. Coltrane's quartet wasn't covering "My Favorite Things", or even playing through the song's set chord progressions.

The band played within the larger parameters of the parent mode of the song, rather than the notes and chords of the original, giving the vamping and comping players more to do, and allowed for simultaneous improvisation. This gave the song a much broader range, and allowed the soloists to venture far beyond the tonal limits that would be imposed on a Big Band. In essence it was a new piece of music almost entirely. The familiar melody from the Sound of Music would pop up and slink in and out of focus, and that's what I mean when I stress the importance of melody in Cool Jazz. Original or rendition, the melodic component allows the piece to resolve, or take a breather,

. It's easy to confuse these with "covers" but they're not.. for many reasons, but particularly because the musicians were not comping on the set chord progression of the original song, but were, instead, extending into the parent mode. So, the song would start with a familiar melody, and then splinter off into different keys, creating what amounts to a completely new song.

In bebop, and in big band, the melody was repeated a great deal more, but my gods was it boring for those poor bastards backing up whoever had the solo.


1. I've always liked Phish because I can hear jazz in their music. The lyrics may be idiotic, but some of their songs would fit a scholar's definition of jazz. They're amazing players.

2. Yes! Ornette's (RIP) free jazz was like a deconstruction of a deconstruction. like Cool Jazz changing from Bruce Banner to the Hulk.

---

And all I was saying about improvisation was that not all sub-genres of jazz used improvisation as fundamentally as cool jazz and free jazz did. Improvisation is not necessarily a stylistic requirement of making jazz music. I'm just not particularly interested in any form of jazz that doesn't include it.

A high school jazz band.

I dig it Severian. It is awesome to time travel musically between the very early Louis Armstrong music, to Lester Young to Ellington to Parker to Miles to Brubeck to Coltrane to Coleman to Kirk.....

When did the dotted eighth notes become a staple of the genre? That's sort of my sticking point with "non-traditional" jazz. I need to hear the swing. But it didn't always have that?

haaa haa haaa

okay, but it's still jazz then?

anyway, iistening again & again to



LIGHTNING BOLT - FANTASY EMPIRE (2O15)

great & great & great & great & great

how can just 2 people create this much complexity? insane.

i fucking love it.

I was once the object of what can only be described as an "intervention", in which four or five of my "math rock" enthusiast friends tried to convince me that Yes was the greatest math rock band in the history of the world.

I laughed at first, thinking it was a joke, and seriously a couple of them looked at me like I'd just defended Hitler. I don't think they ever got over that.

I really tried to listen fairly because these were my friends, but it just felt ridiculous.

Aside from their hits, I've only listened to them a couple of times. It didn't click. Last time was years ago, so I'm thinking I should consider giving it another go.

your friends' appreciation showed good taste but the definition was wrong-- yes is not math rock, math rock is a weak-sauce derivative of prog rock. okay, it's a cleaned-up version, cooler and more intellectual. but it's definitely derivative whereas the ancients were the ones who broke the ground.

as for the ridiculousness, it's definitely there, and in many places. but it's a band with such a long history and personnel changes it's really not one band at all-- at some point there were 2 yes bands if i'm correct, and they had to had to recombine, probably for legal reasons, into one again-- from which their "union" record came out. but that's the 90s and i don't care about that. so i can't know what you heard or what it sounded like.

for me it's back to the 70s where the good stuff happened. just like late-80s sonic youth, in a way.

speaking of 70s and 90s-- i'm almost sure modest mouse uses the opening of "survival" in one of their songs, i just can't pinpoint which one is it. "survival" is one of the best tracks of yes's first album ('yes"). please do not confuse "yes" with "the yes album"-- they're 2 different ones ha ha ha ha. but "yes" is from 1969. so. hm. er.

don't laugh at them again or vincent gallo will hex your colon. he's a huuuuuuuuuge fan. and he's been known to hex colons.

the only time I enjoyed Yes was the edit version of Roundabout on the radio and in Buffalo 66. otherwise crap.

King Crimson guy here. math rock has NOTHING to do with prog.

I never listened music as a background. I prefer silence if I don´t want to listen music. Of course I do homeworks sometimes while listening music, but try also then concentrate to music too. But I think most of the Yes material could easily be background music.

Year ago I listened all Yes albums (all studio and also most of the live albums). I think they all sound just Yes. I have always liked 90125 and Big Generator, even they are most AOR-albums of Yes there are also interesting Yes-elements in them. I think they are lot better than for example Genesis albums at the same time. Of course those three you mentioned are the best Yes-albums. I think Yes become that "spaceship" it´s known in Close to the Edge, I think three previous albums are for that reason the most interesting ones. Relayer has always been also one of my favourites, learned to like also topographic. Awaken is one of their greatest songs.

Even I am a big Yes-fan, I think King Crimson is better. And again seventies albums are the best, although their later material is also good (haven´t listened almost at all their eighties albums, going to listen). Earthbound & Islands are only weaker albums, but they are also great comparing many other seventies albums. And Mr. Bruford also in four seventies album, but I really love also Giles drumplaying.

I can't stand progressive rock from the 70s. I couldn't stand it then, can't now. I have a few Jethro Tull albums, and they are more bearable, slightly. Whitest white boy music ever made.

king crimson guy here too-- doesn't have to be mutually exclusive! and of course it does.


but you're white, suchfriends!

i mean gmku...

(and so is steely dan)


oh yes i forgot to answer this.

it was with a story.

when i was 13, i think, i got my first yes record-- it was yessongs. it had been smuggled for me in someone's suitcase, because they didn't sell those at our national record stores. it was was also well past the era when yes was popular, so getting it for me was sort of difficult. but anyway it showed up in my hands. why? because some older cousin said something about it being great, etc., and when someone asked, i say "yes", and blam, yessongs. well...

at the same time/age, i had discovered borges-- the writer. he blew my fucking mind with alternative universes and visions of the infinite (the mathematical infinite, not the mystical one).

i remember trying to read borges while playing that yessongs record. holy shit. my brain collapsed from the overload. i had to do one at a time.

so yes (ha), i had to really listen to really get it, but over the years i've learned each note by heart so that it no longer strains me.

--

and yes was the band that got me interested in classical music, actually. because that shit was scarce as well, growing up, and they opened a massive door.

I identify as non-white. Or, off-white. Whatever works.

To me it´s totally same is music black or white (or maybe yellow or red). I just listen music I like. I think Flamin Grooves is quite white music (yeah, it has bluesbase blaablaablaa).

My oldest brother had Relayer in vinyl. I think I was maybe four or five when listening it. Didn´t understand it much of course, but I remember it was interesting. Specially Gates of Delirium was like fairytale to me. And sound Chaser has exotic sounds to the child. Few years later my other brother didn´t like prog at all, so I didn´t also (I listened then CCR, Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, Jimi Hendrix, Doors etc.) Anyway near of us lived older guy, who had prog albums and I borrowed the Yes album few years later (I think I was 10 years old). Yours Is No Disgrace was the song that hit me and my Yes-trip began. I think Fragile was the first album I bought few years later. I have still also that Relayer-vinyl, my brother gave it to me when he moved from home.

it doesn't work. at all, ha ha ha. but don't worry about it-- it's all bogus. listen to this prog rock album instead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDzSp5MABl4

"but it's not prog!"

a lot of it sounds to me like prog motifs recombined after minimalism


oh man. when i was 10 i was the prisoner of shit radio hits. music was whatever played on the radio. and then-- blam!

i wish i still had my old records but migration requires light packing.

They played quite good music in the radio in Finland in the eighties. But I think it was only few hours maybe two times a week. Radio was always open then & I recorded many songs to the cassette.

BTW I am listening Crimson Discipline. This is lot better album than I remembered! I am missing the warmth of Crimson seventies records, but anyway great music!