Playing the saxophone How do you justify jazz?

[mizmar]

Most art forms support a Spectrum of works that pay-off "understanding" more or less.
Some paintings are very "how does it make you feel" others tell layers of stories in them selves or in relation to the artist, their time, school etc. same with theater, literature... Music also has "Immediate" stuff and stuff worth putting effort into learning; how, who, when etc.
Hell, even sports. I'm no sportsperson; but if I do watch something I've done, it adds something.

 

[Targa]

I’m always a bit mystified by people talking about ‘understanding’ music. Especially the idea that you can’t like it unless you understand it. I don’t really know what they mean. My appreciation of music has always been at a more basic level. Do I like the sound of it? That’s it. Music is thus divided into music I like, music I don’t like and music I’m indifferent to (probably the largest category). Genres are a waste of time - too much time categorising and not enough time listening. Understanding it would involve knowing how my brain works so there’s no chance.

I always think of it in the same manner as in other areas.
If you say you don’t like something the pretentious will patronisingly tell you that is because you don’t ‘understand it’.

 

[skeller047]

OK old man rant incoming. I think the lack of appreciation for jazz and other forms of currently played, but less popular music, like some singer-songwriter stuff, is really part of a larger cultural phenomenon.

People used to appreciate and politely listen to forms of music that were not "in their wheelhouse". As a kid, I was taken on school field trips to classical music concerts, modern dance performances, occasionally Broadway-style shows. Our school assemblies would have a funk band one week and an opera singer the next. I myself played dozens of assemblies in other schools around my greater area as part of a funk band, and performed with both my high school and regional orchestras at festivals and other schools. Every semester we put on a Broadway show. This wide variety was on television too.

This does not happen now. Partly it's due to funding, and partly due to cultural norms. There are occasional school performances of hip hop and modern pop music, but darn few other styles.

Also, the general level of pop music is down; just watch Rick Beato's semi-regular reaction videos to the top ten Spotify songs. I'm not saying that pop music was ever great (Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree with That Doggy In The Window overlooking The Witch Doctor doing The Monster Mash...), but there were occasional great moments. However there was wider variety available in the 1960s through the 1980s or 90s. Nowadays a lot of music is manufactured (loops and beats) instead of crafted. And try to find a radio or regular internet broadcast that isn't crafted in some mega-corporation's board room.

So exposing young people to a variety of different music and art styles is not really a thing these days. Old people look back and say "It was better then...", and put on their Miles records. Or their Mahler Symphonies. Or their Stones and Beatles mix tapes. The real problem is ... it actually WAS better then.

The good news is that there seems to be a resurgence of live music. People really do want something real, and they dam sure aren't getting it from Spotify. Or $500 nose-bleed seats in a 20,000 seat arena show. So maybe the tide is turning. I live in hope 🙂

 

[Wade Cornell]

Mizmar has a point in what he's saying. Yet I think many of us can divide off what may be a technical accomplishment where a "creator" simply seeks praise... compared to an artist who wishes to communicate with an audience. Is the worlds fastest typist an artist? Well, maybe if what they wrote reads like a well written novel. Likewise a musician who can put on pyrotechnic displays of technical accomplishment can be admired for their work and ability, yet may have nothing else to communicate. This, unfortunately describes how many hear jazz. Would it make them into fans by studying modes, arpeggios substitutions, riffs , etc. ?

The technical vs. communicative divide also exists in the world of "Classical" music with many concertos written as strictly a means to show off the performer's technical ability (many were commissioned by a specific performer just for that purpose). However there are concertos where the music is sublime. I think many can quickly and easily hear the difference.

At the opposite end of the spectrum there are those who just seek to pander to the lowest common denominator. We each have our list of those (Country Western?). In the visual arts it may be "conceptual art": see it once and there is nothing further to get... not much different from a bumper sticker.

Although critics set themselves up as a voice to give those without experience in the arts an opinion, there are no art police, just appreciators, haters and indifferents.

It's up to each of us to approach our art and others looking through our own culture/eyes/experience. Spending time "educating yourself" to try and understand something that has no appeal can be a waste of time/life unless you're open and curious (and don't care about the time). Spending that time and finding that you still don't like a type of art/artist/music/player, would indeed be a waste of time.

Expose yourself to a world of art and music then decide for yourself what you might like or need to study rather than being dictated to by elites or a system that espouses only their way is best.

It's up to each of us to just play what we like for ourselves, or decide if we wish to try to communicate with others.

 

[Alex]

My jazz begins with the era of Charlie Parker (Bird). Forgive the categorical nature.

 

[Pete Effamy]

“like it if they understood it”.

Most people that spout out the old “it’s only got three chords” joke don’t understand why it works, or what a chord is.

If that works, we can precede every playing of a jazz record with “it’s got 20 chords”. Or give them what they want and play them a load of modal stuff with “just three chords “.

 

[Tenor Viol]

My view of for example 'classical' music is that in the mid-C20th it lost its way. Composers obsessed over being different and 'original'. There then followed a series of genres such as serialism, atonality, musique concrète, etc., usually labelled as 'post-romantic' or 'avant garde'. Most of this music completely alienated audiences. It only 'appealed' to the black polo neck wearing 'cognoscenti'. Music was only 'good' for these people if you needed a Ph.D in musicology to understand it. The arts establishment (including institutions like BBC Radio 3) followed it lemming like.

Audiences, who used to flock to concerts with new works, learned to avoid them.

In the 1940s through to the 90s, anyone trying to write 'tonal' music was laughed out of court in academia and the serious arts world. I have a theory this is why big orchestra film scores took off - it was a place where people could write music with tunes. It's also why composers like Rutter gravitated to writing Christmas music.

It will probably take another 20 or 30 years for there to be enough historical distance to get a proper analysis of this.

Oddly, it was the rise of minimalism that began to pull away from the extremes that had been reached by the 60s and 70s.

Most art forms tend to follow the same paths, not always with the same names. For example, in the C19th what music called 'romantic' literature called 'gothic' but they were essentially the same.

Jazz followed a similar pathway to 'classical music'. It moved out of its social origins/influences and heavily dance influenced world to one of hyper-originality, starting off with bebop. Like 'classical' it fractured into assorted different genres, and like the Western art music of the same era, it alienated a lot of people.

As with everything, there is wide variety and there are no absolutes. But in general, if you wrote something vaguely tuneful, e.g. English composer George Lloyd, who was writing post-war, you would struggle on 1950s/60s BBC to get your music performed or broadcast (Kenyon was ruthlessly anti anything new that was not 'avant garde').

View: https://youtu.be/Ve0FSu7b4Ek?list=PLZgDvxgjzgXbrHDtud1mXbNUHei9WYngh

 

[Wonko]

Is the worlds fastest typist an artist? Well, maybe if what they wrote reads like a well written novel. Likewise a musician who can put on pyrotechnic displays of technical accomplishment can be admired for their work and ability, yet may have nothing else to communicate.

That's more or less what I experienced in a concert by Herbie Hancock last summer. What I heard were a bunch of extremely talented musicians that were playing to many notes very fast....
I didn't like it and left early.
Perhaps I just don't understand it....

 

[mrblackbat]

Art needs justifying?

 

[Pete Effamy]

Perhaps I just don't understand it....

No, it’s just preference, and it’s ok.

Having said that, some can play really fast and be harmonically advanced like Brecker which I love (as well as his slow ballad style too) and yet others if a very similar vein I find boring.

But also: I find some singers of pop music to be fabulous and others (close in comparison) to be awful.

There’s more to this “what floats yer boat “ mallarkey than non-appreciation through having little understanding.

 

[Pete Effamy]

Art needs justifying?

Only the types that throw a few cardboard boxes on the floor of the Guggenheim and call it an installation.
In Jeremy Clarkson vernacular they need to be stood up against a ……..

 

[Vlad]

I always think of it in the same manner as in other areas.
If you say you don’t like something the pretentious will patronisingly tell you that is because you don’t ‘understand it’.

And many will just pretend to like whatever nonsense it is, in order not to appear ''uncool'' or ''unsophisticated''

 

[dexdex]

Here in Switzerland, we are lucky. We can see and hear the truth of wrong from right. We have the Montreux Jazz Festival. Whoever plays within that institution is playing jazz. By definition. And anyone wearing a MJ tee is justifying jazz. Merci.

 

[Pete Thomas]

Art needs justifying?

I don’t believe it does, it would be a sadder world without art IMO.

 

[Tenor Viol]

That's more or less what I experienced in a concert by Herbie Hancock last summer. What I heard were a bunch of extremely talented musicians that were playing to many notes very fast....
I didn't like it and left early.
Perhaps I just don't understand it....

It's the million notes a minute virtuosity fallacy... the same issue exists with classical music. The young gun aspirant soloists try to outdo each other by a 'how fast can I play it' approach. The results to my ears are not very musical.

 

[r. giuseppe]

I’m always a bit mystified by people talking about ‘understanding’ music. Especially the idea that you can’t like it unless you understand it.

I didn’t read this here before someone quoted me having said it. “I didn’t put on this shoe myself” would be a German saying for this situation. 🙂

Nevertheless, I have to say I disagree. To me, music is a language. I can like the sound of a language I don’t understand, for sure. But if I start understanding it, I get to a different level, in this case by picking up the meaning. This transforms my perception. I know many people who like Italian without understanding it. That’s ok. But it is a very shallow form of anppre and it might change when they pick up the meaning of what is said.

Paintings. The naturalistic paintings from masters of the past are “easy to understand” compared to abstract paintings of the 20th century. The obvious beauty of some of either is maybe not affected by understanding, but understanding can help me find the beauty, where it is not so obvious.

I grew up with Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelsohn, Louis Armstrong, Ellington and Little Richard on the turntables in my parents home (besides other things). So I “understood” certain grooves, thematic variation, basic cadences, parallel minor and secondary dominants long before I had a word for them. I just loved all this music, but looking back there is no doubt that I could understand a lot of it (except maybe not the sexuality in some of it). This understanding didn’t hurt my love for it. Some posts suggest that understanding spoils the real perception of art. I believe there is nothing evil about understanding! It’s OK if brain and heart work together!

When I first heard Coltrane’s Giant Steps, maybe 10 or 12 years old, it was like the cardboard boxes on the floor of the Guggenheim. I didn’t understand a word of what they were yelling. Liking or not liking would not be the right category. The music struck me like lightning. It triggered emotional response, and not entirely good emotions. It took a lot of listening, digesting and understanding for me to get to the point of actually liking this music. And I don’t necessarily mean drawing down the symmetry of Coltrane changes on a piece of paper, I mean a more non-cognitive, emotional understanding. I had similar experiences with Bird, Brecker, Bruckner, Mahler and other stuff. I even remember how Clyde Stubblefield’s snare drum displacements in James Browns music threw me out of my inner rhythm. I had to understand it, in order to love it. And now I can’t imagine soul or funk or hip hop without this spice.
I believe music is OK to be challenging. There are things in art that strike me by immediate beauty. Others don’t. Do I not like it then? Maybe. But sometimes it is an invitation for investigation and understanding. And sometimes the beauty grows with understanding.

 

[rhysonsax]

Only the types that throw a few cardboard boxes on the floor of the Guggenheim and call it an installation.
In Jeremy Clarkson vernacular they need to be stood up against a ……..

They need to be stood up in a nice tidy stack so that people don't trip over them ?

Rhys

 

[Targa]

They need to be stood up in a nice tidy stack so that people don't trip over them ?

Rhys

But then it wouldn’t be an interactive experience.

 

[Pete Effamy]

When I first heard Coltrane’s Giant Steps, maybe 10 or 12 years old, it was like the cardboard boxes on the floor of the Guggenheim.

No, there’s nothing quite like it. Fraudulent really. I and many others walked through the “installation “ and were reprimanded by it:

“Please step away from the exhibit sir”
“Wat exhibit?”
“the one that you’re standing in sir”
“Eh ? These boxes ?”
“Yes sir”
“ that’s not an exhibit / installation / art, it’s a few cardboard boxes. I get some every week with my Amazon deliveries “
- guard gives look that says I’ll shoot you in a minute…”

 

[r. giuseppe]

Ok, maybe that was a bad comparison… 🙂