Oh I've tried, I really have

[sharon]

I'm sure most of you will groan at this but I really can't listen to jazz. It's just too busy for me. I like to hear more laid back mellow sounds and I just don't know where to start.

I am trying to find a sound to listen to and have got a few things out of the library, Coleman Hawkins, Coltrane a couple of others, Sonny Rollins wasn't bad but they will keep going off on one - I can't bear it >.< it just makes me tense when I listen to it. I'm sure they are technically brilliant but it sounds (to me) like a cat strangling a baby 8|

Please can anyone suggest someone to listen to. I like the melody to sound like it's supposed to. I'm sorry if I'm a philistine, but there it is. I rather like swing I think but I don't really know 🙁

Sorry to all you Jazz lovers out there, I take my hat off to you.

Sharon

 

[Pete Thomas]

One word: Benwebster.

And also the Coltrane ballads album, he just plays the tune.

Also try Charlie Ventura

 

[Rogerb]

I can relate to that, Sharon.

For me there is a nice balance between staying within 'touching distance' of the original tune, and, as you say, 'going off on one' 🙂

And, as you say (and the Archduke said to Mozart), at times there are, for me, just 'too many notes' 😱
It sometimes sounds as if the player is simply showing-off his/her ability to play quickly!

One who was definitely creative, but 'economical' in his playing, was Miles Davis.... I really enjoy 'Kind of Blue'...but not very day of the week 🙂

I have been flamed in the SOTW forum for expressing such heresy (speaking of a recently-deceased 'free jazz' player of some repute) ..... one poster said I had not been 'blessed' with the ability to 'get it' :laugh:

 

[sharon]

Thanks Pete I'll have a try of those. It's not that I like the sort of "lift music" but I suppose I prefer the more bluesy playing (which is what made me like sax above other intruments I suppose).

Roger that's exactly it - too many notes. Very clever and fantastically fast but it is so chaotic it makes me mental 8| . I'm quite an organised sort of person and the sound reminds me of my son's really untidy bedroom.

I think perhaps like you I've not been "blessed" 😛 . I think we've probably been blessed in other ways 😉

Sharon

 

[spike]

Hi Sharon,
You might pass an ear over something from Grover Washington - his "Winelight" Album for instance, or Hank Crawford comes to mind he plays good "Tunes" - (Bobby G may have some tips there), Stan Getz for some Bossa Novas, and Cannonball Adderly also did a good Bossa Nova Album. The "Charlie Parker with strings" album is not going to rip your teeth out. Illinois Jaquet - "the blues that's me".
Just a few anti-nervous disposition tips after breakfast, where's my pills.
gruss - spike

 

[sharon]

Thanks Spike I will cast my ear over. I've had a little listen to Ben Webster at Pete's suggestion, sounds far more to my taste although of course on tenor.

Sharon

 

[Saxlicker]

spike wrote:
Hi Sharon,
You might pass an ear over something from Grover Washington - his "Winelight" Album for instance

I nearly reccomended that one Sharon but ...he still 8| goes off on one!!!!
However he comes back to the melodic lines after a moment of madness and I think to some extent (after a few listens) it may bridge the gap between your irritation for 'busyness' and love for a straight melody.

 

[Pete Thomas]

Currently I'm listening to Ben Webster meets Gerry Muligan (or something like that), very nice album.

 

[Pete Thomas]

Actually , this is a very similar thread to jambo's a couple of weeks back.

 

[spike]

similar, yes, - . . . as soon as you start listening to any form of "jazz" or improvisational music yer going to encounter some bits that'll jangle yer ossicles, even the smoothies "go off on one" everynow and then, funnily enough I can think of only very few sax players who only play melody, maybe cos it's actually really hard to do it well.

 

[Jules]

You said Coleman Hawkins didn't do it for you? The recordings I've got of him are nicely lyrical and not especially noodly. john Coltrane is famously indigestible but do try and get to hear a track called "After the Rain", it's one of the most beautiful, haunting things ever recorded. On the subject of beautiful and haunting- Jan Garbarek, especially with the Hilliard Ensemble, is worth tracking down. Also Lester Young backing up Billy Holliday- in that it's dealing in real 'songs' and, as such, things tend to be more reigned in... And, as Pete said, Ben Webster's hard to beat.

 

[sharon]

I've had a quick look back and spotted Jambo's thread. That's what I mean. I like that sort of ordinary tame jazz (if that's what it is) its the hard core stuff I just can't get my head around.

I must admit I wouldn't be brave enough to put a thread like this on SOTW for fear of a drubbing :erm:

Oh thanks for the transcription Spike - it's printing as I speak. I'll have a little go this afternoon before the Rugby starts - dontcha just lurve Saturdays

 

[Jules]

The don't like jazz threads- One thing I've noticed, the term Jazz is so open ended these days, it doesn't really seem to mean anything in this context. It's anything from borderline classical to stuf that abstract screamnig that puts most metal bands to shame! Ok, I totally understand what these threads are about but the term 'jazz', like the term 'art', seems to me to be very much a smoke and mirrors sort of concept- implying meaning and depth but not really meaning that much in itself.
Ahem... not quite sure where that semi-rant came from, probably the number of times I get asked 'whats a good mouthpiece/sax/reed for jazz' in the shop. A query which can only really be answered with another question- 'Er,what sort of jazz?'

 

[sharon]

nachoman wrote:
You said Coleman Hawkins didn't do it for you? The recordings I've got of him are nicely lyrical and not especially noodly. john Coltrane is famously indigestible but do try and get to hear a track called "After the Rain", it's one of the most beautiful, haunting things ever recorded. On the subject of beautiful and haunting- Jan Garbarek, especially with the Hilliard Ensemble, is worth tracking down. Also Lester Young backing up Billy Holliday- in that it's dealing in real 'songs' and, as such, things tend to be more reigned in... And, as Pete said, Ben Webster's hard to beat.

Thanks I'll try them. I think the coleman Hawkins I heard may not have been typical, I was surprised - can't think of the track it was off a compilation.

I agree about the word jazz - means nothing really as there are so many styles. It's just finding what you like I suppose. Hard when you're trying to find a style you like. That's why I thought someone on the forum would be able to advise me.

Sharon

 

[Rogerb]

I like the 'Sanborn Sound', but not a lot of what he plays/played, not exactly for the same reasons as Sharon mentioned, more just about the 'type' of music..... I do like "Pearls", though(mostly 'standards'), and odd tracks on other CDs.

Come to think of it there isn't any one sax-player I've heard whose sound and 'repertoire' *both* really grab me in the general way that some vocalists do (eg Billie Holliday!).

I listened to some fairly early Coltrane ballads today....a really beautiful sound..... even to an alto 'player' 🙂

 

[Bobby G]

Pete Thomas wrote:
Currently I'm listening to Ben Webster meets Gerry Muligan (or something like that), very nice album.

Agreed, it's a damn fine record, as is Oscar Peterson meets Ben Webster. Gerry Mulligan is a fine, listenable player who always has an uplifting effect on me; for something with not too many notes (partly because there's no piano or other chord-playing instrument), the quartet from the 50's with trumpeter Chet Baker is worth a listen.

Re Hank Crawford - yes, he does play in a fairly bluesy vein on the album I have, credited to Jimmy McGriff, called 'Right Turn On Blue'; it's fairly jazzy, but without too many flurries of notes, and McGriff himself has said that he is a blues organist rather than a jazz organist. In a style not too far from that, and a bit closer to home, I have a CD by Georgie Fame, which is more rhythm and blues rooted, featuring a few live tracks from the 60's which I like a lot.

On alto, you might find Junior Walker appealing, but the altoist I love most is Johnny Hodges - again, not too many notes, and blues-rooted, but if you can't get your head around jazz you may be a little put off by the backing of the Duke Ellington band, the arrangements of which, while always very 'musical', can be a little raucous at times. For an altogether 'gentler' sound, again on alto, Paul Desmond plays in a very melodic style with the Dave Brubeck quartet, and also on a nice live album with the Modern Jazz Quartet; I believe the MJQ style is sometimes referred to as 'chamber jazz', which always sounds to me like a slightly derogatory term applied by the hardcore (you know the score) more exploratory jazzers, but you might like it.

I agree about the sparseness of Miles Davis ' playing, but you'd need to be a bit selective; the late 50's quintet featuring Coltrane (expanded to a sextet with Cannonball Adderley on alto) is easier to get into than the later quintet from the 60's, which does have more of a tendency to go 'off on one', and the later, electric stuff may put you off altogether.

I can understand perfectly why some people can't get their heads around jazz (my 27-year-old daughter, who is a total music lover, has much the same reaction to jazz), and the fact you can't follow or understand or 'get' it is not really the issue if it doesn't appeal to you, so don't be put off by the musical snobs or elitists. I'm exactly the same with some other musical styles, so what the heck, I just love what I love and don't care if it's cool or not, or needs 'unravelling' to really understand it.

What I can say, though, is if you do hear something that appeals to you, buy something by that player, and someone alse on the record may appeal to you, so get something by them, so one thing leads to another, and so on. Happy listening, whatever you get into!

Cheers, Bob

 

[therudest]

100% Ben Webster will be super nice for u...and some of Gery Mulligan, I guess....but never Coltrane =))) Try J.R. Walker...not jazz, but really good, I think u will like it!

 

[jadoube]

Sharon,

I too have little affinity with the cat strangling an opera singer stuff. Some very much older stuff (1915-20 new orleans) has simpler tunes. In those days they played for the mass audience.

Admittedly they mostly played in brothels, dance halls (i.e brothels) or in funeral processions - and considered being pimp a career enhancing move. But it was long ago and different ethics then.

Try Johnny Dodds and his Black Bottom Stompers playing Wild Man Blues. The clarinet that does it for me, listen to it over and over.

John

 

[Jules]

Jadoube wrote:
.

Try Johnny Dodds and his Black Bottom Stompers
John

Is this the dodgiest name for a band ever!!!!!!!
😱

 

[Rogerb]

I agree about New Orleans..... there nothing much complicated about Louis Armstrong's Hot Five .... I especially like "2.19 Blues", "Coal Cart Blues" and "Perdido St Blues".
I think that was Johnny Dodds too?

Just checked:
"he original Hot Five was, other than Armstrong's wife Lil Hardin Armstrong on piano, all New Orleans musicians who Armstrong had worked with in that city the 1910s: Kid Ory on trombone, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, and Johnny St. Cyr on guitar and banjo."