Who don't you like?

Nick Wyver

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Plenty of us go on about the greats we really like but what about the ones we really can't bear to listen to?
So who are they?
No slagging off please. They're greats (or at least well known) for a good reason. They can all play very well but there's something about it that doesn't gel with you. What is it?

For me it's mostly the sound they make rather than any style aspects. An awful lot of smooth jazz players fall into this category, KG being the most obvious example. Awesome technique often but my ears scream, "Fergawdsake shut up!". I've got a Snake Davis cd that I can't listen to for that reason. Not sure exactly what it about the sound but it may well just be the tortured soul vibrato. Certain voices have the same effect on me - Heather Small springs to mind.
Eric Dolphy. I've tried many times to like old Eric but I can't. I really should like him because I usually go for a degree of edgy, dissonant stuff. There's just something about his style of improvisation that my head can't put up with.
Apart from the above there are many players who I have a massive amount of indifference to. Virtually all players up to 1960 (Coltrane excepted - don't ask me why - I don't know) and anyone who plays in the style of someone from around then. There's loads of the buggers - I blame the colleges >:) .
 
Ok
Colin Stetson.

I could not lace his boots however I just don`t get why anyone would want to try and emulate a farty analogue Sequencer/ARP machine . Perhaps if he DID stop for breath??????. Heaven help the thought of sitting through that din live for the best part of an hour. Well I think I`ve made my point.
 
Boots Randolph. Not quite sure why. Clearly a very accomplished player. But I find his playing really sickening. He lays on the ornaments a bit thick, but I don't think it's just that.
 
Musical taste is a very personal thing that is unique to each of us like taste in food, clothing styles, furniture, etc. I fail to see the point of pointing out those players I choose not to listen to. I would rather point out those whose playing appeals to me, in hopes that it may help someone else discover a new player to listen to. If I wrote a list of negatives, it may discourage others from giving a listen to someone they might eventually enjoy.

That said, alto players I am currently listening to are: Art Pepper, Bud Shank, Cannonball Adderly, Paul Desmond. There are some players who have recorded music I don't understand. That doesn't make it bad, just that it is currently out of my reach. Someday, who knows?
 
I couldn't name one I don't like. There's a lot I can't see what all the fuss is about. Some of the so called greats don't move me. You can learn from all of them. Do's and don'ts.
 
Anyone who plays wildly out of tune with a lousy tone and screws up the timing.
They're probably not going to be regarded as a jazz great then.

I see the word "understand" has cropped up again. It seems to imply that as soon as you understand someone's music you will automatically like it. I understand country music but it seems unlikely that in the rest of the time I have alive that I will ever like it. As in the case of the sax players I mentioned above, I don't like the sound it makes. No amount of understanding is going to make any difference to that.
I fail to see the point of pointing out those players I choose not to listen to.
There's no point. I'm just nosey.
 
Musical taste is a very personal thing that is unique to each of us like taste in food, clothing styles, furniture, etc. I fail to see the point of pointing out those players I choose not to listen to.

It's just a bit of fun and noseyness!! Nick didn't ask us to point out why we don't like them! I was on the verge of not liking Colin Stetson then I listened after a few beers and really enjoyed him.......but I can understand some comments!
 
The "whys" of not liking something are difficult. I can say I don't like the sound someone makes but I can't really say why. It just grates on my ears. In the way that Colin Stetson, for instance, doesn't. I can't say I listen to Mr Stetson a lot but there's definitely something in his playing that pleases me (unlike, I'm almost ashamed to say, Eric Dolphy who just makes me feel irritated).
 
I couldn't name one I don't like. There's a lot I can't see what all the fuss is about. Some of the so called greats don't move me. You can learn from all of them. Do's and don'ts.

I'm with Colin on this one. One of the players I am not moved by is Lee Konitz.

In fact, players from the Cool School who are cerebral and restrained and never fiery leave me cold (maybe that's the point). But lots of players badged as "Cool" do appeal to me, like Paul Desmond, Zoot Sims, Lennie Niehaus.

And some of the "squeaky bonk" merchants don't appeal to me either, like the far out playing of some free jazzers who solo at length, in an angry way but without much to say.

Rhys
 
Squeaky bonk

Players like Colin Stetson, who I've only seen on line, show the art of the possible. Some players play technically difficult pieces that open your mind to the possibilities of the instrument but leave you cold musically. Entertaining but without longevity. My favourite saxophonists aren't my favourite players. Some of my favourite pieces of music are collaborations between players I wouldn't listen to as solo artists.

Some players grow on you as your ear develops. Some players sound great first time, then you get bored with them, then later still you enjoy them for some nostalgic quality or a new found respect for the simplicity of their playing that you had earlier dismissed as fluff.

I put the "good stuff" I don't like in the recycle bin for later listening or trying again. Parker and bebop was a revelation after much listening when the penny dropped. Some stuff you have to play before you can hear it.

Having said all that, the penny hasn't dropped with Roland Kirk or Sonny Rollins yet and I don't try them much anymore.
 
Eric Dolphy - for me his best work was as a sideman - eg Oliver Nelson's 'Blues And The Abstract Truth' or 'Mingus At Antibes'
Roland Kirk - difficult to find a really decent Roland Kirk album, but 'Blacknuss' is quite listenable, as is the live at Montreux album 'I, Eye, Aye' and his playing on Charles Mingus' 'Oh Yeah' and 'Mingus At Carnegie Hall' is great
Colin Stetson - I get what he's doing, but it doesn't interest me a great deal
Sonny Rollins - he can be so variable it's hard to find a truly great album, he can be brilliant and crap in the same solo - I have been known to shout "get on with it' at the CD player when Sonny gets stuck in a hole.... 'Alfie' is a great album and 'Our Man In Jazz' is good
Snake Davis - blimey, that's a name I've not heard for ages - Snake Davis and His Alligator Shoes used to be on every month at The Band On The Wall in the 80's. Can't say I was a fan...
Free Jazz and Squeaky Bonk - unless you've played this kind of stuff yourself, you've no idea how much fun it can be - rehearsals of my free jazz trio used to frequently end up in howls of laughter at the crazy noises we'd end up making and playing with no predetermined structure or safety net of chord changes for any length of time really makes you work hard to keep coming up with the goods - what do you do when you've played all your licks and runs? You'd better invent some new one's right now, the rest of the band ain't gonna wait for you. As a sax player, free jazz is the nearest thing I can get to cranking up an Marshall stack and being Jimi Hendrix for an hour or two. Utterly liberating.
But you may not want to listen to it, I'm not bothered, I know a few people who do.

As has been said previously, you can learn a lot from what you don't like - I'm heavily influenced by David Sanborn - I don't want to sound anything like him
 
I love these threads, they're full of people I've never heard of, or whose names Iknow but not their playing, for me to go and listen to.
Of whom Boots Randolph was one of the latter. Yeh. @BigMartin I'm with you on that one. I had to listen to Stanley Turrentine and Astrud Gilberto to remove the sound!
 
Boots Randolph. Not quite sure why. Clearly a very accomplished player. But I find his playing really sickening. He lays on the ornaments a bit thick, but I don't think it's just that.
Sure Boots' playing is "soupy" and "sappy" a lot of the time on ballads, but I grew up in Wyoming and thought I had died and gone to heaven the first time I heard a sh*t kicking country song that featured a tenor sax instead of nasal singing and twangy guitars. Yee-Haw!! I still love this tune, one of the first ones I learned by ear off the record.

 

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