Jazz Guitar? What makes it jazz?

[David L. Donald]

Winton Marsalis and Ken Burns are the real deal respectively.

If Marsalis says it's jazz then it likely IS jazz.

Ken Burns generally let his subjects do the talking
and I think his documentaries tell their own stories and he just presents them.

[Dave Mudgett]

It is the scope of "Jazz" that was admirable as much as anything.

It is precisely the scope of "Jazz" that many people argue with. I think it was important to make very clear the critical contributions of early jazz artists like Armstrong. I don't know any jazz lover who would argue against the jazz artists he presented - just the scope of great jazz artists he completely ignored.

It is my opinion that even this level of omission would not have caused such a ruckus were it not for so much discussion in certain circles of the jazz community that "real jazz" basically ended around 1960. That, IMO, tries to circumscribe a pretty hard box around it. Feel free, but understand that a lot of people disagree - and frankly, these labels are just agreements between groups of people, nothing more.

If Marsalis says it's jazz then it likely IS jazz.

I do not argue that point. But to say that "Marsalis says it's jazz => it's jazz" is emphatically not equivalent to saying "Marsalis doesn't say it's jazz => it's not jazz". This is the logical "inverse error", or "Denying the Antecedent" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_error

Eh..... coherence...... overrated!

Art and logic can coexist. Here we are talking about using language to describe art. I agree that music stands on its own - it requires no label, logic, or coherence to justify itself. But the purpose of labeling cubbyholes has nothing to do with the music itself. It's about business and keeping order, which generally work better as a logical and coherent process. You can call anything whatever you want - but you will have to accept that other groups of people are liable to do it differently. You can't stop them, and that is reality.

To some, the box is more important than what it contains. More blood has been shed over arguments about what something is and what something ain't because people want to cling to old boundaries.

I agree, and we certainly have shed a lot of blood on this forum over this, especially regarding the "country" boundaries.

Purists seem to be the only ones who care about definitions? I see definitions as stereotypes. Stereotypes are the walls likeminded musicians dream of knocking down.

Stated perfectly, in my opinion.

My opinions, of course.

[David L. Donald]

In the fullness of time innovators best works become set standards.
Often tied to an era under a banner.
As time marched on so 'DID NOT' many fans.

Innovative musicians are usually ahead of the curve for listening audiences.

So we have stylistic time periods of correctness.
What was pedestrian for Trane was radical for Bix.

What was sonically bizzarre for Trane was deriguer for Chick.

Yet Chick has had his own voice in SEVERAL styles
both electric and acoustic. If Trane, Bird and Django
heard a cross section of Chicks recent work, I think,
they would likely say jazz has moved ahead.
And smile, and ask to sit in...

I can look back and put BOTH Satchmo and Trane
in a jazz traditional catagory, with sub-catagories.
One more 'roots' one more progressive,
and yet Trane is NOW 'roots jazz too.

Some say jazz stopped when
electricity significantly aided instruments.

For others it ended when bebop came in.

For others King Oliver, Kid Ory to Jack Teagarden and it ends.
Or Robert Lamb and Scot Joplin end of story...

I can't call Weather Report and Return to Forever anything but a jazz based style. Re labled Jazz Fusion.
We have the transitive figure of Miles to juxtaposition across this divide.

Miles heard one tape I did in NYC and said "It's cool."
Which to me meant: It was jazz and it was working.

JAZZ, was ALWAYS the search for the new.
Some searched at different times with different influences.

Dizzy got into a heavy latin thing while Trane, not so much.

Miles got more funky, and yet still hit that one right note
just right, on a contemplative minimalist 100 note night for him.

And there are societal constraints for jazz labling.
In Paris jams in some places, some players won't
talk to you unless you can play the complete
Charlie Parker in any key from memory.
But ignore Trane mostly.

Some groups are fanatical for swing Django style,
and disdainful of Bebop, though you can play the songs Django style.

Stephane Grapelli told me;
Play the changes as you hear the changes,
but don't worry about MY feel. Have YOUR feel!
Jeur comme t'attend les changes,
mais n'ai pas les soucie du repliquer mes sensibilities. A votre!
Approximately.

The point is jazz players should push the envelope to something new,
if they are any good, to ever become great.
The rote copyists are rarely heard,
the STANDARDS are set by the INOVATORS.

[Dave Mudgett]

Innovative musicians are usually ahead of the curve for listening audiences. ... JAZZ, was ALWAYS the search for the new. Some searched at different times with different influences.

Yes, yes - especially with jazz. That is precisely why I disagree with efforts to circumscribe it so sharply. I think a lot of this is simply a cultural turf war. The same types of cultural turf wars rage on with other styles too. So be it.

Miles heard one tape I did in NYC and said "It's cool."
Which to me meant: It was jazz and it was working.

Yeah - and you undoubtedly know that a lot of jazz purists, even now, continue to argue that Miles ceased to be a jazz musician after the 1960s. It does get a bit ridiculous, IMHO.

It also does not sway me that earlier stylistic innovators sometimes decry subsequent innovations. Remember that Einstein argued against quantum statistical mechanics with this comment to Max Born in 1926, after the theory was pretty well laid out:

Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the 'old one'. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.

[David L. Donald]

Exactly right about Miles.
He was pilloried for going electric and adding non-swing elements.
But if you look at the alumnie of the 60's-80's Miles bands..
YOW, serious jazz cats.
Jack DeJonnete, Chick, Herbie, Wayne Shorter, just to scratch the surface.
He developed bop and then cool and then moved on again in his search.
leaving a trail of hot players in his wake.

Some of the bebop audience never moved on,
much like earlier jazz fans didn't always move into bebop.

When he said "It's cool." I also took that to mean it wasn't
the same same thing as the locked in place purists were doing.
It wasn't. It was supposed to be anything but.
I also featured a guitar player who had turned down
Return To Forever, leading to Al DeMeola's appearance.
I was holding on by the skin of my musical teeth.

What is jazz is often defined by how adventurist
the listener and the artist is.
Some are happy with decades of arrested development,
others never stop searching while breath still moves.

Einstein had his epiphanies young, and while he continued to develope,
it may have been hard from him to see over the next event horizon.
He was one period and couldn't quite 'get' the next, not unusual.

[Carl Morris]

Wynton Marsalis is a great player, but you should only listen to his definitions of what is and isn't jazz if you want the most rigid definition possible. The guy is a jazz Nazi, IMO. I've been in the same room with him and found him to be completely unwilling to listen to anything that didn't fit his rigid definitions, no matter how good it was.

[Stephen Gregory]

Putting labels on an art form is a recipe for disagreement, and is unproductive. Great music is what it is,tho,not necessarily in the "ear of the beholder". Technique,style,interpertation,mastery of the instrument,improvisational skills, etc. are all components of "the greats" of any "genre". This argument continually rages in jazz circles re. which style of jazz is really jazz, or in country and rock cirles debating today's artists compared to those of 40 or 50 years ago. The truth be told, as music continues to be affected by outside styles and influences, this argument will continue to rage. So as said in a late 60's song, "C'mon people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together try to love one another right now."

[Donny Hinson]

Winton Marsalis and Ken Burns are the real deal respectively.

If Marsalis says it's jazz then it likely IS jazz.

Ken Burns generally let his subjects do the talking
and I think his documentaries tell their own stories and he just presents them.

Well, I certainly wasn't real impressed with the way they both overlooked James Reese Europe's contributions in the "Jazz" documentary. Of course, few have even heard of Europe, but that doesn't detract from the fact that he is one of the seminal figures in both jazz music, and for black musicians and entertainers, as a whole.

[David L. Donald]

Donny I am sure James Reece was good,
but I played jazz in europe for 10 years,
and barely ever heard the name.

I played;
New Orleans, Bebop, Dance swing, Fusion, Salsa/jazz and Manouche.
He is still and under-card player it seems even over there.

Yes I agree Marsalis has a very narrow view of what jazz is.
But that view also pins down the general points clearly.
I have a significantly wider view on the subject.

[Carl Morris]

Yeah, the more I think about it, I realize the original statement was correct...if Marsalis says it's jazz, then it's jazz. My problem is that I don't trust him to say which things AREN'T jazz.

[Johan Jansen]

Van Gogh is Jazz, Dali too

[CrowBear Schmitt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Reese_Europe

[David L. Donald]

Thanks CB.
It's sad he's fallen off the map so much.

[David L. Donald]

An interesting tie in.
Wynton may be a bit of a jazz purist...
But then there's this album.




Two Men With The Blues