Not to mention that jazz education pretty much ends in the early 60s. I can't think of many jazz musicians that are inspired by like the popular stuff Herbie or Donald were doing in the 70s
I don't think it's so much jazz education I think it has a lot to do with the lack of clubs and other jazz venues.. I mean way back in the day you could at least make a living playing jazz where you can improve you're a craft and get your own unique voice on your chosen instrument..but if you got nowhere to play & make mistakes and grow that's a major problem with artists
That supports my theory that many academics, I dare say most, cannot actual perform in their "area of expertise". All theory, zero practical or natural talent.
Very accurate and perceptive observations. I played in Chicago for 30 years and, being self-taught, found myself swimming against the current with the prevailing musicians all coming from college programs. The older pros, most of whom came up in the hard bop era, were very welcoming and encouraging, although they could be strict. The younger guys/girls were often cliquish and snobby. I use this analogy: the older jazz is like dance, an art form where athletic virtuosity is sometimes necessary to fully express yourself. The newer jazz is like gymnastic floor exercise- the athletic virtuosity is the point, but you get extra credit if it’s aesthetically pleasing.
It's still the same way now. Some younger players in NYC are making their way without going through the college programs but it's rare, and their self-determination is extraordinary. The other piece of what you're saying is that "chops" can be measured, and soulfulness can't be. How hard something grooves, how beautiful something is can be negated by a judgmental professor.
They are boring and predictable as hell, not my thing, honestly. I could play dissonantly sometime, if I'm not fully focused and inspired but I HAVE my own idiom, I developed my own sound and that's something I'm so proud of.
@cpfiffner Right on, man! College is where musicians go to network with each other. College education gives the musician about half the knowledge, 25% technique, and less than 10% of the experience a musician needs to become great.
Everything you’ve said in this video is spot on. I was a high school music teacher for 20 years and I discovered two things about high school learners: 1. They had a fear of making a “mistake”, not just in music but in any subject, and 2. Children were programmed to pass exams. So when teaching GCSE music (U.K. high school music exam) the children would often ask me what they had to do to get a grade A, especially for composition. The idea of coming up with ideas of their own was alien to them. I then switched to teaching primary school children and it was completely different. They did not know what was “wrong” or “right”, a bit like how a baby learns, which is why they had no “fear” in music and would think outside the box. And for me, I think that is the issue with performers today: musicians, actors, etc, they all confirm to what will be universally accepted.
You make some interesting points based upon your teaching experience. Don't you think the issue of today's performers being conformists can be explained by the restraints imposed on them by their employers?
@@neilyounger7585 only just saw your reply, sorry. I guess that depends on the employment situation If you’re a school music teacher you would be bound by the curriculum and/or exam board to some degree but you method of teaching need not just come out of a text book. If you’re a gigging musician then yes you are bound by the requests of the person booking you if it’s a private or corporate function etc. But I think in the case of someone’s individual style a lot of musicians seem not to want an individual style but are happy to sound like everyone else! For me, the musicians and singers that stand out are not always the ones that are technically superior but the ones that sound distinctive from other people. What do you think?
@@amathesaxylady Yes I'm also drawn to distinctive articulation - I love grainy, breathy tenor sax lines eg Getz and Iain Ballamy with Food. I've recently discovered Van Morrison's singing which is not exam board perfect but I find his wailing celtic blues style very moving.
I couldn't agree more. I've also been an educator and had exactly the same issues. Unfortunately with kids, they can see if they don't comply, they're not going to make any money. The music industry isn't allowing for innovation, unless it's innovation they decide to sell.
@@herrbonk3635 if you’re saying the early jazz musicians didn’t know theory, you’re way off base. They didn’t go to jazz school, but some had music degrees and aside from Chet Baker, I don’t know of many other pure ear players.
@@tbonealex Yes, pre-college jazz players mostly could read and understand theory. But they mostly got the "jazz" part of their skills and knowledge from working with other musicians, not an officially approved proper jazz oriented music program. There are advantages to both learning methods.
Jazz playing has became a form of sport, like a form of olympic artistic discipline, where they make some obligatory figures fitting in a theme trying to impress a jury.
Partly true, but also pretty old. People like Wayne Shorter, Josef Zawinul, and Miles Davis talked about this already in the 1960s. Trying to avoid the most tiresome cliches.
Nope, it moved from that. Just listen to Oscar Peterson and Count Basie talking about Art Tatum. Just because people today have higher musical baseline, that doesn't mean they are trying to impress someone and are not musical
There is a bias in comparing modern players to older players though. The only old players you hear are the ones who are original enough to stand the test of time. There were probably loads at the time who sounded more alike.
I don't know whether this negates the argument, but it's definitely true. There would have been scores of people trying to sound exactly like your favourite horn player.
Jazz was alive when the greats came up. Now it's an academic exercise with no actual living base. Same thing happened to classical. It got so intellectual and academic it simply stopped bringing in the young musical prodigies, who are in the living branches of music. Form over content. Style over substance. Technique over having something to say.
As a keyboard player, I have hung out with Jimmy Smith, Joe Sample, Les McCann. I have played with Pat M. in Kansas City in the early days, done concert dates with Mary Wells, O.C. Smith, Big Joe Turner and many others. I find that too many of today’s young artists are attempting to play over the heads of their audience. Some people may appreciate the forward approach, but, I get overwhelmed by the confusion. Go back to the basics when you can tap your toe, and groove to the melody in the tune. Don’t try too hard, listen. The feel of Jazz is easy to appreciate. Play with feeling. Thanks… 😎🎹
Yeah. John Coltrane had to learn his fundamentals (and occasionally relearn them) before doing what we now refer to as the “deep dive” into the avant-garde. Just to cite ONE prominent example.
That’s the way I look at Kamasi Washington …a lot of hype around this young man …bought his collector CDs -?( the Epic)a few years ago when he was nominated for a Grammy …I feel he is trying a bit to hard playing over the head of a lot of jazz purists …I realize he’s trying to push music forward..like Miles …I don’t feel his sound has a foundation and too complex….. …??? …maybe I’m older looking back and not forward…😮
Bang on. So glad I never had a drumming lesson in my life. Spent many hours in my youth listening to vinyls trying to work out what Mitch Mitchell was playing, got some of it, didn't get some of it, but got my own sound . For what it's worth.
Off the topic, but I always thought Mitch Mitchell was a very odd choice as a drummer for Jimi Hendrix who would have been better served by a harder hitting, less refined drummer.
@@charleshuguley9323 sorry mate, got to disagree with you there. Mitch was probably the best possible choice for Jimi as he had that fluidity to him that could maximize Jimi's improvisational qualities. MM was highly inventive too. No two beats are the same for him and wow. could he jam ?
I believe one of the main drivers of conventional playing is that there is essentially nowhere to play. Growing up, all of our school dances were live bands. Every school had dozens of them. There were clubs for young people as well as grown-ups. Churches were having rock bands during service. Private parties. Garages. YMCAs, etc. Schools had music programs. We all had nearly unlimited opportunities. Today, if you want to play you attend a college with a jazz program. And here we are.
'Bingo' Thomas ... You have spotlit a major, even, central contributing factor to many 'ailments' of jazz, and music in general - problems born of insular learning within a virtual environment saturated with options of what's been done ( - thus - 'what to do'), which, in turn, sits within a real world environment offering few viable options for real 'outdoor' presence and continuity of social connection through music. So yes - here we are indeed!
@@Primus-ue4th The first things you could get busy learning are relevance, and ... tact. Failing that, you could maybe get a grip on the fact that I wasn't trying to 'teach' you anything - so you've merely aired a pointless critique, while adding nothing of value to the thread yourself. As for your presumptions about me and "jazz musicians", I just don't know where to begin, so I won't ..
I think I remember a well known New York jazz saxophonist referring to your point and using the term "the institutionalization of jazz". I'm not a jazz musician, but I love to listen to jazz and you make fantastic points.
They all come out of programs at Berklee and the like, and that beats the individualism right out of them. Can you imagine somebody today coming from a great jazz program like at Berklee or North Texas State with Monk’s limited chops but completely unique approach?
As a UNT guy. Yea I agree 1000%. My peers solos generally sound like musical brain dumps. However, a couple cats have REALLY found their sound in my 5 years here. Austin Ford (trumpet), Kazunori Tanaka (trumpet), and Coleman Burks (drum set) to name a couple. But overall I agree that the program has beat the individuality from most of us, even myself. I've been on a recent journey to re-find my sound and my musicality after having theory and technique rammed into my skull for 5 years. In fact, despite my technical deficiencies of the time, I'd say I had a STRONGER musical intuition before college.
@@Zuhdj Honestly, I and this is probably gonna sound like some nonsense coming from some rando on the internet (for context I am currently a senior in high school in my schools "B" band and combo (A is higher, C is lowest for both, I was in the A band last year but got cut and missed my chance at the A combo both by a hair, only because of an inability to get my physical embouchure in enough shape by audition time, trumpet is a tough instrument) might even sound a little woo-woo or whatever, but I really think the highest practice in music is to really consciously make an effort to 'listen to yourself'. People 'find themselves' in various ways, but I really think you can go straight to the source if you just stop, maybe even close your eyes, and try to tune in to that part of yourself where musical sense comes from, as impossible as it is to actually identify what that is, it's more about intention. Intend with you mind to play according to it. You may not intellectually like what you hear yourself play right away, but try your best to keep your judgements at bay, keep with this process, see if you can 'sense' in some way something deeper being expressed and if you are playing so in accordance with that musical sense in you. I think If one practices this enough, you will develop a different kind of musical intelligence, a sense which isn't really sourced in theory, jazz language, or anything like that, but which lets music spring forth from you unadulterated. This is my take on why I think people have been so moved by people like Miles Davis, as opposed to someone like Charlie Parker. People like Charlie Parker chased virtuosity, quite frankly 'playing what he thought sounds really cool' on a surface level. But I feel like sometimes, Miles can really shake you, move you, and I find that infinitely more powerful. He had a deep artistic vision. You can hear the obvious notes he doesn't play, he never played just to sound flashy and cool, In my opinion he was dedicated to a vision of the music he wanted to express, and he abided by that completely by really listening to that muse in him with discipline. I feel like people think you kind of either have this or you don't. But I've found in my personal experience you can train this by doing that thing I said earlier. It's a skill that's hard to understand. It's not a technical or intellectual skill, it is most importantly the practice of restraining judgements or should/shouldn't, good or bad, but instead rooting yourself in the intention to play for the muse in you, your musical sense, that spark of something in you from which art is truly sourced, just filtered through a particular genre/idiom somehow. I kinda feel like Herbie's experience of trying "not to play the butter notes" is somewhat of a similar thing to what I'm saying here, I remember from some interview clip that floats around YT about how he was feeling depressed that he was just playing the same things over and over again before Miles' (mis-heard) advice of trying to avoid "excess", doing things that make chords sound a little too obvious, and how on the next concert he got a greater applause than he had in a while, and he thought that some curious thing about the "purity of the search" is what made that performance. I think this purity of the search is something like what I'm describing, and I really think there is some great undiscovered holy grail of power to looking at things in a way similar to this. It's just hard to intellectualize, so no one touches it. Hope any of this made any sense outside my own head, and good luck on rediscovering your sound. and also, unrelated, for my own sake, are you aware of any other musicians coming out ot UNT you find are doing something interesting?
About a decade ago when RUclips had really become established, I noticed in the ensuing years a prevalence of "tutorial videos" teaching pieces of music note-for-note. In the case of jazz, there's been a growth in transcription videos, complete with manuscript, of great solos that gained a lot of traction with learners. There's a place for both activities but it seems that being able to reproduce the work of others verbatim has become (for some) more highly valued than personal expression.
Personally, I just don't have that much to say musically, but I am amazed by those who do and I just enjoy learning a solo (always by ear) or some interesting part of a recording I like. Some have it, I don't!
@@nickmastro6870 Disagree for several reasons. 1. A large part of jazz is learning how to interpret chord flows into an improvised solo. Looking at the note choices made by established players really helped me. Why did he choose that note over that chord? Go away and figure it out - increase your understanding. Huge benefit. 2. As a physical exercise, learning someone else's solo forces your fingers into unusual, non-habitual patterns. A problem for jazz players is often falling into the same licks and phrases because of muscle memory. Playing along to someone else's solo helps a lot in eliminating this. 3. The advice I always heard as a young player was 'listen, listen, listen to as many of the greats as possible'. Transcribing a piece takes that a stage further - listen + analyse. That's 3 reasons, but I've typed enough now.
"There are so many jazz snobs around, telling you what jazz should be. And as soon as that happens, the form is hobbled." This is really profound, especially given its stream-of-consciousness origin, and it reminds me of something John Scofield said back in the 80s, which is sort of the consumer-end corollary. "If you go around comparing one kind of music to another, you lose the beauty of listening to any of it."
That’s what you get when you slap a tittle of master on a person who followed the rules to the point, and graduated SC. They “did it right” so now they feel the need to correct everyone, to help them get on their “level” That kinda proves the comment of the teaching process itself (as practices in higher education) is in direct conflict with what it tries to achieve. I mean they tell you to go ahead and break all the rules and be unique when for the past 5 years you were punished for breaking the rules and rewarded for doing things exactly as you were taught
Which is why I have (and used to have) individuals’ music collected together in alphabetical and (as far as it is possible) chronological order, and NOT ACCORDING TO GENRE OR DECADE or some other sort of “category”. This is in line with, to paraphrase a quote from Duke Ellington, the idea that the best music, songs and singing is “beyond category”. Whether it’s jazz or another genre of music.
This is a great commentary and applies to all kinds of musical expression. I live mostly in the "classical music" world and the exact same phenomenon happens as well.
Same with hip-hop. Same with movies. Same with electronic music. It's because conformity overall is encouraged and essentially enforced more than ever. There is a huge homogenization of thought that transcends music and it's just showing in music. Mechanical repetition respective to the genre or topic. I thought I'd escape that in hip-hop so I learned jazz. Realized the problem is widespread.
In every kind of music but especially in Jazz you got to have a story to tell. Without a story, feeling or mood a musician will put the focus on technique and cliche.
Art Tatum in early days told amazing stories with technique, don't be like one of those guys that thinks playing with emotions never means playing fast
Bravo.... well said !! You can display technique, and it's impressive from a mechnical point of view. From a musical point of view, it may be less impressive, though. If an artist is wishing to present technical prowess, that works, but understand that, it may be at the expense of musicality (or the perception of musicality, in a lot of people's minds.) As an artist, you have to decide what you're trying to present, and in what porportion (and endless display if speedy playing may be different thatn a short duration, presentation of speed, as a break for a main melodic section. It's commonly about porportion.)
@@GetAlongKidCharlemange33 First of all have you listened to all new jazz musicians so you can say that or? There is reason why they are called standards, you can't force genre to stay same for more then few decades, look at any genre of music. Also, we always made new music by combining elements from multiple influences, I really don't get any of your points, if people play standards, you are not happy, if people try something new with old standards you are not happy
@@GetAlongKidCharlemange33 Yes, they essentially removed every popular element of traditional jazz and then wonder why there is no audience anymore. Back then you could sing and dance along to songs and even it lower tempo, they had that flat-out big band energy. Now you just have some guy noodling around without any dynamics and going through scales that objectively just sound shitty.
@@GetAlongKidCharlemange33 but look at any genre of music, from classical to modern, it cannot last too long and it will eventualy evolve into something else. Also when we talk about genres of music, it is much easier to categorize things when enough time has passed, jazz in it original state ended around 80s and it will never be the same like that, today we can just emulate it and play in style of old masters, like we play any classical music, or we can arrange it and make something new and different, you can't expect genre to stay the same for too long, it doesn't have anything with jazz particular, it is same for all genres of music in whole history, that is what I am trying to say. And I have nothing against someone not liking new jazz influenced styles, but complaining that it isn't like it was before doesn't realy make sense to me, like I said, any genre in music history at some point has to evolve and move to something new, with compilation of influences of past styles
You're spot on with this. I'm tired of hearing everyone coming out of Berkeley playing sounding the same. Jazz players are going down the same road as the classical dudes. I've been playing jazz violin and viola for years, but I'm dropping it and starting anew on the keyboard, with the idea of not studying any keyboard players whatsoever, just looking for my own sound.
Avoiding cliched influences is the best way to find yourself as a musician. Every rock guitarist being inspired by Hendrix and Page did not help the instrument's artistic progression and when we think of the most original and great modern guitarists they're invariably influenced by completely different genres and in some cases different instruments. Many are multi-instrumentalists also. Every musician should really be opening their ears to alien and new musical ideas rather than feeling peer-pressure to listen to the same influences as everyone else.
Everyday I watch videos of young musicians playing jazz and their dedication is admirable. What I do not hear is many with much to say. They are mimicking rather than expressing their own feelings. Success is judged by level of imitation rather than innovation or expression. As Miles said (and I paraphrase) "It can a long time before you sound like yourself." Miles when asked what he looked for in a soloist said "They should project and have something to say." We should not discount what they have accomplished but rather encourage them to express themselves. If we want them to carry the torch we should at least guide them on the path until they find their own way.
Today people don't like it when you say something, they're only comfortable when you repeat what everyone else is saying. You have to have a point of view to say something. People are afraid to be themselves.
You can’t innovate from nothing, it’s important to build a foundation off the language. You learn from others what you like. Every musician has influences from another wether you like it or not. Young musicians are exactly that, young musicians. They are still learning and growing. Young Coltrane was playing alto imitating bird when he was in the navy, and it takes time for them to create their own sound.
@@spode8520 I agree. My point was that they seem to be measured on the ability to imitate rather than innovate-that improvisation is not a substantive part of the discussion. I appears to be a modern musical equivalent of paint by numbers.
I think one component is that young people learn from videos and as a result they can easily learn exactly how to play something. People my age and older would learn from the records only and as a result we would often play things "wrong" - for example with different fingering, slightly different chords, different gear. This way it was more likely that an original take on a piece would develop. I learned smiths songs when I was young. I play them all "wrong" but they sound good to me anyway.
@@Jazzmarcel yea exactly. That can be good. The best covers are not replicas of originals anyway. There are occasions were learning exact things will teach you something new but nothing wrong with just getting the main idea ;-)
If you don't learn the song "note for note", you will be forced to improvise. Improvisation is not done immediately, first you have to learn what goes together by doing it wrong. It also requires you to build your own voice on the instrument because you can't track or know the original solo.
Man, you nailed it! The spirit of "Jazz" is about exploration and experimentation. It is about searching. It is about the new. It is not about following rules.
Yeah, you’re right, jazz is about learning the rules and then breaking them. People (myself included) went to university during our most creative/rebellious years where for 5 years they rewarded us for keeping the rules and punished us for breaking them. And now we womder why Jazz is lacking personality
This was not true until Bebop. The ethos of experimentation grew out of the emulation of modern art. Suddenly everybody wanted to be the musical equivalent of Picasso or Robert Motherwell. It's no accident that the cover of Ornette Coleman's 'Free Jazz' carried an abstract by Jackson Pollock. I lay this primarily at the feet of Miles Davis who set the terms of this policy and followed it obsessively for his whole career. It thereafter became orthodoxy that every jazz musician should explore and experiment. But should they? I get infinitely more pleasure listening to Dexter Gordon's melodic virtuosity than Albert Ayler or Bitches Brew which I find unlistenable. I do enjoy modern composition - Birtwistle, Cage, Boulez, Carter et al, - so I'm no traditionalist in that sense, but even they all start sounding the same eventually, for they all draw from the same well.
I've been learning the trumpet for three years and I really love it. I play every day for two or three hours. I have absolutely nothing to say but I love playing along with my favourite players and I've transcribed well over a hundred tunes. I hope that one day I may find my own "voice", but there's no sign of that happening yet!
The physical aspects of playing the trumpet have been sorted out quite a bit in recent decades. The number of guys playing casual double C’s is frankly disgusting. Especially someone like me who was sweating it out 40 years ago. But all of that advanced education is leading everyone toward the same sound and the same concept. Great. Learn all that technical stuff and physical stuff. Find music that moves your soul. And try and get a clue about swing. I didn’t see the word word swing anywhere in the comments here. That is truly worrisome. It’s gotten so bad in recent years, I’m afraid it’s truly being forgot. The thing that the Basie band head in spades. And the Woody Herman band. And the Buddy Rich band. And the Harry James band. And even the Maynard Ferguson band. Oh yeah, those Tonight Show band albums from the 80s are great. Swing is really a very natural thing. Your heart does it your whole life. But playing it well takes Time and listening and practice and in the end, might help you find something your contemporaries don’t have. And steal licks from other instruments. 😁
Spot on! Social Media has quite frankly destroyed everything of value in the present moment in time... Social Media has not saved anything...it has destroyed everything. Of course streaming came first.
As a person who sometimes tires of best-of lists, this type of monologue is the real reason I return. Even if I disagree (not about this topic), you always provide something thought provoking. It's fun.
I'm not a musician but yes a music lover, especially of guitar players. When very young I would focus on the Best of lists, who is the G.O.A.T. etc. Nowadays I avoid such lists like trying to avoid Covid. On rare occasion I will check out a list or on my way to such a list I will get it together and stop myself.
Well said. I think what you describe is applicable to nearly all art forms. Art stops evolving and becomes static as soon as you try to define it: _"This is how you should..."_
The new breeds are trying to identify with a language that they are not willing to speak...rather than get the basics they are already trying to create their own language... How creative and original can you get after you learned french?
100% true. Too much school learning. Not enough time out in the world, especially in nature. We're getting the kind of art that comes out of a sedentary and non-wild culture.
Great video. I could not agree more. As a 20 something year old guitar player in the 90's, I had the opportunity to study with Saxophonist Anthony Braxton for a short time. Coming from rock, I could appreciate his rebellious "free" concepts and promptly wanted to enroll in a university Jazz program. I auditioned, was rejected, practiced an entire summer, re auditioned and then was accepted. I was heavy into Coltrane and Wayne Shorter. I remember the the feeling as if it was yesterday. I was asked who I wanted to transcribe for an assignment and I said Eric Dolphy and I was told no. Jazz studies in a university setting is designed to teach everyone the same playing vocabulary and I hated it. I didn't want to sound like everyone else. The guitar professor was a Pat Martino disciple and had us learn his approach, but I felt and still do today, one can come across sounding robotic using only his methods. Suffice to say, after 2 years, I left the Jazz studies department and switched majors. Individualism and fostering a unique voice was not emphasized but rather stifled in my university jazz experience.
In defense of that university, Pat Martino's technique is comprehensive and enables a player to play pretty much anything in jazz. I have no problem with their program because they are focusing more on technique rather than style. In other words, the university is saying become technically proficient FIRST before becoming individualistic. There are too many individualistic players with subpar technique that limits their range of expression.
Andy you speak the soul of Jazz. This is the difference between muzak and art, fast food and fine cuisine, a lecture and religion . P.S. nicely un-cut video, few people can do this kind of stream of consciousness discourse so successfully.
Exactly! You hit the mail on the head when you said that the influence on jazz is always outside of jazz. In fact the influences that move all art forms forward is always outside of the form.
Without form you are floating in endless space... Nothingness. All music comes from form. I have seen someone blow a saxophone into a bass drum in an attempt to challenge this reality and it was really quite embarrassing.
I haven’t watched the video yet. I just want to say that diverse jazz exists. Last autumn I went to three out of five days of the Belgrade Jazz Festival and saw 8-10 acts. Each performer was completely unique and distinct from each other. There was an avant-garde trio, a solo virtuoso pianist with a retrospective of Polish jazz, a Zeuhl/prog-rock-inspired orchestra (guys, listen to Rituels by ONJ, it’s amazing), a jazzy-jazz Immanuel Wilkins quartet, a dancey jazz quartet, Nubya Garcia, a Serbian big band with Omar Sosa and much more which I didn’t get a chance to see (Avishai Cohen the trumpeter, for example). I’m not familiar with the modern jazz landscape and its trends, but what I saw was incredibly diverse. Ok, time to watch the video
Barry Harris thinks of jazz/Beebop as the continuation of classical music and I whole heartedly agree!!! It can even inspire interpretive creativity and instinct when you return to practicing Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin … they were all improvisers and jazz extended that lineage from Romantic to baroque, it’s actually so amazing when you look at the context of it tracing it back over centuries!!!
@@AndyEdwardsDrummer I, for one, DO think so, Andy. More significantly, for you to say that "the" - "actual" - jazz musicians - "did not think so", is quite presumptuous on many levels, and the presumptions behind that assertion belie several ignorances and/or prejudices which, in your case, surprise me. Several influential jazz musicians, including Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Bill Evans, Gunther Schuller, and so many more have asserted indirect or direct connections to, or relevant parallels with, the 'classical' / Western art music tradition. Moreover, the comment you are refuting is paraphrasing an 'actual' - 'jazz musician' - Barry Harris - a world recognised, shameless master of bebop and mainstream jazz language, who quite evidently is an example of somebody who DID 'think so', when it came to a lineal connection between classical and jazz traditions. No doubt, he does not represent, nor speak for all other jazz musicians, whether bebop, pre-bop, or post-bop on this matter, or regarding all the motivations behind creative 'defection' from orthodoxies, but likewise, nor do, or can you, Andy. Yet, in this case, you unfortunately attempted to. I realise that, in making your point, you have attempted to restrict this phenomenon of 'not thinking so' to those breaking away from bebop orthodoxy. However, to begin with, rachelstarriti481 said "jazz/Beebop [sic]", thus not wholely specifying 'bebop', but also 'jazz' in general [ - to what extent this reflects Harris' statements, I shall get to at the end of this reply]. Regardless, Harris did not display a burning need to "break out the restrictions of bebop", instead adhering to (his version of) its orthodoxy for his lifetime. Secondly, you are, by default, asserting a direct association between bebop and classical music by asserting that those who "did not think so" (regarding "jazz/Bebop as the continuation of classical music") were trying to "break out the restrictions of bebop", because you are inevitably associating bebop with cloistering orthodoxy, which in turn is associated with cliches foisted on the classical tradition, regarding 'restrictions'. I don't have space to begin breaking down the numerous issues that all these presumptions raise, let alone the time, but I maintain that you have simply contradicted yourself by (probably accidentally) equating bebop orthodoxy with tenets and typicalities of classical music, which by your judgement, needed to be 'broken from'. If you can't see that blatant contradiction, then best you reread your reply (and the comment you're replying to) until you can. Next, here's the facts about 'breaking out' of 'restrictions' : (1) ALL music has RESTRICTIONS. They define the components of 'language' and 'style' in each and every development of organised sound. [ - Even so-called 'free' improvisation has the restriction of : "Thou shalt studiously avoid any and all restrictions" [ or alternately, "Thou shalt not give one shit about any idea whatsoever", or, "Thou shalt not aim for connections nor meaning, but shalt hopefully stumble upon them despite, or because of following this precept" ; similar restrictions apply to Cagean 'indeterminacy' ] ; (2) EVERY music and its associated 'restrictions' have been 'broken out of' in order to arrive at NEW / OTHER musical means of construction and presentation and styles of outcome ; (3) BEBOP 'broke out' of 'swing' and its dependence upon written arrangement and rehearsal, and did so by incorporating elements of music 'breaking out of', but inevitably associated WITH the CLASSICAL tradition. This is well documented, with bebop musicians such as Parker citing influences like Stravinsky and Schoenberg - in fact, Parker even infamously asserted that bop was NOT part of the jazz tradition [ See Downbeat, 09/09/1949, article by M.Levin & J.S. Wilson ] ; (4) Alongside, but differing from bebop was Thelonius Monk, and the Lennie Tristano 'school', both tributaries having innovative elements comparable to, even deriving from aspects of contemporary developments in 'classical' composition ; (5) When bebop was 'broken away from', it was also with a very healthy dose of 'modern' and 'post-modern' art music associated with, or deriving from the 'CLASSICAL' 'TRADITION', especially outside of 'hardbop' [ - See Bill Evans, George Russel, Gunther Schuller, Ornette Coleman ] ; (6) It is abundantly clear that the restless push to 'break out' of traditional restrictions was common to, and SIMULTANEOUSLY acted upon, in both, 'classical' AND 'jazz' traditions, and the timeline of significant developments in each PROVES this assertion - in other words 'breaking out' is NOT exclusive to EITHER ; Now, I could go on, and would love to sit down and have this out with you, (a) to clear you up a bit more, (b) to have a great yarn with a chap whose work I respect, and whose opinions I have tended to agree with since tuning in to your videos [ - In fact, this one was my intro to you, and I dig it deeply man]. However, having gone all 'dissertationy' already, I think that it's pertinent to leave you with Barry Harris' own words, which are evidently the ones being paraphrased by rachelstarriti481 (whose comment I feel you needlessly, thoughtlessly, inaccurately, and contradictorily refuted), which may or may not have you rethinking anything, but which will nonetheless speak from the 'horses' mouth', and shed light on what was actually being talked about there. All the best for now Andy - hope you can understand my academic motives for my detailed (but not nearly enough!) refutation of your brief, glib refutation of the following : [ N.B. - for contextual purposes, read "composition" for "improvisation" ] " ... see from my dedication to Bird and Bud and Sonny Stitt and Coleman Hawkins, Prez, my associations with all these people, I learned something else, too. Which is probably one of the most important things I should be saying now, is that um, we are not only jazz musicians. We are the continuation of improvisation that has been going on for years - centuries. We are the continuation of classical theory, classical improvisation. We are classical musicians. See, I always said Chopin and them, Bach, Beethoven, Lizst, Skryabin, all of them. Schubert, Schuman, all of them. Where would they be - today if they were alive, where would they be? Where would they be playing? They’d be playing at the corner bar, just like me, I’m convinced of that. See, concert halls play dead people’s music. If they aren’t dead, they aren’t going to get played in these concert halls. And now, these concert halls don’t even commission anyone, like they should. They’re supposed to commission somebody to write a piece for the orchestra. They don’t do that. They wouldn’t think, probably, of commissioning a jazz musician to write a piece for them, which is what they should do, ‘cause we’re the closest thing to real improvisation. Um, we are the continuation of improvisation. I didn’t realize this until a theorist over in Holland told me. His name was Badweyn. He said, “when improvisation stopped in Europe, it started in the USA.” ‘Cause improvisation is supposed to go on forever, so that’s why - that’s why jazz started, improvisation. So, that’s the music." [ SOURCE : Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program NEA Jazz Master interview Interviewee : Barry Harris Interviewer : Aaron Graves Date : August 20th, 2010 Repository : Archives Center, National Museum of American History ]
@Starritt_Piano - Amen, bro. Amen. And I’m glad the Barry Harris quote is there. The “problem” with the most modern of musics is it is more about “how do we make the most money” rather than “how do we advance the art in such a way that money can be made and recognition can be achieved without compromise”?
Metheny's playing sounds rooted in the bebop tradition. And I hear the influence of Abercrombie, and Towner on his playing. Now Holdsworth, he was truly unique and revolutionary. Nobody sounded like that before he came along.
@@reidwhitton6248yes...Holdsworth has a very distinct sound ...very different from both Metheney and Schofield....who both have their own unique sounds in their own right
I think rock faces a different problem which is much worse, I feel like Jazz at least is still alive while rock is dead, the issue with rock is that rock fans rarely support local bands and always like to say "Old rock was better" and they exclusively go to watch old bands or cover/tributes so new rock bands that could be great end up giving up after noticing how hard is to have an audience for original music. On the other hand I see jazz fans being invested in new musicians, supporting the local ones and trying to discover original artists.
@@jorgegallego9672 there is a reason for that. Jazz has a different type of fan base than rock does. Most jazz fans have more in common with classical music fans than rock fans. The jazz fan typically, while they may not be a musician themselves, have a musical education or knowledge of some sort and enjoy the music for the music. Most rock fans have more an emotional relationship with rock music. Rock was built on being hip, edgy, showy and being the latest thing. Most of what it was built on wasn’t actually the music, but the hype that surrounds it. Honestly, it was obnoxious music sold and marketed to kids in their emotionally crazed teenaged years. There is a reason why older people have a hard time listening to what they did as a kid and because they realize it was psychotic crap the entire time. Rock is dead. It will never come back. It was replaced with rap music in 94 when Kurt cobain ceremoniously blew the head off of it. Jazz will never regain its popularity, but since there is actually substance musically to jazz music, the academics and musically knowledgeable will keep it alive for a while longer, by doing exactly what you said. Those academics are always looking for and to support young musicians. While pop/rock fans grow up, move on, or just listen to what was cool when they were young. Turns out the old heads in the 50’s were right. Rock was a trend for kids. 🍻
Hello from Kansas City, Missouri Andy. Great Video. Very thought provoking. One of the best ways to develop an Original Style is to have a Broad Frame of Reference, meaning Influences from many different Instruments and Genres. When ever this subject comes up I'm reminded of the wise words of Trumpet/Flugelhorn player and Educator Clark Terry. First you must Imitate. Then you can Emulate. Then you can Innovate. Lets also remember what Miles Davis said."It can take a long time to sound like yourself." Thanks.
The answer is: Jazz Education in schools and universities. The rise of formal jazz education has resulted in the death of originality (I.e., genius) in service to the goal of churning out factory-issue pros. NOW, it’s all soulless technicians, all or most of whom have most--if not ALL--the original important jazz giants “out-chopped”--BUT SO WHAT?! Classical you have to study in school. Jazz-and all other “popular musics”-one learns in the street, as it were. Jazz programs are why Jazz hasn’t mattered since 1965.
Most Jazz schools (at least here in Germany) put it on their curriculum and make it a key part of their education to help the students develop their own voice. If I'm listening to my fellow students at music school they all sound different. And of course we are told that we should transcribe some of the old musicians that are influential to us but please name one artform where that isn't the case. My professor always tells me "if you don't know the rules you can't break them". And so we learn the "rules" but are still being encouraged to break out of them when the time is right. Jazz for a long time hasn't been a music that you learn on the streets that is pure fetishization and nostalgia for some imaginary "good old days" where we don't realise how bad they actually were. I bet there were dozens of old jazz musicians who would have wished to be able to learn music in a safe environment from professionals that they admire. We are given this chance and I at least am thankful for that. I get to hang out with like-minded people, learn from great players that I admire greatly and I am inspired to find my own voice. You don't have to be poor, a drug-addict or spend life "on the streets" to learn this music (or any music)
This whole video was jazz. I think I was five minutes in when I realized that there aren't going to be cuts. It's just a very insightful guy with a live mic and a rolling camera, and what comes out is great. I think. What you say sounds really plausible. In metal we also had a virtuosity movement, when a million bedroom players were trying to play sweeps as fast as Yngwie Malmsteen. But metal didn't die to this, because though fans appreciated the virtuosity, they always rewarded great albums. Yngwie didn't make those. Bathory did. Metal fans always tend to push bands to go beyond the status quo, and often that leads to complete rubbish. But sometimes it works, and it enriches the whole genre. The fact that there are college jazz programs says a lot. They day colleges see fit to open metal programs, we'll know it's over.
Excellent summary..!!! It sounded like a Baptist sermon here with you as the preacher and me as the congregation shouting "Amen" , "Right On" and "Exactly" after every statement you made. The streams of consciousness you have are awesome but this was like you pulled my thoughts as well and explained them on the fly better than I can. The bits about drummers and piano players of course hit home especially. In this part of the world (Toronto) in the 80's and 90's there were a dozen pianists who emulated Oscar Peterson- all excellent but their careers plateaued over the years as they didn't have their own voice- now having OP's bag in your skill set is impressive but in the end you have to bring something of your own to the table...Brilliant .
I worked as a jazz musician in Toronto in the 80s and 90s. I don’t recall , except for one talented individual, any Oscar Peterson wannabes. Their careers probably plateaued because there are limits to what kind of career you can have as a Canadian jazz musician, not because of a lack of individuality.
There was a time when you lived Jazz….now you are just taught it! Back then you had an individual voice and as the listener you could tell who was playing by the sound! Great vid & well done!
My grandfather (who played in the Boston Symphony/Opera) was my first piano teacher. When I was about 7, I wrote my first song (basically variations on the C major scale). I expected him to praise me for my attempt. However, all he had to say was, "Arnie, no matter what you write, it already has been done before." Ironically, this comment spurred me on to try to prove him wrong. After years of playing piano and trombone, along with writing quite a bit of music, I have come to both agree and disagree with my grandfather. In so many ways, all "new" music is in some way or another a kind of rehash of the past. And as you allude to, just because you have a new sound or instrument as the focus, that does not really effectively change the music supporting that new sound or instrument. I have always been attracted to synths because I wanted to create new sounds that nobody used before. As with most serious musicians (I best be careful with this), I started out playing classical and jazz music. And I would agree with you, that both genres in general have become kind of like museum pieces, and the "standards" for how it is supposed to be written and performed are set in stone. I recall way back in the 80's wanting to improve my improvisation chops on trombone. But the general advice I kept getting, was to memorize riffs by famous trombonists, and learn to play them in every key. I was immediately turned off by that idea, and backed off in putting in any extra time to try to improve those chops. And more recently, I was asked to play in a rather good pro-level group doing what the leader (a sax player) called, "straight-ahead jazz." The final straw for me playing in that group, was when a fellow trombonist played a rather good "improv" solo, but I knew enough to know he was simply regurgitating a bunch of riffs Charlie Parker played. He got praised by the leader, while my improvs (which were more original) got little or not acclaim. This experience with jazz was similar to my experience through the years playing chess (surprised?). By the time I entered high school, I played so much chess, that I could probably have entered formal competition. In my junior year, on a whim, I went to the Chess Club during lunch one day, and played against the president of the club (rumors spread before that that I was a very good player). One thing similar to much jazz today, is that all very good chess players are pressured to memorize every famous chess game of the past, and to incorporate moves from those games into their own. By the time I got into high school, I was totally bored with memorizing past games, and tried to go in a more "chaotic" direction. In my game with the chess club president, our first 3 or so moves each followed standard opening moves. However, I then quickly went "off the grid," and intentionally did moves that were unexpected. What I did was, I forced the other player to abandon every set of moves he was trying to do from his training, and also go "off grid." I also traded pieces as often as I could to whittle down quickly to end game moves. I know that I had a smirk on my face and showed lots of confidence, as my opponent was sweating bullets the entire time, while EVERY person in the club was not playing chess, but solely watching our game. Even though I THINK he was a better conventional player, I was better playing off grid, Even though at the end, he had a slight advantage. But because I messed with his head by my strategy, he messed up, and could not win, but got into a stalemate (tie) with me. My "off the grid" technique would never work if I played a chess software program. Much of my technique was PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE, or what you might call "Poker" bluff strategy. I think the big lesson I am trying to convey seems to fit with your thoughts on jazz. Conventional jazz music is nice for what it is, which is effectively museum pieces, but true creativity needs to PUSH BOUNDARIES, and in effect, go "off grid" in a similar way my chess playing eventually went. Music is not just an objective/technical experience, but an emotional/psychological, and maybe even a spiritual experience. LOL, sorry about the verbosity, but your video kind of inspired it, so I blame you and society for it.... 🙂
your grandfather's comment strikes me as discouraging. and a shame that the charlie parker guy sounded better. and also, since you mentioned chess, you might be interested in how ding took nepo out of his prep many times in this year's world championship :)
@@littlebumgorf Well, I wouldn't say the Charlie Parker guy sounded better, but he was much more appreciated by the leader of the group (and the other saxes) than those of us trying to be a little more original in our adlibbing. I think my grandpa was in effect discouraging, but I think his intent was to keep me within his own sense of reality. Fortunately, I took his discouragement as a CHALLENGE to prove him wrong. I will need to check out more about this ding vs. nepo chess championship games.
I'm a well established self taught harmonica teacher, singer and guitarist. The one thing about my style is I never wanted to be like any other musician, I just wanted to make my own music. It's been a long haul for me but after several decades I've finally achieved that goal. From here on in it's only going to get better.
@@smideralessandro9124 thanks. Look up the channel Lord Stompy. Two of my best originals on it are "ouzo the clown" and "psychoward baby". Psychoward baby is my harmonica student playing. My albums are on Bandcamp. Cheers
as a Gen Z jazz player i had this exact conversation topic with my girlfriend the other week. i’m strongly against the idea of “all music that’s old is always superior to new” but it’s caused some problems, the attention span reduction and the culture that rewards being flashy, the “clout” era. i think it’s way easier to grab attention with some fast or technical playing than it is to hold attention with someone slowing down and focusing on and listening to how the rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic choices create a collage of emotion. a lot of people say they won’t even connect to music without lyrics. but when i sit someone down and have them just close their eyes and listen to blue in green, they connect. it’s just a rarer activity in this day and age i guess. giving something your undivided attention, unless it’s fast, snappy with how it holds you. i’m someone who listens to the same few albums front to back, for months or years. not to absorb the music per se, but to see how the music was used to express the individual personality of the artist behind it. but it’s much easier to take a flashy technique than it is to admire and break down and resynthesize the bold nature of being oneself in an uncompromising way. these days you don’t have to sit with yourself and understand who you are if you don’t want to. you can just nearly effortlessly, mindlessly, fill your time and your head with anything and everything to gain temporary placation, but in sacrifice of really understanding WHY we consume what we consume and why we actually like it. it’s so important to be intentional and understanding with what drives us. people in my age group do so many things and post online to feel good when they get approval from others who are equally as ignorant of their authentic self. it’s an unhealthy cycle. but i beg the generational finger pointers and critics to understand humanity is not a monolith, and that while it may be a larger group of people swept up by these times, there are still some of us who value the true approval of our authentic selves over the shallow approval of the inauthentic, or disconnected masses. Plus there’s so much music and the accessibility is so flippant that it’s taken for granted, in having so many choices there you end up not really taking the effort to try to deeply connect with an artist and an album. consumer habits are way different than before. the average listener is often going to be impressed by fast playing. those that want to be “in“ on it and will see something kind of flashy and not necessarily understand or connect to why it’s cool. but they’ll see that a lot of other people like it so they will just act like they do too. The social effect of “well everybody else likes it so I guess” is very real. as well, from the creator perspective, since Jazz is no longer pop it’s almost become a bit of a counterculture thing where If the music is not likely to be appreciated by a proportionally large crowd of people, jazz musicians want to gain affirmation to feel superior in another way so they focus on making music with this heady technical refinement as the goal. instead of the technical refinement being a part of the path to get to the goal of emotional expression. he kinda covered it in the videos but imo, playing a wild series of scale patterns or pulling for wild chord substitutions or extensions is only cool if you’re doing it because it’s given emotion ideally fits the situation in the music. fabricating the situation just to show off a crazy chord just because knowing the technique is cool is like using a new fancy big word you learned in every circumstance even it’s not ideal or practical. only a small in group is gonna appreciate that. anyone can feel when that new harmony comes in at just the right moment with just the right feeling if they’re listening. pardon the long story, but it was validating to hear someone who has your generational experience mirror the attitude i was sharing so recently. the more these ideas are shared the more this common human spirit will be nourished and emerge in unique ways to continue to exude the “stand alone complex” we chase after, seeing that same reason why we love Jazz show up from anywhere, in anyone. we gotta all equally hear what’s working and not working. Seeing the new gen like or play jazz for or in the “wrong” ways like discussed in this video is a reason to cry out because that ability to be bold and confident and go through the arduous process to have your own voice is a long road but is inspiring to not only oneself but those that witness it within you. If so many of y’all say “we’ve seen this all before” then there’s clearly credence and it inspires me to take grand risks and push myself in how I can get a truer understanding of myself and what I want to see, why I don’t like some things of what I’m seeing, and how to translate those feelings into music. There truly is something deeper and more beautiful that this genre allows and I believe I’m gaining more of a developed conception of that and what to look for. i guess my point is generationally lots of external things change and those have influence on people and trends but they don’t entirely change them. i don’t think im some special, different person for loving jazz as an expression of an individuals spirit. there will always be people like us, in every generation. thanks for the great vid. hope someone can understand where i’m coming from :) please, if you have some advice you feel you need to share to a young person who wants to listen, i would be grateful to hear from those who are experienced, considerate and deeply connection to their passions, one being this art. Please recommend me an album!!
Thank you Andy! This is the best commentary on jazz and music today I’ve heard for a long time. At the same time it is a great advice for anyone who wants to become a musician or an artist. This is the way we should learn jazz, music, art and it reflects not only the music world but our life in general these days. There is too much of everything available and we should reduce ourselves to one thing and focus on one subject, our inner voice.
Thank-you for your thoughts. I am trying to develop my playing and I believe I have found my voice (Trumpet). Our trio plays every week for over 3 years. I attempt to improv as uniquely each night. Lots of people tell me to to make longer runs and increase speed and range, but I believe my true voice is lyrical lines and thoughtful spaces in between. Love my instrument and really starting to find security and grace in my playing (not tooting my own 'horn') Pun intended. Thanks again.
".....I believe my true voice is lyrical lines and thoughtful spaces in between....." Now what you've got to do is start turning your back on the audience, scowl constantly, and develop a vocabulary consisting entirely of one word: "m - - - - - f - - - - - ". Joking aside, there's certainly a history of that - Miles in particular, of course - but your note choice will not be his, or anyone else's. And that's the real point. Having your own note choice and rhythm.
I don’t know much about Jazz - but this is so true for the musical genres that move me. I believe that Internet / RUclips etc. have accelerated this trend way beyond recordings. What I believe has happened is that there has been a move towards democratization- so that more folks are able to possess the tools to “create music”. The problem is that that creative spark - the impulse to speak with one’s own voice, has lessened. People end up slavishly copying whatever is in vogue.
I found your insight fascinating and completely true. In fact, you touched on something midway through your video that I wanted to highlight. This phenomenon is broader than the jazz genre. It has slowly permeated others like rock, country, and pop music. When you spoke of legacy artists in jazz, it made me think of all the unique rock bands from my youth. They all had their own sound. Yes, Zeppelin, Beatles, Skynyrd, Pink Floyd, Queen, Boston, Doors..... I could go in forever. It is why many of us from the older generation are tuning out new artists. It's so regurgitated it becomes boring to listen to.
holy shit, thank you so much for sitting down and spending the time sharing your take on this. you connected so many dots that all lead to that point that is true far beyond jazz: that self-expression has become culturally devalued. brilliant, thank you for this. instant sub!
You are so spot on. This is what I’ve said to people for years and years. I’m old enough to have heard the change in jazz from the 60’s to present and through recordings, the music from the 40’s through the 60’s. It’s about the individuality of the musicians, their approach to the music, that creates jazz. That has been lost somewhere. Right on for talking about this.
As a young jazz musician, it feels like there is so much tradition and ideology that you "must" learn. There is no energy and life today. All the musicians are old. All the cool stuff seems to be happening in other genres. Of course, there are a few young musicians who have a distinct sound and I admire them a lot. I think more of my generation would like jazz if they didn't perceive it as some stuffy, academic tradition as it has become in many ways. Gen Z is extremely creative and we have so many resources at our disposal. We could make amazing music.
I agree that the highly academic nature of jazz today is off-putting. But most of this heavy academic emphasis is still fairly recent. Don't blame us oldies! When I was young there was only one tertiary level jazz centre in the entire UK. Now we have Berklee franchises everywhere, even here in Spain. And every time some timid beginner jazz pianist asks for tips from the online community, several pianists will shout, "scales, scales, scales!" If the people shouting this are leathery old boppers, then you have a point, but I kind of think it's younger musicians. When I turned pro on jazz trumpet, I had taught myself jazz, with minimal input from others. Then I went to a private jazz piano teacher for 18 months. Admittedly, it got me started on that difficult jazz instrument, but 90% of what I now know and can do on piano is from listening and brainstorming. My point is that some tuition helps, but we shouldn't be overly dependent on it. What is the biggest benefit of formalised jazz education? Networking! But there is a risk of becoming a replicant.
@@Zoco101 I agree. I learned a lot from taking Jazz Band (on trumpet) in highschool, but we only ever played swing tunes, so my bebop-influenced solos were unappreciated by the judges at contests. I just don't (and didn't) dig swing, but I had no choice but to play it. I'm a self-taught keys player mainly, and most of my ability is from listening and diligent practice. The internet is an amazing resource and that is why young musicians are so talented these days. You can learn almost anything if you have the drive to do so, and an internet connection. Classical and now jazz are the the main genres which are largely academic, and it shows. People don't go to college to take classes in rock, metal, hip-hop, pop, etc. (Except maybe the production aspect). These are genres that are still "cool" to the general public. Classical of course has had contemporary movements to move the genre forward beyond the centuries-old standards, and I hope jazz will have a movement like that as well. I think Gen Z would love jazz if most of us didn't perceive it as just some old, stuffy academic subject or unlistenable chaos. There is clearly a strong desire for fluid, unstructured music, and jazz could fill that perfectly. There has been a rise in electronic music (speedcore, D&B, jungle beat, etc.) that is like jazz in its freedom and lack of structure, but doesn't sound like what the average listener would perceive as "jazz." Many even use very "jazzy" chords and rhythms. This gets me to thinking that jazz artists could look to a slightly more electronic sound to renew interest in the genre. Many jazz standards would sound super cool and modern if you added a few synths and raised the tempo. These are just my thoughts though.
@@lars1588 You may be right about the electronic possibilities, though that's not for me. I've rediscovered early New Orleans jazz (which I consider to be a kind of folk music) and this is still played by a lot of musicians, though the more commercial offshoot (Dixieland jazz) is more prevalent. Logically, there are overlaps and the two styles can be hard to distinguish. Together they make up what is loosely called Traditional jazz. I'm saying that it's still a huge sub culture, even if it is diminishing. With the most interesting and artistic music, some people will always preserve it, and I want to be one of those persons. The concept of rip-roaring, crowd-pleasing Dixieland jazz will probably fade away as the real commercial opportunities disappear and the name Dixieland itself slips further into the un-PC dustbin, due to recent allegations that it alludes to a culture patronised by white supremacists. Notably very, very few black jazz musicians aspire or admit to playing "Dixieland jazz". King Oliver used the name Dixie Syncopators for one of his bands, and it's the only concession I'm aware of. Confusingly, Louis Armstrong is credited with establishing the Dixieland line-up and system of individual solos, but I don't think he ever used the word. He wasn't fond of labels anyway, and when you're a star, there's no need to use them. The rest of us may need labels so we can sell our music (expediently) to bookers, but like I said elsewhere, the pop culture concept of covers and tribute bands is seeping into jazz. So at a commercial level, it may already be more important to say "we play Dizzy Gillespie music", than to say "we play bebop jazz", or say "I play/sing Diana Krall music", more than say I play/sing swing standards and bossanovas". It's a shame. I regard a system of stylistic labels as less awful than dividing ourselves into tribute bands and little else.
@@Zoco101 I understand what you mean. I think the oldest jazz music should also be explored. I have great respect and appreciation for that music, despite not enjoying it personally. The history is rich and intertwined with greater events that still affect us today.
Love it. You point vague unease I've had for a long time that I'd never articulated - why I don't care for music that I theoretically should like and why so many virtuosos leave me cold.
I listened to a lot of fusion during the lockdown and loved the 70s stuff. I have found modern stuff I enjoy and I feel has some relevance to my life. The London jazz scene with Shabaka Hutchings , Moses Boyd, Nubiya Garcia etc is really good. Love The Comet is Coming , Ill Considered, Melt Yourself Down and all those fusion to other popular forms. Norwegian artists like Hedvig Mollestadt , Ola Kvernberg, Stale Sorlokken, groups like Krokofant, Elephant 9 Jagga Jazzist Bushman’s Revenge are wonderful too. I think sometimes I am trading the greats for something that sounds cool to my 2020’s ears. But I love both. I suppose the modern stuff is considerably less well known. But the London scene gets some recognition on the BBC
@@TeeceeMoody except very few places to go. Was there in February and only found Oliver’s (Greenwich) along with the standard Ronnie’s and Pizza Express. 609 had almost nothing (and tricky to get to).
This is really eye opening as a country/surf musician who's been trying to break into jazz for 10 years. I've always seen it as this monolithic thing full of strict enforcers of unspoken specific theory. I always struggled with exploring the theory and it felt like there were unspoken rules that everyone knew. It definitely helps contextualize jazz in the history of music and the modern era.
This is such a articulate and knowledgeable take on this question man. Big props. Not sure where it comes from but reminds me of a saying: we seek not to walk in the footsteps of the masters but to emulate their spirit. Something to that effect anyway 😊
Your hypothesis is much appreciated. Also all the comments are so much explaining the state of this music. It is inspiring me to play something new, knowing I am not alone lost in this screwed up world.
Brilliant! Thank you! I also wanted to add that jazz musicians from the 1940s - 60s in the USA were also responding in part as a result of the cultural, racial & in some cases, political constructs/constraints of their day through the inventiveness & freedom of their instruments, their compositions. Juxtapose this with much of jazz today and it seems as though it’s merely a self-contained echo of what it once was.
You took the words right out of my mouth and added a few! I remember in high school hitchhiking 40 miles to buy Bitches Brew after seeing the Leonard Feather comments in the Rolling Stone. Took it home and listened every night for weeks. Today I would probably listen for a while , then change to something else as it has no value because I already own every record for free on spotify and youtube.
As much as I enjoy a good Top 'X' list, these social and cultural discussions of the music forms we here tend to celebrate are far more interesting. You always seem to have thought provoking things to share. Good on ya, mate.
The gigging infrastructure, the test bed of ideas and forming style has been on its ar5e for the last 20 years. Pubs and venues have Sky Sports where there was once live music. As a young jazz musician coming up in the 90s early 2000s and presenting my own compositions I found that the old guys who came out and supported the 'jazz' scene wanted standard's and bebop and they had to be kept happy. We were also competing with DJs, techno, hip hop, house and briefly there was a fusion but it was shortlived. Then came the Internet and as you say the explosion of 'jazz degrees' creating an orthodoxy.
Great video, I agree with what you're saying. I think the same thing happened in 'classical' music in the 19th century after Beethoven. That is around the time big music conservatories started opening up and began teaching how classical music should be performed. When this happened improvisation in classical music decreased, and there has been (in my view) an over emphasis on technical perfection and flawless performance in music. Since that time there has still been many great new composers and musicians, but the classical music culture to this day in my view is still kind of ossified and stifling in some respects. But great creative minds tend to come around and loosen shackles and point towards new exciting directions anyway. "Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art." - Debussy
In the old days, if you wanted to learn a lick or solo, you had to sit down with a record or cassette and painstakingly figure it out. Invariably (I'm a guitarist) you didn't often transcribe something 100%. Over time, those little mistakes became your way of playing stuff - over time your "mistakes" became a major element of your own style. Now any song (and exactly how to play it) is available to learn online. Hence no one develops their own style of playing.
man, SPOT ON!! thanks for sharing your thoughts ---- eloquently and elegantly put. the loss/diminishment of "self expression" in general is really a large topic for reflection....and this is one of the portals ..... balancing skill for its own sake with skill for expression/communication sake. lots to reflect on ......
Having gone to one of those notable schools with the unwritten motto, "Higher, Faster, Louder" I have to say you've nailed it. However, it was not the teachers who drove that. We students drove each other that way. We played what we thought are peers wanted to hear. Peer pressure was the strongest driver and the players with the most "chops" ruled the playground. Players would string together lines they transcribed like taking great poetry and cutting up each line and throwing it on the floor to read it out of order - no where near the beauty or meaning. More posturing to impress than playing anything meaningful. Jazz and blues are story tellers' art forms and we forgot that stories are meant to be shared with a listener. If we had understood that, there would have been more variation on the band stand. What should have been was that our performances became like the story teller's gift to the listener - playing too someone rather than at them. My wife put it this way one day when listening to some jazz CD's in the car. "Sounds like some show off saying 'look at me! Look at what I can do!'" She wasn't impressed obviously and she's not a musician, but she picked that up right away. That was one of several experiences I had that changed the way I think about my music making. You were spot on with this.
Creative musicians are not valued in any genre today. In jazz, having everything handed to you complete with rules hinders real assimilation of the music. If you can't hear it and cop it yourself don't play it. Also, everything is a competition which inhibits the pursuit of originality.
The internet is a mixed blessing. In the pre-internet world, a musician was forced to find their own individual voice and style. Now with everything on the web, we've developed a culture of musical clones!
Absolutely spot on. I've been listening to jazz for 60+ years and I've given up going to jazz gigs. Interchangeable sounds, interchangeable licks. Not worth spending the entrance fee for that, so I stay home and listen to my extensive collection of recorded music -- mostly 1950s & 60s, with a spattering of 1970s jazz (but NOT imitation Miles Davis jazz-rock, crossover or "world music" [aside: isn't ALL music created in the world...?]). I have no idea why the "oh I want to play like him" trend started, eventually turning great jazz into into generic vaguely jazz-sounding noises. Featuring "jazz" on the Proms hasn't helped, either. Could it be that true innovation simply can't keep on happening? Or is it a branch of the current trend for individuals to obsess over "fitting in" with what everyone else does? I could drive my poor self mad worrying about it, so I don't do that. Back to Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Bud Powell, Johnny Griffin, Max Roach, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins........ And away she floats........
Recently I’ve been thinking more about how trying to win the virtuoso arms race againts this slew of prodigies is not the way to go. I am thinking more about finding my own thing, but of course it’s no easy task. But in a way it feels liberating to let go of the arms race to some degree. I enjoy your videos. I like that there is a lot of variety in the types of music discussed and with a sense of humor to top it off!
Right on brother I truly dig what you have to say, but unfortunately so many musicians today miss the understanding of what "our art" is all about and tries to create art in a digital world that can not connect with the organic that produces such great music.
It boils down to being an individual character, having individual real experiences, thinking indvidual thoughts, feeling individual feelings and being and expressing what you want and need to express when you play. A recognisable timbre and tone can also play a role of course, but it’s who you ARE. Play something FROM YOUR LIFE!
I disagree that the value of self expression in our culture has diminished, it's just that the mediums and venues for that expression have changed a lot. Plenty of young people are expressing themselves in beautiful and fascinating ways you just have to be in the right spaces. Check out bands like BadBadNotGood, Mouse on the Keys, Gogo Penguin, The Bad Plus, and for some stuff that's more out there look at acts like Black Midi or Clown Core
i think a big part of the whole "everyone sounding the same" is the fact that these days most people have access to the internet. Back then there was no internet, so you were only influenced by what was around you/on the radio. I think this plays a huge part of finding your on voice. Having some time not listening to "alot of music". Basically not listening to much at all except yourself and finding what you truly like without influence, and that happened way more since back then of the time because the only time you could hear music is if you heard someone playing it live. Like i remember hearing that monk would practice hours and hours a day. And i think the reason he as well as many others that can successfully have there own voice stems from spending alot of time with yourself, playing alone not listening to anything else. I think alot of practice resources like "backing tracks" and "jazz scales" can further diminish the creativity.
Of course most keyboardists, most drummers and most vocalists of the 1950 sounded pretty much the same at that time. When saying that Dave Brubeck, Bill Evans, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock are all different it is talking about musicians whose music has been popular for 60 years now. They survive as known musicians with "different sounds" because the thousands of similar musicians at that time have faded away. The ones who didn't stand out enough - gone. It is a bit like saying that a production car that was built 60 years ago is a fantastic car - when the hundreds of thousands of the same car were lemons, rusting away or being notoriously unreliable. The survivors are not representative of what either cars or musicians "on average" were at that time - there were thousands of them and most of them didn't differ much either.
I almost agree accepted I have listened to contemporaries of Evans, Corea and Hancock and I found them quite interesting. Take Sonny Clark for example! Or Ernie Henry! There were many players with skill who are now not widely appreciated, but in their time had a distinct voice. Do you think you might be underselling the great burst of creativity that occurred in Jazz from about 1940 - 68?
@@artherladett442 underselling for sure but also brings up a good point. That said, I have yet to find musicians as electrifying as guys like Corea. I'm not from that era either and to be clear there is a ton of modern music I love. On top of survivorship bias, so many confused perspectives are born of the fact that there are 5billion plus more people on the planet and everything is oversaturated to a ridiculous degree.
I really enjoyed the video. Many points in your explanation where I could connect the dots in my mind. A bit of the history I missed over the years as a serious music lover. Thanks.
Thank you for this. My young pop loving students, by the time they've learned the 15th bland, safe, bloodless pop tune they often ask me "why does all this music sound the same?" to which I reply: "maybe you can write a thesis on why people demand sameness?" I think the answer is quite simple actually. Fear baby, fear. We've been fed on a steady diet of it. I'm 54 this year and in the last 30 years, since we've had 24 hour news and now social media blah blah, so much we are fed is this "be afraid, be very afraid." We don't take risks when we are all so afraid. I'm no better than anyone when it comes to this, it's something I've struggled with myself. Seriously, it's not just jazz. I walked out of an "experimental" show last night and stumbled on a noise show later that I ran from. They sounded the same as any other "experimental" or "noise" groups I've heard. They're safe in their little petty tribes and make no effort to actually throw a monkey wrench into their own works, which might make something actually happen. I walk out of many jazz shows for the same reason: safe, bloodless and bland with a lot of notes. Rock? Pop? Hip Hop? Sameness..... fear.... How much money does it take to launch an artist? Do you think the money people are willing to take any kind of a risk on something different? Aw hell no....... Look at a top 100 chart in 1983 vs today. What's the first thing one looks at here on RUclips? How many views, how many likes. It's difficult to escape that. If I want to be a successful jazz tenor player I need to sound like __________ cause ________ has 18m views and they're successful. How can I become successful? Maybe by destroying myself to become more like _________.... Fear..... It's heartbreaking. It makes for crap music. It makes for a crap life. We can do so much better.
I kinda wonder about this myself. And I moving from "the music sucks" to "the audience sucks". Even if everything today were pablum ("yes, old man"), the audience isn't rejecting it and exploring the rich history available to them (now easier than ever before), or moving on to different genres, depending on where the most interesting ideas are happening. Instead they stick to the most cliched expressions as being deep. There are interesting things out there, and no one cares. It really came to a head as I was talking to someone my junior about an author probably being one of the voices of my generation (even though I don't really care for them personally, they have interesting ideas), and inquiring, since I am old and out of touch, who are the front-runners for theirs? Not a single reply. Everyone just as disposable as the last, and not even one interesting enough to be reviled.
".....I walked out of an "experimental" show last night and stumbled on a noise show.... ....They sounded the same as any other "experimental" or "noise" groups I've heard...." Because the rule in "experimental" or "noise" music is that you MUST never play "inside" at all - as opposed to conventional music, in which you must only play "inside" at all times.
@@Baribrotzer Exactly. I've met people in that circle who seem to only play "outside". Then I'll come across the same person in a different space and I'm alarmed at how wonderfully melodic they can be too. So I always ask why not mix it up? One reply was "I play what is appropriate to the setting..." Boring... But I get it. Dare you play "inappropriately" and you'll be ostracized. I've experienced this myself and seen it too many times. Kinda sounds like society today in general which makes me sad.
@@coilhead The other possibility is to just be yourself, and insist upon that. I've played avant-jazz jam sessions on baritone sax, where I've effectively insisted upon playing bass lines - because there seemed to be nothing holding the music together, and I thought that was needed. Maybe it wasn't the most tactful thing to do. Maybe I shouldn't have made that judgement on it. Maybe it wasn't letting the music be the music. But without that, it just seemed like a bunch of guys trading textures and trying to shout over each other. And nobody HAD to follow me, they were free to not do so, but I was there if they wanted to.
Great video. This kind of speaks to a broader societal issue. Look at all the movie reboots. Car design has stagnated. Fashion seems to be backwards looking. Etc. The internet seems to have fostered this culture of resynthesizing existing ideas rather than creating new ones. Definitely looking forward to the next video.
Great video. Thank you, lots of good ideas. I wonder if the difference between the huge growth in jazz during the 40s and late 60s/70s and the present day doesn't just come down to where the music was learned? Those players experimented on the bandstand, and most of their learning was there. Also, the balance of their live playing vs their education/practice was greatly weighted towards playing, where now the education and practice seems to greatly outweigh live playing for most players, or at least those that I'm familiar with. For a period of time, Miles would painstakingly critique what his players had played after every performance, similar to what he was subjected to when he played with Monk who told him that he'd played a song wrong until about the 60th performance (from his autobiography). There's another story where he reportedly whispered to Mike Stern, just as they were going on, to play completely differently from what he'd played the previous night. Maybe it was a head game, but he wanted the exploration on the bandstand, not in the practice room. Another trend that I've been told about is players playing long passages from the solos of earlier players -- in live performances. All of the knowledge, but none of the exploration! Thanks again.
Part of the problem is there are far fewer bandstands these days than there used to be. People consume their music via streaming services and not by going to clubs with live music. When they go out they just want to hear familiar recordings of songs they already know
I love this. I have too many friends who fall under this "dime a dozen modern jazz virtuoso" and none of them stand out from each other.... They're are incredibly technically capable but it just keeps ending up just coming out as musical diarrhea that nobody really cares about
Fascinating stuff, Andy. Insert 'Prog' here, I think. I keep coming across what I'd call 'apprenticeship' albums, where the bands are emulating their heroes. You then hope they'll go on to find their own voice.
"There's too much Jazz education and not enough Jazz." - Phil Woods
Exactly!
Not to mention that jazz education pretty much ends in the early 60s. I can't think of many jazz musicians that are inspired by like the popular stuff Herbie or Donald were doing in the 70s
I don’t even have to watch the whole video now. Thanks 😂
True
I don't think it's so much jazz education I think it has a lot to do with the lack of clubs and other jazz venues.. I mean way back in the day you could at least make a living playing jazz where you can improve you're a craft and get your own unique voice on your chosen instrument..but if you got nowhere to play & make mistakes and grow that's a major problem with artists
The problem with modern jazz is that, to a considerable extent, it is being written and performed by college professors instead of drug addicts.
thats true, chet baker lead the way. 😊
This😂
That supports my theory that many academics, I dare say most, cannot actual perform in their "area of expertise". All theory, zero practical or natural talent.
It takes more than drugs to be a jazz great
@@zusanli251 Drugs aside, he's not wrong.
Leni Stern said "Most guitar players practice guitar but don't practice composition".
Very accurate and perceptive observations. I played in Chicago for 30 years and, being self-taught, found myself swimming against the current with the prevailing musicians all coming from college programs. The older pros, most of whom came up in the hard bop era, were very welcoming and encouraging, although they could be strict. The younger guys/girls were often cliquish and snobby.
I use this analogy: the older jazz is like dance, an art form where athletic virtuosity is sometimes necessary to fully express yourself. The newer jazz is like gymnastic floor exercise- the athletic virtuosity is the point, but you get extra credit if it’s aesthetically pleasing.
It's still the same way now. Some younger players in NYC are making their way without going through the college programs but it's rare, and their self-determination is extraordinary. The other piece of what you're saying is that "chops" can be measured, and soulfulness can't be. How hard something grooves, how beautiful something is can be negated by a judgmental professor.
On point
...that's lovely man....
They are boring and predictable as hell, not my thing, honestly. I could play dissonantly sometime, if I'm not fully focused and inspired but I HAVE my own idiom, I developed my own sound and that's something I'm so proud of.
@cpfiffner Right on, man! College is where musicians go to network with each other. College education gives the musician about half the knowledge, 25% technique, and less than 10% of the experience a musician needs to become great.
Everything you’ve said in this video is spot on.
I was a high school music teacher for 20 years and I discovered two things about high school learners: 1. They had a fear of making a “mistake”, not just in music but in any subject, and 2. Children were programmed to pass exams. So when teaching GCSE music (U.K. high school music exam) the children would often ask me what they had to do to get a grade A, especially for composition. The idea of coming up with ideas of their own was alien to them.
I then switched to teaching primary school children and it was completely different. They did not know what was “wrong” or “right”, a bit like how a baby learns, which is why they had no “fear” in music and would think outside the box.
And for me, I think that is the issue with performers today: musicians, actors, etc, they all confirm to what will be universally accepted.
You make some interesting points based upon your teaching experience. Don't you think the issue of today's performers being conformists can be explained by the restraints imposed on them by their employers?
@@neilyounger7585 only just saw your reply, sorry.
I guess that depends on the employment situation
If you’re a school music teacher you would be bound by the curriculum and/or exam board to some degree but you method of teaching need not just come out of a text book.
If you’re a gigging musician then yes you are bound by the requests of the person booking you if it’s a private or corporate function etc.
But I think in the case of someone’s individual style a lot of musicians seem not to want an individual style but are happy to sound like everyone else!
For me, the musicians and singers that stand out are not always the ones that are technically superior but the ones that sound distinctive from other people.
What do you think?
@@amathesaxylady Yes I'm also drawn to distinctive articulation - I love grainy, breathy tenor sax lines eg Getz and Iain Ballamy with Food. I've recently discovered Van Morrison's singing which is not exam board perfect but I find his wailing celtic blues style very moving.
I couldn't agree more. I've also been an educator and had exactly the same issues. Unfortunately with kids, they can see if they don't comply, they're not going to make any money. The music industry isn't allowing for innovation, unless it's innovation they decide to sell.
Dude, you were a music teacher in local schools. Why would you imagine to be able to offer insight into the world of professional jazz players?
The growth of college jazz programs is significant. Before their emergence, players learned from whichever players they could find to work with.
And from their ear, instead of cliche theory.
@@herrbonk3635 ...or Realbooks!
Boom
@@herrbonk3635 if you’re saying the early jazz musicians didn’t know theory, you’re way off base. They didn’t go to jazz school, but some had music degrees and aside from Chet Baker, I don’t know of many other pure ear players.
@@tbonealex Yes, pre-college jazz players mostly could read and understand theory. But they mostly got the "jazz" part of their skills and knowledge from working with other musicians, not an officially approved proper jazz oriented music program. There are advantages to both learning methods.
Jazz playing has became a form of sport, like a form of olympic artistic discipline, where they make some obligatory figures fitting in a theme trying to impress a jury.
Partly true, but also pretty old. People like Wayne Shorter, Josef Zawinul, and Miles Davis talked about this already in the 1960s. Trying to avoid the most tiresome cliches.
Nope, it moved from that. Just listen to Oscar Peterson and Count Basie talking about Art Tatum. Just because people today have higher musical baseline, that doesn't mean they are trying to impress someone and are not musical
@@Tomica031 It doesn't mean they're interesting, either.
@@petarticinovic2710 interesting is subjective. But saying that jazz is now like competition, when it actually was like that in beggining is silly
Same goes with modern metal lol
There is a bias in comparing modern players to older players though. The only old players you hear are the ones who are original enough to stand the test of time. There were probably loads at the time who sounded more alike.
I don't know whether this negates the argument, but it's definitely true. There would have been scores of people trying to sound exactly like your favourite horn player.
Strong perspective.
Jazz was alive when the greats came up. Now it's an academic exercise with no actual living base. Same thing happened to classical. It got so intellectual and academic it simply stopped bringing in the young musical prodigies, who are in the living branches of music.
Form over content. Style over substance. Technique over having something to say.
But there was something in the air when that music was created. It was radically different to the dominant form that preceded it.
You have a strong point there.
As a keyboard player, I have hung out with Jimmy Smith, Joe Sample, Les McCann. I have played with Pat M. in Kansas City in the early days, done concert dates with Mary Wells, O.C. Smith, Big Joe Turner and many others. I find that too many of today’s young artists are attempting to play over the heads of their audience. Some people may appreciate the forward approach, but, I get overwhelmed by the confusion. Go back to the basics when you can tap your toe, and groove to the melody in the tune. Don’t try too hard, listen. The feel of Jazz is easy to appreciate. Play with feeling. Thanks…
😎🎹
Yeah. John Coltrane had to learn his fundamentals (and occasionally relearn them) before doing what we now refer to as the “deep dive” into the avant-garde.
Just to cite ONE prominent example.
John Scofield got some flack for fusing jazz and funk but I thought it was fantastic.
Yes brother, you are 100% RIGHT!
That’s the way I look at Kamasi Washington …a lot of hype around this young man …bought his collector CDs -?( the Epic)a few years ago when he was nominated for a Grammy …I feel he is trying a bit to hard playing over the head of a lot of jazz purists …I realize he’s trying to push music forward..like Miles …I don’t feel his sound has a foundation and too complex….. …??? …maybe I’m older looking back and not forward…😮
Did you ever know, or hang out with Russ Freeman? He's my favorite jazz pianist.
Bang on. So glad I never had a drumming lesson in my life. Spent many hours in my youth listening to vinyls trying to work out what Mitch Mitchell was playing, got some of it, didn't get some of it, but got my own sound . For what it's worth.
Good for you. I didn't either. However other trained guys always ask me which chords I am using 😅😅😅😅 Learning theory has made me sluggish.
Off the topic, but I always thought Mitch Mitchell was a very odd choice as a drummer for Jimi Hendrix who would have been better served by a harder hitting, less refined drummer.
@@charleshuguley9323 sorry mate, got to disagree with you there. Mitch was probably the best possible choice for Jimi as he had that fluidity to him that could maximize Jimi's improvisational qualities. MM was highly inventive too. No two beats are the same for him and wow. could he jam ?
@@fiachra4266 I agree with you about his abilities, but don't think his light style suited Hendrix's powerful delivery.
@@charleshuguley9323 who would you suggest ?
I believe one of the main drivers of conventional playing is that there is essentially nowhere to play. Growing up, all of our school dances were live bands. Every school had dozens of them. There were clubs for young people as well as grown-ups. Churches were having rock bands during service. Private parties. Garages. YMCAs, etc. Schools had music programs. We all had nearly unlimited opportunities. Today, if you want to play you attend a college with a jazz program. And here we are.
'Bingo' Thomas ... You have spotlit a major, even, central contributing factor to many 'ailments' of jazz, and music in general - problems born of insular learning within a virtual environment saturated with options of what's been done ( - thus - 'what to do'), which, in turn, sits within a real world environment offering few viable options for real 'outdoor' presence and continuity of social connection through music. So yes - here we are indeed!
@@jazzwarrior7206You write like a jazz musician plays. Very intricate passage but when I got done reading it, I felt I didn’t learn anything.
@@Primus-ue4th Super rude, show some respect to musicians who make a point even if it's in jargon.
@@Primus-ue4thkek, burn
@@Primus-ue4th The first things you could get busy learning are relevance, and ... tact. Failing that, you could maybe get a grip on the fact that I wasn't trying to 'teach' you anything - so you've merely aired a pointless critique, while adding nothing of value to the thread yourself. As for your presumptions about me and "jazz musicians", I just don't know where to begin, so I won't ..
I think I remember a well known New York jazz saxophonist referring to your point and using the term "the institutionalization of jazz". I'm not a jazz musician, but I love to listen to jazz and you make fantastic points.
They all come out of programs at Berklee and the like, and that beats the individualism right out of them. Can you imagine somebody today coming from a great jazz program like at Berklee or North Texas State with Monk’s limited chops but completely unique approach?
As a UNT guy. Yea I agree 1000%. My peers solos generally sound like musical brain dumps. However, a couple cats have REALLY found their sound in my 5 years here. Austin Ford (trumpet), Kazunori Tanaka (trumpet), and Coleman Burks (drum set) to name a couple. But overall I agree that the program has beat the individuality from most of us, even myself. I've been on a recent journey to re-find my sound and my musicality after having theory and technique rammed into my skull for 5 years. In fact, despite my technical deficiencies of the time, I'd say I had a STRONGER musical intuition before college.
Don't worry AI Jazz players will have more originality
Because it is institutionalized music
@@Zuhdj Honestly, I and this is probably gonna sound like some nonsense coming from some rando on the internet (for context I am currently a senior in high school in my schools "B" band and combo (A is higher, C is lowest for both, I was in the A band last year but got cut and missed my chance at the A combo both by a hair, only because of an inability to get my physical embouchure in enough shape by audition time, trumpet is a tough instrument) might even sound a little woo-woo or whatever, but I really think the highest practice in music is to really consciously make an effort to 'listen to yourself'. People 'find themselves' in various ways, but I really think you can go straight to the source if you just stop, maybe even close your eyes, and try to tune in to that part of yourself where musical sense comes from, as impossible as it is to actually identify what that is, it's more about intention. Intend with you mind to play according to it. You may not intellectually like what you hear yourself play right away, but try your best to keep your judgements at bay, keep with this process, see if you can 'sense' in some way something deeper being expressed and if you are playing so in accordance with that musical sense in you. I think If one practices this enough, you will develop a different kind of musical intelligence, a sense which isn't really sourced in theory, jazz language, or anything like that, but which lets music spring forth from you unadulterated.
This is my take on why I think people have been so moved by people like Miles Davis, as opposed to someone like Charlie Parker. People like Charlie Parker chased virtuosity, quite frankly 'playing what he thought sounds really cool' on a surface level. But I feel like sometimes, Miles can really shake you, move you, and I find that infinitely more powerful. He had a deep artistic vision. You can hear the obvious notes he doesn't play, he never played just to sound flashy and cool, In my opinion he was dedicated to a vision of the music he wanted to express, and he abided by that completely by really listening to that muse in him with discipline.
I feel like people think you kind of either have this or you don't. But I've found in my personal experience you can train this by doing that thing I said earlier. It's a skill that's hard to understand. It's not a technical or intellectual skill, it is most importantly the practice of restraining judgements or should/shouldn't, good or bad, but instead rooting yourself in the intention to play for the muse in you, your musical sense, that spark of something in you from which art is truly sourced, just filtered through a particular genre/idiom somehow.
I kinda feel like Herbie's experience of trying "not to play the butter notes" is somewhat of a similar thing to what I'm saying here, I remember from some interview clip that floats around YT about how he was feeling depressed that he was just playing the same things over and over again before Miles' (mis-heard) advice of trying to avoid "excess", doing things that make chords sound a little too obvious, and how on the next concert he got a greater applause than he had in a while, and he thought that some curious thing about the "purity of the search" is what made that performance. I think this purity of the search is something like what I'm describing, and I really think there is some great undiscovered holy grail of power to looking at things in a way similar to this. It's just hard to intellectualize, so no one touches it. Hope any of this made any sense outside my own head, and good luck on rediscovering your sound.
and also, unrelated, for my own sake, are you aware of any other musicians coming out ot UNT you find are doing something interesting?
Hey, Monk played like Tatum until he got his sound. He had TONS of chops. Just food for thought.
About a decade ago when RUclips had really become established, I noticed in the ensuing years a prevalence of "tutorial videos" teaching pieces of music note-for-note. In the case of jazz, there's been a growth in transcription videos, complete with manuscript, of great solos that gained a lot of traction with learners. There's a place for both activities but it seems that being able to reproduce the work of others verbatim has become (for some) more highly valued than personal expression.
Transcribing an improvised solo is very unusual, I think counterproductive.
Agree. Far, far too much emphasis on transcribing. It’s produced a generation of parrots with no individual voice.
Exactly what I feel. Where are the great voices of this generation? Where is the art?
Personally, I just don't have that much to say musically, but I am amazed by those who do and I just enjoy learning a solo (always by ear) or some interesting part of a recording I like. Some have it, I don't!
@@nickmastro6870 Disagree for several reasons. 1. A large part of jazz is learning how to interpret chord flows into an improvised solo. Looking at the note choices made by established players really helped me. Why did he choose that note over that chord? Go away and figure it out - increase your understanding. Huge benefit. 2. As a physical exercise, learning someone else's solo forces your fingers into unusual, non-habitual patterns. A problem for jazz players is often falling into the same licks and phrases because of muscle memory. Playing along to someone else's solo helps a lot in eliminating this. 3. The advice I always heard as a young player was 'listen, listen, listen to as many of the greats as possible'. Transcribing a piece takes that a stage further - listen + analyse. That's 3 reasons, but I've typed enough now.
"There are so many jazz snobs around, telling you what jazz should be. And as soon as that happens, the form is hobbled." This is really profound, especially given its stream-of-consciousness origin, and it reminds me of something John Scofield said back in the 80s, which is sort of the consumer-end corollary. "If you go around comparing one kind of music to another, you lose the beauty of listening to any of it."
That’s what you get when you slap a tittle of master on a person who followed the rules to the point, and graduated SC. They “did it right” so now they feel the need to correct everyone, to help them get on their “level”
That kinda proves the comment of the teaching process itself (as practices in higher education) is in direct conflict with what it tries to achieve.
I mean they tell you to go ahead and break all the rules and be unique when for the past 5 years you were punished for breaking the rules and rewarded for doing things exactly as you were taught
Which is why I have (and used to have) individuals’ music collected together in alphabetical and (as far as it is possible) chronological order, and NOT ACCORDING TO GENRE OR DECADE or some other sort of “category”.
This is in line with, to paraphrase a quote from Duke Ellington, the idea that the best music, songs and singing is “beyond category”.
Whether it’s jazz or another genre of music.
This is a great commentary and applies to all kinds of musical expression. I live mostly in the "classical music" world and the exact same phenomenon happens as well.
Same with hip-hop. Same with movies. Same with electronic music. It's because conformity overall is encouraged and essentially enforced more than ever. There is a huge homogenization of thought that transcends music and it's just showing in music. Mechanical repetition respective to the genre or topic. I thought I'd escape that in hip-hop so I learned jazz. Realized the problem is widespread.
In every kind of music but especially in Jazz you got to have a story to tell. Without a story, feeling or mood a musician will put the focus on technique and cliche.
Art Tatum in early days told amazing stories with technique, don't be like one of those guys that thinks playing with emotions never means playing fast
Bravo.... well said !! You can display technique, and it's impressive from a mechnical point of view. From a musical point of view, it may be less impressive, though. If an artist is wishing to present technical prowess, that works, but understand that, it may be at the expense of musicality (or the perception of musicality, in a lot of people's minds.) As an artist, you have to decide what you're trying to present, and in what porportion (and endless display if speedy playing may be different thatn a short duration, presentation of speed, as a break for a main melodic section. It's commonly about porportion.)
@@GetAlongKidCharlemange33 First of all have you listened to all new jazz musicians so you can say that or? There is reason why they are called standards, you can't force genre to stay same for more then few decades, look at any genre of music. Also, we always made new music by combining elements from multiple influences, I really don't get any of your points, if people play standards, you are not happy, if people try something new with old standards you are not happy
@@GetAlongKidCharlemange33 Yes, they essentially removed every popular element of traditional jazz and then wonder why there is no audience anymore. Back then you could sing and dance along to songs and even it lower tempo, they had that flat-out big band energy.
Now you just have some guy noodling around without any dynamics and going through scales that objectively just sound shitty.
@@GetAlongKidCharlemange33 but look at any genre of music, from classical to modern, it cannot last too long and it will eventualy evolve into something else. Also when we talk about genres of music, it is much easier to categorize things when enough time has passed, jazz in it original state ended around 80s and it will never be the same like that, today we can just emulate it and play in style of old masters, like we play any classical music, or we can arrange it and make something new and different, you can't expect genre to stay the same for too long, it doesn't have anything with jazz particular, it is same for all genres of music in whole history, that is what I am trying to say. And I have nothing against someone not liking new jazz influenced styles, but complaining that it isn't like it was before doesn't realy make sense to me, like I said, any genre in music history at some point has to evolve and move to something new, with compilation of influences of past styles
You're spot on with this. I'm tired of hearing everyone coming out of Berkeley playing sounding the same. Jazz players are going down the same road as the classical dudes. I've been playing jazz violin and viola for years, but I'm dropping it and starting anew on the keyboard, with the idea of not studying any keyboard players whatsoever, just looking for my own sound.
It's Berklee, btw.
@@jazzleebert2 Sorry. My bad.
My main language is Spanish nowadays and English is a nightmare with the spelling. 😂
@@jazzleebert2 lol, I've seen the same from people from Berkeley, but yeah wrong state.
@@jazzleebert2 it's boring, by the way
Avoiding cliched influences is the best way to find yourself as a musician. Every rock guitarist being inspired by Hendrix and Page did not help the instrument's artistic progression and when we think of the most original and great modern guitarists they're invariably influenced by completely different genres and in some cases different instruments. Many are multi-instrumentalists also. Every musician should really be opening their ears to alien and new musical ideas rather than feeling peer-pressure to listen to the same influences as everyone else.
Salient commentary that applies to most music these days, not just jazz. 👍
Apart from an interesting take on the topic, thank you for the 'jazz history in a nutshell' kind of lecture, really cool synthesis you did there! :)
Thank you Peter
Everyday I watch videos of young musicians playing jazz and their dedication is admirable. What I do not hear is many with much to say. They are mimicking rather than expressing their own feelings. Success is judged by level of imitation rather than innovation or expression. As Miles said (and I paraphrase) "It can a long time before you sound like yourself." Miles when asked what he looked for in a soloist said "They should project and have something to say." We should not discount what they have accomplished but rather encourage them to express themselves. If we want them to carry the torch we should at least guide them on the path until they find their own way.
Today people don't like it when you say something, they're only comfortable when you repeat what everyone else is saying. You have to have a point of view to say something. People are afraid to be themselves.
@@matthew7419 I saw that when I worked at the college. But I told them the old line "Be yourself. Everyone else is taken." ;-)
You can’t innovate from nothing, it’s important to build a foundation off the language. You learn from others what you like. Every musician has influences from another wether you like it or not. Young musicians are exactly that, young musicians. They are still learning and growing. Young Coltrane was playing alto imitating bird when he was in the navy, and it takes time for them to create their own sound.
@@spode8520 I agree. My point was that they seem to be measured on the ability to imitate rather than innovate-that improvisation is not a substantive part of the discussion. I appears to be a modern musical equivalent of paint by numbers.
@@matthew7419That’s good.
I think one component is that young people learn from videos and as a result they can easily learn exactly how to play something. People my age and older would learn from the records only and as a result we would often play things "wrong" - for example with different fingering, slightly different chords, different gear. This way it was more likely that an original take on a piece would develop. I learned smiths songs when I was young. I play them all "wrong" but they sound good to me anyway.
Funny story! I still learn songs wrong but good enough to get the main idea!😂👍🏾
This is very true. No one develops a style by doing their own thing anymore. They are all learning the same way.
@@Jazzmarcel yea exactly. That can be good. The best covers are not replicas of originals anyway. There are occasions were learning exact things will teach you something new but nothing wrong with just getting the main idea ;-)
Interesting take....
If you don't learn the song "note for note", you will be forced to improvise.
Improvisation is not done immediately, first you have to learn what goes together by doing it wrong.
It also requires you to build your own voice on the instrument because you can't track or know the original solo.
Man, you nailed it! The spirit of "Jazz" is about exploration and experimentation. It is about searching. It is about the new. It is not about following rules.
Yeah, you’re right, jazz is about learning the rules and then breaking them. People (myself included) went to university during our most creative/rebellious years where for 5 years they rewarded us for keeping the rules and punished us for breaking them. And now we womder why Jazz is lacking personality
This was not true until Bebop. The ethos of experimentation grew out of the emulation of modern art. Suddenly everybody wanted to be the musical equivalent of Picasso or Robert Motherwell. It's no accident that the cover of Ornette Coleman's 'Free Jazz' carried an abstract by Jackson Pollock. I lay this primarily at the feet of Miles Davis who set the terms of this policy and followed it obsessively for his whole career. It thereafter became orthodoxy that every jazz musician should explore and experiment. But should they? I get infinitely more pleasure listening to Dexter Gordon's melodic virtuosity than Albert Ayler or Bitches Brew which I find unlistenable. I do enjoy modern composition - Birtwistle, Cage, Boulez, Carter et al, - so I'm no traditionalist in that sense, but even they all start sounding the same eventually, for they all draw from the same well.
I've been learning the trumpet for three years and I really love it. I play every day for two or three hours. I have absolutely nothing to say but I love playing along with my favourite players and I've transcribed well over a hundred tunes. I hope that one day I may find my own "voice", but there's no sign of that happening yet!
The physical aspects of playing the trumpet have been sorted out quite a bit in recent decades. The number of guys playing casual double C’s is frankly disgusting. Especially someone like me who was sweating it out 40 years ago. But all of that advanced education is leading everyone toward the same sound and the same concept. Great. Learn all that technical stuff and physical stuff. Find music that moves your soul. And try and get a clue about swing. I didn’t see the word word swing anywhere in the comments here. That is truly worrisome. It’s gotten so bad in recent years, I’m afraid it’s truly being forgot. The thing that the Basie band head in spades. And the Woody Herman band. And the Buddy Rich band. And the Harry James band. And even the Maynard Ferguson band. Oh yeah, those Tonight Show band albums from the 80s are great. Swing is really a very natural thing. Your heart does it your whole life. But playing it well takes Time and listening and practice and in the end, might help you find something your contemporaries don’t have.
And steal licks from other instruments. 😁
Spot on! Social Media has quite frankly destroyed everything of value in the present moment in time... Social Media has not saved anything...it has destroyed everything. Of course streaming came first.
Brilliant summing up , subscribed . cheer's
As a person who sometimes tires of best-of lists, this type of monologue is the real reason I return. Even if I disagree (not about this topic), you always provide something thought provoking. It's fun.
I'm not a musician but yes a music lover, especially of guitar players. When very young I would focus on the Best of lists, who is the G.O.A.T. etc. Nowadays I avoid such lists like trying to avoid Covid. On rare occasion I will check out a list or on my way to such a list I will get it together and stop myself.
Well said. I think what you describe is applicable to nearly all art forms. Art stops evolving and becomes static as soon as you try to define it: _"This is how you should..."_
Or when it's reduced to technique, with quantifiable standards that decide "This student is good."
If people had always had the "this is what jazz is" attitude, jazz today would only be Dixieland.
The new breeds are trying to identify with a language that they are not willing to speak...rather than get the basics they are already trying to create their own language... How creative and original can you get after you learned french?
100% true. Too much school learning. Not enough time out in the world, especially in nature. We're getting the kind of art that comes out of a sedentary and non-wild culture.
Absolutely.
Thank you for this thought-provoking subject. Really enjoyed watching this.
Great comments.
Great video. I could not agree more. As a 20 something year old guitar player in the 90's, I had the opportunity to study with Saxophonist Anthony Braxton for a short time. Coming from rock, I could appreciate his rebellious "free" concepts and promptly wanted to enroll in a university Jazz program. I auditioned, was rejected, practiced an entire summer, re auditioned and then was accepted. I was heavy into Coltrane and Wayne Shorter. I remember the the feeling as if it was yesterday. I was asked who I wanted to transcribe for an assignment and I said Eric Dolphy and I was told no. Jazz studies in a university setting is designed to teach everyone the same playing vocabulary and I hated it. I didn't want to sound like everyone else. The guitar professor was a Pat Martino disciple and had us learn his approach, but I felt and still do today, one can come across sounding robotic using only his methods. Suffice to say, after 2 years, I left the Jazz studies department and switched majors. Individualism and fostering a unique voice was not emphasized but rather stifled in my university jazz experience.
Jazz isn't supposed to be done academically.
That describes "higher education" in general.
Universities have become indoctrination centers
In defense of that university, Pat Martino's technique is comprehensive and enables a player to play pretty much anything in jazz. I have no problem with their program because they are focusing more on technique rather than style. In other words, the university is saying become technically proficient FIRST before becoming individualistic. There are too many individualistic players with subpar technique that limits their range of expression.
@@ljp711 no it's a feeling from the soul?
Andy you speak the soul of Jazz. This is the difference between muzak and art, fast food and fine cuisine, a lecture and religion . P.S. nicely un-cut video, few people can do this kind of stream of consciousness discourse so successfully.
Exactly! You hit the mail on the head when you said that the influence on jazz is always outside of jazz. In fact the influences that move all art forms forward is always outside of the form.
You try and tell the rock and metal fans this but they are among the most resistant to having their metal bands mocked for derivativity.
Why do people think art only moves in a forward direction?
Without form you are floating in endless space... Nothingness. All music comes from form. I have seen someone blow a saxophone into a bass drum in an attempt to challenge this reality and it was really quite embarrassing.
@@JHCdrums But that form could be created from outside aka space.
@@ColtraneTaylor You mean like, God? Space is form...
I haven’t watched the video yet. I just want to say that diverse jazz exists. Last autumn I went to three out of five days of the Belgrade Jazz Festival and saw 8-10 acts. Each performer was completely unique and distinct from each other. There was an avant-garde trio, a solo virtuoso pianist with a retrospective of Polish jazz, a Zeuhl/prog-rock-inspired orchestra (guys, listen to Rituels by ONJ, it’s amazing), a jazzy-jazz Immanuel Wilkins quartet, a dancey jazz quartet, Nubya Garcia, a Serbian big band with Omar Sosa and much more which I didn’t get a chance to see (Avishai Cohen the trumpeter, for example). I’m not familiar with the modern jazz landscape and its trends, but what I saw was incredibly diverse.
Ok, time to watch the video
Barry Harris thinks of jazz/Beebop as the continuation of classical music and I whole heartedly agree!!! It can even inspire interpretive creativity and instinct when you return to practicing Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin … they were all improvisers and jazz extended that lineage from Romantic to baroque, it’s actually so amazing when you look at the context of it tracing it back over centuries!!!
The actual jazz musicians did not think so. They spent the 50s and sixties trying to break out the restrictions of bebop
@@AndyEdwardsDrummer I, for one, DO think so, Andy. More significantly, for you to say that "the" - "actual" - jazz musicians - "did not think so", is quite presumptuous on many levels, and the presumptions behind that assertion belie several ignorances and/or prejudices which, in your case, surprise me.
Several influential jazz musicians, including Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Bill Evans, Gunther Schuller, and so many more have asserted indirect or direct connections to, or relevant parallels with, the 'classical' / Western art music tradition. Moreover, the comment you are refuting is paraphrasing an 'actual' - 'jazz musician' - Barry Harris - a world recognised, shameless master of bebop and mainstream jazz language, who quite evidently is an example of somebody who DID 'think so', when it came to a lineal connection between classical and jazz traditions. No doubt, he does not represent, nor speak for all other jazz musicians, whether bebop, pre-bop, or post-bop on this matter, or regarding all the motivations behind creative 'defection' from orthodoxies, but likewise, nor do, or can you, Andy. Yet, in this case, you unfortunately attempted to.
I realise that, in making your point, you have attempted to restrict this phenomenon of 'not thinking so' to those breaking away from bebop orthodoxy. However, to begin with, rachelstarriti481 said "jazz/Beebop [sic]", thus not wholely specifying 'bebop', but also 'jazz' in general [ - to what extent this reflects Harris' statements, I shall get to at the end of this reply]. Regardless, Harris did not display a burning need to "break out the restrictions of bebop", instead adhering to (his version of) its orthodoxy for his lifetime.
Secondly, you are, by default, asserting a direct association between bebop and classical music by asserting that those who "did not think so" (regarding "jazz/Bebop as the continuation of classical music") were trying to "break out the restrictions of bebop", because you are inevitably associating bebop with cloistering orthodoxy, which in turn is associated with cliches foisted on the classical tradition, regarding 'restrictions'. I don't have space to begin breaking down the numerous issues that all these presumptions raise, let alone the time, but I maintain that you have simply contradicted yourself by (probably accidentally) equating bebop orthodoxy with tenets and typicalities of classical music, which by your judgement, needed to be 'broken from'. If you can't see that blatant contradiction, then best you reread your reply (and the comment you're replying to) until you can.
Next, here's the facts about 'breaking out' of 'restrictions' :
(1) ALL music has RESTRICTIONS. They define the components of 'language' and 'style' in each and every development of organised sound. [ - Even so-called 'free' improvisation has the restriction of : "Thou shalt studiously avoid any and all restrictions" [ or alternately, "Thou shalt not give one shit about any idea whatsoever", or, "Thou shalt not aim for connections nor meaning, but shalt hopefully stumble upon them despite, or because of following this precept" ; similar restrictions apply to Cagean 'indeterminacy' ] ;
(2) EVERY music and its associated 'restrictions' have been 'broken out of' in order to arrive at NEW / OTHER musical means of construction and presentation and styles of outcome ;
(3) BEBOP 'broke out' of 'swing' and its dependence upon written arrangement and rehearsal, and did so by incorporating elements of music 'breaking out of', but inevitably associated WITH the CLASSICAL tradition. This is well documented, with bebop musicians such as Parker citing influences like Stravinsky and Schoenberg - in fact, Parker even infamously asserted that bop was NOT part of the jazz tradition [ See Downbeat, 09/09/1949, article by M.Levin & J.S. Wilson ] ;
(4) Alongside, but differing from bebop was Thelonius Monk, and the Lennie Tristano 'school', both tributaries having innovative elements comparable to, even deriving from aspects of contemporary developments in 'classical' composition ;
(5) When bebop was 'broken away from', it was also with a very healthy dose of 'modern' and 'post-modern' art music associated with, or deriving from the 'CLASSICAL' 'TRADITION', especially outside of 'hardbop' [ - See Bill Evans, George Russel, Gunther Schuller, Ornette Coleman ] ;
(6) It is abundantly clear that the restless push to 'break out' of traditional restrictions was common to, and SIMULTANEOUSLY acted upon, in both, 'classical' AND 'jazz' traditions, and the timeline of significant developments in each PROVES this assertion - in other words 'breaking out' is NOT exclusive to EITHER ;
Now, I could go on, and would love to sit down and have this out with you, (a) to clear you up a bit more, (b) to have a great yarn with a chap whose work I respect, and whose opinions I have tended to agree with since tuning in to your videos [ - In fact, this one was my intro to you, and I dig it deeply man].
However, having gone all 'dissertationy' already, I think that it's pertinent to leave you with Barry Harris' own words, which are evidently the ones being paraphrased by rachelstarriti481 (whose comment I feel you needlessly, thoughtlessly, inaccurately, and contradictorily refuted), which may or may not have you rethinking anything, but which will nonetheless speak from the 'horses' mouth', and shed light on what was actually being talked about there. All the best for now Andy - hope you can understand my academic motives for my detailed (but not nearly enough!) refutation of your brief, glib refutation of the following :
[ N.B. - for contextual purposes, read "composition" for "improvisation" ]
" ... see from my dedication to Bird and Bud and Sonny Stitt and Coleman Hawkins, Prez, my associations with all these people, I learned something else, too. Which is probably one of the most important things I should be saying now, is that um, we are not only jazz musicians. We are the continuation of improvisation that has been going on for years - centuries. We are the continuation of classical theory, classical improvisation. We are classical musicians.
See, I always said Chopin and them, Bach, Beethoven, Lizst, Skryabin, all of them. Schubert, Schuman, all of them. Where would they be - today if they were alive, where would they be? Where would they be playing? They’d be playing at the corner bar, just like me, I’m convinced of that. See, concert halls play dead people’s music. If they aren’t dead, they aren’t going to get played in these concert halls. And now, these concert halls don’t even commission anyone, like they should. They’re supposed to commission somebody to write a piece for the orchestra. They don’t do that. They wouldn’t think, probably, of commissioning a jazz musician to write a piece for them, which is what they should do, ‘cause we’re the closest thing to real improvisation. Um, we are the continuation of improvisation. I didn’t realize this until a theorist over in Holland told me. His name was Badweyn. He said, “when improvisation stopped in Europe, it started in the USA.” ‘Cause improvisation is supposed to go on forever, so that’s why - that’s why jazz started, improvisation. So, that’s the music."
[ SOURCE :
Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program NEA Jazz Master interview
Interviewee : Barry Harris
Interviewer : Aaron Graves
Date : August 20th, 2010
Repository : Archives Center, National Museum of American History ]
@Starritt_Piano - Amen, bro. Amen.
And I’m glad the Barry Harris quote is there. The “problem” with the most modern of musics is it is more about “how do we make the most money” rather than “how do we advance the art in such a way that money can be made and recognition can be achieved without compromise”?
@@jasonnstegall Nobody goes into jazz to become rich. That's why there is a charity to support and house them in their dotage.
Julian Lage has a unique sound. It's refreshing because, as you said, everyone seems to sound like Metheny or Holdsworth or Scofield
Yeah I dunno,if you listen to American folk music and jazz his playing is not that revolutionary
@@MaxIsBackInTown to be fair, I said unique, not revolutionary. I also think Scofield is unique. But Metheny is revolutionary!
Metheny's playing sounds rooted in the bebop tradition. And I hear the influence of Abercrombie, and Towner on his playing. Now Holdsworth, he was truly unique and revolutionary. Nobody sounded like that before he came along.
@@reidwhitton6248yes...Holdsworth has a very distinct sound ...very different from both Metheney and Schofield....who both have their own unique sounds in their own right
Everybody seems to sound like Holdsworth? I wish..... And how on earth could we not be happy with that, if it were the case?
This isn’t a problem in just Jazz. Rock hasn’t changed in decades and pop hasn’t either. Every genre is going through this it seems.
Man, the rock thing really bums me out. It's probably worse than it is with jazz.
@@haysfordays it’s not
@@nochannelmusician769 Oh it very much is. Rock and metal have fallen very hard and have became serious victims of AI and production homogeneity.
I think rock faces a different problem which is much worse, I feel like Jazz at least is still alive while rock is dead, the issue with rock is that rock fans rarely support local bands and always like to say "Old rock was better" and they exclusively go to watch old bands or cover/tributes so new rock bands that could be great end up giving up after noticing how hard is to have an audience for original music.
On the other hand I see jazz fans being invested in new musicians, supporting the local ones and trying to discover original artists.
@@jorgegallego9672 there is a reason for that. Jazz has a different type of fan base than rock does. Most jazz fans have more in common with classical music fans than rock fans. The jazz fan typically, while they may not be a musician themselves, have a musical education or knowledge of some sort and enjoy the music for the music. Most rock fans have more an emotional relationship with rock music. Rock was built on being hip, edgy, showy and being the latest thing. Most of what it was built on wasn’t actually the music, but the hype that surrounds it. Honestly, it was obnoxious music sold and marketed to kids in their emotionally crazed teenaged years. There is a reason why older people have a hard time listening to what they did as a kid and because they realize it was psychotic crap the entire time. Rock is dead. It will never come back. It was replaced with rap music in 94 when Kurt cobain ceremoniously blew the head off of it. Jazz will never regain its popularity, but since there is actually substance musically to jazz music, the academics and musically knowledgeable will keep it alive for a while longer, by doing exactly what you said. Those academics are always looking for and to support young musicians. While pop/rock fans grow up, move on, or just listen to what was cool when they were young. Turns out the old heads in the 50’s were right. Rock was a trend for kids. 🍻
Finally someone has put into words what I myself have silently been feeling. Thank you sir!
Hello from Kansas City, Missouri Andy. Great Video. Very thought provoking. One of the best ways to develop an Original Style is to have a Broad Frame of Reference, meaning Influences from many different Instruments and Genres. When ever this subject comes up I'm reminded of the wise words of Trumpet/Flugelhorn player and Educator Clark Terry. First you must Imitate. Then you can Emulate. Then you can Innovate. Lets also remember what Miles Davis said."It can take a long time to sound like yourself." Thanks.
VERY well presented and MUCH needed for ALL to hear !! a5 STAR JPB !!
The answer is: Jazz Education in schools and universities. The rise of formal jazz education has resulted in the death of originality (I.e., genius) in service to the goal of churning out factory-issue pros. NOW, it’s all soulless technicians, all or most of whom have most--if not ALL--the original important jazz giants “out-chopped”--BUT SO WHAT?! Classical you have to study in school. Jazz-and all other “popular musics”-one learns in the street, as it were. Jazz programs are why Jazz hasn’t mattered since 1965.
correct answer here
Most Jazz schools (at least here in Germany) put it on their curriculum and make it a key part of their education to help the students develop their own voice. If I'm listening to my fellow students at music school they all sound different.
And of course we are told that we should transcribe some of the old musicians that are influential to us but please name one artform where that isn't the case. My professor always tells me "if you don't know the rules you can't break them". And so we learn the "rules" but are still being encouraged to break out of them when the time is right. Jazz for a long time hasn't been a music that you learn on the streets that is pure fetishization and nostalgia for some imaginary "good old days" where we don't realise how bad they actually were. I bet there were dozens of old jazz musicians who would have wished to be able to learn music in a safe environment from professionals that they admire. We are given this chance and I at least am thankful for that. I get to hang out with like-minded people, learn from great players that I admire greatly and I am inspired to find my own voice. You don't have to be poor, a drug-addict or spend life "on the streets" to learn this music (or any music)
This whole video was jazz. I think I was five minutes in when I realized that there aren't going to be cuts. It's just a very insightful guy with a live mic and a rolling camera, and what comes out is great. I think. What you say sounds really plausible. In metal we also had a virtuosity movement, when a million bedroom players were trying to play sweeps as fast as Yngwie Malmsteen. But metal didn't die to this, because though fans appreciated the virtuosity, they always rewarded great albums. Yngwie didn't make those. Bathory did. Metal fans always tend to push bands to go beyond the status quo, and often that leads to complete rubbish. But sometimes it works, and it enriches the whole genre. The fact that there are college jazz programs says a lot. They day colleges see fit to open metal programs, we'll know it's over.
There are institutions that include metal in their curricula, possibly even colleges with entire metal programs around Northern Europe.
Excellent summary..!!! It sounded like a Baptist sermon here with you as the preacher and me as the congregation shouting "Amen" , "Right On" and "Exactly" after every statement you made. The streams of consciousness you have are awesome but this was like you pulled my thoughts as well and explained them on the fly better than I can. The bits about drummers and piano players of course hit home especially. In this part of the world (Toronto) in the 80's and 90's there were a dozen pianists who emulated Oscar Peterson- all excellent but their careers plateaued over the years as they didn't have their own voice- now having OP's bag in your skill set is impressive but in the end you have to bring something of your own to the table...Brilliant .
I worked as a jazz musician in Toronto in the 80s and 90s. I don’t recall , except for one talented individual, any Oscar Peterson wannabes. Their careers probably plateaued because there are limits to what kind of career you can have as a Canadian jazz musician, not because of a lack of individuality.
There was a time when you lived Jazz….now you are just taught it! Back then you had an individual voice and as the listener you could tell who was playing by the sound! Great vid & well done!
I really enjoyed this video Andy! Some really good points!!
My grandfather (who played in the Boston Symphony/Opera) was my first piano teacher. When I was about 7, I wrote my first song (basically variations on the C major scale). I expected him to praise me for my attempt. However, all he had to say was, "Arnie, no matter what you write, it already has been done before." Ironically, this comment spurred me on to try to prove him wrong.
After years of playing piano and trombone, along with writing quite a bit of music, I have come to both agree and disagree with my grandfather. In so many ways, all "new" music is in some way or another a kind of rehash of the past. And as you allude to, just because you have a new sound or instrument as the focus, that does not really effectively change the music supporting that new sound or instrument. I have always been attracted to synths because I wanted to create new sounds that nobody used before.
As with most serious musicians (I best be careful with this), I started out playing classical and jazz music. And I would agree with you, that both genres in general have become kind of like museum pieces, and the "standards" for how it is supposed to be written and performed are set in stone. I recall way back in the 80's wanting to improve my improvisation chops on trombone. But the general advice I kept getting, was to memorize riffs by famous trombonists, and learn to play them in every key. I was immediately turned off by that idea, and backed off in putting in any extra time to try to improve those chops.
And more recently, I was asked to play in a rather good pro-level group doing what the leader (a sax player) called, "straight-ahead jazz." The final straw for me playing in that group, was when a fellow trombonist played a rather good "improv" solo, but I knew enough to know he was simply regurgitating a bunch of riffs Charlie Parker played. He got praised by the leader, while my improvs (which were more original) got little or not acclaim.
This experience with jazz was similar to my experience through the years playing chess (surprised?). By the time I entered high school, I played so much chess, that I could probably have entered formal competition. In my junior year, on a whim, I went to the Chess Club during lunch one day, and played against the president of the club (rumors spread before that that I was a very good player). One thing similar to much jazz today, is that all very good chess players are pressured to memorize every famous chess game of the past, and to incorporate moves from those games into their own. By the time I got into high school, I was totally bored with memorizing past games, and tried to go in a more "chaotic" direction. In my game with the chess club president, our first 3 or so moves each followed standard opening moves. However, I then quickly went "off the grid," and intentionally did moves that were unexpected. What I did was, I forced the other player to abandon every set of moves he was trying to do from his training, and also go "off grid." I also traded pieces as often as I could to whittle down quickly to end game moves. I know that I had a smirk on my face and showed lots of confidence, as my opponent was sweating bullets the entire time, while EVERY person in the club was not playing chess, but solely watching our game. Even though I THINK he was a better conventional player, I was better playing off grid, Even though at the end, he had a slight advantage. But because I messed with his head by my strategy, he messed up, and could not win, but got into a stalemate (tie) with me.
My "off the grid" technique would never work if I played a chess software program. Much of my technique was PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE, or what you might call "Poker" bluff strategy.
I think the big lesson I am trying to convey seems to fit with your thoughts on jazz. Conventional jazz music is nice for what it is, which is effectively museum pieces, but true creativity needs to PUSH BOUNDARIES, and in effect, go "off grid" in a similar way my chess playing eventually went. Music is not just an objective/technical experience, but an emotional/psychological, and maybe even a spiritual experience.
LOL, sorry about the verbosity, but your video kind of inspired it, so I blame you and society for it.... 🙂
your grandfather's comment strikes me as discouraging. and a shame that the charlie parker guy sounded better. and also, since you mentioned chess, you might be interested in how ding took nepo out of his prep many times in this year's world championship :)
@@littlebumgorf Well, I wouldn't say the Charlie Parker guy sounded better, but he was much more appreciated by the leader of the group (and the other saxes) than those of us trying to be a little more original in our adlibbing. I think my grandpa was in effect discouraging, but I think his intent was to keep me within his own sense of reality. Fortunately, I took his discouragement as a CHALLENGE to prove him wrong. I will need to check out more about this ding vs. nepo chess championship games.
Great comment and metaphor with a chess game.
I'm a well established self taught harmonica teacher, singer and guitarist. The one thing about my style is I never wanted to be like any other musician, I just wanted to make my own music. It's been a long haul for me but after several decades I've finally achieved that goal. From here on in it's only going to get better.
that sounds great! I'd love to hear your songs.
@@smideralessandro9124 thanks. Look up the channel Lord Stompy. Two of my best originals on it are "ouzo the clown" and "psychoward baby". Psychoward baby is my harmonica student playing. My albums are on Bandcamp. Cheers
as a Gen Z jazz player i had this exact conversation topic with my girlfriend the other week. i’m strongly against the idea of “all music that’s old is always superior to new” but it’s caused some problems, the attention span reduction and the culture that rewards being flashy, the “clout” era. i think it’s way easier to grab attention with some fast or technical playing than it is to hold attention with someone slowing down and focusing on and listening to how the rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic choices create a collage of emotion. a lot of people say they won’t even connect to music without lyrics. but when i sit someone down and have them just close their eyes and listen to blue in green, they connect. it’s just a rarer activity in this day and age i guess. giving something your undivided attention, unless it’s fast, snappy with how it holds you.
i’m someone who listens to the same few albums front to back, for months or years. not to absorb the music per se, but to see how the music was used to express the individual personality of the artist behind it. but it’s much easier to take a flashy technique than it is to admire and break down and resynthesize the bold nature of being oneself in an uncompromising way. these days you don’t have to sit with yourself and understand who you are if you don’t want to. you can just nearly effortlessly, mindlessly, fill your time and your head with anything and everything to gain temporary placation, but in sacrifice of really understanding WHY we consume what we consume and why we actually like it. it’s so important to be intentional and understanding with what drives us.
people in my age group do so many things and post online to feel good when they get approval from others who are equally as ignorant of their authentic self. it’s an unhealthy cycle. but i beg the generational finger pointers and critics to understand humanity is not a monolith, and that while it may be a larger group of people swept up by these times, there are still some of us who value the true approval of our authentic selves over the shallow approval of the inauthentic, or disconnected masses.
Plus there’s so much music and the accessibility is so flippant that it’s taken for granted, in having so many choices there you end up not really taking the effort to try to deeply connect with an artist and an album. consumer habits are way different than before.
the average listener is often going to be impressed by fast playing. those that want to be “in“ on it and will see something kind of flashy and not necessarily understand or connect to why it’s cool. but they’ll see that a lot of other people like it so they will just act like they do too. The social effect of “well everybody else likes it so I guess” is very real.
as well, from the creator perspective, since Jazz is no longer pop it’s almost become a bit of a counterculture thing where If the music is not likely to be appreciated by a proportionally large crowd of people, jazz musicians want to gain affirmation to feel superior in another way so they focus on making music with this heady technical refinement as the goal. instead of the technical refinement being a part of the path to get to the goal of emotional expression.
he kinda covered it in the videos but imo, playing a wild series of scale patterns or pulling for wild chord substitutions or extensions is only cool if you’re doing it because it’s given emotion ideally fits the situation in the music. fabricating the situation just to show off a crazy chord just because knowing the technique is cool is like using a new fancy big word you learned in every circumstance even it’s not ideal or practical. only a small in group is gonna appreciate that. anyone can feel when that new harmony comes in at just the right moment with just the right feeling if they’re listening.
pardon the long story, but it was validating to hear someone who has your generational experience mirror the attitude i was sharing so recently. the more these ideas are shared the more this common human spirit will be nourished and emerge in unique ways to continue to exude the “stand alone complex” we chase after, seeing that same reason why we love Jazz show up from anywhere, in anyone.
we gotta all equally hear what’s working and not working. Seeing the new gen like or play jazz for or in the “wrong” ways like discussed in this video is a reason to cry out because that ability to be bold and confident and go through the arduous process to have your own voice is a long road but is inspiring to not only oneself but those that witness it within you. If so many of y’all say “we’ve seen this all before” then there’s clearly credence and it inspires me to take grand risks and push myself in how I can get a truer understanding of myself and what I want to see, why I don’t like some things of what I’m seeing, and how to translate those feelings into music.
There truly is something deeper and more beautiful that this genre allows and I believe I’m gaining more of a developed conception of that and what to look for.
i guess my point is generationally lots of external things change and those have influence on people and trends but they don’t entirely change them. i don’t think im some special, different person for loving jazz as an expression of an individuals spirit. there will always be people like us, in every generation.
thanks for the great vid. hope someone can understand where i’m coming from :) please, if you have some advice you feel you need to share to a young person who wants to listen, i would be grateful to hear from those who are experienced, considerate and deeply connection to their passions, one being this art. Please recommend me an album!!
Absolutely brilliant you are one of the few people that seems to actually know what he’s talking about.
Thank you Andy! This is the best commentary on jazz and music today I’ve heard for a long time. At the same time it is a great advice for anyone who wants to become a musician or an artist. This is the way we should learn jazz, music, art and it reflects not only the music world but our life in general these days. There is too much of everything available and we should reduce ourselves to one thing and focus on one subject, our inner voice.
Thank-you for your thoughts. I am trying to develop my playing and I believe I have found my voice (Trumpet). Our trio plays every week for over 3 years. I attempt to improv as uniquely each night. Lots of people tell me to to make longer runs and increase speed and range, but I believe my true voice is lyrical lines and thoughtful spaces in between. Love my instrument and really starting to find security and grace in my playing (not tooting my own 'horn') Pun intended. Thanks again.
".....I believe my true voice is lyrical lines and thoughtful spaces in between....."
Now what you've got to do is start turning your back on the audience, scowl constantly, and develop a vocabulary consisting entirely of one word: "m - - - - - f - - - - - ". Joking aside, there's certainly a history of that - Miles in particular, of course - but your note choice will not be his, or anyone else's. And that's the real point. Having your own note choice and rhythm.
I don’t know much about Jazz - but this is so true for the musical genres that move me. I believe that Internet / RUclips etc. have accelerated this trend way beyond recordings. What I believe has happened is that there has been a move towards democratization- so that more folks are able to possess the tools to “create music”. The problem is that that creative spark - the impulse to speak with one’s own voice, has lessened. People end up slavishly copying whatever is in vogue.
Very well said! So succinct!
I found your insight fascinating and completely true. In fact, you touched on something midway through your video that I wanted to highlight. This phenomenon is broader than the jazz genre. It has slowly permeated others like rock, country, and pop music. When you spoke of legacy artists in jazz, it made me think of all the unique rock bands from my youth. They all had their own sound. Yes, Zeppelin, Beatles, Skynyrd, Pink Floyd, Queen, Boston, Doors..... I could go in forever. It is why many of us from the older generation are tuning out new artists. It's so regurgitated it becomes boring to listen to.
holy shit, thank you so much for sitting down and spending the time sharing your take on this. you connected so many dots that all lead to that point that is true far beyond jazz: that self-expression has become culturally devalued. brilliant, thank you for this. instant sub!
You are so spot on. This is what I’ve said to people for years and years. I’m old enough to have heard the change in jazz from the 60’s to present and through recordings, the music from the 40’s through the 60’s. It’s about the individuality of the musicians, their approach to the music, that creates jazz. That has been lost somewhere. Right on for talking about this.
As a young jazz musician, it feels like there is so much tradition and ideology that you "must" learn. There is no energy and life today. All the musicians are old. All the cool stuff seems to be happening in other genres. Of course, there are a few young musicians who have a distinct sound and I admire them a lot. I think more of my generation would like jazz if they didn't perceive it as some stuffy, academic tradition as it has become in many ways. Gen Z is extremely creative and we have so many resources at our disposal. We could make amazing music.
🎉
I agree that the highly academic nature of jazz today is off-putting. But most of this heavy academic emphasis is still fairly recent. Don't blame us oldies! When I was young there was only one tertiary level jazz centre in the entire UK. Now we have Berklee franchises everywhere, even here in Spain. And every time some timid beginner jazz pianist asks for tips from the online community, several pianists will shout, "scales, scales, scales!" If the people shouting this are leathery old boppers, then you have a point, but I kind of think it's younger musicians.
When I turned pro on jazz trumpet, I had taught myself jazz, with minimal input from others. Then I went to a private jazz piano teacher for 18 months. Admittedly, it got me started on that difficult jazz instrument, but 90% of what I now know and can do on piano is from listening and brainstorming. My point is that some tuition helps, but we shouldn't be overly dependent on it. What is the biggest benefit of formalised jazz education? Networking! But there is a risk of becoming a replicant.
@@Zoco101 I agree. I learned a lot from taking Jazz Band (on trumpet) in highschool, but we only ever played swing tunes, so my bebop-influenced solos were unappreciated by the judges at contests. I just don't (and didn't) dig swing, but I had no choice but to play it. I'm a self-taught keys player mainly, and most of my ability is from listening and diligent practice. The internet is an amazing resource and that is why young musicians are so talented these days. You can learn almost anything if you have the drive to do so, and an internet connection.
Classical and now jazz are the the main genres which are largely academic, and it shows. People don't go to college to take classes in rock, metal, hip-hop, pop, etc. (Except maybe the production aspect). These are genres that are still "cool" to the general public. Classical of course has had contemporary movements to move the genre forward beyond the centuries-old standards, and I hope jazz will have a movement like that as well.
I think Gen Z would love jazz if most of us didn't perceive it as just some old, stuffy academic subject or unlistenable chaos. There is clearly a strong desire for fluid, unstructured music, and jazz could fill that perfectly. There has been a rise in electronic music (speedcore, D&B, jungle beat, etc.) that is like jazz in its freedom and lack of structure, but doesn't sound like what the average listener would perceive as "jazz." Many even use very "jazzy" chords and rhythms. This gets me to thinking that jazz artists could look to a slightly more electronic sound to renew interest in the genre. Many jazz standards would sound super cool and modern if you added a few synths and raised the tempo.
These are just my thoughts though.
@@lars1588 You may be right about the electronic possibilities, though that's not for me. I've rediscovered early New Orleans jazz (which I consider to be a kind of folk music) and this is still played by a lot of musicians, though the more commercial offshoot (Dixieland jazz) is more prevalent. Logically, there are overlaps and the two styles can be hard to distinguish. Together they make up what is loosely called Traditional jazz. I'm saying that it's still a huge sub culture, even if it is diminishing.
With the most interesting and artistic music, some people will always preserve it, and I want to be one of those persons. The concept of rip-roaring, crowd-pleasing Dixieland jazz will probably fade away as the real commercial opportunities disappear and the name Dixieland itself slips further into the un-PC dustbin, due to recent allegations that it alludes to a culture patronised by white supremacists. Notably very, very few black jazz musicians aspire or admit to playing "Dixieland jazz".
King Oliver used the name Dixie Syncopators for one of his bands, and it's the only concession I'm aware of. Confusingly, Louis Armstrong is credited with establishing the Dixieland line-up and system of individual solos, but I don't think he ever used the word. He wasn't fond of labels anyway, and when you're a star, there's no need to use them.
The rest of us may need labels so we can sell our music (expediently) to bookers, but like I said elsewhere, the pop culture concept of covers and tribute bands is seeping into jazz. So at a commercial level, it may already be more important to say "we play Dizzy Gillespie music", than to say "we play bebop jazz", or say "I play/sing Diana Krall music", more than say I play/sing swing standards and bossanovas". It's a shame. I regard a system of stylistic labels as less awful than dividing ourselves into tribute bands and little else.
@@Zoco101 I understand what you mean. I think the oldest jazz music should also be explored. I have great respect and appreciation for that music, despite not enjoying it personally. The history is rich and intertwined with greater events that still affect us today.
Love it. You point vague unease I've had for a long time that I'd never articulated - why I don't care for music that I theoretically should like and why so many virtuosos leave me cold.
I listened to a lot of fusion during the lockdown and loved the 70s stuff. I have found modern stuff I enjoy and I feel has some relevance to my life. The London jazz scene with Shabaka Hutchings , Moses Boyd, Nubiya Garcia etc is really good. Love The Comet is Coming , Ill Considered, Melt Yourself Down and all those fusion to other popular forms. Norwegian artists like Hedvig Mollestadt , Ola Kvernberg, Stale Sorlokken, groups like Krokofant, Elephant 9 Jagga Jazzist Bushman’s Revenge are wonderful too. I think sometimes I am trading the greats for something that sounds cool to my 2020’s ears. But I love both. I suppose the modern stuff is considerably less well known. But the London scene gets some recognition on the BBC
The London jazz scene is good.
@@TeeceeMoody except very few places to go. Was there in February and only found Oliver’s (Greenwich) along with the standard Ronnie’s and Pizza Express. 609 had almost nothing (and tricky to get to).
This is really eye opening as a country/surf musician who's been trying to break into jazz for 10 years.
I've always seen it as this monolithic thing full of strict enforcers of unspoken specific theory.
I always struggled with exploring the theory and it felt like there were unspoken rules that everyone knew. It definitely helps contextualize jazz in the history of music and the modern era.
This is such a articulate and knowledgeable take on this question man. Big props.
Not sure where it comes from but reminds me of a saying: we seek not to walk in the footsteps of the masters but to emulate their spirit.
Something to that effect anyway 😊
Just a great history lesson, thanks for placing the Trad phenomenon in context during the flow, fascinating stuff.
What's interesting is a lot of the progressive drummers in the 70's started in that trad era and received their rudimentary training from it.
Andy, thank you. You've thoroughly explained and articulated what I've felt for years.
yes he has done a great job.
Being a jazz novice, this was a great history lesson. Thanks.
Your hypothesis is much appreciated. Also all the comments are so much explaining the state of this music. It is inspiring me to play something new, knowing I am not alone lost in this screwed up world.
Probably the best video on the philosophy of art and innovation in general (not just jazz) I've seen in recent years.
Love your jams Andy. Never stop!
Brilliant! Thank you! I also wanted to add that jazz musicians from the 1940s - 60s in the USA were also responding in part as a result of the cultural, racial & in some cases, political constructs/constraints of their day through the inventiveness & freedom of their instruments, their compositions. Juxtapose this with much of jazz today and it seems as though it’s merely a self-contained echo of what it once was.
You took the words right out of my mouth and added a few! I remember in high school hitchhiking 40 miles to buy Bitches Brew after seeing the Leonard Feather comments in the Rolling Stone. Took it home and listened every night for weeks. Today I would probably listen for a while , then change to something else as it has no value because I already own every record for free on spotify and youtube.
so much vindication for me in what is being said here. thank you. glad i took the road i took to get here.
Thank you for that excellent analysis…I couldn’t of said it better.
As much as I enjoy a good Top 'X' list, these social and cultural discussions of the music forms we here tend to celebrate are far more interesting. You always seem to have thought provoking things to share. Good on ya, mate.
The gigging infrastructure, the test bed of ideas and forming style has been on its ar5e for the last 20 years. Pubs and venues have Sky Sports where there was once live music. As a young jazz musician coming up in the 90s early 2000s and presenting my own compositions I found that the old guys who came out and supported the 'jazz' scene wanted standard's and bebop and they had to be kept happy. We were also competing with DJs, techno, hip hop, house and briefly there was a fusion but it was shortlived. Then came the Internet and as you say the explosion of 'jazz degrees' creating an orthodoxy.
Jazzy Drum and Bass wasn't so bad - hardly anyone knows that happened too, which is kind of funny
Nu jazz is still going on in some places in Europe
Great video, I agree with what you're saying. I think the same thing happened in 'classical' music in the 19th century after Beethoven. That is around the time big music conservatories started opening up and began teaching how classical music should be performed. When this happened improvisation in classical music decreased, and there has been (in my view) an over emphasis on technical perfection and flawless performance in music. Since that time there has still been many great new composers and musicians, but the classical music culture to this day in my view is still kind of ossified and stifling in some respects. But great creative minds tend to come around and loosen shackles and point towards new exciting directions anyway. "Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art." - Debussy
I just came back from Beethoven museum in Vienna. Apparently Beethoven as a teacher valued expression over technical proficiency. Such a cool guy.
In the old days, if you wanted to learn a lick or solo, you had to sit down with a record or cassette and painstakingly figure it out. Invariably (I'm a guitarist) you didn't often transcribe something 100%. Over time, those little mistakes became your way of playing stuff - over time your "mistakes" became a major element of your own style.
Now any song (and exactly how to play it) is available to learn online. Hence no one develops their own style of playing.
man, SPOT ON!! thanks for sharing your thoughts ---- eloquently and elegantly put. the loss/diminishment of "self expression" in general is really a large topic for reflection....and this is one of the portals ..... balancing skill for its own sake with skill for expression/communication sake. lots to reflect on ......
Having gone to one of those notable schools with the unwritten motto, "Higher, Faster, Louder" I have to say you've nailed it. However, it was not the teachers who drove that. We students drove each other that way. We played what we thought are peers wanted to hear. Peer pressure was the strongest driver and the players with the most "chops" ruled the playground. Players would string together lines they transcribed like taking great poetry and cutting up each line and throwing it on the floor to read it out of order - no where near the beauty or meaning. More posturing to impress than playing anything meaningful. Jazz and blues are story tellers' art forms and we forgot that stories are meant to be shared with a listener. If we had understood that, there would have been more variation on the band stand. What should have been was that our performances became like the story teller's gift to the listener - playing too someone rather than at them. My wife put it this way one day when listening to some jazz CD's in the car. "Sounds like some show off saying 'look at me! Look at what I can do!'" She wasn't impressed obviously and she's not a musician, but she picked that up right away. That was one of several experiences I had that changed the way I think about my music making. You were spot on with this.
Creative musicians are not valued in any genre today. In jazz, having everything handed to you complete with rules hinders real assimilation of the music. If you can't hear it and cop it yourself don't play it. Also, everything is a competition which inhibits the pursuit of originality.
The internet is a mixed blessing. In the pre-internet world, a musician was forced to find their own individual voice and style. Now with everything on the web, we've developed a culture of musical clones!
This! So true
Absolutely spot on. I've been listening to jazz for 60+ years and I've given up going to jazz gigs. Interchangeable sounds, interchangeable licks. Not worth spending the entrance fee for that, so I stay home and listen to my extensive collection of recorded music -- mostly 1950s & 60s, with a spattering of 1970s jazz (but NOT imitation Miles Davis jazz-rock, crossover or "world music" [aside: isn't ALL music created in the world...?]). I have no idea why the "oh I want to play like him" trend started, eventually turning great jazz into into generic vaguely jazz-sounding noises. Featuring "jazz" on the Proms hasn't helped, either. Could it be that true innovation simply can't keep on happening? Or is it a branch of the current trend for individuals to obsess over "fitting in" with what everyone else does? I could drive my poor self mad worrying about it, so I don't do that. Back to Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Bud Powell, Johnny Griffin, Max Roach, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins........ And away she floats........
Recently I’ve been thinking more about how trying to win the virtuoso arms race againts this slew of prodigies is not the way to go.
I am thinking more about finding my own thing, but of course it’s no easy task. But in a way it feels liberating to let go of the arms race to some degree.
I enjoy your videos. I like that there is a lot of variety in the types of music discussed and with a sense of humor to top it off!
Good points, mate. Now I need to check out your lecture on Jaco Pastorius. Thanks!
Right on brother I truly dig what you have to say, but unfortunately so many musicians today miss the understanding of what "our art" is all about and tries to create art in a digital world that can not connect with the organic that produces such great music.
It boils down to being an individual character, having individual real experiences, thinking indvidual thoughts, feeling individual feelings and being and expressing what you want and need to express when you play. A recognisable timbre and tone can also play a role of course, but it’s who you ARE. Play something FROM YOUR LIFE!
Truth my friend. Respect
I disagree that the value of self expression in our culture has diminished, it's just that the mediums and venues for that expression have changed a lot. Plenty of young people are expressing themselves in beautiful and fascinating ways you just have to be in the right spaces. Check out bands like BadBadNotGood, Mouse on the Keys, Gogo Penguin, The Bad Plus, and for some stuff that's more out there look at acts like Black Midi or Clown Core
i think a big part of the whole "everyone sounding the same" is the fact that these days most people have access to the internet. Back then there was no internet, so you were only influenced by what was around you/on the radio. I think this plays a huge part of finding your on voice. Having some time not listening to "alot of music". Basically not listening to much at all except yourself and finding what you truly like without influence, and that happened way more since back then of the time because the only time you could hear music is if you heard someone playing it live.
Like i remember hearing that monk would practice hours and hours a day. And i think the reason he as well as many others that can successfully have there own voice stems from spending alot of time with yourself, playing alone not listening to anything else. I think alot of practice resources like "backing tracks" and "jazz scales" can further diminish the creativity.
The best talk on this matter that I have heard. Thank you.
A profound discussion. Thank you. Is there a link to the Hancock interview ?
Tried to post a link but it wouldn't let me. Type "Scribd Hancock Marsalis interview" in a search engine of your choosing.
A couple of great lines in there for sure - ‘jazz is like a nuclear reactor’ and ‘the influences on jazz always come from outside of jazz’ 🔥🔥🔥
Of course most keyboardists, most drummers and most vocalists of the 1950 sounded pretty much the same at that time. When saying that Dave Brubeck, Bill Evans, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock are all different it is talking about musicians whose music has been popular for 60 years now.
They survive as known musicians with "different sounds" because the thousands of similar musicians at that time have faded away. The ones who didn't stand out enough - gone.
It is a bit like saying that a production car that was built 60 years ago is a fantastic car - when the hundreds of thousands of the same car were lemons, rusting away or being notoriously unreliable. The survivors are not representative of what either cars or musicians "on average" were at that time - there were thousands of them and most of them didn't differ much either.
Yes, survivorship bias. In 50 years no one will remember the millions of Berklee grads with youtube channels playing reddit-jazz.
I almost agree accepted I have listened to contemporaries of Evans, Corea and Hancock and I found them quite interesting. Take Sonny Clark for example! Or Ernie Henry! There were many players with skill who are now not widely appreciated, but in their time had a distinct voice. Do you think you might be underselling the great burst of creativity that occurred in Jazz from about 1940 - 68?
@@artherladett442 underselling for sure but also brings up a good point. That said, I have yet to find musicians as electrifying as guys like Corea. I'm not from that era either and to be clear there is a ton of modern music I love.
On top of survivorship bias, so many confused perspectives are born of the fact that there are 5billion plus more people on the planet and everything is oversaturated to a ridiculous degree.
I really enjoyed the video. Many points in your explanation where I could connect the dots in my mind. A bit of the history I missed over the years as a serious music lover. Thanks.
Thank you thank you thank you! I needed that so much!
Thank you for this. My young pop loving students, by the time they've learned the 15th bland, safe, bloodless pop tune they often ask me "why does all this music sound the same?" to which I reply: "maybe you can write a thesis on why people demand sameness?"
I think the answer is quite simple actually. Fear baby, fear.
We've been fed on a steady diet of it. I'm 54 this year and in the last 30 years, since we've had 24 hour news and now social media blah blah, so much we are fed is this "be afraid, be very afraid." We don't take risks when we are all so afraid. I'm no better than anyone when it comes to this, it's something I've struggled with myself.
Seriously, it's not just jazz. I walked out of an "experimental" show last night and stumbled on a noise show later that I ran from. They sounded the same as any other "experimental" or "noise" groups I've heard. They're safe in their little petty tribes and make no effort to actually throw a monkey wrench into their own works, which might make something actually happen. I walk out of many jazz shows for the same reason: safe, bloodless and bland with a lot of notes. Rock? Pop? Hip Hop? Sameness..... fear.... How much money does it take to launch an artist? Do you think the money people are willing to take any kind of a risk on something different? Aw hell no.......
Look at a top 100 chart in 1983 vs today.
What's the first thing one looks at here on RUclips? How many views, how many likes. It's difficult to escape that. If I want to be a successful jazz tenor player I need to sound like __________ cause ________ has 18m views and they're successful. How can I become successful? Maybe by destroying myself to become more like _________.... Fear..... It's heartbreaking. It makes for crap music. It makes for a crap life. We can do so much better.
I kinda wonder about this myself. And I moving from "the music sucks" to "the audience sucks".
Even if everything today were pablum ("yes, old man"), the audience isn't rejecting it and exploring the rich history available to them (now easier than ever before), or moving on to different genres, depending on where the most interesting ideas are happening. Instead they stick to the most cliched expressions as being deep. There are interesting things out there, and no one cares.
It really came to a head as I was talking to someone my junior about an author probably being one of the voices of my generation (even though I don't really care for them personally, they have interesting ideas), and inquiring, since I am old and out of touch, who are the front-runners for theirs?
Not a single reply. Everyone just as disposable as the last, and not even one interesting enough to be reviled.
".....I walked out of an "experimental" show last night and stumbled on a noise show.... ....They sounded the same as any other "experimental" or "noise" groups I've heard...."
Because the rule in "experimental" or "noise" music is that you MUST never play "inside" at all - as opposed to conventional music, in which you must only play "inside" at all times.
@@Baribrotzer Exactly. I've met people in that circle who seem to only play "outside". Then I'll come across the same person in a different space and I'm alarmed at how wonderfully melodic they can be too. So I always ask why not mix it up? One reply was "I play what is appropriate to the setting..." Boring... But I get it. Dare you play "inappropriately" and you'll be ostracized. I've experienced this myself and seen it too many times. Kinda sounds like society today in general which makes me sad.
@@coilhead The other possibility is to just be yourself, and insist upon that.
I've played avant-jazz jam sessions on baritone sax, where I've effectively insisted upon playing bass lines - because there seemed to be nothing holding the music together, and I thought that was needed. Maybe it wasn't the most tactful thing to do. Maybe I shouldn't have made that judgement on it. Maybe it wasn't letting the music be the music. But without that, it just seemed like a bunch of guys trading textures and trying to shout over each other. And nobody HAD to follow me, they were free to not do so, but I was there if they wanted to.
@@Baribrotzer Always best to be yourself no matter what. Good stuff!
Great video. This kind of speaks to a broader societal issue. Look at all the movie reboots. Car design has stagnated. Fashion seems to be backwards looking. Etc. The internet seems to have fostered this culture of resynthesizing existing ideas rather than creating new ones. Definitely looking forward to the next video.
Great video. Thank you, lots of good ideas. I wonder if the difference between the huge growth in jazz during the 40s and late 60s/70s and the present day doesn't just come down to where the music was learned? Those players experimented on the bandstand, and most of their learning was there. Also, the balance of their live playing vs their education/practice was greatly weighted towards playing, where now the education and practice seems to greatly outweigh live playing for most players, or at least those that I'm familiar with. For a period of time, Miles would painstakingly critique what his players had played after every performance, similar to what he was subjected to when he played with Monk who told him that he'd played a song wrong until about the 60th performance (from his autobiography). There's another story where he reportedly whispered to Mike Stern, just as they were going on, to play completely differently from what he'd played the previous night. Maybe it was a head game, but he wanted the exploration on the bandstand, not in the practice room. Another trend that I've been told about is players playing long passages from the solos of earlier players -- in live performances. All of the knowledge, but none of the exploration! Thanks again.
Part of the problem is there are far fewer bandstands these days than there used to be. People consume their music via streaming services and not by going to clubs with live music. When they go out they just want to hear familiar recordings of songs they already know
What an incredibly welcome video… Hats off
I enjoyed listening to you on this topic. I had not heard you before. The algorithm put you in my feed. 😀
I love this. I have too many friends who fall under this "dime a dozen modern jazz virtuoso" and none of them stand out from each other.... They're are incredibly technically capable but it just keeps ending up just coming out as musical diarrhea that nobody really cares about
And they can't groove or hold a tempo...
and how about the people who hear you listening to your music and write it off as "elevator music."
That's true with all types of music...there are jazz muicians out there that are very creative....you just have to look for them...
Man a lot of this describes what is currently happening to hip hop in today, just in its own form.
Fascinating stuff, Andy. Insert 'Prog' here, I think. I keep coming across what I'd call 'apprenticeship' albums, where the bands are emulating their heroes. You then hope they'll go on to find their own voice.
Really cool video! I really appreciate the easy way to follow your thoughts on this subject.
This is super helpful, speaking as a musician and music lover.